The Dream Daughter

by Diane Chamberlain

  I smiled at her. “I accept,” I said, and Poppy began leaping around me at the change of tone in my voice. “Thank you.”

  Winnie gave me some papers to fill out to make my employment official, and as I signed my name to the documents, I knew for certain that I wouldn’t be taking that portal back to 1970. My stomach flipped at the realization that I now had no certain way to go home. I couldn’t have said if I felt more terror or joy.

  44

  Winnie guided me through my work the next morning. I changed two sets of linens, preparing the rooms for new guests who would arrive that afternoon. On each pillow, I left little dog treats wrapped in white plastic imprinted with the Sleeping Dog Inn logo on them. I made the other beds—the slept-in beds for the guests who were not yet checking out. In one of the rooms, an elderly boxer watched me from his crate. I scrubbed toilets and sinks and tubs and I vacuumed the threadbare carpeting in the bedrooms and the beautiful oriental rugs in the living room, dining room, and foyer. I’d never been much of a housekeeper and it was hardly rocket science, but the work—the perfection it required—didn’t come naturally. It was a little nasty, too, cleaning up after people. I didn’t mind, though. I couldn’t believe my good fortune that I now had a job and a place to live so close to my daughter.

  At three o’clock, I buckled Poppy into her collar and we set out for our walk. I didn’t think Poppy had ever heard the word “heel,” and I kept tripping over her, repeatedly saying “Don’t pull!,” the command falling on deaf ears. I would have to do some work with this dog to be able to walk her every day. She’d been cooped up too much for such a young pup. Her boundless energy had no place to go. But she was also beautiful and sweet and I could tell she wanted to please me. She’d try to heel, succeeding for ten or so yards, before reverting to her wild furry self.

  When we reached Joanna’s neighborhood, the car was once again in the driveway, but there was no sign of life. I circled the block twice before I saw her walking down the driveway, the brown dog on a leash. Quickly, I crossed the street so that we’d be walking toward each other. My heart pounded as she drew closer and the dogs began straining to get to each other. I could see now that her dog was a chocolate Lab, not much older than Poppy and no better behaved. Joanna had to use two hands to stem him in.

  “Heel, Jobs!” she shouted ineffectually. “Heel!”

  By the time our dogs were nose to nose, then nose to butt, tails frantically wagging, Joanna and I were laughing, although my laughter was a bit more like crying. I trembled all over and a wave of nausea passed through me. I was breathing hard, as if I’d run a mile, and my heart pounded against my ribs. I’d longed for this moment and now that it was here, I worried I would faint on the sidewalk and frighten her, my precious child. How I wanted to reach out to touch her, to pull her to me! Instead I stood frozen in place trying to tamp down the nausea.

  Joanna knelt down to untangle the leashes. I couldn’t seem to move or speak. Helplessly, I watched her. She wore tan shorts, a blue T-shirt, and sandals, seemingly oblivious to the September chill in the air. Her ears were indeed pierced, tiny blue stones in each lobe. A week and a half ago, I’d held baby Joanna in my arms. She’d smiled at me, her blue-gray eyes fixed on my face. She’d been so helpless then. Now look at her. She was a stunning whippet of a girl.

  She finally untangled the dogs. “You’re good at that,” I managed to say.

  “I can’t believe he wants to play with your dog,” she said. “He’s usually afraid of other dogs and hides behind my legs. He’s scared of everything. He even failed his good citizenship test at puppy class because he was so afraid of the other dogs. Yours is the first dog he likes, for some reason. Weird.”

  “He’s beautiful,” I said, reaching down with a tremulous hand to pet the dog’s head. You’re the beautiful one, I was thinking. Oh, Joanna, I love you so much!

  “Thanks,” she said. “Yours is, too. What’s his name?”

  “It’s a girl.” My voice sounded strained to my ears. Did she notice? “Her name is Poppy.”

  “That’s cute,” Joanna said.

  “And yours is named Jobs?” I managed to ask.

  “Right,” Joanna said. “After Steve Jobs.” She looked at me expectantly as if waiting for my reaction to the name.

  I had no idea who Steve Jobs was and I didn’t dare ask since it was clear that I should know. Some singer or actor? A heartthrob of twelve-year-old girls? I felt suddenly sad. She was my child and I didn’t know her. I had no idea who or what she liked. What activities did she love? What did she like to read or watch on TV? Did she have a lot of friends? What did she long for? I had no way of knowing. All of that had been stolen from me.

  “You’re the first person who hasn’t looked at me like I’m crazy for naming him after Steve Jobs,” Joanna said, oblivious to the turmoil going on inside me.

  “Well, I figure you must really admire him,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, I do,” she said. “I love everything Apple. I have a MacBook Air and an iPad and an iPhone and an iPod.”

  I still felt lost, but I couldn’t help grinning. I loved her utter lack of guile. Her lack of shyness. And I thought I was catching on. I remembered the apple on the lid of the iBook Myra had given me in 2001.

  “I used to have an Apple computer,” I said.

  “Used to have?” Joanna asked, eyes wide in feigned shock.

  “I’m between computers right now.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She looked so much like I had at twelve. Skinny. Long legs. Small, almost nonexistent breasts. That long fair hair. Dark eyes, darker than the sleek brown fur on her Lab.

  “Well, you’ve totally got to get another Apple,” she said as though I’d be a fool to consider anything else.

  My daughter is a precocious little thing, I thought, pleased. Someone had given her self-confidence. I would have done the same.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “My name is Caroline, by the way.” I thought of reaching out to shake her hand, but she might find that strange … and I might not be able to let go. I studied her face carefully. Did she know that her birth mother had been named Caroline? “My friends call me Carly,” I added.

  “I’m Joanna,” she said, not reacting to my name. Maybe she didn’t even know she was adopted. The thought made me feel cut off. Cut out.

  “Joanna is a pretty name,” I said, and she shrugged noncommittally. “Are you in … what? Sixth or seventh grade?”

  “Seventh.” She looked a little insulted that I might have guessed she was a sixth-grader. “I go to a Science and Technology Middle School.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Is that a special … a private school?”

  “Yeah.” She ruffled the fur on Jobs’s head. “I love techie stuff.”

  “I see that.” I smiled, but I was thinking about that private school, wondering if the people who adopted her were giving her more than I ever would have been able to.

  Joanna gave me a puzzled look. “Do you live in this neighborhood?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “About a mile away. I work at the Sleeping Dog Inn.” I pointed in the direction of the inn and saw that my hand was still shaking. I lowered it quickly to my side.

  Joanna’s face lit up. “I know where that is!” she said. “I love that name.”

  “They allow dogs,” I said. “Isn’t that cool?”

  “Totally! Do you take care of the dogs there?”

  “No, I’m the housekeeper. And Poppy belongs to the owner, but I get to walk her.”

  “Awesome,” Joanna said. She looked down at her own dog again, and I had the feeling we’d reached the end of our conversation. “I better walk him,” she said. “I can tell he has to pee.”

  “You’re right,” I said, but I didn’t move. How I wanted to touch her! Her slender shoulder felt like a magnet to me. I tightened my hand around the leash instead. “It was nice meeting you, Joanna,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said over her shoulder as she and her dog heade
d away from me.

  I turned in the direction of the inn, away from Joanna and her beautiful neighborhood. I fell apart quickly as I walked, as though I’d been holding myself together with rusty nails that were popping out of my body one by one, until by the time I was a block from Rosewood Court, my shoulders were heaving with my tears.

  * * *

  I dropped Poppy off at the inn, then walked into town to buy a new phone so Myra would no longer be able to call me. I was careful, though, to transfer her number to the replacement phone before I did anything else. While I didn’t want Myra to be able to reach me, the last thing I wanted was to lose her again.

  With the new phone in my pocket, I walked to the library where I looked up “Steve Jobs” on the computer. He’d cofounded Apple and had died a couple of years ago. And he’d been adopted. Was that one of the reasons Joanna liked him? I winced when I read his description of his birth parents as a “sperm and egg bank.” I pushed my chair back from the computer and stared into space. Would Joanna ever think of Joe and me that way?

  * * *

  In my narrow bed that night, I lay awake for hours, playing my short meeting with Joanna over and over again in my mind. A sense of disorientation teased me. She was still my little baby in my imagination one minute, cooing at me as I changed her diaper, studying my face carefully as I sang to her. Five minutes later, she was this young girl, fully formed, with a world of knowledge and passions inside her head. I loved them both with an intensity that was almost too much to bear. They were both my daughter. Both my little girl.

  I could get to know her, I thought, as I stared up at the dark, sloped attic ceiling. I could take her back with me. I doubted there were any science and technology middle schools in 1970, no, but I would find her the best school possible, even if it meant private school. Even if it meant leaving the Outer Banks and moving back to Raleigh where she could have any opportunity she wanted.

  I imagined Joanna with us at the beach, being doted on by Hunter and Patti and besotted with her little cousin John Paul. I could see her romping in the ocean. Sunning on the beach with new friends. It was impossible, wasn’t it? But I let my imagination fly. Just for tonight, I thought, curling myself into a ball, hugging my pillow. Just for tonight, I’d allow myself to imagine my daughter and my real life coming together in harmony.

  But how did you steal a child away from the world she knew to take her to the world where she belonged?

  45

  As I scrubbed toilets and dusted dresser tops the following day, I imagined Myra was cursing my name. Tonight I was supposed to step off from the Arlington Memorial Bridge and surely by now she realized that was not going to happen. Did she have a clue where I was? I knew she felt responsible for me and wanted me—an interloper in her time-travel program—out of her hair.

  I could still make it to the portal. All I had to do was get on a train and I could be in Washington in time to step off, but even if I could only see Joanna one more time, for one more minute, it would be worth missing that portal. Insane, I knew, but seeing her again was all I could think about as I cleaned the rooms and shopped for the groceries for tomorrow’s breakfast.

  I finished my duties at the inn a few minutes before three and clicked the leash onto Poppy’s collar. She danced around me in the foyer, then tugged me toward the front door. It was only our third time walking together but she already knew the drill. She made a right turn when we reached the sidewalk and fell into heel position next to me.

  “Good girl,” I said, slipping her one of Winnie’s homemade dog treats from my pocket. “Good heel.”

  We walked the short distance to Rosewood Court, my anticipation building. I was trying to think of questions I could ask Joanna without seeming too nosy when I spotted a woman walking a brown Lab. It was Jobs, I was sure of it. Damn it. I was both disappointed and anxious. Was this Joanna’s adoptive mother? I felt suddenly guilty about what I was doing. Manipulating a meeting with Joanna. Trying to insinuate myself into her life. It felt very wrong, and yet, damn it! She was my daughter. I never abandoned her. I never would have abandoned her.

  I thought of crossing the street to avoid a meeting with the woman, but Poppy and Jobs had other ideas. They barked and strained to get to each other, and though I held my ground, trying ineffectually to get Poppy to settle down, the woman began laughing as she headed in my direction, her silky dark bob picking up a breeze. I stiffened, my nerves on edge.

  “Hi!” she said as she neared me. She was quite a bit older than me. Late forties, I thought. Maybe even early fifties, although except for a few fine lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, her skin was satin smooth. She was slender in her jeans and form-fitting long-sleeved pink jersey. An undeniably pretty woman who took care of herself. I suddenly felt young and sloppy.

  She nodded toward Poppy. “I bet this is Poppy,” she said.

  I tried to smile. “It is,” I said. “How did you know?”

  “Joanna told me about meeting her yesterday,” she said.

  Not about meeting me, I thought, but the dog. That was okay. Of course a twelve-year-old would find Poppy more interesting than me.

  “Your turn to walk Jobs?” I put on my friendliest voice. It sounded false to my ears.

  “Joanna’s talking to a friend about an assignment, so yup,” she said. She had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen on an adult. “I get to walk the little scaredy-cat this afternoon.” She smiled down at Jobs who was bowing to Poppy, enticing her to play. “I can’t believe this, though.” She motioned toward the dogs. “Joanna said Jobs finally met a dog he likes and I see she was right.” She looked up at me. “She said you work at Winnie Corman’s Sleeping Dog Inn?”

  It sounded like she knew Winnie. “Yes, I’m the housekeeper,” I said. “And resident dog walker.”

  “I’m Michelle,” she said. “I don’t think Joanna told me your name?”

  For a moment I wondered if she suspected me of being Joanna’s mother trying to worm her way into her life. But I was only twenty-seven. I had to seem very young in this woman’s eyes. I would have been fifteen when I gave birth to Joanna. Not impossible, certainly, but … how much did Michelle know about Joanna’s mother?

  “I’m Caroline Sears.” I felt shaky as the words left my mouth. There it was. My full name, out there in the open like a dare. I waited for a reaction, but there was none. Either she’d never known the name of her daughter’s biological mother or she’d long ago forgotten it. Forgotten me.

  “Pretty name,” she said.

  I recovered my composure. “You have a very bright daughter,” I said. “I enjoyed meeting her.” Understatement, I thought.

  “She’s scary bright,” Michelle said. “We can’t keep up with her sometimes.”

  “Do you have other kids?” I hoped that didn’t seem like too personal a question.

  Michelle shook her head. “Just Joanna,” she said and I waited, hoping for more information. I wanted her to talk about the adoption, but why would she mention that to a perfect stranger?

  At that moment, the red front door opened and Joanna came flying across the lawn toward us.

  “Poppy!” she called, and in a moment she was down on the sidewalk being gently mauled by both dogs. Poppy’s tail whacked against my legs. Again, I felt that shaky, near-nausea anxiety, being this close to her. The sensation felt like fear, as though I didn’t trust myself to stay in control. To resist touching her. Resist shouting to both her and her mother, She’s mine!

  “Did you get that homework assignment squared away?” Michelle asked her.

  “Yeah.” Joanna giggled as the dogs licked her face. “See, I told you, Mom? Jobs actually likes her!”

  “I can see that,” Michelle said, then added, “Can you say hello to Caroline?”

  Joanna looked up at me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.” Those dark eyes connecting with mine made my heart speed up. Such an unusual combination, pale hair and dark brown e
yes. I’d seen a bit of Joe in her face when she was an infant. Now I saw only myself. Did she see it, too? Did she recognize herself in my face? Did Michelle?

  “I have a great idea,” Michelle said suddenly. She looked at me. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but maybe you could bring Poppy over after lunch and she and Jobs could play together in our yard? It’s fenced.”

  Joanna sucked in her breath. She looked up at us, eyes wide. “Cool!” she said.

  Oh my God, I thought.

  “We’re supposed to be socializing him, but it’s hard when he’s afraid of his own shadow,” Michelle said. “He obviously likes Poppy, though.” She pointed to her dog, whose tail was whipping back and forth as he and Poppy tried to get to each other. “Plus he needs to work off some energy. He nearly ate the entire throw rug in the master bathroom last night.” She looked from the dog to me. “Do you think you could you manage it?” she asked. “Is it too much of an imposition?”

  “Not at all.” I kept my expression as neutral as I could, while inside I was shouting with an anxious sort of joy. I’d have to rush through my work at the inn, but that would be no problem. “It’d be great for Poppy, too,” I said. “I could make it at two. Is that too late?”

  “Mom, it won’t work,” Joanna said suddenly, looking up at her mother from where she was detangling the dogs. “Programming,” she added.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Michelle said. “Joanna has a computer-programming workshop tomorrow afternoon.” She looked at Joanna. “Well, you wouldn’t need to be here,” she said, and my heart sank.

  “Mom, I do too,” Joanna said in a pathetic-sounding little wail. My heart did a jealous twitch every time the word “mom” came from her mouth.

  Michelle looked thoughtful. “We could do it around four thirty,” she said, then wrinkled her nose in an expression of worry. “Is that too late for you?” she asked me.

  There was no time Michelle could mention that would be too late or too early or too anything. I would be there, no matter what. “It’s perfect,” I said.