Of Poseidon

figured we were in the clear. But from Mom’s expression, I’m miles from clear.
    “Hi,” I say as I reach the steps.
    “We’ll see about that,” she says, grabbing my face and shining a pen light in my eyes.
    I slap it away. “Really? You’re checking my pupils? Really?”
    “Hal said you looked hazy,” she says, clipping the pen back on the neckline of her scrubs.
    “Hal? Who’s Hal?”
    “Hal is the paramedic who took your signature when you declined medical treatment. He radioed in to the hospital after he left you.”
    “Oh. Well, then Hal would have noticed I was just in an accident, so I might have been a little out of it. Doesn’t mean I was high.” So it wasn’t small-town gossip, it was small- county gossip. Good ole Hal’s probably transported hundreds of patients to my mom in the ER two towns over.
    She scowls. “Why didn’t you call me? Who is Samantha?”
    I sigh and push past her. There’s no reason to have this conversation on the porch. She follows me into the house. “She’s Galen’s sister. I didn’t call because I didn’t have a signal on my cell. We were on a dead road.”
    “Where was Galen? Why were you driving his car?”
    “He was home. We were just taking it for a drive. He didn’t want to come.” Technically, all these statements are true, so they sound believable when I say them.
    Mom snorts and secures the dead bolt on the front door. “Probably because he knows his sister is life threatening behind the wheel.”
    “Probably.” I stalk to the kitchen and set my backpack on the counter. After grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I sit at the dining-room table to unlace my tennis shoes.
    She pulls up a chair beside me. “You’re not hurt? Hal said you hit your head. I was worried.”
    “I did hit it, on the airbag. But I’m fine. Not even dizzy.”
    Mom’s tone morphs from motherly concern to all business. “So, you want to tell me what really happened? Because I’m not buying the whole we-decided-to-take-a-BMW-down-a-dirt-road crap. A deer? You’re kidding, right?”
    I hate when she pulls this. The whole good cop/bad cop thing. She doesn’t get that she’s supposed to pick one, not be both. “I’ll tell you if you tell me,” I say, washing my hands of maturity. I’m tired of the double standard—she keeps secrets, but I’m not allowed. Also, I’m tired, period. I need sleep. Which means I need answers.
    “What do you mean? Tell you what?”
    “I’ll tell you what we were really doing out there. After you tell me who my real parents are.” There, I opened it. A chunky can of wiggling worms.
    She laughs, just like I expect her to. “Are you serious?”
    I nod. “I know I’m adopted. I want to know how. Why. When.”
    She laughs again, but there’s something false in it, as if it wasn’t her first reaction. “So that’s what this is about? You’re rebelling because you think you’re adopted? Why on earth would you think that?”
    I fold my hands in front of me on the table. “Look at me. We both know I’m different. I don’t look like you or Dad.”
    “That’s not true. You have my chin and mouth. And there’s no disinheriting the McIntosh nose.”
    “What about my skin? And my hair?”
    “What about it?”
    “Oh, never mind,” I say, waving my hand at her. I stand to walk away. She’s not going to budge, just like I knew she wouldn’t. “I don’t feel like getting laughed at. I’m getting in the shower and going to bed.”
    She grabs my arm. “What do you mean laughed at? Why would I laugh?”
    Aside from the fact that she’s already laughed twice in this conversation? I raise a skeptical brow but sit back down. After a deep breath, I blurt, “Because that’s what you do every time I try to talk to you.”
    She blinks. “Since when do you ever try to talk to me?” she says quietly.
    Huh. She has a good point. When she puts it like that, it doesn’t really sound fair of me. I open and shut my mouth a couple times. What, am I supposed to say, “Since I was four”? After all, she’s the reason I don’t talk to her, right? “When those fish saved me—”
    She throws her hands up, startling me. “For God’s sakes, I thought you wanted to have a real conversation, Emma. You’re bringing that up? You were four years old. How could you even remember that?”
    “I don’t know, I just do. I remember those fish saving me. I remember you laughing at me when I tried to tell you. But Dad didn’t. Dad