Riverbend Reunion(64)

Gloria took a couple of black-and-white images from the printer and handed them to her. “Here you go. The first pictures for the baby book.”

Haley hugged them to her chest and wished that January would hurry up and get there so she could hold the baby instead of a picture. “Thank you.”

Then she heard a sniffle and turned to see Mary Nell dabbing at her eyes.

“That was the most beautiful thing,” Mary Nell said. “I’m so glad I got the long straw.”

“It is, isn’t it,” Dr. Jeannie said. “There’s just something about this first time that fills a mother’s heart with love. I’ll see you in a month, and Gloria will explain our scheduling to you, but if you have any problems, call us. Or if you have a worry about something, we’re always ready to listen.”

“Thank you,” Haley said around the lump in her throat. Nothing had ever affected her like the images she held in her hand.

Dr. Jeannie wiped the gel from Haley’s stomach and helped her sit up. “I’ll see you in a month. By then you might be feeling a few little flutters.”

“Thank you, again.” Haley suddenly couldn’t wait for every stage of the pregnancy, and planned to record every day in a journal so her baby would always know how much he or she was wanted.



Haley taped the pictures of the baby to the mirror above her dresser that evening. Her friends had looked at the two images so much that she was surprised there was anything left of them. Before she went to bed, she kissed her fingertips and touched the image. “Good night, sweet baby. We’re going to have a wonderful life together, I promise. You’ll have Wade for a male role model and Oscar will step in for a grandparent, and you’ve got three wonderful aunts, and two cousins that can’t wait for you to arrive.”

She was still too wound up from the afternoon to go right to sleep, so she reached for the book she’d been reading on the nightstand. She didn’t have a good hold on it, and it fell on the floor and scooted under the dresser. Haley dropped down on her knees and felt under the piece of furniture that had sat in the same place in her folks’ bedroom since she was a toddler. Her hands closed around the book, and she eased it out.

But the book in her hand was not the one that she had been reading. It was a worn copy of Dr. Seuss’s ABC. She rolled over to sit with her back against the dresser and stare at the book, a faint memory coming back to her. Just before Frannie had left home to go off to college, she had set Haley on her lap and read the book to her. When she finished reading, she had hugged Haley tightly, and explained that she was going away, but that she would always, always keep her in her heart. She had even laid Haley’s little hand on her chest and said, “You will always, always be right here, my precious little girl.”

“Not sister or daughter,” Haley muttered, “but precious little girl. I think she did love me. When I kissed her good night, her face tasted salty.” She opened the book to the yellowed pages. “It seems fitting that I should read this book to you today since my biological mother read it to me,” she told the baby growing inside her. She began to read.

When she reached the part about camels on the ceiling, an envelope fell out into her lap. She picked it up and found her full name on the front of it: Vanessa Haley Macall. She didn’t recognize the handwriting as her mother’s. Her hands shook as she carefully ripped it open and removed a letter written on lined paper with three holes in the side. She just knew it was from Frannie—and she was right.

Her eyes scanned the page, then went back to the beginning to read each word:

My dear child,

I’m leaving tomorrow, and I don’t know if you’ll ever find this letter. I’m your mother, not your sister. It kills me to leave you behind when I leave for college in the morning, but it has to be this way. I want you to know that your father was my first love. We were both only fifteen, and he came to work for my dad in El Paso. To make a long story short, I got pregnant, and Mama said that they would adopt you and raise you as my sister, and your father was more than willing to sign the consent forms before he went back to New Mexico. His name was Larry Morino, and he died in a car wreck before you were born.

Leaving you is so painful that I don’t expect I’ll come back very often, but I can’t leave without at least telling you how I feel and hoping that someday you will find this note in the last book I read to you. I couldn’t take care of you properly at fifteen, and now that you are legally Mama and Daddy’s child, I can’t bear to watch you grow up and not tell you that you really are my daughter and not my sister.

Your father and I listened to Van Halen that summer, and “Secrets” was our song. I wanted to name you Vanessa Halen, though Mama said she would only concede to Haley. To her, Halen sounded like a boy’s name, so we compromised. That’s just a little bit of news that you might not know unless Mama finally decides to tell you about your birth.

I wish you all the best life can offer, and hope you grow up to be a well-adjusted woman.

Again, I love you,

Your mother, Frannie

Haley read the letter three more times with tears dripping onto the paper every time. When she finished, she laid it on the floor and sobbed worse than she had even at her mother’s funeral. She wasn’t aware of anyone knocking on her door or pushing it open and coming into her room until Risa sat down beside her and wrapped her up in her arms.