“Your new father should be here any minute.” Elle had said, smiling calmly at me. Any minute was about an hour ago and I’m beginning to think my life’s going to get a little worse if this guy even shows up. I met him twice before today. Nervous, kind of jumpy, didn’t have an ounce of confidence when talking to me. Well, neither did I, but that’s not the point. He tried to make me like him. I just don’t understand why he would want to adopt a fifteen year old girl. There’s more memories with the younger kids. They’re more excited and happy when someone chooses them.

I, however, have been tainted by the blessing of high school and living with a multitude of other children for basically all my life. It’s the worst feeling to watch kids come and go, get here one day, get chosen the next. (It’s been compared to the Hunger Games, whereas living here is the battle and we’re fighting to get out instead of the other way around.)

After about 5 more minutes of anxious waiting and telling myself, he’s backed out. S***, he backed out! Elle returns to my room. “Robert’s here, he’s ready to take you to your new home, Lia.” She says to me, interrupting my train of thought. I respond with a murmur of what could either be an ‘okay’ or a ‘whatever’. “Oh and Lia,” She says, I looked up from packing my final items, “Try, please try, and make this a family, you deserve it.”

Hell yeah, I deserve it.

I walk down the stairs exactly three minutes and thirty four seconds after Elle walked out of the room. (Around here you learn to keep track of things. Even time, it’s valuable.) I jumped over the last two steps, the creaking sound they make is unbearable. When I turn the corner into the living room, I see the back of my new father in the recliner. “Here we go." I mutter to myself.

The room is unnaturally empty due to the time of day, and Robert looks even more nervous than usual. Elle’s beaming, I’m two seconds away from falling back asleep, and I just really don’t know how I got here.

Being a kid, Elle (who’s been the head of the orphanage since God knows when) had told me that I should consider all the people around me as my brothers and sisters. From that moment on I knew I never wanted siblings. Oh, the yelling, the shouting, the ‘Hey! Give that back!’, and ‘You’re so annoying! Ugh!’ I was quick to decide that if these kids were going to be my ‘siblings’, I would definitely not be the runt of the litter. So
I battled my way to the top of what I’ve named ‘the Food Chain’. The name has caught on since then.

I’ve been known as ‘the little girl who never got adopted because everyone was scared of her’. I honestly preferred a simple nickname like ‘a-hole’, but we all have our opinions.

Fifteen years in this hellhole and now the nicknames dead and so am I. Fifteen damn years and someone actually wants to adopt me. Took long enough.
Robert Hastings is standing at the other end of room now, looking at me. He's gone from nervous to sort-of beaming. I’m going to legally be Lia Rose Hastings and it’ll never sound right. Nothing’s ever right with me.

Her eyes were the same coffee bean color as her mother's, and her hair fell into the same waves, the ones that made me feel as if I were back in Greece, dipping my feet in the ocean that threatened nothing but a gentle push. The first time I saw her, my heart clenched and my stomach dropped. She was a carbon copy of Alice.

Yet, there’s a good side and a bad side to my situation. They’re both the same thing though.

She may hate me.

She may hate me like Alice hated me after two years, like my mother hated me for letting Alice go (“She’s like the daughter I never had! How could you do this!”) I couldn’t live with myself if I couldn’t make my own daughter even like me, better yet love me like a father.

However, she may only hate me, the positive side to this point being that she just may, not downright, for sure, hate.

When we walk down the three steps I could barely walk up, I take her bags to the trunk after opening the passenger side door for her. She entered without a word. She was stoic, no emotion. How?! I’m obviously more nervous than she, and I feel her slowly losing respect for me. This is exactly how I wanted this to start off.

“So, uh, are you excited, to be moving? You haven’t had a change of scene your whole life.” I say.

“That’s not true.” She responds, “I moved rooms once when I was seven.”

I’m not sure if that was supposed to be sarcastic and funny, or an actual serious comment, because I haven’t interacted with children other than the times I’ve gone to Eric’s house and his kids were there. However they’re seven and nine, and both boys. And I’m dealing with a fifteen year old girl. After a second she gives me a small smile that lets me know she’s loosening up. I take the biggest sigh of relief that I’ve ever taken.

He’s got a great car. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have anyone else to spend your money on but yourself. I can appreciate that. Plus, if he’s got this nice of a car, let’s just imagine how nice his house is.

This may be fun.

He asks me if I’m excited after we’ve been driving for just about four minutes. I try to be myself, calming and (sort of) funny. He doesn’t get it. I notice that it’s not just the little joke that he doesn’t get, it’s me. He looks at me like he’s trying to figure me out.

It’s funny because I’m still trying to figure myself out.

He has a place right across the street from the Met. I knew people lived there. Someone had to live there, I just never actually knew someone that lived there. The other kids and I would walk by these apartments all the time and come up with stories about the people who we thought resided here.

“A man, his wife, and one little girl.” “What about them?” “The man wakes up at 6:30 every day, takes a shower, brushes his teeth, gets dressed, and has the darkest coffee and the plainest bagel and takes 3 trains to work. His wife wakes up at 7:00 to take their child to prep school somewhere even more expensive than her engagement ring. Then she goes to work at a law firm.” “That doesn’t sound so fun.” “Who said it had to be fun?”

He pulls up in front of the building and tells me that I can wait inside while he and the doorman grab my bags from the trunk.

“Robert’s been very excited about having you come here.” The doorman tells me. He’s not too old, hair graying at the roots and a calm look to his face. “He had people moving in tons of furniture all day last Tuesday.”

“Really? How big can the rooms here be?”

He chuckled, like, he actually did that ‘you’ll find out’ chuckle and held the door open for my father as he entered the building with my bags.
There's three windows that run from basically the floor to the ceiling, and they're gorgeous. The ceiling is high and everything is modern. A drastic change from the over dated interior of the orphanage.

“I'll give you the grand tour in a minute. Let me just set your stuff down in your room. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.” Robert says, somewhere down the hallway I didn't even notice was there (because windows with gorgeous view).

I say 'okay' and nod, tearing my eyes away from the view of Central Park. I make my way over to the kitchen area, sliding my hands over the most likely expensive gray-black speckled granite counter tops. Looking to my left there was a double-door refrigerator, and next to it, a double oven.

If this isn’t heaven I don’t know what is.
I jump from a sound behind me, “Okay. It’s ready in there.” Robert says, walking back to where I’m standing, “I see you’ve already become acquainted with the counter...” He’s almost smirking, almost trying not to laugh. That’s when I realize I’ve been stroking the counter the entire time.
“Oh, uh, yeah. They're just really nice.” I sigh, moving away from the counter and into the dining room. Don’t get me started on that damn dining room. The table big enough for 6 even though I’m sure he doesn’t usually have 6 people over. The chandelier fit for royalty, and cherry hardwood floors shining under the soft lighting. “Let’s start.”

I had walked in quietly, so as not to startle Lia. She was standing, stroking the counter as is it’s the best thing she’s seen her whole life. The sound I make trying to stifle my laugh is louder than I anticipated, and she jumps before turning back to me. After joking for a bit, we proceed to walk around the house.
She's wide eyed and sometimes her mouth drops open. I realize that's she hasn't seen what I've seen every day.

By the time we're done its 5:37, and I'm hungry enough to start dinner. “Are you hungry?” I ask, turning towards her. She seems startled, like she's in a daze. “Dinner's your choice.”

“Oh, um, I don't really know. What do you have?”

“Anything; chicken, beef, fish.”

“Actually, this one time I had skirt steak.” She says biting her lower lip and avoiding my gaze, almost like she regrets asking me.

I walk over to the counter where she's sitting at. She looks at me, and for the billionth time I don't know what to expect from her.
“That, is something I don't have. However, there's a supermarket a few blocks down, if you want to take a walk.”

“Really?”

I spot our coats on the couch, walking over to them, I toss hers to her. “Yep, we've been stuffed up in this place for too long anyways.”

Her face lights up, and I think that I've broken down one of her walls. (As we walk to the elevator, I think about how corny that sounded.)

He makes his steak well done, and I ask him to burn mine a bit. He sends me a lopsided grin, and mutters something that sounds like, “Just like Alice.” The scent of the steak is intoxicating, filling my nose with every breath I take and making my smile grow wider.

“That smells amazing.” I say. He looks at me over his shoulder, and his gaze lingers for a second before turning back to the meat.

“Thanks, cooking is kind of a hobby I took up.” He announced. He flipped over a steak.

“What else do you like to do?” I asked. He turns around fully this time, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, as if he didn't expect the words to exit my mouth.

“Well, ever since I was a kid I've loved to draw. Always stuck around, even when my father tried to push it out by pushing sports into me.” He says, “My old man did anything he could to push whatever he didn't consider manly out of me.”

“I was never good at drawing.” I admit. “Or cooking. Tried baking a cake with a few of my friends in the orphanage, we were this close to setting off the fire alarm.” I held up my hand, moving my index finger and thumb to show him just how small a chance it was that we avoided disaster.

His laugh is rich and endless. I swear he's about to cry he's laughing so hard. “Stop it, it's not that pathetic.” I say, beginning to giggle myself. Soon enough the room is filled with laughter, and we're both gasping for air.

“Oh,” I mention, “your steak is going to burn, too.” And the most amusing thing is his gasp of realization, and the way he practically trips over his own feet to save his steak.
When we've eaten our (both slightly burnt) steak, we move into the living room, where he offers to watch a movie before he turns in for the day.

“Preferences?” He questions.

“My favorite movie's Annie, the 1980's version, not the crappy Disney remake.” His smirk displayed the most obvious ‘you're kidding right?’ look, one that made my ribs hurt from laughing so hard.

“Childhood dream?” He responds.

I shake my head, getting up to go get a bowl and prepare some popcorn. “No,” I say, “Just some really great musical numbers.”

The weekend flows with long conversations and longer laughs. When I wake up Monday morning to see her pouring two bowls of Cheerios and chopped strawberries, I smile so wide that my cheeks hurt after a few seconds. I'm beginning to wonder how I've enjoyed my time without her. “Ready for school?” I announce, and her slight jump at my voice makes it an even score of 7-7. (There's a silent competition about who can scare each other the most.)

“Do I have to go?” She whines, the patter of her bare feet from the counter to the dining room table quiet in the background.

“Of course you do, and I'm driving you at 7:30, so be ready.” I'm fully dressed, as I usually am at this time of day, while she's practically lounging around in her pajamas. “And 7:30 is in 20 minutes if you were wondering.” Her quiet mutter of 's***' and quick abandonment of her cereal to her room tells me she's not a morning person.

When she walks back out from her room it's just about time to go, and I've finished my breakfast. “Do you want coffee for the go?” I ask her.

“Hazelnut?”

“You got it.”

A few minutes later, when we're in the car, and Lia's sipping her coffee, she did something she hasn’t done a lot in the time she’s been here. She put her coffee down and took a deep breath, toying with her fingers, “Can I ask you something?” She questions me, no ounce of uneasiness evident in her voice, betraying her jittery actions from before.

“Oh, sure,” The red light turns green. “What do you want to know?”

“How come you’re not, you know, dating?” The words roll off her tongue as if she's trying to speak to me like I'm a child. Her eyes are wide with curiosity, eyebrows raised high and face calm with expectation.

“Well, I'm not very good at relationships. Never was.”

“Oh, come on. What's the longest relationship you've had?” She retorts.

“Two years.” I admit. I can hear her muffling her laughter, and my cheeks tinge pink. “Hey, it's pretty long if you ask me.”

“You're obviously the wrong person to ask then.” She takes another sip of coffee, “So when was this apparently very 'successful' two year relationship of yours.”

I sighed, quickly becoming nervous with where this conversation was going. “Well it ended around 15 years ago.” She choked on her coffee, “You okay there, Lia?”

“Oh my god, I was literally just born then. You've got to be kidding.” Her mouth is open with disbelief, hands clutching the bottle.

“Oh look, your school.” I say, quickly ending the conversation. I want to tell her so badly, but something's holding me back. Whether it be my anxiety, or something else, I just can't bring myself to do so.

She recognizes that I'm dismissing the conversation, and drops it also. Pulling up to the front of the building, memories of my high school life pop up into my head.

There were Killer parties, killer hangovers. Eric and I going on a week long road trip just for the hell of it. Meeting Alice senior year, thinking I'd never see her again on graduation day. Eric's little faze: “Are you seriously going to smoke, Eric?”, “One cigarette won't hurt me.”, “I hate to sound like you're elementary school gym teacher, but one cig will turn into two, then three, then four, and you get the point.”, “Oh shut up.” Parents pressuring me to be a lawyer: “It is amazing pay, and you're most definitely sharp enough to be one!” A truly beautiful time in my life.

“Do you need any money before you go?” I say, turning my head to meet her eyes for the first time since I abruptly ended the conversation. She shakes her head, opening the door while waving to a group of other teenagers. Before fully exiting, she turns back around to face me.

“Thank you.” She says calmly, “For, uh, being open with me. No one was ever fond of talking back at the orphanage.” She leaves the car, running to the people who are most likely her friends.

“Yeah,” I mutter to myself, shifting the car back into drive. Driving up the street, I can’t get it out of my head. Alice and I got to the point where talking to each other was a rare occurrence, and to have someone so close to her tell me that she was happy to talk to me, it’s strange.

And yet something’s still holding me back from telling her.

“You know what’s weird, curse words.” I state, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl sitting among the living room table. Weird place for a bowl of fruit.

“Oh yeah, why?”

“These few words makes kids think they’re so cool and mothers blush when they hear it muttered in public. Like, damn, it’s just a word.”

“They're offensive words, Lia.” He says, chuckling and offering me a can of coke. I nod, deciding that apples are too healthy of a snack for after school, and he tosses it to me. I make sure to make a show of catching it, and keeping my focus on the laughs that erupt from him because of my show, I forget to let the actual soda set, and it sprays over the table.

“S***!” I yell, immediately getting up, then laughing. “A 35 year old mother of two just covered her children's ears in horror.” I say.
We sort of forget the soda, we're laughing so hard, that is until the clean freak side of him kicks in and he scrambles to wipe up the liquid while I tell him sorry.

“So,” I sigh, “A single man has to have some kind of friends, right?”

“Yes. Their names are Eleanor and Harold Hastings, and their 60 years old. You’re meeting them this weekend.” He announces, grinning ear to ear at his ability to dodge my question. I stick my lower lip out, widening my eyes a bit into a pout, and I throw an apple at him, which he misses. He laughs, going to pick it up from the floor. He frowned at its bruised side. “These were quality apples.”

“And let us give it a moment of silence.” I sit down on the couch, everything becoming silent except for the sound of traffic outside. I look over at Robert, he’s gathering papers from his briefcase in a calm manner. It’s all very surreal to me. Just a while ago, I thought I’d be sitting in a shared room of the orphanage until I turned eighteen. “What was she like?” I blurted out, not thinking before I spoke.

“My mother?” He questioned, his eyebrow quirking up as he froze where he was standing over his bag. “Well she’s very... loud—”

“No! Not your mom, I meant your relationship, fifteen years ago. What was she like?” I avoid his gaze, more cautious of my words this time around.
The blood sort of drains from his face, and he has me thinking she died or something terribly tragic like that, but he takes a breath, and opens his mouth. “Well she was beautiful. Gorgeous even.” He slowly says, “She was young, and so was I, and we weren't in the best places at home, so that's how we connected. Broken families, broken kids, new relationship.”

“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.” I say, a slight frown on my face and eyes lowered.

“No, it’s been 15 years, I should be fine talking about this.” He takes another breath. “She was sweet, never liked getting in trouble, as opposed to me, who was King of the troublemakers. We were blissfully happy, it was disgusting.” I chuckled. The corners of his mouth turned upwards. “I didn’t notice it get worse, but it was happening. Next thing I knew my parents were in love with her, which has never happened before, and after that, we started fighting a lot. Even over the smallest, most idiotic things, we fought as if we were battling for our lives. Which nowadays, I think I was.”

“What made you guys break up?”

“A blazer.”

“Like, the clothing item?” I say, eyebrows scrunched together while meeting his eyes. “How did a blazer ruin your relationship?”
“I wanted to wear a, may I say, much nicer pullover.” He’s completely serious when the words escape his mouth, and that alone makes bubbles of laughter leave mine.

“And your point is...?”

“There were plenty more fights before that, it just happened to blow up just then.” Clapping his hands together, he walked back over to the refrigerator, “How ‘bout dinner. Any preferences?” And I knew that enough had been said for one night.

“Um, no, whatever, you’d like is fine with me.” I retreated to my room, feeling as if I pushed a boundary.

Whipping out a bowl and some ingredients, I decide to make pizza dough. I should be ready to talk about Alice, but maybe I should’ve listened to Eric and not have buried my increased anger at her away. But, maybe I am ready, however, Lia being the daughter of Alice and I makes this harder.
Okay, either way, I'm not able to talk about it for more than 2 minutes, especially since I haven't spoken to Alice since about a year ago; and fourteen years between that.

I roll out the dough, kneading it until it fits my standards. Gathering tomato sauce and basil, I go to Lia's room and knock on the door. “C’mon, it's homemade pizza day.” I lean in closer to the door, listening for a sound of movement.

“One second!” She yells, and after hearing her shuffling around I retreat back to the kitchen.

She walks over to the counter, two circles of pizza dough sit upon it, along with two spoons in a pizza sauce bottle, the basil, and different cheeses laid out for our likings. Poking the dough, a bit she smiles, eyes bright. A full toothy smile.
“It’s always fun to poke dough.” She says, turning her smile towards me. It fades a bit. “Elle said that when my mother dropped me off, she was singing this song.” My stomach churns, she looks away, “And my mother had told Elle to sing it to me until I could remember it myself.” She laughs a bit, quietly, like she didn’t mean it. “Elle was a horrible singer. But she sang it, every night.”

Her head turned to me, grabbing the spoon, she plops the sauce onto the dough, spreading it slowly.

“What was the song like?” I ask, voice so quiet it was practically a whisper.

“I don’t remember the lines to well, but I remember how it went.” The next thing I know she was humming a song I had made up with a woman sitting under a tree in Central Park. The shade had protected us from the rays of sun that burned hotter than the time we went to Miami for the summer. We were 19 and young and in love and incredibly stupid for thinking we knew what love even was.

And then the next thing I know, I’m singing the lyrics in my pitchy 35 year old man voice. (What the hell are you doing, what the hell are you doing!) Except I keep singing even though she’s stopped humming. Somewhere in between there she dropped her spoon to the floor and there’s sauce on the (spotless until then) tiles.

I stop, finally, and look at her. She's staring right at me, eyes unreadable. Scratch 1that. Entire face unreadable.

“How.” She says. She's still wide eyed and her mouths still open, and is she even breathing?

“Lia. Do you want to know something?” I say slowly, lightly grabbing her upper arm.

“Wait.” She says, grabbing my arm right back, “15 years ago...”

“Yes, 15 years ago, I ended a relationship.”

“Because your girlfriend was pregnant.”

“No. Because it was a crap relationship. Not because she was pregnant. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.” She was breathing heavily. “Lia. Lia, look at me. You’re a smart girl, and I think you’ve figured it out already, but my girlfriend 15 years ago is—”

“My mother.” She looked at me, and instead of her previous franticness, she’s somehow collected herself. Well, enough to get a full sentence out anyway. “She’s my mother isn’t she?”

“Yes, and she told me about you only a year ago. I could contact her if you’d like, though I don’t know how she’d react.” I say, only to be immediately cut off by her. Her eyes were intense, yet held a sort of calmness, and relief to them. She grabbed both of my arms, making me go still and stand in place.

“No. No I don’t want that.” She shakes me a little as she speaks, like she’s trying to knock some sense into me.

“You don’t...?” Her head shakes wildly, an intense happiness seeming to take her over.

“No, I don’t, and would you like to know why?” No, but you’re probably going to tell me.
“I don’t want to meet her, or talk to her, or whatever because I don’t care. I don’t care because she didn’t care, but you cared. You cared enough to adopt your fifteen year old daughter who you only knew about for a second.”
In the 36 years of my life, the only nice thing my mother said to me was “Congrats on the home run, now go wash the dishes.” That was in the second grade. The only somewhat pleasant thing my father told me was “That’s great, now shut up so I can watch the game.” It was actually a beautiful moment. Alice had once told that my eyes, “shine brighter than a child’s eyes on Christmas morning.” I had grinned then, now however, my lips don’t even threaten to try a smile.

In the days that Lia has been here, we’ve shared silent moments that spoke louder than any conversations I’ve shared with my parents, or Alice. She’s made me feel like she’s the only family I need. No, she’s made me realize that she is the only family I need.

“A second was all I needed.” We smile. It lasts either a minute or an hour, but we smiled at and for each other.

On Saturday morning, after undergoing a treacherous week of school and a not-so treacherous week at home (except for newly established chores) I’m woken up at the peak of dawn to help get the house ready for Robert’s parents visit.

We make a system, he dusts, and then I sweep. He vacuums, then I mop. I’ve always liked cleaning, it gave me something to do instead of nothing. He seems to like cleaning too, because at some point we end up singing songs from Annie and try to reenact It’s A Hard Knock Life in the sweeping/dusting stage of our clean up.

We prepare skirt steak, one medium rare, two well done, and one well done and burned. Medium rare, gross. I convinced him to make asparagus, because apparently he’s never been a vegetable guy. I prepare a traditional mashed potatoes, using the mashing stage to release my nerves about meeting my grandparents.

“Hey, Robert,” I call out to him. “Do your parents know that I’m your biological daughter?”

He turns toward me, taking a break from seasoning the meat to answer my question. “Well, I figure they have a right to know, since my mother is still bitter about her lack of grandchildren.” He laughs.

“What?” I’m starting to giggle also, “Seriously, what are you thinking about?”

“My mother’s going to take you shopping for days when she finds out what she’s missed.”

“Really?” I ask incredulously. Shopping is great and all, but shopping with other women. Other women with opinions.
God no.

“Okay, I'll finish the rest of the food. Why don't you start getting ready and then you can come help me set the table.”

“You got it.”

I step out of the shower ten minutes later, brush my teeth, and choose an outfit. This is the moment I’d say that it all hit me. I’ve got a family. I’ve got a dad, and in just about ten minutes I’ll have grandparents; (and I don’t even care about having a mother. Who would’ve thought?) I pick out a white button down shirt and light pink skirt. I turn to look in the mirror, “They’ll be here in 15, I’m going to go get dressed.” Robert calls out. I take a breath, and it comes back out shaky. It takes me Robert’s whole shower to get my eyeliner on, my hands are moving so much. I finish getting ready just in time, because Robert’s knocking on my door, telling me that his parents are finding parking.

Going to the kitchen, he’s putting out placemats. I walk over to the cabinets to grab four plates, handing them to him so he can place them out. I move them a bit when he’s not looking. They weren’t exactly in the right place. They have to be in the middle of the placemats, which should be equal parts away from each other. I’m sorry, God.

The doorbell rings, and I inhale sharply. Showtime, baby.

I open the door to my parents smiling faces. Well, my mother’s smiling face, and my fathers ‘I don’t really give’ face. Lia’s nervousness is radiating off of her, and I’m sucking it up as fast as ever. The hug me when they enter, and I take their coats. While going to put them in the closet, I see my mother walk straight towards Lia. Her face forms a nervous smile, yet she’s holding herself together. Which is a huge relief to me.

“Lia Hastings.” My mother says. “What do you think of that name, Harold?” She asks my father. Lia raised her eyebrow, not having a clue to where the conversation was going.

“I think it sounds just right.” He says, and if that’s not an acceptance as their granddaughter, as a part of the family, then I’m not as smart as I believed myself to be. Lia’s smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen when she he looks to me. I can’t do anything but smile back, and guide everyone to the table.

A lot of things happen from there. My father compliments the steak. (My father doesn’t compliment.) My mother takes Coca-Cola instead of wine. (Never in my life has she turned down a drink.) Lia calls me dad. I feel like I’ve done something right.

I feel like I’ve done something right because when Lia calls me dad, she looks like she’s been saying it all her life. Like she doesn’t know me as ‘Robert’, but ‘Dad’. She’s got bright coffee colored eyes, and her hair falls into waves that scream oceans in Greece. She looks like her mother, but she’s not like her mother. She’s Lia, and Lia’s my daughter. She’s sitting down directly across from me laughing at a joke my father’s told a billion and one times and for the first time, I laugh at it too.

Suddenly, I feel like things are going to be just fine. (My father compliments Lia on her mashed potatoes. She tells him he’s the funniest man she knows. My father’s never received compliments before.)

It’s really going to be fine.