Read And Then I Found You Online
Authors: Patti Callahan Henry
And Then I Found You
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For Barbi Callahan Burris
and
Catherine Janelle Barbee
for brave love and courageous hearts
Acknowledgments
This novel was inspired by a true story that happened in my family, and most directly
to my middle sister, Barbi Callahan Burris. I am forever grateful for her courageous
decision and eventually for her brave willingness to share her story not only with
me, but also with the rest of the world. Although this is not her True-Life story
(that is hers to tell), I could not have written this fictionalized version without
her open honesty.
And to Catherine Janelle Barbee and her mother, Colleen, her father, Chris, and her
brothers Christopher and Connor, who have opened their lives and hearts and home to
me, I am grateful beyond measure.
Any essence of courage, heartbreak, healing, and redemption in this novel would be
absent without Barbi and Catherine’s willingness to share their memories, fears, and
stories.
I want to thank so many others who have contributed to this novel’s ultimate storyline:
—To John Cohen and Brenda Loringer of Wingate Wilderness: You changed our lives and
I hope I’ve offered some lasting tribute to your incredible work.
—To Jeannie Callahan Cunnion (and her beautiful family—Mike, Cal, Brennan, and Owen)
for her adoption advocacy and eye for detail. I could not have written sections of
this book without your expertise.
—To my editor, Brenda Copeland, who came into my life at the right moment for the
right story. I am deeply thankful for your patience and finesse with words and editing.
—Always to my agent, Kimberly Whalen, for still, all these years later, collaborating
with me and with my stories.
—To those who read the novel early and offered insight, input, and kind words: Jaquelyn
Mitchard, Mary Alice Monroe, Dorothea Benton Frank, and Joshilyn Jackson.
—To my newfound dear friends in Birmingham, Alabama, who sustained me during this
move to a foreign city while I was in the middle of writing another novel: Cleo O’Neal,
Kate Philips, Lanier Isom, Kerry Madden, Michael Morris, Cate Sommer, and all those
in Mountain Brook who brought me cookies, cakes, and flowers to welcome me here. This
city has also welcomed me, and I hope I’ve done it some justice by showing off its
prettiest parts in this story.
—To my warm and wonderful readers, who have followed me since the beginning and push
me to continue (special shout-out to Ashley Gross): Your words of encouragement allow
me to write mine.
—To my long-lasting and true friends from Auburn to Atlanta to Birmingham, who encourage
and listen and mostly make me laugh, you know who you are and how deeply I love you.
—To the librarians, booksellers, St. Martin’s sales reps, booklovers, and bookstore
owners who put my books on the shelves and nominate them for awards and talk about
them to readers, I am profoundly humbled and grateful.
—To the most innovative, kind, and creative publishing group at St. Martin’s Press:
Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Matthew Baldacci, John Dodes, Brenda Copeland, Stephen
Lee, Lisa Senz, Sarah Goldstein, Lauren Hesse, Laura Chasen, Paul Hochman, and the
women at Wunderkind PR, Tanya Farrell and Elena Stokes, I am blessed to have all of
you on my team.
—To Cammy Hebert and the fairytale design group at Show Me Your MuMu—an inspiration.
—And where would I be without Brooke Wahl? Without her, I’d be buried under a pile
of paper, notes, and lists. Brooke, I am so glad you came into both Meagan’s and my
life.
—To a young woman who has encouraged me from the very beginning and is my daughter-from-another-mother,
Tara Mahoney, I love you.
—To my sisters-in-law, Anna Henry and Serena Henry: If I could have chosen you, I
would have chosen you. I love you so very much for not only listening and brainstorming
and caring about my work, but also for being the lovely souls that you are to me.
—To all the nieces and nephews—Kirk, Sofia, Colin, Gavin, Cal, Brennan, Owen, Sadie,
and Stella—my life is full of laughter because of you.
—To my parents, Bonnie and George Callahan, whose love is unending.
—To my family, of course, because without them there would be nothing else—Pat, Meagan,
Thomas, and Rusk Henry.
Contents
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
— G. K. CHESTERTON
prologue
BLUFFTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
1988
March twentieth was full of First Things, and to thirteen-year-old Katie Vaughn it
was the day that started all the other days in her life, the beginning of everything
that might come after.
It was midday, recess, when Katie hung upside down on the monkey bars. A net of freckles
covered her pale face and her copper hair dipped into a puddle—a disgusting soup made
of mud and the lime-green slime of newly mowed grass. But it didn’t bother Katie.
She knew how to hang upside down, swing up to grab the bar, and do a full loop before
landing five feet out from the bars on the solid earth below her feet. Katie was showing
off and she knew she was, but if you know how to do something better than anyone else,
Mom had told her, you should be doing it.
That day—that first day of spring—no one else would go near the monkey bars what with
the slimy puddles, but Katie’s skill had no match at Wesley Prep. She did her loop
and then landed on the grass, smiling in that way of the humble when Jack Adams turned
to smile at her, and damn if that wasn’t when she felt her feet slip across the unstable
ground. Losing balance, she landed with splayed legs, her hair spread like seaweed
in the mud.
“Shit.”
Sometimes kids say what they feel instead of what they’re told is proper, and this
was one of those unfortunate times for Katie Vaughn. The word was out of her mouth
before she even knew it. This was the first time she’d ever cursed, and the word felt
like biting into a lemon with the quick stab of bitter juice. It tasted good until
she looked up and saw the principal looking down at her and frowning.
“Young lady, did you curse on my school grounds?” Mr. Proctor asked.
Katie looked him directly in the eyes. She’d already done one bad thing, and wasn’t
set to lie about it. “Yes, Sir,” she said.
“Follow me. We’ll call your mother,” he said, pronouncing the words as if a period
existed behind each one. He walked away, obviously expecting her to follow.
Katie glanced at Jack and shrugged her muddy shoulders; she could have sworn he was
laughing.
After she’d been sent home to “clean her clothes and her mouth,” Katie sat in the
alcove of her bedroom window until evening. A small room with a single white-painted
iron bed, this was Katie’s hideaway. Wallpaper made of climbing pink roses filled
the room like a false and always blooming garden. The dark wood hand-me-down furniture
had all been painted a shade of pale pink, meant to match the rose wallpaper but missing
its mark completely. Which was maybe what had happened when she’d tried to impress
Jack and instead fallen into the mud: an absolute miss.
She still sat at the window waiting, although she didn’t know what she was waiting
for, until Jack threw acorns skyward to ping against the glass pane.
Katie opened the window. “Hey,” she called out, swinging the pane out on its rusty
hinges.
“Come out,” he said, glancing around like a boy who is afraid he’ll get caught. “Or
are you grounded?”
“I’m not grounded,” she said. “My mom knows that sometimes the right word is just
the right word.”
He laughed and threw a pinecone toward the back yard. He was a boy accustomed to having
something to throw at all times. “Well, come on out.”
Yes, this was what she’d been waiting for—to walk under the moon with Jack Adams.
Every night Katie checked on the moon to make sure it still hung by the invisible
forces above, as if the moon could be anywhere else but the sky. She always wanted
to know that Luna followed her as her grandfather had told her it did. It hadn’t disappointed
her yet.
Spring in Bluffton, South Carolina, was thick and swollen with possibility and, running
outside, Katie felt the earth in her body. She and Jack walked down the stone pathway
that led to the May River—her river—a flowing body of water so wide and rich that
Katie believed the world must have been born in its basin. Scientists were wrong about
where the world started because her river was the original Garden of Eden. Jack took
her hand, winding his fingers through hers like the kudzu that twined over her front
porch lattice.
They sat on a shattered oak log, quiet until Jack spoke. “I can’t believe you aren’t
grounded. I mean, my dad would have made me pick out my belt if I’d been caught by
mean Mr. Proctor like that.”
“Well, you’re a boy and you can’t say that around girls, but the best I can figure
is that it matters more
why
you say something than
if
you say it. If I’d have said that to my stupid little sisters or the teacher, I’d
have been locked in my room for a week, but I said it because I fell and landed almost
inside the earth.”
Jack laughed. “I love the way you say things. You’re funny, Katie.”
And then he did the one thing, the only thing, she’d ever wanted him to do—he kissed
her right there under a half moon next to her favorite river. It was a quick kiss,
his lips brushing hers and releasing before she could fully kiss him in return. He
turned away. “Guess I should’ve asked first,” he said.
“Ask me now.”
He looked at her and smiled. That kiss—the second one—was even better than the first.
Katie considered it the
real
first kiss because it lasted long enough for her to taste the lemonade on his lips.
They sat in silence, crickets singing their praises, or so Katie believed.
Jack dug his forefinger into a hole of the log, plucking out dirt and flicking it
onto the ground. “So, you’re my girlfriend now, right?”
Katie stared at Jack with what she hoped was an adorable wide-eyed look. “Of course.”
“You know, today is the first day of spring,” Jack said. “And my crazy mother believes
that anything you promise on the first day of spring is a promise you can never, ever
break.”
“I didn’t promise anything today,” Katie said. “So nothing to break … yet.”
“Me neither.”