Girls in Trouble (47 page)

Anne leaned over the carriage and held out her finger and Joseph grabbed on to it, squealing louder. “Hey, you,” she said, and she laughed, the first time since she had arrived at the house.

“Will you look at that!” Charlotte said. “I do believe he’s in love.”

Joseph made a buzzing sound and Anne looked up, delighted. “Doesn’t it sound like he’s saying my name?” She laughed again, and tickled the baby. “I’m your half sister,” she told him.

No one spoke at first. “Of course you are,” Charlotte said quickly. Anne’s face lit up and then Joseph reached out for Charlotte so eagerly that he bounced in the carriage.

Eva took the napkin from her lap and threw it down on the table. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to spoil this lovely dinner, but I just can’t keep pretending that everything’s fine.” She turned to Anne. “Why did you come here, Anne? To a stranger’s?”

“Maybe you two are the strangers,” Anne said. “This is my real father.”

Danny looked pained. “Anne, you can’t stay here.”

Sara tried to speak. “You have to go home with Eva and George.”

Anne snapped around toward Sara, eyes flashing. “Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right—”

“You don’t care about me! You blew me off in Florida! You got all chummy again with
them
—” Anne said, nodding at her parents. “Did you come here for Danny?” She wheeled on Danny. “Is that why you were even nice to me? To get to
her
—your true love?”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sara said, but she suddenly felt Charlotte’s stare.

Danny started to rise and Anne grabbed his arm, holding him in place. “No, don’t go,” she said, then she turned to her parents. “Everyone is always leaving me,” she cried.

“No one is leaving you,” Sara said.

“You did! And you are now! You came here to give me back to my parents! You’re my mother! Why aren’t you fighting for me?”

“I did fight for you!” Sara shouted. “You don’t know what you’re saying!

“I know exactly what I’m saying!”

“She did fight for you, Anne,” Eva interrupted. “So hard we had to 1eave.”

“Right. You left to keep me safe—”

Eva shook her head. “No. We left to keep
us
safe. We weren’t afraid she’d harm you—not as much as we were afraid she’d win you from us! That she might have the right.”

“Eva—” George said, but Eva waved her hand at him.

“Oh, my God. You did know,” Sara said, astonished.

“Know what?” Anne said.

“Not for sure,” George said. “Never for sure.”

“Never for sure what?” Anne cried.

“The adoption papers,” Eva said. “Danny needed to sign them and he didn’t. We were almost sure his name was forged by his brother.” Sara sank down in her chair.

“What?” Anne’s voice thinned. “Are you all crazy? How can I believe anything any of you say? You’ve all lied to me and to each other.”

“You were this little baby. We loved you so much, Anne—so much—we would have done anything to keep you, even something wrong,” Eva said.

“You all got to choose for me! When do I get to decide who I want to be with?” Anne glared at Sara. “I don’t care what’s right or legal! I’d never go with you now—never!”

“I’d never make you, now,” Sara said quietly.

“Why are you even here?”

“She has a right to be here,” Eva said slowly. “If it weren’t for her, we might not have gotten you in the first place. And if it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have found you now.”

“You have to come home with us,” George said. “Where else can you go?”

Anne threw her napkin to the floor. “Nowhere,” she said, defeated, and then she got up and slowly left the room.

Charlotte, head down, began gathering the dishes. “Charlotte—” Danny said, and began to help her. They could all hear Anne banging around in the other room, moving chairs, pacing, and then George got up, slowly. “It’ll be all right,” he said, but his voice sounded pounded down. “It’s by default. She doesn’t have anyplace else to go.”

“Default or not,” Eva said. “We’re taking her right home. I’ll go make reservations.”

Charlotte started doing the dishes. Sara gathered her purse, her sweater. She couldn’t stop trembling, and when she came back through the dining room, she saw Anne, sitting by Joseph’s carriage, her finger caught in his grasp.

“Time to go,” Eva said, coming into the room, and Anne gently pulled her finger free. Joseph whimpered.

“Looks like he’s going to miss you,” Charlotte said, and Anne shot her a look, as if Charlotte didn’t understand anything.

“I prefer to say my goodbyes here,” Charlotte said. She handed Sara a square of tinfoil. “Peach pie,” she said. “It’ll kill the taste of the airline food.”

“Thank you,” Sara said, but she meant thank you for having me in your house. Thank you for being so good to Danny and Anne.

Charlotte walked them to the front door. She didn’t try to hug Anne or shake anyone’s hand. “Safe trip,” Charlotte said, and then she met Danny’s eyes, holding his gaze. Sara saw how Danny cupped his wife’s face in his hands, lingering, just for a moment, before he slowly stepped outside. And then, when they all were outside, Charlotte quietly closed the door, head lowered. Danny walked them to the car, stopping at the lip of the lawn, watching all of them, except for Sara, get in. “Anne—” he said, but Anne averted her face, and Danny sighed, helpless.

“This didn’t turn out the way I thought it would,” Sara said.

“I don’t care. I’m just glad I got a chance to know her. Even for this little while.”

“I didn’t mean just with Anne,” Sara said. She felt the words ball up inside her stomach. “I think—seeing vou and her together was harder than I thought it would be.”

She looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should just shut up.”

“No, no. I’m glad we’re talking. We could always talk.”

She studied his face, hesitating. Really, what difference did it make what she said now? “It could have been a whole different life for everyone,” she said.

“Sara,” he said, and as soon as she heard the tone in his voice, she knew she had made a mistake.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. There it was. The flip side of love, of happiness, was knowing that it was going to end, no matter what you did, and you were powerless to stop it. “I’m glad you have Char-lotte. Glad you got to meet Anne. And I’m glad we saw each other.”

He put his hands deep in his pockets, planting his feet in the grassy lawn, and for a moment, she wondered if he seeded and sprayed it, if he tended his lawn as carefully as he did his family. She bet he did.
Look at him,
she thought. Good and decent. Responsible and loving. The kind of man she would have grown old with. Everyone had thought she was crazy to love him, that he was wild, that he had left her in the lurch, that at fifteen she could no more recognize real love than she could the elements on the moon. But she knew now that she had been right to love him because look how he had turned out.

One car drove by, and then another, the tires squealing on the pavement, and Sara heaved a breath. “I have to go,” she said. “They’re waiting for me.”

“If I could move, I’d go back inside so I wouldn’t have to watch you leave.

“Danny?”

“That fifteen-year-old guy who was in love with you is still inside me,” Danny said quietly. “I can feel him when I look at you, Sara. If I’d known the truth back then, I swear I would never have left you and Anne. Ever.” Danny stood there on the grass, not moving, looking at her so hard, he was trembling.

“Danny—”

“I love Charlotte,” he said. “I’m thirty-two now and she’s my whole life.”

Sara tried to swallow. “Then I’m glad you’re happy,” she said.

“You’d better go,” he said. “They’re all waiting on you.”

Sara walked back to the car, got in, and shut the door. Outside the window, she saw that Danny was still there, only now he was in the middle of the road, and she could see he was crying, his cheeks damp, his beautiful face crumpled. She cried, too. She didn’t care what anybody thought. She didn’t mind that George and Eva were sitting in the front seat, that Anne was right beside her. Helpless, she grabbed for her tissue. Anne was right here in this car, but Anne was gone to Sara, and now, Danny was really gone, too, growing smaller and smaller. She put one hand on the window and he raised his up, but there was all that distance between them,
all that time, and their hands didn’t meet and touch. And then the car turned the corner, and he was farther away, and then he disappeared.

At the airport, they had to separate, going to different terminals. Eva awkwardly hugged Sara. “Thank you,” George said, but Anne refused to look at her.

“Anne,” Sara said, “please let me just talk to you.” And Anne turned forcefully away, walking toward the check-in. Never had Sara felt so helpless.

“She’s not happy with us, either,” George said to Sara.

“Will you let me know how things go?” Sara pleaded.

Eva took Sara’s hands in hers. “I’m so sorry—”

“Me, too.” Sara looked down at her shoes and then back up at Eva. “Thank you for telling me about the papers. For telling Anne. I needed to know.”

“I think I needed to tell.”

Sara let go of Eva’s hands. “I can’t say goodbyes anymore,” she blurted. “I’m afraid now they’re too final.”

“Then we won’t,” Eva said. Sara didn’t walk them to the gate. Her flight wasn’t for another hour, so she sat in the waiting area. She had forgotten to give them their share of Charlotte’s pie. She opened the foil but the pie was pretty squashed. Picking at it, she took a few bites, sparkling sweet, and then she covered it back up.

She’d be coming back to New York in the middle of the night, a time when the city felt most lonely to her. If she called Scott, he’d come and get her. She hadn’t called Scott in weeks now. Hadn’t even thought about it. She got up and found a phone. She dialed and Scott answered on the second ring, his voice sleepy, and for a moment, all she wanted to do was tell him,
come and get me.

“Scott,” she said.

“Sara!” he said. “Wait. Let me just turn the computer off so I can give you my full attention.” She heard something rattling. “I missed you,” he said. “Ah, here we go, done. I’m all yours, now.” She still heard the tap of his keys.

“Are you coming home?” he said.

She rubbed her fingers against her temples. “Yes.”

“Are you coming home alone?”

A man stood behind Sara, rummaging in his coat for his cell phone and then dialing.

“Yes,” she said. She thought of the clamor in Charlotte’s house, the cozy warmth. Then she thought of her apartment, how no matter where she turned she could see every corner of it, even the bathroom. She thought of all the apartments she and Scott had seen and he had rejected, how he had chosen one for the two of them and she hadn’t even seen it.

“Oh thank God, thank God,” Scott said.

Sara drew in and let out a long breath and told him what had happened.

“Are you upset about this? Don’t be,” he soothed. “This is a good thing.”

“A good thing? Anne won’t even talk to me, now—”

“Look, you did what you could. You made the effort. That’s the important thing.”

“Sara? You there?” Scott said.

Sara shut her eyes and then opened them. A woman glided past, her coat brushing against Sara.

“I can’t just let this go, Scott.”

“Come on, what else can you do?”

“I feel like I gave her up for adoption all over again.”

“But now it’s an adult choice. It’s the right choice.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “But do you think that makes it easier?” She heard Scott’s sigh, heard the fast tap and patter of his computer keys. Why couldn’t he stop work to talk to her now? Why couldn’t he just focus on her? “Honey, you went down there, you saw the girl, you made the connection. It didn’t work out, what are you going to do, keep making yourself unhappy for years? I think it’s for the best. Now we can get on with our lives.”

“This is my life.”

“I meant our life together.”

The man on the cell phone hung up, laughing heartily to himself, patting
the pocket where he put his phone. Sara felt a headache forming, small as a dime, spinning on its axis, not sure where it would fall and settle, and suddenly, all she wanted to do was go home to her apartment alone, to make herself some peppermint tea and relax herself enough to sleep. She couldn’t think beyond that.

“I want to go home alone,” she said.

“Oh, of course. You’re emotionally exhausted from seeing that girl.”

Sara’s throat tightened. “That girl is my daughter.” She leaned against the phone. “Scott,” she said. “Do you ever want kids?”

“You think we should be talking about this now?”

“I just want to know. Is there ever a chance you’d want them in the future?”

“Come on, this is nuts, talking about this now. You’re upset. We’re not face to face.”

“You don’t, do you?” she said. “Not Anne. And not one of our own, either.”

“Sara—”

“No. Tell me the truth. Please, Scott. Just tell me.”

He sighed, deep and heavy. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t want a teenage girl in my life.”

“What about a baby? Our baby?”

He was quiet again and this time she didn’t hear his typing. “Scott?” she said.

“I don’t want babies,” he said finally. “I can’t imagine I ever will. Some people don’t, Sara, and they’re still good people. Does that make me a criminal?”

“No,” she said slowly. “But it doesn’t make me a criminal for wanting those things, either. For needing them. And maybe it makes you wrong for me.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Scott said, stunned.

She hadn’t realized she was until he said it. She tried to swallow, tried to take in enough air to talk. She had to speak fast before all the good things about Scott welled back up to the surface, before she remembered how nice it was to wake up next to him, how kind he could be, how funny. She’d have a good life with him, but would it be a great one? She thought
of Danny, how she had felt just standing out on his front lawn with him today, every cell switched on, and she wanted to feel that way again with someone. She wanted to believe it was possible. “Yes,” she said, and as soon as she said it, she felt her life stretching out in front of her. She felt how alone she might be now.