by Cassia Leo
Abby glances up from the floor every few seconds to look at Chris and I think I know what she’s thinking.
“Abigail, you probably don’t understand any of this right now,” I begin, desperation taking hold as I try to think of the right thing to say to make her stay. “But I promise I’ll tell you—we’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything.”
Please just stay.
The young man who came with her steps forward so they’re standing next to each other and she immediately turns into him, as if they’re magnetized. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and she presses her forehead into his chest as she clutches the front of his shirt. I turn away, wishing I could cover my eyes. I can’t watch. It hurts too much to see how much we’ve hurt her.
Chris comes up behind me and gently grasps my arms to turn me around, so I can face Abby again. To face what we’ve done. What I did.
“Abigail,” Chris begins. “We know you—you and Caleb don’t owe us a single second of your time. But we’ve been waiting for this day for so, so very long. And we’re beyond ecstatic that you’re here now. Please just give us a chance to explain… everything.”
I don’t know who Chris is referring to when he says Caleb, but I think it might be the young man holding Abby. He loosens his grip on her and she wipes at her face.
“Are you okay?” he whispers to her. “Do you want to go?”
Please don’t go.
Abby sniffs loudly then turns back to us. “I don’t know what I expected. I—”
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs gets our attention and all four of us turn toward the staircase. Junior comes bounding down the steps first, wearing a soft smile that fades when he sees the serious looks on all our faces. Following close behind him, I’m not at all surprised to see Ryder coming down in a white T-shirt and blue pajama pants, his blonde hair sticking out in all directions and carrying his guitar in one hand. He always uses that guitar to get himself out of trouble. He must have done something wrong.
“He was still sleeping,” Junior says when he reaches the foyer.
“No, I wasn’t!” Ryder protests, descending the last few steps. “I was just lying down.”
“With your eyes closed and drooling all over yourself?”
Abby and Caleb chuckle and my heart jumps at the sound of her laughter. Junior smiles at her and Caleb, pleased to see he’s provided them with some amusement. But Abby’s not laughing anymore. Her eyes are fixated on Ryder as he heads straight for Chris to hand him the guitar.
“Can you tune it for me, Dad?”
“Sure. Just hang it up in the studio. I’ll do it later.” Chris musses up Ryder’s hair as he heads for the kitchen with a smile on his face. Chris turns to me, unable to hide his smile. “He was up late playing video games again. That’s why he was still asleep. I’ll talk to him later.”
I shake my head. “Ryder, come back here!”
He groans as he spins around and walks toward me. “What?”
“Don’t take that tone with your mom,” Chris warns him.
His gaze falls toward the floor. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I say, grabbing his guitar and handing it to Chris. Then I grab Ryder by his shoulders to position him in front of me. “Abby—Abigail, this is your other brother, Ryder. I think you met Chris Jr.”
She stares at him for a while before she speaks. “It’s nice to meet you, Ryder. Do you know who I am?”
Ryder looks up at me with a question in his eyes. He wants to know if it’s okay to tell Abby what he knows. I nod and he turns back to her.
He nods vigorously. “I know you. My mom and dad talk about you all the time.” He starts counting off on his fingers, the way he always does when he’s going to say things in a list. “They showed us a bunch of pictures. They showed us videos. They told us to be nice to you. And they said you look like me.”
Chris shakes his head and grabs Ryder by the back of the neck. “Stop being a smart-ass and go give your sister a hug.”
Abby smiles as he steps forward and wraps one arm around her waist.
“There. Can I go now?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at us with his arm still hooked around his big sister. And now it’s so obvious how much they look alike. It’s almost frightening.
Abby laughs at Ryder, but Chris shakes his head. “You’re treading on thin ice, boy. I know you were up late again.”
His shoulders slump. “Sorry.”
“You’re lucky we have guests here,” Chris replies. “Otherwise, you’d be grounded for a week.”
I can’t help but smile as I watch him being chastised. He never lets go of Abby. Ryder is the most affectionate of the kids, so it doesn’t surprise me. But the guarded smile on Abby’s face as she looks down at the messy blonde hair on the top of his head fills me with so much joy.
“So I’m not grounded?” Chris shakes his head and Ryder’s face beams with relief. He gives Abby a two-armed hug this time then looks up at her. “Thank you!”
Junior is back from the kitchen with a Pop-Tart in his hand. That boy never stops eating and he never gains weight.
“Hey, why don’t I get a hug?” he mumbles through a mouthful of food as Ryder races past him into the safety of the kitchen.
“Because you talk with your mouth full,” Chris replies.
Junior swallows his food and goes straight to Abby. She pats him on the back as she gives him a friendly hug.
He’s smiling as he turns around, then he puts on his best begging face. “Can we go to the beach house now? Please?”
“No, we don’t even—” I clear my throat as it begins to thicken. “We don’t know how long Abby is going to be here.”
My hand flies up to cover my mouth as I realize I called her Abby instead of Abigail. Chris flashes me a look, then he tries to play it off like nothing happened.
“Will you stay for lunch at least?” he asks Abby. “Your sister, Jimi, will be here in about an hour. I know she’d love to meet you.”
She lets out a small sigh. “Sister?” She whispers this word, but I can hear the awe in her voice. “Yeah, okay… I guess I can stay for a little while.”
I turn to Chris, expecting to see him grinning the way I am, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. His gaze is locked on Abby and I realize he’s the only one who hasn’t given her a hug yet. It must be killing him.
I wonder if maybe I should say something, but when I look at Abby, I see that something has passed between them. She’s crying again. He steps forward and she goes right into his arms.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I SHOULDN’T BE HERE. I’m a bad daughter. My parents would be so hurt if they knew I was standing in this house, seeking comfort in the arms of my biological father. But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
My tears come so fast, they quickly soak through the patch of T-shirt where my face is buried in his chest. This man whom I never knew, yet I feel like I’ve known him all my life. At least, I should have known him.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so different. So alone. I chose to major in business at NC State because my mom scoffed at my suggestion that I should major in music. And now I see that she didn’t discourage me because she thought pursuing a career in music is impractical. She’s known who my biological father is all along.
My brother plays the guitar. My father is a famous musician. And he gives the warmest hugs.
I push away gently as this shameful thought crosses my mind. “I’m sorry. I just…” Caleb steps forward and wraps his arm around my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “I’ve been begging my parents to tell me your names and… now I know why they didn’t and I don’t know if I’m more angry or glad. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. Actually, I apologize that I didn’t introduce us by name. I’m Chris and this is Claire.”
“I… I know who you are,” I say, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed.
Now I understand why my mom always tell
s me to change the song when she passes by my room and hears me listening to a Chris Knight song. I thought she just didn’t like his music, though I did find a couple of his old albums in the music library on her laptop. I just assumed she had grown out of that kind of music.
He smiles at me and I get a weird feeling as I recall how I once discussed his hotness with Amy when we were talking about handsome older men. That is so gross. I think Amy even talked about the things she would do with him. Blech!
“You know, you can call us whatever you want. You can call us Chris and Claire. You can call us Mr. and Mrs. Knight. You can just say, ‘Hey, turkey!’ whenever you see me. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
Claire smacks his arm then shakes her head. “You can call me Claire or whatever you feel most comfortable with. I… I grew up in the foster care system, so I never really knew how to address the foster parents who took me into their homes. I understand this is probably very weird for you.”
I nod and press my lips together to keep from getting emotional. How is it that these people whom I’ve never met already know me so well?
“Did my parents talk to you about me?”
Chris’s face screws up a little as he shakes his head. “No, they didn’t communicate with us at all after your first birthday. The only contact we had with them were the photos and videos we exchanged through a safe-deposit box.”
“I saw those,” I whisper, thinking of the picture I saw of my sister holding a photo of me.
Claire tilts her head. “Do you have the pictures with you? We can go through them with you, if you’d like.”
I shake my head. “I don’t have them.”
I don’t feel good about this lie, but there’s no way I could sit by and quietly listen as she explains to me all the happy memories that go with each photograph. But there’s no nice way to explain that. And, for some odd reason, I really want to be nice to them.
I want to be worthy of the love they have obviously carried for me all these years.
Chris nods toward the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll make you guys some lunch.”
Caleb finally speaks up. “We just ate a couple of hours ago.”
“Actually,” I begin. “Do you mind if I go outside to make a phone call?”
“You can make a phone call in here,” Claire replies quickly. “I mean, unless you want some privacy. Of course, go ahead. We’ll… be right here.”
I look up at Caleb then nod toward the front door. He leads the way and we head outside. I know she’s not behind me, but I can feel Claire’s desire to come after me. Even from across the room and with my back turned. Her desperation is palpable.
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
FEAR 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.”