Coming Home (34 page)

She grew serious again. “I knew the first time I met you. The
second I saw your eyes, I knew you were my Avery. I was so mad at him for not
telling me sooner, but we couldn’t mess up your life. He knew I would want to
tell you the second I knew. My recklessness messed up your life once. I wasn’t
going to be the one to do it again.”

“So that’s why you didn’t tell me?”

“I told her not to.”

I turned and the woman who had been my mom since I was five years
old was standing in the doorway. I didn’t have another island to put between us,
so I moved a chair and gripped the back. I could kill Ashley for setting this
up.

“Baby, you were in no shape to learn any of the truth you so
desperately wanted.” She walked over to Vicki and stood next to her. “I think
you remember enough about this place that you knew something bad had happened
to you. You resisted Vicki so much because of it.”

“I don’t remember this place.” I looked around again. “I remember
nothing.”

“Is that why you named your doll Avery? Is that why some of your
drawings as a child are of things around here?” Hillary shook her head. “You
remember more than you want to, baby.”

“Stop calling me that! I’m not your baby anymore.” I swiped a
tear away and looked outside. I saw the hammock I had drawn with the father and
child reading in it. I closed my eyes as more tears fell. I did remember things
about this place. Things I’d desperately wanted to remember before were the
same things I desperately didn’t want to now.

I went outside for much-needed air and sat next to the hammock. I
should have sat in it, but I didn’t want to get that close to the memory. I was
grateful they gave me the space I needed. I think they were happy just to have
me there whether I spoke to them or not. I could almost feel them watching me.
I wasn’t sure if it was to make sure I was okay or if it was to make sure I didn’t
leave.

Suddenly, a shadow appeared, and I instantly knew it was my dad.
He came around and sat in front of me. I was a little surprised. Dad didn’t
usually sit on the ground anymore. “You know I can’t let you do this to your
mother for much longer.”

I’d never back talked my father, so I mumbled, “Which one?”

“Both of them. I know you’ve been hurt and feel betrayed. We’ve
all been hurt and betrayed by this situation.” He cut me off before I could say
anything. “Matt and Vicki had you ripped out of their lives. Actually twice
now. Your mother and I are going through it for the first time. It’s killing us,
and I don’t know how they are surviving the second time.”

I looked at dad for the first time and noticed he had lost some
weight. “Isn’t Hillary cooking for you? I figured she’d have her bakery stocked
and overflowing with this motivator.”

“Your mom,” dad looked at me, “has been too upset to do much of
anything.” He shifted on the ground a little. “My goddamn legs are falling
asleep down here.” He stood up and reached his hand out to me. “We’ll only sit
on the patio. I won’t make you go inside yet.”

I hesitated, but took his hand. He held it until I sat down and
he sat across from me. “That’s better.” He smiled and rubbed his legs a little.
“What can we do to make you believe we love you?”

I thought about that. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe they loved
me. It wasn’t that I believed they set out to hurt me on purpose. I wasn’t even
sure why I was mad. I just felt I should be—which was pretty stupid. “Dad.”

“Not Dave?” He smiled when I looked at him. He knew I was coming
around. “Go on.”

“There were so many times I could have been told. There were so
many conversations that I had with . . . mom when she knew I was hurting, and
she still never said anything. She could have said she figured it out. She
could have told me my search was over and they didn’t get rid of me after all.
That they never wanted to lose me and grieved the same loss I had.”

Dad moved over before I finished and put his arm around me while
I cried. “You’re right, kiddo. She could have done all of those things, and it
will be up to her to tell you why she didn’t. It will be up to you to forgive
her or not. Before you make those decisions, you need to know we love you very
much, and no matter whom you choose to be, whether it’s Avery or Rebecca,
you’ll always be my little girl.” He kissed the top of my head.

No matter whom I choose to be? Is that my problem with all of
this? Maybe I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. They each wanted me to be
someone different. They each wanted me to be their daughter. I can’t be both,
can I? Either way it went, I was going to end up hurting someone. I guess
that’s why I’d stayed away. I’d rather hurt them both than choose.

My dad realized he got through to me—that I finally knew why I
was struggling with talking to any of them. I was going to have to choose. “I
need Ryan.”

“He’s already here. Ashley called him when you started talking to
Vicki.” Dad got up and led me inside. He stopped mom and Vicki from trying to
get to me and passed me off to Ryan. Ryan took me upstairs, and I pulled on his
hand before he opened the door that used to be my bedroom.

Ryan turned to me. “Do you want to talk down there where everyone
can hear us?”

I shook my head as I let him pull me through the door, and I just
stopped to look around again. Everything was still here. I wasn’t sure why I
thought they would have packed up my stuff, but they didn’t. I refused to take
anything the night I stopped talking to them. The night Charlie tried to kill
me. “They left it all here.”

“Of course, they left it here.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I
don’t think they planned on us living together so soon, but until then, they
thought you would come back here.”

I turned to face him. “How do I choose, Ryan? I have both of
these families wanting me to be their daughter. How do I choose?”

“You don’t have to choose anything. Yes, they both want you, but
not at the sacrifice of the other. I think they’ve been doing a great job of
sharing so far, don’t you?”

“What do I call them? What do they call me?” I buried my face in
Ryan’s chest. “I’m so confused.”

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I’m not saying there
aren’t going to be bumps along the way. I’m just asking you to give it a
chance.” Ryan cleared his throat. “Oklahoma isn’t the answer. You need to stay
and face it.”

My eyes shot to his. “You knew about that?”

“Yes, and I can’t let you leave. I hope you’re not too mad at me
for putting this together.”

“You put this together? I thought it was Ashley.” I wrapped my
arms around his neck. “I’m not mad. I do miss my family—all of them.”

Ryan held me a little while longer before making me go back
downstairs. He didn’t have to push too hard, though. I wanted to talk. I needed
to get answers, but I was having a hard time looking at my mom. Everyone
cleared the room except for Hillary and Vicki. Vicki stayed in a corner to let
Hillary and I talk.

“You never picked up the search again, did you?”

“I did, but I started searching Vicki and Matt’s side. I knew
that was you in the picture of the two-year-old girl.” She continued when I
couldn’t. “I found out their child was kidnapped and instantly knew why it was
so hard for us to find anything about you. I knew Ryan wouldn’t find anything,
so I let him keep up the search.”

I was pissed. “You didn’t want me to find out?”

“Not until you were ready. You wouldn’t give Vicki a chance at
all. You were so hesitant to just be with her. I needed to know you would be
okay when you found out.” She cleared her throat. “Granted, I wish you found
out differently.”

“I worked with Vicki all day. How can you say I was hesitant to
be around her?”

“That was work. I needed you to form a personal bond. Don’t you
think it killed me to let Vicki be the one to take care of you when all of
these bad things were happening?” Hillary slid closer to me on the sofa. “My
heart and arms ached every time I got a call from Vicki. When you asked for
that care package for the boys, I couldn’t stay away anymore and had my perfect
excuse to see you were okay with my own eyes.”

I started crying, which I’m sure she sensed was coming, and
Hillary finally held me as we both wanted her to. I cried on the familiar
shoulder that helped me through all of my growing pains, scraped knees, and
broken hearts. It felt good to be home.

Once my crying was done and mom and I made up, I turned to say
something to Vicki, but she was gone. I needed to make up with my other mom and
went in search of Vicki again. I found her upstairs in her room looking at
pictures.

“I thought it was best to give you two some space.” Vicki started
putting the pictures away.

“What are those?” I slowly walked closer.

“Pictures of you. We hid the older ones in case you recognized
yourself. I didn’t expect Hillary to come over, or we would have hidden all of
them. I just couldn’t hide you away completely.”

“Can I see them?”

I sat on the bed as Vicki handed me different pictures and
described what was taking place in each photo. Some things were familiar to me,
and as I got older in the photos, I could see myself. The last one she showed
was the photo of the day I was taken. Seeing the dress and shoes with the
buckles that I was wearing that day brought the dream to life that I had been
trying so hard to remember.

“She said she had shoes and pants.”

“What?” Vicki turned to me.

“The lady. I wanted to play outside, and I couldn’t play in my
good clothes.” I looked at Vicki. “You kept telling me I would have to change
before I could play outside. I wanted different shoes and pants.” It was
entirely my fault. I blamed these people my whole life for leaving me, and I
was the one that left. I started crying and wanted to leave again.

Vicki grabbed me and held me. I didn’t deserve it after all the
hell I put her and Matt through. I was the one that broke up the family. It was
my selfishness that destroyed what we had. I tried to shove her away, and Matt
came in at the sound of the commotion. I finally stopped fighting and let them
both hold me.

Once they were convinced that I wasn’t going to run, we all sat
down on the edge of the bed with me in the middle. The floodgates opened and
all the memories came pouring out. Matt wanted to get a notepad and take notes.
He was still angry with the people that took me and wanted to make them pay.
Vicki was still angry with them, too, but was a little more willing to let it
go since she had me back.

I remembered being taken to a small house with lots of toys for
all ages. The lady that took me was really nice, but the man she lived with was
mean and yelled a lot—especially when I cried that I wanted to go home. He told
the lady that took me that she got someone too old and that they would never be
able to find a buyer for a kid who knew who she was. I was too young to
understand what it all meant, but I knew it wasn’t good.

They argued for what seemed like weeks even though I really had
no idea how long I was with them. She wanted to drop me off somewhere safe so I
could get back to my parents, but he said it was too risky. He ended up finding
a family desperate enough for a child to take me, but we had to drive several
days to get there. He didn’t want anyone close to where they took me.

The new couple insisted I call them mom and dad, but I really
didn’t want to. I cried a lot and asked to go home all the time. They kept
telling me I was home and to stop asking them about the old home. They started
to get mean and told me my parents didn’t want me anymore and they saw why—I
was a spoiled brat and no one wanted that for a child.

I think this was the time that I jumped from place to place. My
new mom and dad started to disappear out of my life more and more. I wasn’t
sure what their problem was, but looking back it was probably drugs or
drinking. I stayed with “aunts and uncles” a lot until they got sick of me,
too.

“Do you remember the older man that took you to the home?” Vicki
was asking all the questions since Matt was too angry to speak calmly.

“I just remember he was really nice. And really old.” I furrowed
my brows as I thought about him. “Ryan probably couldn’t find him because he’s
probably dead.”

“Great!” Matt stood up and flung his arms around.

“Calm down, Matt.” Vicki stood in front of him to stop his
pacing. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “You need to let it go. We
aren’t going to find them, and besides,” Vicki turned Matt to look at me, “we
found what’s important.”

Matt’s eyes softened when he looked at me and he smiled. “You’re
right. I still want them to pay, but I’ll try to let it go.”

“How did you find me?” I was suddenly curious how he found me
when he had no leads on the kidnapping and I was dropped off hundreds of miles
away from home.

“Your eyes.” Matt smiled and picked up one of the pictures from
my childhood. He handed it to me and pointed me towards the mirror. “See for
yourself. Your eyes are unmistakable.”

I looked at myself in the mirror and looked at the photo in my
hand. He was right. You could tell it was me in the photo just by looking at my
eyes. I turned to him. “Okay, but where did you see me. I’d never really been
to Dallas before working for you.”

“Pure luck.” Matt started shaking his head as if he couldn’t
believe it. “Your previous employer had the design team on the website. As I
said when we first met, they were going after the same account I was trying to
get, and I was looking at it to size up my competition. I never expected to see
your eyes on that site that day looking back at me.”

“And Stan’s not really a recruiter?”

Matt chuckled. “No. He went to offer you the job and to check a
few things out.”

“You mean Hillary and Dave.” I crossed my arms as he shrugged.
“Did you find anything out?”