by Julia London
Jane screwed up her courage and called Rhonda Robertson.
When the woman answered the phone, all of Jane’s carefully rehearsed speech flew out of her head and she said, “I am sorry to bother you, but I . . . I think Sandra Fallon might have given birth to me.”
Her blunt opening was met with silence on the other end. Cold, hard, deep silence. And then a release of breath. Followed by a small gasp. “Lucy? Sandy’s Lucy?”
Jane melted onto the floor, her phone pressed against her ear. “Lucy? My name was Lucy?”
And now, on this windy, overcast Saturday, Jane was seated across a kitchen table with a plastic covering and bouquet of paper bluebonnets between them, as Rhonda stared at her, shaking her head in disbelief. “You look so much like her, you know?”
Jane looked down at one of two pictures Rhonda had given her of a dark-haired woman with wide brown eyes and a warm smile. In one photo, she was much younger. Rhonda said that it was taken about the time she’d gotten pregnant with Jane. The other photo had been taken a few days before she’d died. She was on a boat, holding a glass of champagne. “We’d just bought it,” Rhonda said.
Rhonda, as it turned out, was Sandy’s half sister. “Our mother,” she said with a sad sigh, “wasn’t exactly the sticking-around, nurturing type. My dad raised me. Sandy was raised by her grandmother. I don’t remember much except that she was from Greece and she was really hard on Sandy.”
“Then I’m Greek?” Jane said aloud, her voice full of wonder.
“Greek-Italian. Your father was about a quarter Greek. Our mom was Italian. My goodness, you’re a pretty thing, Jane. Sandy would have been so proud.”
“Would she?” Jane asked, looking again at the woman smiling at her in the photo. “Why . . .” Her breath caught. It was too difficult to ask aloud the one question she had to have answered.
“Why did she give you up?” Rhonda asked.
Jane nodded.
Rhonda sighed. “That Sandy,” she said sadly. “She was never really settled, you know? She bounced from man to man, and let me tell you, it seemed to me she had the pick of the crop. Oh, I used to look up to her. She was eight years older than me and I thought she was a goddess. She was smart, and educated, and so stylish. She put herself through law school and worked at some big downtown law firm. She never wanted to settle down and have kids or that sort of thing. She wanted a career, and to travel and see the world.”
“Is that why?” Jane asked, surprised by how much the idea hurt her. Sandy hadn’t thought her own child had been worth settling down for?
“Goodness, no,” Rhonda said. “She’d gotten involved with one of the partners of the firm. But he was married, Jane. He had three little kids. And Sandy loved him, oh how she loved him . . . but she wasn’t going to ruin his life, or the life of those three children. That was the way she saw things; if she kept you, it would ruin other lives. He’d made it clear from the outset he would never leave his family, and if she couldn’t be with him, she decided adoption was the way to go. She didn’t want anyone to know, so I told her to come out here. Gwen and I were friends, and I knew I could trust her. So Sandy took a leave of absence, said it was a family emergency, and she came out here, and had you. She got some friend to handle the adoption.”
“Did she see me? Did she hold me?”
Rhonda’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, sweetie, yes, she held you. She loved you. And she cried and cried when the man took you from her arms.”
Jane’s eyes filled with tears, too.
“Sandy heard a couple of years later that you were doing really well with your family, and she was happy about that.” Rhonda looked down, shook her head, and looked up again. “Let me be perfectly honest with you, Jane. Sandy was like our mom—she wasn’t cut out to be a mother herself. She always wanted her freedom. My guess is that God was looking out for you. You ended up where you were supposed to be.”
Jane had never had any question of that. “What about my dad?”
“I know who he is if you want to know. He’s still in Austin. He’s a judge now. Sandy, she quit that job in the firm when the affair ended, and she moved out here. She married Bud Fallon, and I think she was truly happy. Then Bud died of cancer, and not six months after that that drunk driver killed Sandy. And then Gwen went . . . Lord.” Rhonda’s eyes took on a distant look for a moment. But she quickly recovered. “You know she told me once that she’d never felt peaceful after giving you up. She could never get past the pain of her choice. Right or wrong, it left her drifting for a long time, like she didn’t know where she belonged.”
Those words, which Jane had said so often, gave her a preternatural shiver.
She stayed for a couple of hours, and Rhonda told her everything she could remember about Sandy and what Sandy had said about Jane’s father, Raymond Hilliard.
When Jane finally left, with a promise to see Rhonda again, she drove one block before she pulled over and called her mother. “Mom,” she said, and suddenly burst into tears. “I found her. I found her!” she cried. “I look like her! She was a lawyer. But Mom . . . Mom. I love you. I am so glad you are my mother, and I am so sorry for putting you through this, but I had to know, and now I know, and I love you and I am so, so thankful that you are my mother.”
She told her mother everything that Rhonda had told her, clutching the picture of her birth mother in her hand as she talked. And when she finally hung up with a promise to call and tell her father later, Jane felt something come over her. It was a calm. A sense of peace.
She knew. At last, she knew. All of the questions were flittering away, scattering like tiny pieces of paper, because Jane had the basic answers of who she was, of where she’d come from. Her search hadn’t ended like she had hoped, obviously—she would never know her birth mother, would never be able to ask her what her favorite color was, or what she’d done all those years, or anything else. But it was okay, because Jane knew, at last, who she was.
And with stunning clarity, she knew exactly where she was going.
Where she belonged.
The worst of the storm passed overnight, and by early afternoon Saturday, there was nothing left but wind, overcast skies, and the occasional light rain. Asher had to get out of the house, away from a moody teen and the sounds of SpongeBob SquarePants laughter. He decided to go for a run. He asked Riley to keep an eye on Levi and started out.
He ran, his mind cleared by his breathing and the music pumping from his iPod, following Arbolago Drive, which looped around the subdivision, then winding back up through the neighborhood, his rhythm slow but steady as he took the last hill. But as he neared the gates of his house, his pace slowed.
He stopped and stared.
Jane’s red car was parked there, and Jane was standing beside it. She was wearing a red skirt and a denim jacket, and the hem of her skirt kept lifting in the breeze, along with the tail of her ponytail. Her hands clasped behind her back, she stood watching him.
Asher couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was so taken aback that he couldn’t think of what to say.
She glanced at the gate, then took a few steps toward him. “I, ah . . . I saw you running and decided to wait here.”
Asher put his hands on his waist, catching his breath, staring at Jane. Words failed him.
“I had a little speech rehearsed, but I can’t remember a word of it now,” she said sheepishly. “It was really witty and sophisticated. I was hoping you would laugh. I thought it best to go with something like that, because as we both know, I’m not very good at expressing myself, but now that I’m standing here in the middle of the road, I can’t think of a word of my grand little speech. Just so you know, I spent a lot of time on it.” She smiled a little.
Asher was afraid to ask why she was here.
“You’re supposed to be up there,” she said, pointing toward the house. “You’re supposed to listen to my speech and then say, Oh, Jane, I forgive you, and we fall into bed before the kids get up, an
d then Levi sees me and he applauds, and Riley . . . well, I’ll be honest, I hadn’t quite worked that one out, but then we’d make pancakes for breakfast, and then . . . then maybe the director yells cut, I don’t know.” She nervously brushed her hair back. “It’s all ruined now, but here goes.” She took a breath, planted her hands on her hips. “I am . . . I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Asher’s heart skipped.
“I can’t stop, and I don’t want to stop. Before you say anything—not that there seems to be any danger of that, but just in case—I know that I left, that I said I couldn’t live in her shadow and I didn’t know where I was supposed to be. But I . . . things have changed, Asher. I found my birth mother, and it wasn’t Susanna. My mother was the woman Susanna hit, which means, instead of the freaky thing of Susanna being my mother, it’s a freaky thing of Susanna bringing us together in a . . . well, in a very tragic way for us both, but still, no matter how you slice it, Susanna brought us together. And in a weird way, that has opened up a new door, and there is sunshine and laughter and flowers and love through that door, and you are through that door. I hope. My God, how I hope. And even if you aren’t through that door, I still had to come and say I love you,” she said, pressing her hand to her heart. “I love you. I can’t stop missing you. I can’t stop wanting you. And I am here to beg you for another chance.”
His heart was still pounding. “How long have you been back?”
“Four days. I’ve been sleeping on Samantha Delaney’s couch.”
He wanted to touch her. Heaven help him, he wanted to touch her. “How do I know you won’t take off again?”
“Good question,” she said shakily. “Well, trust would seem to be a poor choice of words given the last time I was here, but . . . I am giving you my word. I have settled all of my issues. I’m serious when I say that blue skies have opened in me and sunshine is streaming in. I know who I am. More important, I know where I belong.” She took another step closer. “Asher, nothing ever felt as right as it did with you. Nothing. I believe with all my heart I belong with you.”
He wanted to believe that, too. “And if I don’t believe it?”
The hope in her face dissolved and tears began to shimmer in her eyes. “Then I’ll be heartbroken and spend the rest of my life regretting how I left things.”
“Heartbroken. Like me,” he said flatly.
A tear slipped from her eye and ran down her cheek. “Like me, too. It’s true. I have been so empty without you. I would have come sooner, but I really thought I should work out all the things that made me leave in the first place. But maybe I shouldn’t have come here.” She turned toward her car.
“You were right,” Asher said.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “About?”
“To go and work it out first,” he said.
Jane’s eyes widened. Hope shone in them again. “So? . . . ”
Asher didn’t speak—he just reached for her, held her in his arms and against his body, his face in her hair, his lips on her cheek. “What took you so damn long to figure it all out, girl?” he asked gruffly.
“I know, I know,” she moaned.
“I’ve missed you. I have missed you more than I thought I could actually miss another person. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve come back.”
She lifted her face to him and kissed him. Rain started to fall. A car drove by and honked at them. And still they stood locked in a tight embrace and a tender kiss.
But when the rain started to come in sheets, Asher lifted his head. “I think the director is yelling cut,” he said. “Let’s go tell Riley and Levi you’re back.”
“Let’s,” she said, her eyes shining brightly. He opened the car door for Jane and thought, God, what a beautiful day.
37
Jane!” Levi shouted the moment he saw her. “Jane, look!” he cried, and held up his new library book about a pair of monster trucks that go on adventures, as if she had merely gone to the store instead of leaving them for two weeks.
“Wow, Levi, that is sweet,” she said and grabbed him up, holding him so tightly that he began to complain. She didn’t care; she’d missed him so much. She kissed his cheeks and let him go.
“Did you come to babysit?” he asked curiously.
“No, buddy,” Asher said. “Jane came back so that we could tell you something.”
“Jane?”
Asher and Jane both turned toward the sound of Riley’s voice.
She was standing on the stairs in her pajama bottoms and My Chemical Romance T-shirt, gaping at Jane. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Riley,” Jane said.
“Why are you here? Did you forget something?”
“In a way,” Jane said, smiling.
“Come down, Riley. Jane and I want to talk to you both.”
“About what?” Riley asked suspiciously.
Asher took Jane’s hand in his. “About us. All of us. Jane and I love each other. We are going to see each other. And we are hoping that the four of us can give it a go.”
“Go where?” Levi asked.
“He means, be a family,” Jane said.
“Does that mean you’re going to stay here again?” Levi asked. “Are you going to take me to kindergarten?”
Jane smiled. “Maybe.”
“You’re kidding,” Riley said. She folded her arms. “You can’t be serious, Dad.”
“I am, baby girl,” Asher said quietly.
She looked from him to Jane. “This is unbelievable,” she said coldly and ran upstairs.
“Oh, no,” Jane whispered, but Asher squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead.
“It’s okay. I’ll talk to her.” He let go of her hand and walked upstairs.
“Jane, look, I got a robot book, too,” Levi said eagerly.
“Come show me,” Jane said, and sat with Levi on the couch. Levi pressed against her, and Jane looked around the living room. She could see the family portrait in the dining room, and from where she sat, it looked as if Susanna was actually looking at her. And she was smiling.
Or maybe it was the light, who knew? Jane looked down at the robot book and hugged Levi tightly to her. “Let’s see some robots,” she said.
Asher trudged up the stairs. He was happy, very happy, and the last thing he wanted to deal with was Riley’s anger. But he geared up for the fight.
Riley’s door was open and she was sprawled on her belly across her bed, her feet crisscrossing in the air, her hands on her cell phone, texting away. “Riley, we need to talk,” Asher said.
“Fine,” she said without looking up from her cell phone.
“Can you put the phone down?”
She tossed it aside like it was trash and began to examine her fingernail polish instead.
“I am going to explain this the best way I know how,” he said calmly. “I will have a life. So will you. There will be changes in both of our lives, but that’s part of the deal. Everything changes. Things rarely remain the same. And if they did, we would be very bored.”
“Whatever,” Riley said and rolled off the bed.
“Sit.” He said it in a voice that suggested she not argue. Riley sat on the chair at her desk. “We can face the changes that are going to come together. That is what I’d prefer, but it’s up to you. But we will face them, Riley. We’re not going backward. We are going forward.”
She suddenly looked up. “Face them together?” She looked wildly about. “Jane was my friend, Dad. You ruined it. You ruin everything.”
That surprised Asher, but something clicked. He suddenly understood her unrelenting anger. She blamed him for Susanna’s death, and now she blamed him for taking Jane from her. “Oh, baby girl . . .”
“I am not your baby girl,” she said angrily. “I am thirteen. I don’t care what you do anymore. I have my own life and my own friends. I am going forward.”
“Riley,” he said softly, “I love you all the way to the moon and back, remember? I will alw
ays be here for you, no matter what. And now we have Jane in our lives, and she’ll always be there for you, too.”
“So then why did she leave in the first place? Because of you. Because you couldn’t stay away from her.”
“That’s not true, honey,” he said. “She left because she had to work some things out with her family and her job. But now she’s back and she and I want to try and make us a family. Is that okay with you?”
“Does it matter?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. “There is nothing I want more in this world than for you to be happy. But Mom isn’t coming back, honey. I can’t make you happy. Only you can do that. The only thing I can do is be here to help you.”
She tossed her head and looked away from him. “Can you just leave me alone now?”
Asher stood up. He walked to where Riley sat and ran his hand over her head. Riley flinched. “You will always be my baby girl. You will always come first and you always have.”
“Whatever,” she muttered and dipped her head away from his hand.
Asher left her alone. He walked back downstairs and looked at Jane sitting with Levi on the couch. It would take time with Riley—the girl had been through so much. But she would come around; he had faith in her.
He could feel the darkness lifting already.
When the doorbell rang an hour or so later, Asher was in the kitchen, preparing his world-famous pizza. He walked into the foyer and saw Helen standing there, looking very disapprovingly at Jane. “I guess it’s true. Your nanny is back,” she said to Asher.
He didn’t like the tone of her voice. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight, Helen.”
“That’s obvious.”
“I’m ready, Grandma.”
Riley came running down the stairs, dressed in shorts and a camisole.
“Wait—ready for what?” Asher demanded.
“Grandma is taking me to the movies,” Riley said. She avoided looking at him and Jane.
“Really? You forgot to ask permission, Riley Ann,” he said curtly. “When did this come up?”
“Today,” Helen said. Her cool blue gaze was fixed on Jane. “I want to take her and Tracy. I think she could use some breathing room, given everything that’s happened. Don’t you, Ash?”