That Was Then... (14 page)

“As you all know, we don’t disclose last names,” Mrs. Stein said as she introduced Nat to the adoptive parents. “But this is Debbie and Mark.”

“You’ve made this our best Christmas ever,” Mark told Nat.

“The baby is absolutely beautiful,” said Debbie. “I think she looks a lot like you.”

“Her dad’s pretty good-looking too,” I added. Who knows why?

“You’ve made us so happy,” said Mark. “You have no idea.”

“We’ll do everything to make her happy too,” promised Debbie. “We’ll love her and care for her like she’s a little princess.”

Nat smiled. “That’s good to know.”

“She’s definitely going to be our little princess.” Mark put his arm around his wife and gave her a squeeze. “We’ve waited a long time for this.”

They talked for about half an hour, and then there seemed to be nothing left to say.

“Do you want to tell her good-bye?” Mrs. Stein asked Nat.

Nat’s eyes filled with tears as she considered this, and everyone in the room waited in silence. I had no idea which way this was going to go.

“No,” she finally said. “I held her this morning, and I said my good-byes then. I think it’s for the best.”

Nat and I didn’t talk about the baby again for the rest of the day. Okay, it was kind of weird, but it just seemed the best way to go. I mean, what could I say? I know Nat was hurting. I know that giving up your child cannot be easy. Like Mrs. Stein said, it might be the hardest thing a woman ever does. And I know it was tough on Nat. And I have a feeling it’s not over yet.

As it turned out, Nat’s mom never did show up today. That made me really mad, and I might even give that woman a piece of my mind when she gets home. I know it hurt Nat deeply. Even my dad was upset.

“She didn’t even get here in time to see her own granddaughter,” he said when he picked me up from the hospital this evening. Nat is spending the night.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” I told him. But even now I’m not so sure.

Nat came home from the hospital on Wednesday, and even though I can tell she’s feeling bummed, she’s doing a brave job of acting like everything’s okay.

“Your family’s home,” I told her this morning. “I saw your mom’s car in the driveway.”

She just nodded, then took a sip of coffee.

“Do you think your mom will come over to talk to you?”

She shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Don’t you think she’ll want to know how it went? I mean, Dad didn’t even tell her about the adoption. Do you think she’ll be shocked?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Do you want me to talk to her for you?”

She seemed to consider this. “I’m not sure…”

“Because I really wouldn’t mind giving that woman a piece of my mind.”

Nat kind of smiled. “Yeah, I can just imagine that.”

“She’s your mother, Nat.” I refilled my coffee cup and sat across from Natalie.

“I think she has disowned me.”

“Well, that’s just wrong.” I set my cup down with a thud. “And I wish you’d let me go over and talk to her. I seriously think I might be able to straighten her out.”

“Or just make her really mad.”

I sighed. “Yeah, you could be right.”

“But if you really want to…” Nat shrugged. “Well, go ahead. I guess I’d like her to know how things are, you know. Just to take a load off her mind.”

I stared at Nat. “You want to take a load off her mind?”

“Yeah. I’ve put her through a lot. And I’m sorry.”

“And she should forgive you,” I persisted.

“You can’t really force it.”

“I know…”

“She’ll come around in time, Kim.”

“Well, how about if I just go over there and let her know that you’re okay and about the baby and stuff.”

She nodded now. “Yeah, I guess that’d be good.”

So, telling myself that I would do this in a mature manner, I trooped over to Natalie’s house. But before I knocked on the door, I shot up a quick prayer. I asked God to help me use the right words. It wouldn’t really help anything if I blew up at her.

“Kim?” Mrs. McCabe looked surprised to see me. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

She opened the door wider. “Sure. Come in. Is everything okay?”

I walked in and stood in the foyer, considering my answer. “Well, that’s why I’m here.”

“Is something wrong?” Her eyes looked worried.

I nodded with a grim expression.

“What?” she said in an urgent tone. “Is Natalie okay?”

“She’s okay in some ways. But in other ways, she’s hurting.”

“Oh.” Mrs. McCabe seemed to relax now. “That’s to be expected.”

“Do you ever plan to talk to her again? Do you care about how she’s doing? Or about the baby?”

“Come in and sit down,” she said as she walked into the living room. I could hear the TV playing in the family room. I imagined Krissy and Micah sitting glued to the screen watching cartoons. She sat on the couch and motioned for me to do the same. “I know you care about Natalie, Kim. And you’ve been a good friend to her. Far better than she deserves.”

“How can you say that? She’s your daughter. Don’t you want the best for her?”

“The best?” She leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Of course, I did want the best for her. I wanted her to live her life for the Lord. To keep her
promise and to abstain from sex before marriage. And then I wanted her to marry a Christian man.” She laughed in a bitter way. “Oh yeah, I guess she did that. But not exactly in the right order.”

“She thought getting married was going to make things better,” I said. “And I think you agreed with her.”

“Well, I guess we were both wrong. Look at how that turned out.” She shook her head. “What a mess. But it’s probably what she deserves—she needed to deal with the consequences of her sin.”

“Well, then it probably won’t make you feel better to learn that they’re getting an annulment.”

She looked skeptical. “An annulment?”

So without going into too much detail, I explained the rationale.

“That’s convenient.”

“Aren’t you happy for Nat?”

She shrugged. “What about the baby? How is Natalie going to raise a child on her own? Being a single mom is no picnic, you know. And if she thinks she can drag that child back here and expect me to support them, she’d better think again.”

“The baby has been adopted.”

“Adopted?” Mrs. McCabe looked truly shocked now. “Adopted by whom? When did this happen?”

“On the day she was born.”

“She?” Mrs. McCabe’s features softened a little. “The baby was a girl?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Your dad forgot to mention it.”

“And you didn’t even ask?”

“It was early in the morning, Kim. Christmas Day. I wasn’t thinking terribly clearly.”

“And then you didn’t even come to see her—to see them.”

She just shook her head.

“The baby was eight pounds, five ounces. A very beautiful baby girl. Blond hair, blue eyes. They thought she looked like Natalie.” Okay, I wasn’t sure if I was saying this for her benefit or to hurt her. But I figured she might as well hear the details.

“They?”

“The adoptive parents.”

“Oh…” She seemed to be processing this, and I’m not sure if she was happy with the news or not.

“They seemed very nice.”

“Is it an open adoption?”

“No.”

“But Natalie met the parents?”

“Just briefly and only by first names. It’s how Nat wanted it. She wanted to be assured that they were good people. But they live in another state and won’t have any contact with each other—unless after the baby grows up, she wants to meet her birth mother. It’s all written up in a legal contract.”

“When—I mean how—did all this happen?”

So I explained to her about the adoption agency. How my dad encouraged Natalie to look into it and how she finally came to this decision.

“So what now?” Mrs. McCabe looked to be at a loss just then. As if hearing that her daughter’s messy life had been all cleaned up without a bit of help from her was slightly disturbing. Or maybe she was feeling guilty.
I
hoped it was the latter.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What now?”

“What’s Natalie going to do now?”

“Do now?” I thought about this. “Well, I guess she’s going to recover from the birth experience—which was not easy, by the way.”

“I didn’t expect that it would be.”

“And she and Ben will get their annulment. And maybe she’ll want to go back to Harrison now and graduate with her class.”

“You think they’ll allow that?”

“I don’t know why not.”

“Seems to me she’d be too embarrassed to show her face there…especially considering all she’s been through.”

“I think she can deal with it,” I said with a slight edge to my voice, “especially considering all she’s been through.”

“I know you think I’m a terrible mother, Kim.”

Now this made me feel slightly rotten, like why was I being so hard on her, and what about my prayer to say the right things? “No, I don’t think you’re a terrible mother,
Mrs. McCabe. And I know you’ve been through some rough times, and it’s not easy raising kids on your own.”

“That’s true enough. Then having a pregnant teenager on top of everything else. Sometimes I wonder how much more I can take.”

“You’re not the only one who’s been hurt by all this. I mean, I don’t think anyone was too happy when Natalie got pregnant. Other than her worst enemies, anyway. And I’ll admit that I was really mad at her for a while too. I felt like she was ruining my life as well as hers. But I had to forgive her and get on with it. And once I did that, I started to realize how Natalie was the one who was suffering the most. I mean, if you think she needed to ‘deal with the consequences of her sin,’ as you put it, you should be really, really happy. Because she’s been beat up—a lot. And she’s still hurting now. She thinks you hate her.”

“I don’t hate her…”

I just stared at Mrs. McCabe then. I wanted to accuse her of lying, but I controlled myself.

“I hate the sin,” she continued, “not the sinner.”

“That might sound good to you, but, you know, we’re all sinners. Don’t you remember when the crowds brought that woman to Jesus, and they wanted to stone her? Don’t you remember what Jesus told them?”

She kind of blinked then.

“What’s so different about Natalie’s situation? Well, except for the fact that she wasn’t an adulteress and she hadn’t slept with a bunch of men?”

Mrs. McCabe nodded.

“Why can’t you forgive her?” I finally said, my last desperate attempt to bring some resolution for my best friend.

But she didn’t answer me. So I stood up, excused myself, and left.

But later today, Mrs. McCabe came over. And she and Natalie went into the guest room where Nat’s been staying and had a long talk. They were in there for a couple of hours. And finally—finally—they came out and announced that all was forgiven and that both of them were sorry and that they’d hugged and made up and everything was just fine. Just like that.

“I guess I’m going home now,” Nat told me with a smile. And she and her mom packed up her stuff, and with my help we moved her back home.

And now it looks like it’s just me and my dad again. And I get to go back to living my own life. And that’s totally cool with me!