BooksBarbecue
Back Snow Creek
Chapters (57)
  1. Books by Gregg Olsen
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Hear More from Gregg
  55. Books by Gregg Olsen
  56. A Letter from Gregg
  57. Acknowledgements

Dr. A: Tell me about finding Aunt Ginger.

Me: It was flat-out weird. I’d never even heard of her and Hayden and I were about to knock on her door. I didn’t know how we’d feel. How she would feel. Or even if she knew about me and Hayden. So much of our lives had been compartmentalized. I remember standing outside, looking at her gray and blue two-story. It was tucked into the base of a ridge down from the mountains. It was old. But in decent repair. I’d seen an episode of Dr. Phil in which some kids went looking for their birth parents only to find out they were living in a rusted-out trailer on some riverbank somewhere. The kids on the show had decided that their adoptive parents weren’t so bad after all.

Dr. A: It’s good to be grateful for what you have.

Me: I am alive. And I’m grateful for that. (pause) I remember when she opened the door, how much she looked like me and my mom. She was about my height. Her hair was long, not Mormon-sister-wife long, but close. I remember how she reacted when I told her who we were.

Dr. A: Go on, Rylee. What did she do?

Me: She looked nervous. Scared. Anxious. Her light blue eyes narrowed, and I watched her eyelids flutter. She looked around the street, her yard, the driveway, and told us to hurry inside. The first thing she asked was where her sister was. I told her, “He’s got her.” And then she did something weird.

Dr. A: Weird? How so?

Me: It was something no one other than my parents had ever done. She hugged me. I didn’t know her. But I just started crying. I mean, tears just streaming down my face. Hayden too. In fact, all three of us just sobbed. I melt into her arms and I cry harder than I ever have since the ordeal began. I can cry loudly because I feel that someone cares and that even though I’m in a stranger’s place, I’m with family. It wasn’t a reunion of joy, but something completely different. We are a sobbing mass of pain, loss and fear.

I tell Dr. Albright how strange it was to hear this newfound aunt call our mother Courtney. Her real name. Not the one engraved on the dog tags that I wore around my neck. My mother’s name wasn’t Ginger. Ginger was my aunt. What’s more, I was stunned by her reaction to us appearing on her doorstep. She wasn’t shocked.