Somewhere Out There(103)

“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.





Natalie


“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?”