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Though it was a funeral, it was also the very first Kim-Gervais Family reunion — insofar as the Kim-Gervais family even existed anymore. As far as Madra’s concerned, her only family left is her brother Darwin. And even then, their relationship isn’t exactly familial.
Madra was sitting in the back, putting distance between herself and the man in the casket at the front of the room — the man who, apparently, was her father. The chapel was almost entirely empty. Some scattered, poorly dressed men sitting at the front. Hildy’s friends, Madra figured, or what few he had. One of them had come up to her before she had sat down. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he offered her, standing too close and his breath reeking of cigarettes. “Spacey was a good man.”
Spacey. Madra didn’t have to guess at what had earned him that sobriquet. She’d heard enough in disapproving pieces from the adults at the group home over the years. The homeless drunk with a stint in the psych ward who loved to rant and rave about aliens. Of course, he ended up being right about the aliens, but that didn’t exactly nix the aforementioned homelessness, alcoholism, and psych-ward stay.
Madra didn’t care for Spacey, or the friends who insisted he’d been turning his life around — I’ve heard that before. If it were up to Madra, she’d really rather not have taken the time off of work to be here. But she had to come. Just in case.
In case Darwin comes too.
He’s nowhere to be seen. Of course not. Why would he be? She hasn’t seen him since they were kids. He probably doesn’t even remember she exists. Really, she’s the weird one for remembering him. They were both eight when he ran away from the group home. Evidently he never looked back. Now here she is eleven years later. They’re not family. Not anymore. They’re basically strangers.
Madra eventually decides to call it quits. She stands up, straightens her leather jacket — the only black piece of clothing she owns, and God knows she isn’t buying a dress for Spacey of all people — and heads for the door. What’s the point in staying?
But the moment she reaches the exit, the doors swing open on their own, and there she finds herself standing face-to-face with a boy her age in a too-nice suit. Madra and the boy take each other in — recognizing each other for the first time in over a decade. The boy’s wide mouth breaks into a smile that his eyes don’t quite catch up with.
“Hey, Maddy,” Darwin says.
Madra never hugs people. Despite herself, she makes an exception for her brother in this moment.
* * *
Madra had never set foot outside of Orange County since she was sixteen. Darwin, however, was a Santa Barbara native. She deferred to him to find a coffee shop.
They caught up. Of course, after eleven years spent living their own lives without each other, they were never gonna learn everything over the course of an hour in a Philz, but Madra got the broad strokes. He was at UCSB these days. Poli-sci major. A nice couple had adopted him in ‘01, and they were footing the bill for his education. It was all something that warranted her being happy for him.
When Darwin asked about where she’s going to school, Madra tried her best to answer without eliciting any pity from him. “No college. Went right into the workforce. I’m a mechanic. Pays good.” She makes sure to tack on that last bit — even if it would be more accurate to say “Could pay better,” — so he doesn’t immediately try to apologize for her “circumstances” or whatever people usually feel sorry for her about.
It doesn’t work. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he immediately adds. “I didn’t- I just assumed-”
Madra cuts him off. “It’s fine.” And with that, the whole conversation comes to a lull. Darwin sits with his hands in his lap, fidgeting. Madra starts to play with the lid on her coffee, popping it off and back on with her thumb.
Eventually, she decides dour conversation is better than none.
“Did you ever meet him? Before today, I mean,” Madra asks her brother.
“No,” Darwin shakes his head. He sounds almost ashamed. “Wish I could’ve.”
“I’m not sure we missed much,” Madra says, offering what little comfort the idea can. “Besides, it’s not like you’re wanting for parents or anything. You’ve got your folks. Spacey was never exactly gonna take home any ‘Father of the Year’ awards, and I can’t imagine our mom was any better.”
Darwin stills at that. He lowers his eyes. “What… do you know about her?” he asks, as if testing the waters.
“About Mom?” Madra shrugs. What’s there to know? “Basically what’s on my birth certificate. Allison Kim. Married to Hildy Gervais. Pretty sure she’s dead too, to be honest.” A couple years back, Madra had found some records saying she had disappeared a bit after she and Darwin were born — presumed dead.
“Yeah,” Darwin says, almost like he’s reassuring himself. “Yeah. She’s dead.”
* * *
“Where did you go?” Madra asks as she drives him back to his campus. “When you left the group home. You just disappeared.” The question has been burning in her for the past eleven years. Where exactly does an eight year old orphan run off to?
Darwin shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He probably knew this question was coming — why wouldn’t it — but Madra didn’t think he was quite ready to answer. She wanted him to answer anyway.
“I just… needed to get out of there for a little bit,” he admits. “I mean… you remember. We’d talk about running away all the time! Remember that old book we used to read, about those orphans who run off and have adventures and live in a boxcar? I thought it would be like that. And I was just gonna be gone for one night. When I was done, I’d just come right back to you, and then bring you on the next one.”
Darwin sighs. He’s getting to the part he doesn’t want to talk about. “It got dark, and I got hungry. I didn’t have any money, obviously, but eventually I just ran into this soup kitchen run by… this charity.” Madra hears it in his tone. He’s leaving something out, but she doesn’t press. Not yet. She’s owed an explanation, but she’s not gonna get it if she’s rude about it. “So there I had something to eat. And the people there were really nice. They acted all concerned, like they wanted to take care of me. I wasn’t used to that. It felt good. I thought about how next time, I should definitely bring you with me, so we could be there together — where people could care about both of us.” Darwin pauses. He takes a deep breath. “Then they brought me to a room in the back, with a tub of this sludgy, gray liquid.”
Oh shit. Now it’s Madra’s turn to feel terrible for asking about Darwin’s life. “It was the Sharing,” she says as she realizes it. They made Darwin a controller.
Darwin nods his head. He ends his story there, and Madra doesn’t press further. They don’t talk for the rest of the drive.
* * *
When Madra reaches Darwin’s dorm, she reaches over him in the passenger’s seat to fish something out of the glove compartment. Retrieving a small metal tin, she opens it and takes out one of about half-a-dozen joints. She offers it to her brother.
Darwin stares at it, a mix of horror and intrigue. “Is that…” he starts, but he can’t even bring himself to finish the question.
“Weed. Yeah.” Madra answers.
“That’s illegal.”
“Then don’t tell the cops.”
Before they know it, Madra and Darwin are up in the latter’s dorm, passing the joint between the two of them.
“I’ve never done drugs before,” Darwin admits.
“Yeah, obviously,” Madra laughs.
They’re laying head-to-head on his bed, sufficiently baked, looking up at the ceiling, before they talk again. When they do, it’s Madra who speaks first.
“I have nightmares about Mom,” she says. Darwin doesn’t react. If he does, it’s just on his face, so Madra can’t see it. Taking his silence as permission, Madra keeps going. “I know it’s weird cause I never even met the bitch, and I know nothing about her. But I have the nightmares anyway.”
Madra’s never been one to remember her dreams after she wakes up, but these ones have started happening so often, it’s hard to let go of them. “I’m in these caverns, deep underground. There’s this big lake in front of me with a platform out in the center. There’s a woman there, chained to a stake. She looks nothing like us, but somehow I know that she’s our mom. And she’s bruised and bloody and scarred and screaming like she’s being tortured to death. And then she looks at me and…” Madra pauses. “And she goes quiet.”
Darwin turns to face her, an urgency in his body and voice. “That wasn’t our mother.”
Madra scoffs. “Yeah, I know. Obviously. Our mother is dead and Asian, and the woman in my dream is alive and — I think — Latina. And also it’s a dream-”
“No,” Darwin interrupts her. Firm. He looks like he has more to say, but he can’t bring himself to say it. Whatever fire compelled him to interject starts to simmer a bit. Eventually, he settles for just softly repeating himself. “That wasn’t our mother.”
The siblings lay in silence again for a while, again staring at the ceiling above, but their last exchange hangs over them.
Finally, Darwin speaks again. “It’s a Yeerk pool. The place in your dream.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Madra tells him.
“I have,” Darwin says. “I’ve been to the exact one in your dream.”
* * *
Madra and Darwin fall asleep not long after that. They’re high, it’s late, they’re laying down — it was going to happen. Madra doesn’t have the dream that night.
Madra leaves the next morning, leaving behind a single joint from her tin on Darwin’s bedside table. A parting gift. The promise to keep in touch.
On her way out of town, she stops by the cemetery to pay Spacey a visit. Just long enough to find the grave and consider spitting on it for five seconds before ultimately deciding against it.
It’s not long before she starts on the road back to Orange. She’s gonna have to go back to work soon enough. Madra drives past a lot on her way home — plenty of food trucks, pamphleteers for that new Scientology rip-off, the odd animal here or there. None of them particularly catch her eye.
It’s then that she drives past a marina, and sees all the sails, all the boats, just floating right there on the water — some further out soaring across the Pacific Ocean. She doesn’t know why, but for a few seconds, she can’t look away.
Madra doesn’t know anything about her mother, but in this moment she guesses — or maybe even just decides — that Allison Kim loved to sail.
Madra Kim-Gervais drives home, thinking about boats the rest of the way.