One, two, three…
Four, five, six…
Seven, eight, nine…
Ten, eleven, twelve…
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
Seventeen freckles.
“Sometimes I just want to feel sad,” she whispers. “Sometimes, I just want to sit in it and you let me. You give me room.”
I inch closer, my hand moving to the small of her back. “Natalia?—”
“I’m fine.” She sets down the empty, crumpled piping bag and wipes beneath her nose with the back of her hand before wiping both hands on her purple apron. “I’m fine.”
“Nat—”
“You visited me,” she rasps. “While I was… You visited me. Why?”
“You know why,” I say. “You asked two questions. It’s my turn.”
“Fine.”
“What’s going on with your dads?” I ask the question that has been in my head. “Don’t saynothingbecause I know you; I see how you get when they call or text.”
Natalia drowns me in her silence, rolling and wetting her lips while keeping her eyes away from mine. “I don’t feel connected to anything,” she confesses quietly, as though she’s ashamed for feeling that way. “Sometimes, I don’t feel connected to my dads, but it isn’t their fault—they’re good parents. I think it’s just me?—”
“It’s not you.”
“How could it not be?” Natalia frowns. “Sometimes I feel disconnected. My birth parents are Latino, so, naturally, I guess,I am too. But that’s all I know. My dad is black and his family is from Haiti, and Daddy is Korean. They’re more connected to their roots than I am. Theyhaveroots. Dad has his own culture and so does Daddy. I speak English and Korean, but I look like this. It’s always felt like I’m being pulled in three different directions. I don’t look like my Daddy’s side of the family, and I don’t completely look like my dads. I just wonder sometimes…I don’t know. I wish I knew my background—where my birth family came from and their culture. It’s nice, though, that my parents are also people of color. It was always just…an understanding in our house. Racism and micro aggressions—All of it. We understood each other’s struggles. But, I don’t know, I always felt that maybe a teeny, tiny part of me was missing. And I hate that. I hate it because I have the best parents who have given me everything, but somehow I just?—”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her into me.
“It’s okay to feel that way,” I say quietly, tenderly. “All of those feelings are valid, sweetheart.”
“Are they? They feel wrong.”
“They’re valid,” I say again. “Those are your feelings, Natalia. You’re allowed to feel them. Don’t feel guilty, because there is nothing to feel guilty about. You love your dads, I know that.”
“I do.”
“And they love you,” I tell her. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t feel these things.”
I brush my lips across her temple and she sniffs. “It’s fine,” she rasps. “I think it’s just because they’ve been traveling so much and I barely see them. I’ll get over it.”
“Hey, no, don’t do that,” I whisper. “Don’t push thosefeelings aside because you think they’re wrong. You don’t have toget overanything.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never told anyone that.”
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
Natalia sniffs again and wipes her hand on a nearby towel. “It’s my turn.” She turns in my arm but lets me keep it around her, and I’m thankful for it. “Whats the real reason you named your restaurant Beetlejuice?” she asks. “Because it’s weird.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Yes it is,” she says. “Now answer the question.”
