The Choices We Make (11 page)

21

KATE

January

The letter sat in the middle of the kitchen table where it had already been for eleven days, taunting me to open it. Even though all the other mail that had arrived during that time had been opened and dealt with, this letter remained untouched.

“Is today the day?” David asked, nodding his head toward the envelope after noticing me staring at it, again, while the girls did their homework after dinner.

I sighed. “Maybe.”

“Girls, close your books and let's go get some ice cream,” David said.

“But it's a school night,” Ava said. “We never get ice cream on school nights. And I haven't finished my homework yet.”

“How are you my child?” David planted a kiss on the top of her head. Josie, who would do anything for ice cream, had already shoved her book back into her school bag and was getting her shoes on by the front door. “Let's go!” she called out, and David gave Ava a gentle shove toward the front hall, laughing as she continued to protest.

“Thank you,” I said, resting my chin in my hands.

He paused by the kitchen doorway. “You know, you don't have to open it. Or the one that comes next month. You already know what's in there.”

“I know. But ever since Mom died I can't help but feel like he's all I have left so I should at least hear what he has to say, right?”

“He is not all you have left, Katie,” David replied, sounding slightly exasperated.

“The only
parent
,” I clarified.

I always found a reason to open each letter in the end—maybe it was something about the business, which I, as my father's only heir, would inherit one day, or that he was sick or dying, or that this was
the
letter where he apologized for taking off on me and Mom all those years ago.

“You don't need him. You never have,” David said, and I murmured that was true. David never made me feel as though my anger toward my father was unsubstantiated, even if I probably should have let it go years ago. He did, after all, provide for Mom and me after he left. His greatest crime was leaving what he considered to be an unhappy or unsatisfying marriage—something that was hardly unique or particularly inexcusable. But loyalty ran deep in my bones, had since I was a young girl, and I simply couldn't forgive him for deciding we weren't enough.

“You have me. The girls. Hannah, Ben. A whole bunch of school moms who seem to require your advice on everything. I swear those women couldn't make a puffed-rice-and-marshmallow treat without your approval.” I smiled. I often joked about spiking the iced tea I brought to the PTA meetings just to get through them, though in truth I liked feeling needed most of the time. Especially now that my girls were getting older—every day it seemed they needed me less and less, which made me feel a little lost.

“As always, babe, you are right.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Ha, ha,” I replied, shooing him away when Josie shouted it was time to get a move on from the front porch.

Once the house was quiet again, I picked up the envelope and ran my fingers over the sharp edges, tapping it against my palm with my other hand. Then I ripped it open down one edge, quickly before I could change my mind. A check fell out, but I didn't even bother to look at the amount. I had long ago refused to take money from him.

The letter was typed on letterhead, as always. I wondered which secretary had typed it for him. Probably Susan, whose signature was on the courier forms when he sent me flowers on my birthday and when the Christmas packages arrived for the girls, and whom was mentioned often enough in each letter to make me suspect she wasn't only his secretary.

I started reading, irritated by the shake in my fingers.

Dear Katherine—

Katherine.
How little you know me, Dad.
The only time I'd been called Katherine was probably the day I was born—when my mom filled out the birth certificate details for the hospital administration.
I hope this letter finds you, David and the girls well. I'm sure the holidays were difficult, it being the first Christmas since Mom passed away.
I hated how he referred to Mom as “Mom”—as if he had a right to be so familiar with how he talked about her with me.
I heard from your accountant about the girls' funds, and I'm glad we were able to get it all set up and squared away.

Without your involvement
, I imagined he wanted to write at the end of that sentence. I had left my accountant to handle all the details, biting my tongue in the meeting because I knew it wasn't about me this time.
There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about, but with your mom now gone I suspect we won't be seeing each other anymore, so I'm forced to write it in this letter. Though I want you to know I will be at the restaurant on her birthday, at noon just like always, in case you wanted to join me.

The words on the page went fuzzy. I blinked rapidly a few times to get rid of the tears that threatened to fall onto the crisp white paper.

I've proposed to Susan, and she has said yes! We're both thrilled, and the wedding is set for the summer. August 10th, and though I have no expectations you'll come, I wanted you to know you're all welcome. Nothing would make me happier than having you and your family there. Susan and I hope you'll at least consider it.

“Damn you, Susan. You're a fool—you should have stuck to typing his letters and picking up his dry cleaning,” I muttered.

And then he ended the letter, exactly the way he always did.

With love, Edward McTavish.

Never “Dad,” or even the more formal “Your father”—Edward McTavish, like the stranger he was.

I folded the letter up, tucked it back into the envelope along with the check, then grabbed the kitchen shears from the knife block. I poured a glass of wine and sat at the kitchen table, slowly cutting the envelope in half, then in half again, then cutting each of the four rectangles again and again and again, until there were dozens of paper squares neatly piled in front of me and my glass was empty.

22

HANNAH

The office was dingy—threadbare carpet, walls that could use a fresh coat of paint and store-bought artwork hanging in cheap wooden frames—but it smelled good, reminding me of the morning glory muffins my grandmother baked every Sunday morning. Dense and dark and spiced, made with orange juice and zest, carrots, pineapple, raisins, walnuts, coconut and cloves, she called them her “everything but the kitchen sink” muffins. Sometimes I make a batch when I'm missing her, or when I'm stuck on a particular recipe, even though I'm the only one who likes them—Ben said they taste like an experiment gone wrong.

The reason behind the sweet-smelling office became obvious once we announced ourselves at the reception desk—a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies sat under a glass dome, with a sign reading
Please help yourself!
taped to the front of it, and a lit candle labeled Orange Sherbet burning on the other side of the desk.

“Those were fresh baked this morning,” the receptionist, a young woman with curly strawberry-blond hair whose blouse was probably open one button too many, said. “Please, have one!”

Ben, never one to turn away a cookie, lifted the glass lid. “Want one?” he asked me, and I shook my head. He slid a cookie onto a napkin, replacing the glass dome noisily.

“Hannah?”

I blinked, still standing at the desk. Ben was halfway to a chair, cookie in hand with a questioning look on his face, and the receptionist's big, welcoming smile was still intact.

“Go ahead—have one. They're delicious.” Because I was embarrassed for going catatonic in front of her desk and it seemed she might take offense if I didn't have a cookie, I smiled and took one.

“You all right?” Ben mumbled, his mouth full.

I nodded and nibbled my own cookie. “These are really good,” I said to the receptionist, who was watching us, gauging our reactions, as if she was the cookie baker. Who knows, maybe she was.

“Want the rest of mine?” I whispered to Ben when the receptionist turned away to answer the phone.

He stopped chewing. “Okay, what is wrong with you? You never share your cookies with me.”

I laughed and placed my half-eaten cookie on his empty but crumb-laden napkin. He popped my half cookie into his mouth, then crumpled the napkin up and tossed it into a wastebasket about five feet away. It went right in. “Yesssss!” Ben said. “Did you see that? Right in. Like a boss.”

“I suspect the Warriors are ready to offer you a spot on the team. Any day now.”

Ben grinned, then shook his head and laughed quietly.

“What?” When he didn't answer, I asked again, “Why are you laughing?”

“Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. It's just... I sort of can't believe we're here.”

“And that's funny because?”

“It's not funny,” Ben said. “I'm just happy. That's all.”

He said it so plainly, so easily, that I didn't know what to say for a moment. “Well, I'm glad. I'm happy that you're happy.”

“Are you happy, Hannah?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and took a deep breath. “I'm at least halfway there.”

“That's good enough for now,” he said. “I'll take it.”

A few minutes and another cookie later for Ben, we were led down a hall so narrow we had to walk single file. The office she ushered us into was cramped; the desk, three chairs and a large putty-colored metal filing cabinet in the corner on which rested a sick-looking fern filled every inch of the space. Just as we took our seats—steel-and-cheap-fabric chairs that looked like garage-sale fare—a man in his midforties, with a head of thick brown hair and a tie that hung a bit too short, walked in.

“Good morning,” he said, and shook our outstretched hands. His grip was firm, and he did that thing where he enveloped the handshake with his other hand—a gesture that made me instantly like him. “I'm Dan Cosgrove. So great to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews.”

“Please, Hannah and Ben.” I sat down as he made his way around the other side of the desk.

“So Cheryl Huttner sent you my way,” Dan said, opening a folder on his desk. I noticed a wedding band, and then almost right away the picture on his desk showing him with a pretty brunette woman and five children of varying ages all wearing big smiles and Mickey Mouse ears, standing outside the gates of Disneyland. “Cheryl and Fred's son is almost four now. She still sends me pictures regularly, which I love to get.” Cheryl was a coworker of mine from the magazine, in the sales department, and had used Dan and his agency to adopt a little boy a few years back. She had gushed about Dan and their experience, and even sent an introduction email on our behalf, which was partially how we came to be sitting there this morning with Dan—Cheryl was so enthusiastic about him, and adoption, I felt as if I had to at least go through with one meeting.

“You have five kids?” I asked, still staring at the photo.

Dan smiled and picked up the frame. “We do,” he said. “You should see our house in the morning. One bathroom. Absolute chaos.” He then went on to point and name each of his kids—Riley, Jackson, Owen, Mary, Kaileigh—and his wife, Heather Ann, who was a physician at the hospital. “You have a lovely family,” I said.

“Thanks, I agree,” he said, placing the frame carefully back on his desk. “Now, let's talk about the two of you. I know Cheryl has probably filled you in on what we do here and how we do it, but let me tell you a bit about the process.” He sipped from the stainless-steel travel mug on his desk, then leaned back in his chair. “I'm what's called an adoption ‘facilitator,' though I prefer ‘family matchmaker.' Heather Ann has more than once told me how cheesy that is, and she's generally right about things like that, but that's my unofficial title.” He smiled, and Ben and I laughed. “Basically I help connect you to a birth mother and in some cases a birth father as well, to see if we can make a match.”

“How are we ‘connected'?” Ben asked.

“Great question,” Dan replied. “Basically you make a ‘brag book'—which is like a sort of family résumé, with pictures and details about you two and the sort of life and experiences you would provide a child with. Then I meet with the birth mother or birth parents to go over the brag book and help facilitate them choosing prospective parents for their child.”

“Do you have one of these brag books we could look at?” I asked.

“You bet.” Dan opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a hardback book, about the size of a rectangular photo album, and placed it in front of us. “We're different from a private adoption agency in that we help the birth parents choose, but it is ultimately their choice. At a typical agency, the birth parents relinquish the right to choose to their caseworker, and then that caseworker makes the match on their behalf.” Dan sipped from his travel mug again. “Obviously I prefer the way we do things here, because in my experience the best matches are made when the birth parents are involved in the process.”

I glanced up at him and nodded, only half listening. My eyes dropped back to the book in front of me, the front of which showed a smiling couple—probably late twenties or early thirties—wearing leis and standing on a white sand beach. Opening the book I found pages of photos—vacations to beaches and ski hills, Christmas trees and stockings, bicycles leaning against park benches, and poses on hiking trails with a dopey-looking yellow Labrador retriever—with captions on each page telling the story of this couple, Hillary and Derek.

With every picture, every anecdote, my stomach dropped a little more, the reality of this couple hitting so close to home. This was Ben and me, with different pictures but the same story.

I had a feeling Dan's desk drawer was stacked high with books just like this one.

Closing the book, I rested a hand on the cover, Hillary's face, her smile, still visible. And suddenly I didn't want to take a baby away from Hillary. I didn't want to be in competition with any of these couples, because they were as hopeful as we were that parenthood was not out of reach, reserved for the luckier ones.

Dan went on to explain the process. Home study, brag book, birth-parent meetings, fees and attorney requirements, and the thirty-day clause—which basically meant the birth mother, or parents, could reverse their decision within the first month. Ben looked surprised at this, though I was sure I had mentioned it—likely in passing, and without admitting my own fear—when we set up this meeting.

“They can change their minds, even after we've taken the baby home?” Ben asked, shifting in his chair as if his jeans had shrunk a size.

“They can,” Dan said, a frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Now, I've only seen it happen once in all the years I've been doing this. But it is something you need to know can happen. I've found in many cases having an open adoption helps alleviate this.”

“Open adoption means there would be an ongoing relationship with the birth mother, or parents, right?” I asked.

“Exactly.” Dan nodded. “More and more that's how adoptions are going these days, and studies tell us it's likely in the best interest of the child to maintain some type of relationship.”

“That would be fine with us, I imagine... Ben?” I said, turning to look at Ben for confirmation. But he was staring at Dan, not acknowledging my question.

“I don't know if I could handle that,” Ben said, turning to me. I was about to ask what specifically he couldn't handle, because I was not sure what part of the conversation had caused the panicked look on his face. “If we took a baby home...how could we give it back?”

“I know,” I said. “But remember, Dan said it doesn't happen. Not often, anyway.”

Ben nodded, but his face remained grim and I knew exactly how he felt. Every attempt we'd made at becoming parents had been frustrating and constricting, like trying to run for your life while wearing a straightjacket—it was never going to be easy. Even choosing
not
to have a child wouldn't be easy, though it would be simple by comparison. But once again, we were faced with the unfairness of having to choose an option from a list of only difficult, potentially heartbreaking paths.

So you chose the option you hated the least, or the one you thought you could live with once the dust settled.