I throw a glare over my shoulder. “You want to take over?”
My brother backs away, hands raised in surrender.
Facing the door, I knock again.
“Go away! I’ll call 911!” The barrier muffles her words, but the threat is still audible.
Shit.My eager hope twists into desperation as the situation falls out of my control. If she calls the authorities, we have to leave. Immediately. Dash doesn’t need a run-in with police when he just finished his parole.
In my imagination, I always pictured bringing up this topic delicately. Sitting down together at a table and using a careful tone as I explained the circumstances.
But when has delicacy ever been how my family dealt with the world?
“I’m your granddaughter!” I yell, tilting my head back, trying to give the words enough power to pierce through the building between us.
She meets my shout with an extended silence.
“Maybe we should write her a letter or something.” Dash offers the suggestion carefully. “Give her time to process.”
Sure, he makes sense. But I didn’t fly from Nashville to Philadelphia to have a door slammed in my face.
“Is your daughter Vivian?” I holler, not caring if all this ruckus brings her rich-ass neighbors out of their houses to give us dirty looks.
“No. That isnotmy daughter’s name. See? You’re lying to me.”
At least I know she’s still listening to me.
“I have a picture. Is this your daughter?” I hold up my phone toward the peephole.
Mom loves posting on social media, especially pictures from when she was in her early twenties. A time she did a superb job of pretending she didn’t have three kids.
“I’m not opening my door!”
I try not to growl in frustration. This is not going at all how I imagined.
Pulling on a special piece of knowledge, I bring up the name I saw on a hidden birth certificate. The one that led me here.
“Is your daughter Tsai Mei-ling?” Good bet I butchered the pronunciation.
Another stretch of silence.
“In her defense, that info is probably public record. Anyone trying to scam her could look it up,” Dash whispers.
I grit my teeth and then relax my jaw, acknowledging the truth of his statement.
“How about a man named Bill Lamont?” I bark. “Do you know him?” My voice loses volume as my hope for this situation dwindles.
The door wrenches open.
“Bill Lamont is the devil,” she hisses.
“Then consider us his demon spawn,” I snap back, holding up my phone again now that there’s nothing dividing us. “Is this your daughter?”
Eyes still full of distrust, the woman at least leans forward to squint at the picture. I found one of the few images Mom posted with us kids, all the Lamonts looking downright happy at the zoo. The type of outing a normal family does regularly.
We went once and never again.
“That’s her,” the woman answers, her voice losing the sharp edge from a moment ago. “That’s my Mei-ling.” Still, she doesn’t step out of her doorway to invite us in. Her age-marked fingers grip the wood harder. “But that’s not proof.”