Science Took My Family

For fifteen years, I lived in a foster home waiting for my parents to come back for me.

Martha, the director of the home, always told me that my mother and father were brilliant scientists. She said their research was too dangerous, the laboratories too hazardous for a child.

She promised that as soon as their massive project was finished, they would come take me home.

But fifteen years slipped by, and their project never seemed to end.

On the day I graduated middle school at the top of my state, Mayor Wilkins personally came to congratulate me.

"You really are Craig's son. You've set such a wonderful example for your little sister."

That was the exact moment I found out.

My parents' research project had ended years ago.

They didn't leave me here because their work was dangerous. They left me because they had a new child.

It was fine. I didn't want to wait for them anymore.

I tore up the elite invitation letter sent by their research institute.

I walked straight to Martha's office.

"Is Dr. Sarah still looking to adopt me?"

The mayor's voice slowly turned into a muffled buzz in my ears.

"Oh, right. You haven't met your sister yet, have you?"

He held up his phone.

On the screen, my father, my mother, and a little girl were smiling brightly. They looked like the absolute picture of happiness.

The mayor pointed to a small, empty wooden chair positioned in the corner of the photograph and chuckled.

"This is their tenth annual family portrait. Look at that. Every single year, they make sure to leave a seat open for you."

I stared at that perfect, happy photo, and a sudden, biting cold washed over me.

The sister I had never met.

She was already ten years old.

She was born during the exact year my parents claimed to be at their absolute busiest.

Ten years ago, I contracted a severe case of encephalitis.

The doctors told the foster home that if I didn't respond to the treatment, my cognitive development might permanently stop at the age of five.

I lay in a hospital bed, burning with a violent fever. In my delirium, I just kept crying out for my mom and dad.

Martha had called them, wiping her own tears away, begging them to come look at me just once.

But my parents simply expressed their deep regrets.

They said their research had entered a critical phase and they absolutely could not step away.

They wired a massive sum of money to the foster home and told Martha to make sure I got the best doctors.

But when Martha placed the phone next to my ear, begging them to at least say a few words to me, they hurriedly hung up.

Martha was too old to stay up all night.

It was Dr. Sarah who stayed by my hospital bed. She took me to every scan, held my hand through every needle, and stayed awake for days on end.

Because of that, Sarah lost out on an eighty-million-dollar federal grant she had been pursuing for six months.

But on the day I was finally discharged, Sarah smiled brighter than the sun.

She told me that as long as I was healthy, she would gladly lose a hundred grants.

Deep down, even back then, I understood.

I simply wasn't that important to my parents.

But I used to comfort myself by imagining them in white coats, working tirelessly to change the world. If they were that busy saving the future, the least I could do was be a good, quiet boy.

Now I knew the truth. It wasn't that they didn't have time to raise a child.

They just didn't have time to raise me.

Mayor Wilkins was still happily ruffling my hair.

"Now that you've been selected for the Vanguard Academy's youth program, you'll finally get to be with your folks!"

The anticipation I had carried for a decade vanished. I just gave a hollow nod.

A notification chimed on the mayor's phone. A voice message played out loud.

"Just like last time, please intercept Rowan's invitation to the Academy. Pearl is transitioning to middle school right now, and we don't want his arrival to upset her."

I froze.

This wasn't the first time the Vanguard Academy had invited me.

And it wasn't the first time my parents had intercepted it.

All my blood, sweat, and tears. Erased with a single text message.

The mayor's smile stiffened.

He hastily locked his phone and looked at me with cautious, nervous eyes.

"Rowan... about that invitation letter I gave you earlier..."

I pretended I hadn't heard the voice message.

I patted my chest, right where I had carefully tucked the envelope earlier, and offered a sheepish, apologetic smile.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Mayor. I think I accidentally lost it. That's okay, right?"

Mayor Wilkins let out a very obvious sigh of relief.

"Of course it's okay. It's just a standard research program anyway. You don't need to go all the way out there. You stay right here in Seattle, and you'll easily get into MIT or Harvard."

My fingernails dug so deeply into my palms that the pain was the only thing stopping my tears.

I wasn't stupid.

I knew the Academy wasn't the thing that was unnecessary.

I was.

The institute where my parents worked was globally renowned. There was nothing "standard" about it.

Years ago, they used to call on my birthday and encourage me to study hard. They promised that one day, we would reunite in those very halls.

So I studied like my life depended on it. I studied until the fingers on my right hand were covered in thick, yellow calluses.

All just to get a tiny bit closer to them.

And now, they had personally shattered that dream.

The brutal reality finally set in.

Their excuses about being swamped with work were lies. Their claims about the labs being too dangerous for a kid were lies.

The very existence of my little sister was the ultimate, glaring proof.

It proved that I, the boy dumped in a foster home and left to rot, was nothing but a pathetic joke.

Maybe when I was screaming in agony from the brain swelling, they felt a fleeting moment of worry.

But it was nothing compared to the overwhelming joy they felt hearing their new baby cry for the first time.

Maybe when I scored perfect grades and Martha sent them my report cards, they smiled.

But it couldn't hold a candle to the emotion they felt hearing Pearl call them Mom and Dad.

It was exactly like that empty chair in their family portrait.

They didn't leave that seat open because they were waiting for me.

They left it open because they had grown perfectly comfortable with my absence.

That chair was just like me. Collecting dust in a dark corner, only dragged out into the light when it made them look good.

The mayor looked at me with thinly veiled pity.

He patted my shoulder gently. "Don't be sad, Rowan. Once you get into a good college on the East Coast, you'll see them."

He drove me back to the foster home.

The moment I walked through the doors, a crowd of strangers with cameras swarmed me.

A woman shoved a massive novelty check made of foam board into my hands.

Printed in bold black letters across the top:

[Charity Foundation Educational Grant for the Orphan Rowan: $50,000.]

The word 'Orphan' burned my eyes like acid.

My eyes flushed red and I immediately tried to hand it back. "You made a mistake. I'm not an orphan."

A plump woman laughed and patted my head. "We did our background checks, honey. Your legal guardianship belongs to the state. You have no registered relatives. There's no mistake."

While I stood there in absolute shock, Martha gently pulled me aside.

Her weathered face was filled with profound guilt.

"Rowan... there is something you need to know. The day before you collapsed from the fever, your parents came here."

I felt like someone had swung a baseball bat into my ribs. My voice shook violently.

"Then why didn't I see them?"

Martha looked at me with the exact same pity the mayor had shown. The kind of sympathy reserved for someone whose entire life is a tragedy.

"Your parents were applying for a massive federal appointment. They needed a flawless public image. But the doctors told them your brain damage might be permanent."

She took a shaky breath.

"They didn't want the burden of a disabled child distracting them from baby Pearl. So they signed your legal rights over to the state, claimed their work environment was too toxic for a child, and rushed back to the city."

It was the middle of a blistering summer, but I felt like I was drowning in an icy lake.

Violent shivers ripped through my body.

The echoing laughter of the other kids from when I was five years old flooded my mind.

They're never coming back for you! You're just a stray!

Nobody wants you! Why do you get the gold star?

I remembered clutching that little paper star to my chest, screaming back at them.

You're lying! My mom and dad are the greatest scientists in the world! They're coming to take me home!

In the ensuing scuffle, they had pushed me into the decorative pond.

Right before I lost consciousness in the water, my last thought had been a wish.

I wished my mom and dad were there. Because if they were, they would never let anyone bully me.

Now I knew. They had literally been in the building that day.

And they couldn't even spare five minutes to look at me before throwing me away.

They were the ones who permanently branded me an unwanted stray.

Martha's rough, warm hands enveloped mine.

"Rowan, I know how much it hurts to accept that word. But the home is desperate right now. We really need this grant money."

Seeing the deep lines of sorrow carved into the face of the woman who actually raised me, I wanted to sob.

"Three, two, one, smile!"

The camera flashes burned into my retinas.

They captured the moment perfectly. Me, clutching a giant piece of foam board that declared me parentless.

I stared dead into the camera lenses and accepted the heavy stacks of cash.

"On behalf of all orphans, I want to thank the community and the media for your care."

Every single word that left my mouth felt like a knife dragging across my skin.

As the applause thundered through the room, a dark thought crossed my mind.

If my parents saw this broadcast, would they feel even a single second of guilt?

That evening, the foster home threw a small party to celebrate my exam scores.

To reward me, Betty, our cook, had bought fresh Dungeness crab.

I worked tirelessly to crack the shells, even though I actually hated crab.

Eating too much of it always gave me terrible stomach cramps.

The only reason everyone thought I loved crab was because on my twelfth birthday, my parents had randomly shipped a massive cooler of them to the home.

So, even though the sharp claws cut my fingers and my stomach twisted in pain, I smiled and ate every last bite.

Someone in the dining room flipped the TV channel, landing on a science and lifestyle talk show.

My father's face suddenly filled the screen.

The host smiled at him. "Craig, let's step away from the lab for a moment. Do you know your daughter's favorite food?"

My father let out a helpless laugh. His tone was dripping with a profound, tender affection I had never heard in my life.

"She is incredibly picky. I remember one year, she was obsessed with crab. Her mother and I practically bought out a local fishery for her. But a week later, my little girl decided she hated them."

As he spoke, the cold, sharp demeanor of a leading academic completely vanished.

He was just a normal, hopelessly devoted dad.

"We didn't know what to do. We ended up shipping boxes of crab to everyone we knew. Close friends, distant acquaintances. We shipped them off just to get rid of them."

A sharp piece of crab shell sliced the corner of my mouth.

Blood slowly dripped down my chin.

I didn't move. I didn't even feel the sting.

Because the agonizing pain in my chest eclipsed everything else.

In that moment, I wanted to smash through the screen, grab him by the collar, and scream.

What about me? What am I to you? A close friend? Or a distant acquaintance?

The gift I had cherished so deeply. The proof that they still remembered me.

It was just the garbage their precious daughter refused to eat.

Martha rushed over with a napkin, frantically wiping the blood from my mouth.

Tears finally breached my eyes. I reached into my shirt and pulled out the thick, wax-sealed invitation envelope from the Vanguard Academy. It was still warm from my body heat.

Then, piece by piece, I tore it to shreds.

I let the confetti of expensive paper fall into the pile of broken crab shells.

Crabs I didn't want to eat. Parents who didn't want to love me.

I was done with all of it.

I looked up at Martha, my voice eerily calm.

"Martha. Dr. Sarah... is she still waiting for me?"

Martha looked confused.

"Sarah is supposed to transfer back to her main research station in a couple of days. But yes, she's been constantly submitting adoption papers for you. Why do you ask?"

I looked at her, a tear-streaked smile breaking across my face.

"I want to be Sarah's son."

"I'm not going to the Vanguard Academy. I'm going with Sarah to the Cascade Mountain Observatory."

This was Sarah's ninety-ninth time submitting an adoption application, and the very first time I didn't refuse.

It wasn't that I didn't love Sarah.

She was the only person who had ever made me feel truly loved.

Compared to the ghost-like promise of my parents returning, Sarah's love was a physical, grounding force.

Unlike my mother, who sent me clothes that were always two sizes too big, Sarah would take me to the store, buy me a fitted suit, and patiently teach me how to tie a Windsor knot.

Unlike my father, whose only reaction to my perfect grades was a sterile text saying Congratulations, Rowan, Sarah would read with me for hours and press a warm kiss to my forehead before bed.

The only reason I had rejected her before was because I thought belonging to someone else would be a betrayal to my parents.

But the truth was, my parents had betrayed me the day I was born.

I was nothing but a biological accident.

Pearl was their actual child.

The legal transfer was incredibly smooth.

When Sarah called the Cascade Observatory to tell them the news, the board was ecstatic.

They immediately promised to allocate their top resources to my education.

After a tearful goodbye with my foster family, Sarah and I began our journey.

I thought I would never have to deal with the East Coast research circles again.

But fate has a twisted sense of humor. Our first stop before heading to the mountains was a national science exposition.

Sarah was representing the Observatory as a keynote speaker.

"Rowan, I need to get backstage to prep. Go walk around and check out whatever exhibits you like."

I nodded obediently and wandered through the massive convention center, entirely absorbed in the robotics displays.

"Rowan?"

The voice startled me.

When I turned around, it felt like an invisible hand had reached into my chest and crushed my lungs.

I thought I didn't care anymore.

But my breathing hitched, and my throat tightened painfully.

I forced myself to breathe, suppressing the tremor in my voice.

"Sir. Ma'am. It's been a long time."

My father and mother stood there, staring at me with expressions of utter shock.