When I'm Gone: A Novel (30 page)

With the help of Mark Witling and the evidence from their first child’s death, the prosecution was able to get a confession, and Mrs. Witling ended up in prison. It’s a small consolation for such a horrific crime. I wanted to go visit her in prison, scream at her, say, “She wasn’t even your child!” but I didn’t. Instead, I tried to bury my regrets and myself in work and in our growing family. Those were some beautiful years.

Then cancer came into our lives, and I decided to finish up my master’s degree. I was going to finish at UM but it was beyond our budget, so I researched a few programs in the area. That’s when I saw a picture of Dr. Neal Townsend, associate professor of education at Eastern Michigan. I knew who he was right away—the pastor from Maranatha, he and his wife had helped place Mallory. Suddenly I didn’t care about any of the programs, ratings, or even tuition. I knew I had to see him again.

First day in his Math Methods class, and there wasn’t even a twinge of recognition from my old pastor. Twenty-odd years and three kids later, I’m sure I looked far different than the fourteen-year-old girl he knew at the maternity house. Then I saw him talking to a girl in the hallway; there was something about her that made me look twice. He looked at her differently than the other students at school, and she bounced when she talked to him. She reminded me of someone. So, I followed her. Yes, I was losing my mind; I’d become a crazy stalker, but I didn’t care. I started studying in the same vestibule where she liked to sit and read. Slowly we became friends, and soon I found out this girl, Jessie, was Neal’s daughter.

I’ll spare you all my secret agent moves, but Dr. Neal, as his students call him, and I became friends, starting with him rescuing me from that confrontation with Tiff. Either way, it wasn’t until my most recent, devastating diagnosis that I had the courage to tell him the truth. In return, he told me something I’ve felt in my heart for a long time: our daughter isn’t dead.

Neal told me Jessie’s story that day. It actually all goes back to Mr. Witling. Neal said that he showed up one morning on the steps of Maranatha House with three-year-old Mallory in her pj’s. Maria, Neal’s wife, was working the desk at the time. Mallory was sick, very sick, her kidneys severely damaged from the ethylene glycol, the antifreeze, he’d discovered his wife adding to Mallory’s juice cup.

Mark Witling begged her to take the child back, keep her safe from his wife. Maria tried to refuse, encouraged Mr. Witling to go home and call the police, to take the little girl to a hospital, but then looking at the sick child, knowing she could have no children of her own, Maria made a decision that would change half a dozen lives. She took Mallory out of his arms and brought her into Maranatha.

When Maria told the story to Neal, he wanted no part of it. But Maria begged him to give her a day or two to figure out how to help the child without landing her in foster care or as a ward of the state. As sickly Mallory slept between them that first night, the news broke of a missing little girl from Lansing, Michigan. The news story methodically described the blood in the house, the broken screen to her bedroom window, the muddy footprints outside her window. Mark had faked a kidnapping.

So, there it was—they could keep the child, find a way to forge her adoption, care for her physically, emotionally, spiritually, or they could give her back to a family where the mother was hurting her and the father didn’t seem strong enough to stand up and fight. So they kept her.

After lying to you for decades, I’m so scared you’ll hate me, that the anger I see you fight will take over you and our family. Plus, the selfish part of me wants to die as your beloved wife. I want you to mourn the years we had together, not the years we could’ve had if I’d told you sooner. I don’t regret giving up our daughter; I know it was the right choice given our age and situation. I don’t even regret the secrets; I’m sorry, I don’t. But I won’t keep you from Jessie. Neal has agreed to help. I know some of these letters will be hard for you to read, but I hope others can be a place you can go for comfort. I know you don’t believe I exist anymore, that my time on this planet is over, but you’re wrong. I live in these letters.

Jessie doesn’t know anything beyond the fact that she’s adopted. I’ll leave it to you and her father to decide what and how much to share. If you ever tell her who you really are, who I was to her, who she really is, please give her my love—my love and my letters.

I’ll love you forever.

Natalie

“Jessie?” Luke asked, not trying to stop the tears this time. He’d always known there was something familiar about her. The rest of the letter, the admission of a felony, all the lies and secrets—he didn’t care. He’d thought his daughter was dead, and she wasn’t.

“Yes,” Neal said, sitting again, this time with Jessie’s hand in his. “She’s your biological daughter. Yours and Natalie’s.”

“She’s
what
?” Terry’s shrill voice cut in from the doorway. She pulled the door closed behind her. Fortunately, there was no sign of May by her side. Luke sat frozen in his chair at the end of the bed.

Thankfully, Neal spoke up.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He looked over at Luke. “All of you, but yes, Terry, Jessie is your granddaughter. You might remember my wife better than you remember me. Maria Townsend. We were both much younger then.”

Terry’s hands shook by her side, her footfalls slow. “You adopted her? You and Maria?”

“Yes, we did.” Neal glanced at Luke like he was pleading for him to keep the secret they’d only just shared. Then he stood and helped a dazed Terry to Jessie’s bedside. “She’s been the greatest joy of our lives.”

“I’ve been looking for her, you know.” Terry didn’t take her eyes off Jessie. “Maranatha Adoptions gave me the runaround, so I’ve been saving up for one of those private services. When I lost my baby girl . . .” Terry choked up. “When I lost my Natalie, I knew I had to find her daughter, maybe see a little of Natalie still living in her like I do in the other kids. And now, here she is.”

“She’s been looking for you guys too,” Neal responded, his lips trembling. “She’s never had much family beyond me and her mom. A few years after Maria died, she wanted to find her birth parents. I could’ve told her, maybe I should’ve, but she’s been getting sicker and sicker, and it just never felt like the right time.”

“Oh my God, she’s so sick.” Terry looked at Neal, panicked. “She’s not going to die, is she? I don’t know what I’d do if she died.” Luke cringed at Terry’s bluntness. To talk about Jessie’s death in front of Neal was cruel.

“They just don’t know. Her kidneys have given out completely. She was living on dialysis, but her body is not tolerating it well. Eventually, she needs a new kidney.”

“Oh that poor girl.” Terry stepped up to the edge of the hospital bed. Terry went to her knees, using the bed to balance. She took Jessie’s hand in her own. “I was the last person to hold her, you know, before they took her away. I . . . yes . . . I see it now. A mix of May and Clayton, and maybe my auntie Clara, don’t you think?” She reached out, tucked some stray hairs behind Jessie’s ear, and looked up at Luke.

“Sure,” Luke answered, completely overwhelmed by the revelation, Terry’s surprising joy, and Neal’s contrition. And what was worse, the child he thought was dead might actually be dying in front of his eyes. “Uh, Terry, where’s May?” Luke kept a cautious eye on the door. May couldn’t know, not yet. Jessie didn’t even know.

“She’s just down the hall charming the nurses.” She waved Luke off. “What was she like as a baby? May was fussy, but Will was a little angel.”

Neal opened his mouth to answer, and Luke was sincerely curious as to what he was going to say since he didn’t get Jessie until she was three. A knock sounded at the door, and a middle-aged doctor wearing a white lab coat and dark-rimmed glasses, holding a stainless steel clipboard, walked in. Terry wiped at her eyes, eventually taking off her glasses to get better access, and then used Neal’s arm for support to get on her feet.

“Mr. Townsend, can I speak with you for a moment?” The doctor’s face was stoic. He looked meaningfully at Luke and Terry, silently inviting them to leave. Luke took the hint and stood.

“Come on, Terry, we should give them some privacy.” Luke stood beside her and put out a hand. “Let’s go find May.” He could read Terry’s reticence as she glanced between Neal and the doctor, but after a moment she ignored his hand and headed for the door.

“Yes, that’s fine.” She seemed to have gathered herself enough to speak normally. “The nurses invited May to ‘help’ them for a few minutes over at the nurses’ station.”

As they left the dimmed room and entered the brightly lit hallway, Luke tried to tune out Terry’s grumblings about how as Jessie’s grandmother she should be allowed to stay in the room and since Natalie was gone she was the closest thing Jessie had to a mother. Instead, he strained to hear the half-whispered conversation between Neal and the doctor. As the door clicked shut, all Luke could be sure he’d heard were the words “transplant” and “terminal.”

CHAPTER 34

Luke finished counting the letters again. Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight . . . yes, fifty-eight letters filled with Natalie, her words, her stories, her beliefs. He put them all in chronological order, one behind the other, in an oversize shoebox. He’d been counting them compulsively all morning, finding it was a better way to pass time in a hospital waiting room than reading a magazine. This must be what it was like for fathers back in the days before men were allowed in the delivery room. The waiting was unbearable.

When Neal popped his head into the sparsely decorated room, full of the most uncomfortable chairs known to man, Luke slipped the bright-orange lid back on the box. It was time.

“You don’t have long, maybe ten, fifteen minutes before they’ll come for her, but it should be enough for the basics.” Neal took several turns down seemingly identical hallways. It’d be easy to get lost in Detroit General, far bigger and more intimidating than quaint Botsford. Neal wore scrubs today, Luke wasn’t sure why, but didn’t care to ask. They looked more comfortable than Luke’s khakis and button-up collared shirt. Maybe he’d ask for his own pair.

Two more turns, and after passing what Luke swore was the same nurses’ station twice, Neal stopped abruptly and then turned to face him. “Thank you for doing this. I know I can’t be your favorite person right now, but . . . I have a lot of respect for you. I hope one day we can be friends.”

Neal put out a hand, and Luke stared at it for a moment. He’d spent months searching for this man, making up all kinds of stories about who he was and why he was so important to Natalie. The truth was not even close to anything Luke could’ve ever imagined. And the man
had
raised and cared for his biological child, a child with special medical needs, a child he could’ve tossed into the same system Luke had floundered through.

Carefully balancing the box under his arm, Luke gave Neal’s hand a firm shake. He might not be at the point of liking the man yet, but he certainly could respect him back.

“This is her room. I’ll wait out here until they come.” Neal pointed to a large metal door, oversize so wheelchairs and gurneys could fit through easily. “Unless you want me to come?”

“No,” Luke blurted, faster than would be considered polite. “I think I’ll be fine.”

“Good luck,” Neal said as he held open the door.

Luke hugged the box of letters against his chest. The room was smaller than the one in Farmington Hills. Today Jessie’s eyes were open, though turning her head to see who walked in seemed to exhaust her. He hadn’t seen her since the revelatory letter from Natalie, but even in her puffy, weak state, there was something that stirred in his chest, the same feeling he had the first time he saw Will, May, and Clayton, the feeling that confirmed this was his child. Luke sat down on an empty chair arranged near Jessie’s head.

“Mr. Richardson. I mean . . . Luke . . . hi.” Jessie welcomed him weakly, her fingers lifting ever so slightly.

“Hey there, Jessie. How you doing?” Luke flinched, taking in the tubes going into her arms, machines droning beside her. “Stupid question. Sorry.”

Jessie looked like she was trying to laugh but could only manage a pained smile. “I’ve definitely felt better.”

“I’m sure you have.” He put the box on the floor under his chair, wondering if he’d even find the courage to tell her anything.

“Well, the kids miss you. Um, May says she wants to give you a pedicure after your surgery, when you’re allowed visitors and all.”

“I can’t wait.” Jessie’s bottom lip, dry and cracked, quivered.

“So, did your dad tell you why I’m here today?”

“Not really.” She shook her head ever so slightly.

“Well, it has something to do with your surgery, and he thought you should know before . . .” Oh, this was just too hard. Neal had convinced Luke to speak with her about Natalie because there was more than a small chance that she could die under the knife. He decided to try another approach. “So, uh, your donor. Did your dad tell you where they found her?”

Another nearly unperceivable no.

“She’s related to your birth mother, Jessie. She’s actually your maternal grandmother.”

“My, my birth mom?” Jessie struggled like she was trying to sit up, her breathing becoming more ragged. “You found her?”

The hope in Jessie’s eyes stabbed at the place inside Luke that was still raw from missing Natalie. How was he supposed to tell this sick girl that her birth mother had been claimed by cancer, just like Maria Townsend?

“She found
you
, Jessie. Last year, at Eastern. You got to know her very well. She loved you so much.” The glowing lights of Jessie’s monitors blurred as Luke’s eyes filled with tears. As sick as she was, it was clear Jessie immediately understood. Her own eyes glistened too, and her chin quivered.

“Natalie . . . Natalie . . . was my mom?” She asked the question, but Luke could tell she already knew the answer.

“Yeah, honey, she was.” Her shoulders shook and Luke rubbed them, worried that if she got too upset, the alarms on one of her machines would go off.

“Natalie was my mom.” She said it again, a statement this time. Then her face crumpled. “Why didn’t she tell me? I . . . I have so many questions. We could’ve had some time together. We could’ve . . .” She trailed off.

Luke sniffed. “I know. I know you do, and I’ll answer as many as I can. Your dad knows a lot more than I do.”

“Wait, he knew? All this time, he knew?” Luke hadn’t considered what would happen if Jessie
didn’t
like the revelation.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I just found out myself. I . . .”

“What about my birth dad, is he dead too? Did he wait till everyone was dead to tell me?”

“Jessie, your birth dad isn’t dead. And your dad did what he thought was best for you. Please, don’t be upset. I just wanted to see you before you went into surgery. I wanted you to know . . .” This was harder than revealing Natalie’s maternity. “I’m your birth dad.”

“What?” Her face crumpled. “You and Natalie? You must’ve been . . . so young.” She paused to take a breath before continuing. “Wait, so May is my sister? I have a sister?”

“Yes. A sister and two brothers who adore you, who are worried sick about you. And your grandma Terry, she’s your donor.”

“Oh my God, I . . . it’s so much to take in.” She blinked away the tears since her arms were too weak to wipe them off. Luke grabbed a handful of tissues out of the box on the nightstand and wiped her face. “This is a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, I know
I
think it’s a good thing.”

“I just wish I knew before Natalie died. I wish I could’ve hugged her just once knowing she was my mom.”

“I know. I agree.” Luke refolded the tissues and soaked up the last few rogue tears. Jessie’s eyes were drooping shut, reminding him of Clayton on the brink of a nap, wanting sleep but resisting it too. Maybe the letters would have to wait. “You just go in there and be strong. When you get out and your brand-new, slightly used kidney starts working then we can fill in all the blanks, okay?”

“Okay,” Jessie whispered, leaning her forehead against his hand. “Mr. Richardson?”

Luke chuckled. “Jessie, now you
really
have to call me Luke.”

A smile flitted over her chapped lips. “Luke,” she said, starting again. He could almost hear her mother’s voice in the layers of her whisper. “If I don’t come back . . . do you think she’s waiting for me? In heaven, I mean.”

“I don’t really know. I’m not sure . . .” Luke stumbled through his reply. He should lie, like he did to Natalie. He should give his child the comfort she was seeking.

There was a knock at the door and a flood of people came through without waiting for permission. Neal was the last one through the door. Time was up.

Luke opened his mouth, unsure what to say to the daughter he may never speak to again. He didn’t believe—not in heaven, maybe not even in God. But then again when he thought of Natalie and of her letters he wondered how she could be gone forever. Natalie had found their daughter once. Maybe she could do it again.

He leaned over the bedrail, his cheek grazing Jessie’s damp hair. “If there is any way to find you—she will. I know it.” Luke stood up, blinking away the tears in his eyes before Neal could see them.

“It’s time.” He stood beside Luke and they both watched as a crew of hospital staff unplugged wires, lowered her bed, and pulled up bedrails. “Did you say what you needed to?”

“I think so.” Luke smoothed down a piece of Jessie’s hair with the same gentle pressure he used on the other kids when they were babies and then stood back so the team could get in position. “I didn’t tell her about the letters.” He looked over at Jessie, who was struggling to stay awake even with all of the activity in the room. She’d make it through. He knew it. She had to. “I’ll give them to her tomorrow.”

Luke stood back and let the nurses, doctors, and Neal exit before he grabbed the shoebox and tucked it under his arm. After a few wrong turns and dead ends, Luke finally navigated his way out of the maze of patients’ rooms into the waiting room.

His seat was still open, and Luke reclaimed it and placed the box on his lap. Sitting in the barren, chair-lined room gave him a sense of déjà vu. It felt like he’d been in a waiting room since Natalie’s death—waiting for a letter, waiting for instructions, waiting to feel something other than sorrow, waiting for May to smile without guilt, for Will to feel like he belonged in their family, Clayton to sleep without a phone in his hands, for Annie to find peace.

Luke settled down lower in his seat and closed his eyes. There wouldn’t be news for a few hours. For now, he’d rest. After today there would be no more waiting. Tomorrow they would start living again.