Empty Arms: A Novel (35 page)

The idea that Harper might have found my daughter makes every minute feel like an hour. When noon finally arrives, I hurry down to the cafeteria and find him waiting at the table near the window.

“You think you found her?” I ask, joining him.

“Hello to you too.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” In my eagerness to find Emily, I forgot my manners. “How are you?”

He smiles. “I’m teasing.”

I grin, relieved that I haven’t offended him further.

“I did a little digging, and I found a name. Ellie Benton.”

“Ellie Benton.” The name is unfamiliar on my tongue.

“I can’t be sure if this woman is your daughter, but I have a phone number.” He slides a scrap of paper across the table.

“I don’t understand. Detective Walsh has been searching for weeks. How did you find all this in a matter of hours?”

“Cate, think about it. How do you think he affords a TV commercial and that car of his?”

“How do you know what car he drives?”

“I did a little investigating of my own.”

I stare at the telephone number in disbelief. If Ellie Benton is my daughter, then the only thing standing between us is these ten digits. Now all I have to do is pick up the phone.

I
SPEND THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON
caring for the newborns, but all I can think about is the phone number in my pocket. The thought of dialing it makes my pulse race. This could go any number of ways. Calling her could knock her whole world off-kilter. It could cause friction with her adoptive parents. She might hang up on me. Or resent me for abandoning her. She might hate me. What would I do if she hated me?

By the time my shift ends, my nerves are worn thin from all the worrying. I race home, eager to tell Paul about the latest development, but his truck’s not there. I pace in the kitchen, picking at the scabs on my left arm and imagining Ellie Benton disparaging me for ruining her life. Nausea strikes me out of nowhere. I grip the edge of the sink as my stomach’s contents splatter into the basin.

I hear the door open and close behind me and then I feel a hand on my back. “Are you all right?” Paul asks, pulling my hair back.

I wipe my lips with the back of my hand and dive into his chest. Before I can say a word, tears are pouring down my cheeks and my body is shaking.

“Cate, what happened? What’s wrong?”

I can barely manage the words. “Harper offered to help me look for Emily, and he thinks he found her.” The words are salty and my nose is a deluge of mucus. I pass him the scrap of paper.

“Ellie Benton,” he says with intrigue. “Cate, this is great news. I don’t understand, why are you so upset?”

I shake my head and rub at the tears. “What if she hates me, Paul? What if …”

He pulls me close and rubs my back. “What if she doesn’t?”

“H
ELLO?” AN AIRY VOICE ANSWERS.

“Emily? It’s me, your mother.”

“Is this a joke? You’re not my mother. Who is this?”

“I’m your biological mother. I’m the woman who gave birth to you.”

“Why are you calling me? You abandoned me and ruined my life.”

“I want to meet you and get to know you.”

“Well, I don’t want to know you. You mean nothing to me, you never have.”

“Please, Emily, just give me a chance. I never wanted to give you up. I love you and I always have.”

“Well, I hate you. I never want to speak to you again. You should just forget about me. Forget I ever existed.”

I
WAKE THE NEXT MORNING
with her voice still echoing in my mind. The piece of paper is next to the phone, waiting for me to find the courage to call her. Despite how long I’ve waited for this moment, the thought of actually calling her terrifies me.

“S
O?
D
ID YOU DO IT?”
Harper asks when I show up at the Adoption Registry the next morning before my shift.

I pace the floor and run my hands through my hair. “I can’t do it. I’m terrified. What if she hates me? What if she screams at me and tells me she never wants me to call her again?”

“Cate.” Harper’s calm voice pulls me out of my worry. “Do you want me to call Ellie Benton and find out if she is your daughter?”

If he does this, there’s no going back. If she hates me and wants nothing to do with me, I’ll have to live with that. I think of Kristin from The Adoption Circle and how she wished she had never met her birth mother. Maybe it’s safer to just remember her as a baby. Maybe I should listen to Mom and leave the past alone. Maybe Dr. Sullivan was right. Am I daring fate by eating from the tree of knowledge? My eyes meet Harper’s and I nod. “You do it.”

I’
VE SPENT MOST OF MY LIFE
feeling helpless and vulnerable, but never as much as when I leave the Adoption Registry and go to work, while Harper waits for a decent hour to call the young woman who might be my daughter.

When I see him in the cafeteria at lunch, he frowns and shakes his head.

My stomach does a somersault. “It wasn’t her?”

“I don’t know. Nobody answered when I called. But don’t worry, I’ll keep trying until I get her.”

A
T HOME
, Paul mans the baked potatoes and green beans while I cook pork chops. He tries to talk to me and take my mind off the phone call I’m waiting for, but I can’t concentrate on a word he’s saying or what I’m doing. Instead, I repeat her name over and over in my mind, willing myself to feel a connection.

“Is that burning?” Paul looks over my shoulder.

I flip the meat but it’s sizzling and black. “Shit. I’m sorry.” I dump them in the trash can.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, reaching for the peanut butter and jelly.

I’m in the middle of eating my sandwich when the telephone rings. I jump up. “Hello?” My mouth is sticky with peanut butter.

“Cate, it’s me.” The sound of Harper’s voice makes my knees wobble. I grip the kitchen counter for support.

“Is it her, Harper? Is Ellie Benton my daughter?”

“It’s her,” he says with a booming laugh. “It’s her.”

Those two words sweep me up like an undertow and pound me on the surf, knocking every molecule of air from my lungs. My head spins and I stagger into the den and fall onto the couch. I feel drunk, sick, and euphoric all at once. “It’s her,” I tell Paul who’s waiting eagerly by my side and his face erupts into a grin.

“Cate, she said that it’s all right for you to call her when you’re ready.” I can hear his smile through the phone.

“Did she really say that, Harper?” Tears careen down my cheeks and Paul pulls me close to him.

“She really did.”

I try to thank him but I choke on the words.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

I hang up the phone and hold it close to my chest. “How do I even begin a conversation like this?” My eyes search Paul’s for an answer.

“Just say hello and introduce yourself. You have twenty-three years of catching up to do. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding something to talk about.”

I nod and take a deep breath. “I’m going to go upstairs and call her.”

He smiles and kisses my forehead. “Good luck.”

I walk upstairs to our bedroom and close the door behind me. I tiptoe over to the closet and retrieve the tiny pink box. I pull off the lid and lift the soft pink blanket with the little white flowers into my arms. I breathe in the scent and remember my little girl. I stare at the phone and try to imagine her voice. I can’t believe how long I’ve waited for this moment. My hand shakes as I press the numbers one by one. I squeeze the blanket when it rings.

“Hello?” a velvet voice answers.

“Is this Ellie?” my voice quakes.

Silence fills the line and then, “Is it really you?”

I nod, but a torrent of tears holds my words captive. “It’s me.”

A soft whimper fills my ear. “I’ve been dreaming of this day forever.” Her words unglue me. Never once in the twenty-three years we’d been apart had I imagined that she might be dreaming of me too. “What’s your name?” she asks.

“Cate,” I tell her, regretting that my daughter and I have spent our entire lives not knowing each other’s first names.

“Cate.” She repeats my name as if she’d been searching for that word for her entire life. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Cate.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Ellie.” Silence passes between us, and I cling to the sound of her breathing. “Our story is long and complicated, and I would love the chance to tell you all about it sometime. But if I only ever get to tell you one thing, it’s that I never wanted to give you up. You were never unwanted by me.”

Her breath releases in rapid bursts. “Thank you.”

“I’ve thought about you every day for the last twenty-three years, and I prayed that you had a good life.”

“I have, for the most part.”

“For the most part?”

“I haven’t seen my adoptive father since I was little. That was tough.”

Abandoned by her birth mother. Abandoned by her adoptive father. My heart wilts as I imagine her pain. “But my adoptive mother was a saint. My brother was adopted too, and she was very good to both of us. We were never without love.”

“I’m relieved to hear that.”

“I was heartbroken when she died.”

“I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you. You know, I’ve wanted to find you from the moment I learned I was adopted, but I never looked for you because I didn’t want my adoptive mother to feel like she wasn’t enough for me. When Mom passed away, I felt like it was finally okay to search for you. And then our daughter was born, and I’ve had so many questions about motherhood and our medical history.”

“You’re a mother?”

“I am. We have a little girl named Maggie.”

I can’t help but smile; I’ve become a mother and a grandmother all in the same day.

“When I started to look for you, I didn’t get very far. My birth certificate has my adoptive parents’ names on it. And I never asked my adoptive mother about you, but I always wondered …” Her voice drifts off, and I admire her allegiance to her adoptive mother, but I can’t help regret all the years we’ve lost. “Do I have any brothers or sisters?” she asks.

I think of Paul and all the years we tried. “No. I wanted to have more children, but apparently God had different plans.”

“That must have been difficult.”

“It’s all been difficult.”

“Maybe we can change that?” I can hear the vulnerability in her voice.

“I hope so.”

“Can I meet you?”

A tear rolls down my cheek. “I’d love that.”

“Would you come to North Carolina?”

“I’ll be there this weekend.”