Sealed With a Kiss

by Gwynne Forster

  “Naomi, don’t leave like this. Half an hour ago, you were making love to me; in seconds, we’d have been on that carpet.”

  No. She couldn’t leave him again without an explanation—something. “I know. Rufus, please. Someday you’ll understand. It isn’t you; it’s me, and I’m trying not to do any more damage than I already have. When I know where I’m going, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Everything.”

  He looked off, stuck his hands in his pockets, and gave his expensive Persian carpet a good kick. “Just tell me this. Is there a man involved?”

  She hesitated for a second; technically, there was a male involved. “No. There’s no man. I couldn’t have made love with you if there had been.”

  He relaxed visibly. “That’s what I thought. All right. I’ll try to be patient, but I can’t stay in limbo indefinitely, so do whatever it is you have to do. And thanks, Naomi. Your being here these days has meant everything to me.”

  She got home and looked at her watch. Too late to call her grandfather, so she’d have to wait until morning. She took a shower and prepared for bed, feeling even lonelier than when she’d been passing time in that clinic. She slept fitfully, awakened early, and phoned Judd. Resigned, he gave her what she wanted, and at eight o’clock precisely, she telephoned Rosalie Hopkins.

  Chapter 13

  Naomi’s hand hung heavily over the phone. If she took that step, she could never undo it. She couldn’t banish her anxiety, the certainty that she was shadow-boxing with fate, and she withdrew her hand. Her mind wandered back to those moments out of time when Rufus lay above her, completely vulnerable to her, the light in his eyes telling her that she was precious to him. No, she shouldn’t focus on that; she’d heard that you couldn’t rely on what men said and did in the heat of passion. But she couldn’t forget how Preston and Sheldon had tugged at her hands and clothes, kissing and hugging her at will, behaving as though they owned her. And she remembered the tears in her grandfather’s old eyes when he spoke so touchingly of his beloved Hazel and his abiding love for her after forty years.

  Could she have that with Rufus? Not unless she took this first step—and maybe never. With or without him, she had to know her son. For half her life, she had let fear control her, cause her to pass up the pleasures that belonged only to the young, make her brittle when it was against her nature. Not anymore. Somewhere she had read, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” She squared her shoulders, punched the numbers, and waited.

  “Hopkins residence, Rosalie Hopkins speaking.” Naomi shuddered, feeling as though the bottom had dropped out of her stomach.

  “This is Naomi Logan. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me. Mind if I ask why?” The woman’s gratitude for having received the call was unmistakable.

  “Miss Logan,” Rosalie Hopkins began, “my son has become adamant about meeting his birth parents. He’s a good boy, but he’s become so obsessed with it that it’s affected his behavior at home, his school grades, even his interest in school. So I decided to take a chance before it’s too late and I lose him to the streets.”

  The woman’s perfectly natural reference to the boy as her son cut Naomi to the quick, but she fought off the pain. “Where is your husband, Mrs. Hopkins?” The woman told her that she was a widow, but that her son’s identity crisis hadn’t begun until one of his classmates, who was also adopted, had met his biological father and seen himself in the man. Father and son had since become very close.

  “So my Aaron got the idea that he was missing something, and he can’t seem to think of anything else.”

  Naomi didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. She sucked in her breath; it was no longer a matter of “the boy” or “the child”; her son had a name—Aaron. She wanted to repeat it until it became a part of her. She brought her mind back to the conversation.

  “Mrs. Hopkins, I’m sure your private investigator told you about Aaron’s father.”

  “Please call me Rosalie. Yes, he did. I’m sorry, Naomi; that must have been terrible for you. After we found out, Aaron was more anxious than ever to see you. I want you to know that if for any reason you don’t want to meet us, I’ll just drop it, because I don’t want to interfere with your life. But our PI said you weren’t married, so I thought I’d try.”

  At noon the next day, Naomi sat at a corner table in a restaurant near her studio, waiting for Rosalie Hopkins. Her sudden desire to get on with the meeting was in sharp contrast to the feelings of dread and fear that had dogged her earlier. She’d gained courage and strength from her determination to swallow whatever medicine she got without complaining. She was going to see her son, and that was worth whatever price she had to pay, even the price of losing Rufus. Her heart pounded furiously when she thought of him. She had promised to tell him the truth, and she would, no matter the cost; he deserved to hear it.

  She liked the woman on sight. About forty, she surmised, intelligent and friendly. She learned that her son’s adoptive mother worked as a head operating-room nurse and that before she’d been widowed, she’d had a happy marriage. To Naomi’s surprise and barely suppressed terror, Rosalie suggested she bring Aaron to meet Naomi Sunday afternoon. Two days. Just two short days.

  Naomi viewed her apparent calm as a new kind of hysteria. It started Sunday morning, when she began a minute-by-minute countdown while she waited for them. Fourteen years of consternation: concern about exposure and social censure; apprehension at getting close to a man who liked her or who she might have liked; and once she learned of the possibility of meeting her son, worry about her future relationship with him. Now she would see him, but she was afraid he would hate her.

  Tentacles of painful uneasiness flashed throughout her body as the sharp, staccato peals of the doorbell startled and unnerved her. Calm down, girl, she warned herself, as she walked unsteadily to the door, rested her hand on the knob, uttered a prayer, and made herself open it. A powerful surge of happiness rocked her and her heart raced in her chest when she looked into her son’s face for the first time. He was tall and handsome, and except for his light complexion, his features proclaimed his Logan genes. She saw in him her large, wide-set brown eyes, thick, curly hair, beautifully shaped mouth, and strong chin. Nearly breathless with emotion, she grasped the door for support and summoned her natural calm as an indescribable joy threatened to overwhelm her.

  Rosalie spoke first. “Naomi, this is Aaron.” Naomi didn’t move her gaze from her son’s face; when she opened her mouth to speak, no words came. Rosalie stepped forward, ushering them into the apartment, draped her arm around Aaron’s waist, and gave him a light nudge. But he made no outward response, merely gazed at the woman who’d given him birth.

  “I think it would be best if I left the two of you alone,” Rosalie said, and stepped around to Aaron’s side. “Remember what I told you. This is what you wanted, but if you find you’ve made a mistake, you’ll still have learned something. I’ll be at home, so call me if you need me.” He nodded without taking his gaze from Naomi. Rosalie inclined her head to Naomi, her expression one of sympathy. “I don’t know how to thank you, Naomi. We’ll be in touch.” Naomi looked toward Rosalie as she walked out and closed the door. She struggled to control the wild skittering of her nerves now that she was alone with her son.

  Aaron began to fidget, and she realized that her reaction to seeing him had made him uneasy. Her struggle to smile was rewarded when he seemed to relax and tossed off a nod of his head.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Aaron.” Somehow, a simple hello was too banal greeting, too far removed from her fierce urge to wrap him in her arms, to hold him to her heart. To lay claim to her right as his mother. But she had no right. She fell back on the control that she had drilled into herself for fourteen years. He walked in and looked around with pretended casualness. He was neither hostile nor friendly, she
decided, just a nervous adolescent who was facing a major crisis and feigning nonchalance. What an actor, she thought, mildly amused.

  He glanced slowly around, seeming to take in everything. Then he stopped and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. They silently appraised each other.

  “So how’s everything?” It was a stunt she might have pulled at about his age. But she was going to start their relationship right. She was the adult, and she knew that no matter how tempting it might be to court his goodwill, she had to set the tone of their relationship. She felt older than her years, but she strove to reply in a motherly manner.

  “Not so good, Aaron. Not with me and not with you. So I’ll get us a couple of sodas, and we’ll sit down and talk. I’m going to answer any question that you have about me, no matter how badly it hurts, and I hope you’re prepared to do the same.”

  “Why should it hurt?” She was surprised that his voice had already changed. Somehow, it made talking with him more difficult; almost as if she was dealing with a man rather than a child.

  She stared at him in amazement; he had a lot of chutzpa, but so did she. “Is that a serious question, or are you being fresh?”

  Aaron cocked his head to one side, looked hard at the woman who’d given him birth, and must have decided to back down. She was slightly unnerved by his laconic reply.

  “Fresh. Where do you want to sit?” She decided that it was best to be informal and told him to walk with her to the kitchen. Walking ahead of him, she wondered why she wasn’t nervous. He pulled out two kitchen chairs, plopped down in one, and put his feet, legs crossed, in the other.

  Naomi recognized the challenge. Her work at OLC had prepared her for any stunt a teenager could conceive of. She walked over and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder, tempering discipline with tenderness.

  “Your feet belong on the floor, Aaron. Which one of us is going to put them there?” he put them on the floor and looked up at her to see what effect he’d gotten. Satisfied that she was unimpressed, he apologized. She gave him a Coke and got a ginger ale for herself.

  “Got any ice-cream?”

  She smiled, remembering her first meeting with Preston and Sheldon. “Vanilla. Would you like some?”

  “Could you put it in a big glass? I’d like to make a shake with it.” Spiraling warmth seeped through her, commencing a process of healing that had long been denied her. Even that little piece of information about him was precious. He finished it quickly, and she made another one in the blender and, to his delight, topped it with a slice of candied ginger.

  When were they going to get down to business? She was afraid to ask why he wanted to meet her; after all, it was natural that he would. She was considering her next move when the telephone rang.

  “He’s right here,” she told her grandfather, for once, thankful for his interference. “Maybe he’d like to speak with you. I’ll ask him.”

  Aaron was beside her before she could ask him. “Who is it? Who do I want to speak with?”

  She took a deep breath, looked steadily into eyes that were identical to hers, and told him, “Your great-grandfather.”

  His mouth hung open and his eyes became enormous in an astonishingly close resemblance to her father when he had been surprised. “My what?” She repeated it.

  “That’s your grandfather?” She nodded.

  “How old is he?” She told him that Judd would be ninety-five within a few weeks.

  “Well, I’ll be…” He caught himself and reached for the phone, still wearing a stunned expression on his youthful, handsome face. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Hi ya, Gramps. Where? Alexandria? Come on! That’s across the world, man.” A long pause ensued.

  “Uh…” He frowned, as though displeased. “Uh…no, sir. Sorry, sir. I’ll ask her, sir. Me, too. Goodbye, sir.” She didn’t need to have heard the other side of the conversation; Judd was Judd, and Aaron had needed exactly what his great-grandfather had given him—a good verbal spanking.

  Aaron hung up and looked anxiously at Naomi. “Guess I blew that, didn’t I? He’s strict, huh?” She risked laying a hand on his shoulder and her heart fluttered with joy as she realized he didn’t mind if she touched him.

  “He was strict with me, too,” she explained, “but he loves me. He raised me from the time I was seven so for most of my life, there’s only been Grandpa and me.”

  Aaron digested her words—thoroughly, it seemed—and Naomi began to realize that he wasn’t as frivolous as he had at first appeared, though he certainly had her talent for flippancy.

  “You didn’t have any brothers or sisters?” She shook her head. “You got any other children?” She closed her eyes briefly in a prayer of thanks: he had acknowledged that he was her child. Again, she shook her head.

  “So how come you’re not married? You’re real pretty.”

  Naomi took her son by the hand and walked toward the living room, where she could face him while she spoke. She needed to know his reaction to her every word. But Aaron must have sensed that he was about to hear what he came for, because he began to drag his feet, walking almost as if she was pulling him. And in a sense, she was. She was pulling them both, because they were both scared. He backed up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I forgot my shake.”

  Naomi took his hand, hurting for him and for herself; she had to pay the piper, and this young boy had to deal with the secrets he had unsealed and the painful wounds he’d opened.

  “You’ve already finished your soda. Come on. I know this won’t be easy for either of us. Sit down, Aaron.” He sat across from her, dropped his head for a moment, and when he raised it, his eyes blazed with defiance. The intensity of his emotion stunned her and she stared, riveted by his hostility, and the honesty with which he expressed it. She admired him for it.

  “Okay, why aren’t you married?”

  What on earth was he thinking? “I loved your father, Aaron,” she told him, earning his smile and relieving the tension. She related truthfully what had happened, careful not to turn him against Judd.

  “I haven’t married,” she want on, “because I didn’t believe that a man would understand and accept what I’ve just told you, so I discouraged men who liked me and avoided a man if I began to like him until…”

  “Until what?” He leaned forward, eyes narrowed, as if waiting to pounce.

  “We’ll get to that later. Right now, I have to finish this.” She told him what her life had been like from the time she knew she’d conceived him. “A little over two months ago,” she explained, “I learned that you wanted to find your birth parents. Until then, I hadn’t known whether I’d had a girl or a boy. I hadn’t been allowed to see my baby, because the counselors at the clinic believed that if I bonded with you, I wouldn’t give you up. I wasn’t even awake during the birth. I didn’t want the adoption, but I couldn’t hold out against their logic that it was best for the baby.

  “About the time I learned that Rosalie was looking for me, I met a man who slipped through the wall I’d built around me, even as this news about you tore me into shreds.” She told him of wanting to see him; to get to know him; to learn whether he was loved, well cared for, and happy; and of her certainty that the man with whom she was falling in love—the first to touch her in fourteen years—would not accept her having given a child up for adoption.

  She flinched at the scorn in his voice when he interrupted her. “But you just said you didn’t want to give me up for adoption.”

  “And I didn’t. But how could I prove it to him? Besides, my friend suffered personally from parental inattentiveness, and so have his little twin sons. He’s bitter about parents who don’t take care of their children.”

  Aaron leaned back against the sofa, obviously drin
king in her every word and gesture. “Is he in love with you?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed painfully. “I know he cares, but he hasn’t said he loves me.” The low quiver in her voice betrayed her growing distress, and she struggled to control it.

  The boy’s ability to wait patiently for her words, to sit quietly and think, to mull over what she’d said before responding, unnerved her. How was it possible that he had her personality when he had lived for over thirteen years without ever having seen her? The eerie quality of it made her shudder.

  He rested his left elbow on the back of the sofa, propped the back of his head up with his hand, and told her sympathetically, “Looks to me like you should just tell him. If he can’t handle it, find yourself a guy who can.” He could have been speaking to a child. “Do you like his kids?” She nodded.

  The diffidence was gone, along with his nervousness. She knew with certainty then that he was old beyond his years, and as he sat there coolly sizing her up, she felt pride in him, pride tinged with a little gnawing fear. Was he capable of harsh revenge?

  Aaron crossed his right knee and began swinging his foot. “You planning to tell him about me, or you just going to chicken out and pretend that me and him don’t exist?” This child had a man’s mind, Naomi realized, and tried to imagine the kind of life he’d had. It didn’t seem as though he’d spent much of it being a child.

  “I promised him that he and I would have a frank talk, and I keep my promises.” Had she gotten through to him, made him understand the circumstances of his birth well enough to forgive her and at least like her?

  He didn’t keep her in suspense. “I listened to what you said, but I can’t buy it. You didn’t say anybody forced you to have me adopted, so you agreed to it—right?”