Family Family

Fig receives a text that Bex is on a flight to LA that arrives in 15 minutes. She and Jack must sneak out the back to avoid the “smears,” their nickname for paparazzi. When Fig first sees Bex, she thinks they might look alike, but only because they have the same hair color. Bex is white, and Fig is half Korean.

India sleeps in after constantly rewatching Bex’s video all night. She is surprised by the varied emotions she feels seeing her biological child, but mostly, she’s struck by how much Bex reminds her of Robbie in her looks and Camille in her temperament. India enters the kitchen to find Bex eating cereal with Fig and Jack. Stunned, she can only ask how Fig and Bex know one another. She again notices how much Bex’s face favors Robbie and tells her she’s welcome to stay but must call her mother and tell her where she is. Bex says she’s made a second video.

Camille arrives soon after and is angry with Bex for leaving without telling her but grateful to see India for the first time since the adoption. Bex feels strange with India and her mother in the same room, and she thinks about the complex emotions she experienced while on the plane to LA. Though Camille always told her about India, Bex had a distorted view of her because she only knew what she saw in the media. She assumed India lived in a mansion, but she now sees that her life isn’t glamorous.

Fig wants a sisterly relationship with Bex, but she’s uncertain and keeps up her guard. She begins telling Fig the fairytale-like story Camille told her about why India gave her up but stops, feeling embarrassed. She concedes that India was just a scared, pregnant teen who needed an out. Fig disagrees with her mother's judgment and says India has never kept Bex a secret. Bex aptly points out that she has kept her a secret from the public.

It doesn’t take long for India to fall in love with Manhattan and settle into life at school. She clicks immediately with her roommate, Dakota, and soon, the pair are the center of a new group of friends. However, she keeps Rebecca a secret.

To prepare for her first audition for the school’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia—a play India is utterly unfamiliar with—she uses her high school skills to study the play and take notes on index cards. She uses her Merchant of Venice monologue for her audition, but the director asks her to do it again more “earnestly.” Afterward, she is sure she has failed but is happy to get a callback and land the lead role. When she calls her mother to deliver the good news, India credits Rebecca for her good fortune: “Maybe the universe is so happy to have Rebecca in it, it gave me this part as a thank-you” (103). Sarah disagrees and says it’s due to India’s hard work and perseverance.

In the following years, India remains convinced that giving birth to Rebecca was a good luck charm. Whenever she needs to emote for a role, she channels her feelings about Robbie, Rebecca, and the breakup into her performance. However, everything changes during her junior year.

Bex can’t sleep and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. India is awake, and they sit alone together and talk. India says she misses New York, and Bex wants to know if she loves her father. India shares that she and Robbie loved her so much and that she was never unwanted—they just weren’t ready for parenthood. Bex wonders why India couldn’t fathom being a single mom, yet she gave her to a single mother. India responds that it was Camille's choice, and they chose her because she seemed capable of doing it all alone.

India is proud of the way Bex turned out, and in turn, Bex is proud of India’s accomplishments. They agree that most adoption stories are overly traumatic, unlike theirs. India explains that families are complicated but create unshakable bonds. Bex asks if her birth was an “ending” for India, and she responds, “[Y]ou were barely the beginning” (108).

India meets Davis Shaw when they audition for A Doll’s House. Davis is a computer science major but says he is auditioning for the play because it is his Norwegian grandmother’s favorite. India is confused because Davis is Black. He explains that his grandmother is white, and he is only half Black. Despite her accusing him of not being a serious thespian, Davis lands the lead male role opposite India.

Davis has a natural talent. India shares dinner with him every night after rehearsal and they study in the library together. Since they are playing husband and wife, they share intimate moments on stage, but India chalks their chemistry up to what typically happens between two leads. Davis’s attraction grows, but she says no when he asks her out. In rehearsals, they struggle to nail the final scene, and India knows that it is because her lived experience is so close to Nora’s, the lead character. Though she never abandoned a child, she knows what it feels like to walk away from motherhood.

Davis thinks she is angry at him, but she breaks down and tells him about Rebecca and why the scene is so hard for her. Davis calls her decision “brave,” but India says she didn’t do much but house a growing child. They share a passionate kiss, and she knows the attraction is real.

Ajax arrives to tell India that the new revelations about her secret teenage pregnancy have made Val Halla’s production team angry, and they feel as though they can’t trust her. India maintains that having a child at 16 is far from scandalous and that her teenage life is none of their business.

Bex wants to see the Hollywood sign, so they pile in the car and prepare to deal with the "smears” camping outside the house. Evelyn Esponson is in a limousine, and India asks her to leave. Evelyn refuses and tells her that she has a “surprise.” Reporting live from the driveway, Evelyn calls Bex a “love child” and ushers a man from the limo, claiming she is about to reunite him with his daughter. When he sees Bex, he looks confused. India laughs, telling Evelyn that she has the wrong birth father.

After the play ends, India assumes she and Davis will break up like Nora and Torvald, but they continue dating even though India has to go home for the summer. Everywhere she goes in her hometown reminds her of Robbie. She secretly hopes she will run into Camille and Rebecca and even plans what to say to the little girl. She and Davis start talking about the future, but she doesn’t slow down long enough to ponder what that means.

When she learns the two plays will be Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, she spends the rest of the summer studying the plays using her notecards. When they return to school, Al, the director, announces that he is gender-swapping the roles, and India is devastated, thinking all her summer work was wasted. She spends a week acting like a man to prepare to audition for the male lead, including forgoing bathing and ignoring Davis. After landing the role of Benedick, India returns to acting like a woman. She and Davis have sex, but she realizes that in the chaos of audition prep, she didn't take her birth control pills.

India is angry with Davis for allowing Evelyn to bring him there, seeing how Bex is not his daughter since she’s white. Davis hasn’t seen any media coverage, so he believed Evelyn when she claimed it was a “medical emergency.” Davis wants to leave and be out of the situation, but India tells him he can’t go with all the paparazzi staked out near the house. She asks him to stay and help her. Fig introduces Bex to Davis as “Lewis’s father,” and Bex is confused. Fig explains that Lewis is the other child India put up for adoption.

India doesn’t have pregnancy symptoms the second time, but when she begins dreaming about Rebecca, she knows she is pregnant. When she tells Davis, he is kind but confused since she is supposed to be on birth control. They discuss getting married, and India briefly considers that she could have a baby and proceed with her theater career.

Davis comes to her room drunk and accuses her of tricking him into marriage by intentionally not taking her birth control. She explains that she stopped taking while preparing for the Benedick role so she could fully inhabit being a male. She further explains how hard she has to work at school and acting, giving herself entirely to the cause. She feels he doesn’t understand since everything comes so easily. Davis doesn’t call her for several days, and they don’t see each other until rehearsals. He later apologizes, but India knows he meant what he said.

Al isn’t angry with India for being pregnant and works it into the play, claiming that having a pregnant Lady Macbeth is a genius move. The distance between Davis and India grows, and they stop discussing the future. He finally admits that he doesn’t feel she is suitable for him. He can’t understand how she can make the same mistake twice and accuses her of living in the moment too much and being “damaged” by her last pregnancy. India retorts that nothing about her first pregnancy was traumatic, but Davis is insistent that she is repressing her trauma from losing Rebecca and Robbie. After the breakup, India looks for adoption agencies in New York and selects Drew and Andy to adopt her baby.

Drew and Andy met and fell in love in college. They are both named Andrew, but they decided to go with Andy and Drew once they were married. “The Andrews” had radically different upbringings. Drew’s parents always supported him, and he never faced bullying in school for his identity. Conversely, Andy came from a devoutly religious family, and his father was abusive. He kicked Andy out of the house when he was 15. His sister Claire and her husband Craig, though religious themselves, took Andy in and let him live with them until he went to college. For the adoption application, Andy fills it out like a comic book and draws illustrations of all the events in his life, including becoming unhoused as a teen, living with his sister and her family, and meeting Drew.

India considers inviting the Andrews to the Macbeth performance—which she thinks is her last—but decides against it since she is covered in blood by the end of the play. After the play, India finds a business card for an agent named Ajax Axelrod in her shoe. The card reads, “India, I may have a part for you. Or, if you prefer, may I have you for a part?” (172) She plans to call him the next day but goes into labor the next morning.

The revelation that India had another child, one she had also put up for adoption, sends shockwaves through Bex’s world. She thought she knew India's story, but now she realizes, “It was only chapter one” (173). The biggest question that looms in her mind is why India has kept the adoptions a secret from the media. However, this question is overshadowed by the knowledge that she has a biological sibling, a connection she shares with no one else. The discovery is a turning point for her, redefining her understanding of family and identity.The revelation that India had another child, one she had also put up for adoption, sends shockwaves through Bex’s world. She thought she knew India's story, but now she realizes, “It was only chapter one” (173). The biggest question that looms in her mind is why India has kept the adoptions a secret from the media. However, this question is overshadowed by the knowledge that she has a biological sibling, a connection she shares with no one else. The discovery is a turning point for her, redefining her understanding of family and identity.