True to You

by Becky Wade

  Sincerely, Sherry

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-one

  Outings that begin with a sullen grandmother and a Russian housekeeper cannot be expected to end well. Willow believed this maxim in theory. Yet that didn’t stop her from continually testing it in practice.

  “The state of church music in this day and age deeply saddens me,” Grandma proclaimed. Her small frame was belted into the passenger seat of Willow’s Range Rover.

  “Um-hmm,” Valentina murmured consolingly from the back seat.

  “The great old hymns of our faith have stood for generations. Some were written by the likes of St. Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther. But are we singing them in our churches anymore?”

  “Sometimes.” Willow injected a bright note into her voice.

  “No, we are not,” Grandma answered. “Hymnals are being replaced by computer lyrics on awful electronic screens. Excellent classical music is being replaced with songs no one’s ever heard. We’re expected to sing a simple chorus over and over again ad nauseam in a monotone.” She sucked air disapprovingly through her lips.

  “Mmm,” Valentina offered in sorrowful commiseration.

  “They’ve done away with hymnals at four out of Merryweather’s five churches,” Grandma continued. “My own Grace Church is the only one that hasn’t fallen to temptation. Our building is one hundred years old, Willow! Imagine erecting a screen in such a beautiful sanctuary and expecting us to accept modern rock-and-roll tunes. I’ve already told the pastor that it’ll only happen over my dead body.”

  “I’m sure he was thankful for the feedback.”

  Grandma would be hosting her church’s knitting group at her house tomorrow. Apparently her friend June had been on deck to host, but when June had been stricken with a shingles flare-up, Grandma had felt duty-bound to offer her home as a substitute location. Last night she’d stopped by Bradfordwood and told the tale of woe to Willow and Britt. Britt had said with incredible acting skill and a tone ripe with regret, “I’d offer to make all the food for the get-together, but I wouldn’t want to constipate anyone.”

  Thus, Willow and Valentina had ridden to Grandma’s rescue this afternoon to cook, clean, polish the silver, and set the table for tomorrow’s gathering. Now it was nearing dinnertime, and Willow had packed the two older women into her car. They needed food. But before they hit the Edge of the Woods Bakery and Tearoom, Grandma had insisted on one quick stop.

  Willow pulled up in front of Nora’s Bookish Cottage. A new custom-painted dark-matte-gray Lincoln Navigator was already parked there. “It looks like Nora has company.”

  “Her new boyfriend?” Grandma asked.

  “I assume so.”

  “Is he a Christian?”

  “You know that he is. I’ve heard you ask this question of Nora at least twice.”

  “I tend to doubt the salvation of good-looking men.”

  Laughter burst from Willow. She went around and helped Grandma from the car. “God doesn’t look at the outside, remember? He looks at the heart.”

  “Yes, but it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is handsome to enter the kingdom of God.”

  The three of them made their way up the walkway. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” Willow corrected. “That’s what that verse says.”

  “What’s true of rich men is doubly true of handsome men who are also rich. They’re prone to vanity and promiscuity and greed. It’s hard on me to have my granddaughter dating someone who looks like that.”

  “He’s a national hero!” Willow opened the front door a crack and called, “Hello,” in a carrying voice. She wanted to give Nora and John plenty of warning should they be making out.

  “Hello?” Nora called back.

  “Grandma and Valentina and I stopped by because Grandma wants to give you something.” Willow led the older women toward the living room—

  Her gait cut to a halt.

  Nora and John were inside. Fine. As expected. But Corbin was with them, too. Corbin. The three of them were on their feet in front of the spots where they’d no doubt been sitting moments ago.

  Corbin regarded her levelly, his features defensive. He had on track pants and a well-worn Nike T-shirt. He’d been wearing a suit the night of Grandma’s birthday, but today he looked like a man you could snuggle up with. Lay your head on. Watch a movie with while you both talked back to the screen and laughed and ate homemade nachos.

  She’d once snuggled with him and laid her head on him and watched movies with him while eating nachos.

  Seeing him was like a javelin to the chest.

  “Hello.” Willow attempted to appear unbothered by the javelin.

  John and Corbin greeted them and Nora came forward to give out hugs. She shot Willow a look of silent apology.

  “Nora.” Grandma drew herself upright. “I’d like to give you this hymnal.” She handed Nora the book. “Soon the hymnal will be a thing of the past and all the beautiful, beautiful songs inside it will be forgotten and unappreciated. I hope I can trust you to keep this safe in your little library.”

  “You can trust me to keep it safe.” Nora accepted the hymnal then motioned toward the living area. “Would you like to sit down? Can I get you anything?”

  “No, no,” Grandma replied. “We’re on our way to the tearoom.”

  “Valentina, can I get you anything?”

  “I good, miss! Good.” Valentina’s circular face beamed.

  “You’ve been helping Grandma get ready for tomorrow, right?” Nora asked Valentina. “That was nice of you and Willow.”

  “Yes, yes. The weather so nice! Sunny!”

  As usual, Valentina’s answers didn’t quite match up with their questions. Having a conversation with her could be like reading Alice in Wonderland. You were charmed, but you also couldn’t help but wonder if you might be on drugs.

  Grandma, bolstered by the fresh audience, gave a repeat airing of her grievances against electronic screens and modern worship songs. The guys listened politely. Willow avoided looking at Corbin while trying not to look as if she was avoiding looking at Corbin.

  Ever since she’d been confronted with him at Grandma’s party, he’d been hovering just beneath her thoughts. She kept shoving him away, yet he kept hovering. Several times she’d spotted him around town or on the road and been besieged by turmoil, only to realize whoever she’d spotted wasn’t Corbin after all. She hadn’t been sleeping as well as she normally did, either. And her typical calm felt just beyond the reach of her fingertips.

  Willow allowed herself one cautious peek in his direction. His body was still as mercilessly fit as it had been when they’d been together. She’d always loved his body. She was tall, but he’d towered over her in the best way. Not too tall. Not too brawny. Just deliciously right.

  To her everlasting shame, she found that she still loved his body.

  She moved her attention from Corbin to Nora. Willow had been advising her sister to take things slow with John. It was a difficult balance beam to walk because she didn’t want to come across as meddlesome or bossy or pessimistic. However, she earnestly did want to impart to Nora the knowledge that experience had carved into her.

  She and Corbin had not taken things slow. They’d only dated for a few months, but they’d been going at one hundred miles per hour the entire time. When you crashed into a wall going that speed, it hurt.

  She didn’t want that for Nora. Nor did she want to stand here, her ex-boyfriend’s presence viscerally reminding her how alone and bitter she was while Nora and John broadcasted extreme happiness. She clearly wasn’t a good person, because she had an urge to grab her sister’s shoulders and inform her that her romance with John couldn’t possibly go anywhere so long as John had Corbin as a friend.

  She felt as if she’d caught Nora red-handed being cordial to the enemy. Had Nora been hanging out with Corbin regul
arly and hiding it from her?

  Mercifully, Grandma kept the visit short.

  Back in the car, the road skimming beneath them and Willow’s emotions a lump in her throat, her phone chimed to signal a text.

  At a stoplight, Willow checked it. From Nora. I’m really sorry about that. John and Corbin had been at the gym, and Corbin dropped John off here afterward.

  Willow set the phone aside without replying.

  “Is John’s tall friend a Christian?” Grandma asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It would definitely be easier for him to go through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of God.”

  Nora arrived at The Grapevine ten minutes prior to John’s scheduled lunch with Sherry. His Suburban already waited in the parking lot, so she pulled in next to him. In under thirty seconds, she was out of her car, he was out of his, and he’d wrapped her in a hug.

  He bent his head and pressed his face near where her shoulder met her neck. She could feel banked tension in his body. “Have you been here long?” she asked.

  “A couple of minutes.”

  “Have you seen anyone wearing a bright pink scarf enter the restaurant?”

  “No. Either we arrived first or Sherry arrived very early.”

  She leaned back to study his face. “How are you feeling?”

  He shifted, interlacing his fingers at the small of her back. “I’m feeling like I can’t believe this is finally happening. All my life I’ve wondered about her.”

  It was hard to imagine growing up with an empty box inside you that needed answers neither you nor your parents had access to. John had spent his whole life that way. For decades, it was what he’d known. And now—suddenly—he was going to meet the person who could give him those answers.

  For John, today was like the metal piece that held up the center of a teeter-totter. Before, the teeter-totter had slanted down in one direction. After today, it would slant down in the opposite direction. Today was the fulcrum.

  “Are you nervous?” Nora asked.

  “Not really.”

  She wished she could say the same. Her stomach had been jumpy all day because she so badly wanted this meeting to go well for him.

  “I’m glad this isn’t going to drag out any longer,” he said. “I’m ready to get this done.”

  “Understandable.” Delicately, she combed her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, smoothing it into place. He’d worn a simple navy crewneck sweater and jeans with his Red Wing boots. His jaw was smooth and clean-shaven.

  He always looked great, even without effort. But she could tell that he had put in effort today, which caused protectiveness of him to swell within her. John had once vanquished terrorists intent on killing him and the people he’d been guarding. She couldn’t even vanquish the to-be-read pile of books on her nightstand. It was ridiculous to feel protectively toward him. It was also unavoidable.

  John had shown her Sherry’s emails. In writing, Sherry had come across as a careful, circumspect, gracious woman. Nora didn’t think Sherry had proposed today’s meeting for her own sake but for John’s, which said a lot about her generosity.

  However, the fact that she’d written to John that “contact between us is difficult for me” concerned Nora. John had told Nora that he had no expectations for a future relationship between himself and Sherry. In this case, though, Nora’s book knowledge of the adoption triad—adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents—was a liability. She knew that a sense of rejection, of being unwanted, could plague adoptees. Especially male adoptees.

  It sent a chill down her every time she entertained the possibility of Sherry unwittingly or wittingly making John feel unwanted. Like a boxer who’d recently taken a hard right to the chin, John was already staggering from the diagnosis concerning his vision. He needed time to regain his footing, not another hard right.

  She held his face in her hands and kissed him.

  He meant more to her than she’d yet been able to successfully articulate either to him or to herself. He was her boyfriend, but he’d also become one of her closest friends. Their relationship was the sweetest joy of her days. Her most precious possession. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “It’s five till.” They stepped apart, hands still linked. She clicked her key fob once to lock her car, then again for good measure. Together, Nora and John walked toward the restaurant beneath a pale blue sky.

  The Grapevine was the type of place that reveled in warm weather because it had as many tables outdoors as it did in. The passageway that led from the sidewalk to the outdoor seating gave her a view of a space reminiscent of the children’s book The Secret Garden. It was enclosed on one side by the restaurant and on the other sides by walls covered in ivy. A fountain occupied the middle of the courtyard. Ferns and tall pots of pink and red flowers clustered in the corners.

  They entered The Grapevine’s interior. While John gave the hostess his name and Sherry’s name, Nora’s attention combed anxiously over the diners filling the indoor space. No woman in a pink scarf.

  Her heart started to race. Nora! This isn’t your reunion. You’re supposed to be here to support John, to be steady.

  “Right this way,” the hostess said. She picked up two menus and led them outside.

  As soon as John stepped into the courtyard, he saw her.

  Sherry sat at a table near the back corner. She wore a pink scarf and a white shirt with its collar turned up. As they approached, she rose, her face softening with emotions he couldn’t name. “John,” she said quietly, opening her arms.

  He hugged her. She was several inches shorter than he was, but her arms were strong around him. When other people would have pulled away, she gripped him tighter, and he realized that the hug wasn’t a greeting so much as a conversation. She was communicating to him that she hadn’t forgotten him and that it was good to see him for the second time in his life. He communicated the same to her.

  Here she was, at last. Sherry. His birth mother.

  John waited, holding her patiently until she was ready to release him. When she moved away, she smiled at him for a long moment through watery eyes. Then they all took their seats.

  “I don’t often cry,” she told him.

  Nora had a tissue ready. “Here you are.”

  “Thank you.” Sherry took it and dabbed her eyes. “My. Forgive me. I’m more overcome by . . . this than I thought I would be.”

  “I understand,” Nora said, and he was grateful he’d brought Nora. No one was better at dealing with women’s feelings than other women.

  “I’m Sherry.”

  “Nora. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  Sherry reminded John of Laura Bush. She had the same brown hair styled in the same classy, conservative way. She was close in age to his mom, and he could easily picture Sherry as one of his mom’s friends from church or work or the group she played tennis with on Saturdays. Sherry’s diamond earrings, ring, and clothes suggested that she had both means and good taste.

  “You look like my dad and my brother Jeff,” Sherry said to him.

  He couldn’t see himself in Sherry at all except in her brown hair and maybe her eyes. Were her eyes hazel? They were. Like his.

  This was strange. This was like wishing all your life that you could meet a fictional character . . . say, Luke Skywalker. And then one sunny summer day, you found yourself sitting at a table across from Luke Skywalker.

  Sherry was studying him intently, too. “This is hard to believe.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “Thank you for answering my letter.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  A male waiter arrived and it took effort for John to collect his thoughts enough to say that he wanted to drink water. Nora chatted with the waiter, asking him which lunch dishes he recommended. The normalcy of their exchange settled John.

  “Would it be all right if we order now?” Nora asked the waiter.
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  He said that it was. Sherry ordered. Nora ordered the dish the waiter had recommended.

  “Two of those, please,” John said, though he didn’t feel like eating. The waiter moved off.

  “Tell me about your family, John.” Sherry had excellent posture. She sat very straight and still, hands in her lap.

  He told her about his parents and his younger sister.

  “They sound wonderful,” she said.

  “They are.”

  “I’m glad to know that you were raised by people like them.”

  “What about you, Sherry?” Nora asked. “I’d love to know about your family.”

  “My husband’s name is Ed. He’s an engineer. We have two children together. Our oldest is Lauren, who’s twenty-six. She works as a consultant in San Francisco. She’s engaged to be married.”

  “How nice,” Nora said.

  “Our son, Ben, is twenty-two. He’s finishing up at Gonzaga University. They’re both doing very well.”

  “That’s wonderful to hear,” Nora said.

  A brief pause. “I—I know that you have a lot of questions, John. About me. About your birth. I . . .” She drew in a long breath, looking between him and Nora. “I thought perhaps I should start at the beginning, so you can know a little about my background. Would that be all right?”

  “That would be great,” Nora answered in a tone that assured her she could begin her story anywhere she liked.

  “Sure,” John said.

  “I’m from Bend, Oregon,” Sherry said. “Did you already know that?”

  “We did,” Nora answered.

  “My parents were and are wonderful people. Their faith is the central pillar of their lives. They were strict and protective of me when I was growing up. But good, too. Always good.”

  John dipped his chin.

  “I attended Portland State,” Sherry continued. “After I graduated from there, I got a teaching job in Shelton. My parents were happy with that because they wanted me to live with family, and my aunt Deborah, my dad’s sister, lived in Shelton at that time. I was thrilled to move in with Deborah because she was one of my favorite people. She was successful and independent and, in my eyes, forward-thinking compared to my parents. She and I had always been close.”