Chasing Abby (11 page)

As soon as we’re outside and Caleb closes the front door behind us, I call Amy. She picks up on the first ring. When Caleb dropped her off at her house, I told her I would call her as soon as I opened the safe-deposit box. That was more than two hours ago and she’s probably freaking out.

“What happened?” she shrieks, unable to contain her excitement.

“Amy, I’m here… at my birth parents’ house.”

“
WHAT?
” she yelps.

I hold the phone a couple of inches away from my ear as I continue. “Their contact information was included on a memory card in the box, along with a bunch of pictures. I can’t tell you everything or you’ll freak out, but I need you to tell my parents that Caleb and I went to his apartment and he’s taking me back home tonight. Just tell them I needed some time to cool off.”

“Abby, what are you doing? Are you trying to buy some time so you can get a new identity and leave the country with Caleb?”

I laugh. “Just please tell them that. I just need some time to process everything. Okay?”

She’s silent for a moment. “Okay. But you’d better tell me everything when you get back. I hate being in the dark.”

We say our good-byes and Caleb is smiling at me. “What?”

“You… I don’t even know how to say this.”

“What? Just say it.”

He lets out a soft chuckle and shakes his head. “You’ve known them for, like, two seconds and…”

My smile disappears as I anticipate he’s going to criticize me for being a bad daughter.

“It’s like…” he continues, still trying to find the right words. “Like you’ve always belonged here.”

I slide my phone into my pocket and try to focus on taking deep breaths. “This is all so weird. I never, ever in a million years expected this. I never expected to…” I can’t finish this sentence. I can’t say that I never expected to be wanted.

Just as this thought crosses my mind, the front door opens and I’m not surprised to see Claire standing at the threshold. “Is everything okay?” she asks as she steps outside.

I nod, but I don’t say what I’m thinking. What I’m really thinking is that everything is not okay. It’s nowhere close to okay. And I’m totally okay with that.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

F
EAR
IS
INSIDIOUS
. It’s a noxious gas that chokes the brain of common sense and motivation. There have been many moments over the past eighteen years when I feared I had become my father. 

My father left my mother and me when I was six years old. The few memories he left me with are so hazy I sometimes wonder if he ever existed. At a very young age, I came to an unnatural realization: I didn’t miss my father. At first, I thought this was a sign that there was something wrong with me. I tried to fight this part of me that thought it was okay to let go. I even got a tattoo of a pocket watch with the hands stuck at 3:15, the time my father left, to remind me to care. But it didn’t work. I never had any desire to meet the father who abandoned me. So the fact that Abby is in my house, to me, is a miracle. It means I have another chance at not repeating my father’s mistakes.

I watch with great anticipation as the front door opens and Claire walks in, followed closely by Abby and Caleb. I let out a sigh of relief as they assemble in the foyer and Claire closes the door behind them, wearing the kind of smile I only see her wear when she’s with her children.

“Is everything okay?” I ask. “Are you all ready for me to make some lunch?”

Claire comes to me with her hand stretched out before her. She may be smiling, but she usually reaches for me like this when she needs comfort or reassurance. Like me, she’s afraid this visit could be cut short at any moment. 

I pull her toward me, planting a kiss on her forehead as I slide my arm around the small of her back. “I make a pretty mean grilled cheese,” I continue. 

“Yeah, Chris took cooking lessons a few years ago when I took a six-week trip to Indonesia. He’s a better cook than I am now, not that that’s saying much.”

A smile pulls at one side of Abby’s mouth. “This is really weird, right? Or is it just me?”

I try not to let the ache in my chest manifest in my facial expression. “It is definitely weird. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for you to know that we’ve always known you existed. You must think… Well, I always hoped that you would understand, to some degree, that a great deal of this situation was out of our control.”

I turn to Claire to see her reaction to my words and, as expected, her jaw is clenched and her eyes are beginning to water. No amount of therapy over the past eighteen years could convince Claire that she was not to blame for us losing the battle for an open adoption. No matter how many times I’ve tried to make her see the truth.

The truth is that the war over Abby began the moment Claire gave her up for adoption. But we lost multiple battles for Abby because of my fame. If I were an electrician like Brian, Abby would have spent the last eighteen years knowing that we always wanted her. Now, we have maybe a few hours to convince her of this. 

Abby’s smile fades. “I want to know… what happened… I want to know why I wasn’t good enough.”

I look to Claire again and the tears are flowing freely again. “You were more than good enough. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I’m the one who gave you up.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I interject, squeezing Claire’s shoulder to assure her I’m not going to allow her to throw herself under the bus. “Claire initiated the adoption while I was on tour for my first album. She was afraid I would give up on the tour and my career if she told me the truth. She gave you up so that I could pursue my dreams and so that you wouldn’t have to grow up without a father, like we both did.”

The way Abby’s eyebrows are screwed up, I can see she doesn’t know what to believe. And I don’t know what to do other than tell her the truth. I have always relied on the truth to cut through the rhetoric and the skepticism. But it seems now that the truth may not be good enough. Claire and I may not be good enough.

Claire steps forward so she’s only a couple of feet away from Abby. “Abigail, can I show you something? Before you leave and before you decide this visit was a mistake, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

Abby hesitates for a moment, glancing up at Caleb, seeking his opinion on Claire’s request. Caleb shrugs, and for a moment I fear she’s going to tell us she has to leave. Then she nods and I let out a huge sigh.

As expected, Claire slides her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans and begins swiping her finger across the screen, searching for something. Finally, she stops swiping and she seems transfixed by something on her phone. She takes another step forward and holds it up for Abby to get a better view.

“That’s me when I was nineteen and five months pregnant with you. I didn’t know my best friend was taking this picture of me. I was lying on the bed in her room, rubbing my belly as I talked to you.” She draws in a stuttered breath as she tries to compose herself. “I was promising you that you’d have a better childhood than I did. That you’d never question whether your parents loved you, like I did.” 

She swipes her finger across the screen again and the photo changes. 

“This is a picture you may have already seen,” she continues. “This is the first time I held you. You were seven months old and this was the happiest and saddest moment of my life.” Claire holds the phone still for a moment before she tucks it into the back pocket of her jeans and steps forward so she’s within arm’s reach of Abby. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I found out I was pregnant. There was never, ever a moment where I felt my life was better without you.” She reaches forward and Abby allows her to take her hand. “We’ve been waiting so long to see you, to tell you that we never forgot you. Please stay a while so we can prove it to you.”

Abby draws in a deep breath and stares at the floor for a moment before she responds. “How long is a while?”

My heart stutters a bit then pounds wildly. “As long as you want,” I reply quickly. “Stay a few hours. Stay the night. Stay—”

“Stay for the summer,” Claire interjects and Abby looks up from the floor, her beautiful brown eyes wide with shock.

“The summer?”

I almost want to be angry with Claire for suggesting something so crazy, but the look on Abby’s face is telling me that this might not be as crazy an idea as I thought. 

“Yes, the summer,” Claire continues. “We’re headed to our beach house in Wrightsville soon and we’d love for you to spend some time with us there… before you go to college. I mean, if that’s what you’re planning to do. I’m not trying to be presumptuous.”

The corner of Abby’s mouth curls up again and she shrugs. “Yeah, I guess you can say I’m going to college.”

I tilt my head, trying to figure out what she means by this, but I don’t want to pry. “Abby—you don’t mind if I call you Abby, do you?”

She shakes her head. “That’s what everybody calls me.”

I already know this, from our dealings with the Jensens, but I don’t mention it to Abby. “Well, Abby, if you don’t mind, I’d like to call your parents and see how they feel about you being here before we decide to make plans for the summer.”

Claire’s head whips around and she glares at me. “She’s eighteen years old. I think she’s capable of making decisions on her own.”

I bite back a retort about how she’s still Brian and Lynette’s child, and I turn to Abby. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

She looks down at the floor again as she replies. “No, they don’t know where I am. I had an argument with them this morning, which sort of led me here.”

I want to ask what they argued about, but it’s none of my business. I just hope it wasn’t an argument about coming here to meet us.

“So, is it okay if we call your parents to tell them you’re here?”

Claire’s face is turned away from me, toward the front door. She’s probably cursing me in her head for potentially ruining this visit. But if we want to have any hope of spending time with Abby this summer, her parents have to be brought into the loop. They have cared for her, and her heart, for the past eighteen years. It only makes sense that their approval or disapproval will greatly influence her decision to stay. If she knows we’re willing to cooperate with her parents’ wishes, she’ll know we’re willing to do anything to keep her here.

Abby looks up at Caleb and he cocks an eyebrow at her. “Don’t ask me. You know I always tell you to be honest with your parents.”

Her shoulders slump a bit at Caleb’s implication, then she turns to me. “Okay, but…” She bites her lip as she digs for the courage to finish this sentence. “Can you talk to my parents for me? They… my dad said something very hurtful to me this morning and I don’t know if I can talk to him right now. Especially after everything I’ve learned here today.”

I clench my jaw tightly shut to keep from asking what Brian said to her. It’s best that I don’t know. The possibility of an extended stay hangs on my ability to reason with the Jensens. I don’t know if I can let Abby stay here knowing she’s going against her parents’ wishes.

Abby slides her phone out of her pocket and dials the Jensens’ phone number. She looks a bit apprehensive as she holds the phone out to me, but I take it without hesitation. I cast a warm smile in her direction as I bring the phone to my ear.

“Abby!” Lynette shrieks into the phone.

“Lynette, this is Chris Knight. Abby is here with us.”

“What the hell is going on? Tell her she needs to come home immediately! I cannot believe this! Get Abby on the phone!”

 Abby’s brow is furrowed as if she were in pain, her gaze pointed at the floor. I could not be more angry with Lynette and Brian Jensen, but I have to remain calm.

“Lynette, Abby is right here, but she’s still a little upset over this morning’s argument.”

“That’s none of your business!” Her words are so shrill, my ear starts ringing. “How dare you call me? How dare you talk about her? She’s
my
daughter. Not yours!”

I grit my teeth as a surge of emotion overcomes me. I know Abby is not mine to claim. I know it’s not my responsibility to protect her from sorrow. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like she’s mine. 

“Please listen to me, Lynette. It’s not my intention to step on yours or Brian’s toes. Abby is… yours. But I think she’s old enough to decide if she wants to know us.”

Lynette’s sniffling makes my stomach writhe. There’s some shuffling on the phone, then silence, then…

“Hello?” Brian’s voice is deep and lumbering, just the way he looks.

“Brian, this is Chris Knight.”

“I know who this is. Where’s Abby? Put her on the phone.”

I put my hand over the cell-phone speaker and hold it out to Abby. “Your dad wants to speak to you.”

Abby shakes her head adamantly. “I don’t want to speak to him right now.”

I bring the phone to my ear again. “I’m sorry, Brian, but Abby’s a little upset right now. We told her she could stay here for a few hours or longer if she needs some time to let things mellow out.”

“A few hours or
longer
? What does that mean? Are you trying to convince her to stay with you? Is that what’s going on here?”