A Weekend Getaway (12 page)

She didn’t do
what normal kids did? “It sounds like you’re very mature for your age.”

Hannah didn’t
acknowledge the compliment. “What do you think I should do? No, that’s dumb.
I’m so unsure, I’m asking a total stranger to weigh in on my future.”

Total stranger.
Beth was a total stranger. Why did it hurt to hear that?

The
conversation lulled for a minute. Beth didn’t know what to say. She’d always
wondered if her child was fine, healthy,
happy
. Now
she knew. What else should she ask? She wanted to know so much yet the words
wouldn’t come. The
thoughts
wouldn’t
come. What was it that she had wanted to say?

The sound of
paper rattling came over the line. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you.
Just basic stuff like what were the circumstances of your pregnancy? Who could
be my biological father? What medical stuff runs in the family?”

Beth gasped.
The basic stuff wasn’t so basic. It was Mount Everest. “Um, could I talk to
Mrs. Taylor first?”

The line went
dead.
 

Beth didn’t
know what to do. She had a moral obligation to tell Hannah’s adoptive mother
about the new medical information. Maybe Mrs. Taylor would choose not to share
that with Hannah. Beth certainly didn’t want to put a dark cloud over the
girl’s bright future.

Hannah was so
smart she could go to college a year early. Did she get that from Parker? What
did she get from Beth? Beth suddenly needed to know more.

She darted to
the office and typed in Hannah Taylor. There were so many of them, she scanned
until she found several in Texas. Perhaps if she searched for Hannah and Dr.
Taylor. Up popped a newspaper article about an optometrist and his family
traveling to Guatemala to do charity work. Yes!

After reading
the article, she realized they lived in Dallas. A few minutes later, Beth found
Hannah’s website and studied the photos on it. Wavy mahogany hair framed
Hannah’s tan complexion. She had warm brown eyes like Parker’s and a turned-up
nose kind of like Beth’s. Best of all, she hadn’t inherited Beth’s weight
issues. Wearing a Speedo one-piece swimsuit, Hannah was thin and striking.
Unfortunately, an uneasy smile revealed a teenager not quite comfortable in her
own skin.

Hannah wrote a
blog titled “Who am I really?” It chronicled Dr. Taylor’s cancer treatments and
she talked about how she wondered if she carried the cancer gene.

So much is a mystery when you’re adopted. Did
I get my creativity from my biological mom or dad? Do I laugh like my mom? Am I
a good swimmer because of him? Why didn’t they want me? Was I the result of
rape? Was I the result of incest? Was I the result of teenaged lust? I don’t
know whether I was conceived out of love or hate. I don’t know whether my
biological mom was a hero or victim or both. For so many years, I told myself I
didn’t care about them. It didn’t matter because I had everything a kid could
want: food, shelter and parents who would do anything for me. But now my dad is
gone. Something about the loss makes me want to fill the hole. I think finding
my birth father might do that for me.

Beth leaned
back in her chair and glared at the screen. Her daughter was missing something.
Hannah had said her father was great, but she hadn’t mentioned her adoptive
mother. Were they close?

Her daughter
wanted to know Parker. Parker, who yelled at Beth to get out. Parker, who would
be dead in a few years himself. She’d tried so hard not to think about his
point of view. What a difference a decade could make.

Would he want
to meet Hannah? Would he want to go with Beth to see their daughter for the
first time? Whoa. Beth was thinking about facing this girl? She swallowed.
Something about the blog made Hannah seem so vulnerable, so young, so sweet.
And Beth knew all of the answers to Hannah’s burning questions.

She closed out
the web browser and contemplated a trip to see her child. What would she tell
Drew? He didn’t understand her need to have her own baby. He seemed content to
raise his sister’s kids. How would he feel if he knew that his girlfriend had
once been as irresponsible as Missy?

Her heart
throbbed inside her chest. Her relationship wasn’t picture-perfect, but she
didn’t want Drew to lose respect for her. She didn’t want him to be the one to
officially declare their union a mistake. Deep down she cared for him. She just
wished he had more time for her. In fact, where was he? Why wasn’t he home from
work by now? They used to commute to Healthy Habits together and if he worked
late, she stayed late, too. Once Emma moved in, Beth re-arranged her hours
around the daycare center’s schedule and the couple had started driving
separately.

At that moment,
she heard the engine of his car pull into the driveway. Drew entered the house
and she stayed in the office. He said a couple of loud “hello’s” downstairs,
which the captain echoed.

He climbed the
stairs and found her. “Hi! Where’s Emma?”

“Downstairs
watching Dora. You must’ve walked right past her.”

He shook his
head. “I didn’t see her. I’ll go check her room.” He headed down the hall and
started calling, “Emma. Emma!”

Beth stood up
and joined him in the little princess’ room. “Emma? Are you hiding? Come out.
Now isn’t a good time to play hide ‘n’ seek. Do you want a lollipop?”

Drew caught her
eye and gave her a disapproving look. He didn’t believe in bribing
Emma—except of course, when it was his idea.

Exiting the
bedroom and entering another, Beth opened closet doors, searched under beds and
peered into the bathtub. No Emma. “I can’t imagine where she is.” Her neck
muscles tightened with worry. After checking everywhere upstairs, she ran
downstairs and searched. A colorful cartoon still filled the TV screen. “Emma!
Come out! You’re scaring us.”

No answer. Had
she dared to go outside to play without asking first? Beth ran to the back door
and pulled it open. She scanned the tire swing beneath a large oak for
movement. None. And the yard didn’t have a fence.

Was Emma lost? “Emma!”
Beth shouted at the top of her lungs. She listened to it echo back to her.

Beth reentered
the house and ran for the front door. The deadbolt had been undone. Oh no, oh
no, oh no. She jerked open the heavy door and looked up and down the street.
“Emma!” The little girl could’ve been hit by a car or picked up by some creep.

No one was
there. Coming back inside, Beth bumped into Drew. “The front door was unlocked.
Was it open when you came in?”

“I think so.
Did you forget to lock it?”

“No.” She
searched her memory. Had she opened the front door for the UPS man or anything?
“No.”

Captain Kirk
squawked, “No, no.”

Drew grabbed
the keys out of his pants pocket. “I’m going to drive around the neighborhood.
You call the police.”

Her throat
closed up. Emma was gone. Emma might’ve been kidnapped. Beth ran to the phone
and dialed 911. Something she’d never done in her entire life.

An even-keeled
female voice came over the line, “911. What’s your emergency?”

“My boyfriend’s
niece, his three-year-old niece, is missing. The front door was unlocked and I
don’t know if she wandered out or if someone took her. I don’t know, I don’t
know.” Panic had turned her into a repetitive fool.

“Calm down,
ma’am.”

Calm down?
That’s stupid. “She’s just a little girl.”

“Tell me your
address please.”

Beth gave her
all the details as frustration built. This woman wasn’t doing anything to help.
Seconds were turning into minutes. Beth had no idea how long Emma had even been
gone. Beth had been on the phone and then on the Internet. Had it been thirty
minutes? Forty? Who would think that a three-year-old couldn’t watch TV alone
for a little bit without walking out the door?

The dispatcher
asked Beth for more details. “What clothes was she wearing?”

“Last I saw she
had on a light blue dress. It was her Halloween costume.” Somehow this made her
feel even worse. Did Emma have a coat on? Was she freezing? Beth ran to the
antique coat rack to see that Emma’s lilac coat was gone. The mystery
continued.

“Is there
anyone who might’ve taken her? Anyone that could’ve knocked on the door and
Emma would’ve gone with them?”

Beth considered
that for a moment. Had someone knocked on the door and Beth hadn’t heard?
Possibly. She’d been upstairs with the door closed. Then it hit her. “Her
mother.”

“Who?”

“If her mother
had come to the door, Emma would’ve gone with her.”

“Have you
checked with her mother?”

“No.” Beth
suddenly felt stupid. Sometimes she forgot that she was not Emma’s only mom.
“I’ll call her. But can you go ahead and alert the police just in case?”

“I’ll send an
officer over to your house. You let us know if you find her.”

“Okay.” Beth
hung up the phone and dialed Missy’s number from memory.

“What?” a gruff
male answered. It was Missy’s ex. And he didn’t sound friendly. He was the one
who wanted Missy to terminate her pregnancy.

Beth quickly disconnected
the call. She rifled through the drawer where she kept her address book. She
flipped the pages, searching through a long list of numbers next to Missy’s
name. But Drew hadn’t filled in her current one.

She dialed
Drew’s cell phone.

“Did you find
her?” he asked.

“No. I called
the police and they thought maybe Missy took her. Do you have her number?”

“If she did
this, I’m
gonna
kill her.” He grumbled something
under his breath before saying, “I don’t know her apartment number. Um, her
cell is 555-1378. Try that. If you can’t get a hold of her, let me know.”

Beth dialed the
number and let out a breath when Missy answered. “It’s Beth. Did you stop by
here today to see Emma?”

“Yes. We’re
going to McDonald’s since we didn’t get to the other night.”

Beth’s
shoulders slackened. “Thank God. Why didn’t you tell me you were taking her?
I’m out of my mind here. Drew is driving around looking for her. I called 911.”

“Shit. You
called the cops on me?”

“I thought Emma
had wandered off or something.”

“Does she do
that often? Do you not even notice when my daughter is gone for half an hour? I
can’t believe Drew trusts you to watch Emma.”

Guilt and anger
collided inside her. It was Beth’s fault for not hearing the door open and for
not knowing how long Emma had been gone. But she wasn’t going to take
this—not from Missy. “You’re the one who stole her from my house! How
could you just take her and not say something?”

“That’s Drew’s
house and Emma’s my daughter. I don’t have to ask your permission for
anything.”

“Yes you do.
I’m in charge of Emma seven days a week because you’re too screwed up to raise
your own daughter.”

“You can’t talk
to me that way. Maybe I’ll take Emma home with me tonight and that will be
that.”

In the
background, Beth heard Emma clap and say, “Yippee!”

Beth bristled.
“Don’t jerk Emma around. All I’m saying is please let me know before you take
her next time.”

“Whatever.”
Missy hung up.

She took a few
breaths. Now she desperately wanted to hug Emma and see for herself that she
was fine. Instead, Missy would keep Emma out of spite.

Immediately she
dialed Drew’s cell to tell him the good news. Next, she called the police to
let them know.

Ten minutes
later, Drew walked in the house.

She grabbed him
for a tight embrace. “I was so afraid. I would never forgive myself if
something happened to her.”

He seemed to
need a hug as badly as she did. “At least we know she’s safe. I don’t know why
I didn’t think to call my sister first thing.”

She released
her grip, but remained close. “Because everyone knows you don’t just go into
someone else’s house and take a child. You have got to talk to Missy. I can’t
keep living like this. And poor Emma. Missy threatened to keep her permanently
and of course Emma thinks it’s true.”

He walked past
her and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. “Want one?”

“No thanks.” If
she was going to chase away her frustrations, it wasn’t going to be with a
German beer. Ice cream would be perfect. But she knew the freezer only harbored
veggies and skinless chicken breasts.

He popped the
cap and drank from the brown bottle. “I’ll say something to Missy when she
brings Emma back.”

“This is
another example of why we can’t pretend that Emma is ours. Why we shouldn’t
raise the child Missy’s pregnant with now. We should have our own baby.”

He sat on the
antique couch that still needed reupholstered, punching at the cushion with the
broken springs.
Boom! Boom!
“Today
has been stressful enough without you pressuring me.” Sighing, he took a swig
of his beer.

“That’s because
we let Missy call all of the shots.” Still standing, she stared at him, suddenly
wondering if they really were meant to be.

Would he ever
get over the fact that his first wife had divorced him six months after they
moved in together? Was living together now really a delay tactic rather than a
transitional period?

She knew then
that she had to see Hannah. She had to meet her daughter and somehow that would
help her figure out the rest of her life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Holding her
breath the next morning, Beth checked her in box. No reply. Her shoulders
slumped as she released the trapped air. She suddenly regretted the e-mail
she’d sent before bed. The one that said:
 
“Hannah, You called me earlier with some questions. Would you be
interested in meeting face-to-face?”

She shuffled to
her closet so she could select a pantsuit to wear to work. Navy, black, brown,
pinstriped. Nothing seemed right. A yawn escaped her lips. She’d tossed and
turned all night worrying about Hannah’s reaction to that e-mail and now her
brain was foggy. Finally, she grabbed an outfit at random and got dressed.

As she stepped
out of her closet, she realized something wasn’t right. The house was
too.
. . too. . . quiet. Emma wasn’t singing to her stuffed
animals. She wasn’t opening and closing her dresser drawers in search of pink
socks to match her Hello Kitty outfit. She wasn’t pouring Cheerios into a bowl,
spilling half of them onto the table and floor. Just as Beth had predicted,
Missy had kept Emma overnight out of spite. It was as if Beth had lost two
daughters in less than twelve hours.

Her mind still
hazy, she completed her morning routine and drove to work. When Beth arrived,
Luke was waiting at her desk, a can of coconut water in his hand. “Apparently
your spray vitamin idea is not as original as we thought. Nature Plus has a
patent and several other companies are also working on the concept.”

She slouched in
her chair. What more could go wrong?

“What else have
you got? Any other ideas? Any other wacky customer complaints to build off of?”

She shrugged.
“Nothing comes to mind.”

“Well, there’s
a meeting early this afternoon. Get your ideas to me by then, so I can present
them.”

This afternoon.
That left what, five hours to do the equivalent of a month’s worth of work?
Still, maybe she could use this to her advantage. After all, she wanted the big
wigs to see her face. Associate fresh ideas with Bethany, not Luke.

She took a deep
breath. “Let me know the time and I’ll be there with a new idea ready to go.”
Was she crazy? No, desperate
was more
like it. She couldn’t let this slip through her fingers. Not like Hannah. Not
like Emma or even her relationship with her parents. This time, she was going
to fight.

“Two p.m. But
you don’t need to attend. I promise I’ll give you credit.”

She stood up. “I’ll
see you then.”

He seemed to
hesitate, but recovered quickly. “Sounds great. Remember, what’s good for me is
good for you. My promotion means your promotion.”

She nodded, a
bubble of hope building within her. This was it. After all these years, this
was her chance. She’d better not blow it.

The day moved
quickly. Pages of notes littered her desk and her Internet browser had more
than twenty tabs open. Every filed complaint from the past year had been
printed from the company database and sat in a messy stack next to her chair.
And in the midst of red-pen scribble and interactive graphs and charts, her
personal e-mail account stayed open. Still, no message from Hannah.

At five ‘til two,
she gathered up her notes and headed for the conference room. She had something.
Well, she
hoped
she had something. It
would be up to the brothers to decide.

The room was
empty. For a moment Beth wondered if she had the location or the time wrong,
but after a few minutes, people started showing up. The suits and ties behind Healthy
Habits. And she hoped to soon become one of them.

Luke made his
way over to her. “Well?” He kept his voice low, though the concern was evident
in his tone. “Did you have a flash of genius?”

She told him
her ideas: vitamins targeted toward different geographic locations or different
seasons or different socio-economic classes, but she felt her excitement
dissipate with each suggestion. These wouldn’t work, and she could see on
Luke’s face that he was thinking the same thing.

Scratching near
the mole by his eye, he made
a
hmmm
sound. “Maybe it’s better that you just listen this time.
Don’t speak until you have something that will really impress them. They don’t
like to waste time, so if you speak up, make it count.”

Nodding, she
took a seat at the long rectangular table and set her mound of research
findings on the floor beside her. Maybe Luke had been right all along. After
all, she didn’t know a thing about these kinds of meetings. It probably was
wise to just observe. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself, of course. And
yet…this was her chance.

Before she knew
it, the chairs around the table were filled with men in suits. A few women
sprinkled here and there added some variety, but the brothers’
favortism
was clearer than ever. The four brothers had
taken the spots near one end of the table, their family resemblance a
give-away. Dark hair, pointy chins. Some had a few more lines across their
foreheads than others. The one who looked the oldest had a bushy mustache. He
cleared his throat. “As you know, sales have leveled out and we need something
to set us apart from the competition. Luke, how are things with the spray idea
coming?”

Luke
steepled
his fingers. “I still think it’s a good concept,
but unfortunately, the competition is already working on it. I’m afraid it
won’t be enough.”

The older man
twisted his mouth to the side in an uncomfortable gesture. “That’s too bad.
What else have you got?”

Luke pushed air
out of his mouth, and Beth saw him thinking. Weighing. And then his gaze
flickered at her. He leaned forward. “Well, before we get started, I would like
to introduce Bethany, the head of customer service. She was the one who came up
with the spray concept.” He glanced over his shoulder at her as if he thought
she’d be pleased.

Amidst mumbled
hellos and welcomes, Beth shrank in her chair. So much for blending in. Now
they all knew her as the brain behind the lackluster spray idea. She’d have to
thank Luke later.

Mustache man
suggested they officially start the brainstorming session, and Beth listened as
people tossed out idea after idea for new products or product improvements.
Each idea made it to the white board in sloppy handwriting, thanks to one of
the younger brothers.

Nothing was
golden. Nothing would turn the company around. As one person explained his idea
for the equivalent of vitamin shots, Beth let her gaze move around the room.
Posters on the walls showed off smiling models, holding their brown vitamin
bottles. In the ads the models, dressed in bright, colorful clothes, contrasted
with the plain bottles. Why were vitamins so ugly?

Beth wrinkled
her brow, thinking about her own vitamins at home—the ones she kept
hidden in the cabinet. Was anyone proud of the way their product looked? Of the
image it produced? Beth looked around the room. No one had a Healthy Habits
bottle with them; no one wore the logo (a green leaf) on their shirt. It was
missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The ideas proved
to be endless. The board a mess of erasable ink and doomed suggestions. Should she
mention something about the way the product looked? The lame logo. The boring
brown bottle.

Her throat
constricted.

Maybe Luke was
right. He was better than she was at playing in the big leagues. He was the one
to present her ideas. He could champion them, and the brothers would listen.
Besides, the original founder had designed the green leaf logo. His four sons
probably didn’t want to hear it criticized. Especially not from a female customer
service rep.

When the
meeting wrapped up, Beth grabbed her stack of worthless research and slipped
out before Luke or anyone else could talk to her. As she walked back to the
bustling call center, she hugged the notes to her chest. Luke had practically
thrown her under the bus, and here she was, still thinking about a way to move
up in a company that clearly favored men. She was good at her customer service
job. Really good. Why want a change?

Settling in at
her desk, she welcomed the onslaught of customer calls awaiting her. “Let me
talk to your supervisor” had become the favorite line of grumpy,
vitamin-deficient men and women all over the US, and her knack for apologizing
and fixing was as strong as ever. When her shift ended, she eyed the stack of
research. Customer service was her strength. It was time she found satisfaction
in it. After all, satisfaction was a part of control and strength and
happiness, right?

As per her
usual end-of-day routine, she shut off her computer, said “good bye” to her
call center reps and headed down the hall. The daycare center was as busy as
ever, but it wasn’t until Luke’s girlfriend looked at her quizzically that Beth
remembered Emma wasn’t there. Shaking her head, she muttered an apology and
headed straight to her car and then home.

There was only
one thing that could make this day better.

She ran
upstairs to the computer. The brightness from the monitor seemed to illuminate
everything: the space around Beth, her shaking fingers that hovered over the
keyboard, and the ads that flashed across the top of the screen. But more than
anything it illuminated Hannah’s one-word answer.

There it was. A
response to the question Beth had posed: “Would you like to meet face-to-face?”

Hannah had
replied, “No.”

Beth stopped
breathing for a minute. The room tilted.

Her child
didn’t want to see her. How was that possible?

She rolled the
chair away from the desk and slid out of her seat, onto the floor, curling into
the fetal position. Thoughts ricocheted inside her brain—so many
thoughts—and she stared at the scuffed wooden planks that ran the length
of the floor underneath her.

Her entire
adult life had led her to this moment. She’d chosen college over her firstborn.
For what? A job as a customer service rep? And now, after being so close to
fixing the mistake she’d made sixteen years ago, it was clear that her choice
to be a college grad wasn’t just a choice against Hannah. It was a choice
against motherhood. Emma, Hannah, they weren’t hers. Never would be.

She was
thirty-four years old, living with a man who didn’t want to get married. She’d
run out of time. Her father was right: she’d made poor choices and this was her
punishment.

Hearing the
stairs creak, she felt someone approach her. Drew’s worried voice seemed to
break through her thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

Words choked
her as she shook her head. Concerned that she looked like a fool, she forced
herself to sit up.

He sat next to
her and caressed her hair with his hand. “Tell me.”

She imagined
him stroking her hair like this while she would be in labor. No one had done
that for her the last time, and she remembered another mom on the floor whose
bangs were sticking straight up. The woman had beamed as she blamed her
husband’s nervous petting for the crazy hair.

“Bad day at
work.”

“I’m sorry.” He
took her hand in his. “Come with me.” He led her to the bed where he wrapped
his arms around her and spooned. His body fit so perfectly against hers.

Her baby didn’t
want to know her. She felt hollow. Coming home to this big, empty house only
compounded the feeling. “I miss Emma.”

“Missy is
trying to make a point. To ensure that you know that she is Emma’s mother.”

“I know that. I
can’t ever forget that.”

He hesitated.
“She’s really mad at herself for not being able to raise Emma. You don’t know
how torn up she is about that. And now she’s pregnant again. She wants to do
better, I know she does.”

Could she tell
Drew the truth? That she’d once found herself pregnant and unable to care for
her infant? Would he comfort her or judge her? She swallowed the words, worried
she couldn’t risk it. She already felt bad enough. “Drew, I can’t take this. I
can’t pretend to be a mom to Emma and then have her ripped away.”

“How many times
are we going to argue about this? You agreed that we’d take care of Emma until
Missy could. Maybe Missy is ready now to do that. How can you not want that?”

“Because I
don’t want my destiny determined by your sister. I want to create our own
family. And I can’t wait any longer.” She turned toward him. “Do you want to
marry me or not?”

He pulled away.
“Oh, that’s a nice way of putting it. Is this an ultimatum?”

Unable to
answer, she pinched the bridge of her nose. She hated herself for blurting that
out.

He sat up, his
back to her, his legs hanging over the edge of the bed. “I should’ve known
you’re just like my ex. You say you’re content but deep down, you’re
pretending. Putting on an act but secretly hoping I’ll change.”

“I hardly think
I’ve been putting on an act.” She had her secrets, but wanting to settle down
and make things legal certainly wasn’t one of them. “I want to marry you. Is
that so terrible?”

“You don’t just
want marriage, though. You want kids. That’s something I can’t agree to until I
know what’s happening with Missy. I might be raising two kids this time next
year. For me, that’s plenty.”

“But they’re not
our kids. Don’t you want your own baby?”

Planting his
feet on the hardwood floor, he rose and loosened the tie around his neck. “At
this point…no.”