Child of Mine (37 page)

He put the truck into gear and turned around in front of the barn, pausing just as Samuel Troyer rounded the corner. He waved, and Jack returned the gesture, thinking that if he ever saw the young man again, Samuel would be married and sprouting a full beard. Jack smiled at the thought, took another breath, and headed down the drive, stopping at the edge of the highway.

Something wasn't right.

He squinted through the dust particles his tires had kicked up. In the rearview mirror, a hundred feet behind him, he could see Samuel crossing the road, heading to the house. Something nagged at Jack, but it had nothing to do with Laura's strange riddle.

Then what is
it?
He racked his brain. He glanced at Samuel again, clean and shiny-faced Samuel, soon to grow a full beard because that's what Amish boys do when they marry their sweethearts.

And then it hit him.

Heart beating against his chest, Jack put the truck into reverse and backed up the long driveway, stopping in front of the house again. Scrambling up the porch, Jack pounded on the screen door. It rattled against the old frame.

“Laura?”

No response, so he pounded again. Laura appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her brow furrowed in concern. “Jack? What—”

He pulled her onto the porch, then yanked out his phone, typing
Lancaster County Market
into the search bar. Laura waited for him to speak, her eyes narrowing. “Jack, what is it?”

“Jonathan,” he said simply.

Laura looked at him, confused. “What about him?”

The site came up, and Jack clicked on the adjacent link, the company website. And then he navigated to the photo, the one with the caption:
Jonathan and Becca Lynn Glick.

Jack handed the phone to Laura. She took it curiously. She stared at it for a moment, her eyes softening. “Sure, that's him.”

“And the woman?” Jack asked.

“
Jah
, that's Becca Lynn, his sister,” she said. “Remember I told you about her?”

He hadn't remembered, not until now. The younger sister with special needs.

Laura's face went pale. “Wait a minute. When was this taken?”

Jack told her it must be recent and pointed to the copyright on the newly created website. She frowned. “No. That can't be.” She stared at it, shaking her head. “There must be some mistake.”

They lied to her,
he realized.
To punish her
.

Laura gripped his phone tighter, but her hands were shaking. Finally she handed it back, tears slipping down her cheeks. She wiped them away brusquely, almost angrily, and looked off into the distance, folding her arms and breathing heavily now, hope and sadness mingling in equal measure on her face.

Jack could only imagine what was going through her mind: her first love, still unmarried, and her family, keeping the truth from her all these years.

“My Jonathan . . .” She turned to him, wonder shining in her eyes. “Could it be he's waited for me?” She brushed another tear away, then whispered, “And here, all this time, I've stubbornly refused to go home.” Her expression changed then, and she smiled tenuously.

“You'll go back, then?” Jack asked.

She nodded, adding quickly, “I'll stay in touch with you and Nattie . . . let you know how it goes for me, okay?”

“We'll worry,” he said. “Until we hear something.”

She smiled, but already her thoughts seemed a thousand miles away. Laura stood there for a moment longer, her eyes shining in the lowering sun. She took in a deep breath, as if sensing the world for the first time, and when she turned to him, he'd never seen her so happy.

But it worried him sick. Laura hadn't been home in years.
What will she find?

“'Bye,” Jack whispered, but Laura was already gone, letting the screen door slap behind her and rushing up the stairs as if she couldn't wait another minute for her new life to begin.

Back in the truck cab, Jack paused, struggling with his own mixture of emotions.
Protect her, Lord
, he thought before putting the truck into gear and heading back down the driveway. At the intersection, he pulled out onto the highway, focusing on the road, accelerating to sixty. The truck rattled a bit, showing its age, but the engine was strong.

Good ol' Billy Bob,
he thought, thinking of Nattie waiting for him at Diane's.

His head continued to spin, but he smiled suddenly, remembering Laura's comeback:
“Would you like to try again
?”

He sighed.
I couldn't even kiss her.

Minutes later, he pulled up to the house, and Nattie came careering out of the Farleys' door. It warmed his heart, and tears filled his eyes. No matter what, Nattie always seemed so happy to see him, even on those occasions when she wasn't all that happy
with
him.

He didn't bother getting out of the truck. Nattie pulled open the door and, without due process, hopped inside. “Where are we off to, Dad-ee-o? Just so you know, there's
nothing
in the fridge.”

He smiled. “Nothing?”

“Nothing edible.” She slapped the seat. “Oh! I forgot something. I want to show you my picture.”

“I'll wait.”

She hopped out and ran to the house, using her own key to open the door.

From the door of her own home, Diane caught his attention and waved, and he waved back.

Jack closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing mind.
What a day.
He gripped the steering wheel, wishing he could turn his
brain off, but Laura's words, buried in the momentous discovery that Jonathan was still single, came back to him.
“I suspected it
for years.”

He blew out a frustrated breath.
Suspected what
?

Another moment passed; and then a shiver crawled up his spine. It felt like a key slipping into a lock, the tumblers clicking into place.
“I never lied
to you,”
Laura had said.
“It just wasn't
my truth to tell.”

He groaned inwardly. Nattie was pulling open the truck door again, holding her latest masterpiece, when the final realization struck him hard.

Nattie's mother had been with them all along.

N
ot surprisingly, no one met Kelly at Chicago O'Hare, a sprawling warehouse of giant tunnel-like halls and endless gates, all leading somewhere, but serving only to magnify her growing nerves.

Kelly was about to meet her daughter for the first time in nine years, and after the initial excitement, she'd slowly grown terrified. Of course, Megan wouldn't remember her, but what if Megan didn't
like
her?

At the rental-car agency, which seemed miles from her arrival gate, Kelly produced her license and credit card for the woman behind the counter.

“For now, I'd like it just through the weekend,” Kelly said as she signed the contract. “But can I add on days if necessary?”

The woman nodded, putting on her glasses before circling a phone number on Kelly's copy of the paper work. “Just call us before it's due back, and we'll quote you a new price.”

Since she was friendly enough, Kelly dug her notes out of her purse. “Any idea how far it is to 900 North Michigan?” she ventured, her heart pounding again.

“In this traffic?” the woman said with a frown. “Might be a good forty minutes, honey.”

Kelly groaned and headed out of the building, squinting at the blazing sun reflecting off the hundreds of windshields. Grabbing her sunglasses, she followed the numbers until she found 204, dropped her roller bag into the trunk of a very compact tan Chevy, and buckled into the driver's seat.

After following the signs out of the parking lot, ambiguous arrows that seemed to point everywhere, she managed her way onto I-90. According to her GPS, she was now twenty-eight minutes from her destination, cutting it rather close, considering traffic and parking.

Very tight,
she thought, her nerves heightening.

From the moment Ernie had told her the news, she'd brooded over this meeting, obsessing about it, praying over it. How would she feel when she saw Megan's adoptive parents? Already, she'd alternated between relief, joy, despair, and rage.

They bought my baby,
she thought. And since she'd agreed not to press charges, the parents had agreed to introduce Kelly into Megan's life. How dare they place conditions?

“Forgive,”
Chet and Eloise had counseled her. She'd stayed overnight in the couple's home, in the beautifully appointed spare bedroom suite. They'd fed her a gourmet breakfast in the morning, and then Chet had driven her to the airport.

“I do forgive,”
she'd told them, “
but it's easier said than done.”

“They
didn't know,”
Chet reminded her.

But
they should have,
Kelly thought. They didn't
want
to know. They wanted their beautiful brown-eyed beauty, their little trophy child.
My
child.

She drove in mind-numbing traffic for as long as the GPS had promised, then found her destination. The office itself was on the twelfth floor of a limestone and glass high-rise in the middle of downtown Chicago, anchored by upscale shops at the street level, and thankfully, underground parking.

She located a spot for her car and gathered her things in the dingy darkness, making her way quickly to the bank of elevators leading up to the offices. She wrinkled her nose at the dank, oily smell of the parking lot and breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors finally opened with a muted
ping
.

A tranquil environment greeted her—lush carpet, etched glass, dark wood, and modern art.

The blond woman at the front desk greeted her with a guarded but professional smile.

“Kelly Maines,” Kelly said softly. “For Michael Stedman.”

“Maines,” the woman said out loud, clicking the keys on her keyboard, the artificial smile still in place. Finally she asked her to have a seat and spoke into her phone. Kelly could imagine the conversation:
“We have an unfortunate interruption, a poorly
dressed woman who goes by the tedious name of Maines
.”

Kelly clutched her own phone and texted Chet to soothe his worries. Earlier, he'd fretted,
“Downtown Chicago is
no picnic.”
He'd planned to accompany her to the meeting, but a family illness had kept him away.

I
'm here,
she texted.

Wonderful,
he responded.
I was praying
.

She smiled. Sometimes Chet treated her as if she were barely out of middle school, and yet it was comforting.

How can I ever thank you?

He texted back:
The smile on your face is all the thanks we
'll ever need.

I'm so happy,
she replied, perhaps the worst lie she'd told in years.

Truth was, she was scared to death. Yes, she wanted desperately to see her daughter, but her own emotions, tangled and contradictory like a twisting tornado switching directions at a whim, threatened to tear her apart. She had no idea what she was going to say to her daughter's parents. She had no planned speech. No kind words:
“Thank you
for watching over her all these years.”
Not at the moment. Maybe later. Maybe never.

She bowed her head subtly, lest the receptionist roll her eyes, and prayed.
Again.
She'd prayed constantly since that phone call from Ernie, but nothing seemed to resolve the turmoil of emotions.

From what Chet said, these people were rich. As in yachts and jets, vacation homes in Aspen and Paris, and whatever else people purchased when they had enough money to buy other people's children.

She closed her eyes.
Help
me be kind, Lord.

Suddenly the door burst open and a friendly faced man—
isn't he
too young
to be an attorney?
—wearing an immaculate blue-gray suit greeted her warmly. “So! You must be Kelly Maines!”

He had wavy brown shoulder-length hair, parted in the middle, about an inch from requiring restraint of some sort. Fortunately, the suit compensated for his Bohemian appearance.

Kelly forced a smile as he took her hands in his.

“I'm Michael.” He pushed open the door and gestured for her to go first. “It's an honor to meet you. I have to say, you look just like Megan.”

Kelly felt as if she'd been punched. Her head was fuzzy again, and she feared she might actually faint.

Oblivious to the effect of his insensitive remark, Michael led the way down the hall, past a dozen cubicles. Halfway to where he seemed to be leading her, she stopped, frozen. Paralyzed.

I
can't,
she thought, feeling dizzy.

Michael was several yards beyond her before he realized she wasn't with him anymore. He turned around. “Kelly? Are you okay?”

No,
she thought, looking down, leaning over, hands on her knees.

“Ellen!” she heard him call.

Someone answered from the cubicle next to her, and suddenly there was a young brunette woman holding her arm and telling her, “Breathe, honey. Do you want to sit down? Do you need something to drink?”

Kelly swallowed and righted herself.

No,
she thought forcefully.
I can do this. I will. I have to.

She cleared her throat, swallowed, and now Michael was on the other side of her, also holding her arm, and not in a comfortable way.

“I'm okay,” she protested.

“You don't look it,” Ellen replied gently, pushing up the frames of her thick dark glasses with one hand, the other still firmly planted on Kelly.

Kelly stopped again and politely pried herself loose.

“I know this must be hard for you,” Michael said, and she thought,
You have no idea
.

“They're very nice people,” Michael added, hands outstretched as if she might tumble at any moment. She looked forward, her blurred vision refocusing.

“Do you need some time?” Michael asked.

“No,” she said sharply.

Just then, farther down the hall, another door opened on the right, and a thirty-something woman with highlighted blond hair, a casual dress, and black patent flats, stepped out. She looked to her right, then to her left, and spotted them. Spotted
her.

It was her gaze that struck Kelly first, the way her eyes melted with concern. Kelly remained bolted in place.
What
am I going to say?

The woman was rushing, practically
running
toward them. Kelly looked away.
Oh God, please.
Don't let me hit her.

“Kelly?”

She looked up.

“Kelly Maines?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You
are
her mother,” the woman exclaimed but with a truthful smile. “You are as beautiful as I had imagined, the spitting image of your daughter.”

Kelly blinked back tears.

She reached for Kelly. “May I?”

Kelly nodded, reluctantly at first, and then she was embracing this woman whom she'd wanted to tear limb from limb. The woman—
Michelle is her name,
Kelly thought—wouldn't let go, refused to let go.

“I can't tell you how sorry we are,” Michelle whispered in her ear. “We will do whatever we can to fix this. We have so much to tell you, so many pictures to show you. I can't
wait
for you to meet Megan.”

Megan.
At that moment, Kelly tightened her grip on Michelle. She wasn't angry anymore.

It's going to be okay,
she realized.