| |
“Goodnight, Mom,” Kinsley, dressed in a pair of baggy sleep pants and a tank, spoke from the doorway of the living room.
“Going to bed so early on a week night...when there’s no school tomorrow?” Something inside Charley’s heart accelerated. This wasn’t normal. Her daughter was the original night owl, always had been. Is she sick? The implications of the question threatened to double her over. Breathe! She’s perfectly fine.
Charley crossed the room to join Kinsley. Her heart ordered up swift, terrified steps. Her head remembered the questions she couldn’t answer and forced her feet into a normal she didn’t feel. She brushed her daughter’s hair out of her face, using the motion to feel for a temperature. “You feeling OK?”
“Just tired. Those kids were wired up tonight. I think someone laced the Kool-Aid with extra sugar. Anyway, I’ll see you in the morning. Tell Dad I said good-night.”
“I will. You want French toast for breakfast in the morning?”
Kinsley took a step back. “You have time for French toast on a work day?”
Charley reached to pull her daughter close. She wanted to hold on and never let go. A deep breath filled her nostrils with the scent of the coconut shower gel that was Kinsley’s current favorite. Love and fear hammered at her in equal measure. Oh, Father, watch over my baby.
“Mom.”
“Hmm...”
“You’re squishing me.”
“Oh.” Charley took a step back but kept her hands on Kinsley’s shoulders. “Have I told you today how much I love you and how proud of you I am?”
Kinsley reached up and laid a hand on Charley’s forehead. “Are you OK?”
Charley frowned at her daughter. “What do you mean?”
Kinsley crossed her arms and gave her mother a look that spoke loudly of her opinion of adults. “You missed work today. You’ve been fidgety all afternoon. I come to kiss you good-night, and you hug me like I’m leaving for China, and breakfast? Well, I’m not complaining, but something’s fishy.”
Reality broke over Charley with the force of a bucket of ice water dumped over her head on a hot day. Kinsley had cops for parents. They’d raised her to be observant. If Charley didn’t get a grip, there was no way this family would make it through the next few days with their secrets intact. She smiled, hoping it didn’t look as forced as it felt. “You looked like your stuffing needed hugging. Now take your sassy self to bed. French toast at seven-thirty.”
“Awesome.” Kinsley swooped in for a second quick hug and took off down the hall.
Charley watched her go, her heart swollen with equal parts of pride and worry. Her baby wasn’t a baby anymore. Hadn’t it been just last week they’d brought her home from the hospital? Hadn’t it been just yesterday Charley was kissing boo boos and playing patty-cake?
Kinsley’s door closed, and Charley turned away. What happened to the last fifteen years? Had she blinked? Her daughter had grown up into a beautiful, thoughtful...perceptive young woman. I can’t lose her, Father. Not to a disease, and not to a woman who never wanted her.
The old grandfather clock in the corner of the dining room bonged the half hour. Charley swiped at the moisture on her face. Nine-thirty. What was taking Jason so long?
Why today, of all days? Jason had been assigned to transport a prisoner to Topeka this afternoon. She ran her nervous hands through her hair. She needed Jason here with her. Needed his arms around her almost as much as she needed air in her lungs. They were a team. They’d always been able to work together to straighten out the crooked things that came their way. Once he was home, she could tell him about her conversation with Melissa. His steady presence would calm her, and he wouldn’t let her imagination run wild. They’d sit down and decide the best way to handle it, the next step to take.
Charley circled the living room, fingers twisting at her waist as one circuit turned into a dozen and one dozen turned into two. At least she had a bit of good news to share. Kinsley had an appointment with Dr. Gibson on Friday afternoon. They’d have to decide—
She heard the front door open and hurried to the entry. One look at Jason and all the stress and worry of the day coalesced somewhere between her heart and her stomach. The tough cop persona she nurtured every day evaporated, and all she had left was the frantic mother, afraid for her child. She rushed into the safe haven of his arms as the tears she’d been swallowing back most of the day broke through in a torrent.
“Charley, what—?”
“Just hold onto me for a second.” Her words were muffled against the front of his shirt, but he must have deciphered them because he bundled her close and gave her the time she needed to collect herself.
He walked into the living room, moving her with him, never breaking the contact between them. “Here, let’s sit.” He settled her onto his lap, leaned back into the cushions, and waited her out.
Once the crying jag passed, Charley sniffed into his shirt front. “Sorry.”
“That’s enough of that.” Jason shifted them both so he could look into her eyes. “If my favorite tough girl can’t let down her guard with me, I’m not doing my job right.” He studied her for a few seconds, his eyes roaming her face, judging her level of composure. “I knew seeing Melissa would be hard on you. I wish I could have gone with you. Is she here to see Kinsley?”
“I almost wish it were that simple.”
“OK...”
Keeping in mind that their daughter might resurface at any time, Charley leaned her forehead against his. She pitched her voice low enough so that it couldn’t be heard from less than a foot or two away and repeated everything from her meeting with Melissa.
He closed his eyes while she talked, taking it all in without interruption, absorbing the news in his own quiet way. Jason was the calm one. He wouldn’t jump to conclusions. He wouldn’t panic. There were times when his demeanor irritated her, but tonight his reaction steadied her. When she ran out of words, he sat still for several seconds, his hands rubbing her back in gentle strokes.
“I guess we need to get her an appointment with this doctor,” he said.
“She has one on Friday afternoon.”
“So soon?”
“I begged. They told me two weeks at first, and I took that, but they called an hour later with a cancellation for Friday. I think God knew I wouldn’t last two weeks with this hanging over my head.”
“Sounds like God is trying to tell us He’s got this.”
Charley closed the distance between them and laid her lips against his. “I love you so much. You ground me.” She sat back when his lips twitched under hers. “We need a story for Kinsley. We’re taking her to a new doctor, with no notice, and the testing includes an ultrasound. She’s going to have questions, and we need to be straight on our answers.”
Jason frowned. “Maybe it’s time—”
Charley scrambled from his lap and looked down at him. “No, it’s a horrible time,” she hissed. “You’re adopted, and oh, by the way, you might have some horrible disease.” Charley took a deep breath and shook her head. “I agree she needs to know. Let’s get the tests out of the way first.” Anything to buy herself a few more days in the center of her daughter’s world.
“What do you suggest?”
“Let’s stick as close to the truth as possible. Melissa told me that her great-great-grandmother probably died of this disease.” Charley swallowed, the words bitter on her tongue even as they accelerated her heartbeat. “We can tell her that there’s a genetic thing that runs in the family. That even though it’s been years since it surfaced, everyone still gets tested.”
Jason mulled that for a few seconds before he nodded. “That works.” He rested his cool gray eyes on hers. “But we have to tell her...soon. If Melissa is as sick as she says, time is running out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Charley, you’re smarter than that. Kinsley deserves to know the woman who gave her life.”
Charley wrapped her arms around herself. I won’t lose my daughter to Melissa. “I know,” she said aloud.
***
MELISSA TOSSED UNDER the covers, thankful she’d insisted that Keith take the extra bed in the double room tonight. She was always restless after a treatment because she usually napped during the five-hour session. She’d done more than nap today. After a sleepless night worrying over her upcoming visit with Charley the night before, Melissa had crashed hard this afternoon, and now she was paying for it.
There was just so much going on in her head. She’d known the conversation with Charley would be hard. There was no easy way to tell a mother that you might have passed a deadly disease on to her child. What she hadn’t expected, what was keeping the sandman at bay, was this...this...tug in her heart for something she’d never wanted until today. Melissa threw the blanket aside and climbed to her feet.
“Melissa?” Keith’s voice was rough with sleep.
She cringed. He was such a light sleeper these days, another byproduct of her illness. “I’m OK. Just getting a drink.”
“Not too much.”
She smiled in the dark. Even in his sleep, her husband was determined to watch out for her. “I know. Go back to sleep.”
Melissa snagged her purse and continued to the bathroom. She got her meager swallow of water, found her phone and the photo Charley had given her, and returned to her bed. Feeling like a kid cheating on her bedtime, she pulled the blankets over her head and used the light from her phone to study the two dimensional image of the child she’d never wanted to know. Long blond hair, a nose that tipped up a bit on the end, dimples on either side of a wide smile, and a dusting of freckles across her nose. Her daughter was on the way to becoming a beautiful young woman.
Daughter? The word gave Melissa pause. Did she have the right to call her that, or had that right been forfeited with her signature on the dotted line? She hadn’t wanted a child...had been ill prepared to provide for one even if she had. But who carries a baby for nine months and suffers through sixteen hours of labor only to give her up without another thought?
There’d been no guilt after she’d left Four Corners. She’d known that Charley and Jason would provide a stable home for the baby. Even after she’d rededicated her life to Christ, she’d had no regrets. Keith knew about the adoption. They’d talked about it a lot in the first couple of years of their marriage as they tried to decide if the time was right for them to start a family. That talk faded once the disease surfaced and began its all-out assault on her body. Once that happened, Keith’s only interest in the child she’d borne was as a possible organ donor. The very thought churned bile in Melissa’s stomach.
She swallowed back the burn of acid while she traced the lines of Kinsley’s face with a fingertip. No regrets?
Kinsley.
She liked the name. Kinsley what? She hadn’t asked. Maybe Kinsley Marie, or Jean...or Renee...or... This time she swallowed back laughter, but she couldn’t stop the fast and furious questions. What was her favorite food, her favorite color? Was she a good student? Did she have a boyfriend? Did she like animals...or music? Melissa loved jazz and horses. What about Kinsley?
She’d read somewhere that adopted kids often shared mannerisms with parents they’d never known. Did Kinsley twist her hair around a finger when she was nervous? Did she chew on the end of her pen or pencil when she was concentrating? Keith said Melissa squinted her eyes when they argued. Did Kinsley?
And what about her father? How much of his DNA had she taken? Now, there was a good question. She studied the picture with renewed interest, looking for clues of paternity in the shape of Kinsley’s nose, the curve of her cheek, and the tilt of her eyes.
Nothing.
Melissa turned off the light on the phone and flopped onto her back. After more than fifteen years, what would it matter if she did see something familiar? The parade of guys from that time in her life was a blur. She wouldn’t contact any of them even if she did manage to ferret out the truth.
Suddenly weary, she lowered the blanket and placed the phone and the photo on the nightstand. There was an eight-hour drive between them and home tomorrow, and she needed to sleep. She drifted with one final truth planted firmly in her mind. All of these questions were pointless. There’d been no effort made on either side to let Kinsley know she had more family than Charley and Jason while Melissa was healthy. And even if she wanted to change that, surely it was cruel to share that with her now that Melissa was dying.