Somewhere Out There (40 page)

“Mine does,” Natalie said.

“I was never adopted,” Brooke said. Her tone was clipped. “I grew up in foster homes and a facility run by the state.”

I snapped my eyes up from the floor to look at my older daughter. “You weren’t raised together?”

Brooke shook her head. “We only just found each other in October. Up until then, Natalie didn’t know I existed. We were separated about a month after you gave us up.”

“Oh my god,” I said. My lungs felt shriveled; I couldn’t get enough air. “I’m so sorry . . . I assumed . . . I never thought . . .” I let my words trail off, not having any idea what to say to them. My heart pounded an erratic rhythm behind my rib cage. I couldn’t believe that Natalie hadn’t even known she had an older sister. The only comfort I’d had over the years was in the knowledge that the two of them had each other after they’d lost me. Discovering this belief was false made me feel as though I’d been shoved off a cliff.

“You didn’t know,” Natalie said, kindly. “It’s just . . . the way things turned out.” She paused, fiddling with the strap of the black leather purse resting at her side. When she spoke again, she kept her eyes on my face. “We only know a little about your decision to give up custody. We were hoping . . . wondering, really, if you could tell us a little about what led you to make it. We know you were young, and that things had to be tough for you, having the both of us.”

“But people do it,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Young, single mothers manage to raise babies all of the time. You want to know why I didn’t.”

“Yes,” Brooke said. “Were we that terrible? That hard to handle?” Her violet eyes flashed, filled with what looked like years of inflamed fury and pent-up grief, both of which I knew I was responsible for.

I glanced at Evan, who had been sitting quietly next to me, and he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “You weren’t anywhere close to terrible,” I said, unable to keep my voice from wavering. “You were both beautiful. I loved you so much. My decision . . . what I did . . . it didn’t have anything to do with you. It was about me. I was a mess . . . so insecure and scared. I was doing an awful job as a mother . . . having to beg for money . . . living with you both in my car.” I looked back and forth between my daughters.
My daughters.
I still couldn’t believe they were here. “I was terrified of things getting worse. I was afraid if I raised you, I’d do a horrible job of it. That I couldn’t take care of you properly and you’d end up as screwed up as I was. I wanted you to have a better life than the one I could give you. I’d made so many mistakes . . . so many wrong decisions. I was going to jail. Giving you both a chance to start over without me seemed like the only right choice to make.”

“I can see that,” Natalie said. She looked at her sister, whose chin trembled. Brooke was almost forty and yet, in this moment, still four, looking every bit the wounded little girl I remembered leaving alone in the car with her sister that night at the store.

“Brooke, I’m so sorry—” I began, but then she cut me off.

“I thought you were going to come back for me,” Brooke said. “Did you know that? I cried every night, waiting for you. I thought I’d done something wrong. That I made you leave. Did you think about me at all?”

“I thought about you always,” I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Both of you. Every minute of every day for the longest time. I was sick over how much I worried about you both. So much, it made me feel like I was going insane.” Again, I looked at Evan, who gave me an encouraging nod. When I looked at my daughters again, they both stared at me, expectantly. “If you found me through the police,” I said, “I assume you know the reason I went to prison the second time? For attempted kidnapping?” They nodded, and so I continued. “That day in the park . . . the little girl I picked up and took into the woods . . . I thought it was you, Brooke.”

My elder daughter’s expression didn’t falter. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. I felt crazy. I wasn’t stable. It was like I was in the middle of a flashback to the moment Gina and that other woman came to take you away from me. Giving you girls up . . .” My throat closed around these words and I had to cough before I could go on. “The day I said good-bye to you both broke something in me. Finding my way back from that . . . finding a way to live with myself for letting you both go hasn’t been easy. There have been moments it’s been downright impossible. If it wasn’t for Evan”—here I gave my husband a grateful look—“and my work, I’m not sure I would have survived the guilt.”

We were all silent for a few moments after I finished speaking. I struggled not to give myself over to hysterics.

“I’m sorry you’ve gone through so much,” Natalie said. “But we’re together now. Maybe we can find a way to get to know each other.”

I thought about this as I kept my eyes on my daughters, amazed that these two gorgeous women were the babies I’d brought into this world. But in the very next moment, panic overtook that sense of awe, and before I knew what I was doing, I had let go of Evan’s hand and stood up. “I’m sorry,” I said. I was done; I’d given them all that I could. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Natalie asked, but instead of responding, I did the only thing I could think of. I raced out of the living room and disappeared through the back door, into the dark night.

“Did she really just walk out on us?” Brooke asked as soon as we heard the back door slam shut.

“Brooke,” Natalie said, her voice full of warning. “I know you’re angry—”

“You’re goddamn right I’m angry! Thirty-five years later and ‘I can’t’ is the only thing she has to say?”

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. He raked thick fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. He glanced toward the kitchen, then back at Natalie and Brooke. “I didn’t realize she’d react like this.”

Brooke didn’t say a word. Her jaw was set and her eyes were locked in the direction their mother had gone. Natalie looked away for only a split second, but that was all it took for Brooke to get up and head toward the back door. “Brooke, wait!” Natalie said, but when her sister didn’t respond, both Natalie and Evan stood up and followed her onto the deck.

Despite the cold, Jennifer sat without a coat on a cushioned couch, surrounded by her four dogs, who lay by her feet. Brooke stood in front of her with her hands on her hips. “Is that all we get?” she demanded. “Your story? Don’t you want to know anything about us? Don’t you care?”

Natalie strode over and grabbed Brooke’s arm, but her sister jerked away. “Brooke, stop,” Natalie said. “Let’s just go.”

“Natalie has children,” Brooke continued, as though her sister hadn’t spoken at all. “Her daughter’s name is Hailey, and she’s seven years old. She’s really into cooking shows. And Henry is five, obsessed with Buzz Lightyear.”

Jennifer looked up from the ground, the glow from the porch light reflecting in her eyes. Her shoulders curled forward, and she seemed so small, a little like an animal, stuck in a trap. In her face, Natalie could picture the young, frightened girl she had been when she chose to let them go. Their birth mother was an accomplished professional, but she also seemed brittle, as though she might shatter from a simple touch or misspoken word. Evan stepped over and sat down next to his wife again, but he stayed silent.

“That’s right,” Brooke said, clearly fighting back her own tears. “You’re a grandmother.” She ran her right hand over her burgeoning belly, tucking the fabric of her blouse around it so the fact that she was pregnant was impossible to miss. “And you’ll be one again in April. I’m having a girl, too, but I haven’t decided on a name yet. I’m single, like you were, but I’m going to raise her on my own.” Her shoulders began to shake. “Don’t you want to know them?” Brooke asked. “Don’t you want to know us?”

“I’m so sorry,” Jennifer said in a wobbling voice, then dropped her eyes back to the ground. She reached down and stroked the silky head of one of her dogs in a repetitive movement, one that reminded Natalie of the way Brooke’s fingers had worked the edge of her lavender blanket when Natalie returned it to her the first time they saw each other as adults.

“It’s okay,” Natalie said. “We understand. We just wanted to see you. To let you know we were okay. We won’t bother you again.”

“Don’t do this!” Brooke cried, staring at their mother. “You have to say something! Please!”

Natalie felt the muscles convulse inside her chest; her sister sounded like a child again. A few tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stand the pain Brooke was in; they both had hoped for such a different reaction than Jennifer had given them. But there was no changing it now. The woman obviously wasn’t capable of having a relationship with them. It was time for them to leave.

Natalie took Brooke by the arm again, and this time, her sister didn’t pull away. “Thanks for talking with us,” Natalie said to Jennifer. “And we’re sorry to blindside you like this. I’ll leave you my card inside, just in case you ever change your mind. We wish you both the best.”

“Take care,” Evan said, rising from the couch to briefly shake Natalie’s hand. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“That’s okay,” Natalie said. “We’re fine.”

Evan nodded, and sat back down next to his wife. He put a long arm around her, and she leaned into his chest, closing her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, and then Natalie led Brooke into the house, stopping briefly to drop one of her business cards on the kitchen counter. A moment later, they were inside Natalie’s car, backing out of the driveway, pointed south, on the road toward home.

•  •  •

Lost in their own thoughts, the two sisters didn’t speak until they were almost halfway back to Seattle. Brooke wept quietly for the first ten minutes or so of the trip, but Natalie kept silent, knowing at this point there were few words she could offer that would provide any comfort. They’d made the decision to show up at Jennifer’s house together, but it was Brooke who seemed the most driven to confront their mother. It was she who had the deepest issues to resolve.

“I can’t believe she just shut down like that,” Brooke finally said as they passed the sign that told them the express lanes were closed heading into Seattle. “Can you believe it?”

“I don’t know,” Natalie said, carefully. “It kind of makes sense. We sort of sprang ourselves on her. Did you notice how shaky she was?”

“We were all shaky,” Brooke said. She stared out the passenger side window. “But she hardly answered our questions before she bolted. She didn’t ask us a damn thing about ourselves.”

“I think it was too much for her,” Natalie said. “She could barely speak when we were out on their deck. Maybe seeing us . . . getting to know us . . . would be too painful. A constant reminder of the things she felt like she did wrong.” This wasn’t about them, Natalie tried to convince herself. It was about Jennifer.

“She did do things wrong,” Brooke said, and Natalie felt her sister’s eyes on her. “She went to prison for them.”

“Right,” Natalie said. “And then she changed her life. She’s done a lot of good, too. For other inmates, and for herself. She’s built a successful career and what looks like a happy marriage. Maybe she’s worried if she let us in, she’d lose all of that. Maybe she’s just not wired to handle it.” She realized that in saying all of this to Brooke, she was attempting to convince herself of it, too.

“Maybe,” Brooke conceded. “But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“I know,” Natalie said. “I had expectations, too. I wanted her to leap up and hug us. I wanted a mushy, emotional reunion. The kind you used to see on
Oprah
.” Brooke gave her the shadow of a smile, and then Natalie continued. “But we saw her, right? We did what we said we needed to. Everything that happened after that was out of our control. She can’t be who we want her to be, just because we want it. She is who she is. And we have to respect whatever boundaries she sets.”

Brooke frowned at her. “How are you being so rational right now? I feel like shit.”

Natalie thought a moment before answering, keeping her eyes on the road ahead of them. “Probably because I don’t remember her the way you do. It’s easier for me to stay objective.”

“I don’t really remember much about her,” Brooke said, softly. “Not specifically.” She shrugged. “What I remember is the feeling of her. Of having her with me. And then . . . not.”

Natalie reached over and squeezed Brooke’s hand, knowing that no words could ever fully heal the loss her sister had suffered the day their mother decided to let them go. She took the Stewart Street exit off I-5 in order to drop Brooke at her apartment on Capitol Hill.

“You all right?” Natalie asked as she pulled up in front of Brooke’s building. “Want me to come in?” It was almost eight thirty, and Kyle had likely already put the kids to bed, so Natalie didn’t need to hurry home.

Brooke shook her head. “I’m okay.” She paused, as though she were reconsidering her statement. “Sad, but okay.”

“I’m sad, too. I wish things had turned out differently. For all of us.”

“I’m glad we went together, though.” Brooke gave Natalie a grim smile. “I might have really gone off on her if you hadn’t dragged me out of there.”

“You’re welcome,” Natalie said.

Brooke laughed and put her hand on the door handle. “Talk with you tomorrow?”

“You bet,” Natalie said, watching to make sure her sister was safely inside the building before she drove around the block and headed back toward the freeway. She wondered if it was too late for her to stop by and see her parents. She’d called her mother earlier in the day to let her know that she and Brooke planned to drive up to Mt. Vernon.

“We just want to talk with her,” Natalie had said. “To understand why she gave us up.”

“Okay,” her mother replied, quietly. “Will you at least let me know when you get home? And if you’re okay?”

“Of course,” Natalie promised, so now, using the voice commands on her cell phone’s headset, Natalie called the landline at her parents’ house. Her father picked up after only two rings. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Is it okay if I come by? Or are you guys about to turn in?”