by Judy Duarte
Again, her heart ached for the girl who should be stretched out on a bed in her very own bedroom, munching on a bag of potato chips, sipping a Coke, and texting her BFF about the cute guy in English class.
“Renee?”
The girl rolled over, presenting her face, as well as red-rimmed, watery eyes.
Dawn sensed bad news, and her heart sank. “How are you doing?”
“Okay, I guess.” A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn’t bother wiping it away.
It tore Dawn up to see Renee so sad, so all alone, but she managed a smile. “Are you up for company?”
“Sure. Come in.”
Dawn placed the roses on the tray table and set the bags at the foot of the bed. “I brought some things you might need, like a toothbrush and toothpaste. And I thought you might want some flowers for your room.”
“Thanks. They’re really pretty.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Renee slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. The nurse told me they’re going to call social services. That’s what I didn’t want to happen. I don’t want them to take my baby away.”
“They can’t take your child, honey.”
Renee’s gaze latched onto Dawn’s. “How do you know? They’re going to put me in foster care again. And what if that family doesn’t want a little baby? Or what if they want the baby and not me? What if they try to make me give her up? I can’t do that, Dawn. The baby is the only family I’ve got. And she needs me.” She swiped at her tears and sniffled. “I know I’m just a teenager, but I love her already. And when I thought that I was going to lose her, I wanted to die.”
Dawn knew the feeling too well, and it saddened her to see this poor child who’d had enough disappointments in life face the same thing. So she placed a gentle hand on Renee’s cheek. “Let’s hope for the best, okay?”
Renee’s bottom lip quivered, but she nodded.
Some things were out of Dawn’s hands, but she’d do whatever she could to help. “For what it’s worth, I won’t let anyone put you or the baby in foster care.”
“How can you stop it? The court makes those decisions, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I know a way around that.”
Renee studied her, both hope and skepticism etched on her brow. “What is it?”
“I haven’t talked to Joe yet, but I’m certain he’s going to agree.” Dawn brushed a strand of hair away from Renee’s forehead, revealing pretty blue eyes and a freckled nose. “We’ve wanted a family for a very long time.”
Renee sucked in an emotion-laden breath and held it a beat before slowly letting it out. “I know what you’re going to say. You and Joe want to adopt my baby. And that’s probably in the baby’s best interests for me to agree. But I can’t give her up. You might think this is weird, but it’s almost like she’s already here. I think about her all the time. I even talk to her.”
“The baby doesn’t need a mother. She already has you. And it’s clear to anyone with eyes and a heart that you love her more than anything in the world.”
Renee wrinkled her brow. “Then what’s your idea to fix everything?”
“What the baby doesn’t have is grandparents. I’ll need to talk to Joe, but I know he’ll agree. If we adopt you, we’ll have the daughter we always wanted. And, as a blessing on the side, we’d have a grandbaby to love, too.”
“You want to adopt me?” Renee asked, the words not quite sinking in. “I’m practically already grown up.”
“You still have most of your teen years left. You ought to be in school, not stressed about providing a roof overhead and the basic necessities.” As Renee took it all in, Dawn reached into her purse, pulled out her cell, and dialed her husband’s number. “Hi, honey. It’s me.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m visiting Renee at the hospital.”
“Good. I’m almost there now. How’s she doing?”
“She’s hanging in there. But do you remember that temporary home we talked about providing her?”
“What about it? Doesn’t she want to stay with us?”
“Yes, but I want to offer her a permanent home. I want us to be her parents.”
Joe paused, but only for a moment. “I’d like that, too, honey. Ask her what color she’d like me to paint her bedroom.”
A smile broke across Dawn’s face, and she turned to Renee. “We’re game if you are.”
“Are you kidding?” Renee blinked back a flood of tears as she appeared to struggle with both disbelief and relief. “You really want to be my parents?”
“With all our hearts.”
The morning sun peered through a couple of bent slats in the mini blinds, and birds chattered in the branches of the maple tree outside the bedroom. Apparently, the rain that had battered the community last night had moved on its way.
Kristy glanced at the baby monitor that rested on the bureau and allowed her to hear any sounds coming from her grandmother’s room downstairs. Usually, Gram woke before dawn, needing a glass of water or to use the bathroom.
But she hadn’t last night.
At just after nine o’clock, Kristy rolled out of bed, slipped on her robe and slippers, and headed down the hall to check on Jason, only to find his bed empty. She wondered what he was doing.
Watching television quietly, she suspected.
As she made her way downstairs, eager to put on a pot of coffee, she yawned. Rarely did she get a full night’s sleep, and after the drama in the canyon and at the ER, she found it surprising that she had.
She planned to call the hospital and check on Renee. Hopefully, everything went well during the night.
In the living room, Jason sat on the sofa, watching cartoons.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice still sleep-laden.
“Oh, hi, Mom.” Jason, who wore his Spider-Man pajamas, smiled. “What’s for breakfast?”
She hadn’t given it any thought yet. “How about pancakes?”
“Cool.” His attention immediately returned to the television screen.
As she continued her morning bed check, she headed down the hall to Gram’s bedroom. With each step she took, she grew a bit uneasy. One of these days, she feared that she just might enter the room and find that Gram had gotten her wish, that she’d passed away.
As she reached the doorway, she peered inside to see her grandmother on her back, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling.
“Good morning.”
Gram turned her head to the side, her gaze lighting on Kristy. “What day is this?”
“It’s Saturday. Why do you ask?”
“Because Craig usually stops by on Wednesdays, and I’d really like to see him today.”
A wave of apprehension strummed over Kristy. “Is something wrong? I can certainly call and ask him to stop by if he can.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Gram said, although her face was all scrunched up as though she was perplexed. “But I had another one of those dreams and I need to talk to him about something.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been having recurring dreams.”
“It’s the second one I’ve had, but it was so real I could swear it really happened. Last night, I dreamt that the bearded man came and spoke to me again.”
Again? The first time, Jesse had actually been in the house and had carried on a conversation with her. At least, that’s what must have happened.
“What did the man say to you this time?” she asked.
“He said that he was leaving. And that he had a message for me to give Pastor Craig.”
After practice, Ramon waited for the boys to pick up their gear and meet him at the dugout. Their first game was on Wednesday evening, and since they would face National City, last year’s intercity league champs, he wanted to give them a pep talk before sending them home.
He’d hoped to see Craig this morning, but he’d been a no-show. Not that the pastor had actually promised to help out at pract
ice today, but he’d said he would try to stop by. Something must have come up.
“Give it back,” Simon yelled.
Ramon glanced up and spotted Jamal and David playing keep-away with the catcher’s mitt. “Hey, you two. Knock it off.”
David appeared to really give Ramon’s order some thought and tossed the mitt back to Simon, which was a sign that they were finally becoming a disciplined team.
And that was good. Most of the boys had short fuses, so Ramon’s primary goal was to teach them self-discipline. They already had too many cards stacked against them, and he didn’t want their tempers to get them in trouble.
Ramon scanned the park, still thinking Craig might show up, but spotted an attractive blonde instead. It was Shana, and she was heading his way.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d come by just to talk to him. But that kind of thinking would only lead to disappointment.
Still, he headed for the third-base fence, keeping his thoughts and his imagination in check.
“Going for another run?” he asked, even though her clothing—a pair of black jeans and a freshly-pressed lime green blouse—didn’t lend themselves to exercise.
“Not today.” A light ocean breeze whipped a strand of hair across her face, and she swiped it away. “I know that you’re busy now, but do you have a few minutes after practice? I’d like to talk to you.”
He tried to read her expression, but a serious demeanor wasn’t giving him any clues. “We’re just wrapping things up now. If you give me a couple of minutes, I’ll be right back.”
“No problem. I’ll wait.” She tucked the rebellious strand of hair behind her ear, and while she offered him a smile, her lips weren’t fully cooperative.
Ramon took a few minutes to talk to the boys, telling them they’d be practicing again on Sunday afternoon and insisting they stay out of trouble, that the team needed each of them. Then he excused everyone but the Sanchez boys. Their terminally ill grandmother had taken a turn for the worse, so Carlitos and Luis were staying with Ramon this weekend.
“I need to talk to a friend,” he told them. “You can either wait for me in the dugout or sit in the car.”
“Can we listen to the radio?” Luis asked.
“Sure.” Ramon reached into the front pocket of his jeans, removed the keys to the Jeep, and tossed them to the older boy. “If you guys can keep from arguing over which station to listen to, I’ll take you to Burger Alley for a late lunch. And if not, you’re stuck with bologna sandwiches at the house.”
“We won’t fight.” The younger boy gazed at Shana, who waited at the fence. “Ooh, coach. Your friend is really hot. But she looks all mad.”
Ramon glanced at Shana, noting that her serious expression hadn’t faded in the least. He didn’t think she was angry, but something was clearly bothering her.
As the boys headed for the Jeep, Ramon returned to the fence, where Shana waited.
He offered her a smile, and she tried to return it, but something weighed heavily in her eyes. Worry? Stress? It was hard to tell.
Maybe she was mad.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I, uh … broke my engagement.”
Ramon wanted to let out a whoop, but bit his tongue and held his reaction in check. “I’m sorry.”
“You are?”
No, he wasn’t. And he decided she deserved the truth. “I was just trying to be polite. I’m not sorry at all. For the record, I’ve never liked Brad and think you can do a whole lot better.”
She didn’t respond, so they continued to stand in silence.
“What caused the breakup?” he finally asked.
“I didn’t love him.”
He was really glad to hear that.
“I wanted to,” she added. “But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force myself to have feelings that weren’t there.”
He knew what she meant. He’d never found another woman who’d been able to stir his heart like Shana had, but he was unwilling to make that admission.
They remained cocooned in silence, and he assumed she hadn’t yet gotten to the heart of the conversation she meant to have.
“I need to confess something,” she said.
“What’s that?”
He had no idea how long his question hung suspended in the air they breathed, but about the time he assumed she wasn’t going to respond at all, she did.
“When you and I dated in high school, I fell in love with you. So I know what real love is supposed to feel like.”
She’d had a weird way of showing her love to him. The day she’d ended things between them had been the worst day of his life, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it.
“Our breakup wasn’t my idea,” she added. “My parents thought I was too young to be so serious about a guy.”
Ramon tried to guess where she might be going with this, as she studied her feet, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip.
He wanted to tell her to forget about it, that all of that was in the past. That it didn’t matter anymore. But how could he say that when right this minute it seemed to matter a whole lot?
Hoping to make things easier on her, he said, “I can understand your parents’ concern.”
“You can?”
“You were only fifteen.” Yet he’d always suspected that there’d been cultural and socioeconomic differences at play, too. “Were they upset about you dating any guy? Or was it just me?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Mostly it was you.”
He wasn’t surprised, yet the truth still slammed into him, making him hurt all over again.
“My parents, especially my mom, pressured me to break up with you. And at the time, I was afraid to challenge her.”
“So you’re telling me that even though you loved me, you ended things between us because your mother told you to?” Ramon had a hard time understanding that kind of blind obedience.
“For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve done whatever they asked me to do. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because of their devotion to me during my illness. Maybe because I feared that if I didn’t dot each I or cross each T that the cancer would come back.” She inhaled deeply, as if the extra oxygen would infuse her with the strength to go on, then slowly let it out. “That doesn’t sound very noble, does it?”
He ought to be angry, offended by her parents’ prejudice and her obedience, but for some crazy reason, he wasn’t. Instead, he didn’t want her to suffer about something she couldn’t go back and change.
“You were a kid,” he said. “Kids are supposed to obey their parents.”
“I know that, but I should have fought for you. For us.”
He wished she had.
“Deep inside, I’d hoped you would put up a fight and provide me with the strength to rebel.”
And he hadn’t. He’d just nodded when she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore and, in an effort to be macho and hide his tears, he’d walked away from her.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’ve finally begun to stand my ground. My parents, or rather my mom, wasn’t happy about me breaking up with Brad, but I refused to back down.”
“I’m glad. I always thought you were a lot braver than you let on.”
Her lips parted, and her gaze snagged his. “You’re the second guy to tell me that in the past couple of days.”
He wanted to ask her who the first guy was, but he didn’t think it was any of his business.
“So that’s what you wanted to tell me?” he asked. “That you loved me back then?”
“There’s more.” She took another one of those fortifying breaths, and he wished he could do something to make this conversation easier for her. “After we broke up, I found out that I was pregnant.”
This time Ramon’s jaw dropped, his brow furrowed, and his stance stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The tears that had been welling in her eyes overflowed. “Because I didn’t thin
k you loved me. Because I didn’t want to burden you.”
He caught her face in his hands and caressed her cheeks with his thumbs. “I loved you, too, Shana. I hurt so bad when you ended things, but I never thought that I truly deserved a girl like you. So I let you go to make it easier on you and to save my pride.”
As the tears continued to stream down her cheeks, her lips quivered, and his heart broke all over again.
“What happened to the baby?” he asked. “Did you give it up?”
“I …” She closed her eyes. While standing statue still, she placed her hands against the railing, palms up. She remained like that for a moment, then opened her eyes and caught his gaze. “I had an abortion.”
The news knocked the wind and the words out of him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as though understanding the myriad of emotions blurring in his heart and mind. Yet she couldn’t possibly understand, not when he didn’t.
He felt betrayed, hurt. And he felt cheated—not just out of a child, but out of the knowledge he’d deserved to know, the decision she’d made for both of them. He struggled not to be angry, not to blame her for keeping a secret like that.
She’d been a kid, he reminded himself. And he’d walked away without letting her know how badly it had hurt to lose her. How he would have done anything to keep seeing her if he’d thought they’d actually stood a chance.
“I’m so sorry, Ramon. Please forgive me. I really wanted the baby, but I was so afraid back then. I didn’t think I had anywhere to turn.”
“You had me.”
She bit down on her bottom lip so hard that he feared she would break the skin. “I didn’t know that.”
No, she hadn’t.
He raked a hand through his hair, trying to wrap his mind around what she’d done.
And why.
They should have faced that trial together, and the decision should have been made as a couple.
She placed her hands on the fence, her fingers gripping the chain link. “There’s wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t wish I could have gone back in time and done things differently, but I couldn’t.”
It was clear that she not only wanted his forgiveness, she needed it. And while he wanted to give it to her, it wasn’t that easy.
