And Then I Found You (16 page)

The questions pelted her. She focused, trying to answer each one truthfully. “I never
told you because I was happy with our life and I didn’t want to remember the pain.
I didn’t want that darkness to enter our lives. I’ve meant to tell you, but … when
I want to forget something, I don’t talk about it. And I wanted to forget.”

“Did you forget? Obviously not.”

“No, of course I didn’t. No. She’s this part of me that’s not with me.”

“Stop. I get it.” He stared through the windshield, his voice a metronome, measured
and slow. “Who knows about her?”

“My parents, my sisters, Lida, Norah, and Jack. That’s all. That’s it. I’ve never
told anyone else.”

“What is this some vast conspiracy to make sure I’m not part of the family or close
friends?”

“No,” she cried out the word. “My family wanted me to tell you. Especially Tara—she
can’t stand that you don’t know. They begged me, but I was scared.”

“Why did you have to come see him?”

“I haven’t seen him in over thirteen years. I haven’t seen him since the day I told
him I was pregnant. There are things Jack and I never talked about, and I felt like
there was this unfinished conversation or something. I wanted to put ‘The End’ on
the story. I don’t know, Rowan. I’m confused.”

“Confused,” he said. “Yeah, I bet. Now I know why you acted so weird when that guy
Hayes brought up Jack’s name at the party.”

“Stop.” Kate closed her eyes. “Tell me how you got Lida to tell you where I was. I
don’t understand.”

“I told her you were sick and that I couldn’t get a hold of you and you had told me
the name, but I couldn’t hear you and—”

“You lied,” Kate said, opening her eyes and looking at Rowan’s clenched profile.

“And you didn’t?”

“You’re making it into something it’s not.”

“I’m afraid the only reason you’re telling me now is because I found you at his house.
You’re not telling me because you trust me or love me or want me to be part of your
secret life, but because I found you and there’s really no other choice.”

“Please don’t be so mad. I’ve wanted to tell you so many times, but maybe I was waiting
for the right time.”

“What right time, Kate?”

“I’m embarrassed, Rowan. Can’t you even see that a little bit? How was I supposed
to explain it all? There I was, this girl with everything in the world and still I
felt like I couldn’t be a mom?” She paused, feeling the unraveling begin again, shame
undoing the resolute decisions. “Mom. It’s the name that haunts me everywhere I go.
Even my sister writes about it, the most sacred of all jobs in the world, right? And
I gave it up? I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

“Less of you?”

She was crying and she didn’t try to stop. What was there left to hide? “I wanted
to do the right thing. And I believe I did. He was married, Rowan. When I found out
I was pregnant, he was married. It was a mess. I did the best I knew to do. I still
wonder if it was the best thing. I didn’t want you to think badly of me. I was wrong
to hide it. I did everything wrong with you. I’m so sorry.”

“Did you ever, even once, think that maybe the girl I love is all the parts of you
and not only the parts that you’ve decided to tell and show me?”

Kate’s only response was a sharp intake of breath.

“Kate?” Rowan prodded.

“I don’t deserve … to be loved like that,” she said.

“You could have told me and it wouldn’t have changed how I feel about you at all.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she said.

“It is. So, tell me. Where is she? How old is she?” he asked.

“She’s thirteen, and I have no idea where she is at all or with who. I chose the family
from an adoption agency. I spent months going through family profiles … and I chose.
But no names. She could be anywhere at all.”

“That must be so hard.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m sorry for all of this. I am. But you need to know that this kills me, it destroys
me to think that you would keep something so important from me.”

“I told you.” Kate’s heart skipped over her words, tripping, falling and then righting.
“Yes, I told you everything. It’s all awful and wonderful because I believe somewhere
she has a good life that I could’ve never given her.”

He reached for her and then pulled her close as he drove with his left hand. “Well,
can we let it go now?”

“I hope so. I really hope so.” Kate moved closer to Rowan’s body, wanting to feel
the solid warmth and sweetness. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep as Rowan
hummed to the country music. She’d never told him that she’d seen the engagement ring,
and she wondered what he’d done with it, if it still sat alone in the drawer. A silent
hour passed as Kate realized that if Jack and she kept up their regular letter-writing
routine, it would be a full year before she heard from him again.

She remembered once when she and Tara as children had been on the beach (this was
before Molly arrived to rock their world with laughter). They’d spent an entire afternoon
building a sand castle with towers and moats, with white coral windows and seashell-covered
walkways.

The Cooper Clan was the royal family. There was a princess named Tiffany who slept
in a pink room at the top of the castle with her white cat named Fluffy. All day,
Tara and Katie built a world until dusk arrived, and their parents told them it was
time to leave and get cleaned up for dinner. The sand glowed with otherworldly pink
twilight. Katie and Tara stared at the castle with deep respect for the world they
had created. That night, lying in bed, they’d whispered about how they would add to
the castle, and to the family.

But the next morning, the hard lesson arrived: Nothing lasts. Nothing. Especially
when built on sand below the incoming tide line.

fifteen

BRONXVILLE, NEW YORK

2010

“You have to tell him,” Sailor whispered, using her elbow to nudge Emily into Chaz.
Emily tripped sideways, her left foot catching on the boardwalk. Chaz grabbed her
arm to steady her. She might be mad at Sailor for tripping her, but it was worth it
to have Chaz touch her arm.

“What’d you say?” He turned around to walk backward and face Sailor. “Tell me what?”

“Nothing.” Sailor gave him a little push, but he skipped and kept pace with them.

“Liar,” he said, stopping so that Emily and Sailor had to walk around him or stop
also.

The beach boardwalk was overcrowded, full of teenagers on the first warm weekend.
The air had the taste of summer at its edges. Watermelon. Ice cream. Sand in her lemonade.
School wouldn’t be out for another month, but Emily was already inside the laziness
of it all. Then Sailor had to go and ruin it all by bringing up the “mom” thing again.

Sometimes, no, a lot of times, it seemed like Sailor was more obsessed than Emily
with finding the birth mom. Emily held up her hand. “It’s nothing. I want to stop
and get cotton candy.”

Chaz ran his left hand through his wind-snarled hair, caught it and then let go. “Really?
Like that’s some big thing to tell me?”

Sailor made a noise that was halfway between a huff and a laugh, her way of telling
Chaz that Emily was bluffing. Emily walked around Chaz and shot her best friend a
look that she hoped said “shut up.”

They reached the steps to the beach. To Emily, the haze of sunshine made the towels
and blankets that were spread across the sand look like jellybeans. “Let’s go,” she
said. “You two are being annoying.”

“Annoying?” Chaz asked, laughing. He jumped off the boardwalk, over the steps and
into the sand, his weight denting the surface. He pulled off his T-shirt and held
it in his hand. “Me, annoying?”

“Absolutely,” Sailor said. She stepped carefully onto the sand, crouching down so
she wouldn’t slip from wood to beach.

Emily looked down at both of them, only a step below her. “You’re not annoying,” she
said, a quietness winding into her voice.

Sailor threw her arms in the air. “First one in the water wins,” she hollered.

“Wins what?” Emily asked. She jumped to join them, and the beach bag bounced off her
hip.

“Doesn’t win anything. Just wins,” Sailor said.

“You can win then. The water is freezing. No way I’m going in,” Emily said.

Someone, a girl from the left, called Chaz’s name and he answered, walking away. The
voice belonged to Sissy, who was wearing her too-small yellow bikini. Sailor shrugged
as if to say, well, there he goes.

Emily shook her head. “Sissy wins and she didn’t even have to jump in the water,”
Emily said, smiling.

Sailor’s laughter seemed to be part of the surf sounds beating against the shoreline,
and then Emily and Sailor ran toward the water. They set their towels next to each
other and then began the process of lathering sunblock on their winter-white skin.

“You should tell him, you know.” Sailor handed Emily the lotion.

“Why? It really doesn’t matter.”

“Have you heard back yet?”

Emily shook her head. The hope-thing inside her sank again, a quick drop inside her
chest. “I guess I shouldn’t have even friended her. I mean, she gave me away so why
would she want to hear from me? It was stupid. I shouldn’t have done it.” Emily sat
on the towel and stared out to that place where water and sky met and turned into
one shadowy blue line. “If I got rid of something I didn’t want, I wouldn’t want that
something to show up again.”

“You’re not a something, Emily.” Sailor’s voice was kinder than usual. The mystery-solving
voice turning soft. “You’re a somebody.”

“Yeah, but maybe to her I was a something.” Emily shrugged. “I just wanted to see
what she looked like. And now I know.”

“She’s pretty,” Sailor said, sitting down and facing Emily. “But of course she is
because you are.”

“Now you’re only trying to be nice because you feel sorry for me,” Emily said, but
smiled.

Sailor shook her head, her brown curls moving like smoke around her face. “I don’t
feel sorry for you. I know I’m annoying about it. I’ll stop. I wish I had other parents.…”

Emily wanted to have something smart to say, something that would make Sailor feel
better, but she couldn’t. If she had Sailor’s parents, she’d be looking for new ones
too. But Emily loved her parents; she didn’t want new ones.

So then why did she feel so terrible and empty just because the Kate woman hadn’t
answered her friend request?

Kate’s sister, Tara, had accepted her friendship. Did she know? Did the sister know
who Emily was? Emily imagined them talking about her, wondering why she was bugging
them. Sailor and Emily had spent an entire Sunday afternoon going through Tara’s page,
looking at photos and identifying people. Cousins. Uncle. Grandparents. But really
none more important than the only one they wanted to identify: birth mom.

They’d zoomed in on Kate’s hair, curly and copper like Emily’s. They commented on
Kate’s great clothes, and how Emily must have her birth dad’s chin because Kate didn’t
have a cleft. Sailor said that Emily’s smile was an exact copy of Kate’s, like the
kind from the dentist when you got your retainer.

But as much as the friends talked—and talked and talked and talked—Emily kept a great
many thoughts to herself. She wondered, as she had always wondered, where she came
from and why? Why did her stomach flip upside down when she was sad? Why did pollen
make her sneeze? Why did her nose turn up on the very end?

And the biggest wonder, a wonder so big that it was a universe: Why did her birth
mother give her away?

Emily sat forward, curling her arms around her bent legs. She rested her head on her
knees and turned to look at Sailor. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Okay?”

Sailor nodded. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want,” Emily said.

sixteen

BLUFFTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

2010

Kate dropped onto the slipcovered couch at Mimsy, groaning. “That’s enough for today,”
she said.

Lida laughed. “No way. Let’s set the boots up on the front table before we open tomorrow.”

On an April evening Norah, Lida, and Kate moved furniture and display shelves as they
remodeled Mimsy, emulating Wisteria in Birmingham. The couches had been re-covered
in white sailcloth, and they were placed in the middle of the room facing a long mirror.
Lida sat next to Kate. “Is everything okay with you and Rowan now?”