by Amanda Wen
Not that this was a date, of course. Not really.
It wouldn’t be anywhere near this comfortable if it were.
When they rounded the corner, a tall, stylized statue of a Native American warrior provided Garrett his bearings. The Keeper of the Plains, one of Wichita’s most recognizable symbols. Recent years had seen a large interactive plaza added to the exhibit, and the bare-bones bronze sculpture he remembered from his youth now stood atop an enormous pedestal, surrounded by a stone path and a ring of firepots. Piped-in Native flute music wafted on the breeze, giving the whole exhibit an earthy feel. Clusters of teens took selfies. A paleta vendor called out in Spanish from his cart on the bridge. And Sloane made a beeline for a circle of historical plaques.
Garrett caught up to her, a smile tugging his lips. “Surprised you don’t have these memorized.”
“Oh, I do. Most of them. But I like reading them anyway.” She gestured to the area around the statue, where the Little Arkansas River met and mingled with the Arkansas. “It’s easy to think this city’s always been here, but in history terms, it’s just a baby. Nomadic tribes roamed this area for centuries, following the bison. The first white people didn’t show up until the 1860s.”
The downtown skyline’s golden lights shimmered in ink-dark waters. “And all this came from that.”
“It’s amazing to think about.” Sloane’s slow, meandering steps led them onto a bridge overlooking the river. “Settlers like Jack and Annabelle weren’t perfect. They did a lot of things wrong. But they survived against incredible odds, they endured so much hardship, all because of a dream. This beautiful city is the fruit of that dream, and … I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
What on earth had given her that impression? “Not at all. This is fascinating stuff.”
“Yeah, well.” Her gaze darted away, like a shy bird. “If I really get going, I’ll talk forever, so just elbow me and tell me to shut up if I bore you.”
His lips curved. “I’m a financial planner, Sloane. It takes a lot to bore me.”
Sloane gave a chuckle that zinged all the way to his toes, then she leaned against the bridge railing. Dark wavy hair and fluffy red skirt ruffled in the evening breeze; creamy skin glowed in the moonlight.
“Sometimes when I come here, I can almost see how it used to be. Tall-grass prairie from here to the horizon, thundering with the hoofbeats of bison and the hunting cries of the Osage. Then trading posts and settlers’ cabins pop up, then a string of buildings. Just enough to qualify as a town. Then a small city … a bigger city … then this.” She indicated the skyline. “All because people fought against incredible odds for a dream they believed in.”
“You see all that?” His heart swelled. What a wonder this woman was.
“Sometimes.” She looked his way. “What about you? What do you see?”
Leaning on the cool metal railing, he looked out over the rippling river. “This place has a lot of memories. Some happy, like fishing with my grandpa. Some painful, like when my mom was dying and we brought her down here one last time. But”—his gaze slid toward Sloane—“I see a lot of beauty here too. I see passion and elegance and strength. Resilience. Vulnerability, yes, but a tough vulnerability—”
Wait, what? Was he still talking about Wichita, or had he shifted to talking about Sloane?
So what if he had? What he’d said was true. And friends built each other up. Encouraged one another.
But the tempo of his heartbeat was well beyond what he normally associated with friendship. And Sloane, with the breeze softly blowing her hair and the city lights reflecting in her eyes, her lips full and ripe and cherry-delicious—
Something slammed into his back, knocking him off-balance and lurching him forward. Sloane caught him, small hands braced around his biceps.
Behind him traipsed a bubbly brigade of twentysomething blondes, the shortest wearing a tight skirt, tiara, and white sash. BRIDE TO BE, it proclaimed in silver sequins.
“Oops! Sorry,” she slurred, with the loopy giggle of the hopelessly intoxicated.
“It’sh her bash-lorette,” proclaimed the girl next to her, who dissolved into doubled-over laughter, accompanied by identical chortles from her friends.
“It’s all right,” Garrett replied, but the girls were tittering too loudly to reply.
“Good luck,” Sloane called to the departing gaggle, then grinned at Garrett. “To her husband-to-be, that is. He’s sure gonna need it.”
Garrett laughed and jerked his head toward the paleta vendor. “How about some dessert?”
“Sounds great.” She fell into step alongside him.
The laughter, the movement away from the bridge, the unwelcome but well-timed interruption all combined to breathe calm into Garrett’s inner turbulence. Had he really almost kissed Sloane?
It had to be a fleeting, momentary impulse. A natural reaction to a beautiful woman in a romantic setting. A flutter of foolishness that floated away on the breeze. Because he was here on a mission. He had plans to make for his grandmother’s care. Finding a friend in the midst of it was certainly welcome.
But anything more?
That wasn’t part of his plan.
Birth Mother seeks Adoptee born 10/25/99
Nope. Too young.
Birth Mother seeks Adoptee born 6/6/86
Not that one either. Too old.
Snuggled beneath her favorite orange blanket, Sloane sipped lukewarm chamomile tea and scrolled further through the list. The clock on her screen displayed an hour she hadn’t seen for some time, yet sleep eluded her.
Part of her railed against that drunk-as-a-skunk bachelorette for bumping into Garrett and ruining their moment. But the rest of her was relieved beyond measure. Because if that kiss had actually happened? Then this thing with Garrett would be a Thing. With rules. Expectations. Standards she couldn’t possibly meet.
“Deep-seated abandonment issues,” her therapist called it. At first, Sloane had rolled her eyes. Someone who was left on a city bus as a six-day-old has abandonment issues? Ya think?
But while the diagnosis may have been obvious, its impact had been less so. Marjorie had shed light on how Sloane’s intense fear of rejection led her to lock herself away in a bubble of isolation, never letting anyone get too close. Sloane couldn’t argue. She had colleagues, but no confidantes. Bandmates, but no best friends. A handful of relationships over the years, one or two men she’d grown to really like, but no one she’d ever given herself fully to.
How could she when she herself wasn’t whole?
And so another late-night trip through Adoption Bridge’s list of Seattle-area birth mothers searching for their cast-off children.
Birth Mother seeks Adoptee born 1/15/98
Birth Mother seeks Adoptee born 4/12/96
And that was the end of the list. No leads. Not that she should expect anything different. Five years she’d been combing this site off and on. Five years she’d come up empty.
Clicking over to her profile page, she stared at the terse, bare-bones description for the millionth time. Everything she knew about her beginnings, her identity, was right there in black and white.
I am: Adoptee
There it was. Her scarlet letter. The reason she carried different DNA than the people she called Mom and Dad. The reason why, in the sea of slender Scandinavians that comprised her family, her dark hair and curvy build made her stand out. Like a spotlight shone on her. Every day. All the time. It never went dark.
Most people could see something familiar when looking at family photos.
She couldn’t.
And it shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
Adoptee name at birth: Unknown
Had the woman whose womb she’d grown in even given her a name? Six days she’d been with her. Had the woman held her? Fed her? Kissed her goodbye?
Patricia Kelley certainly hadn’t thought so and made it clear the day Sloane dared ask. The harsh words were as daggerlike now as
they’d been two decades ago.
That woman left you on a bus, Sloane. She didn’t want you. I did. I’m the one who raised you. Who took care of you. Who gave you everything. That woman was nothing for you but an incubator. She gave you life, but I gave you your life. I am your mother. Not her.
Stunned at the outburst, Sloane had backed away and retreated to her bedroom. A bedroom worthy of a princess, with its four-poster bed and frothy pink curtains.
She never asked questions of the Kelleys again.
But she didn’t stop wondering.
Her adoption meant she’d been chosen. Wanted. That people who had no biological obligation to raise her had taken her in. Taught her right from wrong. Loved her and cared for her and brought her up in the church.
But it also meant the woman who’d grown her, who’d given birth to her, had looked her in the eyes. Cared for her, at least to some extent, for nearly a week.
And then she’d left her on a bus.
County/province of birth: King
Hospital: Unknown
She’d spent her first five years in Seattle. Home of the Space Needle, grunge music, complicated coffee drinks, and rain that never quite quit. She didn’t really remember it. Her father’s transfer to Wichita the summer before she started kindergarten meant a greater familiarity with wheat fields than mountains, with unending wind rather than ceaseless rain.
She’d visited Seattle after college. Wandered its streets for days, searching for something—anything—familiar.
But there was nothing. No connection. No sense of belonging.
The hole in her heart wouldn’t be filled here.
Birth Mother maiden name: Unknown
Birth Mother name at Adoptee’s birth: Unknown
Birth Father: Unknown
Three years ago, she did one of those swab-your-cheek-and-send-it-in DNA tests. Six weeks later, she received the colorful results: Italian and Irish. English and French and Welsh. And a large chunk Ukrainian.
One Sunday, on a whim, she’d forgone services at her smallish community church for those at the large Orthodox cathedral on the east side of town. Maybe she’d connect with the ancient liturgy. The incense. The centuries-old hymns. Maybe they would resonate with whatever flowed through her veins.
They didn’t.
Adoption agency: Child Protective Services
City/state of adoption: Renton, WA
Her heart had rejoiced a few years back when the state of Washington unsealed its closed adoption records, allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates.
Unless, of course, the birth mother had denied permission. A nasty loophole which Sloane learned about after she made the request.
Yet another rejection from the person who was supposed to love her most.
Not that Sloane should feel anything but grateful for her upbringing. The Kelleys had made that perfectly clear. And she couldn’t deny the opportunities she’d been given. Ballet classes. Voice lessons. All the choirs she could have ever hoped to sing in.
But it seemed the Kelleys were trying to mold her into the perfect, pristine princess they’d always dreamed of. A thin, gorgeous blonde who never mouthed off, who sang opera and danced en pointe and won beauty pageants. A girl who, though not visible and never spoken of, still hovered like a specter over Sloane, silently mocking her for all she’d never be.
In her early years, Sloane strove to measure up to that girl. As a teen, she quietly rebelled. Quit concert choir and only sang jazz. Stayed in Kansas after high school when her parents retired in Idaho. Throughout her life, she sensed a total befuddlement from them, a desperate helplessness as to how to raise this girl who wasn’t theirs and who didn’t turn out the way they expected.
Her birth parents didn’t want her.
Her adoptive parents, though they wanted, chose, and loved her, didn’t know what to do with her.
In both cases, she was something unexpected. Something people had to deal with. Plan B.
She was nobody’s plan A.
That was the one hurdle she’d never overcome. The thorn in her flesh that, pray as she might, God simply wouldn’t remove. So she’d made an uneasy truce with this unwanted dinner guest, set a place at the table, and accepted it as best she could. Like it or not, it was part of her.
But sometimes it loomed large. Unbearable. Intolerable. She wanted it gone.
And tonight was one of those times.
Garrett was wonderful. She liked him. She could maybe even really like him, if she let herself. And if she found a way to fix that part of herself, to truly let him in, then maybe they’d stand a chance. If not Garrett, then someone like him. Someone who loved jazz and liked to hear her sing. Someone who laughed at her jokes and let her prattle on about local history.
Someone who looked at her the way Garrett did. Like he couldn’t fathom looking at anyone else.
It all came back to that one moment in time. That one choice. And if she could find the woman who made that choice, grab hold of the answer to the question that haunted her, then maybe she could get off this website and get on with her life. Filled in. Complete.
Despite the late hour, Sloane returned to the top of the list and scrolled through it one more time.
Birth Mother seeks Adoptee born 10/25/97
CHAPTER TWELVE
“HEY, ANDERSON. WE’RE making a burrito run. Want in?”
Garrett glanced up from his computer to find two of his coworkers, Nicky and Rajesh, framed in the office doorway.
He offered a smile. “Thanks, but no thanks, gentlemen. I’m working through.”
“Told you.” Rajesh elbowed the heavyset Nicky, who gave the doorframe a hefty pat.
“Catch you later then.” They disappeared, their animated conversation growing fainter with their progress down the hall.
Garrett leaned back in his chair and unzipped the insulated lunch sack that had become a permanent fixture these last weeks. When was the last time he’d gone out to lunch? Taken a midday break to leave the office, order off a menu, and enjoy a lighthearted meal with his colleagues?
His phone buzzed on the desk. Lauren. Seeing her number in the middle of the day was rarely a good sign. And a stark reminder of why he couldn’t afford lunch hours away from his desk. Stomach knotting, he reached for the phone.
“What’s up, Lo? Is Grandma okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. I’m not calling about her.”
“Good.” The knot eased enough for a bland bite of turkey and Swiss.
“I found another stash of books in the spare bedroom. I think there are a couple of Annabelle’s diaries in there. Same handwriting anyway.”
Sloane would be thrilled. “What’d they say?”
“I took a peek but didn’t read much.” Her voice took on a note of mischief. “I figured you and Sloane could take care of that this weekend.”
The third consecutive weekend trip to Wichita, in fact. Going longer than that without Sloane would be more than he could take.
Yet another reason he was eating lunch at his desk.
“So what are you guys doing for her birthday?” Lauren asked.
His second bite of sandwich slid down awkwardly. “Her what?”
“Her birthday. Friday.”
“This Friday?”
Lauren gave an exasperated huff. “Honestly, don’t you ever check Facebook?”
“Have you met me?” His little sister the blogger loved all forms of social media, and though she’d talked him into getting an account, he rarely used it. Scrolling for hours through political memes and pictures of high school classmates’ dinners? He’d never understood the appeal.
“Oh, for the love—okay, listen closely. Sloane. Has a birthday. This Friday. The twenty-third.” He could picture Lauren rolling her eyes. “What would you ever do without me?”
“Eat gluten on weekends, for starters.”
“I’ll ignore that because we’ve got bigger issues. You have to celebrate somehow.”
>
He popped open a single-serving bag of potato chips. “We’re already planning to have dinner Friday, and she did mention wanting to try that new pizza place in Old Town.”
“Mirabelli’s? Good luck with that. I drove by last week, and the line was halfway around the block. On a Wednesday.”
“That’s what reservations are for.” His mouth full of salty, crunchy deliciousness, he found Mirabelli’s website, clicked the reservations tab, and—
“Crud. Reservations only for parties of six or more.”
Lauren gasped. “Wait a minute. I just got a brilliant idea.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What if we throw a party for her?” Excitement raised Lauren’s voice to near-squeal territory.
He paused. “A party?”
“We can have it at Mirabelli’s, and that’ll get us our reservation. No mile-long line.”
He did like the sound of that.
“I’ll bring some balloons, make a cake …”
“A cake?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
She huffed again. “Just for you, I’ll make one from a box. Sugar, gluten, the works. You two can give yourselves diabetes together. It’ll be super romantic.”
“Just keep it small, okay?”
“No problem.” A pen clicked in the background. “Who’s she close to?”
Hmm. Sloane had mentioned a couple of colleagues, but her relationship with them seemed strictly professional. “There’s her band, but I don’t know much about them.”
“That’s not a problem. They have a Facebook page too.”
Of course they did.
“Anyone else? Any family?”
An obvious sore point. “Nope. She’s an only child, and her parents live out of state.”
“Poor thing. No wonder she seems lonely.”
Lonely? He thought of her as someone who—like himself—preferred a smaller social circle. But she hadn’t mentioned any birthday plans last night on the phone, even as they worked out dinner for Friday. So maybe Lauren was right. Maybe Sloane was a little lonely.
“Ooh, you know what would make it even more fun?” Lauren sounded on the verge of squealing again. “Let’s make it a surprise. Obviously she knows you’re going out to dinner. But don’t tell her any more of the plan. It’ll be just like Mom used to do. Remember?”