To Know You (9781401688684)

by Ethridge, Shannon (CON)

  Jack kissed her cheek, then headed for the foyer. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Right,” she said and followed him anyway.

  He opened the door to an attractive woman wrapped in a smart charcoal gray scarf, probably in her early forties. A girl stood behind her wearing jeans, a pink hoodie, and motorcycle boots.

  “Who are you?” Jack’s tone was starched. “You have a lot of nerve, posing as my wife’s mother. We don’t know you.”

  The floor seemed to tilt under Chloe’s feet. “She’s not posing, Jack.”

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Could I come in?” the woman said.

  “Certainly not.” Jack started to close the door.

  The woman stuck her hand—encased in a cast—into the door. She yelped in pain but didn’t move her hand, just kept saying, “Please, please let me explain.”

  “Chloe, call security,” Jack said.

  “No.” Chloe could see herself in the woman’s eyes. “Look, Jack, just look. She is my birth mother. And you . . .” She inched around his shoulder so she could get a better look at the girl. “. . . you must be my sister.”

  “Guilty as charged,” the girl said with a grin. “Guilty as charged.”

  Monday, 8:04 a.m.

  Jack roused their lawyer away from his breakfast to do a background check on this stranger who had barged into their lives.

  “Inherited money is more curse than blessing,” John Middlebrooks used to say. “It takes years to know whom you can trust. And even then . . .”

  The even then was always followed by a cautionary tale, which was why Mother was thrilled when Chloe began dating Jack Deschene. Serious, intelligent, focused—a young man with his own family money and a heart for Jesus.

  While they waited for Henry Metzler to arrive, Jack sat Julia down in the living room and offered her a cup of tea. The woman stared at Chloe so long that Jack whispered, “Can you give us some time alone? Maybe head over to school for a few hours.”

  “No.” She glanced at Julia, and at Destiny Connors. “Why would I want to do that?”

  My mother, my sister. How bizarre after all these years. How wonderful.

  Jack stepped so close that she couldn’t see the two women. “I need you to give me some time. Please.”

  Chloe stepped around him. “If you would excuse me . . . I have a couple things to attend to.”

  “Fabulous idea,” Destiny said. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I’d prefer you stayed here,” Jack said.

  Destiny ignored him, followed Chloe back into the foyer. Chloe liked that.

  “Does your boyfriend always order you out of the room like that?” Destiny said.

  “He’s my husband.”

  “How’s that? You’re younger than me, right? Seventeen months. April birthday, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re, like, twenty-two? Legal age and all that.”

  “I don’t drink,” Chloe said too quickly. That bottle of white wine was hidden in the kitchen, twenty feet away.

  “It’s been an intense twenty-four hours,” Destiny said. “So let’s go out, get some coffee.”

  I can make coffee, Chloe almost said and then thought, No. She had already dipped a toe into the unknown when Jack had opened the door to two strange women. Why not take a full step?

  Chloe slipped on a green cardigan. Grabbing her coat from the back hall, she tossed Destiny a jacket. Her sister was from Los Angeles and Julia Whittaker was from Dallas. That’s all that Jack would let them say until he’d consulted Henry.

  He’s blind. It’s clear as the sun in the sky that we’re all related.

  Jack must know that. He just didn’t know why they were here today. And he was right—better to be safe than scammed. But a sister . . . she had always wanted a sister. The Middlebrookses’ house was nearly a mansion and her footsteps had always sounded so empty.

  “Chloe.” Jack swung into the kitchen, phone in hand. “I think we should all stay put for a little while.”

  “We’re only going for coffee.” She flushed—how must this sound to Destiny?

  “I’ll bring her back in one piece,” Destiny said. “And I’ll buy the coffee.”

  Jack gave her a nod, turned back to Chloe. “Let’s take a little while to sort things out before we . . . share too much. Please.”

  “Sure,” Destiny said. “You’re the boss, Jack.”

  They took the back stairs, went through the parking lot, and crossed the grass in silence. The complex’s green space was more park than lawn, immaculately landscaped to create a barrier of privacy from the campus and the city.

  The brisk air was invigorating. Normally she and Jack would be in their cars with the windows up and heaters going, he off to some stimulating seminar and she going to the lab to pretend she really wanted to be a doctor instead of an engineer.

  It was soothing to see Christmas lights on the rhododendrons and to hear the rush-hour traffic beyond the barrier of fir trees.

  It was exhilarating to hear her sister’s footsteps clatter in time with her own.

  Chloe had been singular for so long. The only child. The lonely girl, too smart to really click with a group. The only woman Jack had ever loved. It was exciting to be part of something else. Jack had sniffed out that eagerness almost immediately. That was clear from the muscle jumping in his cheek. The background check was a stalling tactic until he could figure out what to do.

  Chloe had made her decision the second she left the condo with her sister.

  “It’s pretty here,” Destiny said. “We saw the campus on the drive from the airport. All I know about Duke is basketball, Coach K and all that. Luke likes to— Anyway, I see the games in March.”

  “Luke?”

  “Yesterday’s news. So you—twenty-two and already married? That’s radical.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can answer with more than one word,” Destiny said. “I won’t bite. And if I do, I don’t leave teeth marks.”

  “I’m still kind of stunned,” Chloe said. “I mean . . . I was heading out for school and bang! Here you are.”

  Destiny laughed. “I say bang all the time.”

  “I wonder . . .” They stopped at the crosswalk. Chloe pushed the walk button.

  Destiny grabbed her arm, jaywalked her across the street. “You wonder what else we do the same? Like The Parent Trap.”

  “I’ve never seen it.”

  “Here’s the pitch. Twins separated at birth by divorced parents meet at a summer camp, decide to switch places so they can get their folks back together. There’s this one scene where they stand side-by-side at a mirror.” Destiny stopped in front of a clothing store. Not open yet for the day, its windows were dark enough to offer a reflection of the cars passing on the street. “Like this.”

  “Too weird.”

  She tugged at Chloe. “That’s the fun of it. Look.”

  Chloe saw an instant resemblance in the shape of the faces and the eyes. Night and day personality-wise, something anyone could see. Destiny was like something out of a quirky comedy, with her hip clothes and edgy makeup. Chloe was the stereotypical prepschool girl who could pass for twelve instead of twenty-two.

  “She’s taller than us,” Destiny said.

  “She’s got to be pushing five ten. I always thought I was tall at five seven.”

  “Me too. Size two and trust me, I’m not bragging. I eat like an elephant, burn calories like a hummingbird.”

  “Lucky you. I have to pick and peck like a chicken to be this size,” Chloe said. Her sister—what an amazing thought sister was—shared the same body type, thin to almost skinny.

  “The women I work with would kill to have natural highlights like yours,” Destiny said.

  “What women? Are you a stylist?”

  “I make monsters.”

  “What?”

  “I do a lot of conceptual art for the studios. Sometimes get TV work when they’re looking
for some particularly freaky stuff. You?”

  “I’m a professional student. Jack doesn’t see either of us done with our various degrees until we’re thirty.”

  “Jack . . .” Destiny curled her lips into a tight smile. “He seems nice. And really, really tight. Which I guess he should be, given the circumstances.”

  “He is nice and he is very careful.” Why were nice and careful suddenly deficits? Why did just going out in the cold for a coffee with this girl feel like a betrayal? What would Mother think when she learned the birth mother had literally appeared out of nowhere?

  She should have warned Jack not to tell her.

  Destiny put her thumb under Chloe’s chin, tipped her head up. “I think we have her chin.”

  “I guess.” Chloe turned away. “Starbucks is on the next block.” She loved their coffee, wished Jack understood that it’s not a sin to do a little something for yourself.

  “So, Mrs. Professional Student. What’re you studying?”

  “Premed. So . . . cell biology, genetics, that kind of thing.”

  “Holy baloney.” Destiny smiled. “That will make our mummy proud.”

  Chloe turned and asked, “Why are you here? Really?”

  “Me? I didn’t have blood relatives until yesterday morning when Julia showed up at my house. When I found out I had a sister and she was coming to see you, I couldn’t resist hitching a ride on her private jet.”

  “But why now? What does she want?”

  “I promised not to say anything. She wants”—Destiny’s face darkened—“she wants to explain it herself.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “I honestly can’t answer that.” Destiny lowered her gaze. “I guess I was hoping we could figure that out together.”

  They settled into a Starbucks, Chloe with a black coffee and Destiny with a latté and a chocolate-chip muffin.

  “So?” Destiny tapped her arm. “You. Jack. Story?”

  “We are so boring, so conventional, I can say it in two sentences. You could say it was our destiny.”

  “Spare me the puns. Can you believe it? Who names their kid Destiny? Besides some teenage, single mom. So, back to you and Jack.”

  The hunger for each other had started at prep school, fueled by shadow kisses and passionate embraces. They had both pledged chastity, so Chloe or Jack would say stop, he more often than her. She was the weak one, unbuttoning his shirt and pressing her lips to his collarbone like a bird swooping in for prey. By the time they said their vows and finally made love, it felt anticlimactic—as if they had passed some perfect moment and not even realized it.

  The work, she told herself. The work came before the passion. They carried heavy academic loads, dreamed of lofty futures. Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. That had to be their passion now.

  “He was my high-school romance. We hung on into college. We’re both focused personalities and figured we’d better get married so we could concentrate on our studies.”

  “Focused personalities?” Destiny laughed. “Tell me about it. Your place looks like a showroom.”

  “It’s easier to clean up a mess immediately than let it linger,” Chloe said. “Ask Julia Whittaker about that.”

  Destiny stared at her. “Is that what you think we are to her? Lingering messes?”

  “Given I’ve only known about you for half an hour, I have no way to pose a theorem. Want to give me a hint?”

  “I can’t. I promised.”

  “At least tell me about our father.”

  “Oh, this is rich.” Destiny leaned over the table, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. “We have different fathers. Julia said your father is your story. I don’t know anything about him. Not yet, at least.”

  “And your father?” Chloe said.

  Destiny shrugged. “Same old, same old. Guy charms girl, guy beds girl, guy dumps girl.”

  “And Luke?”

  “Who said anything about Luke?”

  “You did,” Chloe said. “Your face did.”

  “Nothing to tell. Not anymore.” Destiny smiled. “So tell me how you ended up married already.”

  “Same old, same old,” Chloe said.

  Monday, 9:15 a.m.

  People weren’t dying fast enough. What a horrendous notion—that Julia had to pray for someone to die, and die soon—from head trauma. How God must despise her prayers.

  What would happen if Chloe refused to sit down with her, get to know her? That would be all the excuse Destiny needed to hop a plane back to Los Angeles, and Julia would have lost two precious days that she should be spending with Dillon. How odd—how heartless—that there wasn’t enough time or mercy or liver to go around.

  Matt was in a rare fury. “You gave them our social security numbers? And our bank accounts? What’s next—the 401(k)s?”

  “I gave them that as well.” Julia had returned to the Hilton and called her husband to ask that he help pray Destiny would be patient while all this financial and legal maneuvering took place. The background check would show how stable and reliable the Whittakers were.

  Except neither she nor Matt felt very steady right now.

  Dr. Annie had discharged Dillon from the hospital to wait for a liver. Matt had settled him in the family room with his electronics and multitude of medications that were palliative, not restorative. Their son was on the brink of catastrophic liver failure. If that happened, there would be no turning back.

  “Julia. I asked you a question.” Matt smiled wanly, his eyes unable to lie. As a man of measured action, this waiting ate at him. Jack Deschene clearly was a man of measured action as well. The two would probably get along fabulously.

  Julia pressed her fingertips to the screen. “They won’t let me talk with Chloe until they do a background check.”

  “They couldn’t just get one of those generalized checks—the kind we have to do to teach Sunday school? Why do we have to lay bare our financials before them?”

  “Honey. That takes at least two weeks. Does . . .” The thought Does Dillon even have that long? jammed in her throat. The screen flashed a soft blue as Matt pressed the phone to his chest. She could almost hear his heart pound.

  If only they had a liver for Dillon today.

  If only Chloe or Destiny were a match.

  If only one of her daughters could show amazing grace.

  If only, God. If only You would show mercy or at least show Your face. Are You afraid I’ll punch You? Would that jar You into action to save my baby?

  “It’s okay, love.” Matt’s voice was low, soothing. “I gave them everything they asked for. And then some. It’ll be okay.”

  “Nothing’s okay. You know it and I know it. No one in their right mind would even consider this. Chloe doesn’t know, Destiny is pretending I never asked, and this Jack Deschene is so controlling, I want to shake him.”

  “What’s your impression of Chloe?”

  “She doesn’t strike me as a girl who is used to making her own decisions.”

  “So we have to consider: are you wasting your time in North Carolina?”

  Julia shrugged, groaned as she shifted her hand. The long-lasting numbing agent the surgeon had injected had begun to wear off. “What choice do I have? We have to play this out, if only for the opportunity for Destiny to get used to . . . to . . .”

  “The weirdness of it all?”

  She laughed. “You do realize that it’s a miracle that she agreed to hop a plane with me? And given what . . . ah . . . reserved people the Deschenes are, it’s a miracle that they let me in the door.”

  “There’s our hope. Hold on to those two small miracles and wait for the big one.”

  And if it didn’t come? Julia couldn’t go back to the way she used to be, that hollowed-out shell. Losing Tom and giving up Destiny had seemed like the end of the world. Losing Chloe had been the end of herself.

  After that adoption, God trickled back into her life like sunlight under the door. Julia pressed her face to the floor of he
r soul and let love creep over her until she was ready to love God again.

  Now Jesus was like a receding tide with not enough ebb to pull her along. She pressed the phone to her cheek, closed her eyes. “Pray for me, Matt. Please.”

  “Heavenly Father, you promise in your Word that by your Son’s stripes we will be healed. May our son become living proof of that promise.”

  Monday, 9:45 a.m.

  This whole thing is like something out of the twilight zone.

  Julia, the organ-grabbing bio-mom. Chloe, the convention-clinging new sister. Jack, the gargoyle snarling at the gate.

  That’s your problem, Mom used to say. It’s all a story for you, all an opportunity for embellishment and revision.

  And the Bible isn’t? Destiny would throw back at her. Tell that to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, and all the -ites that Joshua wiped out. Dude, historical revisionism is the stuff contemporary righteousness rides on.

  Chloe had gone back to her place to await Jack’s permission to meet with her birth mother. She had insisted it would be a decision they made together. Out of deference to their newfound sisterhood, Destiny had swallowed her snort and refused their lawyer’s offer of a ride to the hotel. The hike to the Hilton was three miles of shops and restaurants, of brisk air and holiday lights.

  The perfect way to clear her head.

  The perfect place for the crazies to sneak in.

  Like that urban myth of people who woke up in bathtubs filled with ice and discovered their kidneys had been cut out of their bodies. Destiny framed the scene in her mind. Start with a long shot of white, chipped tile. Slowly sweep to the open door. Beyond, a bed and bloody sheets. Keep moving to the sink, green mold on the faucets and blood stains on the porcelain.

  Follow a trickle of mildew at midheight until a hand comes into view. Slumped at the wrist, the skin is stark white. Until the little finger flutters.

  What a shock. What a cliché.

  Destiny rubbed her back as if she could feel that crudely stitched slash of bloody tissue, that feeling of something vital missing. Her phone rang.

  Luke. Right. Something vital missing.

  This was his third call, following a couple of where R U texts that she had ignored.