by Kay Bratt
When there was not a morsel left, Lauren rose and went to the clothes. She touched each article, then gathered them and brought them over, dumping them in front of Sadie.
“They’re dry enough,” she said, retreating to the tree she’d claimed. She sank down and crossed her arms around her legs, looking forlorn.
Sadie would’ve thought Lauren would be in a better mood after finally getting a real meal, but she seemed withdrawn. Sadie pulled her shirt over her head, then slipped her arms into her sweater. It was still damp but hopefully would dry before nightfall.
“I forgot to tell you—before I went fishing, I made an SOS sign over near the drop-off,” she said.
Lauren didn’t respond.
“I used rocks and pine boughs. You should’ve seen the big stones I rolled.”
“Mom,” Lauren said, suddenly alert. “I completely forgot. In our survival workshop they told us if we were trying to get the attention of any air rescue, we needed to pile pine boughs on a fire because they’ll emit the thickest and most visible smoke.”
“That’s fantastic, Lauren! I’ll help.” Sadie stood and quickly put on her jeans, then slipped her shoes on. “We have to be ready in case they’re looking by air.”
“I wish I’d thought of it earlier,” Lauren said, jumping into a skip-limp pace as she went to work.
First, while Sadie concentrated on pulling off loose pine boughs, Lauren built up the fire with more kindling, piling on branches strategically in a way that would hold the boughs high over the flames. Then they started adding the pine boughs, beginning with a few to make sure they didn’t put out the fire. When enough were on there to send up big white plumes of smoke, they gathered more and stacked them close to the fire for later that day.
Finally, they’d done all they could.
Now they waited. And Sadie tried to keep her daughter’s spirits up.
“Want to play a game?” she asked, searching her mind for some sort of verbal or sight game they could do to keep their minds busy. She looked at the latest plumes curling up into tendrils of white against the blue sky. She hoped the smoke would attract someone’s attention. A hiker. A ranger. Someone who would be curious and come looking. The waiting was excruciating.
“Not really. I can’t think too clearly,” Lauren said. She sat huddled under a tree, massaging the area around her ankle. “Tell me more about Jacob.”
Only a day ago her request would’ve sent Sadie into a panic. She hadn’t been able to talk about Jacob. Not then. Not until last night. But now—things were different. What good was it to guard the memories? She understood now that she’d done an injustice to her son by never speaking of him, hiding him away from others who cared.
“He was a charmer,” Sadie said, smiling quietly.
“Like Dad?”
Sadie looked up. She’d never really thought about it, but yes, just like Tom. She nodded. “Yeah, like Dad.”
Lauren grinned. “I bet you didn’t have a chance against the two of them.”
“I didn’t,” Sadie agreed, laughing lightly. “But I didn’t care. People say that your first child is difficult, that you’ll be nervous and not know what to do. They were wrong. With Jacob, it was so easy. He slept through the night, ate well, and rarely cried. I always thought he was custom made for me as a gift from God since I wouldn’t give birth again.”
Though he’d been an easy child, her pregnancy with Jacob had been another matter altogether. She’d had a rough time. After being hospitalized multiple times for preeclampsia, she and Tom had decided they’d never go through it again. After Jacob’s birth, Tom had had a vasectomy just to be sure. He’d confided in her that his fear of losing her was so much that he’d give up ever having another child just to keep her with him. Sadie had always wondered if he’d regretted that decision, especially after his one and only son had been taken.
“But you figured out how to complete your family anyway,” Lauren said.
Sadie nodded, feeling a smile cross her face. “I sure did. I had Jacob’s hand in mine the day I ran into an old friend who had adopted a little girl. As we stood there talking, catching up on each other’s lives, I saw the bond between her and her mother and knew that was how I’d get the daughter I wanted. I began looking into it that very evening.”
She was taken aback suddenly, realizing that for the first time she hadn’t thought of the adoption journey as a way of making them a family of four, of balancing them out. It hadn’t worked out that way, after all, but she’d still fulfilled a dream.
Lauren was hers.
Sadie’s smile disappeared. She realized that though she’d been a good mother to Lauren, she hadn’t been the best mother she could be. She’d let her grief steal away that title. And how much had it damaged Lauren?
She looked up, locking eyes with her daughter.
Did she need to ask her forgiveness?
“What are you thinking, Mom?” Lauren asked.
Sadie sighed. “I’m thinking about how much time I’ve wasted. Now you’ve grown up on me, and I can’t go back and change things. I wish I could have a redo.”
Lauren shook her head. “Don’t feel like that. We have our whole lives ahead of us, and you’ve been a great mom. Never doubt that for a minute. It’s just that I’ve always felt that below the surface, you were sad.”
“Always?” Sadie asked. She’d thought she had done such a good job at covering up her anguish for the most part, of pushing it aside in order to get Lauren through her childhood, but now she wondered if she had ruined it. “I’m so sorry, Lauren.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I knew it wasn’t because of me. I just never really understood what made you that way until junior high. One of my teachers stopped me once and asked me how you were doing. She said she couldn’t imagine how you ever went on after the tragedy that had struck Jacob.”
Sadie sat up straight, her mood turning. “Who? What teacher? That is so inappropriate.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Mom. What matters is that she woke me up and made me realize that there was a solemn feeling at home. That despite your efforts to pretend all was well, it really wasn’t. But I knew it was something I couldn’t talk to you about. So I went to Dad.”
She calmed down, softening her tone. “You talked to your dad about Jacob?”
Lauren nodded.
Once again, Sadie felt betrayed. Tom had never told her that their daughter had broached the subject of her brother and his death. Why would he keep something like that to himself?
But Sadie knew why.
She’d set the stage to be unapproachable about anything and everything Jacob. Tom had simply followed her lead.
And they’d talked without her.
“What did he say?” she asked Lauren, feeling possessive of Jacob and the memories attached to him.
“He told me a lot of stories. He showed me Jacob’s rock collection and his owling notebook. Even his soccer shirt and ribbons. We’ve talked about him for years, and I feel like I really know my brother, Mom.”
Sadie’s heart hurt thinking of the two of them going through Jacob’s things. Without her. Where had she been at that moment? In her office? Scrubbing the bathroom? Hanging laundry? Reviewing Lauren’s homework or going over the tight schedule she kept for her daughter?
Her face burned with shame. Wherever she had been, no doubt the importance would’ve paled in comparison to what had been going on between Tom and Lauren as they’d rejoiced in the stories of Jacob.
Her Jacob.
But also Tom’s.
And honestly, now she knew that he belonged somewhat to Lauren too. Even if they’d never met.
Sadie took a deep breath. It was time. And surely Tom couldn’t have told her everything. Hopefully there were still some Jacob moments that only she could pass on. “Well, did your dad tell you that Jacob smelled like a combination of feet and maple syrup? Or about the time that your brother was five years old and we were in church when he loudly asked me
why I didn’t have a penis and did I pee out of my butt?”
Lauren let out a full-fledged belly laugh.
With that, Sadie began to talk. And like immersing herself into a warm bath of soothing suds, she let the memories of Jacob rise up around them, bringing comfort as they waited for whatever came next.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Jacob was what some people call an old soul,” Sadie said. “You could get lost in his blue eyes because when he gave you his attention, he was all in. He never met a stranger, and he lived each and every moment as though it really mattered. Looking back, I wonder if maybe deep down he knew that he wouldn’t have but a few years to experience life and wanted to pack in as much of it as he could.”
Lauren smiled longingly. “I wish I had met him. Thank you for doing this, Mom. I want to know everything you can remember,” Lauren said, encouraging her to continue, to feel her way through the path of sorrow to find the good in her memories.
Sadie smiled, remembering him. She could see him now, standing at the bathroom countertop, excited for his day to begin. “This is going to sound like I’m stretching the truth, but when he was six, he set his own alarm clock and woke up, got into the shower, and dressed himself for first grade. He brushed his teeth and combed his hair to the side, like a little businessman. I swear he was born being responsible.”
“Sounds like he took after you.”
Sadie smiled. “In some things. In a lot of ways he was just like your dad. He loved the outdoors. He was always moving too. I could tell he was his most comfortable when he was doing something productive. And he always wanted to know why things worked the way they did. He took everything so seriously. When we first toured the school he’d be going to, he asked more questions than we did about what his day there would be like. His teacher said she felt like she was being interviewed.”
It wasn’t easy at first, but once Sadie let herself go back—really go back this time—it felt different than it had any other time she’d experimented with thinking of him. The usual stabbing in her heart didn’t come, and she didn’t stop wanting to breathe. They talked on for what felt like hours, the time slipping away as she reminisced.
“It started from the very first. Most babies resist taking solid foods, instead holding on to the bottle as long as they can. But not Jacob. He savored each and every new taste, smearing it on his face with glee as I dodged his fat little hands and tried to get the spoon into his mouth. He walked when he was only a year old, too, much to the disappointment of other moms in our moms-day-out class whose boys took much longer. Then, when it came time to potty train him, he was fast, going from diapers to pull-ups and then real underwear in just a few weeks.”
“Jeesh, what was he? Some kind of superboy?” Lauren said.
“That’s what it felt like. I was proud of having such an advanced child, but I was also a little sad that he met his milestones so early, because that meant he was growing up too fast. But I do remember one small snafu when it came to the whole toilet-training thing. He did fine sitting, but when it came time to teach him to pee standing up, the first few times he just sprayed it everywhere. One morning after I’d already cleaned the wall and floor too many times, I ran out of patience and told him pretty firmly to aim into the bowl. He turned to me and so seriously said he was trying, but sometimes it just got out of control. I couldn’t be mad then. I laughed until my stomach hurt, and he kept looking at me as though I’d lost my mind, making me laugh harder.”
Lauren grimaced. “I hope I don’t have any boys. It sounds complicated.”
“Oh, they aren’t too bad. The good thing about boys is they get mad, then get over it. They don’t harbor resentments for hours like girls do.”
“Are you saying I harbored resentments?” Lauren asked, narrowing her eyes.
“No, not you. Most girls do, though. You were always such a little people pleaser—you wouldn’t even think about pouting for more than a minute.” Sadie didn’t have to lie. It was true. She’d been blessed by both of her children. Unlike many of the moms she’d met over the years who told stories of battling with their kids and swearing they were going to run away and never come back, Sadie had never felt that way. Not with Jacob or with Lauren. She reveled in the little things that made them who they were and would always rather be with them than any other human in her life.
But though she painted a rosy picture, things hadn’t always gone perfectly in their adoption story. When Lauren began the difficult preteen years, she’d dealt with her share of anxiety, probably post-institutional stuff that plagued her during the long nights when her subconscious took her back to a dark, lonely place. But Lauren had never turned it back on them. Instead she’d embraced being a part of their family, eventually allowing Sadie to take turns reassuring her when the demons came. Lauren would never know that allowing Sadie to give her comfort was really enabling the opposite. Despite the years of sadness Sadie had gone through after Jacob had left them, having Lauren had made her life bearable.
“Have you ever ridden a train?” Lauren asked.
“That’s random, but yes.”
“When we were in France, some of the guys on Cooper’s team took the train from Nice to Paris. They saw some amazing scenery and met some really interesting people. If we go to France together, maybe we can do it. I think you’d like that,” Lauren said. Then she lowered her eyes, and her tone turned melancholy. “I feel really bad now that I snuck off without telling you, but I really didn’t see Paris. I swear. That’s something we can do together.”
Sadie was already holding her hand, and she squeezed it. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel bad about that. I’m just glad you made it back safely. And I’ve got a better idea for somewhere we can go.”
“Where?”
“China.”
Lauren sat up, surprise bringing her to full attention. “You want to go back to China? Why?”
“Because I know you want to see it,” Sadie said. She’d suspected it for a long time but had never wanted to explore the idea. The thought of losing Lauren to her first family was illogical—she knew that—but it was there. Over the years she’d encouraged Lauren to learn more about Chinese culture, and they’d worked some of the Chinese customs into their own celebrations, but she’d never taken any of her daughter’s hints about visiting there. That was too frightening.
Now she realized she’d been selfish. And controlling. In a loving way, but controlling all the same. She’d wanted Lauren to know about her heritage but didn’t want to talk about blood ties. It wasn’t that she never thought about Lauren’s first mother. The opposite was true. On every milestone their daughter met, Sadie pictured a woman on the other side of the world, perhaps looking at the only tangible memory she had, a tiny photograph or snippet of hair, as she lit a candle for the daughter she’d chosen to relinquish to a better fate. Sadie wasn’t cruel. She honestly felt for the faceless woman, her heart hurting for the pain and longing she must carry. But Sadie had never wanted to take the chance that bringing her daughter to the country she’d left behind might make her want to stay there and find her birth family. Now she felt ridiculous.
The truth was that what many considered the gift of adoption was the first hurt she’d ever inflicted on her daughter. Unknowingly, of course. And never deliberately, but taking her from her homeland was something that would affect Lauren for the rest of her life. That knowledge set hard in Sadie’s heart.
“How did we go from talking about Jacob to taking me to China?” Lauren said.
“I don’t know. Maybe you two have a connection we can’t see.”
“Do you ever wish you had known me as a baby?” Lauren asked quietly. “Like you did Jacob?”
Sadie jerked upright. “Why, of course I do.”
“You never talk about it.”
“Because you’ve never brought it up,” Sadie said. “Believe me, if your file had been available when you were younger, we would’ve locked it in. As soon as we saw you, we
knew you were meant to be our daughter, and we moved as fast as we could to come get you. But yes, when you came home, I grieved for the years I lost with you. I obsessed over the unanswered questions, wondering if you were held and comforted during your teething years or if you had to lull yourself to sleep. I wondered who was there to see your first milestones, whether you had someone to celebrate them or not. The mystery of it all just about drove me crazy.”
“I guess sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go back,” Lauren said, her voice low and tentative. She looked up at Sadie. “But I never said anything because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Being curious about where you were born is normal, Lauren,” Sadie said, reaching out and touching her arm. “I’d be worried if you never thought about it.”
“I have a friend who went back.” Lauren said it like it was a secret she was gently exposing.
Sadie waited, letting her tell it at her own pace.
“She said it was surreal how much she felt like she fit in. For the first time, she could get on a bus and not be the center of attention, because there everyone looked just like her,” Lauren said, fiddling with a twig, avoiding eye contact.
“How long did she stay?” Sadie asked.
“Three years.”
Sadie wasn’t expecting that answer, and it nearly took her breath. She didn’t want to stop Lauren from seeking out whatever would ease her mind, but she didn’t want to lose her daughter for that long.
“She came back a different person,” Lauren said. “She said that as she walked through the streets, she could see how much harder the Chinese had to work for every little thing that she always took for granted. She said it was astonishing how resilient they were. Even how happy, despite their meager existence. It made her proud of her heritage for the first time.”