You’re Adopted

I don’t really look like my mother. She’s a 5 foot tall pale white woman with a pronounced bridge on her nose and curly grey hair. The only thing I inherited from her side is colorblindness and a short temper. I am much more like my father in both appearance and mannerism. Bearing his family name helps establish my heritage on paper, if people actually read. We’re both Asian, I’m told.

My twin brother and I don’t look all that similar but you can tell we’re related. You’d think given our virtually identical DNA there’d be a closer resemblance. No, we don’t speak in twin code or anything.

Skin color defines our fraternal existence. People always say he looks white and I don’t. Even as babies we looked totally unrelated; I came out of the womb with a nice healthy tan and he was a bright pink roly-poly.

We lived with mom in California Wine Country for most of our childhood. She tried her best as a single suburban mom to expose us to things Chinese, meaning take-out and Mulan.

It was probably strange for our neighbors to see this white woman walking around the block with one white son and little bronzed me. I had to convince skeptical adults we were related more than once. People made comments, which was plenty awkward.

My brother was keenly aware of our dissonance. If I ever pissed him off, he would calmly assert, “well, you’re adopted.”

In those moments, I felt truly alone.

When we moved in with my dad a few years later, I got the last laugh.

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