In Another Life

by C. C. Hunter

  Mr. Fuller moves a little closer. “I like … your father.”

  I get how hard it must be for him to say that. I also get how hard it is for Dad to leave the room. It’s all hard. Everything. I force myself to say, “He’s a pretty good guy.”

  “The DNA test should be done tomorrow, but … I think we all…”

  “I know,” I say.

  He drops his hands in his pockets. “I’m aware that this is difficult on you.”

  I nod.

  “I just … Susan and I want you to know that we’re working on accepting that you don’t know us. And I know Susan kind of had a chance to talk to you, but I didn’t.” He looks away for a second. “I wanted you to know that … I loved you, too. You were a daddy’s girl. Your moth—Susan used to say that you had me wrapped around your little finger. And you did.”

  When he looks up, his eyes have tears in them and my own follow suit.

  “Losing you nearly killed us.” He passes a hand over his mouth. “I gave up that you were alive. But not your mom.”

  I take in a shaky breath.

  “Not because I loved you less, I just…”

  “I understand,” I say.

  He nods. “We want you to be a part of our lives. And we realize that it’s not going to be easy to work all this out. But we are determined to find a way.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  He pulls his hands out of his pockets. “Would it be too much for me to ask for a hug?”

  My breath catches. I walk into his arms. When my cheek lands on his chest, his smell, like Mrs. Fuller’s, is so familiar, and it feels safe, little-girl safe. And there’s something else, too. When my cheek lands on his chest, my heart says, You know this place. You’ve been here before.

  When the hug ends, I wipe the tears from my eyes. “Did the police say it would be okay now if Cash and I spoke?”

  “They didn’t, but I’m assuming it’s okay.”

  Dad comes back in, and he walks Mr. Fuller to the door. Mr. Fuller offers Dad his hand. “Thank you. Thank you for raising a perfect girl.”

  35

  Dad and Mr. Fuller stand on the porch and talk. I’m curious as to what’s being said, but I take advantage of the time to go into my room and call Cash. His phone goes straight to voice mail.

  “Hey,” I say. “We can talk now. Can you come over?” I don’t know why I’m feeling insecure about us, but I am. “I love you. And I don’t just think that. I do … love you.” I hang up. My eyes get moist again, and I don’t know if I’m crying about Mr. Fuller or just missing Cash.

  “Hey,” Dad says.

  I look up. He sees my tears and walks right over and puts his arms around me. Between the love I feel for him and the feeling I just had with Mr. Fuller, I’m pretty sure I’m getting emotional whiplash.

  * * *

  “It’s like a freaking movie of the week!” Lindsey says when I finish my thirty-minute story of what happened yesterday. She came over as soon as she got home from school.

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  “Has Cash called you yet?”

  “No. I’m scared that … Why hasn’t he called me?”

  She frowns. “Don’t worry. I know he’s crazy about you.” Then her eyes tighten. “You don’t think the Fullers told him he couldn’t … date you, do you?”

  Hearing that sends a wave of pain to my mangled heart. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if they know we’re together.”

  Lindsey drops back on my headboard. “And I thought I had a messed-up day yesterday.”

  I fall back on my pillow. “What happened?”

  “A shit storm,” she says. “Lunchroom brawl. Food throwing and everything.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” She smiles. “It was crazy.”

  “What happened?” I’m happy to concentrate on her problems to escape mine.

  “I found out that Jamie is dating Jonathon.”

  I lean up on my elbow. “You’re kidding me! That totally breaks the girlfriend code.”

  Again, Lindsey frowns. “I don’t think she’s my friend anymore. In fact, I know she isn’t.”

  “You confronted her?”

  She nods. “You remember Amy? She’s in my history class.”

  “Tall girl?” I ask.

  “Yeah, she told me about the dating. During lunch, I asked Jamie—and at first she denied it, then she got all pissy. She called me a freak because my mom is gay. She said it loud, as if trying to embarrass me. I seriously don’t know why I ever liked her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “What did you do?”

  “I called her a prejudiced prick.”

  “And then…?”

  “I didn’t have to do anything,” Lindsey laughed. “Jamie didn’t realize we were sitting one table from Shawn, the nice guy who always tells you he loves your hair.”

  “Yeah.” Then I realize. “Oh. He’s gay.”

  She nods. “I talked to him about Mom last year. He’s nice. Anyway, he always sits with his LGBTQ friends.”

  My mouth drops open. “And?”

  “Shawn stood up and real calm-like asked Jamie, ‘Why does that make her a freak?’ It was like the whole lunchroom was dead silent and everyone heard it. Jamie got pissed and called him some really ugly names. And you know everyone at school loves Shawn. So someone, I don’t even know who it was, told Jamie to stop being a bitch. Then she got hit by a slice of pizza. It was so powerful, as if … I don’t know, I felt like I didn’t have to worry about what people thought anymore.”

  I smile, knowing what a relief that would be for Lindsey. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’d love to have seen that.”

  She laughs. “The pizza got Jamie right in the face. It, like, stuck to her. She got mad at me, as if I’d done it. She tossed her salad at me. Before I knew it, food’s flying everywhere. A teacher stopped it. But she’d heard everything, and the only one to get in trouble was Jamie. She’s suspended for, like, forever.”

  We lie there and watch the ceiling fan turn. Lindsey finally speaks up. “I didn’t realize what a bad friend Jamie was until I met you.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to give Jamie hell, too. I’d have thrown my pizza at her.”

  She smiles. “I know you would’ve. We make a good team.” She bumps my shoulder with hers. “Can we, like, be friends forever? Like, after college? And when we get old, like our parents?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  She squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to call Cash and talk to him?”

  “No. I’m sure he’s just still dealing with things.” I really want to believe that.

  Right then, my phone dings with a text. I roll over to get it, sure it’s from Cash. It is.

  My heart’s in my throat. There’s eight words. Eight. I think we need to take a break.

  * * *

  When Mom comes home that night, she scowls at Dad, sees my puffy face, and hugs me. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone to work.”

  “No. You should have.” I can’t imagine being in the house all day with them. But yeah, I kind of cried off and on this afternoon. Part of me wants to call Cash and give him hell, but I don’t even know what to say. Was this his plan all along? To dump me when the truth came out? My gut says it wasn’t. He told me he loved me, and I believed him. But I’m too hurt to give him that much credit.

  Dad orders pizza. I see Mom listening to him order. She gets up and goes to the bathroom, but not before I see the beginning of tears in her eyes. I know what caused it, too. It’s the normalcy of him calling in pizza, ordering one with half pineapple and Canadian bacon. Ordering it because he knows she likes it.

  I realize how hard it is on her to have him here. I really need to ask him to leave. But I also know as long as he feels I’m in danger, he won’t. He loves me, too. And maybe he even still loves Mom. Now I want to tear up.

  Mom comes back out. Dad puts the news on and sits in the chair farthest away from Mom. Tension is high, an
d Dad reaches over to the end table and picks up the family photo album.

  He starts flipping through it, then stops and frowns. It takes me a minute to realize the issue. Mom’s edited photos. He’s been cut out. I almost feel sorry for him, but I realize he did this to himself. And while I think I’ve pretty much forgiven him, Mom’s not there yet. She may never be there.

  He puts the album back down. Thirty minutes later, the doorbell rings.

  “That’s probably the pizza.” Dad jumps up.

  “I can pay for my part.” Mom grabs her purse.

  I see the look in Dad’s eyes, he wants to argue, but he knows he deserves Mom’s ire, too. “Give it to me later.” He moves to the door.

  Mom pulls out a twenty and puts it on the coffee table.

  I hear Dad at the door, and it doesn’t sound like a delivery person. Dad moves into the living room, followed by Detective Carter, who spoke with us last night.

  He nods at us. “I just wanted to come and let you know we pretty much wrapped everything up. You’re no longer in danger.”

  “The agency confessed?” I ask.

  The detective nods.

  “Have a seat.” My dad moves to sit beside me on the sofa.

  The man takes the chair. “Things ended up being uglier than we thought. Mr. Wallace claims he wasn’t behind the kidnapping. But he and his brother-in-law, Mr. Davis, were … basically buying babies to adopt out. Fifteen years ago, Davis had attained a child who was originally supposed to be adopted by you.” He looked at my parents. “But before he got the child to Wallace, she died—supposedly of natural causes—but we are looking into that.”

  “Christina Garza,” I say.

  He looks at me. “Yes. That’s the name we were told. Afraid that the illegal dealings would land him in jail, the brother-in-law buried the child and brought a different child. According to Mr. Wallace, he recognized you were not Christina Garza, but was told by Davis that Mrs. Garza had decided to keep her daughter and gone and gotten another girl from a mother who’d recently agreed to give up her child as well.

  “When Mr. Wallace saw the news about the missing Fuller child, he realized what had happened and he went to his brother-in-law. Supposedly, Mr. Davis confessed about the child dying, saying he kidnapped a child to take her place. Mr. Wallace realized he’d go down with him, so he kept his mouth shut. Which makes him just as liable as his brother-in-law.”

  “So it was Mr. Davis who shot at us and who shot Mrs. Gonzales?” I ask.

  “Mr. Wallace had contacted him when you showed up at the agency. Because the papers had said Ms. Gonzales gave a description of a possible kidnapper, Davis knew she could identify him. He wanted to make sure she didn’t talk. Mr. Wallace was the one who hired someone to talk to Mr. Colton. He swears he was trying to protect you, not threaten you.”

  “You caught Mr. Davis?” Mom asked.

  “Yes. We picked him up at the Houston airport, trying to fly out to Mexico using his ex-wife’s new husband’s passport about two hours ago. Luckily, she realized he’d taken it and reported it.”

  I sit there, my hands locked in my lap as I try to take it all in. I’m shocked that in a matter of minutes, and without emotion, the man has detailed how my life, and the Fullers’, had been ripped apart.

  I see the look of dismay on both my parents’ faces. Mom takes my hand and squeezes. “Is it clear that we weren’t aware that the agency was doing anything illegal?” Mom asks.

  “No one suspects that.” Mr. Carter stood up. “I’m just thankful that things turned out.” He looks at me, and I know he means that I’m alive.

  Dad sees the man out the door. When he walks back into the living room, he has the pizzas. He puts them on the bar between the living room and kitchen.

  Mom looks up. “That means you can leave.”

  Dad drops his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, it does.”

  He starts gathering his stuff. I hear him moving around, and my chest grows tighter.

  He comes over and kisses me. “I’m going to stay at a hotel just until things settle. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I nod. My chest is so tight, I think my ribs might crack. Between everything that’s happened with the Fullers, Cash, and now this, I know my heart is truly broken.

  He looks at Mom. “Can we talk a minute?”

  “I’m not interested in anything you have to say,” Mom says.

  I get up and go to my bedroom. I shut the door, but I stand there and listen.

  I hear Dad say, “I don’t blame you for hating me. If I were you, I’d never forgive me either. But I just want you to know I realize what I lost. You deserved so much better.”

  I wait to hear what Mom says. There’s a tiny part of me that longs for her to say she forgives him.

  She doesn’t. Mom never says anything. I hear Dad leave.

  Later, Mom and I eat pizza alone. I try to hide the fact that I’m dying inside. And I can tell Mom’s dying a little bit inside, too.

  We go to bed early. I’m still awake, staring at my phone, praying Cash will call—when Mom walks in with her pillow and blanket.

  “Can I sleep with you?” she asks.

  I smile. “Yeah.”

  She crawls in bed beside me. “I’m scared.”

  “They caught him,” I say.

  “No. Not of that. I’m afraid you’ll love her more.” Tears fill her eyes.

  “Not true.” I lean up on an elbow.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “They have money. They can buy you nice things. You”—her voice shakes—“look like her.”

  I brush a tear from her face. “I want to get to know them. I want to spend time with them. But remember in second grade, when my teacher was pregnant? You told me that a person loves with their heart, and you don’t have to be in someone’s belly to be in their heart.”

  Mom takes in a tight breath and nods.

  “Love doesn’t come from money or bone structure. Do you love me less because I don’t look like you?”

  * * *

  Cash had deleted Chloe’s message without listening to it. Detective Logan came by the house yesterday and informed them that Mr. Wallace and his brother-in-law had been arrested. There would be no charges filed for his breaking into the agency.

  “We should celebrate,” Mrs. Fuller said when the police left. “Go out to eat.”

  “Sorry.” Cash had bowed out.

  He went up to his room and spent the night and this morning coming up with his plan. Now all he had to do was execute it. It was going to hurt. They weren’t going to understand. But it was the right thing.

  He closed his suitcase and left it at the bottom of the stairs. When he heard them in the kitchen, he walked in.

  Mrs. Fuller smiled and stood up. “Pancakes?”

  “I’m not hungry.” He sat down in a kitchen chair. “We need to talk.”

  “Sure,” Mrs. Fuller said.

  The lump in his chest swelled bigger. “I don’t know if I’ve ever really said thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  “You don’t need to say thank you. We’re family.”

  He wasn’t going to argue that point now.

  “Is this about you and Chloe?” Mr. Fuller said. “We pretty much know that you two are … close.”

  “No, it’s not that.” He swallowed, preparing himself to hear Mrs. Fuller’s sigh. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and now an opportunity came up.”

  “What opportunity?” Mrs. Fuller asked.

  “Devin, the guy I work with, his roommate moved out last month, and I think it’s time for me to go ahead and move out.”

  “Move out?” Mrs. Fuller said. And there it came. The long heartfelt sound that shot right to Cash’s gut. “You can’t!”

  “I’ll be eighteen in two weeks. And we both know I could be declared an adult right now.”

  Mr. Fuller shot up from his chair as if too angry to stay seated, then dropped back down. “You told me you’d wait until y
ou graduate.”

  “He told you that?” Mrs. Fuller asked, her words an accusation.

  Cash took in a deep breath, hoping to break up the knot of pain. “I’m not doing this to hurt you.”

  “Well, it hurts,” Mrs. Fuller said. “And you can’t do this.”

  “I want to be on my own. I can’t breathe here.”

  “You don’t make enough money!” Mr. Fuller said.

  “I talked to Mr. Cantoni, my boss, this morning. He’s agreed to hire me full-time.”

  “What about school?” Mrs. Fuller’s voice is pure pain.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Ms. Anderson, my counselor, about taking the GED. And next semester, I’ll start college.”

  “Is this because of … Emily? We love you, Cash. Just because we’re thrilled to find her doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

  Emotion knotted his throat. “It’s not her. Like I said, I need my space.” He stood up. “I’m sorry if this hurts you.” His eyes stung. “But I’m doing it.”

  He started out of the room.

  “You come back and sit down,” Mrs. Fuller said, and she was crying.

  He didn’t stop. He picked up his suitcase and the pain he carried, the pain he’d carried since his father left him on the pavement to die, and he left. He wished he’d left years ago. It wouldn’t have hurt this much then.

  * * *

  On Thursday, still not a word from Cash, and he’s not even been at school. I sit in the living room, waiting for Mom to leave for her writers’ meeting so I can go. Dad came by on Wednesday on his way back to El Paso after the Fullers had called and said the DNA test was positive. They asked if I would call them. That afternoon, Buttercup and I took a walk to the park. I found a quiet spot, leaned against a tree, and I called them.

  They both got on the phone. They were so nice. Mrs.Fuller asked if I could come over sometime. I suggested tonight since Mom would be at her writers’ meeting.

  They seemed happy with that. I ended up telling Mom before she left for work this morning. I didn’t want there to be lies between us. She said she understood. But instead of going straight to the meeting from work, she came home.