Heart Echoes (9 page)

Chapter 17

PORTLAND, OREGON

Although she wasn't the only one on a cell phone in the Portland bookstore's coffee shop, Lacey spoke in a low voice. “Maiya's still grounded?”

On the other end of the line, Teal sighed. “Yes. It's not fair, making her start her junior year with no social privileges. I should at least give her a deadline. But I can't. After three weeks, we're back to work, she's back to school, but life is not back to normal.”

Tell me about it.
Lacey did not speak her initial response.

Habits of a lifetime did not die easily. For as long as she could remember, if she spoke to her sister without weighing her words, either Teal lashed out or their parents lashed out at Teal. Often both. Lacey was not the target, and yet somehow she was guilty of creating the conflict.

She had learned to hold her tongue.

Teal went on. “It's not just us with Maiya's situation. There's this citywide feeling that the other shoe is going to drop at any minute.”

“That's understandable.”

“But it stinks.”

Lacey closed her eyes. It was not her imagination. Teal's un-Teal-likeness continued. She remained as mouthy as ever, but in a way that seemed to welcome Lacey into her sphere. It was the only explanation for Lacey finding the courage to call her five times since the day after the quake struck.

“So, Lace, aren't you going to say it again?”

She opened her eyes, smiled, and said for the fifth time in three weeks, “Why don't you come home and get away from it all for a while?”

Teal laughed. “Thank you. I need something predictable in my life, and I think you're it these days.”

Lacey's smile stretched into a grin.

Teal said, “There are moments when I actually consider coming.”

“Things are that bad?”

“Things are that bad and your steadiness is that good.”

Tears stung Lacey's eyes. “It would be wonderful to see you.”

“You really believe that? I'd only make a mess of things.”

“Don't say that, Teal. So many years have passed. We've all changed.”

“Well, you for one did not need to change.”

She wiped beneath her eyes.

“And,” Teal said, “I seriously, seriously doubt that either Randi or Owen have changed directions midstream. I would only upset them, like always.”

Lacey tilted the phone away from her chin and sniffled.

“I've changed too, Lace. I've gotten more inflexible about what I will not put up with. At the top of my list are parents like . . . I'm sorry.”

Lacey struggled to swallow.

“Are you still there?”

“Y-yes.”

“I'm still too mouthy.”

“It's not—it's not . . .” Will's voice whispered in her mind.
Be open with her. Give her a chance to be a big sister.
“Teal, I-I lost a baby.”

“Lacey! When?”

“Christmastime.” Her voice shook. She pressed an arm across her abdomen. The emptiness there still felt like a huge void, as if she were missing half her body.

“Christmastime? That was—what—eight months ago? I didn't even know you were pregnant!”

“I didn't talk much about it. It-it wasn't an easy pregnancy. There were problems from the start.”

“Oh, Lace. How far along were you?”

“Five months.”

“I am so sorry. I can't imagine how awful that must be. Will you try again?”

Lacey raked her fingers through the thatch of horse-mane hair that worked best when it was long enough to braid. It did not quite reach the middle of her ears. She thought of that morning's visit with the specialist, of the prescription in her bag for estrogen. The crater in her abdomen ached as if literally crying out not only for the missing baby, but for the missing womb.

She could not answer Teal's question.

Teal said, “Forget I asked that. It's way too personal for a long-distance relative.”

“You're my sister, not a relative. There's a difference.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not exactly the ideal model for either. But I am sincerely sorry for your loss, yours and Will's.”

“Thank you.” She relaxed, grateful for the out. “Speaking of sisters, Will and I are at Pine's Bookstore in Portland. Remember when Grandma Jo brought us here? One time you and I spent the afternoon in a corner, and you read an entire Nancy Drew book to me.”

Teal chuckled. “I remember that. We had happy times with her, didn't we? I wish she had lived longer.”

They reminisced about those few happy visits with the sweet grandmother who had lived in Portland. How she could have possibly been the mother of Owen never made sense to them.

By the time Will joined Lacey, she was smiling, amazed at the first regular conversation she'd enjoyed with Teal since . . . since . . . She had no idea since when.

Chapter 18

LOS ANGELES

Teal closed her phone, leaned back in her chair, and stared at the papers on her desk. They refused to come into focus.

The conversation with Lacey weighed on her. Her sister had been pregnant over a year ago and never mentioned the good news? She had let eight months go by before announcing the bad news of a miscarriage? Something was not right about this.

Not that Teal blamed Lacey. Despite Lacey's efforts to keep a relationship going between them, one did not truly exist and never had. A shared moment now and then, like that long-ago afternoon in the bookstore with their grandmother, did not count.
Their
grandmother? Correction.
Lacey's
grandmother, no blood relation to Teal.

She blamed herself. She was the sister who wanted no part of family ties. Therefore it shouldn't matter whether Lacey clued her in on things. It shouldn't feel like another millstone of guilt had been added to the ones she already wore like a necklace, a string of gems designed and manufactured in Cedar Pointe, Oregon.

It shouldn't feel like that. But it did.

There was a brief knock on her door and it opened. Her assistant, Pamela, leaned inside. “Your one o'clock is here. You okay?”

“Sure.”

Pamela's brows disappeared behind her steel-gray bangs. At fifty-five, she was a paralegal and mature enough to be willing to chip in with secretarial duties when needed. Her mother-hen routine was icing on the cake. “You can do this in your sleep, Teal. Just listen to her story and take notes. Then go home.”

Teal smiled her thanks. “Give me five minutes.”

“You got it. Hannah Walton is in conference room B.” Pamela shut the door.

The woman hadn't used the intercom in two weeks, not since the earthquake. She hovered, a quirk everyone in the city seemed to have taken on. It was sweet and disheartening at once. Life at home was the same. In some ways, the three of them seemed closer than ever, yet the emotions were rooted in fear that something bad was about to happen.

Would life ever return to normal?

Teal massaged her neck, where the string of millstones pulled heavily. “Lord, I'm sorry once again for being a lousy sister, but I really can't take on Lacey right now. I just can't.”

As if the God who allowed such recent destruction across the second-largest city in the United States gave a hoot about her concerns.

Three minutes into the meeting, Teal wasn't so sure she could take on Hannah Walton, either.

It was at that point when her new client spoke the words
biological father
. Teal stopped taking notes, set down her pen, and clenched her hands on her lap under the table.

The woman was twenty-five and drop-dead gorgeous in every clichéd California beach interpretation of the term. Sparkling, even, white teeth. Long blonde hair. Big blue eyes. Pouty lips. Flawless complexion. A body made for bikinis, evident even in the conservative floral-print dress she wore. Sweet little-girl voice. On top of that, she was quietly confident.

If Hannah stood before a jury of her so-called peers who happened to include seven women of average, mediocre looks and self-esteem, she would lose. It was the way of the world.

“Ms. Adams, what do you think?”

“Please, call me Teal.” She gave her a brief smile. “I think . . .”
I think this is my worst nightmare.
“Uh, there are avenues to pursue.”

“Have you done this before?”

“Yes, I have experience in similar cases. We all do here.”

“Did they work out?”

Teal picked up her pen and leaned forward to speak directly to those big blue eyes. “Hannah, every situation is unique to the individuals involved. Please believe that our goal is to protect your rights and your child's. We will do everything we possibly can to make it work out for you. All right?”

She nodded hesitantly. “I just want to keep my baby away from that man. Do you have children?”

“A fifteen-year-old daughter.”

“You're a mother!” Her face lit up. “Then you understand.”

Oh, more than you can imagine.
“All five attorneys at Canfield and Stone Family Law are mothers.” Teal wanted to add that family was their
raison d'être
, but that would be fudging. That would make the firm sound ooey-gooey, fuzzy-wuzzy. Those adjectives did not square with their true pursuit: family
law
.

She sat back and poised the pen over her legal pad. “Tell it to me again, from the beginning.”

Five years previously, Hannah had had an affair with James Parkhurst, her older, married boss, a big-name producer. She got pregnant. He wanted nothing to do with her or the child. Hannah quit her job and lost touch with him. The daughter, Maddie, now four years old, lived with Hannah and her husband of two years, Ryan. Out of the blue, Parkhurst was suing for visitation rights.

Hannah's chin trembled. “Everyone kept telling me that biological fathers have rights. That's why we never pursued Ryan adopting Maddie. We were afraid James would have to be told and that he might do something crazy like this. He is a mean, vindictive man.”

“Do you have any idea why the sudden interest in your daughter?”

She shook her head, the blonde curls swishing.

“Did you tell him you were pregnant with his child?”

“Yes, when I first found out. He called me a slut and said I cheated on him and he doubted the baby was his.” She wiped at the corner of her eye. “I never slept around or cheated on him.”

“After that, did you two have any contact with each other?”

“No. I never even went back into work.”

“Did you quit or were you fired?”

“I quit. I went to the office one Sunday when nobody was around, put my resignation on his desk, and cleared out my things.”

“Did you hear from anyone?”

She shifted in her seat, as if uncomfortable with the question. “No. I did receive a final paycheck with severance. It came in the mail, but that was it. I was sort of, you know, on the outside with the staff. Because of sleeping with the boss.”

Teal nodded at the typical scenario. “Have you and Mr. Parkhurst had any contact in the past four years?”

“No, none at all. I met Ryan, and he's as beautiful as Maddie.” She began weeping. “He's the best husband and daddy in the world. We have a happy life.”

Teal begged to disagree. River was the best husband and daddy in the world. She would have lain down and died if Maiya's biological father interfered with them.

Which was why she could not allow River to adopt Maiya. That would have meant contacting the loser who had never been in their lives from the moment of Maiya's conception. Teal would have had to inform him that he had parental rights that she wanted him to sign off on. Nope. Like Hannah, no way was she walking down that road. It was full of land mines.

She regretted that River could not legally become Maiya's father, but not as much as she would regret the painful ramifications of the other path. Adoption was a piece of paper, a technicality that could not enhance the family ties the three of them now so thoroughly enjoyed.

Teal slid a box of tissues across the table. “Hannah, we have to dig deeper, but from the preliminary information you've given me, I might suggest that we file a countersuit for termination of Parkhurst's parental rights based on abandonment.”

“Meaning he has no rights?”

“He has no rights. He gave them up.”

“You can do that?”

“If everything you said is solid, yes, I think so.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!”

Teal had not meant to jump so quickly to a solution. She doubted that all of Hannah's information was solid. There would be extenuating details, dark secrets to bring to light. But the compulsion to offer ooey-gooey fuzzy-wuzzies to a mom whose story resembled her own was just too strong to ignore.

Teal directed Hannah down the hall toward the restroom. She headed to her office to check messages and find an assistant to help with the interview. Her emotions were clouding her thought processes. She couldn't trust herself to listen with an unbiased ear.

On a good day the case would have been tough, but she had handled two similar situations in her ten years with the firm. She should have been able to deal with this one.

She blamed the earthquake. Hyperconcern for her family's well-being permeated every waking moment. River still winced whenever he sat down or stood up. Maiya still pulled at the reins like an unbroken mustang.

Nights brought little relief. Teal got up often and walked the floors and looked out the windows, as vigilant as a security guard on night duty. The sound of sirens gave her a stomachache. She either did not eat or binged. She was falling behind on regular life, not responding in a timely manner to e-mails or phone calls. Even clients were relegated to the back burners.

She thought now of the pamphlet stuck in a kitchen drawer. It was a list of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Some caring volunteer had knocked on the door and placed it in her hand before she shut the door. She had skimmed it, pitched it, dug it out of the trash the next day, and stuck it in the drawer, refusing to believe it described her.

Which was probably a symptom in itself.

As she rounded a corner into the central part of the firm, she spotted Pamela at her desk outside Teal's office, on the phone.

As Teal approached, Pamela turned. Sheer horror distorted her face.

“Teal!” She held the phone out. “It's River.”

The large room tilted. The cubicles in the middle section swirled. Teal's feet slogged through thick mud.

“He needs to talk to you.” Pamela's voice sounded as if it came from a far distance.

An eternity passed. At last she reached the outstretched phone. “River?”

“Teal, the school just called. Maiya's. It's on lockdown.”

Her legs wobbled. “What?”

“I got an automated message. That's all it says. Your cell's probably off?”

“Yeah.” She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, its volume off for her meeting, and read
one missed call
. “What do you mean, lockdown?”

“The doors are locked. Security is doing their thing. Nobody goes in or comes out until—I don't know.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Pamela waved for her attention. “It's online.” She glanced up from the monitor. “It says there's an unauthorized person on campus.”

“River, the online news—”

“Got it here, too. Unauthorized person. All right. Let's not panic. It's probably no big deal.”

“I'm on my way.” She heard the panic in her voice. Her heart resounded in her ears.

“Teal, slow down. We won't be able to get near the school.”

“Then they'll direct us somewhere else! I'm on my way.”

“I'm closer. I'll get there first and call you, direct you where to go. Turn on your cell.”