Reunion Beach

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “God rest her soul,” Kristina said, succinctly closing that memory. She looked at Ann’s face, finding comfort in the compassion she found there.

  “And now you’re free to find your birth mother.”

  “Right. And here I go,” Kristina said, mustering enthusiasm. “I left you a list of instructions for the cat,” she told Ann, walking to the long granite kitchen counter that was open to the living room. The large window over the sink overlooked the small park and allowed sunlight to flow into the cramped space. “And here’s the vet’s phone number.”

  “I’m sure we won’t need it. I’m all set. How about you? Do you have everything? They say you should bring pictures of you growing up.”

  “I have a few baby pictures. That’s enough, I think.” She huffed. “I don’t want to show the others . . . with me so sick. I don’t think I’m ready to go into all that just yet.”

  “I get that. It’d have to be hard for the birth mother to realize you were placed in such an abusive home. You want this to be a joyous reunion,” Ann said, throwing her hands up in party mode. “And you’ll be at the beach! Isle of Palms. Lucky you. Sure you don’t want me to come along?”

  Kristina laughed and shook her head, sending her hair falling forward. She promptly tucked it back. “I’m sure. You have to watch Minnie. Besides, it could be a nightmare. You know my luck with mothers. Don’t be surprised if you see me back tomorrow night.”

  “Don’t be negative. It’ll be nice.” Ann smirked. “I mean, your birth mother can’t be worse than your adopted mother.”

  Kristina made a face. “Who could?” She put out her hands in a calming motion. “She’s nice,” she declared. Then let her hands drop. “From what I could tell on the phone, anyway.”

  “What’s she like?”

  Kristina’s eyebrows rose. “Gee, I don’t know much. She’s retired. She was a teacher. Of biology. Oh, she loves books, too,” she said with pleasure. “You know how I’m drawn to books about water. I was a mermaid fanatic when I was young. I found out we have that in common.”

  “Does she have any other children? Like, will you have half brothers and sisters?”

  “No. She said she never married.”

  Ann lifted a finger to her brain in a gesture of Aha! “So that’s where you get it from.” Ann laughed. “Genetics will out.”

  Kristina blushed. “I don’t think being single is on anyone’s DNA.”

  “I wonder if she looks like you.”

  Kristina’s eyes widened. That was what she most wanted to know. “I know, right? All my life I wondered who I looked like. I hear people say they have their dad’s chin, or they look just like their grandmother. I never knew my adopted father, but from photos he didn’t look at all like me. Deborah was a redhead with brown eyes. When I looked in the mirror, I saw this blond hair and blue eyes.”

  “You have beautiful eyes.”

  Kristina smiled, grateful for the compliment. “And Deborah’s a husky woman. Me? I’m skinny with as much shape as a toothpick.”

  “Stop. You’re not. I’d kill to be as thin as you.”

  Kristina rolled her eyes. She knew her kind of thin was never photographed in fashion magazines. “Be careful what you wish for. And by the way,” she made a face. “I’ve heard the whispers that some people think I have an eating disorder.”

  “Not from me!” Ann said, aghast.

  “Not from you. But still. You can tell them from me that no matter how much I eat—and I eat a very healthy diet—I never can gain the weight.”

  “Fast metabolism?”

  She shook her head. “I’m a librarian. I spend my days reading. Maybe I take a walk a few times a week but that’s it. No, I believe it’s because of the many years of near starvation I had to live through at the hands of my mother. She wanted me to look thin and ill,” she explained, then released a short laugh of scorn. “Not a diet I’d recommend to anyone.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Kristina shrugged it off. “It’s all history now. You know, I used to like to watch television as a kid,” Kristina added. “I was obsessed with family shows, comedies and dramas, I loved them all. I’d watch and critique the casting based on whether family members looked alike.” She crossed her arms, remembering. “It was my pet peeve if they didn’t. Silly, I know, but I was always looking for those family-inherited qualities.”

  “I’m looking more and more like my grandmother. The way she looks now! She’s seventy-two.”

  Kristina laughed, grateful for Ann’s sense of humor.

  “Seriously,” Ann said with concern. “Do you know what you’re going to ask her? Like . . . why she gave you up? Don’t you wonder?”

  “Of course I wonder. What child wouldn’t?” She puffed out a plume of air. “Truth be told, I already did ask her. When we talked on the phone,” she explained, seeing the surprise on Ann’s face. “Elinor, that’s her name, told me that she was young when she found out she was pregnant. Still in high school. It happened with her boyfriend. Back then, girls didn’t have as many choices as they do now. Her parents sent her away to have the baby”—she spread out her hands—“me. They didn’t want any gossip.”

  “Aren’t you just a little bit angry that she gave you up?”

  “Angry?” Kristina shook her head in wonder. “No, not at all. It’s funny, but I always knew she loved me. That she was looking for me. Even when I was very young, I never doubted it. Don’t ask me how. I just . . . felt it.”

  “But to give you up.”

  “She did the only thing she could,” Kristina said, feeling the need to defend her birth mother. “Think about it. She went through nine months of pregnancy, alone and far away from home. Then labor and delivery. Who does that unless there’s love? She told me that placing me for adoption was the most selfless act of love she’d ever done. Because she wanted me to have a better life.”

  Ann snorted. “But look where you ended up.”

  Kristina’s lips tightened and she shook her head. “She couldn’t have known that. She thought I’d been given to a good family. That I’d been happy. And besides, I didn’t realize how horrible my life was when I was little. It was all I knew.” She shrugged in a that’s life kind of way.

  “You can’t be so nice all the time. So forgiving,” cried Ann. “Deborah was nuts! She gave you pills to make you sick. There’s a name for what she did to you. Munchausen by Proxy.”

  Kristina held up her hand, feeling herself shut down. “Stop. Please, Ann. I can’t go through all this now. That’s my past. I survived. It’s over and buried. Right now, I’m trying to garner up the courage to meet my birth mother. My future. I have to believe it’s going to be better.”

  Ann rushed over to put her arms around Kristina, engulfing her frail frame. “It will be. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have dug into all that. I just care about you so much. I want to protect you from ever getting hurt again.”

  Kristina sniffed and said with exaggeration, “You can’t.”

  “I can try.” Ann released her and stepped back a bit self-consciously. “But hey, you’re right,” she said, striving for levity. “This will be a wonderful day. You deserve this to be the happiest day of your life.”

  Kristina spoke in a choked voice. “I just want the chance to tell her that I’ve loved her all my life. And maybe, just maybe, hear that she loved me.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear.” Ann pulled back her hair into her hands, her smile ripe with encouragement. “Now you’d better go. You know how Atlanta traffic can get. You don’t want to be late.”

  Kristina sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Yeah.” She grabbed her snack bag from the counter, walked a straight path to her suitcase, then took a final sweep of the room. She was struck with the sudden realization that her life would be changed when she returned to her apartment. For a moment she couldn’t move.

  Then she felt the soft fur of Minnie’s coat rubbing against her bare leg, heard the gentle, reassuring pur
r. She bent and gave her cat a gentle pat. Then straightening, Kristina took her first step.

  * * *

  Kristina counted the miles as knots of tension formed in her shoulders. The past three hours felt like thirty and there were two more hours to go. She shifted her weight in the seat of the cheap rental car and reached for her water bottle. This journey had turned out to be a test of her endurance. The highway was one long stretch of cement road bordered by acres of sunburned grass, scrubby trees, and countless billboards. The August sun was relentless and no matter how cold she set the air conditioner, the car couldn’t stay cool. She’d tried listening to one of the many audiobooks she’d downloaded, but the onslaught of memories was so unrelenting she couldn’t follow the storylines. She gave up and turned on the radio. Why did Ann have to bring up her childhood? It was like opening Pandora’s box. She couldn’t keep the memories away.

  She drove past one of several small Southern towns in the middle of nowhere down on its luck. A few red-bricked buildings sat boarded up, a derelict train station with no passengers. A water tower with chipping paint.

  The sight brought to mind the water tower that was visible from her bedroom window in the Gwinnett house she grew up in. She used to sit and stare out at it and wonder what kind of courage it would take to climb up to the very top and holler at the top of her lungs. What would that kind of freedom feel like?

  Kristina was near thirteen when new neighbors moved in next door. That summer her attention had shifted from the water tower to the new kid who shot baskets in the hoop set over the garage door. He was thin, like her. His bony knees were prominent under his khaki shorts. He usually wore a ball cap with the Georgia Bulldogs logo on it, but he’d take if off from time to time to wipe the sweat from his brow, revealing dark brown hair cut so short he looked like one of those Holocaust survivors she’d read about. But he sure had energy. He practiced for hours on end, shooting one basket after another. Her mother complained that the constant thumping of the ball was driving her crazy. Kristina grew to love the sound. Whenever she heard it, she’d smile, knowing the boy was just outside. She’d go to the window, set her chin in her palm, and watch and wonder why he didn’t have friends play the game with him. Wondered, too, if he was as lonely as she.

  The Hurst backyard was a postcard-size patch of mowed weeds surrounded by a rusting chain-link fence. Not a single tree or bush prettied up the plot. Neighbors had complained about how Mrs. Hurst didn’t paint the chipping house trim or fix up the yard a bit to make it more respectable. They declared the Hurst house was an eyesore in the neighborhood. When a group from the neighborhood Woman’s Club came calling to discuss the matter with Mrs. Hurst, her mother had gone on a cleaning frenzy with Kristina. They scrubbed the living room and her mother made a fresh pot of coffee. After the women arrived, Deborah rolled Kristina out into the living room in her wheelchair.

  Kristina laughed to herself at the memory. Boy did their tunes change. Once they saw the “poor, crippled adopted girl,” all thin and pale with that pitiful Buster Brown haircut, they crooned their apologies and praised Deborah Hurst for being a saint, taking care of an invalid child all on her own. From that day forward they showered them with Christian kindness by sending casseroles, boxes of homemade cookies, holiday gifts, and their husbands with paintbrushes and mowers in tow.

  Except, Kristina could walk. Her mother told her she needed to stay in her wheelchair to save her strength on account she might collapse. She’d insisted Kristina use the wheelchair whenever she was in public. One never knew when one of her “bouts” might strike. And Kristina did feel poorly much of the time.

  She’d grown up believing she had the best mother in the world. What other mother would selflessly dote on her, fix her special diets, take her to endless doctor appointments, and carefully dole out the many medicines she was given daily? Her mother told her that because she had an immune disease, she couldn’t go to school, or have friends, or even go out in public often. Germs were everywhere and they could kill her. Kristina believed her implicitly and stayed indoors.

  The summer she turned thirteen, watching the boy next door play basketball sent her thoughts spinning. If she had been four years old when she spied the neighbor boy, or even eight, Kristina might’ve stayed at that window and kept wondering about him. But Kristina was thirteen and her hormones were coursing through her body, giving her the courage to brush her hair, put on her best dress, and walk out to the backyard to say hello.

  His name was Joe. He was so thin she could see the veins protruding in his arms. And bruises. He said any bump caused one. She liked the way his dark brown hair had a cowlick where he parted it, and the dreamy way he blinked his eyes. At first, Joe was as shy as she was. But being neighbors somehow removed the veil of unfamiliarity and they struck up a conversation. He asked her why she was not in her wheelchair. She told him she guessed she was getting better. She asked him why he was alone so much. He told her he had leukemia. He couldn’t go to school any longer for fear of infection.

  “Why, we’re alike,” she had told him with awe mixed with wonder. She quickly went on to explain about her own immune disease. Instantly, they’d shared a bond.

  It wasn’t long before Kristina was utterly and completely in love for the first time. She bloomed with color and felt so much better. She started to pretend to dutifully take the medicine her mother offered, then spit it out and flushed the pills down the toilet. The medicine made her feel sleepy and she wanted to be awake in the afternoons to talk with Joe.

  Joe liked her, too. He told her so on their fourth meeting at the fence. Her heart thumped so fast she was sure she was having one of her bouts. But she wasn’t. In fact, the bouts had stopped completely. She didn’t feel sick at all. Joe told her sometimes a child could grow out of an immune disease.

  “You might be one of the lucky ones,” he told her.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky, too.”

  A sad smile crossed his face, one without malice or regret. “No, that card’s not in my deck. But you? Why not?”

  Kristina listened, and pondered his words. Imagine, no longer being sick and isolated. Living a normal life. Could that be possible? Hope filled her like a balloon with helium. She felt she was floating up the stairs to the back door. She rushed inside and followed the sound of the television to the living room, where Deborah was reclined in an easy chair, eating popcorn.

  “Mother,” Kristina began, near breathless with the excitement. She always called Deborah mother. Not mom, mommy, or mama. “I just heard the most exciting news.”

  Her mother kept her eyes glued to the television. “Oh yeah? Now what’s that?”

  “That sometimes, a child can outgrow an immune disease. Do you think that could happen to me? I mean, I’m feeling so much better. Really, I am. Maybe we could go to the doctor and ask him. Maybe I could even go to school.”

  Kristina felt the grin that stretched across her face freeze as she watched her mother’s reaction. Rather than joy, Deborah stared back at Kristina, dazed, slack jawed. Then her face began to flush and contort into a macabre mask of fury. She leaped from her chair, upsetting the bowl, and sending popcorn flying.

  “You ungrateful child!” she screamed with rage, pointing her finger accusingly. “Horrible girl. I wish I’d never adopted you. From the moment I took you home you’ve been nothing but a disappointment and hardship. All your life. Where would you be if not for me? Your mother didn’t want you. I took you in. I made you my daughter. Don’t you care how you hurt me?”

  Kristina took a step back, confused. “I never meant . . .”

  “I’ve slaved for you. Spent every penny I have on your medicine. I save nothing for myself. Look at this dress! It’s five years old. I had a good figure, once. Good hair. I was quite a catch.” She speared Kristina with a sharp look. “I gave up everything for you. Even my husband. He never wanted you,” she said accusingly, pushing her digit out toward her. “You’re the reason he left me.”

&
nbsp; Kristina shrank back, stung by this new accusation.

  “But did I hold it against you?” She shook her head so hard she lost her balance. “No! You were my sweet, adopted baby girl. I swore I’d take care of you. And I did. Didn’t I?” she cried. “Didn’t I take good care of you? Better than anyone else could.” She side-swiped her nose then added with derision, “Better than you deserved.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought you’d be happy I’m feeling better.”

  Deborah frowned and patted the pockets of her housedress. Finding them empty, she turned heel and paced the room in search of her cigarettes. Kristina crossed her arms tightly across her chest, warily watching her, waiting for the next outburst.

  At last she found them, lit one, took a deep drag. Then, exhaling, she turned her head and eyed Kristina with undisguised suspicion.

  “Who told you that crap about growing out of your immune disease?”

  Kristina’s throat tightened around her lie. “No one. I read it.”

  “Where?”

  “Uh, maybe it was on the news. Or on the television.” She rubbed her arm. “I . . . I don’t remember.”

  “Hmmm.” Her mother took another drag from her cigarette.

  In the deathly silence, Kristina heard the thud of a basketball hitting the net. She closed her eyes tight, groaning inwardly. Deborah sauntered closer to the back window, and with one finger, lifted a slat of the blinds to stare out. After a minute she let the blind snap back and spun around to face Kristina, her dark eyes blazing.

  “You’ve been talking to that boy.”

  “No. Well, maybe a little, but not, you know, talking.”

  “How dare you! You broke my strictest rule,” her mother shouted. Her face had once again taken on the crimson hue of fury as she pointed her digit and pounded out the words inches from her face. “You are not allowed to talk to strangers.”