Girl in the Spotlight

by Virginia McCullough

  A text from Dawn. A thumbs-up on their dinner with Chip and Bruce. Lark grinned. It had taken her friend less than half an hour to send a message about their double date.

  She thumbed quickly through unimportant emails, mostly from journals and health newsletters. The kettle began its boiling-point hum at the instant the familiar name popped up on her screen. She quickly turned off the burner to stop the rising volume. A strong buzz traveled through her chest and down her arms to the tips of her fingers. Miles Jenkins. Not letting go of her phone, she used her other hand to go through the motion of pouring water over a bag of ginger tea. She let it sit on the counter to steep and went back to the table and stared at her phone.

  Miles had never tried to contact her before. Why now? On this day. Could it be he wanted to talk to her for no other reason than to acknowledge this landmark eighteenth birthday? This was the day their daughter would leave childhood behind. Legally, anyway.

  Years ago, Lark had been clear about not wanting to be in touch with Miles. But that was way in the past. Now he’d left his phone number. Same area code as hers, so he wasn’t far away, and he wanted to talk that very night.

  Jittery nerves expanded inside her. Before she could take the next deep breath she sat at the table and held her head in her hands, conscious of the rapid beating of her heart as panic moved up from her solar plexus and filled her chest. This birthday meant so much to her, but Miles hadn’t figured into her thoughts. Not at all. He’d played no part in the hopes she harbored over what could—would—happen in the years to come, now that their little girl had turned eighteen. She’d seen Miles only once since their final meeting after giving up their baby, and their stilted conversation was painful to recall.

  Odd, though, as much as she’d tried to suppress them, her memories of Miles weren’t all bad. When her thoughts drifted back to that cold December day in a hospital in Minnesota, Miles’s soft dark eyes appeared in her mind. In reality, he’d been her only comfort. But she’d been so wrapped up in herself, she hadn’t given much thought to his emotions. Whatever he’d been feeling he kept to himself and, instead, concentrated on her.

  She and Miles had shared an important—and irreversible—decision. They’d given up their baby. Since neither had told anyone about her pregnancy, they’d acted entirely in secret. She didn’t know whom he’d confided in over the subsequent years, but she’d never spoken one word about the infant who’d come into the world already sporting thick dark hair and perfect hands. She’d counted the fingers and toes, a distraction, she later realized, from the moment she’d allowed the nurse to carry her baby away.

  Her arms empty, Lark had gone limp, dead weight falling back against Miles. He’d half carried her to a chair, holding her until she’d pulled away.

  His support in the moment aside, Lark also cynically assumed what Miles felt was relief—deep, profound relief. He’d been free and unencumbered as he headed back to Stevens Point to finish his senior year at the University of Wisconsin. Determined to keep her secret from the start, Lark had already transferred to a small private college in Minnesota early that fall. She’d known no one when she arrived and deliberately had made few connections.

  She’d never blamed Miles for what happened, not for a minute. He had offered to help her with the baby if she decided to keep her. Sure, he’d said the right words, but Lark knew that’s all they were. No emotion, no conviction, propped them up and gave them a spine. He’d made gestures, but hadn’t tried to persuade her to make a different choice.

  “Why don’t you go home, Lark?” he’d asked many times, genuinely confused about her refusal to confide in her mother.

  “Impossible,” she’d insisted. “My parents will be fighting each other in court for months to come.” On the day she was with Miles in that hospital room in Minnesota, her parents were in Wisconsin locked in a struggle over custody of her younger brother, who was constantly acting out. Her dad had wanted to ship off Dennis to military school, but her mother refused, so the fight went on and on. Simply making it through Christmas at home would be a miracle.

  She and Miles had covered that ground before. Lark preferred to keep this chapter of her life completely private, even from her mother. She would put it behind her.

  When the hospital released Lark, she and Miles had gone to the shoe box of a studio apartment she’d rented near the campus. She’d spent the previous months studying, working in the library and pretty much keeping to herself as she slogged through the days.

  Still weak, she’d settled into bed and watched Miles heat tomato soup on her two-burner stove and crush crackers on top.

  “This is the champion of comfort food,” she’d said, feeling her mouth turning up in a smile for the first time since they’d left the hospital.

  “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. But he hadn’t met her eyes and his mouth was set in a grim slash.

  “You should go back to school right away,” she said. “I’ve got to study for my last two finals, anyway.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re really going to take finals.”

  “You are, aren’t you?” she shot back, her voice sharp.

  “I didn’t just go through what you... I didn’t have a baby. And I’m not driving back to Stevens Point today, or tomorrow. I’m staying here.” He pointed with his chin to the tiny stove. “I’m going to keep heating up soup and when you’re ready I’ll go out for pizza or Chinese food.”

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you don’t nag me about resting.” She felt surprisingly okay, physically, anyway. She’d been terrified of childbirth, but bringing their baby into the world hadn’t been all that grueling. Lark had prepared herself to face much worse. Even one of the nurses said she’d sailed through it. If she had anything to be grateful for, and at that time it was difficult to count her blessings, she’d been thankful for her strong body.

  Over the next day and a half, Miles had kept his word and had seen to it that she ate regularly. He’d made a couple of trips down the street to the Hot Wok, the second time bringing enough egg-drop soup, vegetable shrimp and chicken-fried rice to last through her finals.

  Most of the time they avoided talking about what they’d done. When he tried to express regret, she waved him off. They’d been careful, responsible. But they’d realized too late that nothing was completely safe.

  “I’m sorry,” she’d finally said, hoping to end the conversation once and for all, “because we never should have let things go that far between us. It’s not like we were in love or anything.” She’d exhaled with a soft groan. “It was all supposed to be casual...you know, fun and games.”

  Now, so many years later, Lark ran that conversation through her head. It had ended when she’d convinced him to head back to his apartment in Stevens Point. Then she’d carried out her plans to the letter. She took her finals and passed her classes, and dutifully went home for Christmas, where no one had any inkling that she’d had a baby a couple of weeks earlier. On New Year’s Day, she’d boarded a plane in Green Bay for the first leg of her trip to Dublin, where she’d spent her next semester.

  Sitting at her kitchen table on a cold, clear night eighteen years later, she concluded that Miles must be going through some kind of flashback and for some reason wanted to acknowledge the years that had passed. But she wasn’t ready to talk to him. Monday was soon enough to return the call. She rubbed her forehead. She was accustomed to these solo trips into the past and unsure if she could handle a companion walking the same path.

  She turned off her kitchen light and carried her mug of tea into the living room, where she stared out the window at the expanse of Lake Michigan visible from her picture window. The sliver of a moon vaguely illuminated the whitecaps dancing erratically across the water’s surface in the strong wind. The scene mirrored her unsettled mood. She couldn’t shake off Miles’s call. Maybe something importan
t had happened. What if he had information about their child? Or, what if he wanted to find their daughter? She let her mind drift to another place. Impossible as it seemed, could their daughter have found him?

  She’d never sleep until she talked to him. She went back to the kitchen to retrieve her phone.

  * * *

  HE WAS GETTING way ahead of himself. Like an observer of his own thoughts, Miles had watched his mind take so many twists and turns he hardly knew how to go back to the starting point. He stared at his phone, desperate to hear it ring. All evening the house had seemed painfully empty. Pushing away from the table—with his phone in his pocket—he wandered to the doorway of Brooke’s room and studied the shelves overflowing with stuffed animals. She had yet to outgrow the desire for them—a dopey-looking whale, a couple of grinning giraffes, a kangaroo with a baby in her pouch and a white horse with a red-and-white-striped ribbon braided in her tail. His little girl had named the horse Magic, the same name Brooke reserved for the real one she longed for.

  Brooke’s collection of knickknacks, mostly ceramic and wooden horses, lived in her room at her mother’s house, which she called home. She talked about going to Daddy’s house, as if visiting, but then said she was going home when it was time to leave. That stung a little. But he consoled himself with the knowledge of how lucky he was to be deeply involved in Brooke’s life.

  What was Perrie Lynn’s room filled with? Medals? Were those sparkly skating costumes hanging in her closet? What had she been like ten years ago when she was Brooke’s age?

  Slow down. You can’t be sure Perrie Lynn is that baby, your little girl. Young woman, really. Odd that the possibility the young skater wasn’t his child sat heavy with him now. Before he’d seen Perrie Lynn earlier that afternoon, thoughts of the child he’d given up had receded more and more over the years as being a good dad to Brooke became priority number one. It was as if he’d put the past behind him once and for all. Now, another voice in his head nagged that he’d betrayed this first child, a stranger.

  His phone chimed. Finally. The screen ID confirmed it was Lark.

  “Hello,” he said, “thanks for getting back to me.”

  “What is it, Miles? Is something wrong?”

  Detecting an edge of apprehension in her voice, he said, “Oh, Lark, it’s nothing bad. No need to worry.” He put his hand on his chest, hoping to slow the pounding of his heart. “It’s just that I believe it’s possible, not a certainty, but possible, our—our child, our daughter...is a figure skater. Sort of a rising star.”

  A sharp intake of air. Then silence.

  “Lark?”

  “I’m—I’m here, Miles.” A loud exhale followed. “I don’t know what to say—or what to ask first.”

  As he walked away from Brooke’s room and back to the living room, he heard her gulp, or choke, he wasn’t sure which.

  “Are you okay? I can tell you—”

  “Yes, yes, tell me how—” her voice quavered “—how this came about. Your speculation.”

  He cleared his throat. “Again, nothing is certain. But something happened earlier today. Brooke, my eight-year-old, is a skating fan.”

  From there, the words flowed more easily. He described the afternoon and the shock he’d experienced when he saw the skater up close and was struck by the shape of her face. “She has dark hair and skin like mine, common enough, but her smile, and especially the shape of her face, are all you. Or could be.”

  “But that’s probably coincidence, isn’t it?” she asked, sighing. “I mean, more likely than not, it’s a chance resemblance. Right?”

  “Of course.” He deliberately lowered his voice to mask the jumble of emotions swirling in his gut. “But I’m not done.” He paused, almost afraid to say the words. “Today’s her birthday.”

  “Today? That skater turned eighteen today?”

  From the strength of her voice alone, Miles knew he’d planted the conversation on firmer ground. “That’s what the announcers discussed—this competition was a big deal so they went on at length about what a great present the medal was on such an important birthday.”

  “Wow. I don’t follow skating,” Lark said, rushing the words. “You know, except when the Internationals are on TV. Then I tune in like everyone else. I would have missed this entirely.”

  He was almost afraid to go on, but it was the detail that made the others fit like puzzle pieces. “There’s more. One other thing—something big.”

  “What?”

  “Perrie Lynn is adopted.”

  He waited out the seconds of silence.

  “How do you know that?” she whispered.

  “The announcers said so, Lark.”

  “They discussed something so private? On TV?”

  Miles chuckled. “Well, according to Brooke, this is not a secret. You see, her parents, the Olsons, are classic blond, blue-eyed Scandinavians. Apparently, she’s always known she was adopted.” He paused, calling up his grandmother’s face. “I can’t even describe how much she resembles the early photos of my mother, but especially my grandmother.”

  “Oh, Miles, it’s still so hard to believe. I’m afraid to hope it’s true.”

  He heard the longing in her soft voice. An eighteen-year-old memory of her fighting off tears—and failing—slipped into his mind. “I know. But to tell you the truth, Lark, it really was the widow’s peak and her pretty smile that made me think of you.”

  Silence.

  “But it still might not be true.”

  Her skepticism sounded forced. “You sound like me. Like you’re putting the brakes on your thoughts. You don’t want to let hope run away with you.”

  “Yes,” she said, “not that I know what to do with the information. I mean, I’ve been thinking about her all day, and I filled up time with Christmas shopping. Just now I was out on a...well, out for dinner with friends, but for a couple of hours before I left the house I picked up the phone half a dozen times wanting to beg off, make some excuse not to leave the house.”

  “I understand. It was on my mind, too. I was listening to Brooke talk with half my attention. Until the camera zoomed in on Perrie Lynn’s face and the commentators bantered about all these details of her life.”

  “It seems so unlikely.”

  He held back, not wanting to reveal exactly how convinced he was that Perrie Lynn was their child. He also suspected this birthday was more complicated for Lark than it was for him. “All that aside, I want to find out for sure, even though I don’t have a plan in place. Obviously, we’ll act in a way that won’t intrude on this girl’s life. If it’s all a big coincidence, then that will be that.”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “Can you meet me for breakfast, maybe tomorrow morning?” he asked. “I leave for Richmond on a late afternoon flight, but I’d like to see you first. We should talk about what to do next.”

  “Yes, talk. We need to...take the next step, whatever...” She let out a frustrated groan. “Listen to me. I’m a writer, but I can’t string words together in a complete sentence. Tomorrow morning? Let me check.”

  The line went quiet. The seconds ticked by.

  “Yes, yes, that’s good. I was double-checking my calendar. I have a phone interview scheduled in the afternoon. I write articles about health. I’m talking to a doctor about a new drug for...” She sighed. “Now I’m babbling. None of that matters. Tomorrow morning is fine.”

  What a relief. He hadn’t wanted to leave town without seeing her face-to-face. He suggested meeting at eight o’clock at Hugo’s, a café just east of Green Bay, not too far for either of them.

  “Hugo’s it is,” she said.

  Silence.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Wait! One more thing, Miles.”

 
“What is it?”

  “You have a strong hunch about this, don’t you?”

  The unexpected question threw him, but not for long. “Yes, I do.”

  “Me, too.” She ended the call.

  He stared at the phone, amused by the abrupt end to their conversation. At least it saved them from an awkward goodbye. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his folded arms. The oak table felt cold under his hands, but he welcomed it. He needed to cool the heat of the moment. Lark had your child. Yet a simple matter of setting up a meeting was stiff and strange.

  Would it have been easier to talk with her if they’d been in love back then, or at least infatuated? Maybe they were awkward with each other because they’d shared so little. Back in college, they’d spent a few carefree nights listening to bands at a local pub. Their handful of dates had been more like hanging out. They’d spent a couple of chilly spring Sundays in his room in an apartment he shared with a couple of guys. Studying. Obviously doing more than that.

  With all he’d said, he’d failed to mention another clue. Perrie Lynn had grown up in Minnesota. Where he and Lark had given up their baby. And, at the time, without even one other person in their lives aware of what they’d done.

  * * *

  SO AWKWARD. SHE hadn’t helped by more or less hanging up on him to end the call. But what was the protocol in situations like this? The etiquette? Silly question. She snickered to herself. Had she really used the words protocol and etiquette, as if this was a case of choosing the correct way to interact with Miles? The facts spoke for themselves. When they’d left the hospital, Miles had driven her back to her studio apartment in St. Paul and looked after her for a couple of days. Since then she’d seen him exactly twice, the first time two weeks after they’d given up their baby.