Child of Mine

by Beverly Lewis

  She pulled her phone from the lamp table. One last chance. She wasn’t going to let go of Jack and Nattie without a fight.

  After tucking Nattie in and fielding more of her attempts to “get to the bottom of this,” Jack was able to get Nattie distracted long enough to pray and fall asleep.

  He wandered downstairs to his office. Closing the door, he called San and gave her the news about Kelly and her test results, but held back the biggest part, the part about his own test and new suspicions.

  “Wait a minute,” San interrupted. “You broke up with her?”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Oh, Jack. We talked about this. And besides, you need someone in your life. Someone besides a nanny, I mean.”

  Jack leaned back in his swivel chair, the springs squeaking softly, trying to bottle his sudden anger. “San, what is your deal with Laura? Really.”

  “We’ve been through this before, Jack. Old news. Old.”

  “You got what you wanted. She’s gone. Just tell me the truth.”

  San blew out a breath, and it sound raspy in his receiver. “There is no ‘truth,’ Jack. I’ve just never liked the idea of Nattie learning about the world from someone stuck in the nineteenth century.”

  “You mean someone who’ll teach her about manners, and kindness, and hard work?”

  San scoffed. “Sarcasm doesn’t wear well on you, Jack.”

  He bit his tongue. San was hiding something. He was sure of it. Usually, he’d let it go, but not tonight. “What do you know that I don’t?” Jack demanded, trying to back her into a corner, but San did not like corners. Usually she came out swinging.

  “Jack . . . please.”

  “If you didn’t like Laura so much, why didn’t you just tell Danny not to hire her?”

  Silence for a moment. “I did,” San finally said.

  “So then . . . why did he?”

  San cleared her throat, and when she began, her words came more softly. “You weren’t there, Jack. You were in Kansas somewhere licking your wounds, trying to forget you had a family.”

  Jack rubbed his eyes, his frustration growing. “Don’t turn this back on me.”

  “Fine.” San sighed. “She just showed up on Danny’s doorstep, this Amishwoman, answering Danny’s church ad in person, of all things.”

  Jack waited.

  “Laura was a stranger from nowhere. Nattie was a newborn, and Laura had zero references. And you know how Danny was. Too trusting by a mile, and so was Darla. Seriously, how did we know that Laura was even Amish? She could have taken off with Nattie, and we would have never seen her again.”

  “San—”

  “I’m not finished, Jack. So there we were, with a strange woman standing on Danny’s doorstep.”

  Jack remembered that San had been staying with them at the time of Nattie’s birth, the summer before San went off to college. She was practically still a child herself.

  San continued. “No references. No family. No work history. Just a shawl, a Kapp, and a prayer.” She cleared her throat again. “So I suggested a background check.”

  Jack leaned forward, stunned.

  “Of course Danny objected, but Darla certainly didn’t oppose the idea. She had a mother’s cautious worry, so Danny gave in, and we hired a PI, and he, in turn, hired someone in Lancaster County for the legwork, to check out her story.”

  She paused for a minute, then said defensively, “You would have known all this, Jack, if you’d ever visited when Nattie was first born.”

  Jack remained silent, determined not to let San verge off track.

  “Anyway, what we discovered was that Laura came from terrible family circumstances, which is rather strange considering her religious upbringing. This Amish clan, they were doozies, Jack, let me tell you. According to the investigator, they seemed meanspirited and suspicious of outsiders.”

  “Who did you talk to?” Jack asked, his heart beating through his chest. Had San known the truth about Laura all these years? Is that why she despised her?

  “No one would talk about her. That’s what we found at first.”

  “That’s not surprising, is it?” Jack countered. “She was a shunned woman. They were following their cultural protocol.”

  “Well, that in itself was a big red flag,” San said. “You’d think we could have found someone to vouch for her, but no one would. In fact, no one who knew her who would give her a positive reference.”

  Jack considered this. “So that’s your big deal. No one would talk about a shunned woman?”

  San sighed. “Still . . .”

  Jack felt his face redden. “I mean, no criminal record, no history of abuse, no unborn children—just a shunning.” He’d strongly emphasized unborn, thinking she’d bite, but she didn’t.

  “The Amish don’t shun for nothing, Jack.”

  “To us they do,” he argued.

  “Like I said. No one would talk to us, except . . . well . . . her ex-boyfriend.”

  Jack paused. “Jonathan.”

  “Yes, Jonathan.” By now, San was thoroughly defensive. “Listen, I gotta go, Jack. It’s late.”

  “So you found nothing on her. A big fat zero.”

  “Yes, Jack. You win. We never had a reason to doubt her. But I wanted to be sure. I wanted my niece to be safe.”

  “You should have appreciated Laura for what she did for us, for me, and for Nattie.”

  “Oh, for pete’s sake, Jack. I did. I just never cozied up to her. That’s all.”

  The phone went silent. Finally San spoke softly, a defeated tone in her voice. “It’s all in the background report, Jack. There’s nothing worrisome, obviously. But you asked, so I told you. Actually, I told you this years ago. Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  San sighed. “Will you let me go now?”

  Frustrated, Jack said good-bye and hung up, sweating profusely, and to top things off, his own cell phone pinged.

  A text from Kelly: Can we talk?

  He wanted to talk to her, to fix things, but what he was uncovering now was a game changer.

  He replied: I’m sorry.

  So am I.

  He sat there waiting, contemplating what else to say. His phone beeped again, and he glanced at the message. I miss you.

  Kelly had only been gone for a few hours. He almost texted the exact same words back. His anger toward her had long since subsided, leaving only confusion.

  He thought of Laura and how drastically things were about to change. Change how, he wasn’t sure, but he had an idea.

  He shut off his phone, leaning back in his chair, body trembling. He wiped his hands on his jeans and set about the task at hand, finding the truth.

  “It’s in the background report,” San had said. “I told you this years ago,” she’d added, and bits and pieces of that conversation were starting to come back to him. The report had contained nothing to implicate Laura of devious motives, but maybe there was something else, something hidden they hadn’t seen.

  As for the report itself, there was only one place it could be—that is, if it still existed.

  Danny had been freakishly organized, but after his passing, Jack never bothered to actually review any of the files that used to be stored in the bottom drawer of the desk where he now sat—old financial records he’d intended to throw out . . . eventually. Grieving over his brother’s death, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. What was the point?

  Jack now racked his brain, trying to remember where he would have stored them. Garage attic?

  He trudged out to the garage and spotted the pulldown ladder leading to the attic above. If the files still existed, they would be up there. Grabbing a flashlight, he pulled down the makeshift ladder and climbed to the top, looking into the compartment smelling of fiberglass and dust.

  A couple yards away, illuminated by his flashlight, Jack spotted an assortment of file boxes. Jackpot, he thought grimly. After retrieving a musty carton, he went back to his office and beg
an digging through Danny’s stuff.

  At the time of Danny’s funeral, San’s phrase “background report” had barely registered, and he’d quickly drawn an assumption: Of course. Something to do with Nattie’s adoption records, he’d thought. Or a background report on the accident, neither of which interested him in the slightest.

  Leaving the stacks of papers, Jack wandered upstairs to check on Nattie, only to find her sawing logs. Poor kid. No one seemed more innocent and harmless than an unconscious Nattie.

  After tucking Laura’s quilt around her, he slipped back downstairs quietly, and once in his office, he commenced rummaging through Danny’s file.

  There were indeed the adoption records, which he opened first, not expecting to find anything. He’d seen them before during the formal proceeding for his own guardianship of Nattie.

  He thumbed through dozens of papers and receipts and was about to put everything away when he noticed a few stapled pages in the back. Removing them, he glanced at the top of the first paper, caught a stray word, and knew he’d found the fated background report, including a duplicate check attached to the back. Darla had signed the check drawn on their account.

  In short, the background check on Laura produced the grand result of three single-spaced pages, a somewhat rambling account of the investigator’s limited findings.

  Toward the end of the third page, one paragraph popped out at him, including a reference to a hasty and somewhat contentious conversation with a Jonathan Glick, Laura’s childhood sweetheart.

  There was a photo attached, a picture of a rather unhappy young Amishman, raising his hands to object, clearly displeased by the violation. Jack wondered why they’d taken the photo in the first place. Perhaps to prove the conversation had taken place?

  Don Fielder, licensed PI and Lancaster resident, had done the fieldwork in Pennsylvania for a local PI and had typed it up, typos and all:

  Typical Amish bowl cut, Jonathan Glick answered the door. He works at the Lancaster Central Market for Huber Farms. At first, he declined to be interviewed, but after we mentioned the topic, Laura Mast, he changed his mind. In response to our questions regarding her suitability as a nanny, his manner became belligerent, and he replied, “You obviously don’t know Laura, or you wouldn’t have to ask me this.”

  According to the last pages of the report, “Jonathan declined all further questions, and basically shut the door in our faces.”

  I’m not surprised, Jack thought, noting that Jonathan’s contentious retort could have been taken two ways.

  Jack flipped back to the front page to recheck the date of the conversation, a full two years after Laura’s departure and her subsequent shunning.

  He thought about this for a moment. They’d conducted this investigation two years after Laura’s departure. He stared at the photo. Something didn’t seem right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He closed the report and scanned the top line again. John Gibbon, Licensed Private Investigator. His address was listed as an office suite downtown.

  Jack sat there a moment, mulling it over, but the conclusions remained the same. While the background report had yielded little in the way of corroborating information, the DNA was inescapable. San’s skepticism was justified.

  Laura is Nattie’s mother.

  In the morning, Nattie was still in bed when Jack got up and started the coffee machine. Thumbing through his phone, he noticed another text from Kelly, sent about twenty minutes earlier: Hope your day goes well. Give Nattie a hug from me.

  He felt another sickening thud in his stomach. He texted something back that must have seemed terribly cold to her, and couldn’t help but remember what she’d asked him yesterday evening. “If I had told you the truth, would you and I have had a chance?”

  The answer was no. He would have shown her to the door, hired legal counsel, and dug in his heels. Even if he had allowed Nattie to be tested, it would have been conducted through his lawyer.

  We never had a chance.

  As if he hadn’t tortured himself enough, he went to his office and opened the background report again. The more he thought about it, the gap in time made sense, the time between when Laura had left her community, according to her, and when she’d showed up answering Danny’s posted advertisement for a nanny.

  Only she’d omitted the part about why she’d left her community, pregnant with Jonathan’s child and abandoned by her family.

  At eight, Jack set the file down, closed his office door, and called the lab.

  “Do you have a moment to discuss my lab results?” Jack asked, when Jennifer answered. “I’m having a problem deciphering them.”

  She said she was more than willing to provide assistance, pulling up Jack’s report on her computer.

  “Is it possible,” he asked, “that I accidentally included hair strands from my daughter and tested them against her own swab sample?” In his view, this was unlikely, but he wanted her opinion.

  “The lab would have detected an exact match and determined immediately that it was a collection error,” Jennifer said, going on to explain her answer in more technical terms.

  Jack asked her a few more questions, which she answered cheerfully. He thanked her again and hung up. He sat in his chair and chewed on it for another half hour. The conclusion was obvious. And the timeline fit. San’s suspicions fit. The DNA fit. Everything fit.

  All that remained was why? He considered this. Obviously, after giving Nattie up for adoption, Laura must have had second thoughts. Somehow, with information as to her child’s whereabouts, Laura had then followed Nattie to her city and was miraculously able to get a job as a nanny for her very own child.

  But one part didn’t fit. How was it possible that Nattie just happened to be placed in the same town as Laura’s cousin?

  Highly improbable.

  Unless . . .

  He sat up as another possibility struck like lightning. What if Laura had engineered Nattie’s placement? What if she had selected Danny and Darla because they lived in the vicinity of her cousin? What if she had always planned to watch over her child?

  In that case, however, if she was so worried about her child, wouldn’t she have opted for an open-adoption arrangement?

  Jack returned to the kitchen and poured his third cup of coffee. He leaned against the counter. Nattie still hadn’t stirred.

  Jack took a sip. Maybe Laura didn’t want anyone to know she’d had a child. That was possible, because an open adoption would have revealed her sin to the Plain community.

  Jack sat there, his mind swirling around, trying to make sense of not only the information, but what he would do with it.

  Ultimately, it came down to what was best for Nattie.

  Chapter 35

  Early in the morning, Kelly opened the office doors, took the phone off night mode, and quickly checked emails.

  Just before this, while sitting in her car, she’d texted Jack. Hope your day goes well. It sounded hopelessly out of touch, as if nothing had happened last night. Jack had texted back: You too.

  Give him space, she thought. And while you’re at it: Get over him.

  In the meantime, she had a job to do, a job she still loved. During the past weeks a few clients had already contacted her boss, Melody’s father, to compliment him on her hire.

  “I look like a genius!” Bill had told her, and she’d laughed, appreciating the compliment. But there was little doubt she was good at this. If anything, work would give her time to heal, time to figure out the future.

  Melody’s father came out with the company newsletter for her to edit, plumbing another of her talents. Smoothing out the sentences for clarity, Kelly also looked for ways to add a shine of professionalism and savvy to otherwise dry information. Interspersed with this, she poured a cup of coffee for a client and made friendly conversation until her boss was ready to see him.

  During her lunch break, she rechecked her phone. There was a happy, chatty text from Melody. But nothing m
ore from Jack.

  Let it go, Kelly told herself again, opting for the distraction of a quick trip to the deli down the street, where she sat in the corner, eating her turkey and Swiss sandwich while catching up on world news. When she was finished, she called Ernie and apologized for sounding so abrupt last night.

  Ernie laughed it off.

  “I’ll stop by the office for a hug.” Kelly laughed.

  “I’ll hold you to it, kiddo.”

  She thought of Chet and Eloise, wanting to do something special to thank them. She couldn’t possibly repay them, but she could thank them with a special gift, and she could be the best “daughter” she could possibly be.

  Despite last night’s decisions and tumultuous ending, she felt a strange peace. No matter what happened, things were going to be fine. She knew this, even though she couldn’t explain it. She recalled the story of George Mueller’s faith, thanking God for food while the orphans sat waiting. The table only looks empty, she decided.

  Sure, she might find another way to search for Emily. Or she might simply move on. She didn’t really know yet. But she had the utmost confidence that God would give her wisdom, despite her many mistakes.

  All things work together for good . . .

  Nattie wandered down about nine o’clock that morning, holding Bear Bear. She peeked in Jack’s office, her hair in disheveled braids, still wearing her cartoon pajamas, her perturb having carried over from last night. “How come you didn’t wake me?”

  Jack tossed his pencil on the desk, leaning back in his squeaky chair. “Thought you needed sleep.”

  “When will I see Kelly again?” she asked sharply. Her gaze threatened to bore a hole in his face.

  “Do you want to text her?”

  She made a face. “Texting is for scaredy cats.”

  The phone rang. Mick at the office. Paper work questions.

  Nattie harrumphed at Jack’s sudden preoccupation and headed out to the kitchen, presumably to dig up some Pop-Tarts.

  When Jack hung up the phone, Nattie whimpered from around the corner at the bar. “I’m all alone out here . . .”