Hummingbird Heart (15 page)

“I want to, all right?”

We used to hang out every lunch hour. It was a given. Just like talking on the phone every morning. Now I felt like I'd annoyed her somehow, and I suddenly didn't feel like talking anymore. “All right,” I said. “I'll see you at school then.” I hung up the phone and wondered if all friendships got messed up when people started dating. Maybe they did. Maybe the days of real friendships—the staying up late talking, giggling, planning things, counting on each other—were over. Maybe that was just something you had when you were a kid.

I stared at a bowl of cornflakes swimming in soy milk. I wasn't hungry.

Karma slid her plate toward me. “Want some of my toast?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

“Are you okay? You look kind of…funny.”

If Karma was noticing, I must really look like crap. Though maybe she was still worried because of what happened yesterday. I still hadn't told her what Mark had said or why I'd been so upset. I tried to smile a little. “I'm fine.”

Mom put down her newspaper and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

I didn't want to get into a conversation about it—actually, I didn't want to talk to my mother at all, ever—but I needed to know what was going to happen next. “So, do I have to get a blood test or something?” I asked.

Karma's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak.

“That's the first step.” Mom poured enough milk into her coffee to turn it almost white. “I just called Mark and told him that you'd do it.”

“You did? Was he…was he pleased?” I hated myself for asking.

Karma was practically wriggling off her chair in frustration. “What are you talking about? Pleased about what?”

Mom's eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Of course he was pleased. What else would he be?”

I shrugged. I didn't know why I'd asked that or what I'd meant, exactly.

“Anyway. He's staying longer than he'd planned. His wife and daughter are flying out on Thursday. Apparently they're going to take Casey to some naturopath in Vancouver.” She drank her coffee, not looking at me. “Mark says he's probably a quack, but I guess they're feeling they have to try everything, you know?”

“But if I'm a match, that'll help, right? She could be all right.”

“What's wrong with her?” Karma sounded like she was about to explode.

Mom held up one hand to tell Karma to wait. “Pickle…I don't really know the first thing about it. I guess that's the hope, but I don't think there are any guarantees.”

There never were. I closed my eyes for a moment and stared at the prickles of light in the darkness. Like tiny stars. Reluctantly, I opened them again and looked at Karma. “Mark's kid has leukemia, and he wants me to get tested to see if I can be a bone marrow donor.”

“Ohhh.” Her round face was serious. “So that was why he wanted to see you.”

I realized that I had no idea how he had found out I existed. “Yup. Exactly. That was the reason.” My voice was louder and higher pitched than usual.

There was a heavy pause. Mom ran one finger along the table edge. “He thought you might like to meet her. Casey.”

“Me? Why would I want to?”

“Maybe he thinks you'll want to help more if you meet her. I don't know.”

“I already
said
I'd do it.”

“I know. Don't bite my head off.”

Karma looked thoughtful. “Maybe he thought you'd want to meet her because you're, you know, sort of related.”

I looked across the table at her. It was strange: we'd only been living together for three years and we weren't even blood relatives, but I loved her, even though she drove me crazy. Somehow we had become a family. We had become sisters.

But I didn't think of Casey as a sister at all.

The first time I met Karma, she was eight and I was thirteen. Mom flew to Toronto to pick her up, and I stayed behind with her friend Julia for a few days while all the legal stuff got sorted out. I'd known for a few weeks that she was coming—we'd rearranged furniture, turned Mom's tiny office into a third bedroom—but I couldn't get my head around the idea that she wouldn't just be visiting. It had been just me and Mom for my whole life, and it didn't seem possible that a third person could suddenly join our family.

And finally they'd arrived. Julia and I drove to the airport to meet them. Mom, looking exhausted, was carrying an unfamiliar leather suitcase and pulling her own wheeled one, and this skinny kid was tagging along behind, clutching a small ratty-looking backpack.

“Karma, this is my daughter Dylan,” Mom said.

I thought it was strange that she said it that way around—like the introduction was for Karma, not me. I tried to push away a surge of jealousy and forced a smile. “Hi, Karma. Nice to meet you.”

She just stared at me with big dark-lashed eyes. She was wearing embroidered jeans that were too short for her and a black T-shirt with
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
written on it in silvery letters. The shirt had ridden up so I could see a strip of her tummy: brown skin and an outie belly button. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and sucked on them.

I turned to my mom. “Want me to take one of those cases?”

She handed me the leather suitcase, which I figured was Karma's, and leaned close to me. “Speaking of cases,” she whispered into my ear, “Sheri's kid is a bit of a case herself. I think we're going to have our hands full.”

And just like that, I felt better again. Me and my mom would always be a team. Looking after Karma was going to be something we did together, and that meant that no matter what she was like, no matter how awful it was, it would somehow be okay.

And the first weeks and months
were
awful. Karma had wicked tantrums, screaming like a toddler when she didn't get her way. Hair washing, tooth brushing, mealtimes—anything could trigger a meltdown. My mom would throw her arms up in the air and yell at her, make threats, offer bribes, and finally give up in frustration. Oddly enough, Karma was more cooperative with me, so after a while, Mom handed off some of her care to me.
Dylan, can you
get Karma to eat breakfast before school? Can you make sure
Karma has a bath? Can you ask Karma if she'd eat pizza for
dinner?
Karma usually did what I said with no fuss at all. It annoyed my mother, but I found it rather satisfying.

I wasn't sure when things changed. It wasn't dramatic. One day I realized that Karma hadn't had a meltdown for a long time. She did okay at school, rode her bike everywhere, and started playing baseball. Sometimes I wondered how much she thought about her mom and how she felt about this new life, but they weren't questions I felt I could ask.

Karma was one of the most private people I'd ever met.

Mom had told me a bit about Sheri: that she'd had a rough childhood, that she'd had a bit of a problem with drugs, that some of her boyfriends hadn't treated her well. So I had a pretty good idea how it might have been for Karma before she came to live with us. Not the details, of course—but there were some things you could guess without needing to hear them said aloud, and I didn't blame Karma for not wanting to talk about that stuff.

Karma had even less information about her dad than I had about mine. Sheri had always told her she didn't know who her father was. Karma knew she looked like him though. Sheri had been white, blond-haired and sharp-featured, but Karma had black hair, dark eyes, brown skin and a round face. Everyone always assumed she was First Nations, but Karma said she didn't even know that for sure.

There was one thing I hoped Karma did know for sure: she was my sister, and Casey could never change that.

At lunch, Toni was waiting at my locker, looking cute as ever in skinny jeans, furry boots and a pink heart-patterned hoodie. “Hey,” she said, grinning widely. “I feel like I haven't seen you for ages.”

I tried to grin back, but my smile felt stiff and forced. It was hard to forget the feeling I'd had on the phone the night before. I was pretty sure that Toni would rather be with Finn.

“Come on.” Toni tilted her head to one side. “Cheer up.”

Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was being insecure and oversensitive. Mom always said I blew things out of proportion. “Let's go somewhere we can talk. Like, outside.”

It was raining—a slow, cold drizzle leaking from a lead-heavy gray sky. Toni wrinkled her nose in disgust, and I zipped up my windbreaker.

The nearby coffee shop was packed, its windows steamed up and every seat taken. Toni ordered two hot chocolates, and while she paid, I swooped down like a vulture on an about-to-be vacant table.

“Okay,” Toni said as she put the drinks down. “So tell me. How's it going with Jax?”

Disposable cups. “You should have said the drinks were for here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. What's up?”

“I don't know if I really want a boyfriend, you know?”

“He's pretty cute. I mean, I get that.” She stirred her hot chocolate, but her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.

“What is it?”

“Don't be mad, okay?”

“Why? Is this about what Finn said about Jax?”

She nodded, still looking down at her drink. “He said he wouldn't leave his sister alone in a room with him.”

“So? His sister's what, twelve?”

“Thirteen.” Toni shrugged. “I don't know, Dylan. Just be careful, that's all I'm saying.”

“He was kind of a jerk last night anyway. I don't know. It's not, like, the biggest thing in my life at the moment.”

“Your dad?”

“Uh-huh. All that.”

“You said things didn't go so well.”

I stirred my drink slowly, tracing three perfect circles, and licked the spoon. “That's an understatement,” I said at last. “Turns out his kid has leukemia and he wants me to be a bone marrow donor.”

“Whoa.” Toni leaned back. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Kind of weird, huh?”

“He shows up after sixteen years because he wants your blood for his kid? Jesus. That's intense.”

“Bone marrow. Not blood.”

“Whatever.”

I scowled. “Easy for you to say. It's not your hip bone that's going to get needles stuck in it.”

Toni winced. “You are going to do it though? Right?”

“Yeah. I mean, what choice do I have?”

“No choice, really.” Toni took a cautious sip. “It sucks though. I figured he wanted to get to know you or something.”

I watched the steam rising from my drink. “Mom told me something last night. You know how I always thought Mark never wanted to meet me?”

She nodded.

“Turns out he never even knew about me.”

“What do you mean?”

The room felt too small and noisy and crowded, and sitting still suddenly seemed like torture. “Mom never told him she was pregnant.”

“Whoa. You're serious?”

I nodded. There was a big lump in my throat. “Can we walk?”