Born of starlight and shadows

~Part one (d): Shocked into believing~

"Stella," Mom said hesitantly, appearing in the doorframe. "Can you come downstairs for a moment?"

I looked up from my sketchbook. "What for?"

"Well," she said, "You'll find out. Just come, please."

She began walking out of the room, down the hall.

"Are you in trouble?" Maria asked, pushing her glasses up her nose.

"I-I don't know. Am I?" I asked.

"No," she said. "No one's in trouble. Maria, just...do your homework."

"I already did," Maria said.

"Then find something quiet to do, in your room," she said.

"I-" Maria glanced from Mom to me to back again. "Okay."

Mom glanced at me once, but said nothing. She slowly, carefully made her way down the stairs, and I, not knowing what else to do, followed her into the living room.

"There you are," Dad said, looking up from his phone. "Sit down, will you, Stella?"

"Um, okay," I sat down on the couch directly across from him.

Mom sat in the chair beside me, leaving Dad to sit alone on the loveseat. The late afternoon sunlight illuminated the small room, and I shifted where I sat, restless. I thought of how much time I had spent on my latest art homework and how much more work I needed to do before bed. Why was it so hard for me to actually focus on the other subjects I took in school?

But I'd have to worry about that later.

"Stella," Dad said, leaning forward.

"Yes?" I asked, forcing myself to pay attention to the present.

"Your mother...and I-" he began.

Mom shook her head in his direction.

"That is, the two of us, we haven't been completely honest with you," he finished, looking at me. "And there's something we should have told you a long time ago, but it never seemed like the right moment..."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You might have heard us talking last night," Dad said, "We've thought long and hard about this, but it no longer makes any sense to keep the truth from you. You deserve to know."

"I deserve to know what, exactly?" I asked, looking frantically back and forth between my parents, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

"You see, Stella, you were, well, you were adopted when you were a few months old," she said, avoiding my eyes and looking off into the distance, as if at something only she could see.

"I was?" I asked, shocked. "Why are you telling me now? How could you lie to me for years? My whole life? You aren't my parents...Maria's not my sister, everything I thought I knew isn't real! Why-how-"

Why now, when everything is already spinning out of control?

"I'm sorry," Dad-no, wait, I couldn't even call him that anymore. "It never seemed right."

"And we might not be related to you biologically, but we raised you," Mom-I couldn't call her that anymore, either. "There's more to family than blood, can't you see that?"

"No," I said. "I can't. You-"

I wanted to say "You lied to me."

But the words wouldn't come out.

Hypocrite...some small voice at the back of my mind taunted.

"Just, tell me this," I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. "Is Maria your child?"