by Неизвестно
"I’m so sorry," Tia offered. "I had no idea you lost your mother and your birth mother so close together."
Her empathy was open and sincere, and I remembered that she, too, had been adopted. Without warning, my eyes moistened. "And I’m sorry about your father," I said softly. "About both of your parents. I know how you feel. We’re too young for this."
Her face showed agreement, and I took a deep breath. "Fletcher told me about your search for your birth parents," I explained. "He thought the story might be helpful to me. I hope that’s all right."
I expected her to look away then, to show some sign of pain at the memory. But her eyes remained on mine, steady and strong. She merely nodded, seeming to anticipate—even to invite—more discussion. Without forethought, I complied.
"What I found out about my birth parents wasn’t what I expected. Everything was worse than I expected. I always knew that bad news was a possibility, but…" My voice trailed off.
After a few uncomfortable seconds, she finished for me. "But in the back of your mind, you still hoped for the fairy tale. I know."
She rose from the couch and stepped into the kitchen for more coffee, speaking as she went. "So did I," she said casually. "And I had no reason whatsoever to hope. I knew that my birth mother had her rights terminated because of neglect. But even then, I kept wanting to think that somehow it wasn’t her fault—that somebody else started her on the drugs, that she was just naïve, and then helpless, but that really, inside, she was some kind of saint."
She returned to the couch and sat down, her cup full and steaming. Her eyes met mine once more, confident and comforting. "She wasn’t. She wasn’t even particularly nice. She came from a wealthy family, and she seemed intelligent—at least in an academic way. But when it came to making life choices, she was an idiot. She had no goals, no conviction, no backbone. She ran off when she was a teenager, then promptly got into drugs, got pregnant, and got disowned. She blamed everyone else for everything. When I met her she was off the drugs—I can’t imagine what she was like when she was on them."
I swallowed, my own story temporarily forgotten. "That must have been awful for you."
"It was hell," she acknowledged. "I cried for a week. But I got over it." She offered a smile. "You will, too."
I smiled back, feeling stronger. The coldness of yesterday’s revelations still chilled me, but I could keep it from dominating. Talking did help.
"I still don’t know who my real birth father is," I blurted. "And I’m not so sure I want to know anymore. I mean, why not stick with the fantasy? Do I really need to find out that he was just some asshole?"
I cringed. What had I just said? The sentiment was so crude, so unlike me.
To my surprise, Tia chuckled. "For heaven’s sake, Meara, don’t look so scandalized. If the shoe fits, wear it! Why, some of my best friends’ birth fathers are assholes. Mine certainly is. The guy swore up and down that I wasn’t his child, never mind the fact that he was the only Korean man my birth mother had ever been with—not to mention the only Asian person for two counties in any direction!"
She laughed again, and this time I found myself laughing with her. It felt amazingly good.
My mirth melted into a sigh, and my eyes moistened. I wiped my eyes on my shirt sleeve. "I must look dreadful," I apologized, remembering my state. "I’m sorry."
She smirked. "I should hope so. God knows I have standards for whom I drink coffee with at dawn."
I broke into laughter again, almost spilling tea on the couch. Then I straightened and looked at her seriously. I had known the woman for only a few minutes; already I adored her. Had I before?
No, I told myself. There was no point in analyzing those years—lamenting what might have been. It was moving-forward time. "You really got over it?" I asked soberly, never doubting that she would understand the question. "You felt….well, normal again?"
She smiled. "You never completely get over it. It always hurts, if you dwell on it. But you will stop judging yourself by your genes. You can convince yourself that as regrettable as your birth parents’ miserable lives are or were, their problems are not yours. Breaking ties was their decision—you’ve got every right to stick to it."
I exhaled with a curious sense of relief. "Thank you, Tia," I said sincerely. "Can I ask you one more question?"
She nodded.
"Do you regret finding out what you did?"
"No," she responded. "As tough as it was, I could never have tolerated the alternative. I was too restless, too unsatisfied. Do I wish I had found another reality? Of course. But not knowing wasn’t an option for me."
I nodded, understanding.
"Now, for Fletch," she continued, "It was a whole different story. He said he didn’t want to know, that he didn’t want to find her or even know her name. At first, I didn’t believe him; I thought he was resisting out of fear. But I finally came to realize that for him, not knowing is the best way of managing. All the hurt and the hostility some adoptees carry…when it’s targeted at a concept, it’s diffused. But when you put a name and face to it— a real person—it sharpens. It can take on a life of its own. He didn’t need that. He doesn’t need that. I didn’t tell him half of what I found out, because that was the way he wanted it. And I never will tell him, unless he changes his mind, of course."
Uneasiness swirled in my stomach. "Fletcher was adopted, too," I murmured, restating the obvious. I was taken aback, but I wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t ever told me he wasn’t adopted, had he? I was certain I hadn’t asked.
Tia sighed dramatically. "He didn’t tell you, did he? Typical Fletch. He tells the whole story about me hoping it will make you feel better, but neglects to mention that he’s in exactly the same boat. That’s a man for you."
I looked at her questioningly.
"Men react differently to adoption than women do," she attested, taking a long draught of coffee and settling herself more comfortably among the cushions. "At least, that’s been my observation. They don’t have the same desire to be open about it; it’s like a dirty secret. I think it goes back to the rejection thing. All men fear being rejected by a woman, and a male adoptee, right from the start, knows that he’s already been rejected by the one woman who should have been more devoted to him than anyone else on the planet. His own mother."
My mind flew to Fletcher—how vehemently he had condemned Jake’s decision not to raise me, how passionately he had talked of parents putting their children first. He had suffered through much of the same rejection and self-doubt that I had—and yet he’d said nothing. He hadn’t wanted me to know, hadn’t wanted my pity. Yet he had been both willing and anxious to help.
"Are you and Fletcher—" I began, but cut myself off. I wasn’t sure how to state the question without overstepping.
Tia didn’t seem to mind. "We’re half siblings," she explained. "He’s only twelve months older, but birthmom had a thing about commitment. He was taken away when he was a baby because she kept leaving him alone. She was pregnant with me at the time, so the county took me, too, as soon as I was born. We were our parents’ first fosters, and we never left. It was years before they could adopt us legally, of course, but we never knew any different. We were very lucky."
"Yes," I agreed. "You were."
There was more I wanted to ask her—a thousand things more I wanted to know. About her. About Fletcher. About their parents and their foster siblings. The loss of my own family had left a vacuum inside me, and my desire to fill it was irrepressible. There was a warmth here, a love of life, that both fascinated and tantalized me. I knew I had no right to leech off anyone else’s hearth and home, but still, I couldn’t stop the longing. I didn’t want just to be a houseguest, or a former step in-law, or even an ex-foster child. I wanted to be close to both Fletcher and his sister. I wanted to be their friend.
The phone rang. Tia and I stared at it, not moving.
"You expecting a call?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I haven�
�t given the number out, except for an emergency. Maybe it’s Fletcher."
She offered a delicate snort. "Fletch would never call here. Wander over in the middle of a hailstorm for a newspaper, yes. Call, no. Besides, I’m sure he’s still asleep." She rose and walked to the phone. "Probably just a telemarketer."
She picked up, and I sensed immediately that the call was for me. I also sensed it was not good news.
She covered the receiver with her palm and looked at me. "Alex Witzig? From Pittsburgh? He says it’s urgent."
My heart pounded as I rose. I couldn’t imagine what the problem was. But I wasn't surprised to be having one.
Chapter 20
I turned onto my parents’ street north of Pittsburgh, but found my usual parking spot in front of their house already occupied. I secured a spot a block away, then walked carefully back over the same sidewalks I had traveled in my youth, which had, in the time since, begun to buckle over the rising maple roots. The neighborhood was an old one. Once it had been the height of upper middle-class living—solid, two-story brick row houses with wide porches and tiny, well-delineated back yards. But by the eighties, the defection of younger families to the more spacious, outlying suburbs had given the neighborhood an older demographic, leaving me with few other children to play with. Now, the street consisted almost entirely of the pensioned elderly.
Alex, who was tall, blond, and painfully skinny, met me at the door. As always, he was dapper and dressed for success, though no amount of external decoration could conceal his inherent squirreliness. He was a sweet soul, and I was fond of him, but there had never been any chemistry between us. I needed wholesomeness in a mate; he longed for an equally materialistic woman who wouldn’t balk at the cost of his ties.
"Thanks so much for meeting me here," I exclaimed, giving him a quick, grateful hug. "I don’t know how I could handle all this without you."
"Expect the personal touch," he teased, quoting his realty company’s slogan. But his expression quickly sobered. "I wanted to talk to you for a minute before we go inside."
He put a hand on my elbow and led me a few paces back out into the yard. "I’ve been talking with the owner of the abatement company, and he seems to be on the up-and-up. They did report the incident themselves. But just to be sure, we’ve got somebody at my office doing a little fishing about the company’s previous jobs and any rumors that might be circulating. In the meantime, it would be better if you didn’t give off any paranoid vibes to the workers here today—if you get my drift."
I let out a breath and nodded.
"Isn’t there some chance they just forgot to lock up?" I asked hopefully.
Alex shrugged. "Anything’s possible. But what the foreman told me was that he locked the doors personally last night—that it was always his job. Then this morning, the back door was open. Not standing open—just unlocked again."
We began walking toward the house. "Have the police been here?" I asked.
"Briefly," he answered. "But until you can say whether or not anything is missing or damaged, there’s not much they can do." We reached the front door, and I walked inside. "I looked around myself," he continued, following me. "But I couldn’t tell anything. I can’t remember what you had in the way of electronics, but your computer seems okay."
I glanced briefly around the small kitchen and combined living and dining room. "Just the television and VCR," I answered, the loss of household luxuries being the least of my concerns. Neither my parents nor I had ever owned anything of monetary consequence: our few electronics were cheap, old, or both; my mother’s jewelry, with one exception, was all costume. The house’s most valuable contents were a few large pieces of antique furniture, none of which could be easily removed. Still, the feeling of violation rankled, and anger brought a red heat to my cheeks.
I hurried toward the staircase, leaping up the steps two at a time with Alex lagging behind. I entered my bedroom, opened the closet door, and looked with relief at the large, fire-proof safe on the floor. Squatting down, I determined that it was still locked. I withdrew my keys from my pocket and opened it. "My mother’s wedding ring is in here," I explained to Alex when he caught up. "And all my computer back-ups."
"Good," he commented. "Anything else missing? Moved?"
I relocked the safe and stood. The question was a difficult one to answer, given the chaos caused by the abatement itself. The house seemed foreign, filled with unfamiliar equipment and tools, not to mention a half-dozen meandering construction workers. I walked slowly from room to room, examining everything I could think to examine. But there was relatively little to sort through—I had already been in the process of packing, and none of the boxes which I had carefully labeled and sealed appeared to have been opened.
"I really think everything’s fine," I said as we finished downstairs. I allowed myself a smile. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding, after all. Who would break into a house during a mold abatement? Wouldn’t they expect, at that time more than any other, that one’s valuables would be protected?
"Well, that’s a relief," Alex said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and delivering a quick squeeze. "I would hate for you to lose anything you cared about after the year you’ve had. But…" his face broke into a devious grin. "I suppose things are looking up in the romance department now, eh? Or did you not look closely in the kitchen? I must say, O’Rourke, you do move fast. Poor Todd is probably still crying in his formula."
I blinked. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he had given me a welcome thought.
"Todd!" I said, putting more happiness into the word than I had in months. "Of course. He still has my key. I asked him to give it back, but he refused. He probably came over to look for something of his that he thought I had, and then forgot to lock up. It would be just like him not to give a hoot whether I was worried about the house or not."
Alex exhaled. "Good theory. You should call him and see."
"Yes, I should," I agreed, dreading the thought. I knew that the second Todd heard my voice he would assume I wanted him back, and when he realized he was wrong, he would launch into his mortally wounded act all over again. As it stood, my last words to him had been sensitive and civil. But any response to the rudeness of his subsequent phone messages would not be—not coming from the new Meara.
"What were you saying about the kitchen?" I inquired, moving in that direction. When I reached the doorway it occurred to me that I hadn’t really examined that room at all, knowing full well it held nothing any competent burglar would want. What it did hold now, I noted with a start, was a colorful bouquet of carnations and roses. I walked curiously toward the counter.
"The foreman says those arrived yesterday," Alex informed. "And I have to confess, I looked at the card already. Don’t hate me forever—you know I have your best interests at heart. So, care to share? Who is this guy?"
It was a modest arrangement: a spring mix of yellow, pink, and white, flanked with baby’s breath. I could smell the roses from a foot away, even through the mustiness of the house’s air. I loved roses.
The mere sight of these made my stomach churn.
"Well, open the card!" Alex pushed, unaware.
With an unaccountable revulsion I shuffled my feet forward and extracted the small white envelope. Ordinarily, the card would come last. Ordinarily I would begin by sweeping a finger along the soft petals and immersing my nose in the nearest rose. Then I would linger a moment, delighting in the vibrancy and symmetry of nature.
Not this time. As I opened the already-opened envelope and plucked out the card, my breath seemed thick in my throat, my pulse palpable in the burning scarlet of my cheeks.
Yellow roses framed the card’s corner. The loopy handwriting was clearly a woman’s…an employee of the florist, not the sender. The message was simple.
Enjoyed meeting you. All my best, Jake.
In my mind, I was back at the diner again. I could see Jake’s smile, charming and bold. I could see his eyes, dark and
glinting, piercing through me. I could feel the coldness.
The hate.
The card fluttered to the floor.
"Hey!" Alex protested, stepping forward to retrieve it. "He couldn’t have been all that bad, could he? These cost at least twenty-five bucks. Thirty with tax."
I couldn’t answer. My limbs were stuck in place, my voice out of commission.
Jake had sent me flowers. Within a day of our meeting, he had gone out, hunted up my home address, and paid for a bouquet of flowers.
"Meara," Alex pressed. "Is something wrong?"
"No," I lied, my heart pounding. It had been pounding all morning, but now it was outdoing itself.
Was I losing my mind? True, Jake had refused to raise me on his own. He was rumored to be a second-rate policeman and a first-class sexist. But at this point, that was all I knew for certain. Hadn’t he been polite at our meeting? Helpful and cordial? Wasn’t sending flowers a nice thing to do?
My rational mind pled his case, but my gut wasn’t buying it. Instinct told me that he had lied about being my birth father; instinct told me that he was violent. Both he and Sheila had lied to me, true, but in a case of he-said/she-said, it was her I would believe.
Jake had done something to her—something so horrible that it had provoked an otherwise decent woman into taking a shot at him. Why else would the mere memory of his eyes make my stomach roll with nausea? The hair on the back of my neck stand? My palms dampen with sweat?
I could not afford to be rational. My first priority had to be my own safety—and sanity. I would not have anything more to do with Jake Kozen, ever. And if he thought he could manipulate my feelings with a twenty-five dollar bouquet, he was sorely mistaken.
I grabbed the vase from the counter and dashed it to the trash can.
"Whoa!" Alex exclaimed, turning me to face him. "So I get it. The guy’s a creep. Fine. Anything you want to tell me?"
I shook my head firmly, then concentrated on calming myself. Alex was a good confidant, but explaining this situation would take more background information than I cared to give. "Nothing I can’t handle," I assured him. "Just a miscommunication."