by Rachel Hanna
Julie stood there, no words coming out of her mouth as she stared at the table. At first, he couldn’t tell if maybe she was disappointed and thought she was getting something else. Then, he noticed tears forming in her eyes as she walked over and touched the end of the table with her fingertips. She ran her hand across the word “Lancaster”.
“Dawson, it’s the most beautiful table I’ve ever seen in my life. How in the world did you come up with this idea?”
“Actually, I dreamed about it. It’s made from walnut, and I cut the tree down right here on our property. I had William and Tucker come over and help me one day while you were at work.”
“I love the blue part in the middle,” Dylan said, walking over and sliding his hand across it.
“That’s supposed to look like the ocean,” Dawson said. “The ocean unites us and it’s where we became a real family.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, hugging him tightly. “This table will be in our family for generations.”
“I hope so. I worked really hard on this, and I almost ran away from home a couple of times.”
Julie laughed. “How are we going to get it into the house?”
“Oh, we will hire some special movers for that!” Dawson said, chuckling. “This thing is heavy as lead, and I have no interest in moving it.”
As he watched Julie and Dylan continue to walk around the table and look at it with awe in their eyes, he was proud of all the hard work he put in.
“Why don’t we go inside and enjoy breakfast at our current dining table one last time?” Julie said.
“That sounds great. I’m requesting those blueberry pancakes with the little bits of bacon in them you make,” he said as he hugged her from behind.
“Oh, you will get anything you want for breakfast after making me that table,” she said, laughing.
They all walked out of the barn, Dawson pulling the doors closed behind him. When he looked up, he saw a car pulling into the driveway he didn’t recognize.
“Who is that?”
“I’m not sure…” Julie said, squinting her eyes.
It surprised Dawson to see Amy, the head of the foster care system, stepping out of her car. She waved and then called Julie’s name.
“I’d better go see what she needs. Why don’t you guys go in the house and start setting the table? I’ll be in shortly.”
* * *
“Merry Christmas! But what are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your own family this morning?” Julie asked as she walked toward Amy.
Amy looked upset, almost like she had been given some terrible news.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your Christmas morning.”
“Is everything all right? You looked a little rattled.”
“Actually, everything isn’t all right.”
“Why don’t we go over here to the picnic table and sit down?” Julie led her over to the old concrete picnic table that had belonged to Dawson’s grandmother. She often sat there, wondering about all the conversations that had been had there over the years.
“I don’t exactly know how to tell you this.”
“You’re scaring me…”
“Julie, remember when I saw Tina and kept thinking that she looked familiar?”
“Yeah. You thought you might’ve known her from somewhere.”
“Well, it just kept bothering me, so I ran by the office last night and pulled up Dylan’s file.”
“Dylan’s file? What does that have to do with Tina?”
“There were a few pictures in the file and as soon as I saw this one, I knew exactly who she was,” Amy said, pulling a picture out of her purse and sliding it across the table.
“This looks like Tina. I mean, she looks younger…”
“Actually, her name is Christina. I guess she goes by Tina.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Julie, Tina is Dylan’s biological mother.”
Julie looked up, her eyes widened in shock. “What?”
“I don’t know exactly how she found out who had adopted Dylan, but I have to believe this isn’t an accident.”
“Oh, my gosh. She’s inside my house right now, about to have breakfast with my son. She was with him at the Christmas festival the other night. I don’t know what she’s been saying to him…” Julie jumped up and ran into the house, leaving Amy sitting at the picnic table alone.
She looked in the living room and then ran into the kitchen, ready to confront Tina even though it was Christmas morning.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Dawson asked when he saw her come into the kitchen so frantically. Thankfully, Dylan was sitting at the table, going through his Christmas stocking again and wasn’t paying a lot of attention to his surroundings.
“Where is Tina?” Julie said, seething with a rage she’d never felt before.
“I don’t know. I thought she was right behind me but maybe she went down by the beach?”
Julie turned to head back out the door to find Tina.
“Where are you going?”
“To find her.”
Even though Amy was calling her name, Julie flew straight past her and ran down the pathway to the beach. Sure enough, she found Tina standing there, at the waters’ edge, staring out over the ocean.
“Did you honestly think we wouldn’t find out who you really are?” Julie screamed at her.
Tina turned around slowly, a blank look on her face. “I’m sorry for lying to you.”
Julie closed the distance between them, but she also realized that she didn’t want to get arrested on Christmas day… or any other day… so she stopped herself from lunging and knocking her to the ground.
“Why? Why did you do this?”
“I couldn’t help it. I had to know if my son was okay.”
“Seriously? Aren’t you the same woman who abandoned him when he was a little boy?”
“I see you’ve been told that story too. And it’s not true. “
“Well, it seems pretty true since your son was in foster care and not with his biological mother when we met him.”
“Julie, please listen to me. I know you owe me nothing, and I’ve lied to you for weeks now, but if you’ll just let me explain…”
“Were you trying to kidnap him? Is that what was going on at the Christmas festival?”
Tina looked at her, shocked. “What? Of course not! I told you what happened. He had a stomachache.”
“Well, excuse me if your words fall flat for me. It isn’t exactly like you’ve been honest with us from the beginning.”
Tina took in a breath and then blew it out slowly. “Look, I didn’t come here to interfere. I wasn’t going to tell Dylan that I was his mother…”
“I am his mother.”
Tina nodded. “In every way that counts, you’re his mother. But I wasn’t going to tell him that I gave birth to him. I never intended to hurt anyone. I just wanted to see that he was happy, and I can easily see that.”
“We invited you here because we thought you were just some random person down on her luck. We didn’t want you to spend the holidays alone. And this is how you repay us?”
“Dylan’s father was a very abusive man. As far as I know, he wasn’t abusive with Dylan, but he was very violent with me. We had only been dating about three months when I got pregnant. He regularly hit me, pushed me down the stairs. One time, I thought I’d lost Dylan. I knew I could never raise him in that environment.”
“And yet you left him there.”
“In the end, I did. And I regret it every day of my life. I was young and stupid and scared. I had no family really to go to, and I had my own problems. I turned to drugs and alcohol after I gave birth because I couldn’t handle living with a violent man.”
“How in the world could you choose drugs over your child? And then leave him with a supposed abuser?”
“Look, I know you don’t understand because you’ve never lived through anything like that. But my mind wasn’t right a
t that time. And he threatened me. He told me if I took Dylan with me, he would find us both and he would hurt me. And I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have any way to get an attorney.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me all of this.”
“Because I want you to understand why I never went back for Dylan. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it out alive. I had no idea that my ex had gotten into drugs as well. But when I heard through the grapevine that he died, I came looking for my son. And then I learned that he’d been adopted.”
“And how did you find us?”
“I guess maybe it’s one of the detriments of being a small town. I just did some asking around about foster care opportunities. Before I knew it, I was able to find out about the camp you held, and then someone told me that the people who run the camp adopted one of the kids. It wasn’t an accident that I walked into the bookstore that day.“
“I can’t believe what a liar you are. You really had us fooled. What do you want us to do now?”
“Nothing. I never wanted anything but to see that my son was okay because I have worried about him every day of my life. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me or make me a member of your family, but I want you to know that I am going to thank God every day for giving him you and Dawson as parents.”
“Have you told Dylan who you are?”
She shook her head. “No. And I don’t think we should. It would only confuse him and make him feel pulled between two mothers. He already has the best mother, and I don’t want to ever take that away from him.”
“So now what?”
“Now, I leave. I spent Christmas with my son,” she said, smiling. “There’s nothing that could ever top that.”
She started walking toward the inn.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my things. I think it’s time for me to go.”
Julie sighed. “Tina?”
“Yeah?”
Julie had calmed down, although she was still pretty angry. She could feel that Tina’s words were coming from a good place, that she had been worried about her son for years, and this had been her only way of checking on him. What would she have done in a similar situation? Would she have lied to get close to her child, even if for just a little while? Probably.
“What are you going to do with your life now?”
“I don’t know. But I feel a weight has been lifted from me that has been there for a long time. I’m not sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do, but I will carry this Christmas with me forever.”
“I’d like to give you a little money to get you started in a new life.”
Tina stared at her. “Why would you want to do that? After everything I’ve done?”
Julie walked toward her. “Because my son would want me to do that.”
* * *
As Tina pulled away in her little beat-up car, Dawson put his arm around Julie. They stood on the front porch of their home, Dylan happily playing on the floor in the living room behind them.
“I have to say you’re very forgiving,” Dawson said.
“Oh, forgiveness will take me a while. But I can’t blame her. I might’ve done the same thing if I were in her circumstances.”
“Well, I hope she takes that money and starts a better life for herself.”
“Me too.”
They turned around and looked through the open front door at Dylan building some kind of superhero play set.
“No matter what happened, I think this has been our best Christmas yet.”
Julie looked up at him. “And we have so many more wonderful Christmases to come.”
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Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Hanna
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