Junior hadn't expected it to be so easy to sneak out since she'd never done it before. When she called for the cab she requested they pick her up at the address four doors down from her parents' home, this meant that no one would notice a taxi sitting in front of the house, or hear the car door closing. She knew her parents were both in her father's office, so the hardest part would be getting down the stairs, and out the door without anyone hearing her. She crept down the stairs, careful to walk at one edge of each step so as to avoid any creaking. When she got to the front door, she unlocked it slowly, bracing a hand against it so as to not open it too quickly. When she exited, she closed and locked it in the same manner. As she walked off the small porch and descended that set of steps she marveled at how easily that had gone. But she didn't stop to relish it.
Junior walked out into the soft rain and down the sidewalk to stand in front of the Martins' home: the address she gave the taxi company. The dispatcher had told her it would be five minutes until the cab arrived, but she stood in the rain for fifteen, the rain coming down harder with each passing minute. By the time the yellow sedan pulled up the curb, her pants from the knee down were drenched. The vehicle had barely stopped when she opened the door and got in.
"Steiner and Grove, please," she said in her most adult voice as she shut the door.
"All right," said the drive starting the meter and pulling away from the curb.
The driver asked no questions, and Junior offered no explanations. When he pulled up in front of the Arbogast home she paid him and got out of the car. As she walked up to the house she noticed that the lights in the living room were still on: a good sign. She practically ran up the steps to get to the porch and out of the rain. When she stood in front of the door she took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
She saw movement within the house and a few moments later the door opened, Larry standing in the doorway.
"Junior," he said, clearly surprised. He looked outside for signs of the rest of her family. "What are you doing here?"
"I took a cab."
"You took a cab," he repeated back to her. Angela had come to see who was at the door, and Jake was coming down the stairs. "Get in here, you're soaked. Do your parents know you're here?"
A small shake of her head told Larry what he already assumed. She stepped into the house, taking off her soaked Chucks. She knew it had been raining when she left, but she still failed to pick appropriate footwear.
"Jake," said Angela turning to her son. "Go get a pair of pants for Junior to put on."
"What are you doing out by yourself?" asked Larry. "So many things could have happened to you."
"I need to talk to you," she said quietly. "Alone," she added.
Jake brought down a pair of black sweatpants that were too long, but she slipped them on anyway in the small half bath downstairs. When she walked out Angela was waiting to take her wet pants from her.
"Larry's in the dining room," she said taking her jeans from her hands. "I'll take these and dry them." She walked toward the laundry room, leaving Junior to find Larry.
When Junior walked into the dining room Larry was sitting, hands folded together on the table. He looked up when she walked in. She sat across from him at the table.
"I assume you're going to tell me what this is all about," said Larry.
She sat for a moment trying to form her words. She didn't know how to ask this sort of thing, so decided to be straightforward.
"Am I adopted?" she asked plainly, looking him straight in the eye.
"No," replied Larry. "Next question."
"I don't think you're telling the truth."
"Well, that's your opinion," replied Larry. "But I am."
"Then why did Jamie say he overheard my parents say that I was?" asked Junior.
"It's called sibling rivalry," replied Larry, getting a little irritated. "He could be jealous, angry, or just bored. What I don't get is why you would believe him enough to take a cab this late at night, in a thunderstorm, by yourself."
Junior jumped up after remembering the clipping she had tucked into her pocket. She ran to the coat rack by the door, reaching into her pocket and coming back. She set the slightly damp photo in front of Larry before sitting back down.
"That picture was taken a month before I was born," she explained as she pointed to the date. "Does it look like my mother was pregnant there?"
"No, it doesn't," he said as he stood up. "There are explanations for everything, but I'm not the one who is going to tell you."
Larry Arbogast walked away from her into the kitchen. She heard the familiar beep of the phone as he dialed. Junior already knew that he was calling her mother. A few minutes of muffled talking followed, which she couldn't exactly make out from where she was sitting. After she heard Larry put the phone back in its cradle he walked back into the dining room, this time holding a beer. He sat down next to her.
"Your dad will be here in a few minutes," he said calmly.
"Are you going to lecture me about leaving and not telling them?" she asked.
"No, I think your father would like that pleasure tonight," he said with a grin.
Alex Hesse was still sitting at his desk when his cell phone rang. He fumbled around in the mess of papers that littered his desk until he found it. The screen said "Larry Arbogast."
"Hello," he said, wondering what would warrant a call at this hour. He listened for a moment. "How did she get over there?"
Diana looked up from the book she had been reading, confused.
"She took a cab?" Alex asked anxiously. "No, no I am calm. Okay, so why did she go to your house."
Diana watched as her husband's face dropped, and he raised a hand to rub his temple. Alex began pacing the room nervously. She wanted to ask, but didn't want to interrupt a call such as this. She hadn't seen the screen to know who it was from.
"All right," he finally said. "I'm going to come over there, just hang tight with her for a little while...Okay, bye."
Alex had his back to his wife when he hung up the phone, so she couldn't see the expression on his face.
"Who was that?" inquired Diana.
"That was Larry," Alex started. He turned to her and put his hands in his pockets. "Junior snuck out, and is at his house."
"No she's not," said Diana, chuckling. "We heard her slam her door not even an hour ago."
"Well," said Alex in a falsely calm voice. "Apparently she and Jamie had an argument right before that, one in which he told her that she's adopted."
"Why would he say that?" asked Diana.
"I guess he heard us talking at one point and it was insinuated..." Alex trailed off, remembering the exact argument when this could have been inferred.
"Oh," replied Diana, as she too remembered when that may have been. "But that's nothing, we'll just tell her that he was mistaken."
"There's a problem with that," replied Alex as he sat down in his chair. "She found an old photo of you that was published in the school paper from the month before she was born. She knows something isn't right. She's putting things together."
"Are you implying that you're going to tell her the entire truth?" asked Diana quietly.
"I don't see any other way," said Alex, simply. He got up and went to the safe that sat across the room. He turned the knob, knowing the code by heart and opened it. He pulled out an old journal that was bound in leather, brushing some dirt off it.
"Isn't she a bit young?" asked Diana, almost pleading. "I mean we could tell her in a few years, when she graduates high school."
He closed the door to the safe and turned to face her, a hint of sadness in his eyes.
"Say we do that," said Alex. "What happens when we actually tell her the truth in 4 years? How is that going to make it any easier? All that will happen is that she'll know we lied to her for four years, when we had the opportunity to tell the truth tonight. She'll be even angrier, and she'll never trust us again."
"I just never..." said Diana, looking at the floor.
"I know," he agreed with her unspoken words. "I never wanted to tell her like this either. But I think it's time that she knows."
Alex pulled up to the Arbogast home, parking on the street. He tucked the journal into his jacket to protect it from the heavy spring rain. When he got to the front door it opened before he could ring the bell. Angela was standing there smiling.
"I was watching for you," she said as she took his coat. "They're sitting at the dining room table. Good luck."
"Thanks," replied Alex as he walked into the silent dining room. His daughter looked up at him, anger in her eyes. In moments like these she looked so much like her mother that it was unreal. He took a seat across from her and set the journal on the table. "So what happened that made you sneak over here?"
Alex listened calmly as she repeated her story for him, from the argument with Jamie down to the news article and accompanying photo she had found.
"I need another beer," announced Larry. He looked at Alex, "You want one, too?"
"No, I think it's better if I don't," replied Alex. He looked at his daughter, a look of shame in his eyes. "I can understand why you're so upset, Junior. But you can't just run off because you're upset."
"I didn't know what to do," admitted Junior.
"I wish you wouldn't have come to me or your mother," said Alex. "But that ship has clearly sailed."
"Do you want me to give you some privacy?" asked Larry from the doorway.
"No," said Junior. "I want you to stay."
Larry took his a seat next to Alex, sipping from a pint glass.
"You were right in assuming that your existence isn't the result of your standard procreation," started Alex. "But you didn't figure everything out."
"You figured out that your mom was never pregnant with you, so you got that fact right," said Alex. "But you were not adopted. You very much are the biological child of your mother and I. And both of us would submit to a DNA test if that would put your mind at rest."
"Ok," replied Junior. "So how did I get here? A surrogate?"
"For a few years before you were born I was working on a new medication. It was going to be very successful once it hit the market. That's how Larry and I knew each other, he invested in the research of the drug. But funding was cut, and I was told that I couldn't test it on anyone. Until Larry had an idea. Why don't you share your idea, Larry?"
"I didn't realize I had to participate in this," said Larry surprised, still holding his pint glass.
"Go ahead," said Junior, looking at Larry. "I'd like to hear what you had to do with this."
"It's like being interrogated, I should ask for an attorney," mumbled Larry as he set his glass down. "So I had an idea that we should test the drug, called Expectane, even though the FDA hadn't approved it. But nobody was going to be willing to take an unapproved drug, that's a fact. So I had to talk someone into doing it. I picked your dad."
"Wasn't that drug for..." Junior started.
"Preventing miscarriages," interrupted Larry. "I figured that if it worked as well as your dad said that it did, it could keep a man from miscarrying. And with the tissue and blood samples needed to get new funding nobody would even know it was a man."
"Is this a joke?" she asked angrily.
"No," replied Alex plainly. "Would you like me to continue?"
She nodded, rage flashing in her eyes.
"We used one of your mother's eggs," Alex started again. "We fertilized it under a microscope, using my sperm, then injected it into my abdominal cavity. I then started taking the medication."
"You're messing with me," exclaimed Junior. "Mom would never agree to that."
"She didn't," said Alex.
"This is going to make me sound like a bad person," interjected Larry. "But I took the egg without asking your mom. And I didn't know who it actually belonged to in the biological sense when I took it."
"You mean when you stole it," Junior corrected him.
"Yes," agreed Larry. "When I stole it."
"I was supposed to be pregnant for about 3 months," continued Alex, giving Larry a side glance. "The plan was to end the pregnancy by stopping the Expectane. But when that day rolled around, I just—I couldn't."
"Are you saying -" Junior trailed off. She looked at her father as he nodded solemnly.
"Your mother didn't carry you," he said softly. "I did."
"Why should I believe that?" she asked.
"Because I still have my appendix," replied Alex. He had always told his kids that the scar on his abdomen was due to a ruptured appendix. He pushed the brown journal across the table to her. "And there's also this."
Junior picked it up, looking at the old leather that was peeling in spots. She had wanted to know what was in that journal, but now she wished she had never asked. She didn't open it, but stared at it for several seconds. She set it back down and looked up to meet her father's gaze.
"I'm so sorry, honey," he said to her. "I didn't want you to find out like this."
"And how exactly was I supposed to find out?" she asked angrily. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
"Eventually," replied Alex. "But I had planned it to be when you were a bit older."
"I'm like some kind of circus freak," she said quietly looking at her hands in her lap.
"No, you're not," said Alex louder than he had expected to. "Don't ever view yourself in that way. You are the closest thing to miracle anyone in this room has witnessed. The odds were against you from the beginning, and you beat them."
She looked up, tears in her eyes. She turned her head to look at Larry.
"Can I stay here tonight?" she asked.
"The guest room is all yours," he replied.
She got up from the table and left the room, not taking the journal with her. They sat there for a moment and listened to her footsteps ascending the stairs.
"Well that could have went better," said Angela, walking in to the room and sitting down.
"How long were listening?" asked Larry, clearly irritated.
"Long enough," replied Angela casually.
"Jesus Christ, big guy," said Larry before taking another drink. "Don't worry, she'll come around. She's too much like Diana not to."
"I hope so," said Alex standing up. "I'm going to go home."
Angela followed Alex to the door and watched him put on his coat. He stood there for a minute looking up the stairs, like he was willing his daughter come back down. When he looked back down at Angela she embraced him in a hug.
"Take care of her," he whispered.
"Like she was my own," she replied, breaking the embrace. "Maybe you should bring some clothes for her in the morning. You know, just in case."
"Yeah, I will," replied Alex. "Call me in the morning when you wake up, and I'll bring some by."
After she had locked the door behind him, Angela turned around to see Jake standing halfway down the steps.
"Hey there," said Angela nonchalantly.
"Why did Junior go into the guest room crying?" he wasted no time asking his question.
"That's for her to tell you," replied Angela. "Suffice it to say that she's having some family issues, and you're not to pester her about it."
"Okay," replied Jake, knowing that it wouldn't do any good to ask his mother again. He turned around and went back upstairs toward his bedroom. He stopped briefly in front of the guest room, unsure if he should knock or not. He decided against it and went back into his room, shutting the door.
Angela retrieved the journal off the dining room table, holding it in her hands she looked at her husband.
"How long do you think she'll be here?" she asked.
"Honestly," replied Larry. "I wouldn't be surprised if it's a week. She's a bit stubborn if you hadn't noticed."
Angela laughed in response, taking the journal up to the guest room. She knocked softly on the door and waited for Junior to reply. When she heard a soft "come in," she opened the door to see the teen lying on her side on the bed, her back to the door.
"I thought you might want this," said Angela holding up the journal and walking to the foot of the bed. Junior turned her head to see what she was holding.
"I don't," she replied, letting her head flop back onto the pillow.
"Well, I'm just going to set it here," said Angela walking to the nightstand and setting the book down. "Just in case you change your mind."
"Goodnight, Aunt Angela," said Junior as Angela reached the door.
"Goodnight, sweetie," she replied. "See you in the morning."