“A family doesn’t have to be a mother and a father; it can be a mother and a grandmother, too. And I’m not saying Adam shouldn’t be part of Harper’s life, I would never say that. But I think it’s best for everyone, if we did this. We could give her the stability she needs and deserves, and I’d pay for Adam to visit whenever he’d like.”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. It sounded all wrong. I couldn’t leave Adam. Not now, after all we’d been through together.
“Don’t say no,” Lila pleaded. “Just think about it. I’m planning on leaving tomorrow, but I could push it back a day if you need more time. But really, you shouldn’t. This is the perfect situation, Lainey. We could have the family we never got to have before, just the two of us and little Harper.”
I had a clear image of us then, the three of us. I pictured Harper as a toddler, instead of a newborn. She would have white-blonde hair, the same as Lila’s, and eyes the color of a cloudless sky, like me. She would be smiling, happy. Our family wouldn’t be normal, but it would work, right? I was sixteen; there was no way I could give her the most normalcy possible, and marrying her father wouldn’t change that. It wouldn’t change the fact that we were still too young for all this.
I ran through all the statistics I had read before, about young marriages. The divorce rate on average was so high, and it was especially so when you married young. Was it even possible we could beat the odds? I wanted to believe so, but everyone who got married believed their marriage would never end in divorce. Everyone but Lila. She’d all but admitted she knew her marriage to my father wasn’t going to last, and she was warning me from making the same mistakes she’d made. I should listen to her, shouldn’t I?
The day in early January floated back into my memory, the day I found out about Adam’s secret. About the girl that had come before me, the baby that could have been. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, finding that out had made me lose faith in Adam, at least a little bit. Would I ever be able to get over that? Was I just fooling myself, believing that this marriage, this family could really work?
Our food finally arrived, and I made no move to actually eat. My stomach was in knots, my brain whirling with all the possible decisions I would have to make, each decision sounding more impossible than the one before it.
I stared at the woman across from me, the woman I’d never really known but had always wanted back, so badly. I pictured Adam in my head, his unexpectedness, his charm. The girl before me, the child he could have had before. I pictured Harper representing all of the things that could have been; the good and the bad, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. I didn’t think it was fair to rest so many expectations on one child.
I had yearned for my mother all my life. Adam was never something I’d chosen, he had just happened. My mother, with her ability to turn off her feelings in an instant, and Adam, who could love me so endlessly and yet hide the biggest secrets. My mother, who re-entered my life with promises to make it better than it had ever been before and Adam, proposing to me in the moonlight on Valentine’s Day.
I loved them both so much, and needed them equally, but couldn’t have it all. Out of all the decisions I’d been faced with recently, this one felt the most difficult. How was I ever going to know what was right?
Chapter Forty-Two
Adam’s car was in the driveway when I got home, but I knew that meant nothing. He hadn’t sent me a single message or tried to call once the entire time I was out, so for all I knew, he was at his parent’s house, sleeping in his old bedroom.
When I opened the door to the guest house, I was fairly certain that was exactly what he was doing. The lights were all off. I stood in the middle of the living room for a second, feeling panicky and calm all at once, if such an emotion really even existed.
I’d made my choice, but maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe in the end, I was destined to lose both of them, the way I’d lost my father and Nora.
Then I noticed the light coming from underneath the nursery door.
I walked over and pushed it open, and sure enough, there stood Adam, hanging a picture on the wall. I stepped back for a minute, stunned. He had hung all the pictures I’d chosen from the albums in a mural that would face her crib. The faces she was supposed to see first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I felt like crying, but my tears were all dried up.
Adam turned, seeming surprised to see me. I placed my hand over my chest, not wanting to speak but knowing that eventually, I would. I’d have to tell him.
“Out with Lila?” He asked, his voice even. He turned back to the pictures.
“She’s my mother,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I know.”
“She loves me.”
“I know that, Lainey. I never said she didn’t.”
“I want her in my life, Adam.” I was glad my tears were all dried up then. I didn’t want to cry anymore, and those words were enough to make the urge to sob come back, full force.
He sighed and put the framed picture he was holding down on a nearby table. He turned to me. “I know, Lainey. I get that, believe me. But you’ve been completely avoiding everyone and everything since she came, and I don’t like it.”
“I want her in my life,” I repeated. There was so much I needed to say, so much I had to tell him, but those were the only words that seemed to come. “I need her in my life.”
I burst into tears.
Adam walked over to me and immediately wrapped me in his arms, and all those old feelings of safety and security washed over me. “I’m sorry,” he told me, even though he had nothing to be sorry about. All he’d ever done was love me, even when he didn’t have to. Even when maybe he shouldn’t have. His past was his past, but during our time together, he was guilty of nothing but keeping that past to himself, something that maybe I could understand. I wished there were certain things in my past I could hide, even from myself. Certain things I wished I could erase altogether.
“I’m sorry, too,” I sobbed into his chest.
He held me tighter. “Don’t be, Lainey, please. I’ve been so selfish. I guess in a way I’ve been jealous, feeling like she’s taking you away from me or something. I’m so sorry.”
“She wants to,” I managed to gasp out, burying my face in his chest. He pulled back slightly, holding me by the shoulders and staring down at me, confused.
“What?”
I reached up to wipe my eyes, but it was pointless. The tears kept coming, faster than I could brush them away.
“She wants me to move to California with her.”
“What? Why?”
The shock in his voice was almost tangible, and made me feel more anxious than I already was. “She wants me to start my life over with her. She regrets not being there my entire life, and she wants a second chance. She deserves one, don’t you think? I mean, what she did was wrong and I’ll always hold that with me, but she was so young, Adam. Not that much older than me. She didn’t know what she was doing…”
“You can’t be serious.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and looked at me with a mixture of shock and horror. “You can’t seriously be considering this?”
I said nothing, and he began pacing.
“You can’t take my daughter away from me, Lainey. I won’t allow it.”
“But she’s my mom,” I whispered, like that somehow made a difference. What a tangled mess this had all turned out to be. I’d spent so much of my life longing for a family, and seemingly overnight I’d gone from none to having to choose between two. I didn’t know which felt worse.
“She had her chance! Yeah, she was young and stupid but she still had her chance. She had sixteen years of chances, Lainey, and she waits until now? She’s not taking my daughter away.” The determination in his voice was clear, and I felt like I was shrinking into myself with every word he spoke.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing to tears to stop but my body wouldn’t listen. I never remembered feeling this sad before, in
my entire life. It couldn’t be good for the baby, but the knowledge of that wasn’t enough to make the feeling go away.
“I don’t want her to leave.”
“I get that, but you can’t go with her. Lainey, be real. You can’t leave.” The anger was fading, and panic was seeping into his words. I opened my eyes, and noticed he was crying. His dark eyes were full of still unshed tears; his face streaked with the ones that escaped.
“I’m not,” I managed to say, choking on the words. “I’m not leaving.”
“Then what…? Why are you so upset?” He wiped his face frantically, and walked back over to me.
“I don’t want her to leave,” I sobbed into his chest once again. “She’s my mom, Adam. I want her around. I don’t want this, at all.”
He held me close and stroked my hair, my back. “I know,” he whispered into my ear. “I know.” But I could still hear the relief in his voice.
“She’s mad,” I continued. “She’s actually mad at me, can you believe it? She’s mad because I chose to stay here, with you, and not go with her. I hate this so much, Adam.”
“I know, baby, I know.” He held me closer. “She’ll get over it tomorrow, you’ll see. She’ll call and you’ll talk and it’ll all be fine.”
“No, it won’t.” I said. “She’s leaving tomorrow morning. I’m not going to see her again. Adam, what if I never see her again?”
“That won’t happen,” he reassured me. “She’s not going to walk out of your life again, not after this. She’s just angry and maybe a little hurt, but she’ll get over it. You’ll see.” His words were comforting, but hard to believe. I clung to him, wanting him to squeeze all the bad feelings away, like he used to. But something deep in the back of my mind told me that even Adam couldn’t do that.
It hadn’t been an easy decision. To choose between your own mother, such a permanent fixture of your past, and your fiancé, such an impermanent part of your future, was near impossible. But in the end, Harper had decided for me. I knew that growing up without my mother had been too hard, and I didn’t want her to face the same reality, growing up without a father. Especially a father that would prove to be so loving and as devoted as Adam.
“God, you scared me,” he whispered after a few minutes. “I thought you were going to tell me you were leaving. I have no idea what I would do without you, Lainey. No idea.”
“I could never leave,” I told him, and meant it to the best of my ability. “I love you.”
He held me close, in the only lit room of that tiny house, holding our bodies as close together as they could possibly be. In a few weeks, it would be three of us.
My mind wandered to the past week, the sudden reappearance of Lila, the fear of getting to know her better, the uncertainty of it all. I thought back to all the moments where I saw myself in her, felt a common bond between us, despite all the years lost. I yearned for that, one last time, but knew it likely wouldn’t come. She’d dropped me off that night and didn’t say a word when I left the car. The relationship we’d formed in a week was over, almost as quickly as it had begun, and it was my fault. I had no idea how I was going to live with that, but I’d have to find a way.
“Do you regret it?” Adam asked, as if he could read my mind.
“No,” I replied almost immediately. Of course I didn’t regret it. I wouldn’t allow my child to live the same life I’d lived all those years, the confusion and pain that came along with not knowing both of your parents. I would never want her to blame me, or especially Adam, for giving her that life.
“Good,” he whispered, pulling me closer to him. “Good.”
But deep down, I was afraid maybe I might. The image of the toddler Harper was already fading from my mind, her white-blonde hair and sky blue eyes, her vibrant smile as she gazed lovingly from me to her grandmother. Three generations of one family, growing stronger together with each day that passed. That little girl was never going to exist now. Whoever Harper really turned out to be, would she be as happy as that little girl in my head?
I was afraid my mother was right, about Adam and I and the chances of our relationship not working out in the long run. I was afraid of marrying him, and equally afraid of not marrying him. I was afraid of what the future may hold, without anyone but Adam to protect me from it. I wanted to have confidence that I could protect myself, but I couldn’t. I didn’t even know where I was heading anymore.
Harper kicked hard, forcing me out of Adam’s arms. I laughed softly, an awkward sound, and he smiled a watery smile.
“I guess she isn’t much for family bonding time, huh?” He asked, placing a hand over my stomach, feeling her kicks.
“I guess not.”
“She’s happy about your decision, though. I can feel it.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Never leave me, Lainey. Promise.”
“I promise.” I’d promised him that a long time ago, and I’ve stayed true to it since. Now I had more of a reason than ever before, because there was no turning back. There was no changing my decision.
Despite Adam’s conviction that Lila would be back, full of apologies and promises to keep in touch, I knew she wouldn’t. She was gone already, even if she was in the same town. I hadn’t chosen her, the same as she hadn’t chosen me, and there was simply no going back from that. Only forward, and separately.
Chapter Forty-Three
I knew Lila was leaving, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the shock of her absence.
The next few weeks crawled by, with every day becoming a day to get through, to move forward. I felt sadder than I had in my entire life, but I didn’t know how to show it correctly, or if I even should. Julia tried to reach out to me, but I felt myself withdrawing from her, reluctant to accept the love I had once allowed her to give me.
Adam seemed to understand, even though I knew there was no possible way he actually could. Hannah seemed surprised she was gone, but didn’t ask questions. I felt more distant from her than I ever had before, adding to my burden.
It’s strange, how lonely being pregnant can really be. You’d think it would be the one time in your life when you didn’t feel alone, because you have someone with you, always. Someone moving inside of you, reminding you of their presence multiple times a day. Someone whose body grew with yours.
I didn’t know where to put the love I had been developing for Harper. It felt strange, feeling capable of loving someone you’d never even met. In so many ways, she still didn’t feel real to me. I could see the change in my body, so drastic compared to where I’d started out, and it should have been proof enough, but it wasn’t. I tried to imagine her a million different times, and each time she looked different.
The nursery furniture arrived the first day of June, a Saturday. It was exactly one week before Adam’s graduation, which only added to my stress. He acted fine, but somehow I knew he wasn’t. High school was almost over for him, and he was heading in a direction no other person from his graduating class was going. His best friend would be moving to the other side of the country in just a few months, and Adam would be staying here, with me. I felt guilty, but I didn’t tell him that. He had enough to deal with.
He and Ned picked up the furniture together, bringing it home in a truck Ned borrowed from one of his colleagues. It felt odd, seeing it all separate, ready to be put together and even odder when it was. I pulled a chair from the dining room into the nursery and watched as they put everything together, piece by piece, methodically. Adam was really good with it, which surprised me. Somehow he had remained the boy with the charming smile, even after nearly a year together. It was weird seeing him so concentrated, so focused on something that didn’t directly involve us and our relationship. Things had gotten so serious so fast.
A year, how it had flown by. One moment we were making out in the backseat of his car, still not at that next step in our relationship, and the next moment we were parents-to-be. All in the blink of an eye.
You’re t
old that all it takes is one time, but you never believe it. You tell yourself “it will never happen to me,” and somehow that rings true. Getting pregnant unplanned is something reserved for other people, anyone but yourself. But it doesn’t work that way, and once it does happen to you, your entire view on life is altered, changed. If this could happen, than anything could.
Adam left briefly at one point during the construction of the furniture, leaving Ned and I alone together in the room. It was quiet at first, and then Ned put down what he was working on, and turned to me, a serious look in his deep brown eyes, just a slight shade lighter than his son’s.
If Harper were to be a boy, I knew she’d look just like Adam, the way he looked so much like Ned. Would she look like me? The image of her that had been so clear weeks earlier at the dinner with Lila was faded more now than ever, and I had no idea. Maybe she wouldn’t look like either of us.
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother leaving, Lainey,” Ned said, breaking the silence., The sound of his voice made me freeze, momentarily. In the months I had lived in their house, and then behind it, I don’t think Ned and I have ever had a discussion beyond a request to pass something at the dinner table.
“It’s okay,” I told him, because that was the natural response. It wasn’t okay; not at all, and Ned seemed to know that.
“Do you think it would have been better if she’d never shown up at all?”
Surprisingly, no one had asked me that yet. “I don’t know,” I told him, and he seemed to get it.
“I know this hasn’t worked out exactly the way you might have hoped, Lainey. Obviously getting pregnant at this age isn’t something any rationally-minded person would want, but you’ve dealt with it, and I admire for you that, especially since you’ve lacked a lot of support from your family. But I want you to know, what Julia says – about you being a member of the family and all, is true for me, too. I just think you should know that.”
“I do,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper. I was afraid I might begin to cry again, but Ned broke off eye contact and I managed to control my emotions. “Thank you.”
The Consequences of Forever (Lainey) Page 34
