They brought me to my grandma’s house without asking me if I wanted to go. I was young and I guess at that point I didn’t even know what I wanted. Either way, they made most of my decisions for me. I didn’t know much about what it meant to have a birth grandma. If I’d met her before, I didn’t remember. I didn’t know much about her, much less her daughter, my own mother, the woman who’d brought me into the world and left me in the hands of strangers. The three of us, my mom and dad and I, sat on a side of the table, my grandma and some man on the other. We ate food. They told me it was the food of my people. I didn’t even know who my people were supposed to be. I was thrust into two worlds at once and my head spun. Should I have sat on the other side of the table with my own blood, or where I sat with familiarity? There was a lot to be considered. Around me everyone ate, but I kept still and quiet. Eat they said. I feigned a smile and leaned toward my plate. It smelled of spices unknown to me, unfamiliar to the bland smell of every meal I ate at home. When I took a bite, the taste burst in my sinuses and burned my tongue. I smiled and nodded trying against tears to express satisfaction. They asked me questions from across the table in accented voices. Some of the words I didn’t understand but I tried my best. I fought back the pained emotions I felt at a barrier so insignificant but so powerful as language. I’d never spoke to them, but they were family, and I longed to feel connection. They said my name with emphasis on the i and not the a. It was unfamiliar, as if they were not talking to me. I looked around for this Elizabeth, and realized she was sitting in my seat. The ways my life may have been different engulfed me. The sounds of talking filled the air around me but it was inaudible. Where was I? There were flashing pictures of me in my years growing up. They pointed and smiled. I thought, I’m right here. I thought, you watched me grow up; and then I realized, they didn’t. They watched a 3 minute montage of 2 dimensional me’s grow from 8 pounds to 80, grow from 1 foot to 5, and then they were talking about my mother, where she lived and what she did. There was a cell phone. It wasn’t mine, or my mom’s or dad’s, but it was thrust against my ear. A voice wove itself in my ear. I’d never heard it before, but it struck me sharply. She said hi baby. I can only assume she was talking to me. I said Hi. I waited a second, I didn’t know how to address her, so I stopped after Hi. She asked How am I? It was casual conversation, and I didn’t know what to say. How am I in general, or how am I now? Confused beyond all imaginings actually. I said I am good. She said am I in school? Yes, I’m in 7th grade, I like school and I like sports. She told me her English isn’t very good. She breathed like it was hard for her to say. We were quiet for a second. She said I have to go now. I didn’t get it. She said I love you baby. I didn’t understand. My eyes filled, my voice quivered, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say. Instinct came in an evading eye-contact tone, I love you too. Why though? I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me, but she left me, and left me feeling abandoned, somehow, for a second time.