Somewhere Out There(64)

“I’m happy I found you,” Natalie said, and for the first time since finding out she was pregnant, Brooke allowed herself to feel a small and bright, perfect piece of happiness, too.





Natalie


Kyle was sitting at the kitchen table typing away on his laptop when Natalie got home from meeting with Brooke. He looked up when she walked in the room and lifted his fingers off the keyboard. “How’d it go?” he asked. Despite his obvious reservations about the situation—even after Natalie had explained that Zora had been lying about Brooke being a hooker—he hadn’t tried to keep Natalie from going to meet Brooke. The only thing he said as she was about walk out the door was “Be careful,” and reminding herself that he had her best interests in mind, she promised him that she would.

“Where are the kids?” she replied as she set her purse on the counter, then sat down at the table across from her husband. Both Hailey and Henry almost always came running when Natalie returned from being out; the fact that they hadn’t, now, made it clear they weren’t in the house.

“Your mom and dad offered to take them for a few hours,” Kyle said. “I needed to get some work done on this brief, so I took them up on it.”

“Oh,” Natalie said, pushing down a small flicker of annoyance. “I thought you guys were going to hang out.” Saturday mornings were supposed to be Kyle’s alone time with their kids—a few hours a week for them to spend together, uninterrupted by work or anything else. Normally, Natalie used the time to go shopping for baking supplies or to get prep done on orders she might have upcoming for the week, but her meeting with Brooke had taken priority over any work Natalie needed to get done.

“We did,” Kyle said. “For a bit.” He drummed his long fingers on top of the table. “I just thought it might be easier for us to talk when you got back without them here.”

“Oh,” Natalie said, again. She knew the case he was working on was monopolizing his thoughts, so it made sense that he was working on it now, while he was waiting for her to return. And it actually was thoughtful of him, to give the two of them a little time alone to talk about her brunch with Brooke. Maybe she was being too sensitive.

“So,” Kyle said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “Tell me everything.”

And so Natalie did, recounting the details of her meeting with Brooke. She described her sister to Kyle, and told him about Hailey having her eyes. “You two must each have a recessive gene,” their pediatrician had once told them. “But even with that, there’s only a twenty-five percent chance of two brown-eyed people having a blue-eyed child. One of you has to have a relative somewhere with Hailey’s eye color.” At the time, hearing this had made Natalie’s stomach ache, knowing that since no one in Kyle’s immediate family had blue eyes, the color must have come from someone she would most likely never meet.

“Wow,” Kyle said now. “You’re absolutely sure it’s her?”

Natalie nodded and then told him about the blanket, how Brooke had given it to Natalie when they were separated. “You should have seen her face when I showed it to her. It was like she was a little girl again. It broke my heart.” Natalie didn’t know how to describe what she felt when she saw this other woman—her sister!—sitting across the table, holding that blanket with tears in her eyes. There was something guarded about Brooke, yet something so fragile and vulnerable, too. Even though she was the younger sister, it made Natalie long to gather Brooke up in her arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. Any doubts she had harbored had quickly evaporated.

“Did you guys talk any more about her past?” Kyle asked, attempting to sound casual, but Natalie knew he was fishing for confirmation that some of his suspicions might be true.

“You mean did I ask her for proof that she’s not a hooker?” The instant that barbed comment left her mouth, Natalie regretted it, but his continued skepticism felt unwarranted. Natalie had asked about Zora’s accusation, and Brooke had offered a completely reasonable, believable explanation. She seemed normal, and after her initial hesitation, Natalie wanted to enjoy the fact that she’d met Brooke. She wanted to bask in the pleasure of knowing she was no longer an only child. She had a sister. All of those conversations she’d had lying alone in her bedroom, talking to imaginary playmates, maybe they weren’t so imaginary. Maybe the entire time, she’d been talking to a subconscious memory of Brooke.

“Natalie—” Kyle began, but she cut him off.

“Can you hold off on the judgment until you meet her? Please?”

“I don’t mean to judge,” her husband said, carefully. “I’m just saying that we need to understand more about her.”

“And I’m just saying the only way we’re going to understand anything about her or what her life has been like is if we spend time with her. If I spend time with her, first. It’s not like I asked her to come live with us. We’re meeting for coffee next week, and maybe I’ll see what I can find out about her criminal past then.”

Kyle stared at her for a long minute before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to ruin this for you. I know how much it means.” He stood up and walked over to her, pulling her up so they could stand face-to-face. He put his strong arms around her. “You just don’t let a lot of people in close to you, honey. At least, not this quickly. I’m feeling protective. That’s all.”