Free Out of the Box by Michelle Mulder

her the silent treatment when I’ve talked to her every night, except when she didn’t call? She must know it’s not my fault that Jeanette ends our conversations almost as soon as they’ve begun. (My aunt still insists she’s trying to give me breathing space, but how does she imagine causing problems between my mom and me is helping?)
    The woman next to me glances in my direction, and I realize I’m glaring at the computer, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists, my short nails digging into my palms. I close my eyes, breathe deep and try to relax. Above all, I have to remain calm.
    I can’t do anything right away anyway. Firing back an email is out of the question. When Mom’s this upset, all interactions have to be in real time. I need to be able to gauge her mood and adjust my every comment accordingly.
    I glance at the clock on the computer screen. I’m supposed to meet Jeanette at the check-out counter of the library in twenty minutes. I sigh, open a new Internet window, and try to immerse myself in what I came here to do. At first I’m too mad to concentrate properly, but I force myself to focus. I don’t want to think about my family anymore.
    Andrés Moreno desaparecido , I type. This time, I find a few sites that are more than lists of dead people. One site in particular is a whole newspaper article from 1998 with the name included in one of the paragraphs. I click Translate this page , and after a few minutes of deciphering badly translated English, I figure this is what it says:
    After a lifetime of believing he’d been born to a marine officer and his wife, Facundo García now knows he was born on July 7, 1976, in an illegal prison in Banfield in the province of Buenos Aires, where his mother, Caterina Rizzi, was being held. His father, Andrés Moreno, was seized on a crowded city bus on June 17, 1976. Rizzi, who was eight months pregnant at the time, was taken from their house two days later in the middle of the night. The young woman gave birth to her child with the assistance of doctor Jorge Bergés. The baby was delivered, still bloody and wrapped in newspaper, to marine officer Aníbal García and his wife Esmerelda Perez. The doctor then signed a false birth certificate claiming that the child was born in his private clinic in Quilmes and that Perez was the biological mother.
    My heart is pounding, and I feel sick to my stomach. I scan the rest of the article and find the word Canada , followed by a few quotes:
    Today, the young man’s biological parents remain “missing.” However, more than two decades after their disappearance, Facundo García has discovered other relatives and has been welcomed into a large extended family with members as far away as Canada.
    â€œI can’t express what it was like to meet my biological grandparents, aunts and uncles for the first time,” says the young man. “They’ve been actively looking for me for years, and when I see my smile on their faces, or my habitual gestures made by their hands, I realize I’ve been hoping to find them too. I just never knew it would be possible.”
    As for the couple who raised him, he says, “I don’t hate them. It’s the deception that hurts. I’ve always been honest with them, and all my life they’ve been lying to me.”
    I slump back in my chair and blink at the screen. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be Facundo García. No matter how bad my life gets, it could never compare to his.
    And no matter how much I want to honor Alison’s memory by donating money to the soup kitchen, I can’t use the money in the bandoneón case for that, knowing how much Facundo has lost and that I’m holding back one of the few gifts his parents can give him now.
    A tap on my shoulder makes me jump.
    â€œI wondered if I’d find you here,” Jeanette tugs on the straps of her loaded backpack.