Tears sprang to Jennifer’s eyes. “It wasn’t like that.” Was it?
“It was exactly like that. They always came first. Did they ever once take part in anything you did? Girl Scouts, dance recitals, birthday parties, anything where they had to do something just for you? Were you ever even allowed to laugh and make noise when they were home?”
“They were busy. They had the business to run. And when they were home, they were tired. They couldn’t help being older than most parents.” Her protests sounded weak even to her own ears.
Dennis shook his head in dismay. “When are you going to open your eyes, Jen? They failed you over and over again, and you always blamed yourself. And what about when you really needed them, when you gave birth? Hell, you were doing what they wanted— you were giving away the baby you already loved—and they still wouldn’t take the time to help you through. After they signed the papers for you to have the C-section, they didn’t even stick around until the baby was born. They went straight back to work. They never came to see you. They sent me to pick you up and take you home. It wasn’t you who was lacking, honey, it was them.”
“They left? They didn’t stay when I went into surgery?” Jennifer was aghast.
“I thought you knew that,” Dennis said, coloring.
“They left before I had the baby?”
“The doctor told them they wouldn’t be allowed to see you for a while, and their manager had just walked out on them at the dealership,” Dennis said, as if by trying to excuse them he could take away the pain he’d unwittingly caused her. “They left the dealership’s phone number at the hospital with orders to call if they were needed.”
Her face streaming with tears, Jennifer finally heard the things Dennis had been trying to tell her for years. Her parents had let her down, not the other way around.
Dennis crossed to the couch and put his arm around her. “You see?” he said. “It wasn’t your fault you’d always been in their way. It was theirs.”
“You really think so?” she asked.
“I know so, Jen. I was there, too, remember? I’d been working at Teal for over a year before you ever took up with Billy the Bastard. You were a victim back then, honey. It’s time you saw it all like it really happened and forgave yourself for something you couldn’t help. You were just a kid looking for love, trying to be happy in the only way you knew how.”
Jennifer took the tissue he handed her. “But what about my baby?” she asked, tears still streaming down her face. “I can’t love another woman’s child or even have another child of my own until I know that my firstborn has all the love she needs.”
“She’s probably happy as a clam.”
“I hope so. I’ve been counting on it every day for twelve years. But I still don’t feel free to love another child until I know for certain. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
Dennis squeezed her shoulder. “So what’re you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t look at him.
“I think you do, Jen. It’s time to quit running.”
She turned to face him, sniffling and smiling at the same time. “I’m going to look for her, aren’t I?” she asked. “I’m finally going to look for my daughter.”
Dennis smiled, standing up and pulling Jennifer with him. “Yes, my friend, you’re finally going to do what you’ve been aching to do since the minute you left the hospital without her.”
Jennifer gazed warmly at Dennis. “You’ve always known, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“The reason I’m not married yet wasn’t because I didn’t have time. It was because I couldn’t go on, I couldn’t break that promise, until I was sure she had a happy life,” she said, seeing things so clearly now.
“Probably.”
Jennifer wiped her tears away and walked toward the door. “I’ve got some calls to make.” She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked back. “Thanks, friend.”
“Don’t thank me, Jen. You figured it out all by yourself.”
“I don’t just mean now. I mean for always.”
“Go make your phone calls,” Dennis said, stepping back behind his desk. She’d embarrassed him, but she’d pleased him, too. She could tell by the color in his cheeks. It gave him away every time. But she kept the knowledge to herself as she left to go call her lawyer. Baby Doe, here I come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“IS THERE ANYTHING I can do to help?” Jennifer asked as Nicki led her into the kitchen later that afternoon with Lucy underfoot. Bryan’s house smelled like an Italian restaurant.
“Nope. We have to eat in here ‘cause Uncle Bryan’s model stuff is all over the dining-room table.”
Jennifer grabbed the plates and silverware Nicki had put out on the counter and placed them at the table. “What kind of models?” she asked, bending down to scratch Lucy behind the ears.
“Toy ones. Radio-controlled airplanes mostly.” Nicki pulled a pan of bread sticks out of the oven. “He says it helps him think and he has to do that a lot for his work. Sometimes they get really big. You should see the thing he made when he first started working for you.” Her smile was infectious.
“Mammoth, huh?” Jennifer asked with a grin, glad to know she’d been important to him even then.
Nicki nodded. “I’ll say. It’s in his bedroom and it takes up half the room.”
“He keeps it in his bedroom?”
“Yeah, that’s when I knew you were different. Usually he flies them a little bit and then gives them away to the children’s hospital or to families who don’t have enough money at Christmastime or something. But he kept this one. And Uncle Bryan never keeps anything,” she said, sounding conspiratorial. “Until he got me he never even owned any furniture.”
Nicki tossed the spaghetti noodles with a little butter, put them in a casserole dish and ladled sauce over them, then carried the dish to the table.
“You do that very well,” Jennifer said, impressed.
“Thanks. My mom loved pasta. We used to have it almost every night.” She took the salad she’d prepared earlier out of the refrigerator. Jennifer looked at the bowl as Nicki set it on the table. It was nothing but lettuce. She hid a smile, glad to see that Nicki still did some things like a kid.
“You must miss your mom a lot,” she said as Nicki sat down across from her.
“Yeah, I do. My dad, and my grandma and grandpa, too. But Uncle Bryan’s great. I used to wish sometimes I could live with him, you know. He’d come and visit us, and I’d have the best time ever and then miss him like crazy when he left.”
“I can understand that. He’s not someone who goes unnoticed, is he?”
“Nope. He’s the best. But sometimes…” Nicki hesitated, looking down as she wound spaghetti around her fork.
“Sometimes what?” Jennifer asked, smiling, encouraging Nicki to confide in her.
“Well, sometimes it’s hard, you know, just living with an uncle. I mean he’s a man.“
Jennifer thought of the little-girl swimsuit Nicki had been embarrassed to wear. “Men don’t always catch on to things, honey, but your uncle has a great set of ears. You just need to talk to him.”
Nicki looked up at Jennifer, her eyes filled with conviction. “There are some things a girl just can’t talk to a man about.”
“I think your uncle’s pretty open-minded.” Jennifer was surprised how important it was to her to defend Bryan.
“It’s just that…” Nicki hesitated again.
“What?”
She set down her fork. “I’m twelve years old now. My mom started her, you know, monthly stuff, when she was twelve.”
Ah. Jennifer felt rather obtuse when she finally realized what Nicki had been trying to tell her. And thrilled that the girl felt comfortable enough to talk to her about it. She just wished she had a single clue about what to say. Her own mother had never talked about such things. Jennifer had learned it all from her friends’ somewhat exaggerated accounts, and what they
hadn’t told her, she’d found out for herself.
“I guess it would be kind of hard to bring up with your uncle,” she conceded.
“I’ll say.” Nicki took a big bite of salad—without dressing.
Jennifer did the same, taking comfort in the fact that she and Bryan’s niece had something in common besides Bryan.
“I mean, I can’t ask him to pick up stuff for it on his way home from work.”
Jennifer smiled as she imagined just that. “Have you been feeling any different lately?” she asked, still not sure how to proceed. Should she offer to buy Nicki her supplies? Should she tell her how to use them?
“Nah. I had a stomachache one day, and I was a little scared…but it went away. And it’s not like just because my mom had it when she was twelve that I will.”
“You’re right to wonder, though. A lot of times girls do take after their mothers.”
“Not me. I guess Uncle Bryan didn’t tell you. I was adopted.”
Jennifer dropped her fork. Adopted? This child was adopted?
“You were?” she asked, picking up her fork, trying to rebalance herself.
“Yep.”
Jennifer’s mind reeled with questions. There were so many things she wanted to know. “Did you like it? Being adopted, I mean?”
“Yep. It was great. I never had to wonder if my parents really wanted me, you know? They picked me out specially. I have this friend back in Shallowbrook, Sally Sanderson. She was a mistake, and her parents had to get married because of her and everything, and all they did was fight all the time until her dad finally just walked out. And Sally always thought it was her fault and if only she’d never been born her mom would be more happy. My mom always used to say that my birthday was the best day of the year because if I’d never been born she’d never have been so happy. We used to have a big party every year, and Mom and Dad would make a toast to the woman who gave me to them, thanking her for our happy family…” Nicki’s voice wobbled and she took another bite of spaghetti.
“It’s okay to cry, honey. It’s okay to miss them,” Jennifer said, rubbing Nicki’s arm, praying her own daughter had found such a loving family.
Nicki sniffled and nodded. “I try not to because it gets Uncle Bryan mad at me.”
“Oh, no, Nicki! Not mad. He doesn’t want you to keep everything bottled up inside. Men are just funny about tears. Especially if they’re crying inside themselves.”
Nicki looked up. “You think Uncle Bryan cries?”
“I’m sure of it, Nicki. He lost his family, too, and he hurts every bit as much as you do.”
“But he seems so strong all the time, just goes on making jokes and stuff.”
“What else would you have him do? Curl up and die? Your mom and dad and grandparents wouldn’t want that, would they?”
“No. I guess not.”
“And besides, he’s got you to think of. He wants to make your life happy.”
“Did he say that?” Nicki’s fork hung suspended in midair.
“He talks about you all the time, Nicki. You’re his life now. He’d do anything for you, don’t you know that?”
Nicki shrugged. “I guess. I just don’t want to bug him.”
“You make him happy, Nicki. Never doubt that.”
“I think you do, too,” Nicki said, taking her empty plate to the sink. “Hey. You wanna see some pictures of my mom and stuff? The albums are in a cupboard in Uncle Bryan’s office.”
“Sure. Let’s just do these dishes first so your uncle doesn’t come home to a mess.”
“Now you sound just like my mom,” the girl grumbled, but she was grinning as she cleared the rest of the table.
Half an hour later they sat on the couch with the photo album open between them. Jennifer was anxious to see Bryan’s family, the people who meant so much to him, the people she’d never get to meet. There were pictures of him, too, as a baby, a toddler, a schoolboy, a young man. He looked a lot like his dad.
“Grandpa was a doctor,” Nicki said, pointing to a picture of Bryan and his father on the steps of a hospital. “That was taken when they named the new wing at the hospital after him.”
Bryan had never told her his father had been such an important man. But then, he wouldn’t have. He’d only told her what he’d found significant, the good man, the good father, he’d been.
“Uncle Bryan dated every girl in school,” Nicki confided as they looked at yet another picture of Bryan, in blue jeans and tennis shoes, standing next to a beautiful girl all decked out in prom finery.
“It looks that way,” Jennifer laughed, telling herself her pang of jealousy was absurd.
“Don’t worry. The school was really small. Besides, Grandma said it was just because he liked to date, but he didn’t want any of the girls getting any ideas about tying him down, so he never took any of them out more than once or twice. It used to drive her crazy. I wish she could’ve met you,” Nicki said, smiling shyly at Jennifer.
Jennifer put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I wish I could meet her, too, Nicki, but at least I got to meet you.”
“Yeah. Look, here’s a picture of the Christmas we got Lucy for Mom and Dad.”
“You and your grandparents?”
“Nope.” Nicki shook her head, her long auburn hair tickling Jennifer’s arm. “Me and Uncle Bryan. He flew me to Atlanta one Saturday when Mom thought he was taking me to the movies in town, and we picked Lucy out together. He had to keep her, though, for a whole week before he came for Christmas. She chewed a hole in the wall of his apartment and he had to pay to have it fixed.” Nicki giggled.
“I’ll bet he wasn’t too pleased with Lucy then.”
“I don’t think he minded too much. Uncle Bryan doesn’t care about things that much. At least he laughed when he told Mom and Dad about it. ‘Course, Lucy was theirs then.”
Nicki turned the page and was silent for the first time since Jennifer had walked in the door that evening. It was obviously Lori’s wedding picture. She’d been a beautiful bride with long hair, dark like Bryan’s, and big brown eyes. Her dress looked like something out of a designer shop with its layers of silk and lace and beads. She was also obviously very much in love with her husband, and he with her.
A single tear fell onto the page.
“Oh, sweetie,” Jennifer said, her throat thick as she hugged the girl.
“It’s my m-m-mom,” Nicki said, and started to sob. “I m-m-miss her so much.”
“I know, honey, I know,” Jennifer said, rocking the child back and forth.
She didn’t even try to offer any platitudes to soothe Nicki. There were none.
Nicki’s sobs tore at Jennifer’s heart. She wished there was something she could do, some way to make it better. She felt so helpless sitting there, allowing the girl to hurt so badly. And all the while Nicki cried, Lucy paced worriedly around the couch.
“Sorry,” Nicki finally said, wiping her face with the back of her hands.
“Don’t apologize, honey. Anytime you need a shoulder, I’m here.”
Nicki set the photo album back on their laps. “It’s just that she was always so happy, you know, so bouncy and stuff. I never thought of her not being here.” She bent over to pull Lucy up on the couch beside her.
“Of course you didn’t, sweetie. No one did. But I meant what I said. Anytime you want a woman to talk to, you can come to me, okay?”
“But you’re so busy, being so important with your work and all.”
“My business is just that, Nicki, business. It isn’t life.” And for the first time since she’d taken over her parents’ business, Jennifer knew that to be true.
“Okay,” Nicki said.
She turned the page and giggled again. “Look, here’s a picture of me as a baby. It was taken in the hospital right after I was born. They gave it to my mom when she came to get me…”
Nicki continued to talk, but Jennifer couldn’t hear her for the roaring in her ears. She
felt like she was going to be sick.
She stared at the picture on her lap in total disbelief. How had it gotten there? That wasn’t Lori’s picture. It was hers. Only hers. She’d cherished that picture for twelve years, carried it with her everywhere she went, every hour of every day.
“Are you okay, Jennifer?” Nicki asked. “You don’t look so good.”
Jennifer didn’t know if it was the concern in the girl’s voice or the way Nicki jumped up off the couch that made her realize she wasn’t alone. But she needed to be alone. Immediately. She couldn’t believe that picture in that album. She had to leave. To breathe. To think.
“I’m sorry, Nicki. I—I’m not feeling well. I think maybe I better go home.”
“But you don’t have to leave! You can lie down on Uncle Bryan’s bed.”
Uncle Bryan’s bed. Bryan knows. He’s probably always known.
“Excuse me…” Jennifer ran for the bathroom and promptly lost her dinner. Her stomach heaved with such spasms she thought she might die, she hoped she might, but when it was finally over, she was left with nothing but numbness. Blessed mind-healing numbness.
When Jennifer finally emerged from the bathroom, Nicki was pacing worriedly outside the door, Lucy right beside her. “You okay? It was the spaghetti. I just know I did something to it.”
Jennifer couldn’t look at the child. She wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t ready. God help her, she wasn’t strong enough to handle it. But neither was she going to allow the girl to blame herself for something completely out of her control. She’d done enough of that herself.
“It wasn’t the dinner, honey, or you’d be sick, too. I wasn’t feeling very well this afternoon, but I thought it had passed. I just need a good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine in the morning.” Jennifer grabbed her things and headed for the door.
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