Free I, Emma Freke by Elizabeth Atkinson

gently lowered myself down on to the sofa.
    â€œI have to talk to you now, Donatella.”
    â€œWell, it’ll just have to wait!”
    I raised my voice.
    â€œIt. Can’t. Wait.”
    My mother slowly spun around. I finally had her attention. She didn’t seem to notice now that my wet pants were soaking through her precious couch cushions.
    â€œWhat do you mean? Are you in trouble?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you shoplift? Trespass? Smoke?”
    â€œNothing like that.”
    I folded my hands in my lap.
    â€œThen what is it?” she cried throwing her arms up in the air.
    â€œIt’s something I should have discussed with you a long time ago.”
    â€œGood goddess, Emma, I have a date with a gorgeous, thirty-nine-year-old lobsterman in six minutes!
Out with it!
”
    For the first time in my life, I studied her puffy, pouty lips and her pudgy button nose and those large, glittering eyes gathered at the center of her full face that reflected nothing—absolutely nothing—of me.
    â€œAm I adopted?”

At first she was still and completely silent.
    Then she collapsed over the back of the couch bursting into deep laughter, laughing harder than I had ever heard her laugh. She was even snorting. Finally, she ran to the bathroom because she thought she might “explode.”
    A minute later, the toilet flushed and Donatella reappeared, wiping away laughing tears from her face with a tissue.
    â€œOh look at me,” she said, still hiccupping with the giggles, “my face is a mess.”
    â€œSo?” I asked waiting for an answer. “Am I?”
    Donatella wandered over to the rocking chair and sat on the edge.
    â€œAre you kidding? Is that what this is all about? Do you really think I adopted you and never told you?”
    That’s when I confessed everything that proved it: the physical differences, the total lack of affection or motherly interest, the daughter denial to her boyfriends, the endless chores and work hours, the overall neglect . . . and above all, my hideous, humiliating, horrifying name.
    Her giggles quickly faded into a single, bewildered expression as I informed her of everything she had ever done wrong. I had never seen Donatella look so sad and realized I had said more than I meant to say. Immediately, I worried she would lock herself up for three days again. Or maybe longer.
    But instead, she scooted the rocking chair close to me and took my hand. Something she hadn’t done in a long, long time.
    â€œAll these years, I thought I was treating you like an equal, Emma. I wanted to give you lots and lots of space to be your own person and to always be able to take care of yourself. And I wanted you to feel you could be whoever
you
wanted to be. Something I yearned for growing up but never had. My own mother was so suffocating and overprotective and judgmental and paranoid and strict that I was absolutely miserable!”
    Donatella pounded her chest with her fist as if she were a teenager again trying to explain her feelings to the whole world.
    â€œWHY do you think I ran off and got married at sixteen?”
    â€œBut you make me do so much around here,” I protested.
    â€œBecause you seem to enjoy it!” she practically shrieked. “The only time I see you smile is when you’re working down in the store!”
    â€œWell, what about my name?”
    â€œWhat about it? I love the name Emma. Everyone does! It’s the most popular name in America.”
    â€œThat’s not what I mean!”
    â€œHonestly,” she said as she scrunched up her face, “you’re not making any sense.”
    I gave up. It was like talking to a yo-yo.
    â€œSo you’re saying that I’m really and truly
not
adopted?”
    She squeezed my hand and shook her head no.
    â€œYou’re
really
my mother? And the Salvonis are
really
my family?”
    â€œSorry, kid.”
    How could this be possible? Especially