Like Dandelion Dust (7 page)

That day, after Wendy had said good-bye to her baby, Allyson took the chair next to her. She looked at her for a long moment. Then she sighed and spoke her question at the same time. “Your husband’s still in prison, is that right?”

“Yes.” Wendy felt dead, drained. Her arms ached to hold her baby again. Something told her they would always ache that way. “Outside Cleveland.”

She pointed to a few marked places on the paperwork. “I’ll need his signature in order to sever your rights as parents.”

“Okay.” Wendy squeezed her eyes shut. She crooked her finger and pressed it to her lip to keep from crying. “Thank you.”

“Wendy . . .” The social worker hesitated. “Are you sure about this decision?”

“Yes.” She looked straight at the woman and gritted her teeth. Should she tell her the truth, the real reason why she couldn’t keep the beautiful baby in the other room? Then, before she could think it through, she pulled the top of her hospital gown down just enough to expose the bump on her collarbone, the place where she hadn’t healed exactly right. “See this?”

When the social worker must’ve realized what she was seeing, her eyes hardened. “Your husband did that to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” She pulled her gown back into place. “The other scars have healed.” Fresh tears clouded her eyes. “The ones you can see, anyway.”

“Wendy . . .” Allyson took her hand, and for a moment she hung her head. When she looked up, new understanding filled her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Wendy lifted her hands as the tears splashed onto her cheeks. “He’s in prison for domestic violence. What’d you think?”

“You said he pushed you in the Kroger parking lot.” Allyson looked defeated. “Have you reported him?”

Wendy’s voice cracked. “I can’t.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I never could. I love him.” In a distant room she could hear a baby crying and she wondered if it was hers. “But I can’t . . . have my baby around that.”

Concern added to the emotions on the social worker’s face. “What about your husband?” She picked up her briefcase. “What if he won’t sign?”

“He’ll sign.” Wendy’s heart beat harder than before.
Rip would kill me if he knew what I was doing,
she thought.
He wouldn’t sign the papers for a million dollars. He’s always wanted a son, as long as I’ve known him.
She wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. “He hates kids. I’ll have the papers to you in a week.”

Allyson filled her cheeks with air and released it slowly. She stood, righteous anger written in the lines on her forehead. “It’s wrong, what he’s done to you. I can get you counseling, someone to meet with every day. Whatever it takes to get him out of your life.”

The ticks from the clock on the wall seemed to get louder. The right answer was obvious. Wendy would agree, of course. She would get help and she would put Rip Porter out of her mind forever. But as long as she’d known Rip, he’d always found his way back into her life.

“Well . . . ?” Allyson touched her shoulder. “Can I make the call?”

Wendy looked down at her hands, at the way they had clenched into fists. She shook her head without looking up. “It’s no use. I’ll never be rid of him.”

The social worker tried for a while longer, but Wendy wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t expose her baby to Rip, and she couldn’t get counseling for a problem she would keep going back to. Finally there was nothing else Allyson could say. “I’m sorry, Wendy.” She gathered her briefcase and gave a nod to the paperwork. “Get it signed and back to me as soon as possible. The couple will be here at the end of the week. We’ll keep the baby in short-term foster care until the papers are in order.”

The couple. Her son’s new parents.

Wendy had picked them from a nationwide data bank. Their bios were the only ones that grabbed her heart.

She still had them now, on the top shelf in the linen closet. She crossed the kitchen to the front door and looked out the living-room window. Rip wasn’t in sight. Still, she needed to find the file. Now, so she’d have it ready when he got home. The folder held everything—pictures, the information on the couple, details about her baby’s birth.

Even a copy of the forged paperwork.

She went to the linen closet and opened the door. Every September 22—her son’s birthday—she’d pull the file from the top shelf and remind herself that she’d made the right choice. Once in a while she’d take a look on a random day in March or June or just before Christmas. When she missed Rip or when she wondered whether her little boy was walking or running or reciting his alphabet.

Now she reached up and carefully pulled down the file. It smelled like cigarette smoke, proof that she usually couldn’t get through the papers inside without chain smoking over every page. The top of the folder read, “Porter Adoption File.” Wendy read the words three times. Her mouth was dry, and her heart stuttered into an uncomfortable beat. She dropped to the floor cross-legged and opened the file.

And there they were. The faces of all three of them.

Clipped to the inside of the folder was a photo of her son, the only photo she had. Gently she slipped the picture from beneath the paper clip and held it closer. She could still hear his baby sounds, still feel the way he held tight to her finger. “What did they name you, little boy?” Softly, with great care, she brought the photo to her lips and kissed it. “Have they told you about me?”

At times like this, the ache was so great she could hardly stand it. She eased the picture back beneath the clip and forced herself to look at the first pages in the file, the couple’s bios. Back then he was thirty and she was twenty-eight. The woman was a dark-haired version of Kate Hudson, with laughing eyes and a carefree face. The man looked a little like Rip. Same rounded shoulders and dark blond hair.

They were successful, no question. He was an international businessman making more money a year than Wendy would ever see in ten. His smile had Rip’s charm, but this man had obviously found a way to turn the charm into more than cheap one-night stands. Their house was a three-story on the edge of a lake in southwest Florida. They had a boat and nice cars and all the stuff rich people like to own. But it wasn’t their looks or their success or even their stuff that sold Wendy on them. It was what they’d written about themselves. She moved her eyes halfway down the page and began to read.

Hi. This is Jack. I work for Reylco, Inc., as manager of international corporate accounts, overseeing sales of pharmaceuticals. Reylco is the world’s largest supplier of cancer drugs. Okay, that’s the boring stuff. Here’s the rest. My work schedule’s flexible. Sure, I travel a lot, but I take my wife with me half the time, and when we have children I’ll take them, too.

Travel’s great, but home’s better. I love Saturday bike rides and Sunday afternoon football games and the smell of my wife’s spaghetti sometime mid-week. Yes, she makes a lot of spaghetti and sometimes she burns the French bread, but I love her anyway. If I wanted gourmet dinners I wouldn’t have married her.

Everyone thinks I’m safe and conservative, and I guess I am. I’m a stickler for seatbelts and helmets and life jackets. But here’s a secret. Sometimes at night Molly and I take our speedboat out and open up the engine. Just open it up all the way, blazing through the darkness, wind in our hair, stars in our eyes. I know, I know. It’s a little dangerous. But out there the corporate world falls away and it’s just us, loving life, loving each other, living in the moment.

The guys at work know the other me. The boating thing would surprise them.

Anyway, I guess I should tell you I’m a romantic. I write music and play the guitar, and if I’m sure no one else is in the house, I sing at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I dream about walking away from the whole corporate game, the long hours and heavy demands, and taking my family far, far away. We’d set up on some deserted beach on an island out in the middle of the ocean and I’d drink raspberry iced tea and write songs all day.

But I’ll probably save that for our vacations.

See? That’s the romantic in me. One time I tricked my wife into coming out onto the porch when she thought I was in Berlin on business. I had a CD player ready, and when she walked out the door I held up a sign that read, “Wanna dance?” We laughed and looked into each other’s eyes and waltzed on the porch that night. Fifteen minutes later I handed her the CD, gave her a kiss, and caught a late flight out to Germany.

That’s how I like to live.

We stay fit, because it feels better to be healthy. But I have a confession. I hate exercise. I used the stair-step machine at the gym for a while, but now my wife and I wake up early and jog together, six days out of seven. I still hate it, but with her there, I laugh a lot. They say laughing burns calories and it’s good for your liver. So I guess we’ll keep jogging.

I almost forgot. We have a yellow Labrador retriever named Gus. He’s part of the family, but he’s willing to give up the crib when the baby comes.

That’s about it. Oh, one more thing. I want children more than I want my next breath. And somewhere out there, I believe with everything I am, that you’ll find this and know—absolutely know—that we’re the couple you’re looking for. Life is short and time is a thief. We would make every day something magical and marvelous for your baby. The place in our hearts and homes has been ready for years. I already wrote a song for our firstborn. Maybe I’ll sing it for your baby one day.

Thanks for your time.

Wendy had goose bumps on her arms the first time she read the man’s letter. She felt dreamy when he talked about taking his wife on their boat late at night and flying like the wind across the water, and she got tears in her eyes when she pictured him dancing with his wife on the front porch and catching a later flight for his business trip.

She giggled when he talked about hating exercise and she burst out laughing when he mentioned that Gus, the dog, would be willing to give up the crib when the baby came. The couple had the sort of marriage everyone wanted. Between their laughter and loving, they would give her son a dream life—the sort he could never have with her.

Guilt washed over Wendy as she finished reading it now. How could she even consider taking the boy away from a couple like that? But then . . . they’d been fine before adopting. They’d be fine if things didn’t work out, wouldn’t they? They’d still have the nice house and the fast boat, the laughter and love, right? They’d still have Gus.

Wendy sat back against the hallway wall and read the woman’s bio. It was shorter, but it had been the icing on the cake.

I’m Molly, Jack’s wife. I love theater and law and sunsets over the lake behind our house. I have a degree in political science and once, a long time ago, I wanted to spend my life putting away bad guys. That or work as a Broadway actress. Being a lawyer would’ve been a little of both, I guess.

Jack and I met at Florida State University the fall of my sophomore year. We were both cast in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” He was Charlie and I was The Little Red-Haired Girl —the one Charlie has a crush on. I guess the rest was history. Well, not really. But after a few bends in the road and broken hearts, it was history. He’s always been the only man for me.

Our social worker told us to write about things that were important to us. Top of the list is high morals and strong character. Both our families believe in God, and even though we’re not big church-goers, we believe in living right—doing unto others as you would have them do to you. That sort of thing.

Jack and I always wanted a bunch of kids, but things didn’t work out that way. We’re hoping for a baby through adoption, the child we will love and raise and cherish all the days of our lives. We look forward to hearing from you.

Wendy pulled her legs up and rested the file on her knees. Again Rip’s words shouted at her.
I want him back . . . the sooner the better.
If that was true, she couldn’t spend another minute thinking about the nice couple in Florida.

She flipped the page, and there it was. The place at the bottom where she’d signed Rip’s name. How could she and Rip explain the forgeries any other way? A handwriting expert could tell, right? They could check and figure out that her signature and his were written by the same person. But if they had the right story, maybe no one would ever check.

She stared at the signatures. What had the social worker asked her to do? Take the papers to the prison and have Rip sign them, right? Her mind began to turn, creating lies, sorting through possibilities. What if she’d taken the paperwork to the prison and left it with a guard? And what if the guard gave them to the wrong prisoner? Maybe someone who didn’t really care for Rip? Then that prisoner might’ve read the documents and thought, why not? Why not sign someone’s papers?

By the time the paperwork was returned to the guard, the damage would’ve been done, right? And she would’ve dropped by the prison, picked up the documents, and never looked back. She hadn’t talked to Rip much the whole time he was in, so it was possible the issue of the boy might never have come up.

The longer she played the story over in her mind, the more sure she became. The lie might just work. All they had to do was convince the social worker Rip was a victim, that he had no idea he was a father until he was released from prison, and that someone else—another inmate—had signed his papers.

She was perfecting the story when she heard the door open.

“Wendy . . . baby, I’m sorry.” There was the sound of his footsteps, and then he found her, sitting in the hallway, the file on her lap. His face was dark with sorrow and remorse. He dropped to his knees beside her and framed her face with his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you.” He had never sounded more genuine, more loving. “I just want our boy back.” He hesitated. “Help me find him, okay?”

And with that, the only real reason she’d given her son up faded entirely from the picture. Rip was a changed man, completely changed. He was kind and compassionate, and even when he was angry he wouldn’t hit her. The hole in the wall was proof. The Florida couple would be all right one day. They could adopt another kid. What mattered was the boy, and the fact that he belonged with his real parents.