Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Harrison’s eyes become distant, as if he’s seeing something far away. “I don’t know. I was angry at first when I found out you were gone. The babies lived on the bottom floor of the building, so I barely saw you after we got there. I used to beg them to let me stay with you in your crib, but they forced me to sleep upstairs in a dormitory with the older kids. And then one day I asked to come down to see you and they told me you’d been adopted. I didn’t understand why your new family took you and not me.”
My eyebrows soar. “You think my parents chose not to take you?”
“You just said so yourself—siblings are typically adopted together. They had to have known about me.”
He’s right. The orphanage administrators would’ve told them, no? They must have.
But…I truly can’t see my parents knowing I had a brother out there somewhere and never telling me about it. My gut says there’s more to this story, but Harrison seems convinced as he continues speaking.
“I thought maybe I wasn’t good enough. Too old for them—older kids come with more baggage, right? Babies are a shiny, clean slate.” He shrugs. “But after a while, I just accepted it. That was the way things were. It was out of my control.”
The pain in his voice is subtle, but it’s there, a sharp edge beneath his calm exterior. It makes my chest ache, knowing that while I was growing up in a warm, loving home, he had been left behind in a cold, unfamiliar world.
“I wish things had been different,” I say softly.
“Yeah. Me too.” He frowns. “They really never told you that you had a brother?”
I bite my lip. “No. But I’m not sure they knew. My parents aren’t secretive people. They’ve been nothing but transparent with me my entire life, especially about the adoption. I don’t know why they would be open about everything but leave this one thing out.”
“Maybe they didn’t want you looking for me.”
I hear his resentment again and try to steer the conversation away from my parents. It feels like dangerous territory.
“Do you remember anything about our biological parents?” I ask, wrapping my fingers around my mug. “Do you know why they left us there?”
“I don’t know if there was a ‘they.’ I don’t think our birth father was ever in the picture. Hell, I’m surprised our DNA test revealed we share the same one,” he admits. “I remember a lot of men coming in and out of our apartment before you were born.”
“We had a home?”
“Maybe? I have fuzzy memories of a cramped apartment. A dirty bedroom with one mattress on the floor.”
My heart squeezes. That sounds…bleak.
“Was our mother a prostitute?” I ask warily.
“I don’t know. Maybe. And I don’t remember having a father. No idea what his name is. I don’t know hers, either.”
“My adoption paperwork didn’t include any parent names,” I tell Harrison. “But I suppose that makes sense. I think child abandonment is illegal there, right? If the officials knew who our birth mom was, she probably would’ve been punished.”
“I have some memories of Umma—” He uses a Korean word, which he translates at my blank look. “Our mom. I remember some things about her but not a lot. I have a vague memory of her dropping us there. Leaving us. We took the bus, I remember that. And she didn’t have anything to leave you in, so she dug around in an alley full of garbage until she found, like, a plastic bucket or something.”
“Laundry basket,” I murmur, pain tugging at my gut. “My parents said the orphanage told them I was dropped off in a laundry basket.”
“Yeah, that was it. And you were screaming bloody murder.” He gives a wry smile. “I had this stuffed animal I used to drag around everywhere, so I put it in your basket. You were crying so hard, and I didn’t know how to make you stop, so I gave you the only thing I had to try to calm you down.”
“Was it a blue bunny?”
A small, sad smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “How on earth do you remember that? You were a baby.”
“I still have it, Harrison.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No. My parents brought it back with us to the States.” I stare at him, my heart squeezing. “Tiger was yours?”
“Tiger?” he echoes with a laugh. “That wasn’t his name back then.”
“What was it?”
“Tokki.” He grins. “It’s Korean for bunny.”
“Do you speak Korean?” I ask, a bit envious at the notion.
One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t let my parents force me to take Korean classes when I was still young enough to retain the language. I scoffed whenever they brought it up. I didn’t want to speak Korean. It felt too alienating to me. Why would I speak a language that none of my friends could speak? These days, I wish I knew a second language, especially my birth tongue.