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twenty-one
It took only a few minutes for Matt to find the church they'd seen from
Sarah's window, but in those
few minutes Caitlyn felt a dozen different
emotions. They seemed so close to finding Sarah now. Just standing in
the apartment where Sarah had lived, looking out the window where she
had knelt night after night, had made Caitlyn feel like Sarah was only
a breath away. And Caitlyn wasn't sure she wanted to find Sarah. It
would change everything.
She turned around in her seat to check on Emily, who was waking up with
a yawn. "She's awake," she told Matt as he looked for a place to park
near the church. "You know what that means."
"Do we have any bottles left?"
"No. Maybe we should go home. Emily isn't feeling well, and I don't
want her to be hungry on top of everything else."
Matt frowned, obviously torn between finding Sarah and taking care of
Emily.
"What's another hour?" Caitlyn asked. "Besides, there's nowhere to
park. We can come back later."
He braked at the stop sign at the corner. "We're right here. It will
just take a minute to ask if anyone has seen Sarah." He whipped a
U-turn and pulled into a spot that blocked the driveway leading up to
the house that sat next to the church. "I'll be right back."
"Matt," she said in protest.
He stopped halfway out the door and looked back at her. His eyes were
understanding but determined.
"I have to do this, Caitlyn. It will just
take a minute."
'"Not if you find Sarah. That will take more than a minute."
"We'll deal with that if it happens."
"Are you sure you want to find her?" The impulsive words left her mouth
before she could stop them.
"She's my sister. She's all I have left of my family."
"You have Emily. You love Emily. I know you do. I can see it in your
eyes. Have you thought about what will happen if you have to give Fmily
back to Sarah'"
He stared at her for a long moment, the pulse in his neck beating
rapidly. "I can love Emily as her uncle."
"What if Sarah takes Emily and runs again? What if you never see either
one of them again?"
"That's a chance I have to take."
"Well, I don't want to take it."
"I know this is unfair to you, Caitlyn." He sighed, glancing from her
to the church. "But this is the right thing to do. Emily needs her
mother."
Caitlyn blinked back the moisture that filled her eyes. He was right.
Emily needed her mother. All
children needed their mother. They certainly didn't need a substitute.
"Shit!" Matt swore. "I don't want to hurt you, Caitlyn."
"Just go," she said tonelessly. "I'll be fine."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but Emily began to whimper, and they
both knew they were short
on time. "I'll be right back."
Caitlyn turned around and saw Emily trying to wake up, her little eyes
squinting at the bright sunlight. Well, no wonder she was crying. The
poor thing was probably confused as to where she was, who she was with.
Her life so far had been pure chaos. She deserved better than that.
Emily deserved a good home, parents who would be there for her, parents
like her and Matt.
Caitlyn couldn't stop the thought from running through her mind, even
though she knew it was selfish. She didn't want the home for Emily; she
wanted it for herself, and not just the house but the husband,
the
baby, maybe even a dog.
She reached over the seat and played with Emily's tiny toes. Such a
perfect little creature she was, so untouched, so innocent, so lovely.
Her life was a blank page upon which she could draw whatever she
wanted. The possibilities were endless.
Caitlyn wanted those possibilities back for herself. She didn't want
the lines that told her she couldn't go here or couldn't go there. She
wanted the wide-open spaces, the free, unlimited choices. She wanted
what so many other women took for granted—children. It was
heartbreaking that she couldn't have them.
Anger swamped her soul like a tidal wave taking down the beach and
everything on it. She hadn't let herself feel the anger, the
bitterness, the sorrow—and she didn't want to feel it now, but she
couldn't
stop it. She wanted a baby of her own. She wanted it more than anything
else in life.
The tears slid down her cheeks in a relentless stream until she
couldn't see, which was why she didn't notice Matt had returned until
he slammed the door and pulled her into his arms.
"It's okay. It's all right," he muttered. "She wasn't there. No one
answered the door."
"I'm sorry. Sorry," she repeated hopelessly as she tried to pull
herself together.
"You don't have anything to apologize for. I kept you up half the
night. I've dragged you all over town
to look for someone you don't
even know. I'm the one who's sorry."
She sat back in her seat and wiped her eyes and cheeks with the back of
her hand. "It's not you.
It's me. I want what I can't have, and I think
I just realized how much I want it."
He nodded, his eyes filled with compassion.
"It's not fair, Matt. It's not fair that I can't have kids, and yet
here is this beautiful baby that your sister doesn't seem to want. Why
could she have kids, but I can't? I'm sorry if that hurts your
feelings, but it's the way I feel."
"You have a right. What happened to you is tragic. I wish I could make
it go away, but I can't."
"Yeah, I know."
"Let's go home. We can get Emily a bottle and get ourselves some sleep."
Caitlyn nodded as Matt started the engine. She wanted to go home, to a
home with Matt and Emily. Maybe Sarah could just stay lost.
*  *  *
Matt knew they were close to finding Sarah. His instincts had always
been good, and right now those instincts were telling him that Sarah
was nearby. Seeing that steeple out of Sarah's window had reminded him
of how many times she'd talked about
the angels nearby. It made sense that if she were seeking a refuge,
she'd go to the church. It was unfortunate that no one had answered the
door. But they'd have
to come back sometime and so would he.
Glancing over at Caitlyn, he saw the tenseness in her face, the worry
in her eyes, the tightness in her shoulders. She was thinking about
losing Emily. For Caitlyn there was nothing to gain by finding Sarah.
For him it would be different. He would have his sister back, his
family back. It was what he had always wanted, what he'd thought he'd
probably lost forever, but now it was almost within reach.
But while he would gain a family, Caitlyn would lose the baby she'd
grown to love. That didn't seem right, either. He wondered why there
couldn't ever be two good things in a row, why it was always one up and
one down.
There was no question that Caitlyn had gotten a raw deal. And why her?
She was such a sweetheart,
a natural-born mother. Her kids would have
had it great. They would have been lucky to have her for
a mother. But
there weren't going to be any kids. Not unless she married someone who
already had a child, a ready-made family.
They would have made a great family, Caitlyn, Emily and himself. Maybe
...
No, he couldn't think that way. Sarah was Emily's mother. He had to
find her. He couldn't stop trying to reunite them, no matter what the
cost to Caitlyn or himself. But one thing was for sure, he would make
certain that Sarah could take care of Emily before he let her go. There
was no way in hell Emily would grow up with the same awful uncertainty
he and Sarah had lived through with their own unstable mother. He
wouldn't allow that to happen. Because Emily was the most important,
and it was her welfare he
had to consider over everyone else.
*  *  *
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled the car up in front of the apartment
building that had begun to feel more like home since he'd discovered
Emily and Caitlyn. He'd always moved around a lot, careful not to
settle down. But he was starting to want roots, starting to desire
things like stability and consistency, like
waking up with the same
woman every morning and saying good-night to that same woman every
night. And maybe seeing a baby smile when she saw him, or hear a small
child call him Daddy.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the disturbing thoughts. For he'd
learned a long time ago that loving or wanting something or someone was
pretty much a guarantee that that something or someone would disappear.
Caitlyn let out a sigh that turned into a yawn.
"You must be exhausted," he said.
"I am," she agreed.
'"Are you going in to work?"
"Maybe later. What about you? Will you go back to the church?"
"I know you want me to say no, but—"
"But you can't leave any stone unturned. I understand." She offered him
a tentative smile. "I know I was upset back there for a second. And
since you're so big on honesty, I'd have to say it's probably going to
happen again, as soon as you find Sarah, and as soon as I have to say
good-bye to Emily. But I'll try to keep it together. This isn't your
problem. It's mine, and somehow I'll find a way to deal with it."
"I wish you didn't have to deal with it."
"Me, too. Things would have been a lot easier if you hadn't knocked on
my door last week."
"Easier, yes, but better?" he queried, wondering if she regretted
getting involved with him as well as with Emily.
Her eyes darkened. "Not better, just easier. You know that."
"The good things are always hard."
"Maybe not just the good things."
Emily, having grown weary of their conversation, let out a cry. They
quickly exited the car and dashed
up the steps to the apartment
building.
"Someone should fix this," Caitlyn said as Matt held open the front
door. "This is supposed to be a security building."
Matt felt the same prickle of uneasiness he'd felt a few nights earlier
when he'd first noticed the jammed lock. Had Sarah done it?
He'd become so suspicious where Sarah was concerned. Maybe he was
looking for a reason to keep Emily, too. That little truth jumped into
his head, and once there, refused to budge. Like Caitlyn, he had become
attached to Emily, maybe too attached. He needed to keep his
objectivity. It was the only way any of them would get through this.
Caitlyn pushed the button for the elevator, tapping her foot
impatiently as she tried to keep Emily quiet. Matt hoped Mrs. Pederman
wouldn't suddenly appear. A nosy neighbor, on top of everything else,
he could definitely live without.
"Where is the damn elevator?" Caitlyn muttered.
Matt looked up at the lighted numbers. "It's on ten." As soon as he
said it, his heart skipped a beat, and when he turned to Caitlyn, he
saw the same look in her eyes. Whoever was coming down in that elevator
was probably someone who had come to see one of them, as the other wing
had a
separate elevator.
"Probably Bradley," he said shortly. "Or your mother. Or one of your
other many visitors."
"Right. I'm sure it's someone for me. No one ever comes to visit you."
No one except Sarah. His throat was suddenly too tight to speak. It was
ridiculous. It wasn't her. It couldn't be her. But he saw Caitlyn's
arms tighten around the baby and knew she was thinking the
same thing.
And suddenly he was the one who wanted to run.
But the silver doors were opening, so slowly he wanted to thrust them
apart with his bare hands. He
saw a man's trousers first. Brian, he
thought with relief. Then the doors opened farther, and he heard
Caitlyn's small gasp as the woman standing in the back of the elevator
stepped forward. She was small and thin with long black hair that
reached down to her waist. Her eyes were as dark as the night and as
familiar as his own.
"Sarah," he breathed. "Oh, my God!"
No one moved. They were suddenly frozen in time, and it wasn't until
the elevator doors began to close again that Matt reached in and held
them back.
"Is it really you?" he asked.
"It's me."
"Sarah," he breathed, feeling an incredible sense of reunion. His
sister was back. He could hardly
believe it.
The elevator doors hammered his hand again, impatient to close. The man
standing next to Sarah put
his hand in front of the other door. Matt
gave him a cursory glance, enough to know it wasn't the same man he'd
met in Sarah's old apartment, thank God for that. Then he looked at
Sarah. "You finally came back."
"I've been waiting for you," she answered.
"Have you? I'd almost given up."
"Why don't we go upstairs?" Caitlyn suggested from behind him.
Suddenly realizing where they were, he stepped into the elevator,
followed by Caitlyn and Emily. The three of them stood on one side of
the small car, Sarah and her companion on the other, the air thick
with
tension, with questions, with curious looks. Every muscle in his body
was tight, but there was a surge of adrenaline coursing through him,
making it impossible to stay still.
"This is Caitlyn Devereaux, my neighbor," Matt said. "She's been
helping me take care of Emily."
"Is Emily all right?" Sarah asked. "She's crying."
"She's hungry," Caitlyn said shortly. "And it's about time you came
back."
Sarah looked stricken by Caitlyn's sharp words and moved closer to the
man who was with her.
"I'm Jonathan Mitchell," the man said, slipping his hand through
Sarah's. "I'm the minister at the
All Souls Church."
The church they'd just visited. "We were there fifteen minutes ago."
"You were?" Sarah asked, sounding amazed. "How did you know I was
there?"
"I went back to the old apartment and looked out your window. I saw the
steeple, and I knew." He
gazed into her eyes and saw that she knew,
too, that they both remembered all those nights she'd stared out at the
sky, looking for angels.
Then Sarah's gaze turned back to Emily, to the baby held tightly in
Caitlyn's arms, the baby who was beginning to fuss yet again. Matt
suddenly didn't know what to do. Should he give Sarah the baby so
she
could comfort her? Should he take Emily? Should Caitlyn hold on to her?
Fortunately, the elevator had reached their floor, taking the decision
out of his hands. They walked
down the hallway, a solemn quartet of
adults with one crying baby. He found his keys and opened the door as
quickly as he could, knowing they needed to feed Emily before they did
anything else. And it
was that practical thought that calmed his
churning stomach. This wasn't the time or the place for emotion. He had
to take care of business in a logical, practical way.
"I'll get her a bottle," Caitlyn said as they walked into the
apartment. "You can talk to your sister."
The way she said the word sister left no doubt in his mind that Caitlyn
wanted him to grill Sarah on
why she'd left the baby alone in the
hallway. And he would do that—in a minute. First, he needed to
just
look at her.
As his gaze slid up and down her slender frame, settling back on her
face, he saw some fading bruises.
He caught his breath at the sight,
reminded of a time when he'd seen similar bruises on his mother's face.
His own hands clenched into fists. "Did that bastard hit you?"
Sarah started, lost in her own bit of staring. "It's a long story."
"I'm going to need to hear all of it."
"Yes, I know. But first I want to say that I'm sorry for dumping Emily
on you the way I did. I was desperate, and I didn't know what else to
do." Her gaze traveled to the kitchen door where Emily had disappeared.
"Is she all right?"
"She has an ear infection," he said. "Caitlyn and I spent half the
night at the hospital."
"Oh, no," Sarah said in dismay.
"But she's all right now." Matt was relieved to see the worry in his
little sister's eyes. She cared. Sarah cared about her
baby. It was a start. "Maybe we should sit down."
Sarah hesitated, taking some sort of silent encouragement from her
companion. Matt didn't know what
to make of her relationship with the
minister, but he'd deal with him later. Right now he needed to
concentrate on Sarah.
He turned his head as Caitlyn returned to the room. He motioned for her
to sit in the armchair while he got to his feet. He was too tense to
sit.
"Why don't you tell me why you left Emily in such a rush and why you
ran away from that apartment
in Berkeley?"
"How do you know about that?" Sarah asked with alarm. "Did you see
Gary? Did you tell him you had Emily?"
"I didn't tell him anything. Relax," he added as Sarah looked ready to
take Emily and bolt.
She took a deep breath. "I don't want Gary to know where Emily is."
"Why?"
"Because he wants to put her up for adoption."
"He's the father?" Matt's stomach turned over at the thought of that
punk's being Emily's father.
Sarah nodded. "Yes, but Gary didn't really want to have a baby. It was
an accident. He couldn't stand
her crying, and his friend told him
about this lawyer who put babies up for adoption. Gary said he'd give
us a lot of money if we gave him Emily. I told him no, but he wouldn't
listen to me, so I took Emily and ran away." She paused for a moment,
then said, "I didn't know where to go. And then like a miracle I saw
your name in the newspaper. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe
it was you. But I went to your
workplace and saw you come out of the building and I knew it was you,
and I knew it was a sign that I should take Emily to you."
"Why didn't you knock on the door? Why leave without talking to me?" he
demanded.
"I was going to, but I was afraid you'd say no, and I had nowhere else
to take Emily. You were my last hope. Otherwise, we would have spent
the night on the street."
"Sarah was beaten up," Jonathan interjected. "When I found her she was
in pretty bad shape."
"That bastard hit you?" Matt asked again, realizing she'd never
answered him the first time.
"Yes," she whispered. "But I'm okay now."
For a moment Matt was so filled with fury that her words barely
registered, but finally they sank in, and he knew he'd have to deal
with Gary later. Right now it was about Sarah and Emily. "Tell me the
rest. Where did you go after you left Emily? The church?"
"Yes."
"And you've been doing what?"
"I—I've been trying to figure out what to do."
"How about taking care of your daughter."
Sarah looked taken aback by his harsh words, but he wouldn't take them
back. They needed to face
the truth.
"I wanted to, Mattie. I did. But I didn't have any money or a place to
stay and no friends. I was a mess, and I was ashamed for you to see me
... to see me acting like .. ." She drew in a deep breath of courage.
"Acting like Mama. I didn't want you to think I'd turned out like her,
but I was terrified that I had."
Matt felt his anger deflate as her words took him back to a time when
they'd both been ashamed, both been a mess, both been afraid. And he
supposed on some level he'd always been afraid of ending up
back where
he started. It was one reason why he'd become career-driven and stayed
on
the move,
afraid to settle down, afraid to find himself alone in an
apartment with nowhere to go and no one to
care about him.
"I was trying to be a good mother," Sarah said, interrupting his
thoughts. "Before Emily came, I kept
the apartment clean and took my
vitamins and drank my milk. But after she was born, it was so hard.
She
cried all the time, and I was so tired I couldn't think straight. Gary
wouldn't help at all. Then he wanted to give her away, and I couldn't
do anything but run. When I saw you, I knew you'd take care
of her for
me."
"How could you know that?" he muttered.
"Because you always took care of me," she said simply, a trust shining
out of her eyes that he'd never thought he'd see again, not after the
way he'd let her down.
"That was a long time ago."
"I still remember. And I still love my baby. I know it might not look
like that to you, but I did what I
did to protect Emily, to keep her
safe, until I could figure out a way to take care of her myself."
"Which is why you're here now?"
"Yes." She glanced at Jonathan again. "I've learned a lot about myself
in the last week. And I'm willing
to do whatever I need to do to be a
good mother to Emily." She paused, her gaze traveling to where Caitlyn
was trying to pat a burp out of Emily. "Do you think I could hold her?"
Matt hesitated, not sure what he should say. Caitlyn didn't look like
she wanted to let go of the baby,
but Sarah was Emily's mother. How
could he not let her hold her baby?
"Sure," he said finally. "Caitlyn?"
She hesitated for a long second, then she stood up and walked over to
Sarah, who immediately got to
her feet and took Emily
into her arms.
Emily went to her mother with a big smile, looking like she'd just
arrived at the Promised Land, and
Sarah wore the same joyous
expression. Mother and daughter were back together.
When Matt turned to Caitlyn, he saw a shimmer in her eyes and knew
she'd seen the same thing he had.
"I should go," Caitlyn said abruptly.
"Right now?"
"Yes."
"I'll be right back," Matt said to Sarah as he followed Caitlyn into
the hallway. "Are you all right?"
"No." She held up a hand as she looked at him with an expression that
was a mix of anger and sadness and resignation. "This isn't about me.
It's about Emily and Sarah and you. I don't belong in the middle
of
this."
"I put you in the middle."
"Well, I didn't try that hard to get out. But it's time, past time."
"I will keep my promise. Sarah won't take Emily until I'm sure she'll
be all right with her."
Caitlyn nodded. "I know you'll do the right thing, Matt. Do you realize
you finally have your family
back? You've found Sarah. And you have
Emily, too, now. I'm so happy for you."
She didn't sound happy. "You should get some sleep," he said.
"I will."
"You'll come by later, right?" He tried to make the question sound
casual, but he suddenly needed the reassurance that she would be back,
because she no longer had a real reason to return.

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