“So you’re going to play dumb now? After all this time?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t have a clue what you mean?” I snap. But my stomach is tying itself into
knots as I stare at her. I don’t know what she’s getting at, but whatever it is, I have the feeling it’s going to change everything. “Allie says you’re Bella’s mother?”
“Bella?” Candice asks. “I have no idea who that is.”
Allie and I exchange confused looks. “Well, then who are you talking about?” I ask.
“Hannah, obviously,” Candice adds, and for a minute, I stop breathing.
“Hannah?” I whisper.
“Seriously?” Candice says, throwing up her hands. “Why are you acting like this is news to you?”
“
Hannah
?” I repeat. “You’re telling me Hannah actually exists?”
“What, did you think I was making her up? I mean, I’m no angel for the way I handled it all, but I told Patrick she was his daughter, okay? You can’t accuse me of keeping it a secret.”
“Wait, what?” I whisper as I go completely numb. Allie is tugging on my hand, but I can barely feel it. All I can think is
Hannah. Hannah. Hannah.
The name echoes in my head over and over. This is real. Candice Belazar is standing in front of me, telling me Patrick had a daughter named Hannah. Still, I can’t wrap my mind around it.
“Kate!” Allie finally snaps at me, tugging so hard I feel like my arm is about to pop out of its socket. I look down, and she signs to me quickly,
She’s talking about my BFF,
she signs.
Hannah Belazar. She goes by Bella because of her last name.
My jaw falls as I stare at Allie. Slowly, I turn my attention back to Candice. “You’re telling me Patrick had a daughter named Hannah?” I ask. “He really had a daughter?”
For the first time, Candice looks uncertain. “Wait, he told you, didn’t he? He said he was going to tell you.”
My heart is racing, and for a moment, I feel a sharp stab of betrayal. If Patrick really had a child, how could he have not told
me? It’s not possible, is it? We told each other everything. The possibility that Hannah is real, and that Patrick kept her a secret, boggles my mind. “She’s thirteen?” I finally say.
Just like the Hannah in my dreams.
Candice glances at Allie and shrugs. “Yeah. So what?”
“And Patrick knew about her all along?” The words actually hurt to say aloud.
It takes Candice a moment to meet my eye, and when she finally does, I see shame in her face. “Not exactly.”
“Not
exactly
?”
She shrugs. “I told him when she was fourteen months old, okay? I just couldn’t do it anymore. Not when I found out she was deaf.”
Allie just stiffens and glares at her. I’m so stunned, I don’t even have the words to come to her defense.
“When?” I finally ask weakly. “
When
did you tell Patrick?”
Candice grimaces and looks down. “The day before. The day before he died. I—I asked him to take her.”
And suddenly, I understand. The fight I had with Patrick that last night. The fact that he’d been too involved in the conversation with Candice to call. The way he’d looked at me when he said he had something important to tell me.
He never had a chance to tell me about Hannah.
But he was going to.
“I asked if he wanted her,” Candice continues, apparently oblivious to the visceral reaction I’m having to her news. “He was surprised, of course, but he said he totally wanted to take her if it was okay with you. He said he’d talk to you.”
“He tried,” I murmur.
She ignores me. “He was real happy, you know. Happy to have a kid, even though he was pissed that I hadn’t told him.”
I feel numb. If Patrick had lived, he would have asked me that
night about taking Hannah in. I would have said yes. I would have become Hannah’s mother, just like in the dreams. “Why did you wait so long?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell him when you found out you were pregnant?
Instantly, I’m furious with her. Maybe Patrick’s death was inevitable. But Candice’s decision to take away his child wasn’t. Sure, it would have complicated things for me to have Candice in the picture, but Patrick could have spent the last fourteen months of his life getting to know his daughter. Candice took that from him. From
us.
She shrugs and looks away. “Patrick had already dumped me by the time I found out, okay? I had to have
some
pride, you know? And my new boyfriend, Carl, said he was cool with raising her as his own, just as long as Patrick never knew about her. Carl, he was worried that Patrick would mess things up for us and I’d want to go back with him or something.”
“So what changed?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “I don’t have health insurance. And Carl, he said he wasn’t going to spend money on a kid who wasn’t his. So I didn’t really have a choice, did I? I was just trying to do what was right for her.”
“Yes, you’re a real saint,” I mutter.
She narrows her eyes at me. “You got no right to judge me.”
I don’t even have a response to that. I shake my head in disbelief. “So what happened to her? To Hannah?”
“Hell if I know. I gave her to my mom. Then my mom stopped speaking to me when I had Tammy and Sandy. Said I was gonna be a crappy mom to them too, and she didn’t have room for three kids. I told her to go to hell, and that was that.”
“Tammy and Sandy?”
“Yeah. My twins. Who are normal. No offense.” She glances at Allie, and I do too. Allie looks like she’s about to punch Can
dice in the face. I’m not sure I’d blame her. Maybe I’d even help. “Anyways,” Candice continues, “my mom was pissed I kept them while I unloaded Hannah on her. But they were just easier, you know? Then my mom died, and I don’t know what happened to Hannah after that.”
“So you just let her go into the system?” I demand. “You didn’t even try to find her?”
“Don’t you dare get high and mighty on me, Kate. You didn’t want her either.”
“That’s not true!” I say, clenching my firsts. “I never even
knew
about her! Patrick never had a chance to tell me. I would have taken her in an instant. How can you not know that?”
Candice looks genuinely stunned. “I just figured—”
I open my mouth to reply, but we’re interrupted by Allie, who steps pointedly between us and says, “Stop. Right now. She’s here. Bella’s here.”
I turn, and the moment unfolds like it’s happening in slow motion. I see Hannah,
my
Hannah, exactly as she looks in my dreams, walking toward us from around the corner, clutching a map in her hands. I watch, breathless, as she looks up from the map and sees Candice first. Her lips tremble a bit, and I can tell she recognizes her birth mother, the woman she’s come here to confront. I can see the pain in her face.
But then her gaze shifts to Allie, and I can see confusion sweeping across her perfect features. Finally, her eyes slide to me, and that’s when she stops in her tracks.
For a frozen moment, Hannah and I just stare at each other. I can’t seem to move or to muster words, but there are a thousand thoughts running through my mind. I can’t believe she’s real. She’s been real all along.
Does she know me too?
I want to say the right thing, to say
something,
to tell Hannah
I know who she is without scaring her away. But there’s nothing that could have prepared me for this, so I just stand there, staring. The world around me feels like a blur; I can only see Hannah.
She begins walking toward us again, slowly, but she looks puzzled now. She looks at Candice again, then at me, then finally at Allie.
What’s happening?
she signs to Allie.
Allie shrugs and looks at me.
I don’t know,
she signs back to Hannah.
I think your birth mother knows my friend.
Hannah’s gaze slides to my face again, and she regards me suspiciously. I can see something flickering in her oh-so-familiar eyes.
Patrick’s eyes.
It’s distrust, trepidation. But there’s something else there too, a spark of distant, foggy recognition. Or maybe I’m just imagining things, because I want so badly to believe that Hannah has seen me before too.
Do you know me?
I sign to her. It takes all my focus to keep my hands from shaking.
“No,” Hannah says out loud, and her voice sounds exactly like I knew it would. “Who are you? You’re friends with
her
?” She gives Candice a dirty look.
Candice jumps in. “Wait, you’re normal? You can talk?”
I finally find my voice again as I turn to Candice. “You know what, Candice?” I say. “You are a complete jackass. Hannah
is
a normal kid. So is Allie. Just because they’re hard of hearing doesn’t mean they’re abnormal. That’s an incredibly ignorant thing to say. But then you’ve always been an incredibly ignorant person, haven’t you?”
I turn back to Hannah, whose eyes are wide and alarmed. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I’m not even sure what I’m apologizing for, exactly. It’s just that it feels a bit like the universe itself owes these two girls an apology of some sort, and Candice certainly isn’t going to be the one to deliver it. “Hannah, I hope you
know you’re better off without someone like this in your life. She did you a favor when she gave you up.”
“Who are you?” Hannah asks, staring at me.
I clear my throat as tears sting my eyes. I don’t know what to say. I doubt Hannah’s been having the dreams too, because if she was, I think her reaction would be different somehow. But there’s a spark of
something
in her eyes, although it’s not the instant recognition I would have hoped for.
I think about saying that I’m just a friend of Allie’s, a friend who cares about what happens to her too, but that wouldn’t be the whole truth. I consider telling her I’m the woman who was meant to be her mother all along, but that would just scare her away. So what comes out of my mouth unbidden instead is the best way I know how to say what’s in my heart.
“I knew before I met you—” I murmur, knowing that I’m telling Hannah in a language of my own, in a language she won’t understand, that I love her, that I’ve always loved her, even before I knew she existed.
Hannah just stares at me for a moment, and I’m convinced she believes I’m crazy. Maybe she even thinks I’m somehow in cahoots with Candice and that I’m here to hurt her too. But then, her expression changes from one of defiance to one of confusion, and she replies tentatively, “—that I was meant to be yours.” She looks at Allie then back at me.
My heart feels like it has burst into a constellation. “How did you know to say that?” I whisper.
Hannah shakes her head slowly. “I have no idea.” She studies my face, like she’s trying to figure something out. “You knew my dad, didn’t you?” she finally asks.
“How did you know that?”
“I don’t know.” She looks a little scared now, and I know I can’t reach out and comfort her, even though I want to. It’s too
soon. “My grandma told me he was a nice man,” she continues. “She said he would have loved me if he’d ever gotten the chance to know me. But then he died.”
“Yes,” I say through the lump in my throat. “He did. But, Hannah, he would have loved you with all his heart. I can promise you that.”
“You really knew him?”
“I was his wife.” I hate that those words will always be in the past tense. But they have to be. I know that now.
“So you were supposed to be my mom or something?”
“Yes. I was. I . . . I think maybe I
am
.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Hannah glances at Candice, then she looks away, an expression of resolve on her face. “I don’t have anyone anymore.” I know that whatever Hannah came here to say to Candice today has already been said. There are plenty of languages that don’t make a sound, and I’m confident that Hannah has just closed the book on the woman who gave birth to her.
“Yes, you do,” I tell her. “You have me. And you have a grandma named Joan, who will be so very happy to meet you. And an aunt Susan, and cousins, and a grandma in Florida too.”
“You’re saying I have a family?” Her lower lip quivers.
“You always have.” I stare into the eyes of the girl who reminds me so much of Patrick and of the life we were supposed to have together. I don’t see Candice in her at all, and I’m glad. Instead, I see everything I lost and everything I’ve found. This is the life I was intended to have all along. It just took me a little longer to find my way here.
Epilogue
Eight Weeks Later
“D
id you have a good time, sweetheart?” Joan asks as I slip into the apartment on a chilly November night, trying my best not to make any noise. My lips are still tingling from the kiss Andrew and I shared in the hallway.
“It was pretty much perfect,” I tell her.
Joan has already made up the foldout bed in the living room, and she’s smiling at me as she dog-ears a page in the novel she’s reading. Her hair is gone from the chemo, just like in the dreams I used to have, but she’s fighting the cancer. She has a new reason to live.
Hannah.
Hannah, who’s fast asleep in the room that used to be my guest room but that now belongs to her. Hannah, whose blood tests prove she’s Patrick’s child, Joan’s grandchild. Hannah, whose adoption paperwork Andrew has pulled strings to expedite. Hannah, who will officially become my adopted daughter within the next couple of months.
Joan yawns. “I like him, you know. Andrew’s a good man. And he’s so good with Hannah.”
“He is,” I agree. I can feel my cheeks getting a little warm as I add, “I like him too, Joan. A lot.”
In Joan’s smile, I see genuine acceptance and happiness, and I’m glad; she has welcomed him into our lives with open arms. I think she’s happy to finally see me moving on—not the way I did with Dan, but the way I’m doing now, with an open heart. Finally realizing that I shouldn’t feel guilty for being happy—that Patrick wouldn’t want me to—has changed me.
I know how lucky I am to have found someone who understands everything. Andrew treats Joan like she’s an old friend he adores, and for this, I’m eternally grateful. After all, Joan’s a nonnegotiable for me. A lesser man might not have understood why I need to have my deceased husband’s mother living with me. But Andrew hasn’t missed a beat.
Regardless of how they’re in your life, family’s family,
he’d told me the night I first hesitantly explained the situation.
And family is the most important thing in the world, no matter what.
That had been it. And he’s been nothing but supportive of my decision to adopt Hannah.