Child of Mine

by Beverly Lewis

  Jack hustled out to the kitchen, kissed Nattie’s cheek, and offered to cook an omelet for both of them, an event that Nattie greeted with polite skepticism.

  He opened the cupboard, noticing how empty it seemed. He went to the dishwasher to retrieve a clean plate and realized they hadn’t been washed. We really miss Laura, he thought. He poured in the detergent, glancing at the glasses along the top row. He removed one and spotted the telltale sign of smudged lipstick—Kelly’s. Feeling wistful, he set it aside on the counter.

  He started the dishwasher and asked, “Where were we?”

  “Omelets,” Nattie interjected. “Laura uses coconut oil instead of butter.”

  “Got it. Coconut oil.” He went to the cupboard but didn’t see anything. He turned to see Nattie pointing to the other cupboard.

  “Of course,” Jack said. “I knew that.”

  He grabbed a bottle of oil and headed for the stove.

  “That’s olive oil, Dad,” Nattie muttered.

  “I knew that, too.” Jack chuckled, returning to the cupboard. Next he went to the fridge and looked inside. No eggs.

  He turned around. “So . . . how ’bout toaster waffles for breakfast?”

  Nattie sighed and put her face in her hands.

  ———

  Later, Jack sat at his desk again and reviewed the background report, searching for something he’d missed, as if he hadn’t already read it repeatedly. Nattie had begged to swim this afternoon, and he’d agreed to take her. It was the least he could do.

  He noticed the Lancaster Central Market again and accessed the website, curious about this nostalgic world of Laura’s where the English and Amish cultures collided. There was a market directory and a miniweb page for each vendor. He found Huber Farms, where Jonathan had worked, and clicked on it. On the right, there was further vendor information, including their personal website, independent of the market.

  Waiting for Nattie to come down, he clicked on it. The farm’s official website appeared. He stared at it. Nine years ago, Jonathan had worked here—no doubt he’d long since moved on.

  He heard a soft rustling outside his office and looked over to see something slide under his door. He got out of his chair to investigate. It was a piece of notebook paper, the heading: My favorite things about Kelly.

  Taking a deep breath, he began to read: She’s prettier than Angela. She plays with me. She makes me laugh. She likes my drawings. She listens to me . . . like Laura. She can do magic! She already acts like a mother, even though she’s not. She likes YOU!

  Jack had his work cut out for him. Sighing, he placed the list in his drawer and sat down to surf again. He poked at a couple links for Huber, and a large photo of the farm’s location at the market popped up, treating him to an unexpected sight: a photo of an Amishman, his arm around an Amishwoman, standing beside an English couple. The caption read Jonathan and Becca Lynn Glick, and owners, Bill and Jane Huber.

  The same bowl cut, the Amish hat with the required brim width, the black vest, a smile for the camera, the camera flash glistening off his pale clean-shaven cheeks.

  He stared at the picture. It was the same man he’d seen in the PI photograph, definitely older, but undeniable: Jonathan Glick, now married to Becca Lynn.

  Jack’s heart broke for Laura and for what might have been, and it made him even more determined to care for her. “We’re her family,” Nattie once told him. “She belongs with us.”

  Thoughts of her disastrous meeting with Jack, still fresh and raw, brought waves of regret the next morning, and to top it off, Kelly was running late—according to her own standards, that is. Even if traffic was rough, she’d easily arrive on time, but she liked to leave early—beat the rush.

  Kelly dropped a piece of bread into the toaster, still hearing Melody’s exhortations in her ear, and grabbed some almond butter and a knife. From the cupboard, she grabbed a couple of granola bars for her afternoon break.

  She clicked on her calendar for the day and smiled, a sudden wave of relief flooding through her. She had a dental appointment at eight. She’d forgotten she’d moved it up. She wasn’t expected at the office until ten o’clock.

  She took a deep breath. Too much on my plate, she thought. She even had time for a leisurely breakfast with English muffins and a bowl of cereal.

  Felix wandered out, meowing softly, nose-bombing into her ankles and flopping onto his side. She laid out the Meow Mix and rubbed his neck. The purring increased with intensity.

  “You’re rather high maintenance, you know that?”

  Felix meowed that he was worth the effort.

  Thirty minutes later, Kelly tossed her ever-present cell phone into her bag and headed out the door, dreading yet another drive in the Toyota. Maybe it was time for another car. She could afford it, couldn’t she?

  As if, she chuckled to herself. Although she’d put on weight, her bank account was still astonishingly thin, despite the good pay.

  She was driving to the dentist appointment when Ernie called. She was surprised to hear from her old pal, considering their recent commiserations.

  Ernie sounded out of breath. “Are you sitting down, kiddo?”

  “I’m driving, Ernie. What’s up?”

  “Listen, Kelly. I’ve kept something from you, and you should know the truth. It’s about that other prospect.”

  The other name? “Ernie—”

  “I didn’t want to say anything the other day, not until I knew for sure. Well, now I do. We know for sure.”

  She was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “I contacted the parents myself . . . well, actually Chet did. He’s better at that.”

  The parents? “Wait a minute. Whose parents?”

  “Okay. Now that I’ve got your attention, hear me out. You are not going to believe this . . .”

  While Ernie talked, Kelly took an immediate turn for a shopping center and parked in an empty slot in front of a drugstore.

  “This one came through the website, Kelly. An attorney contacted us. I wanted to make sure it was legit before I said anything. . . .”

  She could feel her arms tremble as Ernie described what he’d been doing during the past month. All with Chet’s blessing, of course, and that was the best part. No deceit had taken place. No one’s privacy had been invaded or compromised.

  When Ernie finally got to the point, Kelly nearly dropped her phone.

  They were at the pool. Despite the cloudy day, the temperatures hovered in the eighties. This morning, Nattie had announced a change in her list of favorite summertime things. She was now too old for the park. The pool was where it was at.

  Jack lay on his back, wearing sunglasses, catching his breath following a spirited underwater contest, which Nattie had easily won. Jack looked out toward the pool. Catching his eye, Nattie was about to leap into the water, frowning at his distraction.

  What now? she mouthed.

  I’m watching, he mouthed back.

  Nattie leaped into the pool, then surfaced, climbing halfway out of the water, holding herself up on trembling arms, half in, half out of the pool, a water-drenched little girl. “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “I just got out.”

  Nattie gave him the face, a powerful mixture of pity and love that could nearly always get her what she wanted.

  Jack nodded wearily, and Nattie squealed with delight, checking behind her and then flailing backward, splashing into the water.

  Jack picked up his phone and, without thinking, ran through Kelly’s old texts. It doesn’t feel right . . . I miss you . . . can I call you?

  “Da-ad!”

  He got to a sitting position. He could feel Nattie’s eyes on him. He could hear the frantic splashing of water, the squealing of a dozen kids.

  He pulled up his email. Something in the report didn’t make sense, and something about the Huber website was bothering him, as well. And yet there was no mistaking the picture of Jonathan and his wife, Becca Lynn Glick. Laura had pi
ned for her first love for nearly a decade, but apparently no grass had grown under Jonathan’s feet. He’d wasted little time finding another love.

  He thought about Laura last June, sitting on the bench, reviewing their day, enjoying their mutual love for Nattie.

  Jack thought back to that first date with Kelly. At the coffee shop, and then at the fancy steak restaurant. And their first kiss.

  “Da-ad!”

  Their hours of conversation, the feeling that his heart had found its home. And wasn’t that why he’d been so angry? She’d led him to hope and to believe. Only to jerk the rug out from beneath him.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself again. Laura was Nattie’s mother, and that changed everything. It changed the past, the present, and the future.

  Ernie had already purchased the plane ticket for Kelly, a one-way ticket to Chicago, scheduled for departure on Friday morning.

  Kelly’s Emily was now Megan, and she lived with her family in an upscale suburb of Chicago. She’d been adopted at the ripe old age of four months by parents who were fully capable of paying the exorbitant prices demanded by a no-strings adoption agency, the kind of agency that provided results in days rather than years.

  Ernie had submitted Kelly’s DNA, already on file, and Megan’s family had submitted hers. The test came back positive, and indisputable: Megan was Kelly’s child.

  According to Ernie, Megan’s parents were sickened by the news of their unintentional involvement, and they wanted to make things right, but with their daughter’s best interests at heart. Although they’d raised Megan with full knowledge of her adoption, they were worried about Megan’s capacity to emotionally deal with the truth at such a young age.

  A slow transition, ultimately leading to shared custody, would be worked out by lawyers, Megan’s parents, and Kelly. All she had to do was move to Chicago, preferably within a few miles of her daughter, and begin the process.

  I found her, Kelly thought, her body shivering with the realization that her search was over.

  Despite her own mixture of feelings, she would agree to their requests, saddened to lose her new job, but excited by her future.

  It’s worth it! she told herself.

  In the meantime, she had to find a new job and a place to live.

  “Done,” Ernie said. “And forget giving notice. I talked to your friend Melody, and she talked to her dad. They’ve already arranged a leave of absence for you. And Chet’s got a buddy in Chicago who needs some office temp work. Start with that until we know what we’re dealing with. You can always make a quick trip back to pack up your things.”

  “But I still need a place—”

  “That too. Done.”

  Determined to remember this moment forever, Kelly cued up a favorite song and stared at the storefronts nearby until she couldn’t see for the tears.

  Happy tears.

  Emily had been safe all along.

  I knew that, didn’t I? But no, she hadn’t known that, not for sure. But she’d believed it. She’d believed.

  Chapter 36

  Jack pulled up to Laura’s country home at three o’clock that afternoon, as they’d agreed. Rolling down the truck window, he sat for a moment, taking in the farm air, steeling himself for what would come next and praying for the right words.

  Along her cousin’s porch, a mixture of flowers displayed Laura’s handiwork—only sparser. He felt a twinge of guilt. She’d worked so hard at his home, bringing color into their lives, only to leave little time to enrich her own.

  In the distance he saw a mangy cat scramble for the barn, tracking its prey. The trill of a hummingbird came from the honeysuckle bushes, and Jack smiled, reliving those early weeks of summer, the three of them sitting on the back porch, watching their own hummers, learning their species because Nattie had been so determined to categorize her favorites.

  How I miss those days! Jack remembered Laura’s strange behavior the day he’d driven her home and sprung his dating plans on her, and then their awkward conversation that day in the laundry room. It all made sense now. She must have been dying to tell him the truth.

  Jack took a breath and let it out slowly. They had a lot to talk about, and a lot to decide. Yet even now, sitting there, waiting for Laura, he couldn’t help remembering Kelly, haunted by the pain in her eyes when she’d been confronted with her lies.

  Her lies—how ironic! After all, Kelly wasn’t the only one who had lied to him. Laura would have kept her own deceit for these many years.

  He sighed. His head was spinning. Forget how you feel, he thought. Do the right thing. The future was clear. Jack whispered it out loud, “Do the right thing. For Nattie. For Laura.”

  Crunching across the gravel and crossing the creaky porch, badly in need of fresh paint, he knocked on Laura’s door, feeling like a suitor, wishing he’d brought flowers. Suddenly the door burst open, and there she stood, her expression bright but apologetic. Her face seemed rosy, as if she’d just washed up, and her hair shone in the sunlight, her Kapp neatly pinned on top. “Jack! I didn’t hear ya pull up.”

  He felt out of breath, as well, but for a different reason—nerves. She wiped her hands on her apron and stood there, primly, now looking as anxious as he felt. “Are we goin’ somewhere?”

  “A short drive, maybe? We won’t be long. I promise.”

  She studied him for a moment.

  “I want to discuss the test results,” he said, noting her reluctance.

  Without saying anything further, she removed her apron, tossed it just inside the door, and followed him out.

  It was like old times, the way she climbed into his pickup and settled in, smoothing her dress with suntanned hands. Clicking the seat belt, she took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling quickly, as if to say, “Okay, here we go!”

  She regarded him with bemusement as he got himself situated, that charming way she had of watching him out of the corner of her eye.

  Jack put the truck into gear and turned around, kicking up dust, heading back the way he’d come. He paused at the blacktop, noting the scent of new asphalt, and once he’d pulled out, Laura asked about Nattie.

  He told her the latest, and Laura grinned at the details. They were never more comfortable with each other than when talking about Nattie, discussing her issues, her moods, and her recent shenanigans.

  Eight miles back to Wooster, he finally said, “We miss you, Laura.”

  “Well, I miss you, too,” she said politely, before pointing to the right. “There’s a park just down the street.”

  “Got it,” Jack said, turning.

  It was an older neighborhood dominated by dogwoods, maples, and ashes. He rolled the truck to a stop.

  Getting out into the breezy sun-dappled side street, they walked along a pathway leading to a secluded and shaded park bench. He could smell fall in the air, sunshine flickering through the branches, the topmost leaves just beginning to show their rich colors.

  Laura sat down, demurely placing her hands in her lap. Jack plopped down on the bench beside her, feeling the wood planks give under their weight. They sat for a moment, taking in the sounds of a riding mower, driven by a young long-haired landscaper in jeans, and the energetic squeals of elementary school girls jumping along the sidewalk across the street.

  Earlier, he’d been nervous, but now her openness, her cheerfulness, gave him courage.

  “I’m not here to harass you into coming back,” he said kindly, although that wasn’t exactly true.

  Her smile turned into a grin. When he couldn’t avoid it any longer, he said, “Kelly’s not Nattie’s mother.”

  Laura nodded, adding a soft hmm as if to say, “I told you that.”

  And instead of scaring her with what might seem like an ambush, he began to relay his DNA testing process, finding the strands of hair and submitting them against Nattie’s DNA, all the while gently backing her into a corner, where she had to admit to the truth.

  She listened intently, keeping
up with his explanation, her expression receptive, but there was a glint of confusion, as well, as if wondering if he’d taken her all this way just to tell her what she already knew.

  He plunged ahead. “My test was different from Kelly’s.”

  He studied her response but saw nothing—no glint of surprise, not even a whisper of guilt.

  “My test was positive,” he added for clarity.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I still don’t understand.”

  He tried again. “One of the hair samples I submitted matched Nattie’s DNA.”

  Now Laura leaned back, as if considering this. And then he saw what seemed to be a tiny chink in the armor: a look of acceptance. She wasn’t puzzled anymore. In fact, she wasn’t surprised at all.

  “Jack—”

  “Laura, don’t say anything yet.” He didn’t want her to begin denying it before he had a chance to make his little speech.

  He put his hand on the back of the bench, his arm practically around her shoulders. “Do you remember earlier this summer, sitting on the swing, talking about anything that came to mind, sipping iced tea at the end of the day and laughing at Nattie’s latest antics?”

  She smiled but seemed to steel herself.

  “And you gave me that gift I will treasure forever, not just because of what it is, but because it came from you.”

  Her gaze was steady, unyielding.

  “We were growing closer, Laura.”

  She nodded, sniffing softly.

  “But something happened,” he said. “After my birthday.”

  Her expression dimmed suddenly, but he continued. “We were on the brink of something, Laura.”

  “Jah, we were growing closer,” she said. “But after your birthday, I had to make a decision.”

  She reached over and patted his arm, as if to ease the blow of what she was about to say. “You’d never really seen me before that day, Jack. I mean truly seen me. And it was nice, you know, to have you look at me that way, but the truth is, I’m not fancy, Jack, and I never will be.” She looked away for a moment before continuing quietly, “And I don’t think you’ve ever accepted that.”