Finding Ashley

by Danielle Steel

“Not yet. Michaela wants to tell her after you’ve met.”

  “To see if she likes me?”

  “No, to reassure her mother that she’s met you, you’re a nice person, and it’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine. I abandoned her. What’ll I say when I meet her? ‘I’m sorry I gave you up and ran away’?”

  “You didn’t run away, Mel. You were sixteen and Mom made you do it. You would have kept her if you could have. There was no way you could. In today’s world, you could probably do that. But not thirty-three years ago. You did what you had to do. What you were forced to do. She understands that. She’s nervous too.” But not as nervous as Melissa, who was terrified that her daughter would reject her, and had good reason to. “She’s not angry at you, Mel. She’s not an angry person. She wants you in her life. She tried to find you at eighteen. She wanted to find you before that, but didn’t know how. The nuns at Saint Blaise’s didn’t make it easy for anyone. This is an incredible stroke of luck to have found her. It was meant to be. Don’t torture yourself about it until you meet.”

  “Maybe I’ll have a heart attack and die before,” Melissa said grimly, and Hattie laughed.

  “No. Maybe you’ll have a nice time, and be able to see her from time to time, and you even get two grandchildren in the deal. You have a family, Mellie. A daughter and a son-in-law and two grandkids.”

  “Does she know I used to write?”

  “She’s read all your books and loves them. You lucked out here. Now try to enjoy it and relax a little.” Hattie had never seen her solid older sister so terrified.

  “Will you come with me when I meet her?” she pleaded.

  “If you want me to. But I think you’re going to get along fine. I was a total stranger who barged into her office with a crazy story, and she couldn’t have been nicer to me.”

  They talked about it for hours, late into the night. Melissa thanked her dozens of times and considered it from every angle, and raised every fear. Hattie spent the night reassuring her. They fell asleep on her bed, still talking, and Melissa looked exhausted when she got up the next day. She had worn herself out, and didn’t have the courage to call her daughter. She wanted Hattie to set up the meeting, and she promised she would. Melissa agreed to go to New York to see Michaela, although she dreaded it, and the memories it would revive.

  She was still a nervous wreck when Hattie left to drive back to the convent on Sunday afternoon. She looked dazed when Norm came over on Monday and brought her fruit from his orchard and fresh corn. She had sent the six boxes of apples with Hattie for the convent. Norm had brought his pears, which were delicious, and he noticed how odd Melissa looked, and how distracted, and asked if she was okay.

  “I had kind of a crazy weekend,” she said with a vacant look.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “No…yes…I just found out this weekend that I’m about to get something I’ve wanted desperately ever since I was a kid, and now that it’s happening I’m scared to death.” He couldn’t imagine anything that would scare her, but she looked flustered. He had never seen her like that.

  “Do you want me to leave?” He suddenly felt as though he was intruding. She was in a strange mood. “Is it something I can help you with?” he asked hesitantly. There was no sign of her sharp tongue, or acerbic comments that amused him but could hurt sometimes. She seemed young and frightened and humbled.

  “I’ve never told you this. I’ve never told anyone except my husband.” He could tell she was about to share another secret with him, like the ones about the son she had lost, or the books she had written. They had an odd friendship that he wanted to grow, but she never seemed ready for that and now seemed totally discombobulated and confused. She hadn’t even combed her hair yet that morning, which wasn’t like her. She was always neat as a pin, with her long dark hair pulled tightly back, or piled on her head in the heat. Now it hung down her back in a tangled mass.

  “I had a baby when I was sixteen,” she blurted out and startled him. “A little girl. My parents sent me to Ireland to have her and made me give her up for adoption. All the records were destroyed later, I’ve wanted to find her for years and never could. My sister just did. She found her in L.A. She’s married, a social worker, and has two children. She wants to meet me and I’m scared to death. She has every reason to hate me for giving her up.” He looked down at the woman he had admired from a distance for four years, and had no idea what to say about the enormous piece of information she had just shared with him. He did the only thing he could think of, he put his arms around her and held her. He could feel her shaking against him, and he kissed her, as much to calm his own nerves as hers.

  Her eyes opened wide when he did, and for a minute, he was afraid she would hit him, or push him away, but instead she melted in his arms and kissed him back, which he hadn’t expected. The whole world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy, for both of them. She had lived in self-imposed isolation for more than four years, having lost two children and a husband, having given up everything, with no one in her life, not even the sister she had avoided for six years. And now suddenly everything in Melissa’s life had changed. Her sister was back, she had a daughter, and a man in her arms. She didn’t know how to react, and burst into tears as Norm held her. She clung to him as wracking sobs shook her, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. Like it or not, she was back in the human race, alive again, and scared to death. It was wonderful and terrifying all at the same time, like a roller coaster. She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

  * * *

  —

  Hattie called Michaela in California on Sunday night when she got back to the convent. It was late afternoon in L.A. She told her how the announcement had gone with Melissa, and how excited she was about meeting her daughter for the first time, and scared too. She wanted Hattie to set it up, and they agreed on New York in two weeks. David had a meeting there, and the kids had a long weekend from school. By the end of the conversation, it was all arranged. Hattie called Melissa to tell her, but she didn’t answer. She was so exhausted by the emotions of the weekend after Hattie told her about Michaela, that she was sprawled on her bed, fully dressed, with the lights on, sound asleep.

  Chapter 9

  Norm decided to do things right, after what had happened between him and Melissa the day before, when he kissed her. He didn’t want it to be a onetime occurrence, or for her to see it as a moment of madness, never to be repeated. He could tell that things were changing rapidly in her life. He had waited four years for this, standing on the sidelines. He finally had the opportunity, and didn’t want to treat it lightly. He wanted there to be substance to it, and gravitas.

  He called Melissa the next morning. She was still reeling from everything Hattie had told her, and what she’d done for her. She had taken care of her younger sister when they were growing up. Then Hattie had defected, as Melissa saw it, and run away to the convent. Melissa had been angry at her ever since. And now she had done this incredible thing for her, and found the daughter Melissa thought she’d never see again. She was still trying to absorb it when the phone rang, and she picked it up.

  “I’d like to cook dinner for you tonight,” Norm suggested, and made no mention of the kiss the day before. Melissa was mildly embarrassed by it, but she had enjoyed it. She had decided to ignore it when she saw him again, and treat it as an aberration. Everything was spinning out of control around her. She didn’t want her friendship with Norm to do that too. She had no room in her life for a man and a relationship. She couldn’t handle that too. Finding her daughter again was enough for now. But he sounded so sweet on the phone, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Why don’t I come over at seven, and whip up something for you? Things are pretty exciting for you right now. I have a feeling you won’t eat if someone doesn’t make it for you.” She laughed. He was right. She hadn’t eaten the night before, and wasn’t hung
ry now. There was too much to think about, which seemed so much more important.

  “You don’t have to cook for me, Norm,” she said kindly.

  “No, but I’d like to. Leave it to me, I’ll do something easy. We can save soufflés for another time,” he said, and she laughed again. Cooking was mathematical and precise to him, like building houses, and he liked that. He had been a whiz at math in school, and terrible at writing and abstract concepts, which had been Melissa’s strength, and led to her writing later on.

  She ambled around the house all day, feeling disconnected. She wanted to call Hattie, but knew she couldn’t reach her at the hospital unless it was an emergency. The idea that she was finally going to meet her daughter was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in years, but also terrified her. Who was the girl she had thought of as “Ashley” for more than thirty years? Would she like her natural mother? Was she angry at her? She had a right to be. Melissa knew she would have to face her daughter honestly, and herself now. How could she explain that she hadn’t tried harder to find her? But the trail had been stone cold after the convent burned the records. And Melissa hadn’t been old enough to look for her before that, or to want to. It was already too late by the time she called Saint Blaise’s to try and find her.

  There was so much to think about, and now Norm wanted to cook dinner for her. She didn’t think it was a good idea to get in any deeper, but she had agreed to let him come.

  She felt drunk and hungover all day, and she was neither. She was drunk on the changes in her life. She thought of it as she stood in the shower, the warm water raining down on her, which woke her up a little.

  She put on a simple white sweater and jeans, a little makeup, and looked fresh and felt a little more awake when the doorbell rang, and she let Norm in. His arms were full of bags from the grocery store, and he was carrying a big box tied with string, with a handle, with air holes punched into it. He set all of it down in the kitchen, and there was a thumping from the box, which smelled faintly of fish and seaweed. He opened it to show her two huge live lobsters, with their claws bound. He had driven to Boston to get them. He had brought a good white wine, and crab salad as a first course. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work as soon as he got there, and Melissa set the table with linen placemats and napkins.

  She watched him cook the lobsters, which he managed masterfully. He had opened the chardonnay, and she poured each of them a glass to drink while he cooked. They chatted easily as they always had, and the kiss was never mentioned. She was hoping he’d forget it, and how vulnerable she’d been after hearing about Hattie finding Michaela. It was her life’s dream and fondest hope, and now she wasn’t sure she was equal to it, and the explaining she’d have to do to justify her actions. All her life she had blamed her mother and said that abandoning the baby was her fault. But was it? Could she have stopped it and refused to go to Ireland, or to give the baby up? What if she had refused to sign the papers? She had let it happen, and now she had to face the person she had hurt most in the process. She just hoped that the people who had adopted her daughter had been good to her. Being a movie star didn’t guarantee that, as history had shown with others, famous for abusing their children. She prayed that Marla Moore wasn’t one of them.

  Norm could see that Melissa was troubled and distracted as they sat down at the table. The lobsters looked huge on the plates where he had set them with lemon and melted butter. She’d put the salad in a bowl, and he lowered the lights after she lit the candles. She smiled thinking that before he had built things in the house, and now he was enjoying the fruits of his labors, and how well it all worked. He had fully remodeled the kitchen, although she had refused all the fancy equipment he’d suggested. It was simple and modern and functional, and there was a cozy place to sit and eat. It didn’t look like a rocket ship the way his did, with every kind of technology available. She didn’t want or need that.

  “You’ve got some exciting changes happening,” he said quietly, as they ate the lobster. It was delicious.

  “That’s a vast understatement,” she said with a sigh, and looked at him. He was a good man. She loved his outdoorsy mountain man look, and realized how little she knew about him. She knew he was from Boston, had gone to Yale and dropped out, and had been married and had no children, but she knew none of the details. He never talked about them, and she hadn’t asked, not wanting to share her own history in any intimate way in exchange. He knew about both her children now, and the fact that until recently she no longer had any. In her own eyes, she wasn’t a mother anymore after Robbie died. And now she was about to be again, with the reappearance of Ashley in her life—Michaela. She had to correct herself every time she thought about her.

  And as though he sensed what she was thinking, he talked about himself during dinner, more than he had before. It wasn’t relevant before this, but with the kiss the day before, it could be.

  “I haven’t been seriously involved with anyone in a long time,” he said quietly. “I’ve been divorced for eight years.” She knew he had just turned fifty. They were almost the same age, since she was forty-nine, about to turn fifty herself. “We were married for nine years, and I think we were both surprised it lasted that long. My wife was an ambitious woman. My family was in politics and so was hers, and I think she thought that she’d get me headed in that direction eventually. My grandfather was the governor of Massachusetts when I was a boy. My father was a senator. I hate politics and everything it stands for. She’s married to a senator from Texas now, which is everything she wanted from me and I didn’t give her. I told her what my plans were before we got married and she didn’t believe me. I wanted a simple country life. We moved here the year after we got married, and I started my construction business. She hated every minute of it, and was in Boston all the time. We tried to have kids for a while, and once we knew that wasn’t going to happen, she lost interest in our marriage. In her mind, she was trapped with a rustic carpenter, and she hated me for it. We hardly saw each other for the last four years we were married. She was away most of the time, in Boston or New York. For the first five years we were trying to have kids, which was hard on her. It’s a depressing process when it doesn’t work, and we tried everything. She blamed me for it, but it turned out to be her. I was okay with it, but she wasn’t. She wanted to adopt, and I wouldn’t. I love children, but don’t need my own to be happy. My brother, Ted, has five boys and I love being an uncle. It’s enough.

  “My brother is a lawyer in Boston, and so is his wife. They both went to Yale, undergrad and law school. Everyone in my family did, and graduated, except me. I’m severely dyslexic and struggled as a kid, I’m better with my hands, and at math. My wife hated the fact that I had no political ambitions, building houses didn’t count for her as an occupation. She thought it was blue-collar work and was ashamed of it. I’m proud of every house I built or worked on.” He smiled at Melissa and was proud of hers too, and so was she. She had enjoyed their collaboration for four years. “So that’s me,” he said comfortably. “What about you?” he asked her. “Do you miss writing books?” Now that he knew she was a bestselling published author, which impressed him. The written word always did, since it was hard for him. He was good at other things, like his construction business, which was very successful locally.

  “Never.” She answered his question immediately. “You have to sell your soul to be a successful writer. I did that for ten years. And in my case, I needed to be angry to do it. I’m not angry anymore. I don’t need to write and won’t again. My books and our son held our marriage together and made it work, since my husband was my literary agent. He made some great deals for me. That’s all over. I don’t need it, and everything you have to do to stay on top. My life is better now.” She had that in common with him. They could have had bigger lives, and didn’t want them. She’d had all that for a while, and Robbie had been her excuse to give it up. She realized now that i
n some ways she’d been relieved to stop.

  “What were you angry about?”

  She thought about it for a minute before she answered. “Everything. Everyone. My parents. My mother, for sending me to Ireland and forcing me to give up the baby. She was a hard, unhappy woman with a sharp tongue. I’ve been more like her than I want to be since my son died. I guess she was angry too, at my father. He was a weak man, from a successful family with money. He lost most of it and couldn’t keep a job. He was an alcoholic, but a quiet one. He let her do whatever she wanted to keep the peace, and took a beating from her every day. She died when I was seventeen, less than a year after I came back from Ireland, which I never forgave her for. And he died a year later, of cirrhosis. I took care of my sister then. She’s six years younger. She was like my own child. She wanted to be an actress, and threw all of it out the window and ran away to become a nun. I never understood it, and I hated nuns because they took my baby away. So after that, I was angry at her too. I was angry at life when my son got sick and died. I’m not angry at my ex-husband. I don’t blame him for leaving me. There was nothing left of me by then, and he was in pain too. He’s married to a quiet, unexciting woman, a writer too, but she’s a nice person and she suits him. I hope he’s happy. We don’t speak. I email him once a year. I haven’t seen him in years, and don’t want to. So I guess you could say that anger has fueled me, and my writing. I don’t want to live like that or be angry anymore. That’s all writing was for me, a place for me to vent. The books were very dark, and for some reason, people loved them. They thought they were brilliant, and so did the critics. They were just the rantings of an enraged woman, mad at life.”

  “They’re a lot more than that. I’ve read them. They’re dark, but there’s a soft underbelly to them, a tenderness and poignancy that shines through. They made me cry when I read them.”