Chapter Text
It starts, as it ends, with a box.
“I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.” Katie, his social worker and the only person who’d stuck by him over the last years, looks exhausted. Andrew thinks it’s probably a toss-up as to which of them wishes they were somewhere else more right now. “But as you know, once you turn eighteen, you’ll legally be an adult and thus responsible for yourself.”
Andrew looks at the box. It’s plain and nondescript; just another box amongst many. He and the box have that much in common.
“I can refer you to a few organisations who specialise in helping aged out foster children find their footing, but you’ll no longer qualify for housing or financial support.”
It’s not Katie’s fault. Ever since Cass kicked him out, Andrew had known that this is how it would end. He was never going to be more than a statistic; a number in someone’s file, a case study in a social work lecture presentation.
“Bee?” The box is taunting him. He wants to throw it into an open fire and himself along with it.
Katie looks down, hands rummaging through the stack of files piled on her desk. Every folder represents a child for which the state of California currently stands in loco parentis. Of those under twelve, only twenty-five percent will be adopted. Up to forty-six percent will experience homelessness by age 26. One in four will have at least one run-in with the criminal justice system within two years of ageing out. Less than two percent will graduate college.
Andrew is under no delusions about whether he’ll be an exception to the rule.
“Dr. Dobson has agreed to continue treating you until you turn twenty-one,” Katie reads off a piece of paper. In her hands, Andrew’s file looks just like every other one on the desk. Numbers in a broken system. “Pro-bono. You’re very lucky to have her in your corner.”
Luck has nothing to do with it. It’d been Andrew’s violent tendencies and multiple stints in in-patient care that had landed him in court-mandated therapy. Why Bee isn’t gleefully washing her hands of him now that he’s eighteen is beyond his understanding.
Katie sets down the file before looking at him over the rim of her glasses, line pressed into a thin mouth. He wonders how many times she’s been in this situation before, how many kids she’s had to kick out onto the streets. “I know things seem hopeless, Andrew. I’ve been in this role long enough to know how it goes. But it doesn’t have to be like that for you. You’re smart. You just have to find your footing.”
They both know he won’t. Somewhere out there, in a dark corner of the world, is an empty prison cell with the name Andrew Doe stamped on the door. There was never going to be anything else for someone like him.
Andrew steps out of her office soon after, the box tucked securely under his arm. He has ten days to figure out where to go before he’s officially eighteen and on his own. Ten days to put together a life with neither a high school diploma nor a dollar to his name.
His name. Andrew’s footsteps are heavy on the wooden floor as he walks himself back down to his room. Around him, the group home is quiet. Most of the kids are crammed into the makeshift classroom downstairs, studiously learning how to read and write and calculate.
There’s no point for Andrew, who has the whole world working against him. Not even his name is his own.
***
As it does every year, Andrew’s birthday comes and goes without much fanfare. Katie brings him a banana-pecan muffin from her local bakery for breakfast. Bee takes him out for lunch and an afternoon drive. In the evening, he gives Leo a sloppy blowjob in the tiny upstairs bathroom.
And as happens every year, no one calls. Beyond the circle of his social worker, therapist, and roommate, no one in the world knows or cares that Andrew Joseph Doe turns eighteen today. That with the strike of midnight, everything he has ever known is being ripped out from under his feet.
The next day, Andrew wakes to the sound of Leo’s shitty analogue alarm clock for the last time. There’s no sentimentality in the way he bangs on the bathroom door until whoever’s in it comes out, scuttling off at the sight of his glare. He won’t miss the way the stairs squeak under the combined weight of fifty teenagers all hurrying downstairs for breakfast, nor will he fondly remember any of the other kids or staff at the group home.
All Andrew has ever known is loss. This is nothing new. There will never be anything else for him.
Katie walks him down the street to the nearest bus station after he’s signed the final document, a single rucksack slung over his shoulder. He’s never had much, courtesy of thirteen foster families and twice as many group homes - all he brings with him are a spare set of clothes, the twin black armbands Bee had gifted him a few years ago, and the box.
The street is deserted when they reach the stop. Despite the time of year the sun is sweltering, ruthlessly shining down on anything or anyone foolish enough to venture outside. Andrew drops his bag next to the stop sign and slides on his battered pair of sunglasses.
Katie knows better than to hug him, even though it looks like it’s costing her every ounce of willpower she possesses. They stand facing each other in silence for several moments, and the smile she offers him is weak. “You’re going to be okay. Go straight to this address, okay?” She holds out a scrap of paper which Andrew declines with a dismissive flick of his fingers.
“I know.”
“Right. Of course.” She sniffles softly. “Stay in touch, okay? Let me know how you’re doing. Don’t disappear.”
Kicking at the rucksack at his feet, Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure they don’t make pay-phones anymore.”
“You haven’t opened the box yet?”
“No.”
Sympathy blooms on her face and Andrew’s stomach twists. He hates the way she looks at him like he’s something worth saving - like he’s worth anything at all. It’s pointless. The moment Andrew gets on the bus and leaves, she’ll forget about him. There are a hundred more kids just like him waiting for her back at the group home. One less doesn’t matter.
“Alright. Well. Open it soon, okay? I put something in there you might find useful.”
“I don’t need your charity.” It comes out wrong. Has his voice always been so unsteady?
For all her faults, Katie doesn’t take his brash dismissal personally. She simply nods, and when the bus pulls up and the doors open to admit him, she waits until he’s settled.
“Call me!”
The doors close with a hiss. From the corner of his eye Andrew watches the way she stays standing on the pavement, waving her goodbyes until the bus crests the hill and she disappears in the distance.
With nowhere to go and no one to see, Andrew rides the bus until the driver gruffly informs him that they’ve reached the end stop. He picks up his bag and gets off, taking note of his surroundings for the first time. The buildings that greet him are unfamiliar, uniform rows of large houses bordered by white fences surrounding neatly trimmed lawns.
With the corner of the box digging into his back through the rucksack, Andrew picks a street at random and starts walking. A sign hanging in the window of the first cafe he passes informs him he’s in Montclair. In all his years in Oakland Andrew has never been this far east, which means the chances of someone recognising him are slim - a useful advantage for the next stage of his plan.
After an hour's walk, he slows down outside of what seems to be a particularly affluent house. Parked in the driveway is a sleek black car with tinted windows and a beautifully curved elegance to its frame. In the background, the house looks empty, all curtains drawn.
Breaking into the car isn’t difficult. The leather steering wheel is smooth to the touch, the velvet-lined seats soft and comfortable. Dumping his bag in the passenger seat, Andrew makes quick work of hot-wiring the engine before reversing out of the driveway to the sound of the motor purring its song.
He doesn’t have a license, but he’d learnt to drive several years ago when Katie decided he’d be the perfect fit for a family living on a ranch out in Quincy. The placement hadn’t worked out - they’d sent him back after catching him kissing one of the farmhands - but before that, one of his foster brothers had taught him to drive in an old beat up truck.
Pairing his eidetic memory and general indifference towards survival, Andrew navigates through Montclair with all the grace of someone who’s only ever driven on dirt roads. Several near-misses and two verbal confrontations later, he pulls into the mostly empty car park of a high school closed for the night.
The box, once he finally finds it in himself to dig it out of his bag, is light. This doesn’t surprise him. For all his years alive, Andrew has had nothing. To imagine this might change now would be a waste of time. So far, the school of optimistic pessimism has served him well.
Inside he finds a small box of sweets, a flip-phone that looks older than he is, and two pieces of paper. Stowing the sweets, Andrew opens the phone. Only two contacts are saved; Bee, and right below her, Katie.
Throwing the phone onto the back-seat to be dealt with later, Andrew picks up the paper. The first is a letter, the neatly rowed handwriting immediately betraying its author. Bee knows him well enough by now that she hasn’t bothered with empty promises or worthless placating. Instead she orders him to stay in touch, to stay out of trouble, and to stay alive.
The second piece of paper gives him pause. It’s thick and cream coloured, authenticated by the official seal and stamp of the state of California.
It’s a birth certificate.
Most of the boxes are blank. There are no names in the box left for the parents, and no surname following the ‘Andrew Joseph’ scribbled at the top in faded handwriting. He’s about to fold it up and throw it out the window when something written at the very bottom of the page catches his eye.
There, in the notes and observations section, written in the same unassuming squiggly handwriting as the rest of the document, are four words that let Andrew’s blood run cold.
Type of birth: twin.
***
“Did you know?”
In the distance, the Atlantic ocean shimmers blue in the early morning sunlight. It’s barely 5am but San Francisco is already awake, alive with the sounds of thousands of ordinary people preparing to live another day in their ordinary lives. Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette and watches the smoke rise up to join the cloud of fumes.
On the other side of the line, Bee sounds concerned. He can practically see her frown. “I did not know. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Andrew. How are you feeling?”
“Perky.” The cigarette leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and nose, but the nicotine does a good enough job of dulling the gnaw of hunger in his stomach. Leaning back against the windshield of the Maserati, Andrew tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear and lights another one. “Better than ever.”
Bee hums softly. She’s out on her morning walk; Andrew can hear the sound of dogs barking and children laughing in the background. “Will you tell me why you didn’t go to the Drop-In Centre?”
“I didn’t want to.” The backseat of the Maserati isn’t the most uncomfortable place he’s ever had to sleep, but the seats are hard and finding a place to safely park hasn’t been easy. Still, he’ll take squashing himself into the back of a car over stepping foot into any kind of Transitional Housing Centre any day.
The thought of having to once again rely on someone else for safety and necessities makes him want to throw up.
“Are you looking after yourself?” Bee doesn’t get angry. She gets disappointed, which is far worse, but Andrew is used to letting people down by now. He hasn’t cared about anyone’s opinion of him since Cass.
“I’m alive and not in prison, if that’s what you’re asking.” By his standards, that’s already a success.
“And beyond that?” As always, Bee sees right through his bullshit. Even through the phone she can smell a lie a mile away. “Are you eating well? It’s important to keep up your health. Medical treatments are expensive.”
Andrew looks over at the empty McDonalds wrapper sitting on the hood beside him and grunts: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away, if you throw it hard enough.”
Bee huffs out an amused laugh and something inside Andrew breaks. As much as he’d told himself he wouldn’t miss anyone when he left, there’s been a gaping hole in his chest ever since he stepped out of her office in Oakland for the last time.
“What are you planning on doing?”
Andrew thunks his head back against the windshield and closes his eyes. He’s been thinking about that a lot over the past few days. There’s nothing left for him in California but bad memories and old pain. Going somewhere new to start fresh is currently the most viable option - only he can’t stop thinking about the birth certificate currently tucked into the bottom of his bag.
Twin .
“Andrew?”
“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “Maybe I’ll join the army and honourably give my life in defense of our glorious and noble country.”
“You have a criminal record,” Bee reminds him dryly.
“The navy, then. I hear they’re less picky.”
“It’s not too late to register with a programme,” Bee says, apparently not yet ready to give up all hope. “They can help you find employment and a place to stay until you find something of your own. It doesn’t have to be forever. But it would help you focus on what’s next.”
“Hard pass.” The sooner he leaves California and its shadow behind him, the better. “The highway is calling my name. A man has to follow his heart.”
“And is your heart also telling you where you can find money and a roof over your head, or are you going to keep stealing until you get caught? I’d hate to see you behind bars again.”
“Only time will tell.” Flicking the cigarette stub to the ground, he pushes himself upright. “Speaking of the heart, I need a favour.”
“Anything,” Bee says immediately and without hesitation, and Andrew knows she means it.
“I want to find them. I need you to find out what happened after we were born.”
Bee is quiet for a long time. Then: “Are you sure that’s what you want? You might not like what you find.”
He’s considered that, too. His twin might be dead, or living in Australia, or worse, right here in California and under Andrew’s nose. But he has to know. The risk has to be taken. He’ll deal with the fallout, one way or another. “It doesn’t matter. Can you get me a name and a location?”
“I can try. But Andrew, I can’t make any promises.” She sounds hesitant, but he knows she’ll keep her word. He would never have trusted her with his darkest secrets otherwise. “They might have slipped through the cracks entirely. It’s almost always impossible to track down family members in the system, especially if the children were surrendered at birth. Separated twins is a whole other story.”
“Don’t worry, Bee. It doesn’t go any further down than rock bottom, and I’m already there.”
Andrew listens to the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by a lock clicking and the Beep! of an alarm system being disarmed. He can almost see Bee taking off her shoes and putting on her slippers to shuffle down the entrance hallway of her house. She probably wore the ridiculously large and fluffy white coat Andrew had stolen and gifted her on her fortieth birthday.
She’d disapproved thoroughly, but she’d understood.
That unfamiliar ache in his chest deepens, and he shakes his head to clear the memory. The last thing he needs is for the mental image of Bee’s kitchen to turn into Cass’.
They hang up not long after. Bee promises to start looking, and in return, Andrew promises not to leave California until they know more. It means putting up with the rot that has made itself at home in his heart a little longer, but for once, Andrew thinks it might be worth it.
***
The text comes two weeks later. The shrill noise of the incoming notification tears him from a dream filled with unwanted touches and the sound of stairs creaking, the memories of it so vivid he feels like he’s choking.
Swallowing down the nausea pawing at his throat, Andrew takes a moment to calm his racing heart before grabbing his bag and flipping the phone open. Bee’s contact blinks up at him on the screen, alight with possibility.
BUSY BEE: Andrew, I hope you’re keeping well. I did what I could, but I’m afraid I don’t have much more than a name and a city.
The phone buzzes in his hands as the next text comes through.
BUSY BEE: The person you’re looking for is Aaron Minyard. He’s currently in Columbia, South Carolina. It appears your mother did not give him up for adoption. Legally, I can’t tell you more than that.
BUSY BEE: Whatever you decide to do now, please be careful. Stay in touch.
Flipping the phone shut and pocketing it, Andrew slides back into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.