WordSisters

Rain hammered the passenger van, rattling the metal like gravel tossed against a tin roof. Each burst sounded closer, louder, as if the storm were trying to break its way in. Why today, of all days, when Juan was visiting his birth family?

We had planned it so carefully. We’d even had a kind of rehearsal the day before with Crystel’s birth family. The sun shone right up until the moment we left the amusement park. It couldn’t have been more perfect, her birth family and extended family gathered for lunch, then rides. Laughter. Fun. Unity. All the while, Jody and I worked quietly together, reading each other’s cues, me opening the bright orange Pollo Campero boxes, warm with chicken and fries, and her spreading the food across the tables and twisting open bottles of soda.

Outside, the rain was relentless, steady and unforgiving, as if reminding us again and again: there is no escaping the comparisons, no matter how hard we tried.

Jody and I insisted, repeatedly, “You can’t compare, kids. Your birth families are different. Circumstances are different. You are both deeply loved by your birth moms and families, that’s what matters. No one is better, and no one is less. What you can do is help each other through these visits.”

That became our refrain across five birth-family visits, beginning when they were nine.

Guatemala was both their birth country and our vacation destination. We hiked. We cliff-jumped. We wandered through villages. Volcanoes rose near and far, and water threaded our days, rivers, lakes, sudden downpours. We even considered buying a home there, going so far as to meet with realtors and walk through properties for sale.

Some days ended with rainbows.

Juan and Crystel, now twenty-one, encouraged and supported each other during their visits. Crystel insisted Juan stay close to her, and Juan counted on her to be the cord connecting him to his birth sister.

Comparisons drizzled in. Rain or sun. Large family, small family. City or remote mountain village. Kiosk trinkets or hand-woven cloth.

Juan traced circles on the fogged window and said nothing. With his other hand he held tight to his girlfriend Aryanna, pressed close beside him, as if neither of them wanted to risk losing the other. It was her first time in Guatemala, and in a short while she would meet his birth mom.

Rain pressed in from the outside, forcing us closer together. The windows wouldn’t clear. Plans changed again and again. Finding Juan’s birth mom, Rosa, and explaining where we could meet her became a chore. We had to rely on others for communication. Juan and Crystel, after years of schooling, spoke Spanish hesitantly, enough to get by, not yet fluent.

Crystel kept checking her phone, chuckling to herself, probably on WhatsApp with the group chat her oldest birth sibling had created. I watched her, the quick way her fingers flew across the keypad, and felt a swell of relief. She was in charge now, exactly what Jody and I had hoped for. Beneath that relief was an ache I couldn’t quite name. Her spirit, bubbly, light, unrestrained, lit the van. It was the best part of her.

I wasn’t in control. Exhausted, I leaned my head against the damp windowpane and let my knee rest against Jody’s. She reached for my hand and held it tight. Our warmth gave me a moment’s reprieve, just enough. I had done so much research before our Guatemala trips, planning the vacation and each birth-family meeting. There was always something new to look forward to, some adventure we hadn’t tried yet. Hang gliding off a volcano was supposed to be the latest, a plan the rain scrapped at the base of the mountain road.

What Jody and I could control was bringing the kids to see their birth families. Before every visit there was a crescendo, the build-up, the tension, the pressure to get it right. We had only four to six hours. And then we took our children back home.

How is that fair?

We had the children for a lifetime. We could bring them for a visit and then leave. I wonder now if each visit left a bruise we couldn’t see, a reminder that reunion was always followed by another leaving.

All of these thoughts churned in the relentless rain. Plans shifted to meeting at a mall.

Would the visit be enough? It had to be.

The mall rose out of the sprawling city, volcano silhouettes in the distance and palm fronds brushing the edges of the parking lot. Jody squeezed my hand, then let go. “We’re here,” she said, gathering the gift bags. Inside, the rush of air-conditioning wrapped around us, a shock after the humid air that smelled faintly of rain and exhaust. Spanish pop music echoed off the tiled floors, layered with bursts of laughter. My eyes widened like a kid at Christmas. Bright storefronts glowed in rows, mannequins in glossy shoes, phone screens flashing. I hadn’t expected this in Guatemala. It could have been the Mall of America. A kiosk brewed coffee dark and sweet, the scent mingling with fresh bread and fried empanadas.

“Beth,” Jody urged, “keep walking.”

“Yeah, you’re staring again, Mom,” Crystel said.

Rosa, Juan’s birth mom, and Ani, his sister, spotted us first.

Rosa reached for Juan’s hand. “Mi hijo,” she whispered.

I saw Jody step slightly back, giving them space, her eyes shining but fixed on Juan, as if she were willing him courage.

Juan’s smile was small, careful. “Hola.”

We had come for adventure, hang-gliding off volcanoes, cliff-jumping into clear water. The real leap was here, in a mall court, watching our son meet the woman who first held him. I held my breath.

Aryanna, full of anticipation, studied Rosa’s face, wanting this distant mother to see her as Juan’s special person. Crystel had already sidled up to Ani, a few years younger than she and Juan, slipping an arm through hers. They stood there together, comfortable as sisters. Each of them loved Juan in their own way.

In that bright, echoing mall, families shopped for shoes and phones while ours tried, in four short hours, to stitch together a kind of love that would hold until the next visit.

Visits that were never promised. Only hoped for.

On the drive back to the hotel, a faint arc appeared in the clearing sky, the beginning, maybe, of double rainbows. I wondered which of us would feel the bruise first, and how long it would linger.