“That’s not a First Thing. I promised that a long time ago.”
“Then for the first time, let’s make it happen. We might have ended, but love didn’t. Staying together will be our First Thing.”
She leaned into him then, and said only one word, one she’d said alone at night in the dark. “Jack.”
He took her face in his warm hands and kissed her. “Guess I should’ve asked first,” he said into their kiss.
“Ask me now,” she said.
They touched foreheads, basking in the repeated words of long ago when he’d kissed her for the first time on the day of First Things.
“You know,” he said. “I’m so happy Luna found us.”
“Yes.” Kate slipped her hand under his shirt, as if to make sure he was real, solid and there. “Found.”
Found.
The word held the loveliest sound—lighter than any feather; softer than a kiss; a song in a single word.
thirty
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
March 20, 2012
When people ask how they met, Katie and Jack say they loved in retrograde, backward. They’d both wanted to do things the way others did—to tell a story about meeting and falling in love and having kids—but they didn’t. They met; they gave birth to a daughter; they unraveled and then loved again.
Their wedding was a celebration of years falling away and looping back. They married in Bluffton in a small chapel overlooking Katie’s beloved river. She wore a simple cream silk strapless dress. Her copper hair was piled on her head, loose pieces falling onto her bare shoulder. A ring of white peonies circled her head. It was Emily, waiting in her pink junior bridesmaid dress at the back of the chapel, who whispered in Katie’s ear just before she walked down the aisle. “That’s a fairy ring on your head. Anything you wish today will come true.” And Katie had kissed her daughter and said, “Anything I’d wish has already come true.”
After they’d moved to Birmingham, Katie had sold her part of the store back to Susan. Lida became the full manager, her creativity taking the boutique in new directions. Katie took over Luna Studio, filling the space with the varied works of local artisans, from jewelry to letterpress to leather creations and more. Now exhibits and shows with live music and food were monthly events. Luna Studio had become a gathering place to celebrate new art and creativity of all kinds.
On the first day of spring, Jack and Katie threw a party at their Tudor house on top of the hill overlooking downtown Birmingham. Twenty guests crowded the backyard, including Katie’s family and nephews; Norah, Charlie, and their nine-month-old son, Chase; neighbors, and friends. Jack and Katie were celebrating their love and also Emily’s birthday, and although Emily wasn’t there, she’d sent a daffodil painting with a single feather glued to the top right corner. “Happy First Day of Spring,” was scrawled in her handwriting across the bottom of the artwork. “I Love You.”
Caleb was on the tire swing and Jack stood behind him, pushing him higher with each holler. Claire, the woman who now ran the art studio, sat next to Katie and clinked her champagne glass against Katie’s own. “You know,” Claire said, “there really are easier ways to fall in love and get together, my dear.”
“Yep,” Katie said. “That’s what I hear.”
Jack caught her gaze across the yard and walked toward her. She was often stunned into wonder when she looked at Jack—the pureness of the way she loved him without regret or restraint. He reached her side and then touched her rounded stomach where their child was just starting to flutter inside, a tickle at the bottom of her belly that could have been anything, but was only one thing.
Caleb bounded across the yard and then bent down, picking something off the grass. When he reached Katie, he held out his palm and looked up at her. “Isn’t this yours?”
Katie looked down and spied a small white feather fluttering in the bowl of Caleb’s hand. “No, sweetie, I just like to find them.”
“Well, I think this one got lost.”
Kate plucked the feather from his hand, immersed in the beauty and sacrament of all things lost and found.
A Reading Group Guide
1. This novel was inspired by a true story. Is there an event in your life that you think would make a good novel?
2. Katie is so devoted to her work with damaged girls that she postpones her life together with Jack. Do you think that Jack should have been more patient in waiting for her? Or was Katie taking their relationship for granted?
3. Katie hears a lot of “terrible stories” from the girls at The Winsome Wilderness. How did these experiences contribute to her decision to place Luna for adoption?
4. Kate seems to take great comfort in rituals. Have these rituals served a positive purpose in her life—or have they held her back?
5. Do you think Kate and Rowan’s relationship would have had a different outcome if she had been able to confide in him about her past?
6. Lida is much more than an employee to Kate, who seems to turn a blind eye to the younger woman’s shortcomings. What do you think they offer each other?
7. When he was married, Jack didn’t tell his wife about Luna. Do you think that this compromised their marriage?
8. Kate mentions that she “wants to love” Rowan. Can Kate—or anyone make themselves love someone? Can you want to love enough to love?
9. Jack says in one of his letters, “of all of the awful parts of missing their daughter, the non-knowning was the absolute worse.” Why did Jack feel this way? Do you agree?
10. In the opening of the novel we see that March 20th is a significant date for Katie Vaughn, and it remains so throughout the remainder of the novel. Is there a date that is deeply significant to you and if so, why?
11. Thirteen-year-old Emily wonders about her “birth parents.” Do you know any adopted children and if so, do they often wonder about their birth parents?
12. Emily is deeply loved and has a close family, but still she struggled with feeling wanted. Why do you think this is?
13. Emily wants to know “her story”—don’t we all? Did hearing her story directly from Jack and Kate help Emily? Do you think that hearing “your story” helps you understand your life? Do you believe that telling “your story” helps others?
14. At one point in the novel, Emily believes that it would be nicer to live with Katie and Jack. Can you see why she would believe this?
15. Kate has a very close family and they often talk about Luna, and yet her birth and adoption are also a tightly held secret. Do you believe families can hold these kinds of secrets? How do they affect the family and those who are close to them?
For more reading group suggestions, visit
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Dear Reader,
Over two years ago, in the middle of an ordinary day, the extraordinary happened, and my family will never be the same.
Some twenty-one years ago my little sister placed her baby for adoption. It was the most heartrending, courageous, and difficult decision she had ever made, and we all wept with her when she handed her baby girl to an anonymous, yet hand-chosen family. Then … two years ago, I received a Facebook friend request from a young girl with the same birthday as my adopted niece. It was too much to hope for, almost too miraculous to believe. But it was true: My sister’s daughter, my niece, found us on Facebook.
Our family had often talked about my niece, using the name my sister had given her. We remembered her whenever we saw a girl who would be her age at that time. Everytime my parents moved into a new house, they planted a tree for her and we all prayed for her happiness and safety. We knew nothing about her—all those years we didn’t know where she lived or with whom. Although we knew that legally she could find us when she turned twenty-one, there was no way for us to find her. And then finally, all those years of unknowing and all those years of wondering culminated in a reunion that most dream about.
My sister’s story was the inspiration for this novel, And Then I Found You.
It is my way of exploring the way we live with unknowing. We want certainty, we want solid ground under our feet. We want to be sure of our place in the world, and yet we rarely, if ever, have that certainty. So then, how do we live? And what happens when the lost become found?
Although the personal facts are left for my sister to tell, the fictional story in And Then I Found You explores the emotions and extraordinary change that reunions bring to a life and to a family.
I hope this story touches your heart.
Warmly,
Patti Callahan Henry
ALSO BY PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY
Coming Up for Air
The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story
Driftwood Summer
The Art of Keeping Secrets
Between the Tides
When Light Breaks
Where the River Runs
Losing the Moon
about the author
Patti Callahan Henry is a full-time writer, wife, and mother, and the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including Between the Tides, Driftwood Summer, and The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story. She lives with her husband and three children in Mountain Brook, Alabama, where she is working on her next novel.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
AND THEN I FOUND YOU. Copyright © 2013 by Patti Callahan Henry. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photographs: girl and sky © Design Pics/Kristy-Anne Glubish/Getty Images; house © Mother Daughter Press/Getty Images; suitcase © Jim Arbogast
ISBN 978-0-312-61076-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781250036780 (e-book)
First Edition: April 2013
And Then I Found You Page 22
