by Holly Jacobs
Tori reached out and snagged a corner of the throw over the back of the couch. She rubbed a section between her forefinger and thumb, and finally asked, “So, what happened? If you wanted me and loved me, and you loved my father, how come you let me be adopted?”
“I—” This had been a whirlwind, but suddenly Sophie realized that she hadn’t asked. “Where are your parents?”
“I—” This time it was Tori who hesitated.
Sophie might be brand-new at parenting, but even she could see the guilt written all over Tori’s face. “Do they know you’re here?”
Tori shook her head. “No.”
“You ran away?”
“Not exactly.” Guilt clearly replaced Tori’s anger. “I ran to, not away. I ran to you. To find you and find some answers.”
“You need to call your parents right now,” Sophie said. She could only imagine how scared they must be.
“No.”
“Tori, this isn’t negotiable. I’ll answer any questions you have as honestly as I can, but I won’t tell you another thing until you call your parents and tell them where you are.”
“I’m not what they want,” Tori blurted out, the pain of that knowledge—right or wrong—evident in her voice. “When I found out, I realized how disappointed they must be that they adopted a clunker kid. Mom makes her living educating kids, yet has one who doesn’t get straight As. I get Bs and sometimes Cs except with anything technology. Those classes I always ace, but it’s not really academic, is it? I have a bizarre sense of how things work. I’ll never read Proust for fun. I’m Mom’s big disaster. And Dad, he’d love an artsy sort of vegan kid, and instead he has a hamburger-eating one who can paint the walls in her room, but not much else. They’re both extraordinary, and I’m...I’m not. I’m an average kid.”
“So you looked up your biological mom because you wanted someone to blame for your mediocrity?” Sophie asked. She realized it came out snarky, but listening to Tori, she thought that maybe her daughter needed a bit of snark if those were her biggest complaints about her parents.
Tori shrugged. “Maybe partly. Maybe I wanted to find you and find there was something special about me. And maybe I hoped that I’d find someone who understood. Maybe there was some genetic...”
Sophie filled in the blank. “A mediocrity gene?”
“It sounds stupid when you say it.” She rubbed the afghan harder.
“Maybe it is. Here’s how I see it. You are who you are. Part of that is the genes I gave you. Part of that comes from Shawn’s genes. Part of that is the way your parents raised you. And part of that, the biggest part, is you...the essence of you. No amount of genes or environment can change that essence.”
“So I’m screwed.” Tori slouched even further.
Sophie might not have ever parented a child, but she’d seen Bridget, and now Mattie, holler at a kid without saying a word. She tried quirking her eyes and frowning at Tori’s totally awful word choice.
It got the desired result.
Tori raked her hand through her short blue hair. “Sorry. I am sorry for everything. I didn’t come here to ruin your life, too.”
“You haven’t ruined my life.” Sophie wanted more than anything to reach out and hug this child she’d fought so hard for. This child she’d thought of every day for fourteen years. This child she loved.
But she didn’t have the right.
“Maybe I didn’t ruin your life, but I definitely ruined your wedding.”
Sophie thought about Colton’s expression when she told him that, yes, she’d had a child. The pain and the accusations there. “Colton loves me, and I love him. We’ll figure it out,” she said with more confidence than she felt. She needed to get back to finding out where Tori’s parents were, and having her call them.
“It’s just that, I got to town and everything was closed for a wedding, then I got to your house and you weren’t here. This cop stopped and thought I was a guest and that I missed the bus to the wedding. Your wedding. I thought it was a great opportunity to see you without introducing myself, without explaining who I was. So I sat in the back, and then there you were, so beautiful and so happy as you walked down the aisle. And these ladies in front of me whispered that you were perfect, and you and Colton were perfect together. I...”
“You?” Sophie prompted.
“I was so angry. How could you be that happy when you gave me away? I was an inconvenience, and you took care of it by getting rid of it. You went on to build this perfect life...without me. I was so mad when the minister started talking and I knew that you were leaving me again. You were going on with your happy life without a thought of me. Then I was standing, objecting...”
There was so much pain. Not anger like Sophie had thought, but straight-up raw and deep pain. And Sophie knew everything Tori was feeling was her fault. She’d done this. She’d made the best—maybe the only—decision she could. She’d tried to give her daughter everything she’d never had. A nurturing, loving family. And all she’d managed to do was hurt her. “Tori, I’m so sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry.” Tori had tears in her eyes. “I screwed up your life. Getting rid of me was probably the smartest thing you ever did.”
“Losing you... I didn’t get rid of you, I didn’t throw you away. I lost you.” Sophie recalled when the doctor said she’d had a baby girl, and how she shouted about wanting to hold her, but her mother had been there, shaking her head. They’d taken Sophie’s baby away, and all she remembered after that was screaming until a nurse gave her a shot of something that knocked her out. Then it was the next day and her baby was gone.
She’d never held her baby. But she’d had some comfort imagining her baby’s adopted mother holding her. She’d thought about how joyful her baby’s parents must have been after trying for so long to have a baby.
“How did you lose me?” Tori asked.
Sophie offered a weak smile, emotions rolling and mixing together into a tsunami of feelings that she couldn’t sort out. “I wanted what was best for you, and best for you wasn’t being raised by a mother who didn’t even have a high school diploma and who had no way of earning enough money to support you. I lost you because I loved you that much. I swear we’ll talk about all of it, but not now. Right now we need to call your parents.”
“Why don’t you call them my adopted parents? You’re my mother.”
“No, I am the woman who gave birth to you when I was little more than a girl myself.” That was the moment she stopped being a girl. She’d lived her entire adult life with the pain of not being able to hold her baby, or to keep her, embedded in her soul.
“They are your parents. They’re the ones who made you feel better when you were little. They’re the ones who know you best. They know your favorite color. They were there your first day of school. They came and comforted you when you had a bad dream.” At least she hoped they’d done all that. Things like that were what she longed for growing up. She had wanted to give the gift of those moments to her daughter.
Quietly Sophie asked the questions she needed answers to. “Did they ever hurt you?”
“You mean like hit me or lock me in closets?” Tori shook her head. “No. They love me...or love the me they want me to be. But I’m never going to be a straight-A student. And I’m never going to be an artist or even a vegan. I can’t be. They gave me everything, and I’m still a screwup.”
“You’re perfect,” Sophie told her.
Tori snorted.
“You can’t be what they envision, or even what I envision. And if no one else has ever mentioned it, let me assure you that you shouldn’t try to be what any of us want. You need to be you. And you’re perfect at that...at least you’re perfectly equipped to do that. To be the person you’re meant to be.”
“So, your day job is writing lyrics for bad country songs?” Tori sniped.
“I wish someone had said those words to me when I was growing up. Even more, I wish I’d figured that all out when I was stil
l in my teens.”
Tori didn’t say anything this time. Sophie pushed. “I need your parents’ number.”
“I won’t go back.”
There was a stubbornness in Tori’s expression, and Sophie could hear her mother telling her, “I hate it when you look like that. Like you’re almost daring me to try and get you to...”
The getting-you-to changed. Her mother had tried to get her to do ballet. Sophie had refused after the first few lessons. She’d hated it. If there was a rhythm gene, then she had received the antirhythm variety. There had been other attempts at getting-her-to. Piano. Drawing lessons.
Which made her think of Tori’s artist father. “You need to call them.”
“I came here to know you, and I’m not going back yet. I have so many questions, and if you try to get rid of me again, I’ll run away and—”
“No threats,” Sophie warned. “Don’t say things you might feel obligated to make good on. Legally, I’m nothing to you. They’re your parents, and I guarantee they’re worried.”
“I—”
Sophie interrupted again. “No excuses, no threats. The number. We’ll call them and then we’ll work something out. Even if they take you home right away, you’ll go knowing that I love you. That I never gave you away. And that that was the single most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. If your parents do insist that you leave now, then when you’re old enough, you’ll come back and we’ll talk. No matter what, you’ll know you’re loved. Maybe you don’t believe it but, Tori, of all the things you need me to tell you, that’s the most important thing. You were loved. You are loved. You were wanted. You are wanted. And as far as I’m concerned, not knowing anything more about you than the fact you’re tenacious, you have blue hair and you’re very angry, I still know that you are absolutely perfect.” And for the first time ever, Sophie leaned over and touched her daughter. She gently ran a finger over Tori’s cheek, brushing against a strand of her blue hair.
It was such an easy gesture, but Sophie knew that she’d remember that one small touch for the rest of her life.
“But...” Tori started, then looked at Sophie and nodded. She rattled off a number.
Sophie dialed, and felt sick as she said, “Hello, uh, you don’t know me...I’m Sophie, I gave birth to your daughter fourteen years ago. Tori’s here with me now....”
CHAPTER TWO
IT TOOK A LITTLE MORE than two hours for the Allens to drive from their home outside Cleveland, Ohio, to Valley Ridge, New York. The little slip of Pennsylvania that stood between the two states didn’t usually take a long time to navigate.
After she’d made the call, Sophie had slipped off her wedding dress and hung it carefully in her closet. She’d stroked the material for a minute and tried to imagine what she would be doing now at the reception. She shut the door on that fantasy. She knew that life wasn’t a fantasy. She’d met Colton and, temporarily, she’d forgotten that fact.
She slipped on a pair of jeans and a blouse. She thought about taking her hair down, but there were so many bobby pins, and so much hairspray in it, she didn’t think she could until she showered.
She didn’t want to lose a minute of her time with Tori to showering, so she’d gone back into the living room. She’d stood in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her daughter on her couch. Anger. Pain. Blue hair. Still gripping the throw on the couch between her finger and thumb. Every inch of Tori was...perfect.
She wished she could make her daughter see that.
During those one hundred and twenty minutes they waited for Tori’s parents to arrive, Tori peppered Sophie with questions ranging from her family’s medical history to Sophie’s educational background. She asked about Sophie’s job here in Valley Ridge.
She didn’t ask again why Sophie had given her up.
She didn’t ask about her father.
The questions she didn’t ask bothered Sophie more than the ones she did.
Tori startled when the doorbell rang. “It’s them, isn’t it?”
Sophie nodded. “I imagine so. Do you want to get the door, or shall I?”
“You. They’re going to kill me.”
Sophie got up and, before going to the door, walked by her daughter and patted her shoulder to comfort her and to allow herself one more touch. She went to the small foyer and opened the door. The woman, Tori’s mother, wore a pair of black pants, low heels and a no-nonsense fitted white blouse. She was wearing a very classic set of pearls and had pearl studs in her earlobes. Her light blond hair was pulled back into a chignon.
Tori’s father had on jeans with a hole in one knee, wear marks on the other and a couple of paint splotches. He wore brown loafers and a T-shirt with pictures of doors on it that read The Doors. His dark brown hair was shaggy, as if he’d forgotten to get it cut for several months.
“Sophie?” the woman asked.
Suddenly, it occurred to Sophie that she didn’t know Tori’s last name. She’d only mentioned her parents’ first names. “Gloria and Dom?”
They both nodded.
“Thank you for calling us,” Gloria said stiffly.
“Tori’s in the living room.” Sophie knew that Tori’s parents needed to see her—to touch her, to know for themselves she was all right.
Sophie had been right. As her parents entered the room, Tori got up from the couch and was enveloped in her parents’ hugs. For as completely composed and business-looking as Gloria appeared, she was unabashedly crying as she embraced her daughter. “Don’t you ever do anything like that to us again.”
Dom sounded heartbroken as he added, “You could have talked to us. We’d have brought you—”
Tori pulled back, the happy reunion forgotten. “No, Dad, don’t say you would have supported me and brought me to meet Sophie. You didn’t even tell me I was adopted. I still wouldn’t know if I hadn’t seen that envelope. You both lied to me my whole life.”
“Victoria, it’s time to go,” her mother said, tears forgotten. “We’ll discuss this later. Right now, you’ve barged in on Sophie and—”
Tori pulled back from her parents’ embrace. “No, Mom. I’m not going. I got a few answers, but I need more. I need to know Sophie. If I can know her, maybe I can figure me out.”
Sophie felt awkward in the midst of the volatile family confrontation. “Tori, I—”
Tori whirled on her. “Oh, I know, I’ll interrupt your perfect life. I already ruined your wedding. I’m an inconvenience, but I’m not going home to Cleveland yet.”
“Victoria—” her mother started, but her father interrupted.
“Tori, give us a minute.”
“Where should I go? Sophie’s house is small. I’ll hear you wherever I am. And honestly, I think I’ve proved I’m an adult.”
Dom had struck Sophie as a free spirit. Seeing him with Tori’s mom, a decidedly unfree spirit if ever she’d met one, seemed incongruous, but in this instant, he transformed into a father—a firm but loving father who expected to be obeyed. “Tori, if anything, you’ve proven how immature you still are. I’m not denying that we should have told you sooner that you were adopted, but that doesn’t excuse your conduct. You are fourteen, and you stole our car. Not only that, you drove it out of state.”
“I read the driver’s manual. I know all the rules. I think I was the only one who drove the speed limit the whole way here. And I’ve driven all kinds of vehicles at Nana and Papa’s farm. I was confident I could manage. And I did.”
“It’s illegal. If you’d been stopped...if you’d hit another car...if...” All the things that could have gone wrong had obviously been playing in his mind.
“You drove here?” Sophie asked. It occurred to her that a good parent would have asked how a fourteen-year-old arrived in Valley Ridge. The town was too small for a public transportation system. That left either driving or hitchhiking.
She felt sick at the realization Tori had driven across three states. She couldn’t stop the images of what could have happened. Sc
enes from nightly newscasts played in horrible detail, all of them with Tori as the focus.
“Go outside, Tori,” her father said firmly “Find a seat on Sophie’s porch and don’t move from there. We’ll come get you in a little bit.”
“Fine.” Tori whirled and headed toward the front door.
“And if you go anywhere other than that front porch, I’ll track you down and I’ll—”
“What? Spank me?” Tori laughed.
“I might be a pacifist, but believe me when I say, if that’s what it took to get you to understand how incredibly stupid you’ve been, well, I’d do it. Don’t tempt me.”
Tori looked taken aback by his response. She hid it by turning on her heels and slamming the door behind her for good measure.
Sophie didn’t know what to do, what to say. “I’m sorry.”
Dom quirked one eyebrow and Sophie thought of Star Trek’s Spock, which struck her as an absurd thought to have in the midst of the day’s events.
“For what?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can’t help feeling this is all my fault, and I’m sorry.”
“Let’s sit down.” He assumed the role of host and got them situated in the living room, he and his wife on the couch, Sophie opposite them on the chair.
“If anyone should be sorry, it’s me,” Gloria said. “Dom wanted me to tell Tori she was adopted from the day she arrived home, but I...” She shook her head. “I couldn’t bear it. I sent you those letters every year through the adoption ageny, and part of me relished sharing her development with someone I knew cared. I was so grateful to you for choosing us. I spent days writing them. Picking out pictures. But I never told you her name or ours because I was afraid. She’s mine. Every time I mailed out a letter, I’d be sick with worry that you’d realized how much you gave up and come to get her, but that didn’t stop me from writing down all the details I thought you wanted to hear. I needed to prove to you that you were right to choose us. But it scared me to death.”
