Far From the Tree

Maya’s dad moves back into the house while her mother is in rehab. After the accident, Maya and Lauren tell their dad about the wine bottles hidden all over the house. Their dad suggests that the girls go to counseling, but Maya refuses because she thinks her mom is “the one with the problem” (241). Lauren asks why Maya and Claire haven’t been hanging out, and Maya admits that they broke up. When Lauren learns that Maya told Grace and Joaquin knew about the breakup, but not her, she is hurt and accuses Maya of “abandon[ing] [her] family” (242), especially when Maya mentions that Grace wants to find their bio mom. One day at school, Claire confronts Maya. She says Lauren texted her and told her that their mother was in rehab, and Claire wants to know why Maya didn’t tell her. Maya tries to downplay the incident, but Claire pushes Maya and begs her to open up to her about what is going on.

Maya feels a mix of anger and fear, and she says that this is none of Claire’s business. She tells Claire to “stop texting with [Maya’s] sister” (246) and storms away. On Sunday, when the siblings meet at the mall, they are approached by two boys from Grace’s school. One of them, Adam, taunts Grace and calls her a slut. Joaquin leaps to his feet and pins Adam against a wall. He says that Grace is his sister, and if Adam ever talks to Grace again, “[they’re] going to have problems” (250). Adam cowers, and when Joaquin lets him go, the boys run away. Joaquin is horrified by what he has done, and he “sprint[s] away from [Maya and Grace], trying to escape” (251).

Joaquin runs from the coffee shop, overwhelmed with shame and fear. He is angry with himself for “slip[ping] into that white-hot space that he had spent years trying to avoid” (252), and when Grace and Maya chase him down, he apologizes for “ruin[ing] [their] day” (253). Maya and Grace comfort him, but they want to know why he ran away. Suddenly, Joaquin tells his sisters the story of what happened with the Buchanans, the last family that adopted him. He says that when he was 12, he lived with the Buchanans, and they were decent to him. When the Buchanans adopted Joaquin, he started throwing tantrums and “black[ed] out with this anger” (256). He found himself worrying that his biological mom would return and “think [Joaquin] [had] replaced her” (257), and this guilt filled him with fear and rage. One day, Joaquin threw a terrible tantrum and tried to throw a stapler at Mr. Buchanan.

The stapler missed its mark but accidentally hit the Buchanans’ toddler, Natalie, who got a concussion. The Buchanans returned Joaquin to foster care because he was “a danger to the other kids” (259). Joaquin was placed on a psych hold, and placing him in a foster home became harder because of his age and violent history. Because of his experience with the Buchanans, Joaquin is terrified of allowing Mark and Linda to adopt him because he “love[s] them too much” (260) to hurt them. Maya and Grace tell Joaquin that he isn’t that kid anymore, and even though he attacked Adam, he was only defending Grace. Joaquin cries and calls himself a monster, but Grace promises that “no matter what, Maya and [Grace] won’t give [him] back” (262) as the Buchanans did.

During her therapy session with her parents, the therapist asks Grace if she feels okay with her decision to give Milly up for adoption. Grace replies that “it’s a done deal” and that “[Milly’s] in a much better home” with “a better family for her” (265). Her parents are concerned and don’t want Grace to get hurt by a boy again. They say that Grace needs more time to heal before she gets into another relationship, but Grace tells them that she’s “not going to heal” (266) from giving up her child. Her mom suddenly asks Grace about the photos of Milly hidden in her room. Grace finally admits that she “want[s] to find [her] biological mom,” and she “want[s] [her parents] to be okay with that” (268). Her parents promise to support her, and Grace thinks back to all the times her parents have been there for her over the years. Later, Grace and Rafe go running together, and she tells him about her busybody neighbor who tattled on them for hanging out together.

Rafe guesses that this has something to do with the fact that Grace is white and Rafe is Mexican. Grace mentions that her brother is half-Mexican, but he grew up without any exposure to Mexican culture. Rafe says that he “can go back to [his] family for support,” and he adds that if Joaquin doesn’t have that sense of belonging in his own culture, “then that’s got to be fucking hard” (272). Grace asks if Rafe would be willing to meet with Joaquin, and he agrees. They share a briefly romantic moment, and although Grace wants to kiss him, she knows that the time isn’t right. She decides to just enjoy her time with Rafe without any pressure.

Maya is still angry with Lauren for texting Claire, and her mom’s absence becomes more obvious as she settles into a new routine with her dad at home. One night, Maya tells Lauren and her dad that “Grace and Joaquin and [Maya] think that [they] should look for [their] bio mom” (275). Lauren becomes angry and says that Maya already has a family. Maya’s dad is apprehensive and suggests that they talk to Maya’s mom about this, but Maya retorts that she can’t talk to her mother about this while she’s in rehab. Her dad becomes flustered and leaves the dinner table. Lauren scolds Maya for making their dad feel even worse about the situation with their mom. Lauren reminds Maya that she’s “not the only one who had to dig wine bottles out of [their] Mom’s closet,” and just because Maya has “this whole new family that [she] can just run away to” (277) doesn’t mean she should forget about her other family.

Maya explodes and tells Lauren that she doesn’t feel like she belongs in this family, and she says that she is just “trying to find [her] space in this world” (278). Maya storms away, but later that night, she can’t sleep and goes downstairs to find Lauren awake. Maya explains that she feels like the odd one out in family photos, but she doesn’t resent Lauren for blending in. Lauren assures Maya that their parents “would never pick one of [them] and not the other” (279). Maya apologizes for treating Lauren so poorly and promises to tell Lauren if she goes looking for her bio mom. Maya swears that Grace, Joaquin, and her bio mom will never replace her family, but she has questions that she wants answers to.