And Then I Found You

by Patti Callahan Henry

  It was Rowan who had driven them both to the airport. Kate knew what this must have cost him, such chivalry, as if driving your girlfriend to the airport so she could be reunited with the daughter she had placed for adoption was the most natural thing in the world. He had even rolled the suitcases to the curbside check-in, where he hugged Nicole and then Kate. “Have a great time,” he had said. “And call me, okay?”

  “I love you,” Kate said as she hugged him back tightly. She meant it. She did love him.

  For the past two months, Rowan had kept his distance, sometimes not calling for days and yet attentive and quiet when he was with her. Only the night before he’d told her “I want to be thrilled that you’re going to meet her tomorrow. I do. But this is tearing me to pieces.”

  “What’s tearing you to pieces?”

  “It’s selfish and it’s terrible, I know that, but I can barely stand thinking of you and Jack with a child, of you and Jack talking and e-mailing, of you and Jack all together.”

  “This is about Emily.”

  But the conversation was stale and repetitive, something neither of them wanted to repeat, but seemed to every time they got together.

  They assured each other that after Kate met Emily, normalcy would resume. He kissed her good-bye, and Kate didn’t tell him that what he thought was “normal” was far gone, if there ever had been.

  The closer the plane came to New York, the faster Kate’s pulse tapped against her throat and wrist. Images of her daughter had once been made of fantasy, and now were fashioned from photos, a cut-and-paste of a girl in situ, nothing moving.

  When the flight attendant offered Kate a glass of wine, she almost took it but decided that reuniting with her daughter with the smell of cheap chardonnay on her breath was not the best way to begin.

  She’d always believed this day would come. Even when her family pushed her to look for Luna, she knew she needed to wait. They hadn’t understood her reasons, her desperate and crawling need to give her child everything: the mom, the dad, the possible brother and sisters, a full and complete family.

  The family’s unspoken and hidden emotions exploded only once—on Luna’s first birthday when her family had quietly and deliberately planned a dinner party at their favorite outdoor restaurant.

  Tara arrived first wearing her flowing skirt and tank top; her new baby, Colin, sat in his stroller looking up at Kate with eyes as round and blue as new planets. Tara’s husband, Kyle, held onto bags and blankets, looking confused and exhausted as if he’d been dropped into baby world without any warning. Molly had been on spring break and just shy of her twenty-first birthday and was a junior at University of South Carolina. She ran up behind Tara, draped in a sundress of such bright yellow, as if she was honoring the thick yellow pollen of a Low Country spring. Her hug was the longest. “I miss you, sissy,” Molly said.

  Kate’s mom and dad arrived dressed in almost-matching pressed khakis and white button-down shirts: Nicole’s frilly; Stuart’s starched. They hugged Kate simultaneously, stumbling over the end of the gangplank and laughing. Sitting at a round table, Molly reached down into a bag she carried and pulled out what Kate first thought was a stuffed animal and then realized was a real, live Shitzu, white and fluffy with a black-dot nose.

  “You can’t bring a dog into a restaurant,” Kate said, irritation already rising above the calm.

  Molly pointed at their Dad. “Don’t tell me. Tell Dad. I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he won’t go anywhere without Mister, his new love.”

  “Dad?” Kate looked to her dad who was trying, unsuccessfully, to look innocent and preoccupied.

  “Huh? I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  “That’s why you didn’t say anything?”

  Nicole interrupted, changing the conversation to Molly’s outfit, and soon the family was talking over each other and somehow carrying on a conversation in the way any family in any world was probably able to do with half-finished sentences and incomplete sounds, and silent meanings running underneath.

  They talked about Molly’s first boyfriend, and Tara’s column for Savannah Parenting, along with her new Web site called Mothering Heights. They discussed Kyle’s possible job change.

  The waitress came by to pour the wine and Molly held out her hand for a glass. “No way,” Nicole said.

  “Give her a break,” Stuart said. “She’s twenty-one next week.”

  Mister started to bark from his blue and white dotted bag and somewhere inside the restaurant someone turned up the jazz music. Soon the world faded into a buzzing distant image. The rhythm of Vaughn-ness that defined them as a singular unit took over.

  “So,” Nicole finally said, holding up her hand to silence the family. “Kate, really, how are you?”

  She didn’t know how she was, really, the world a buffered and distant thing going on outside a thick wall of fog. But she didn’t want to say this, so she waited too long to answer and her dad saw an opening to say what he must have wanted to say all night. “Today is our first granddaughter’s birthday.”

  “Dad, I know that,” Kate whispered. “I know it’s her birthday. You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I wasn’t being informative as much as I was telling you that I remembered.”

  Mister yapped in earnest, as if trapped at the bottom of a well; Molly swayed across the table; baby Colin began to cry with a high mewling sound. Kate ignored the Vaughn chaos to look her dad in the eyes. “It’s okay to talk about it. I think about her all the time.”

  Nicole made a noise, a whimper, and Kate turned to face her mother. “What, Mom?”

  “We just wish we could find her. You know—just know that she’s okay. Isn’t there a way?”

  “Of course not. You saw the legal papers. You know. Please don’t do this.”

  Molly leaned forward, clearly drunk, a shrimp bobbing off the end of her fork as if dancing. “I have a niece out in the world somewhere. A girl. Today is her birthday.”

  “Enough,” Kate said.

  It was then that Mister’s barks became intolerable and Kate spun around in her chair. “Dad, take the damn dog out of his silly bag and let him breathe so he shuts up.”

  “It’s not a damn dog,” Stuart said, leaning down to free Mister. “I just want to see her—my first grandchild,” Stuart said as he unzipped the dog bag.

  “Stop,” Kate said, and her single word became a detonator that exploded the evening.

  It all happened at once, but Kate could later recount each event as if they occurred one after the other in perfect synchrony. Mister shot out from his imprisonment and crapped on the deck of the restaurant while Molly pitched forward, grabbing Kyle as she threw up, trying to catch it with her wineglass. Her dad cursed, a litany of many curses strung together as one. The baby screamed as if Granddad had insulted him about his grandchild status, and Tara jumped from the table while Kate dropped her face into her hands and groaned.

  In the pause, in the aftermath, in the moment when no one should have said anything, they all heard Kate say, “Sometimes the future is just further away than we want it to be.”

  When they arrived home, somber and silent, Molly curled up in the corner of the couch and pulled her knees up under her chin. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I drank too much. But when the dog pooped, I just couldn’t hold it in.”

  Stuart stared at Molly but spoke to Kate. “What you said at the table is hard to hear. You’re so factual about it, like this is happening to someone else.”

  “What I said?” Kate asked.

  “About the future being further away than we’d like for it to be.”

  “It’s terrible and it’s true, Dad. If I could find out where Luna is and be able to call her and say happy birthday, if I could see her photo or hold her and tell her how much we all love her, I would. But I can’t and you can’t and we aren’t able to change anything about it.”

  “How can you be so resolute about this as if it isn’t the saddest thing in
the whole world?” he asked.

  “I’m not resolute, Dad.” Kate’s voice cracked open on the truth. “I can’t do anything about it. What do you want me to do? Make the present turn into some imagined future? You want me to be a magician and change the past? I don’t know what you want from me.”

  Nicole came to Kate’s side. “Stuart, stop.” She hugged her daughter. “Baby, we don’t want anything from you. We just…”

  “I know you hate what I did. I know I didn’t do it the way you would have. But it’s done. Done. Done.” Her last word vibrated, anger finally arriving.

  “It’s not done,” Tara said quietly. “There will be a wonderful day in all this. I know it.”

  Kate spun around and faced her sister. “You do?”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Katey-Latey. I’m just saying that I believe in good coming from this birthday.” She turned to her dad. “I know you don’t mean to be hurtful, but just think about what you’re saying before you say it.”

  “He knows what he’s saying,” Kate’s anger gained speed, as if knowing it was late to the party and bursting through the door. “He knows exactly what he’s saying. He’s telling me, and all of you, that he cares more about Luna than I do. Oh, how he misses her. How much he wants to see her. He wants all of us to know that he has a bigger and better heart than I do.”

  “No,” Stuart’s voice shook. “No.”

  “But you all have no idea what I carry around with me. No idea.” Kate spread her arms wide. “It’s something you can’t know. It is a missing so deep that it feels like a canyon. It’s a thing I can’t change no matter where I go or who I’m with or how I wish or want or pray. The only thing I can do is wait. Nothing.” Kate’s body shook with sentiments she’d kept inside. “I miss her more than you can imagine. I miss everything I know about her and everything I don’t know about her.”

  Stuart dropped his head and mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  Tara handed the baby to her husband and took Kate’s hand. “We all know, Katey-Latey. We know.”

  “We didn’t mean to make you upset. I thought it would make you feel better, not worse, to know how much we thought of her and cared,” Nicole said.

  Molly’s voice, quiet and fragile, ended the night. “She’s right, you know. No matter what we do or say, sometimes the future is farther away than we want it to be.”

  And now, on this plane to New York, the future had finally arrived. Yes, she’d always imagined this day, but it seemed that the word imagine was what made it impossible, the two words inextricably linked.

  Kate leaned back on the seat and looked out the window to the growing skyscraper skyline, to the gaping lost-tooth hole where the twin towers had once been, and to the state where her daughter lived.

  * * *

  Nicole and Kate rented a car at LaGuardia airport. It was brown, dingy, and smelled like acrid air freshener sprayed over cigarette smoke.

  “I feel like I should have a limousine or chariot for this trip. Not some smelly brown car.” Kate said, throwing her luggage into the backseat.

  Her mom placed her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “Dear, not everything has to go perfect today. Get that part out of your mind. It’s a miracle, but not a perfect miracle.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Such a mother thing to say.”

  They climbed into the car and hooked up the GPS system, plugging the Jackson’s Bronxville address into the system. Neon green numbers flashed THIRTY-TWO MINUTES.

  “Thirty-two minutes. Wow.” Kate pressed the bottom of her palms into her eyes and stayed the tears. “Now I’ve messed up my makeup.” She reached for her makeup bag in the backseat, knocking over her purse.

  “You don’t need makeup. You’ll just cry it off when you see her,” Nicole said.

  “Nope. I’m going to remain calm. I don’t want her to think she was born with some psycho heredity that makes her an emotional basket case.”

  “Oh, good, then let her think you’re an ice queen.”

  “There’s no right way to do this, is there?” Kate asked in exhale.

  “If there is, I don’t know it.”

  The car moving off the exit, Kate took in a deep long breathe. “Whatever happens, happens. That’s that.” She turned on the radio, and finding only static, she turned it off. Glancing over at her mom, Kate saw that her eyes were closed. “Are you seriously sleeping, Mom?”

  “Of course not. I’m praying.”

  Kate navigated the New York City highway system before exiting into a quaint town that could be painted and hung over a mantel. They passed the dry cleaner, the boutique, the bagel shop, and the bookstore, all snuggled next to each other and wrapped under the blanket of ancient brick. The evenly spaced trees were crowded with new summer leaves, sunlight falling through to make ragged lit patterns on the cobblestone sidewalks.

  The GPS instructed, “Turn right now.” And then, in a robotic voice announced, “You have reached your destination.”

  Kate looked up. The Jackson house looked down from atop a hill, white-painted brick with ivy crawling up the sides and around the front door. Stone steps led from the sidewalk to the double front door where two iron urns spilled over with flowers and ferns. “I have reached my destination.”

  “Do you want me to go to the door with you?” Nicole asked, softly.

  “I think I should go alone and then…”

  Nicole took Kate’s hand. “I’ll wait right here.”

  Together they climbed out of the car. “Do you think they’re looking at me?” Kate asked.

  “I’m sure they are.” Nicole kissed her daughter’s cheek and Kate started up the stairs. A breeze, full of cherry blossoms, flew across the yard. Pink petals fell to the ground and scattered in extravagant waste along the steps. Kate glanced down and on the front steps she saw a feather, freckled with brown and brushed with red. She squatted down and picked it up, placing it into her purse and whispering, “thank you” to the God who sent feathers and Facebook requests.

  Kate was calmer than she imagined she’d be. Emily opened the door with a half smile. In the briefest crack of time before she took Emily in her arms, Kate took in these details: copper hair catching light, a nose sprinkled with freckles, and the green of Jack’s eyes.

  For all the practicing and the imagining of the first words to her daughter, this is what she said. “Oh, look at you. Beautiful you,” Kate’s voice broke over the last word.

  Emily smiled fully. A gale-force of unnamed emotions arrived, and Kate took Emily in her arms and held her as if, once again, someone were going to take her away. Mother breathed in as daughter breathed out.

  “Welcome to our home,” said a soft voice from inside.

  Kate released Emily to see her daughter’s mother. “Hi, I’m Kate Vaughn.” She held out her hand to shake Elena’s hand.

  “Hi.” Elena reached for Kate’s hand and then pulled her into a hug. “Thank you for the gift of my daughter.” It sounded like a practiced line from a play or a production, yet Elena’s voice shook with its realness, with its honesty.

  Kate felt the slight shake of a shifting world. “Nice to finally meet you too,” she said.

  Emily giggled, a nervous resonance that broke them free to move. “Okay,” Elena said. “Come on in.”

  Kate glanced over her shoulder and Elena followed her gaze. “Is that your mom?”

  “Yes, she came with me and she didn’t want to … interrupt or anything.”

  “Please tell her to come in.” Elena made sweeping hand motions to Nicole.

  Soon they’d all gathered in the living room: Dad, Larry, and the brothers came out as if they’d been hiding behind a corner, which maybe they had been. Introductions were made and everything felt so normal that Kate felt as if she were just meeting another family, any other family in the world, until she looked at Emily.

  Instead of the feared silence, words and explanations and stories overlapped one another like too many simultaneous songs. Everyone tried to speak at on
ce while telling his or her side of the passed years.

  Sitting in the Jackson living room with family photos and the knickknacks of family life, they went around the room, slowly unfolding an intricate storyline and overlapping years where coincidences were synchronicities, when similarities were profound, and where ordinary days were magical, and they all added up to that moment. “Whoa,” Larry finally said. “I’m lost.” He smiled. “Kate, you first. Tell us all about your family.”

  At one moment, Emily left the room to grab a photo album and Elena leaned toward Kate. “I know you must wonder about her brothers. I know you chose us because we said we couldn’t have kids. I don’t want you to think I was lying or trying to…”

  “I don’t think that,” Kate said. “Not one bit.”

  “I know this story happens all the time, but we tried for nine years to have a child and nothing worked.” Elena looked to her husband. “Three miscarriages and then the miracle of Emily. Two years later, when I was late, I thought I might be going through the early change. But the change was Steven. And then Ethan. It’s like Emily coming to us began the miracle that kept going.”

  Kate smiled at Elena across the room, wanting to take her hand and kiss her cheek. But Emily bounded back into the room, dropping the photo album on the coffee table and then settling next to Kate on the couch. Emily held out her hand, waving it back and forth as if it was underwater. “I used to stare at my hands, or my feet, or my eyes and wonder where things came from. Like who gave me this or that? Now I never have to wonder. I never have to … not know.”

  “You have Jack’s exact eye color,” Kate said. “Like green glass that lets you think you can see inside your soul. Like everything green in the world at the same time.”

  Emily grinned, a shy smile. “I’ve always wanted to look like someone.”

  Kate took that same hand into her own. “Ask anything. Anything you want to know.”