Empty Arms: A Novel (17 page)

“What did you say?”

“I wanted to tell him that I would’ve given him anything in the whole entire world because truly, I would have. But I couldn’t undermine his adoptive parents, so I said no and he …”—her bottom lip trembles—“he said he should’ve known that he’d never be able to count on someone who had abandoned him.” A tear slides down her cheek and she brushes it away.

“Did you tell him you didn’t abandon him? Did you explain how things were back then?”

She nods miserably and blots her eyes with a napkin. “He didn’t want to hear it. He told me to stop calling him. He said he never wants to see me again.” She blows her nose in the napkin. “That night, Vince and I took the kids to dinner. They were full of stories about Barney and how Uncle Vince let them eat ice cream for lunch, but all I could think about was the child who was missing. The next day, I packed up the kids and we drove home. I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided to get off at the Lowville exit. Seeing Bryan made a lot of old memories resurface. I don’t know, I guess I thought going back there might help me get some closure.” She takes a sip of wine, but her expression tells me that she’s far from closure. “I almost didn’t recognize the hospital. They must’ve put ten million bucks into that place.”

“Twelve, actually.”

She looks at me funny.

“I work there.”

She jerks back. “You do?”

“I’m a nursery attendant. I take care of the newborns before they go home.”

“How can you keep going back there?” Her tone is brimming with revulsion.

I stare into my glass. “It helps me hold onto her.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted this to anyone, but it’s the truth. I’ve spent the last twenty-three years desperately trying to hold on to a sliver of a memory. I look at Melody, expecting to see judgment or pity, but her expression is full of understanding.

“I stole the mitt off Teddy’s hand.” She reaches down her shirt and pulls a small graying piece of fabric out of her bra and slides it onto her finger. “I always keep it close to my heart.”

“I still have Emily’s blanket.”

“The one you stole?”

“Hey, that was your idea.”

“Yeah, but how was I supposed to know you’d actually go through with it?” The adventurous grin I remember returns to her face as we relive the day she stood guard in Mother & Child while I shoved the soft cashmere blanket under my shirt.

“Well, I’m glad I did it. It’s the only thing I have left of her now.”

Her smile fades as she thumbs the worn mitt in her hand.

“Mother & Child is still in business, you know.”

She smirks. “No thanks to us.”

“It hasn’t changed much, though. Nothing in Lowville has.”

“Except for The Home for Fallen Women.”

I freeze in my seat. I was hoping this wouldn’t come up.

“I almost didn’t recognize it at first. The sign is gone, and it’s not those hideous colors anymore. It’s a nice shade of light yellow, like butter cream.”

“Afterglow.”

“What?”

“The paint color. It’s called Afterglow.”

“Oh, so you’ve been back there too?”

“You could say that.”

“Does the hospital still own it?”

“No, Paul and I do.”

Her hand slaps the bar as she lurches forward. “
You
bought The Home for Fallen Women?” Her face warps with morbid curiosity. “Why?”

“It was sort of … an accident.”

“How do you accidentally buy a house?”

“It was Paul. He thought he saw me admiring it. He didn’t know I was remembering it. He bought it to surprise me and he proposed in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen,” she grins, undoubtedly remembering our cooking fiascos.

“He spent years fixing it up and making room for the family we’ll never have.”

“That’s sweet,” she laughs, “in a fucked up way.”

I bite my smile. “It was sweet. The whole place is redone now. There’s no trace of The Home for Fallen Women anymore. It’s actually quite gorgeous.” As the words leave my mouth, I wonder if our marriage is damaged beyond repair, or if, like our house, maybe it’s just in need of some serious work. “You should come visit some time.”

“No offense, Cate, but I don’t think I could. Renovated or not, my life ended there. Don’t you remember scrubbing toilet bowls and spending hours each day kneeling on the hardwood floors, reciting the Hail Mary? And that town. Everyone looked at us like lepers when we walked down the street. And that hospital. They made us give birth without pain medication to pay for our sins.” She shakes her head violently. “After everything we went through, I honestly don’t know how you can stand any of it. I’ll never go back there again.”

“I know how you feel, my life ended there too. But that force that lured you off the Lowville exit that day is the same one that’s kept me there all these years. It’s the desperate need to hold on to Emily.”

“Do you ever think of searching for her?”

“That’s sort of what I was doing when I ran into you at the Wildflower Café. That guy you saw me with, he works at the Adoption Registry, where the hospital stores all of its adoption records.”

Her mouth falls open. “You asked him to find Emily’s file?”

“Not exactly. There are all sorts of crazy consent laws that he has to follow. I didn’t want to get in him in trouble, so I sort of tricked him into giving me the key to his office, and I searched for the file myself.”

She laughs and her wine sloshes over the edge of her glass. “That’s very James Bond of you.”

I chuckle with her, though I know Harper wouldn’t find my stunt nearly as amusing.

“So did you find it?”

“That’s where things get strange. Emily’s file wasn’t there.”

“Where could it be?”

“That’s the thing, Harper said files never go missing.”

“Did you tell him about Emily’s?”

“I couldn’t. I don’t want him to know I betrayed his trust.”

“Good move, special agent. So, now what?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh, swallowing the last of my wine.

“I do,” she says, grabbing the yellow square of paper with James’s phone number. “Let’s call him.”

“No way.”

“Come on,” she says, draining the last of her wine. “You’ll never be able to move on with your life until you confront your past.”

I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the comfort of an old friendship, but before I can process what’s happening, Melody’s pulling me toward a pay phone in the back of the bar. She passes me the receiver, deposits a bunch of change, and presses the numbers.

A wave of queasiness rolls through my stomach when it rings. Once, twice …

“Hello?”

My voice catches in my throat. I hang up and stare at Melody.

“What happened?”

I look at her in disbelief. “A woman answered.”

I
’M STANDING IN
a garden peering in a window. Inside, a family is eating dinner. I look closer. Paul is at the head of the table. Mom is sitting to his left, then Daddy next to her. On Paul’s right is James, then Harper. There is a little girl sitting opposite from Paul, but I can’t see her face. She has curly brown hair, like me, and everyone is looking at her. She’s telling them a story. I lean closer, but I can’t hear it. I want to hear it.

I step over white daisies, blue asters, and mauve delphiniums as I move toward the front door. I pass hydrangea blooms as fluffy and pink as cotton candy. I’m in my own garden, but this is not my house.

I knock on the front door. No one answers, but I know they’re inside. I knock again, harder and harder until my knuckles bleed and red trails run down the front door.

A
N OFFENSIVE RINGING
jars me awake. I bolt upright, my heart bucking in my chest, and inspect my unfamiliar surroundings. Popcorn ceiling, polyester comforter, pantyhose and heels scattered across the worn teal carpet and the funeral dress in a ball next to the bed. My eyes settle on the Holiday Inn logo on my plastic room key, and I remember the bar, the wine, and the flood of tears that came after I called James. The phone rings again. I pick it up. “Hello?”

“How are you feeling?” Melody’s voice is lively despite the crying baby, blaring TV, and obnoxious hammering in the background.

I rub my eyes. My head feels like someone shot me in the temples with a nail gun, and my mouth is so dry I don’t even have enough saliva to swallow. “Like hell.”

“Tequila shots will do that to you.”

“We drank tequila?”

“You did.”

“I drank tequila by myself?”

“Well, not totally by yourself. There was Sam and Mike.”

I glance at the clothing strewn across the floor. “Oh God, please tell me I didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t worry. You scared them off with all your talk about wanting to be a mother. I’ve never seen two guys leave faster,” she laughs.

I bury my face in my hands. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“What do you remember?”

I rummage through my brain but the memories are hazy. The last thing I recall is laying my head on the bar and crying. “Did I cry at the bar?”

“Hysterical meltdown is more like it.”

“Oh God. I must’ve looked like such an ass.”

“That’s not what I’d be concerned about if I were you.”

I cringe. “There’s more?”

“Do you remember what you were saying?”

I wade through the thick haze in my brain but it’s no use. “I have no idea.”

“You said that you have to go see James so you can tell him that you never stopped loving him.”

“I said that?”

“Over and over.”

I swallow hard. “That’s ridiculous. I’m married.”

“Hey, they’re your words, not mine.”

“Well, it’s not true. I stopped loving James years ago.”

“Are you sure about that?”

M
ELODY’S WORDS NAG ME
the entire drive back to Lowville. Why would I say such a thing? Sure, there was a time when my love for James was limitless, when simply holding his hand caused my adrenaline to surge and kissing him made me dizzy. He was my first love, and he introduced me to feelings I never knew existed. But that was decades ago. When I never heard from him again, I buried those feelings in the bottom of that cardboard box along with his picture and the Simon and Garfunkel album. Have his letters awakened some dormant feelings? Did the tequila tap into some deep-seated truth?

W
HEN
I
TURN
into the driveway, disappointment settles over me at the sight of Paul’s truck. I still haven’t forgiven him for ordering that pizza, and I’m tired of tiptoeing around each other and living in resentful silence.

I push through the back door, and my heart jumps when I see him sitting at the kitchen table. I thought he’d be holed up in the den in front of the TV, not sitting here waiting for me.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

His eyes are cold and there’s a duffle bag on the chair next to him. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Not this again. I drop my bag on the floor and cross my arms, waiting for him to spill whatever is bothering him this time.

“I had breakfast with Frank Miller on Saturday morning.”

So that’s where he went without coffee or breakfast. “That’s nice,” I say, though his tone tells me I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear.

“Frank Miller never invites me to breakfast. Turns out he wanted to talk about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“He said he saw you at the Wildflower Café on Friday, having lunch with another man.”

I steady my voice so he doesn’t hear my panic. “That was just Harper. We work together at the hospital.”

“Funny, I seem to remember a great big cafeteria in that hospital of yours.”

“We wanted to get some real food for a change.”

“Without your wedding ring on?”

“How did you …?” I rub my ring finger with my thumb and that’s when I realize I forgot to put it back on.

He stands and grabs his bag. “You might as well keep it off.”

“Paul, wait. I can explain.”

He pushes past me. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.”

“It’s not what you think.”

He barrels through the back door and I chase him down the steps and across the driveway.

“I was trying to find Emily.”

He stops and turns around. “What did you say?”

“I was trying to find Emily. Harper works at the Adoption Registry. I was hoping he could help me find her file.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve got be kidding me. You got mad at me for picking up some information from the adoption agency, yet here you are on some wild goose chase trying to find this daughter of yours?”

“This is different.”

He sneers. “You’re such a hypocrite. I’m not allowed to pick up a lousy brochure without asking you first, but you’re allowed to hunt down a girl you haven’t seen in two decades?”

“I didn’t think you’d support me.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to.”

“Oh, please, I tried to make amends with you.”

“When?”

“The other night. With the lasagna.”

“You thought lasagna was going to fix things?” he scoffs. “I bought this house for you, committed my life to you, and loved you, only to find out it was all built on a lie.”