Cynda and the City Doctor: 50 Loving States, Missouri

Reina had been beautiful with a voice to match. A three-month-old baby probably hadn’t aligned with her dreams of stardom.

Suddenly, so many things were becoming clear. Like why my mom encouraged me to learn piano but then made me stop when I started composing music on my own. Supposedly because I needed to concentrate on “more productive things” like my nursing degree.

Her explanation for moving the piano to the back house had seemed practical enough. But I’d been confused by her unusually firm stance on this one and only matter. Prior to that, she’d let her little beauty queen do pretty much whatever she wanted.

However, now I could see what had really happened. My budding talent had frightened my mom. She’d been scared.

Scared I turn out just like her little sister. My biological mom.

That night, I ended up following Reina’s career all the way up into the 2000s. But somewhere around the late aughts, all mentions of her stopped. Enjenue’s Svengali-like manager replaced two out of three of the group’s singers with younger versions of Black Midwestern girls before disbanding just a couple of years later.

So if my highly guesstimated timeline is correct and everything she said in the letter was true, Reina stopped singing right around the time she got sober.

After the last YouTube clip is done, I scan my emotions.

But I guess that’s the upside of having a mother die too soon on you. I can’t bring myself to be mad at her, or even a little upset. Of course, she and my dad would have taken me in as their own after Reina bounced. They were good-hearted people who hadn’t been able to have children of their own.

And as for never telling me…yeah, I know the 90s sitcom reaction to such a discovery is usually to get all sorts of pissed. But what did I have to be angry about? Not only had they taken me in, they’d treated me like a true blessing. When it came right down to it, I had the best parents on Earth—at least until my dad remarried.

So no…there’s no resentment or confusion even. But I do find myself curious about Reina Smith.

What happened to her after she got sober? How did she end up in South Dakota of all places? And what had she been doing with herself all these years? Maybe I should try searching for her name with South Dakota behind it…

An out-of-nowhere tingling stops my hands typing just as I’m about to enter a new internet search. It’s the same feelings I had this afternoon when I opened the door to find Rhys standing on my step. A weird mix of both dread and anticipation lighting up all my nerves.

I put the laptop down beside a snoozing Mabel and go over to my window which faces the backyard.

Sure enough, Rhys appears, walking down the gravel driveway that extends all the way from the front to the back of the house. He’s dragging one single suitcase behind him. That’s weird. For a guy who just took over the practice, you’d think he would have brought more than one piece of luggage to his new venture.

I watch him open the door with the keys I gave him earlier, expecting him to go right in. But then he looks over his shoulder....

His eyes rise up to my window.

As if he senses my presence just as deeply as I do his.

Our eyes connect.

Even though there’s insulated glass and at least ten meters of space between us, I swear I can feel his gaze on my skin. And my body swells with heat in response.

I turn away from the window, refusing to let my mind go back down that road.

This situation is already complicated enough.

Did I say I wasn’t angry before? Because suddenly I am.

So angry, I snatch my aunt-mother’s letter from the pillow I laid it on while I was researching Reina Smith on my laptop.

Yeah, I’d been curious a few minutes ago, but the fact is she left. She made her decision before I was even three months old. So what good is doing all this research on her?

It won’t change the past.

Instead of doing yet another search on Reina Smith, I grab the box from the top shelf of my closet. The one where I keep things I should throw away. But haven’t. Like my participation Beauty Queen of America trophy, my father’s old stationary pad, the twin’s report cards, that one glittery purple Dansko shoe, and now….

The letter Reina Smith had sent me.

I have to get the twins through the rest of the school year. I also have to figure out how I’m going to qualify for an apartment in Pittsburgh without a regular paycheck. Plus, Rhys Prince is now living in my back house.

There’s enough going on in my life, I decide, shoving the box back up on the top shelf and turning off the closet light.