by Cassia Leo
I’ve always been a pragmatist. My mother never took me to church as a child. And I sure as hell never found Jesus while on tour for the past two decades. But there’s only one secret I’ve ever kept from Claire, and it’s this: For the past eighteen years, I’ve been going to church and praying for Abigail to come back to me.
No one knows my secret. Not even my best buddy, Tristan, knows. It may seem like an insignificant thing to keep hidden. And I’m sure Claire would understand why her agnostic husband has been paying regular visits to a small church in West Raleigh for eighteen years. But I haven’t kept it a secret because I’m afraid Claire won’t understand my need to have a little faith. I’ve kept it a secret because I’m afraid of how it will affect Claire to know I’ve been keeping a secret from her for so many years.
I drain the last drops of orange juice from my glass then stick it in the dishwasher. Standing at the kitchen sink, I gaze out the window at the curved driveway in the front of our house in Cary. The sun is shining bright, imbuing everything with a warm glow; the grass, the plants, even Jimi’s black Mercedes, they all sparkle in the Carolina sunshine. Today would be a perfect day to go to the beach and get the summer started, if it weren’t for that foolish thread of hope tying us to our house in Cary.
For two months, we’ve been sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting. Every phone call and every knock on the door is met with feverish anticipation. We promised Jimi, Junior, and Ryder we’d leave for the beach house last weekend, but Claire and I both decided we’d wait one more week. It’s Saturday. If Abby doesn’t show up by tomorrow night, we’ll head out.
I might make a trip to the safe-deposit box tonight. It will be my third visit since Abby’s eighteenth birthday two months ago. I keep thinking there will be something in there, a note, a picture, or something telling me she knows about Claire and me but she’s not ready. Maybe there’ll be a video of her birthday or her high school graduation.
I just want to know that she’s okay. It would be even better to know that she doesn’t hate us.
We should just gather the kids and head to the beach house tonight. It’s been two months. If Abby hasn’t come by now, she’s not coming at all. I need to accept that I got my hopes up for no reason. Faith is a dangerous thing.
Junior walks into the kitchen with his wireless headphones in his ears.
He nods at me. “’Sup, Dad?”
He heads straight for the door leading to the walk-in pantry and disappears inside. He comes out with a box of cereal. I lean back against the counter and cross my arms over my chest as I watch him. He sets the cereal down on the kitchen island and locks eyes with me. His shoulders slump as he removes the earphones from his ears.
He tucks them into his pocket and heads for the refrigerator. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s upstairs. She’s not feeling well.”
“Migraine?” he asks, bringing the jug of milk to the island.
“No, just tired I think.”
He raises his eyebrows as he opens a drawer and grabs a bowl. He knows why she’s not feeling well, but no one’s talked about Abby for months. As if mentioning her name will break the spell, the illusion that we ever had a chance of having her in our lives.
He opens another drawer to get a spoon, then he settles down at the breakfast bar with his cereal. “So… we’re not going to the beach house today?”
“I don’t know. I’ll see how she’s feeling later. Where’s your brother? Is he still asleep?”
He shrugs as he shoves a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He swallows his food then responds. “He went to bed late last night. I heard him playing that new game at two in the morning.”
I shake my head at this news. Eleven-year-old Ryder is the quietest of the three kids, and he’s very good at testing our limits. But he knows that all it takes to get back in my good graces is to ask me to teach him to play something on the guitar.
Fourteen-year-old Chris Jr. isn’t much like me at all. He likes music, but has no interest in learning to play. He plays three different sports, but he doesn’t know what career he wants to pursue when he’s older. The only thing I think we have in common is our sense of loyalty and our love of fast cars.
Sixteen-year-old Jimi is still my princess. She’s always been a daddy’s girl and was pretty shy until she started middle school. She began taking acting classes and came out of her shell. I’ve had lovesick boys knocking on my door for five years now.
I’m about to head upstairs to wake Ryder, when the sound of gravel crunching gets my attention. I turn around to look out the kitchen window and see a red convertible Plymouth Barracuda pulling up behind Jimi’s Mercedes. It’s a sweet car, but it’s the person sitting in the front passenger seat who has my full attention.
I’m frozen as I watch her eyes scanning her surroundings, taking in the house. She hangs her head and the guy in the driver’s seat watches her, waiting. Then she looks up again and my heart stops. She sees me in the window.
The seconds tick by in slow motion as I wait for Abby to move, to smile, to cry, but she looks frozen, too.
“Dad, what are you looking at?” Junior asks.
“Not now,” I reply, refusing to divert my attention.
“What is it?” he says, and I can hear his chair scrape across the tile floor followed by the sound of his footsteps.
He’s next to me by the sink now and I glance at him to make sure he’s seeing what I’m seeing. “Do you see her?” His gaze is pointed in the direction of the red car, but he seems a bit stunned so I ask again. “Junior, do you see her? Please tell me I’m not seeing things.”
He nods as a smile curls the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, it’s her.”
I turn back to the driveway and the car is empty. Junior races toward the front door and I chase after him. It’s selfish, I know, but I want to be the one to answer the door for her. I want to be the one to welcome her inside.
“Don’t touch that,” I say as Junior reaches for the door handle.
“Why?”
“Because I want to do it.”
He steps aside and nods. “Hurry up.”
My hand reaches forward, but I take my time pulling the door open. When I finally lay eyes on her, I’m overwhelmed.
Here she is, standing on my doorstep. Looking like an angel. The angel I’ve been praying for.
Her blonde hair is pulled up in a ponytail and her small hands are clasped in front of her. She’s not wearing any makeup. She’s naturally beautiful, like her mother.
Claire. I have to go get her. But first, I have to hear my angel’s voice.
“Do you want me to get Mom?” Junior whispers and Abby’s eyes dart toward him.
She knows that Junior knows who she is. She knows we wouldn’t have told Junior about her if we didn’t hope he’d meet her someday. And someday is finally here, but I can’t speak. My mouth feels wired shut.
“Dad?”
“No,” I finally reply, not taking my eyes off Abby. “No, I’ll get her.”
She looks away from Junior and our eyes meet for a second before she hangs her head. Silent tears roll down her cheeks. Like me, she doesn’t know what to say either. We didn’t get an instruction booklet on what to say when we met. We’re both just overwhelmed by this moment.
“Abigail?” I speak her name softly and she sniffs as she raises her head to meet my gaze. “I’ve…” I try to swallow the painful lump in my throat, but it doesn’t budge. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
She presses her right hand over her heart and begins rubbing her chest.
“Are you okay?” I ask and the guy standing off to the side of her steps closer.
“Abby, what’s wrong?” he asks, and that’s when I notice he’s holding her purse.
It takes a special kind of guy or a special kind of relationship for a guy to hold a girl’s purse. Abby and this guy must be in a serious relationship. I try not to think bad things about him, since he obviously seems to care about her
well-being. But I guess that fatherly instinct never goes away no matter how much distance or how many years separate you from your little girl.
“I’m fine,” she whispers and my heart nearly stops at the sound of her voice.
I’ve heard her voice on the few videos that Lynette and Brian have shared with us, but they haven’t sent us many videos over the past five years. Almost as if they didn’t want us to witness her growing from a child into a young adult. But now, hearing her speak right in front of me, not through a speaker, is a dream come true.
“Do you want to come inside?” I offer.
I could probably stand here all day, staring at her and listening to her talk, but I don’t want to freak her out. It must feel strange for her to know that we’ve all been waiting for her.
She shrugs then nods. “Okay.”
I step aside so she can enter and it’s so difficult not to reach for her. I want to take her in my arms and tell her that I always wanted her. That she never left my mind or my heart.
The guy she’s with stands at the threshold, waiting for an invitation. “Come on in,” I say and he nods as he steps inside.
“I’m Caleb,” he says as I push the door closed.
He holds his hand out to me and I grab it firmly. “I’m Chris and this is also Chris.”
Chris Jr. and Caleb nod at each other and I can’t help but notice that Junior’s grinning. It has to be the Barracuda. He’s probably dying to ask this Caleb guy if he can check out his car.
I shoot Junior a look, warning him not to get any ideas, then I turn back to Abby. “Do you mind waiting here for just a moment? I need to go upstairs to get…” How should I refer to Claire when speaking to Abby? My wife? Claire? Your mother? My heart clenches at that last thought. “I have to get my wife. I’ll be right back. Please just stay right there.”
She nods and I head for the staircase. I glance over my shoulder a few times as I climb the steps, fully expecting her to vanish like an apparition the next time I turn around. But she doesn’t. As I head into the upstairs hallway, she’s still there. Right where I always imagined she’d be.
Hope: The biggest four-letter word in the English language. It’s bigger than despair. Bigger than resentment. Bigger than skepticism. Four letters that, when combined, can hold a broken heart together for eighteen years.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
POSITIVE. The test is positive.
I stare at the pregnancy test stick on the marble bathroom counter and shake my head. I can’t have another kid at the age of thirty-seven. And I know Chris doesn’t want any more kids. He’s already planning all the vacations we’re going to take once Ryder goes off to college. The honeymoon we never really had after our wedding, when we had to return for Tristan’s grandmother’s funeral.
Positive.
Are the manufacturers of pregnancy tests trying to tell me that being pregnant at thirty-seven is a positive thing?
No. This is definitely not a positive thing. I thought our days of changing diapers, researching nannies, and struggling through hours of homework help were over.
I grab the pink and white test stick off the counter and hold it up close to make certain that it’s a plus sign I’m seeing. It’s definitely a plus sign. So that’s it. I’m pregnant.
I grab a large wad of toilet paper and wrap it around the test, then I throw it in the waste bin. I don’t want Chris to find it. I want to be the one to break the news to him.
“Honey, remember that time twelve years ago when you wanted one more child? Well, better late than never!”
Oh, God. You’d think I’d know better by now. I decided to switch from the IUD birth control to pills. I was getting a lot of cramping and I was afraid of possible scarring. I understood that getting pregnant after having an IUD implant for so many years would be very difficult. We were just waiting for my first menstrual cycle to arrive so I could begin taking the pills. It never came and now here I am.
I grab another large wad of toilet paper so I can push the wrapped test stick to the bottom of the waste bin, but a knock on the bathroom door startles me and I drop the paper into the toilet.
Shit. “Who’s there?”
“Babe, it’s me. You have to come out here. Now!”
I pull another wad of toilet paper off the roll and hastily stuff it in the waste bin to cover the test stick. As I wash my hands, he knocks again and urges me to hurry up. I dry my hands on a towel then open the bathroom door, ready to yell at Chris for being impatient with me. Then I see his face and I know something is wrong.
“What happened?”
I reach for his face to feel the tears on his cheeks, to know they’re real, but he pushes my hand away. I haven’t seen Chris cry since he found out I was pregnant with Jimi. His eyes got a bit misty when Joel had a heart attack and Jackie was crying uncontrollably. Just like her son, Jackie rarely cries, so it’s always difficult to watch when either of them is overwhelmed by emotion. I almost don’t want to know what has Chris this upset.
Chris reaches for my hands, his eyes fixed on them as he pulls my hands together and holds them against his chest. “She’s here.”
I can’t speak or breathe. My chest tightens and I open my mouth, trying to gasp for air, but I feel as if my throat has closed. As if every emotion I’ve felt over losing Abby these past eighteen years has suddenly welled up inside me and I’m about to burst.
Chris finally looks up to see my reaction and his eyes widen. “Claire, breathe. Breathe, baby.”
I pull my hands out of his grip and cover my face as the first sob spills out, quickly followed by more.
“Claire, we have to hurry up and get down there. I don’t want her to leave before you get to see her. Please, babe.”
He wraps me in the comfort of his arms and I take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I don’t want her to see me like this, but I need to get down there. Finally, I push Chris back and he flashes me a weak smile as I wipe his face clean.
“She’s really here?”
He nods and grabs my hands. “She’s really here. And she’s so damn beautiful… She looks like you and Ryder.”
I press my lips together and focus on breathing deeply to keep from breaking down again. “Okay, let’s go.”
He takes my hand in his and leads me out of the bedroom. I can feel the hope pulsing back and forth between us, surrounding us, giving everything a hazy glow. My heart is thumping so hard, my ears are aching. I grip Chris’s hand tighter as he pulls me down the first steps and I hold my breath as we descend. I let it out as soon as I see a blonde ponytail.
I try to focus on breathing, but all that runs through my mind is the one phrase I’ve imagined saying to Abby for the last eighteen years. The one thing I know I have to say. Junior’s face gets serious when he sees me, then Abby and her friend turn around.
My legs suddenly feel too weak to support me. I let go of Chris’s hand and reach for the banister to keep from collapsing. Chris reaches the bottom step and turns around. He rushes forward when he sees me teetering on the third step, but I push him away. Everything looks fuzzy as the room pulsates around me, but I’m not going to pass out. I’m just stunned.
Chris holds my elbow as I descend the last few stairs, then I push him away as I take a step toward her. She looks unsure and I’m so afraid of scaring her away. But I have to say what I’ve been wanting to say.
I take another step toward her, making no attempt to wipe the tears as they slide down my cheeks. I look her in the eye and her lip trembles as the tears begin to fall.
Chris was right. Even with Chris’s brown eyes and his nose, she looks like me. It’s her blonde hair, the shape of her face, and the uncertainty in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
I don’t know any other way to apologize for the choice I made. A choice she probably knows nothing about. But it’s all I want to say. It’s the one thing I think she’s probably needed to hear from the moment she found out she was adopted.
I wish I knew how she found out. I want to know everything about her and I want her to know everything about us. If I’m being perfectly honest, I want to pretend like the last eighteen years never happened. Like she’s been with us all along. I know that can never happen, but I want to believe that this gulf between us is not permanent.
I reach forward slowly until my hand is suspended halfway between us. She stares at it unblinking, her whole body quivering like a leaf. And she’s about as thin as one. She’s smaller than me and I’m only five-foot-six. I press my lips together as I think of how this is probably due to her heart problems.
The house is so quiet as I wait for her to take my hand or not. Finally, her hand inches forward, slowly, through the distance between us, through the years that have separated us.
I take her hand in mine and she looks up at me, unsure what to do.
I can’t shake my daughter’s hand. That would be cold, especially when I haven’t seen her in more than seventeen years. But am I allowed to think of Abby as my daughter?
I don’t know the answer to that question, and I don’t care. I pull her into my arms and she lets out a soft puff of air as I squeeze her tight, as if she were holding her breath.
She’s so thin, but soft and warm, just the way I remember her. And she smells like a peach blossom. She buries her face in my shoulder, her shoulders bouncing as she sobs silently. I hold on tighter, hoping I can convey how much I’ve longed for this moment.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I whisper. “I’m so happy you came… So happy.”
Something about these words causes a shift and her sobbing stops. She draws in a long, stuttered breath, then she pulls away from me. The whites of her eyes are so red it makes my heart ache.
She takes a step back, shaking her head as her gaze falls to the floor. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
Chris steps forward so he’s at my side. “That’s okay. We know this must be very difficult for you.” He looks over his shoulder at Junior and snaps his fingers. “Go upstairs and get your brother.”