Child of Mine

by Beverly Lewis

  Kelly swallowed and righted herself.

  No, she thought forcefully. I can do this. I will. I have to.

  She cleared her throat, swallowed, and now Michael was on the other side of her, also holding her arm, and not in a comfortable way.

  “I’m okay,” she protested.

  “You don’t look it,” Ellen replied gently, pushing up the frames of her thick dark glasses with one hand, the other still firmly planted on Kelly.

  Kelly stopped again and politely pried herself loose.

  “I know this must be hard for you,” Michael said, and she thought, You have no idea.

  “They’re very nice people,” Michael added, hands outstretched as if she might tumble at any moment. She looked forward, her blurred vision refocusing.

  “Do you need some time?” Michael asked.

  “No,” she said sharply.

  Just then, farther down the hall, another door opened on the right, and a thirty-something woman with highlighted blond hair, a casual dress, and black patent flats, stepped out. She looked to her right, then to her left, and spotted them. Spotted her.

  It was her gaze that struck Kelly first, the way her eyes melted with concern. Kelly remained bolted in place. What am I going to say?

  The woman was rushing, practically running toward them. Kelly looked away. Oh God, please. Don’t let me hit her.

  “Kelly?”

  She looked up.

  “Kelly Maines?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You are her mother,” the woman exclaimed but with a truthful smile. “You are as beautiful as I had imagined, the spitting image of your daughter.”

  Kelly blinked back tears.

  She reached for Kelly. “May I?”

  Kelly nodded, reluctantly at first, and then she was embracing this woman whom she’d wanted to tear limb from limb. The woman—Michelle is her name, Kelly thought—wouldn’t let go, refused to let go.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry we are,” Michelle whispered in her ear. “We will do whatever we can to fix this. We have so much to tell you, so many pictures to show you. I can’t wait for you to meet Megan.”

  Megan. At that moment, Kelly tightened her grip on Michelle. She wasn’t angry anymore.

  It’s going to be okay, she realized.

  Chapter 38

  Too bad you’re not into cars, brother dear,” San chirped, elbowing him in the arm. They stood in the doorway to the garage, admiring the sleek curves of her Corvette, distinguishable beneath the canvas. “Or I’d leave the keys, too.”

  Nattie frowned. “We don’t get to drive it?”

  Jack leaned over. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a spare set.”

  Nattie giggled, and San scowled good-naturedly.

  After his final visit with Laura, Jack had called San, apologizing for his part in their rift and offering an unexpected invitation. Their summer spat forgotten, San sounded thrilled. “I thought you’d abandoned me, brother dearest.”

  Until she left for New York, San would inhabit Laura’s room, sleeping where Laura had slept when Jack was flying his clients. During the day, in preparation for her new job, San would Skype her training program.

  Nattie helped him redd up the guest room, making the bed with another of Laura’s quilts, and both of them got a little nostalgic. Nattie sniffed, and Jack hugged her close. It never really was a guest room. It was Laura’s room. And now it felt as if someone had died, and they couldn’t bear to change anything, determined to keep the memories of Laura alive.

  Surprisingly, Nattie took the news of Laura’s return to Lancaster with undiluted joy and hope, excited for Laura, saying, “True love is worth going back for.” It was like the ending to one of her movies.

  The arrival of Nattie’s favorite aunt helped soothe whatever sorrow she felt, and San’s time with them turned out to be one long pajama party for his daughter, the perfect conclusion to a turbulent summer. During the day, San worked from home, clicking away at the dining room table, and every night, they sampled a new flavor of ice cream, and not the generic stuff, either.

  When they weren’t eating ice cream, San and Nattie worked through her school-supply list, making sure she was ready for the start of fourth grade, new outfits and backpack included. And sometimes, late at night, after letting Nattie stay up longer, the three of them would reminisce, often about Laura.

  The time Laura had shown up at the market wearing a dress and high heels was already a legendary moment; or when she’d thrown herself into the task of cleaning the fish Jack and Nattie had caught at the lake, a task she knew nothing about; or when she’d tried to tell a joke about the farmer who crossed the road but couldn’t remember the punch line, and how her exasperated expression turned out to be funnier than the joke itself.

  There were dozens of memories like these. Even San joined in, her attitude softened now that Laura was gone. It rankled Jack a little, but he let it go. Water under the bridge.

  “I never lied to you,” Laura had told him. “It just wasn’t my truth to tell.”

  Now, late at night, the house quiet and Jack unable to sleep, he thought back to Danny and Darla, lovebirds, married for three blissful years, but with no imminent patter of tiny feet.

  Jack was in Kansas when Danny had called with the news. “We’re thinking of adopting.”

  At the time, he was sitting in his dingy apartment, living his dingy life, feeling sorry for himself. But he loved Danny. After all, Danny was the optimist in the family, always encouraging Jack, always prodding him to think higher.

  “Come see us sometime,” Danny had said.

  He’d only met Darla once, and she’d seemed like a nice young woman, full of cheer, the daughter of a prominent family.

  “With Mom not doing so well,” Danny began, “San is staying with us this summer. You should call her sometime, Jack.”

  Jack had grunted. He didn’t care where his seventeen-year-old sister was living. San was the proverbial bull, and he was the china shop. San said what came to mind with little filter, just like their mother, and he’d long since reached his limit with the Livingston women.

  When the adoption was final, Danny had called him again. “Come meet our little girl!”

  “I can’t afford the time off,” Jack lied.

  “San’s still here, too,” Danny argued. “She’d like to see you before she heads off to college.”

  Jack had mumbled something about commitments, promising to work it out, but he never did.

  It was during San’s extended visit with Danny and Darla that Laura must have shown up to answer their ad.

  Another four years passed. Jack stayed in Kansas, sleep-walking through his life, flying by day, drinking by night, observing the FAA eight-hour rule of “bottle to throttle,” but just barely, sometimes by minutes.

  Teaching others to fly, sharing his passion, was the sole bright light in his life, providing others with his own patented means of getting away from it all.

  More calls from Danny followed, then one day: “Hey, Jack, I miss you. I hardly remember what you look like.”

  Look at my picture, Jack thought. “Gotta go,” he’d said and hung up.

  That was their last phone call before Laura phoned with the tragic news, leaving a message while he was airborne, flying between the clouds, still trying to leave it all behind. And with his brother’s death, “Gotta go” became his last words to the only person who’d loved him unconditionally.

  Jack could have descended into a pit of remorse and regret for how he’d treated his brother. And he could have refused the guardianship—should have refused it, in fact. But he’d decided to raise his brother’s daughter, determined to keep Danny’s memory alive in her heart, determined to raise her like Danny would have.

  Three days after the funeral, he’d moved back to his hometown, into Danny’s house, where there was a little girl to get to know, to raise as his own. Soon after that, San returned to Wooster, following through on her promise to hel
p him out for one year.

  The rest, as they say, was history. Slowly, Jack and San had forged a workable bond, albeit shaky at times. San stuck around and became the favorite aunt, the go-to person when Nattie needed cheering up or some full-on spoiling. Laura became Jack’s comrade-in-arms. And Nattie became the reason he got up in the morning, and the reason he prayed before dropping off to sleep at night.

  With each passing year, the past was becoming more distant and fuzzy, and although Jack loved San—loved her dearly, in fact—he still held a grudge against her, if only for reminding him of their mother.

  Even though the Bible didn’t mince words on this topic, he still couldn’t look at his mother’s picture without remorseful anger.

  “Forgiveness isn’t for her,” Kelly had said. “It’s for you.”

  This coming from a woman who’d learned to forgive the man who’d taken her child. If Kelly could do it, so could he.

  Jack slid back the comforter and reached for his robe. Turning on the bedside lamp, he retrieved his mother’s photo, hidden in the bottom drawer, seeing for the first time what he couldn’t before.

  Jack no longer saw heartache. Instead, he saw Nattie’s eyes.

  The next day, Jack proposed a radical new idea. Nattie was excited. And when San came out of her room, Laura’s room, Jack made the same proposal. San was surprised but amenable.

  “It’s about time,” Nattie chirped.

  So they piled into Billy Bob and drove to Wooster Cemetery, just south of town. Parking at the side of the road, off the beaten path, Jack stood there and stared at the hundreds of markers. He hadn’t been there since Danny’s death and had only a vague idea where the family grave site was located.

  “Follow me,” San said simply, leading the way to the northern edge, down the last row of markers, pausing to place a hand on Danny and Darla’s shared gravestone, then her father’s, until she stopped, finally, and stared down at the simple gray granite marking their mother’s burial place. They stood there for a few minutes, lost in thought. Jack put his arm around her, and she leaned in toward him, slightly at first, almost reluctantly, and then fully. Although she’d often kissed his cheek, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged his sister.

  He fixed his gaze on his father’s stone first. Walter Livingston. Feeling his heart clench, he looked again at his mother’s grave. Helen Livingston, the stone read, and it gave the dates for her birth and demise. No Scripture verse. No platitude. Just: Wife and Mother. A week earlier, Jack would have said, “Barely either.”

  He glanced over at Nattie, who was crouched down, tracing the names of Danny and Darla, in awe of the truth again, that his little girl was his mother’s granddaughter. His niece. In fact, the Nattie he adored had his mother’s eyes, his mother’s nose, and in many ways, his mother’s temperament. All these years, he’d been raising his mother’s flesh and blood.

  After a few minutes, they held hands and prayed; then Jack knelt at her grave and felt San’s hand on his shoulder and Nattie nudging against him. I forgive you, Mom, he thought, and then he said it out loud.

  Nattie hugged his neck and said to the grave, “Hi, Grandma. I miss you.” Leave it to Nattie to miss someone she’d never met, and when Jack stood up again, San had tears in her eyes, even though San wasn’t a big one for emotion.

  Afterward they headed to Nattie’s favorite dive for greasy burgers and fries.

  Their moods lightened a bit, despite the imminence of San’s departure. Nattie sat on San’s side of the booth, squished in so close San had to eat with her left hand. Normally San would have said, “Give me some space, kid.” But not today.

  Jack smiled as he watched them interact: Nattie’s appreciation for San’s clever retorts, Nattie’s admiration of San’s fashion sense, Nattie’s own slick and often unfiltered tongue. All this time, he thought. I should have known.

  On Friday, Jack called Laura’s cell and got a disconnected message.

  “She’s gone home,” he whispered to himself. And although he admired her courage, it didn’t set his mind at ease. If anything, he worried more, if that was possible. He called her cousin’s number next, who confirmed his suspicions.

  “Would you tell her I called?” Jack asked. “When you hear from her?”

  Laura’s cousin agreed. “She’s taking a big risk, you know. Her family is a little extreme.”

  No kidding, Jack thought. He said good-bye and hung up.

  That evening, after supper, San came into his office and sat down in Laura’s chair, the one she’d sat in for years as they’d planned the day and the week, discussing Nattie’s struggles and triumphs.

  He missed her terribly. And so did Nattie. And yet, Laura was right. They were doing okay without her. Not flourishing, maybe, but they hadn’t fallen apart.

  Jack put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his squeaky chair.

  San made a face. “You should oil that.”

  “And stifle the chair’s only voice? Never,” Jack retorted, chuckling.

  San rolled her eyes, then turned uncharacteristically pensive. She asked about Laura, and Jack told her what he’d just heard.

  She nodded. “I hope it works out.”

  They sat in silence. He’d already decided not to broach the subject, taking Laura’s advice. “Be gentle. We keep secrets for a reason.”

  San had obviously long ago decided she didn’t want anyone to know the truth. As a seventeen-year-old with her life ahead of her, already dreaming of college and a career in fashion, San wasn’t ready for motherhood and wouldn’t have let one mistake alter that track. Her reasons were her reasons. And with Danny and Darla eager to become parents, the solution would have seemed clear. Besides, San wasn’t the kind to contemplate deeper meanings or shoulder regrets.

  Wisely, Jack was weary of confronting women about their supposed maternity. He’d already done that twice, with disastrous results.

  Strangely enough, it was San who broached the subject. “You never told me what your test said,” she mentioned, referring to the hair samples.

  He told her, and she frowned. “So . . . your test result was different from Kelly’s?”

  Jack nodded.

  “She did her test by swabbing Nattie’s cheek?”

  He nodded again. Nattie had told him as much, a few days after Kelly had walked out. “The lollipop trick,” Nattie had called it, and he’d put two and two together.

  San made another face. “Well . . . that’s why your test was wrong. Hair samples are notoriously unreliable, you know. Subject to contamination.”

  Jack felt a sinking feeling. San wasn’t ready, and that was fine. Maybe none of them were ready.

  San got up from her chair, and he turned toward his desk. He felt her hand on his shoulder. “G’night, bro. And by the way, you’re a great father.”

  He swallowed, his throat tight. And then she was gone.

  Moments later, Nattie came in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sad,” she told him, leaning against his shoulder, putting her arm around her dad.

  “Me too.”

  She scampered upstairs, but not without making sure they were on for a story later. And while waiting in his office, he considered San’s response to the DNA, but it didn’t bother him.

  Days ago, he’d asked Nattie if San ever sat in the swing, where he’d gathered the hair samples. Nattie had cocked her head like a puppy. “Are you kidding? Auntie San loves the swing!”

  He’d only chuckled. Of course, for his own peace of mind, he already had redone the test. He’d submitted no less than ten strands of San’s hair, root and all, extracted from her hairbrush, and had it tested against Nattie’s DNA. He’d received the results in a few days. There was no doubt. Laura was right. San was Nattie’s mother.

  In the end, it seemed to Jack that San simply loved Nattie too much to raise her. And someday, when Nattie revisited the subject of her birth mother, as she probably would in a few years, he might call his sister and finally h
ave it out. “It’s time,” he might tell her, and she might agree.

  Or she might not. Besides, how would Nattie respond when she learned that her aunt was actually her mother, and that her aunt had deliberately deceived her? At nine, not so well. At thirteen, not much better. At eighteen, maybe?

  Would she feel betrayed? Of course. It could destroy their relationship. But he doubted it. Knowing her as he did, Nattie would come to grips with it eventually, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Nattie approached changes with great drama. We all do, he thought. But when it came to forgiving others, Nattie was a natural. She’d probably learned that from Laura.

  In the meantime, he would withhold the truth until the moment was right, until he thought Nattie ready. And he suddenly thought of Kelly. Kelly withheld the truth. And here he was, doing the same thing.

  Were we ready for Kelly? he thought, sighing with regret.

  He had little recourse but to continue praying for the best, asking God for direction, knowing the storm was coming, yet believing that somehow they would get through it.

  He thought of something else Kelly had said. “Without the darkness, we would all be deprived of the candle of faith.”

  Chapter 39

  Saturday, the three musketeers packed up the truck, stowed San’s suitcase and carry-on bag in Jack’s grungy truck bed, and headed out for the big airport, forty minutes to the north. Akron-Canton was San’s preference for a direct flight to New York’s LaGuardia.

  For most of the way, they traveled in solemn silence, watching the landscape pass, until finally San broke the quiet, repeating to Nattie what she must have said a dozen times that week. “We’ll video chat every Saturday morning. Until you tire of me.”

  “I won’t,” Nattie objected, her lower lip drooping, her head leaning against San’s shoulder. San draped her arm around Nattie.

  Jack dropped them off near the departure sign for U.S. Airways, then drove around again, taking the exit to park the truck.