Let Me Love (32 page)

“You never said anything?”

“What am I supposed to say? Yeah, I knocked up my girlfriend and gave up my kid,” I sarcastically comment, swerving the car around a bend.

“We’re your friends. You knew about my family,” he mentions. It’s not like he could hide that as easily as I could.

“Sorry,” I say, half-heartedly. Mostly because I want to get to her, explain I had no idea.

Just as I make the final turn, my tires squeal, and I skid to a stop before running out of the car.

Brady says something, but I don’t hear it because I only care about Kailey. She’s just up to the steps to the porch when I grab her wrist. “Kailey, listen to me,” I beg.

“NO! Get the fuck out of here,” she screams again.

Having no shame, I get down on his knees, pleading with her. “Just listen to me god damn it!” I yell back. Uncle Clyde comes out to see what the commotion is. Sadie and Brady stand by the car, confused and shocked by what’s unfolding in front of their eyes, most likely sharing the stories between the car rides.

“You gave her up once, you’ll do it again. How could you think this would be good for her? Hasn’t she lost enough? We’re better without you. She is better off without you. The best thing you did was give up being a part of her life. She doesn’t need to know her birth father was such a selfish, manipulative bastard. Just leave,” Her words are like a cut to the wrist. Sharp and deliberate.

She breaks me when I watch her back disappear into the house. My body shutters with the sound of the door slamming, shattering my insides and I crumple to the ground, tears escaping out.

Brady and Sadie rush over when Clyde pulls me to my feet. “Tell me what’s going on?” His authoritative voice doesn’t scare me anymore. Actually only one thing scares me right now and it’s that my future is over.

We all enter the house, and the kids look at me questioning what exactly is going on. I want to wrap my arms around Chloe and pull her close. The urge to tell her I’m her dad is so great, I have to turn my head from staring at her. “We’ll take the kids to the park,” Sadie says, shuffling around for their shoes.

“Come on, guys, who can beat Brady to the slide,” Brady adds, trying to appear enthusiastic.

“Thank you,” Aunt Holly tells them as they’re walking out the door.

Clyde takes me into the kitchen, sitting me at the table. “Start from the beginning.” His no nonsense voice demands. Holly pours me some lemonade, although my body is craving Jack right about now. With shaky hands I bring it up to my mouth, trying to moisten the dryness of my throat. Holly places her hand on arm, telling me to calm down. She won’t be saying that in a second.

“When I was seventeen, I got my girlfriend pregnant,” I admit. Shit, I feel like I’m at a damn AA meeting between Brady and now them. “My girlfriend and I gave her up for adoption.”

“You kept this from Kailey?” Uncle Clyde questions.

“I did at first, but I told Kailey months ago when things really started getting serious between us.”

“So, I’m not sure I understand,” he says.

“She found a picture of my daughter in a drawer this morning. She recognized the baby,” I practically choke back my cries.

“Oh My God!” Holly covers her mouth and sits back, her own tears welling in her eyes. “Did you know?”

“No, I swear I didn’t. If I did, I would have said something.” I shake my head violently, trying to make my point.

“I’ll be upstairs,” Holly stands up and exits the room. My eyes find Clyde, watching me warily, most likely thinking I’m a liar.

“You have to believe me.” He raises his eyebrows. “Shit, I barely believe myself. It’s so fucked up.” I drop my head in my hands. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Tell me, Clyde. Should I just disappear out of their lives? I’ll do whatever you say because my mind is fucking screwed up right now I have no idea what’s best for them.” The tears fall onto the table. My mind is racing, I wanted this life before I even knew Chloe was mine. Could I even walk away from them if it was for the better? My mind says yes, but my heart screams no.

“You’re not going anywhere. You promise me you didn’t orchestrate this whole scenario?” he asks.

“No, I never would have thought it. About a month after I signed the papers, our adoption organizer called me and said she had something for us. When my ex-girlfriend and I went to pick up the envelope, she gave us each a picture and told us the adoptive parents wanted us to have it. We talked with her about our lives and what we were doing in school. Zoey, my ex, was having a hard time, partying non-stop. I think she was regretting giving her up, trying to mask it through drinking and having fun, but I didn’t know for sure. Then when we got in the car she confirmed it. She told me she caught the postage city stamped on the envelope. It was from Western. She wanted us to come up and find her. I told her it was for the best and that our daughter was in better hands than ours. It’s the day we broke up, she turned to drugs and alcohol to make her forget.

“For some reason when it came time to decide on a college, I thought I could be closer to her if I came here. In the first few months, I scanned every little girl, trying to compare them to the picture. I don’t know if I even had a clue of what I would have done if I had come across her. But as I started my college years, I knew Zoey and I made the right decision. I never stopped thinking of her, but I stopped searching for her. Believe me, Clyde, this has thrown me just as much as you guys.”

“What do you think you want?” he asks, tapping his fingers on the table.

“How could you ask me that?” I raise my face to stare into his.

“I think it’s a legitimate question.” His face stone cold.

“I was all in before I even knew Chloe was mine. Nothing changes that, but I’m not sure Kailey will ever believe me. If you think they’ll be happier without me, say the word and I’m gone.”

“That’s not a question for me.” His eyes shift to the left. Kailey stands in the doorway with the blue envelope in her hand. The letter I wrote to my daughter. My letter to Chloe. Her face is red faced and blotchy from tears.

Clyde gets up from the table. He and Holly walk out the front door. Kailey leans against the wall, fiddling with the letter in her hand.

“I guess she’s yours,” she mumbles, standing still.

“I didn’t know,” I say. My hands itch to hold her. For her to hold me. She’s the only one who calms me when I’m upset, but I may never get to feel that unconditional love ever again.

“I’m unsure of what to say, but here,” she steps forward and hands me the letter. “Please, tell me I’m not some naïve idiot for believing you had no idea Chloe was the same girl in this picture?” She digs the picture and letter out of her back pocket and hands them to me.

I look at the angelic baby remembering how many times I wondered where she was or what she was doing. All those questions now have answers, but they’ve brought on so many more questions because of it. “It was a closed adoption. All Zoey and I had was how long the parents were married, what they did for a living, and other unidentifiable information. We weren’t given any names or where they lived. Neither were they about us. There was a short bio on each of them. We went through so many, constantly disagreeing, but eventually we settled on...well, Jen and Caden. It said the guy worked for some research company and the woman was going to be a stay at home mom.” She nods her head, obviously still not convinced.

“Why did you come to Western if you were so set on not knowing anything?” I just realized if I would have told her most of this before we wouldn’t be where we are right now. Does she think I’m jumping up and down inside with excitement because I’m still shocked on the whole issue.

“I did come to be close, I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t set on not knowing anything. It was one of the hardest things about the adoption. The only couple Zoey and I felt right about wanted a closed adoption. It wasn’t what we wanted, but we felt they would be the best parents—for Chloe.

“The first few months after I came to Western, I would look in every stroller, trying to find her. But then I met Brady, Dex, and Rob. Eventually I came to realize, if I believed in my decision to place her for adoption, I had to live my life. Make something of myself. Pretty soon I wasn’t glancing in every stroller or scrutinizing every little girl looking for any similarities as I walked by. She stayed with me, but assured she was living a great life I let her go. And I’m thankful I was right. That I gave her to people like Jen and Caden makes me even more sure of my decision.” I toss my hands through my short hair, resting them on the back of my neck. At the rate I’m going to pull out all the newly grown hair.

“How do I know you didn’t figure it out and used me to get close?”

I sit there quietly for a while contemplating how to go about this because it’s a sore subject for her. But to really convince her I have to say it. I grab her hand between both of mine, happy when she doesn’t pull away. “Kailey,” I bite my lip, wishing I still had my piercing to fidget with. “Don’t you think I would have approached you before the airplane?” Her face falls and her eyes dart to the table, and she attempts to pull her hand from my grip. Grasping it harder, I entwine our fingers and place my finger under her chin, bringing her face up to look at me. “I don’t say it to hurt you. I regret every day before that airplane ride. If I could go back and change it, I would, but we can’t. It proves Kailey that I really had no idea. Please, believe in what we’ve built together. I know it took me forever to find you, but the day I did everyone else disappeared.” My teeth find my lip again, nervous habits are hard to break.

Then she walks over to the wooden table, opening the bottom drawer. As soon as she pulls it out, I figure out what it is. She rests it on the table and takes a seat. The pastel colored book labeled Our Baby Girl grips at my heart. “Here you go,” she pushes it toward me, and I hesitantly begin to open. “Jen and Caden tried for three years to have a baby. She went through rounds of fertility treatments. They explored international adoption, but domestic as well. One case fell through. It was to be an open adoption. The birth mom changed her mind after two weeks. Jen had already mothered that baby. Set up to get breast milk from one of those agencies. It devastated her. They agreed that they would only do closed adoption after that. They were on wait lists after wait lists, and Jen was growing extremely impatient. I remember the day she told me about Chloe. She was so excited, but I could see the fear in her eyes that one day, she would be taken away from her.”

As Kailey explains Jen and Caden’s struggles, I open the book of my baby’s life. The first picture is the same as mine. I run my hands over them, starting on the day they received her to her first birthday. Her happiness displayed in each one of her smiles and laughs caught by the camera shows me I made the right decision. On her first birthday, there’s one with Kailey and her. Their cheeks side by side, smiling widely for the camera with a great big princess cake in front of them.

“There are more pictures, but Jen and Caden moved here right before Jen got diagnosed, so most of them are still boxed up in the basement. I hope you don’t mind, I read the letter Jen wrote to you before she sent it. It’s all true, she was very grateful to you and Zoey for giving them the opportunity to love and raise Chloe.” Her voice breaks, and I nod. The letter we got with the pictures was a simple and heart filled letter from Jen, thanking us for being brave and trusting enough to give our daughter up for adoption. It’s a letter that kept me going in those early years, a reminder that I did the right thing.

“Are Tara and Drew adopted?”

“No, Jen became pregnant with Tara right after they adopted Chloe. It’s that same story, when the stress of trying stops, it happens.”

“Does Chloe know?” I’m glad Kailey seems okay with me asking questions.

“She knows she’s adopted. Jen and Caden have always been upfront with her. Not sure what we’ll say now.” Yeah, that’s a whole other question and answer round I’m not quite ready for yet.

“I want you to know that I loved Chloe just as much when she wasn’t mine as I do knowing she is. It’s no different than my love for Tara and Drew.” I begin to plead my case, hoping she’ll face this together with me.

She looks around the room. “Will you fight me for her?” her question throws me.

I close my eyes and open them. “No,” I whisper, knowing I’ll barely hang on to a life without any of them. “If you think you’ll be happier without me, I’m gone. I wouldn’t rip her from the life she’s known all these years.”

“What if she wants to find you one day?”

“That’s your decision,” I scoot the envelope back her way. “You can give her this.”

She eyes it on the table for what seems like hours and then looks up at me. “You can give it to her yourself.” She nudges the letter back my way and smiles gently.

“So you’re not pushing me out?”

“Nope.”

“What are we going to say?” I question her.

“I’m not sure— I’m sorry for what I said.” She squeezes my hand. “I shouldn’t have come to that conclusion. I was just taken aback. Not that there’s—,”

I stop her from talking by placing my lips on hers. “It’s okay. I understand. But next time, will you just stand still? My feet are getting sore from all the running.” I laugh, but she just bites her lip. “I love you,” I say and her lips turn up.

“I love you too. I promise from this moment, I’ll never run away from you again.”

“Deal.” I kiss her again. “When do you think our life will become simple?” I ask.

“Well, how old is Drew? So, seventeen years, maybe.”

“Nah, do you actually think I’m not going to knock you up with a couple kids?” I gently pull her up and into my lap. “We’re looking at years of chaos,” I add.

“I look forward to every second,” she says, kissing me on the lips. Then she stands up and holds her hand out to me, and I immediately join her. “Let’s go have some fun with our family at the park.”

“I have no shoes,” I say, glancing at my bare feet.

“I guess we’ll have to keep all of them here from now on.” She wraps her arms around my waist.