Route 66 Reunions (23 page)

He gave a quick laugh and motioned to the side. “Yeah, I know. My folks are waiting over there.”

Sarah followed Trey as they wound past several tables before stopping by a middle-aged couple who sat looking as uncomfortable as she felt. The man stood with a welcoming smile and extended his hand. As Sarah shook hands with Tom and Mavis Miller, she recognized the people she’d met briefly when they’d come for Trey. They’d been in their early thirties then, about the same age she was now. Funny how old that seemed eighteen years ago.

“We won’t stay.” Tom stepped back from the table and Mavis stood. “We figured you’d like to visit with Trey alone.”

“Thank you.” The anxiety she’d carried all morning eased.

As soon as his parents left, Trey motioned toward the table. “Would you like to sit here, Miss Maddox?”

“Certainly. But please call me Sarah.”

Trey nodded with a quick flash of dimples that again brought Kevin to her mind. “Okay, Sarah it is.”

She shook off the intrusive image of Kevin and eased the package she carried to the table as she sat across from Trey with her purse in her lap. “I brought you a gift. I hope that’s all right.”

Trey grinned as he took a gaily wrapped box from a bag at his feet. He handed the package to Sarah. “Looks like we both had the same idea. This is my gift to you. Please, I’d like for you to open it first.”

Sarah tore the paper wrapping while Trey watched. She lifted the lid from the box inside to reveal a white leather Bible with her name imprinted in the lower corner in gold leaf. “Oh Trey, this is so nice. I haven’t had a new Bible since I was about fourteen years old. I will treasure this one always.”

His clear gray eyes so like Kevin’s met her gaze across the table. “I’d really like for you to read it. Mom helped me pick it out especially for you. It has extra helps and study guides just for women. I hope you like it and find a blessing from its words.”

“I will. I promise.” Sarah didn’t specify what she was promising and hoped Trey wouldn’t push the point. He seemed like such a nice boy, and she liked that he was interested in the Bible. She always carried a Bible to church and followed the scripture reading there, but she hadn’t spent time studying God’s Word since her early teen years.

“Good.” Trey tore the last of the paper from his gift. He held the picture album in one hand and opened the cover. “What is this?”

Fear he wouldn’t understand or appreciate her gift clutched Sarah’s heart. “It’s sort of a history of your biological family. I hope you don’t mind.” She shrugged, trying to keep the concern from her voice. “I thought you might like to see what some of your ancestors looked like.”

“Wow!” Trey glanced up with shining eyes. “This is way sweet! Are you saying these people are my own blood relations?”

Sarah nodded. “Yes, they are, but I’m not sure how sweet most of them are.”

They laughed together, and Sarah’s muscles relaxed. She pointed to the first couple. “This is my mom and dad. Their names are David and Linda Maddox. They still live in Litchfield, the small town I grew up in, and they would’ve been here with me today if they could have. They’d love to meet you. Here’s my brother John and his family. My grandparents are on the next page.”

When they reached Sarah’s high school graduation picture, Trey looked across the table with a question deep in his eyes.

“What?” Sarah held her breath, not sure what he would ask.

Trey looked away for a moment and then back with a half laugh. “So you did graduate from high school?”

“Yes, I did.” Pain she thought forgotten touched her heart. “I missed a couple of months my senior year, but was able to keep up and return the following year.”

He nodded and stared at the picture. “I see.”

“No, I think there’s more. What is it?”

He looked up to meet her gaze. “Why?”

For a reason she didn’t understand, tears burned her eyes. “I don’t know what you want, Trey. What are you asking?”

He continued to stare into her eyes as if trying to see her very soul. “Why did you give me away?”

Each word slammed against her heart. Give him away? Didn’t he know how much she wanted to keep him? How she’d ached for him with every fiber of her being for the past eighteen years? But of course not. How could he?

She could scarcely force the words past the lump in her throat. “You were never mine to keep, Trey. I gave birth to you, yes, but I was only seventeen. I had no job, no diploma, no husband, no future for a baby. Oh, I tried to keep you. I fought my parents and the social workers when they told me adoption was the best choice for both you and me. I fought until the day after you were born. I thought I loved you before you were born, but in the last twenty-four hours you were mine, I knew how wrong I’d been.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I held you in my arms and counted your fingers and toes. I dreamed of taking you home and watching you grow. Seeing you smile, teaching you to say ‘Mama,’ and helping you take your first step. I wanted that so much, only I didn’t have a home then. I couldn’t take care of myself.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t take care of a baby.”

She touched his hands, which were clenched in front of him on the table. “I’m a stranger to you, Trey, but you’ve lived in my heart for every minute of the last eighteen years. I gave you away because I loved you.”

Trey turned his hands over and held her hand between them. His eyes shone with a suspicion of tears. “Thank you. I want you to know, I think you did the best thing possible for me. I had a childhood other kids can only dream about. My mom and dad love me, and I love them. They are the best.” A wide smile split his face. “Now I know where I came from, and that’s really sweet, you know? ’Cause in my book, you’re the best, too.”

Sarah laughed through a sheen of tears. She couldn’t be the best in anyone’s book. “Thanks, Trey. Your parents did a good job raising you, and I’m thankful. Are you interested in seeing more of where you came from?”

“Sure am.” Trey turned back to the picture album with a light of interest in his eyes that Sarah didn’t think was feigned.

As they pored over the album, advancing a few pages and then back for clarification before going on, the time flew. Trey seemed genuinely interested in each picture and the stories Sarah told about his blood family, as he called them. Before she was ready, his parents returned.

“You two seem to be getting along fine.” Mavis Miller rested her hand on the table, as she smiled down at Sarah. Her husband stood behind her with a smile just as warm.

Sarah wondered at the sincerity of their friendliness. She couldn’t share such a wonderful boy with anyone else, especially not the woman who’d given him life. Weren’t they afraid she might steal his affections? She glanced from the parents to her birth son and saw something deeper behind their smiles. Security? Peace? A connection that made them a family? Something she resented and longed for herself.

She stood, knowing her time with her son had come to a close. “Thank you for letting me meet Trey. I’ve enjoyed our visit more than you can imagine.” She gave Mavis a quick hug and shook Tom’s hand. Then she walked around the table to enfold the tall, young man in a heartfelt embrace. She choked back tears when his strong arms held her close for a moment. She smiled up at him and spoke to keep from crying. “Maybe we can keep in touch.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I’d like that. In fact, I’d like for you to come to my high school graduation. If you don’t mind, I’ll send you an invitation.”

“Of course I’ll be there. Just try to stop me.” Sarah blinked away tears and managed a smile for both Trey and his parents. They seemed to hold such easy acceptance of her intrusion into their lives that she couldn’t help but like them.

Trey held up the album Sarah had given him. “Thanks for the pictures. I like having that background. Especially the medical information. You never know when that might come in handy. But mostly it sort of gives me a feeling of connection. It’s great.”

“You’re welcome.” Sarah clutched her Bible close. She would treasure it always because it came from her son. “Thanks again for my gift. You couldn’t have given me anything nicer.”

He gave a quick nod. “All I ask is you read it often. It holds the answers to all our questions.”

“Yes.” Sarah turned away knowing she might cry at any moment. “I’ve got to go, but please, write to me.”

“Are you on Facebook?”

At her nod, he smiled. “I’ll find you there. Bye, Sarah.”

“Bye, Trey. Tom. Mavis.” She gave a brief wave and walked away before the tears came. While she could still see where to walk without making a fool of herself.

As she ran a fingertip under one eye, she bumped into a man standing at the edge of the grouping of tables. She swung to face him. “Oh, excuse me.”

He touched her arms to steady her and jerked back as if she’d burned him. “No problem, although I hadn’t expected to run into you. Literally or figuratively.”

Sarah’s gasp caught in her throat as she looked up into the clear gray eyes of Kevin Nichols. She stepped back and in a low voice ground out, “What are you doing here?”

K
evin kept his voice as soft as hers. “Same as you. Meeting Trey.”

Sarah’s glare matched Kevin’s frown. She started to tell him exactly what she thought of him. He hadn’t wanted Trey eighteen years ago, so why would he now? Then she glanced over her shoulder.

Trey stood beside his parents watching. He couldn’t hear them, but the troubled expression on his face brought her to her senses. She would not let Kevin Nichols create a scene that might ruin her fledgling relationship with her son.

She stepped around Kevin, turning back with a false smile Trey could see and spoke with a soft voice he couldn’t hear. “I don’t know how you found out about him, and I don’t know why you want to meet him. But remember this. Trey is a wonderful boy, and you’d better not do anything to hurt him.”

Before Kevin could respond, she waved at Trey and walked away.

Kevin stared after Sarah’s retreating form. Was there ever a woman as beautiful as Sarah Maddox? She’d been beautiful as a teenager, and she far surpassed that as an adult. He hadn’t seen her since he’d left for college. Until today. Obviously she still hated him.

He watched her blend in with other shoppers and disappear into a store. Still his heart hammered. He’d known she’d be here. He just hadn’t planned on getting close enough to speak. Or to touch her. His hands still tingled from holding her shoulders.

“She’s really pretty, isn’t she?”

Kevin turned to find Trey beside him, a hesitant smile on his face. Kevin gave a short laugh. “She’s more than pretty.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Would you like to meet my parents?”

“Sure.” Kevin saw a lot of himself in the boy who led him across the food court. He had his height and his coloring. But except for the dimples, Sarah’s smile sat easily on his lips. Seemed strange to analyze a person he’d never met, seeing some of himself and some of Sarah in him. But Trey was not just any person. He was the product of a love Kevin once thought would last for all eternity. A love that might have stood a chance, if he and Sarah had waited.

“Hello, Kevin Nichols?” The older man held out his hand. “I’m Tom Miller, and this is my wife, Mavis. We’re glad to see you again.”

Kevin shook hands with the man, and then the woman. “Good to see you, too. Sorry I’m a little early.”

“That isn’t a problem.” Tom shrugged. “We were running late, but these things happen. To be honest, we didn’t expect you and Sarah to run into each other.”

“Quite literally, in fact.” Kevin’s heart still raced from his encounter with Sarah. “She obviously didn’t know I’d be here.”

“No,” Mavis said. “She never mentioned you in a letter, so we respected that and didn’t tell her we also corresponded with you.”

“I appreciate your willingness to share your son with Sarah and me through the letters and pictures.” He turned toward the teenager. “And, Trey, thanks for agreeing to this meeting. Your parents made a gentlemen’s agreement with two teenagers that they have honored better than many men do a signed contract.”

Mavis gave Kevin a quick smile. “We’re not as selfless as we may look. We’ve seen other adopted children who had no knowledge of their background. They are often like a ship without an anchor. We all need some tie to tell us where we’ve come from so we can better move into our adulthood. Otherwise there’s a void that hasn’t been filled. We were glad to provide that for Trey with both you and Sarah.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Kevin studied the woman and man who stood before him and wondered at Sarah’s wisdom in choosing them. Before she stopped talking to him, she told him the social worker had thirty applications for her to look at. He should have helped her. But he’d been so scared that he’d wanted the whole, frightening experience to go away. So he turned his back on it. An option he now understood Sarah hadn’t had. No wonder she hated him.

As soon as he heard she’d had the baby, he went to the hospital. There he saw his son in the nursery, and he also met the Millers. When they told him they’d be keeping in touch with Sarah, he realized he wanted that, too.