In Dreaming Reality

I stared at my parents, who were not my parents... Though we were still sitting at the kitchen table in the same kitchen we had been a few minutes ago, everything felt different. So many emotions filled me, adding to everything I had already been feeling. I felt unmoored, unanchored and like I was about to drown. A part of me knew I had already been feeling out of place since coming home in the summer. Coming home to a new home, and all the changes that had been happening with my mom’s new business, my dad’s new job, Anna? She was so much to deal with normally, and since I had come home, her and I weren’t even speaking anymore. I thought about my new friends, my new school— and this whole thing with Topher... the dreams of the Fairlands and the dreams of hell... this was the cherry on top of the whole dang pile of melting poop... Where did I belong? I thought I belonged here with my family, with my friends— but now that didn’t even ring true.

Dad cleared his throat, and I tried not to cry. My dad— how much I adored him, he always listened to me, even when what I had to say didn’t make sense, always showered me with love. I’d always been his, ‘little Princess.’ How could I be that now? Now that he had lied to me.

“It was late one night, shortly after we had gotten married, your mother and I- ”

I cringed as he said ‘your mother and I’ and again wished that they had just been honest with me, just told me the truth— when I had asked all so long ago about why there weren’t pictures of me as a baby or my mom pregnant with me— because it’s ususally a big deal having your first kid isn’t it? Normally there are so many pictures, and momentous from the ‘first’ child... none of that existed with me. If they had told me then, I wouldn’t feel as mad or betrayed as I did now. Now, I just felt like I’d been lied to my whole life.

“Angela was upset because she was getting sick all the time, and nothing seemed to be making her better-”

Mom— er— Angela cut in. “We later found out it was because I was pregnant with Annabelle.”

Well, that checked out. We were very close in age— 14 months.

Dad— er— Mike nodded. “So, as I was saying, it was late, and I had just got home from work. I was just an intern at the law firm back then, fresh out of school and working myself to the bone. Angela was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I’d just dragged myself back from the office. It was late— maybe eleven, eleven-thirty... I had just hung my coat up in the closet when there was a thumping noise that came from the front porch.” He paused and cleared his throat, “Angela came running, she thought maybe I had tripped on one of the front steps, granted I had done that many times before, so tired by the time I’d transited home that I was almost asleep.”

“I saw him standing there, and we thought maybe someone had tipped the garbage can, or knocked over the mailbox— so...” She looked over at Mike and smiled, lost in the memory of that night.

“So— when she saw me standing there, we both figured we’d check and see what had happened. I opened the door-”

“And I almost screamed, because there was— how shall I describe it… Well, Gen, you know what those baby basket parasols looked like on the movie the Grinch? There was one of those all pink and frilly sitting on our front porch.”

What the hell? I’d showed up in a pink frilly baby bassinet?

“So, I walked out and peeked into the basket and there you were sleeping, so small and adorable.”

“And almost almost a year old?”

“Hon,”

“Dad, please don’t ‘hon’ me.” I hissed, “you don’t get to say that now, not now— you lied.”

“Genni— please. We would have told you some day, and as unfortunate as it is that it has come out in this way, we had your best interests at heart.” Angela smiled at me and then at Mike.

“Your mother is right.” Mike continued as he adjusted his glasses on his face, looking so serious. “What happened next confirmed it, at least for us. See Gen— we took you inside, and called child protective services, and the RCMP. They were going to put you into foster care, if we couldn’t keep looking ate would while they searched for your parents— and we couldnt imagine doing that to you. So for a while, you were in our care, and they searched Gen— trust me I know they did... but they just couldn’t find your birth parents.”

Well, no freaking kidding— my biological birth parents were from a different reality. There was no way anyone would have found them.

“We assumed the worst.” Angela shivered, and Mike put his arm around her. “What if you had been kidnapped or your parents were criminals? Or worse yet— what if they were dead.”

“Months went by, and you became part of our family. Angela was expecting then— and we decided that since your family had been taken from you, we would be your family. I had made some pretty powerful friends by then, friends who assisted us in making it possible to adopt you.”

“You’d come to us without a name, so we gave you one— and since no record of your birth was found, we simply had them put our names on the birth certificate. You are without doubt, our daughter— in every way that counts.”

My heart squeezed in my chest. If only that were true. I wanted to let go of my anger, let go of the fact that they had lied— if only because I loved them both so much— and I might have been able to, if not for the fact that I had met my birth parents, and I knew the truth. The truth that said I simply wasn’t from here, from this dimension... that I wasn’t even human. Behind my ear my crown tattoo pulsated as if it was screaming at me, what did I do now? The Queen and King of the Fairlands would have me come and live with them, take up my role as their daughter— a Fae Princess, who would save their kingdom and marry some prince. What did I want? I took a swig of hot chocolate, but my mouth still felt dry.

“Six months after we found you,” Angela continued, “Annabelle was born, but that didn’t change the fact that you were my first baby, our first baby.” Angela reached across the table and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze. “You are our daughter, and we love you— and we always will.”

I wanted to scream, I gently removed Angela’s hand from my own and sat in silence, digesting everything. I was a Fae, I wasn’t human. I had fairytale-like birth parents in an alternate dimension. I was a princess. My ‘parents,’ Mike and Angela didn’t know any of this— and they never would, because if they did? They would never believe me. How had they managed to lie to our whole family? My aunts and uncle, my grandparents? After all I had said to the King and Queen of the Fairlands? How I had defended Mike, and Angela? My parents...

“Do you even know...” I shook, tired and cold, clenching my fists around my hot chocolate. “Do you even know how much Anna-” I stopped myself. I couldn’t tell them how much Annabelle hated me, it would break their hearts. How Anna had always known, how I had always known there was something that didn’t make sense. Anna blamed me for being spoiled by mom and dad— said I must have twisted them around my little finger— if only she knew that it was probably their guilt for lying that made them treat me the way they did. “Please, don’t tell her.”

“Of course hon,” Mike said in a voice that also sounded tired, “whatever you like.”

I pushed myself off my chair, my mug still in my hands, knowing that if I put it down, I wouldn't be able to hide how I really felt about this whole situation. “I love you both,” I whispered. “I just wish you had told me the truth— wished you had told me the truth sooner...” I swallowed. “And not just because I forced you to, but because it was important to tell me who I was.”

“Gen-”

“I’m tired. It’s late.” I gently put my mug on the table. “Thank you for the hot chocolate.” I turned to leave the room.

“Love you bean.”

I was glad dad couldn’t see my face as I hobbled from the room, because he would have seen my tears. The last thing I wanted my dad to see was to see me cry. I wanted to call out, ‘I love you too,’ but the words caught in my throat and instead I dragged myself up the stairs and into my bed. It was only once I was in my pj’s and wrapped in my blanket cocoon that I allowed myself to fall apart. I sobbed. I sobbed because I had always suspected, I sobbed because I felt like a freak! I mean how would you like to find out you aren’t a human but from another world— doesn’t that make you an alien? … And I sobbed because now I didn’t feel like I belonged here, after all, I wasn’t really part of this family.

When at last I closed my eyes and fell into a feverish sleep, I half expected to dream myself back into Fairlands, but I didn’t. I didn’t even dream of hell— I just tossed and turned. Now I knew the truth I couldn’t go back to being the same Genevieve. I just wasn’t sure who I wanted to be anymore— only that I knew there was something fishy going on and I wanted to get to the bottom of it— and if I did I was never going to be the same ‘me ever again.