Me and Hannah lock eyes and I know my expression must match the shock on her face.
“I can’t make any promises,” Ava says. “I can reach out to the adoption agency with your message. Email me your contact information, but…don’t get your hopes up, Daniel. Please. All I can do is try to get a message to them. I can’t promise they’ll receive it or that they’ll even feel comfortable answering it if they do.”
I frantically point at my desk, motioning for Chunk to get me a pen and paper. “Okay.” I sound so desperate, I know. “Thank you. Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me. To us.”
“You already sound excited,” the woman says. “I told you not to get your hopes up.”
I grip the back of my neck. “Sorry. I’m not excited. I mean, I am. But, a realistic excited.”
“Do you have a pen?” she asks. She already sounds full of regret for even agreeing to do this, but I don’t care how much regret she feels. I feel no shame.
I take down her email address and thank her two more times. When I hang up, me and Hannah and Chunk stare at each other.
I think I might be in shock. I can’t form any words, or even much of a thought.
This is the first time I’ve ever been grateful for being called annoying.
“Wow,” Chunk says. “What if it works?”
Hannah presses her hands to the side of her head. “Oh my God. I honestly didn’t think we’d get anywhere.”
I let it all out by punching the air with my fists. I want to scream, but Mom and Dad are here in the house somewhere. I pull Hannah and Chunk in for a hug and we start jumping up and down. Hannah starts squealing because that’s what she does when she’s excited, but it actually doesn’t annoy me this time.
“What the hell is going on?”
We all separate immediately. My father is standing in the doorway, looking at us suspiciously.
“Nothing,” we all say in unison.
He cocks an eyebrow. “Bullshit.”
I put one arm around Hannah’s shoulders and one arm around Chunk. “I just missed my sisters, Dad.”
He points at us. “Bullshit,” he says again.
My mother is behind him now. “What’s wrong?”
“They were happy,” my father says, accusatory.
My mother looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “What do you mean?”
He motions toward us. “They were hugging and squealing. Something is up.”
My mother is looking at us suspiciously now. “You were hugging? Like all three of you?” She folds her arms across her chest. “You three never hug. What the hell is going on?”
Hannah walks toward the door and smiles at my parents. “With all due respect,” she says, “this is none of your business.” Then she closes the door in their faces.
I can’t believe she just did that.
She locks the door, and when she looks back at Chunk and me, we all just start laughing, and then we hug again and resume our celebratory moment.
My parents don’t knock again. I think we’ve thoroughly confused them.
Hannah falls onto the bed. “Are you telling Six?”
“No,” I say immediately. “I don’t want to get her hopes up. We may never hear back from them.”
“I bet you do,” Chunk says.
“I hope so. But like you said, there’s a reason they chose a closed adoption.”
“Yeah,” she says. “The waiting is going to suck.”
It really is going to suck. I sit down on my bed and think about how much it’s going to suck. Especially if I never hear back from this woman.
I hope she knows I’ll be calling her again next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. I’ll call her until she changes her number or her name.
But if either of those things happens, I’ll be back to square one.
Now that the energy is leaving the room, the reality of it all begins to sink in. The three of us grow quiet in the midst of our declining hope.
“Well,” Hannah says. “If you never hear back from them, you could always do one of those online DNA tests and hope your child does one when they’re older. There’s always that.”
“Yeah, but then Daniel would never be able to commit a murder,” Chunk says. “His DNA would always be in the system.” Hannah and I both look at her. Chunk shrugs off our wary looks. “I just wouldn’t take that chance.”
Hannah and I continue to stare at her. “You scare me,” I say.
“Not as much as the idea of you being a dad scares me,” Chunk retorts. Loudly.
I cover her mouth with my hand, staring at the door to my bedroom. “Shh. They could still be at the door,” I whisper. I slowly release my hand from her mouth.
Hannah pipes up from her position on the bed. “Oh, man. I didn’t think about that. If this works out, you’re gonna have to tell Mom and Dad.”