“I’m fine. I told you, I’m in Birmingham. I’m about to go by the boutique and then come home. Is something wrong there?”
“Where were you last night? What did you do all day?”
“I drove around. I looked at Birmingham. I ate. I slept.”
“Where did you stay?” he asked.
Kate’s heartbeat doubled knowing she must again tell an untruth. She had no way to explain the situation in a brief phone conversation, never mind in Jack’s studio, which was named after their lost daughter. “The Regency,” she said. “I stayed at the Regency.”
“I wish you would’ve called.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate whispered, sinking into herself. And she was. Sorry for the lie. Sorry for her inability to explain her story. Sorry that only seconds before she’d wanted to touch Jack Adams.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I just worry.”
“Don’t. I promise I’m fine.”
“Call me on your way home this afternoon and maybe we can figure out a way to meet for a late dinner.”
“I will.”
Kate hung up and scrolled through Lida’s texts, each one a short question about something that needed to be handled at the boutique. She answered and then looked up to see Jack walking toward her. She stood to face him, embarrassed that she had thought to reach for his hand, or touch his face, anything to have her skin on his.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
She nodded without finding her voice.
* * *
Wisteria boutique sat nestled in the middle of Mountain Brook Village. The old English architecture matched stonewalls where ivy crawled in random patterns of its own making. Kate sat on a large white couch in front of an iron-framed mirror large enough to cover the entire wall. The owner, Colleen, sat across from Kate. “So, how did you hear about us?”
“My friend, Susan Neal, was recently here and she told me I must see what you’re doing. Susan thinks you have some secret you won’t tell anyone.”
“Secret? Ha. I wish. Really, if I had a secret I’d duplicate this store all over. But the only secret I have is that I’m in a great location surrounded by great people and we’ve become a sort of gathering place.” She stretched out her hands. “That’s why I have the couches and chairs. Sometimes the women come here to hang out, and that’s okay, because eventually they buy something.”
“And great taste,” Kate said. “I mean you carry lines no one else does. And Susan says you’re always the first.”
“Yes.” Colleen nodded. “No one had ever heard of Flaming Torch or Haute Hippie until I brought them here, but I can explain that.” Colleen smiled and leaned forward as if she were about to divulge a world secret. “I am obsessive about clothes, new lines, designers, and style. I’m preoccupied by it all, completely to the detriment of my life. And you can’t teach obsession.” She grinned.
“I get it. I know,” Kate said.
As Colleen and Kate talked about their mutual passion, about New York buying trips and fashion designers changing houses, Jack signaled that he was going next door for coffee. The front door shut and Colleen asked. “How do you know Jack Adams?”
Kate stared at Colleen for longer than comfortable as she had no idea how to answer. Oh, we had a baby together thirteen years ago. Finally she spoke. “I knew him years ago, and then ran into him yesterday when I came to town.”
“Can’t believe that man is still a bachelor,” Colleen said. “Lucky girl who nabs him.”
“Do you mind showing me around and talking a little bit about your layout?”
Together Colleen and Kate wandered the store and back rooms. When they’d finished, Kate looked toward the front door to see that Jack had returned and was leaning against a large table covered with shoes and belts. Kate turned to Colleen, grateful. “Thanks for everything. “I’ll stay in touch,” she said, hugging Colleen good-bye.
Kate reached Jack’s side, smiled. “Was that torture?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I loved hearing you talk about your work. Who knew you were so crazy about fashion?”
“I’m not going to take that as an insult.” Kate opened the door, waving over her shoulder to Colleen.
“Not an insult at all,” Jack said, handing her a cup of coffee. “This is a new part of you, that’s all.”
“Life changes us, doesn’t it?” Kate asked, lifting her face to the afternoon sun.
Cherry blossom snow fell around them, and the sidewalk appeared like a forest floor. Tulips burst from the ground in gatherings of bright faces. Dogwood trees bloomed white from green, an umbrella.
“This is the most beautiful time of year here,” Jack said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the people walking past who halted and walked around him.
“It must be,” Kate said.
He stared at her and then touched her cheek with the palm of his hand. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Then, in the middle of a spring afternoon, outside a boutique in Alabama, Jack leaned forward and kissed her. She tasted coffee and warmth. It was a soft and short kiss, almost as if he merely wanted to brush against her lips, not stay to rest. Kate leaned forward, an instinct of wanting more.
Jack took a step back and Kate looked away, embarrassment and need combining in tender combination. He took her chin to make her look at him. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you at the concession stand.”
“I think I’ve been wanting you to do that since I decided to drive here,” she whispered.
“But it was not a good idea,” he said.
“No, it probably was not.”
“I’d really like to do it again, but I promise I won’t.”
She stepped forward and dropped her head onto his shoulder. He placed his hand on the back of her head. “Don’t go. Just stay one more night.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I told Rowan that I’d leave as soon as I was finished at the boutique. I’ve already lied to him once.” She cringed, squeezing shut her eyes.
“You don’t have to lie. Tell him the truth. You ran into an old friend and you want to stay one more night.”
“You make it sound so simple,” she said.
“There’s nothing about this or us that’s simple. But hell, I don’t know when I’ll ever get to see you again, so don’t leave.”
“Okay,” Kate said, nodding. “Okay.”
thirteen
BRONXVILLE, NEW YORK
2010
Of course desire grows. That’s what desire does. Thirteen-year-old Emily Jackson was finding that out.
“I don’t know,” Elena said to her daughter. “This might not be a good idea. Not yet anyway.”
“Mom, it’s just some lady. That’s all. Let’s see what she looks like.”
Elena closed her eyes. She knew this day would come. All adoptive mothers know there is always the chance their child (and this was her child, make no mistake) would ask, “Who is my real mother?” As if the word real meant that Elena was a fake, a replacement, an imposter.
It had only been that morning that Emily had rifled through her father’s office looking for the adoption papers. It was Sailor’s fault really, because she kept pushing and asking, and when Emily had finally kissed Chaz during a spin the bottle game at Sailor’s birthday party, Sailor had whispered. “Gross, what if he’s your brother?”
Elena had found Emily with the adoption papers in hand. They were original documents, and the names and dates could be read through the thin coat of aging whiteout. Maybe the secretary had been too busy to use the second coat of Liquid Paper or maybe she’d been distracted by a phone call or had reached the bottom of the bottle and couldn’t be bothered to open another. No matter all the possibilities, when Emily held it up to the light, she could read the name of the birth mother.
“Will you look for her with me?” Emily asked her mom in the quietest whisper.
What is a
mother supposed to say then? No, I’m too scared. Please God, don’t let anything ever take you away from me? Or does she say, as Elena did, “I love you and yes, let’s look together.”
Elena stood behind Emily, staring at the computer screen where the search bar said KATHRYN VAUGHN. Emily’s finger poised over the enter button while Elena stared at the back of her daughter’s head, not needing to see her face to know that Emily’s green eyes would be carrying her exact expression of need.
So there they were and a cold sweat covered Elena’s body, yet she was the one who reached over Emily’s shoulder and pushed “enter.”
A list of Vaughn women popped onto the screen, but not one Kathryn. With an exhale of relief, Elena squeezed Emily’s shoulder. “When you’re twenty-one, the records are open for you to find her. We can wait.”
“This lady—Tara Vaughn—keeps coming up over and over.” Emily clicked on the journalist’s name and a Web site popped up: Mothering Heights. From the information they quickly read they discovered that Tara Vaughn was a journalist specializing in parenting magazine pieces: O, The Oprah Magazine, MORE magazine, and others like it. Tara looked out of the screen with her wide smile and auburn hair falling over her shoulders. She sat on a chair leaning forward with her glasses in her hand and her elbows on her knees in a casual look that suggested she was in the middle of a conversation.
Emily reached for the screen and touched the smile of the unknown journalist. “I’m related to her,” she whispered.
“You don’t know that. Let’s let this go,” Elena said.
Emily then clicked on the small f, which designated Tara’s Facebook page. The page popped up, and Elena and Emily both took a simultaneous deep breath, a quick intake that would almost prove they were mother and daughter.
Without asking, Emily clicked the friend request button and waited. It was late afternoon and homework waited, but Emily sat in front of the computer with her mother until Tara’s approval arrived. You are now friends with Tara Vaughn, the message said.
Elena whispered. “What are we doing?”
Emily turned in the swivel chair, her large eyes full of tears. “Will you do it, Mom?”
“Do what, darling?”
“Search her friends? See if there’s a Kathryn? I can’t do it. I might throw up.”
“I got it,” Elena said and Emily stood to allow her mother to take her seat.
“Mom. You’re my mom. Just look.”
Elena sat and typed the name KATHRYN into the friend search bar. Nothing.
“Try Kate or Katie or something like that,” Emily said. “Or only the last name.”
Elena typed “Vaughn” and two women’s photos popped up—Kate and Molly.
“It’s her,” Emily said.
“Yes, honey, I think you’re right.” Elena clicked on Kate’s photo. And then she spoke the truth. “Now you know. You look just like her.”
fourteen
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
2010
Jack and Kate sat at an outdoor café table, and he ordered wine.
“French café in Birmingham. Weird,” Kate said.
“What? You think Alabama is backward?” He smiled at her, warmly.
“No…” she laughed. “Well, maybe. And I’m warning you,” Kate said. “I know you want to go to the museum, but if I drink this, I might not make it. I could easily fall into some sunshiney afternoon nap.”
“Is sunshiney a word?” Jack said.
“It is now.” Kate pulled her sunglasses from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “You know, that’s the word that actually came to mind when I met Mimi Ann. She seems so … sunny and all. And very smitten with Jack Adams.”
He laughed. “Not true. Now how are things at the store and home?”
“I called Norah and told her I’d have a full report. So, she’s happy. I called Lida and told her that I had some great new ideas for the store. So, she’s happy. I called Rowan and told him I’d run into an old friend and I was staying one more night, so he’s not happy.”
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Be quiet. It’s not your fault.”
The surprise of their kiss on the sidewalk had faded. Guilt replaced that warm place. Kate resolved, right there at the table, to enjoy Jack without again touching him. That’s how all the trouble had begun and that is not how it would end.
A waitress approached with their wineglasses and salads. Jack reached for the saltshaker across the table and bumped the vase, spilling water as a small wildflower fell into Kate’s lap. Jack threw napkins over the water as Kate picked up the flower. “This is beautiful.” She stared into its center, a place where brilliant yellow mixed in a pattern of intricate lines and swirls. “I wish I knew its name,” she said.
“We can look it up,” he said. “There’s nothing Google can’t tell us.” He smiled and again those eyes and the green that changed with the light.
“I wish I knew what they’d named her,” Kate said, wine loosening her thoughts.
Jack tilted his head. “We aren’t talking about the flower anymore are we?”
“No, not the flower at all.”
“I wish I knew too, but that’s not something we can look up on Google.”
“No,” her voice cracked.
“I wonder if they kept Luna as any part of her name,” Jack said, lifting his wine.
“It would be nice if they had. But Luna isn’t a usual name, and probably not one a parent is likely to keep.” She shrugged. “I bet if we had … if we’d kept … if we’d been her parents we wouldn’t have named her Luna. I did that because of my love for the moon, not because I thought she should be called that name.”
Jack reached across the table and took her hand. “I like it. I would’ve kept it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought her name up. We were having such a nice day. I don’t know when to shut up and I don’t ever, ever talk about her and…”
Jack looked over his shoulder. Sunlight glared into his face like a spotlight so Kate couldn’t tell if he was upset or wincing against vivid light. “I like talking about her. It’s okay. I like it. I’ve never been able to.”
Kate lifted her wineglass to the sun, changing the subject. “This looks like a red wine that someone watered down.”
“It’s a rosé.”
“Ah,” Kate said.
“Reminds me of the time my brother watered down Dad’s Talisker, as if he wouldn’t notice that.” Jack shook his head. “Fool.”
“Water in the Talisker? Isn’t that like a mortal sin or something?”
Jack stretched back. “Probably. But if it was, my dad beat the devil out of him and saved his soul. So tell me about your family. I wonder about your dad sometimes. I’m sure he’s not my biggest fan.”
“Oh? You wonder about my family?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Dad never blamed you. So stop there. But my parents are great. They live only a few miles away from me.”
“So you all ended up right there near each other. Still all wound up together.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing,” she said.
“No, not at all. It’s great. I know how much your family means to you. You’ve never been one to have a horde of friends, you like your close family and best friends near you.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking in the middle of the word.
“Did I make you upset?”
“No. It’s this thing that Rowan and I sometimes argue about. Not fight really. He can’t seem to understand why I don’t want to be part of some never-ending party line of dinners and large groups. They unsettle me.”
“I know,” Jack said. “You feel like you’re going to come out of your skin.”
“Exactly…”
“I know.”
I know.
Kate wanted to defend Rowan even as she reached across the table to Jack. “It’s not his fault. I mean, he likes to be around a ton of people. I
t’s like crowds feed him, but drain me. It’s not a big deal,” she said, waving her hand across the air.
Jack nodded, but didn’t answer.
“He understands.” Kate’s words were coming too fast. “Our parents met a couple days ago.”
“Nice.”
“It was Luna’s birthday. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Those coincidences happen all the time, don’t they.”
They sat silent under that warm sun, Luna’s memory between them. Kate kept her thoughts locked inside, wanting to tell him that there were some things she’d miss for her entire life. Forever probably. Some people you stop missing. Some things you stop wondering about. But not Luna. Not him. Not this.
Instead she smiled at him. “You’re not making me sad.”
Lazy light fell over them, silence comfortable until Kate asked. “Do you date?”
“What?”
“Colleen says you are the most sought-after bachelor.”
“She’s lying.”
“You never wrote about girls or dating. Always and only your job, Caleb, and Birmingham. A restaurant opening, a new artist, or whatever, but never a girl.” She smiled at him. “Surely you date, Jack.”
“Nothing to write about.”
“Miss Mimi Ann Davolt?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes. But it’s tricky. She runs the studio and I’ve been alone for a while now with just Caleb.”
“You’re a dad,” she said, a simple statement that carried a million others.
“Yes, I am. Caleb is amazing. He really is.”
In the honesty and simplicity of the moment, she spoke the truth. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to love another child; I’d close up or something terrible.”
“You wouldn’t. I don’ t know how to explain why. But you’ll be able to…”
“When the time is right,” Kate whispered.
“‘Time does not bring relief.’”
“Huh?”
“That’s part of my favorite poem,” he said.
“Poem? You’ve turned into such a Renaissance man.”
“Yeah, right, Katie.” His laugh was soft.
“Yep,” Kate said as it became impossible to make any more words that made any more sense.
And Then I Found You Page 11
