Emily, Gone

by Bette Lee Crosby

  There was another lengthy silence, but when Kenny finally spoke his voice was softer and more forgiving.

  “You’re not the only one who believed Vicki,” he said. “I did also. At first I really thought she was on the up and up, but after I saw that box with nothing but a bunch of her clothes in it, I suspected there was something more to the story.”

  “You didn’t say anything . . .”

  “Yeah, I know. By then Lara was—what—ten or twelve years old? For God’s sake, she was our daughter; what could I do?”

  Although he acknowledged the wrong of what had been done, Kenny was slow to accept that the Dixons needed to get to know the child they had given birth to.

  “We don’t even know these people! How can we be certain Lara’s safe there with a bunch of strangers?”

  Angela gave a barely audible chuckle. “Remember how I used to say Lara’s personality was nothing like her mama’s?” she asked. And then without waiting for an answer, she said, “Well, I was wrong. She’s exactly like her mama.” She went on to say that Rachel was a generous and kindhearted woman who wanted only what was best for her child.

  “But we are what’s best,” Kenny argued.

  By the time Angela told how Lara had a brother and sister she needed to get to know, Kenny ran out of arguments and agreed to come to Hesterville for the weekend.

  “If it will make things easier for Lara, then I’ll do it,” he said reluctantly.

  “That’s precisely why you should be doing it,” she replied.

  That evening as they gathered at the dinner table, there was no mention of the discovery that had taken place. The conversation, while not jovial, was pleasant enough. There was talk of the heat wave, Lara’s upcoming visit to the University of Florida, and how the summer was rolling by at warp speed. Hope and Henry were both full of chatter about their day at the lake. Henry had spent much of the afternoon kicking around a soccer ball with Billy Olson, who was on the JV soccer team, and had begun to brag that he too would make the team. Hope held up her end of the conversation with stories of how Lara was teaching her to do both the backstroke and the butterfly.

  “She knows how to do everything!” Hope said. “I wish she could stay all summer.”

  Lara laughed. “Wish all you want, but Mom said once the car is fixed, we’ve got to get back on the road.”

  Angela glanced over at Rachel with the warm glow of gratitude in her eyes. “We’re not in that much of a hurry,” she said.

  Rachel waited until they were alone in their bedroom before telling George what they’d learned that afternoon.

  “It’s exactly as I thought,” she said, a bittersweet smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Lara really is Emily.”

  He was in the middle of undressing, with his trousers hanging down around his knees, and almost toppled over. “Really?” He gasped. “Angela was the one who—”

  “Not Angela. Her sister. She gave birth to a little girl named Lara, the February before Emily was taken, but the baby was stillborn.”

  George stood wide-eyed and listened as Rachel told of how Angela had called the hospitals and discovered the truth.

  “Do you think Angela knew all along?”

  “I’m positive she didn’t,” Rachel said sadly. “She was devastated by the news.”

  “Does Lara know?”

  “Not yet. Angela will tell her tomorrow.” Rachel heaved a heavily weighted sigh. “I certainly don’t envy what she has to do.”

  George stepped free of his trousers, came across the room, and took Rachel in his arms. “I’m surprised that after all you went through, you can still feel compassion for her.”

  “You went through it the same as I did. What do you feel?” She looked up and noticed how his eyes had grown misty.

  “It seems like a miracle that after so many years . . .” George’s voice cracked, and he hesitated for several moments before continuing. “You always had faith, Rachel, long after I’d given up hope. Yesterday when you said there was a good possibility Lara was our Emily, even then, I was afraid to believe. I didn’t want your hopes to be dashed again.”

  “You never said . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “How could I? As long as you held out hope that we’d one day find her, I couldn’t say otherwise. You were the one, Rachel. Your faith is what finally enabled us to find Emily.”

  When he pressed her to his chest, she felt the hammering of his heart.

  Long into the night they sat on the side of the bed and talked about the challenges yet to come. They spoke of how Lara might react to such news and the possibility she could turn away from them with anger in her eyes.

  Although George knew such a thing could happen, he somehow believed the child was born with a heart like her mother’s, a heart capable of great forgiveness.

  The next morning Rachel and Angela were both up early, and the same edgy look was evident on both faces. Shortly after George left for the store, Rachel said she was taking the twins to the lake for the day.

  “I’ve already packed lunch and a stack of towels, so get into your bathing suits.”

  Lara’s face brightened. “Mom, can we go with them?”

  Angela shook her head. “Not today. There’s something we need to talk about.”

  “But—”

  “Not today,” Angela repeated.

  Once they were alone, she poured two tall glasses of sweet tea and carried them to the back patio. She sat on the wicker settee and motioned for Lara to sit beside her. A worried expression tugged at Lara’s face as she lowered herself onto the cushion.

  Angela thought she was ready for this—she’d practiced what she would say until the wee hours of morning—but now the words were gone and her mouth so dry she could barely speak. She forced a cough, then reached for the glass of tea. Her hand trembled, and a splash fell on her skirt. Grabbing a napkin, she swiped at it with quick fidgety strokes.

  “I’m so clumsy,” she said nervously. “Terribly, terribly . . .”

  Catching the jittery sound of her mother’s voice, Lara asked, “Is something wrong, Mom? Daddy’s not sick, is he?”

  “No, no. Your daddy’s fine. He’s coming here to be with us this weekend.”

  Lara turned with a look of surprise. “Coming here? Why?”

  Angela lifted her daughter’s hand into hers and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “It’s a long story that started before you were even born.”

  Her stomach churned, and the taste of bile rose in her throat as she struggled to find the right words. Suddenly it seemed there were none. Not one word that could carry comfort to her child and soothe the pain of what she was about to say. Even the tiniest word, the single letter I standing alone, seemed razor sharp and filled with anguish. She hesitated, pulling in a deep breath and then letting it go as she continued.

  “You know how much your mama loved you, don’t you?”

  Lara nodded. “Mom, your hand feels clammy! Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Angela swiped the palm of her hand across her skirt, then went back to what she’d been saying. “You know there’s nothing in this world your mama wouldn’t have done for you.”

  “I realize that, but I don’t see how—”

  “She once told me that she loved you long before you were born, that having you was the thing she wanted most in life.” The fear in Angela’s heart swelled and grew greater as she spoke. “But before you came into your mama’s life, she gave birth to another baby. A baby who was stillborn and never took a single breath.”

  A look of compassion tugged at Lara’s face, and she gave a faint sigh. “Oh, Mom, that’s so sad.”

  “Worse than sad,” Angela replied. “It was a life-changing tragedy that broke your mama’s heart, and she never got over it. The thought of having a baby became an obsession, one she couldn’t push aside or forget. I’m sure you’ve heard of people who want something so badly, they’ll do whatever
they have to do to get it; well, that’s how your mama was about having a baby.”

  “But then she had me, right?”

  With her heart pounding and her eyes searching Lara’s face for a flicker of understanding, Angela shook her head ever so slightly. “No, sweetheart, that’s not what happened. Your mama wasn’t strong enough to go through another pregnancy, but she wanted a baby so badly that she did a terrible thing: she took another woman’s child.”

  “Huh? I don’t get it. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “One night, when this family was asleep and there was no one around to stop her, your mama broke into their house and took their baby from her crib.”

  “Good God, Mom, that’s kidnapping!”

  “Yes, it is,” Angela replied nervously. “I have to believe at the time she was so consumed with grief that she wasn’t able to reason right from wrong. She only knew she wanted that baby, so she took it.”

  “But then she brought it back, right?” Despite the deep ridges that had settled across her forehead, Lara’s words were hopeful.

  “Unfortunately, she didn’t. She kept the baby and told people it was hers. She gave the child her dead baby’s name and birthday.”

  Lara jumped up and looked down at her mother with a horrified expression. “Oh my God, Mom, please don’t tell me I’m that baby!” Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Mom . . .”

  Angela stood and folded her daughter into her arms. She held her close for a moment, then, with her heart in her throat, she let go of the words she’d been holding back. “Yes . . . Lara . . . you are that baby.”

  Lara pulled back, her eyes wide and the color drained from her cheeks. She gave a gasp, then stood there staring at her mother. “But . . . you told me Vicki was my mom. You said I was with her when she came to live with you. Remember we saw those movies where I was a baby and she was holding me? She was my mom . . . You even said how much she loved me.”

  Angela’s heart felt as though it would shatter into a million tiny fragments as she listened to the pleading sound of Lara’s voice. Her child was asking her to take this ugly truth away, and it was the one thing she couldn’t do. Struggling to hold back the tears, she said, “Vicki did love you, Lara; she loved you with all her heart. When I told you she was your mom, it was what I believed to be true.”

  “Then what changed? Why are you telling me she’s not—”

  “Because yesterday I learned the Dixons are your biological parents.”

  “The Dixons?” Lara’s jaw fell, and she stood there looking dumbfounded. “Hope’s mom and dad are my parents?”

  “Yes. I had no idea until Rachel said—”

  “Hope’s mom and dad are my parents? The ones whose baby got kidnapped?”

  Angela lowered her eyes and gave a nod. Seeing the despair on Lara’s face was almost more than she could bear. She took a deep breath and tried to quell the anxiety rising in her chest. “It happened a few years before they moved to this house. You were only six months old at the time and . . .”

  As Lara listened she tilted her head back and stood looking up at the sky, her eyes ready to spill over but fixed on a single cloud scudding across the blanket of blue.

  Little by little the story unfolded. Angela related all the things Rachel had shared: the story of the music festival, the horror of waking that morning to find the crib empty, the years of searching, and how Hope had noticed the birthmark and told her mama.

  “So because of this birthmark, they think I’m their kidnapped baby? Well, maybe they’re wrong. Maybe my having this birthmark is just some weird coincidence. Maybe Mama was nowhere near this town when they had that music festival . . .” She dropped back down onto the settee, shaking her head sorrowfully.

  Angela sat and wrapped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “With all my heart I wish that were true, but I know for certain Vicki was here that weekend.” She continued on, telling of how years later she’d found the letter and been given a cardboard box of the things left behind. “Vicki didn’t hang on to many things, but she’d saved a souvenir from that weekend. It was a wristband with the name and date of the music festival.”

  Lara looked up. “Is that why we came here?” she asked solemnly, her words filled with doubt and uncertainty, as wobbly as a child learning to walk. “Has this whole trip been a search for my real parents?”

  “Lord God, no! Kenny and I are your parents, and we’re going to remain your parents. That’s never going to change. Life as you’ve known it is not going to change. In the fall you’ll go off to college just as we planned, and—”

  Cutting in, Lara asked, “Well then, why are you telling me all of this? If nothing is going to change, what am I supposed to do now?”

  Angela reached across, touched her hand to her daughter’s cheek, and turned her face so that they were looking into one another’s eyes. “Just give this family a chance to get to know you. If you’re willing to do that, I think you’ll see a lot of yourself in Rachel Dixon.”

  Lara gave a shrug of indifference and turned away. “We’ll see,” she said, then she stood and started back toward the house.

  As Angela watched her walk away she knew that life would in fact change. The questions Lara had asked over the years would now be answered. In time, she would come to know her birth parents and have the siblings she and Kenny had been unable to give her.

  She had to trust that this was a good thing, but when a tear slid from her eye and rolled down her cheek, Angela honestly could not say whether it was one of happiness or regret.

  A short while later Rachel returned from the lake, and Hope bolted through the door with the sparkle of excitement lighting her eyes.

  “Lara, Lara!” she screamed, then continued up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She knocked on the bedroom door with a quick rat-a-tat as if it were some kind of signal.

  A voice from inside said, “Not now.”

  Hope ignored it and burst into the room. Her expression was one of pure joy.

  “My wish came true!”

  Lara was sitting on the bed, her back leaning against the headboard and her shoes on the bedspread, despite the rules. Without glancing up, she mumbled, “I said not now.”

  “Yeah, I heard, but I figured you didn’t know it was me.” Hope kicked off her flip-flops and leaped onto the bed beside Lara. “When I made that wish, I never in a million years thought it would come true, but it did, and now—”

  “What wish?” Lara said. “What are you talking about?”

  Ignoring the fact that Lara was unsmiling and stiff as a board, Hope continued. “Last March Mama told us about you, and that night we had a cake with candles to celebrate your birthday—”

  “My birthday’s not in March; it’s in February.”

  Hope shook her head and grinned. “Un-uh, your real birthday’s in March. March tenth. I know because it was the day of the field trip, but I forgot my bathing suit, and so I had to come home and—”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Don’t you get it? We’re sisters! This is how it happened!” With barely a breath in between one sentence and the next, Hope went on to tell how she’d found her mama holding on to a locket and crying.

  “Your baby picture was in the locket, only your name was Emily back then. That’s when Mama told me about you and how every year on your birthday she took the locket out and said a whole bunch of prayers for you.”

  “She still has the locket?” Lara leaned in with a look of interest. “Where does she keep it?”

  Hope shrugged. “Her jewelry drawer, maybe. I think she has a special locket box. I could get her to show it to you if you want.”

  Lara gave a nonchalant nod and scrunched her nose. “Yeah, maybe. I guess it would be fun to see when I was a baby. Mom has pictures from when I was a year old but nothing when I was real small.”

  “Oh, you were small in this picture. Really small,” Hope said and snickered. “Mama told me she had you propped agai
nst a pillow so you wouldn’t fall over.”

  “Aww . . .” Forgetting her anger for a split second, Lara smiled.

  “But seeing the locket’s not the most exciting part.”

  “Oh really? Then what’s the most exciting part?”

  “I said we should celebrate your birthday with a cake, so I got to blow out the candles. You get to make a wish when you blow out the candles.”

  “That’s not exactly news.”

  “Maybe not, but this is! I wished you would get found and I could have you for a sister! Now here you are!”

  No longer able to hold back, Lara laughed. “And you think I’m here because of that wish?”

  “Not think.” Hope gave a wide grin. “Know!”

  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  Lara spent most of that afternoon in her room. She thought through this new turn of events a dozen times and each time came away with a different observation or question. Since she had never known anything about her birth father, it wasn’t difficult to see George filling the spot. He was a fatherly figure, with warm eyes and an easy laugh, all the good attributes she’d always imagined her daddy would have. But Rachel was a different story. To accept Rachel as her birth mom meant doing away with the image she already had in her heart. Over the years she’d taken the handed-down stories and a few minutes of home-movie clips and created comfortable memories. Vicki wasn’t simply her birth mom; she was Angela’s sister. She was the smiling face in home movies, the giver of huge teddy bears, and in an odd and rather unexplainable way, a piece of Lara herself. She’d held on to those memories for the whole of her life, and now letting go was difficult.

  Lara thought back on the earlier suggestion that she’d see a reflection of herself in Rachel Dixon, but so far she hadn’t, and she wasn’t all that optimistic about doing so. While Hope’s story of the locket was heartwarming, it was not enough to erase the memories of Vicki from her mind.

  That evening at the dinner table, Lara was again sitting opposite Rachel. She’d planned to scoot over to the end of the table, where she could catch sideways glances without looking straight into Rachel’s face, but Henry slid into the seat before she got there.