Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (22 page)

The tap on her door at the Three Captains’ Inn startled Gemma. She glanced up from her laptop on the small desk by the sun-filled window to the clock: it was just past nine in the morning. She got up reluctantly; she’d been working from the moment she’d woken up two hours ago and hadn’t even been down to breakfast, but was on a good roll. The first few paragraphs of her article on Hope Home, its history, some statistics then and now, were done, opening up to the long middle of the piece, which would focus on human interest—past residents, current residents. True stories.

Gemma stretched her arms above her head on the way to the door. When she opened it, Bea Crane stood there, looking like she might burst.

“I did it,” Bea said. “I called my birth mother last night. We’re meeting tonight at her house.” She lifted her hands in front of her. “I’m shaking.”

Gemma squeezed Bea’s hand. With Bea’s blond hair pulled into a ponytail, her pretty face free of makeup, she looked so young. “What was the call like? Oh, gosh—I must sound like the nosy reporter here. I’m asking as a friend. Remember to just say this is off the record, and everything you tell me will be private.”

“Use whatever you want for your article,” Bea said. “Except
for Veronica’s name, of course. Though for all I know, she’d be happy to talk to you and give her perspective.”

“That would be so great if she would,” Gemma said. “Of course, I don’t expect you to show up at her house and say, ‘Nice to meet you. Want to repeat all of this to a reporter writing an article on Hope Home?’ ”

Bea smiled. “Definitely not. But I will bring it up. She should know I’m talking to a reporter about her, even if her name isn’t used.”

Gemma hoped Bea’s birth mother would be open to talking to her for the article. The dual perspectives of a birth mother from Hope Home, and the daughter she placed for adoption making contact, a first meeting—it would add so much to the article. But Bea and her birth mother were meeting for the first time tonight—Gemma wouldn’t expect to talk to Veronica, if at all, for days. It all depended on what kind of person Veronica was, how open to sharing her story she was.

“If you need someone to talk to, as a friend, just knock or call, okay? Even if you just need a little reassurance before you head over to her house tonight.”

“I appreciate that,” Bea said. “I’d better get back to work—the kids from the Osprey Room had a little oatmeal-flinging war in the dining room.” She smiled and then dashed down the stairs.

Gemma closed the door, her thoughts whirling about the meeting Bea and Veronica would have, the emotion that would be in that room tonight. Bea’s story was so heart tugging. If Gemma could get her birth mother’s side for the article . . .

Gemma grabbed her phone and called Claire, her editor at the
Gazette,
and explained that she might have the opportunity
to talk with a birth mother and her birth daughter who were reuniting, get both their perspectives, and maybe she should take an extra couple of weeks for the article since Claire didn’t officially need it until mid-July.

“No problem on the time,” Claire said. “I really don’t need it until July eighteenth to run it the Sunday before the fiftieth anniversary, which is July thirtieth. So take your time. I’d rather have a really full, knockout piece, and perspectives like the ones you’re getting are exactly what I had in mind.”

Perfect, Gemma thought, sentences of her article forming themselves in her mind. She’d really have the time now to develop her story, go deep, write the heck out if it.

She was supposed to go home tomorrow, but she’d just given herself an extra couple of weeks here, she realized.
Because I don’t want to go home
.

She stood before the mirror hanging outside her closet door and put her hand on her stomach, turning to the side to see if her stomach looked even a bit rounder. Not yet. But she was definitely pregnant; a letter from her doctor confirming the positive blood test had arrived yesterday afternoon.

She took in her slightly pale complexion, the bit of shadow under her dark blue eyes, which might be from working so intensely the past few days. Her light brown hair, falling straight to her shoulders, seemed thicker, though, unless she was imagining it. More luxuriant, somehow. And her nails were longer. Her nails were never this long.

You’re so lucky
, she heard seventeen-year-old Chloe Martin echo in her head.

It had been just over a week since she’d seen that plus sign on the pregnancy test. A week that she’d kept the news a secret from
Alexander. But she still wasn’t ready to tell him. Another couple of weeks to finish the article, turn it in, and then she’d be ready to go home. Already, just a few days in full-out reporter mode, conducting interviews, doing research, and writing, she felt more like her old self—and she was a bit more used to the idea of being pregnant. In two more weeks, she’d be much more confident, have stronger legs to stand on when she told Alexander the news.

She picked up the phone and pressed in the number of his cell phone. She wouldn’t mention the pregnancy yet, but she did have to tell him she wouldn’t be coming home tomorrow, after all.

“Two more weeks?” he repeated after a deadly silence. “What the hell is going on, Gemma?”

“I just want to go more in depth with the article. I might have a chance to interview the birth mother of one of my sources. It’ll round—”

“Gemma, you were going to Maine for a weekend. Then it turned into a week. Now it’s three weeks.”

“I’m just—”

“Are you saying you need a break from us? If that’s what this is, Gemma, just say so. Don’t make it about an article for some small-town paper.”

I need a break from you, she said silently, closing her eyes.

“Neither the article nor the newspaper is small to me, Alex. Why can’t you understand how important my career is to me?”

“Jesus, Gemma, what career? You were laid off. There’s no job. You have no career at the moment. You’re chasing some fluff piece for a summer tourist-town newspaper that gave you a
column when you were eleven. Please. If you’re leaving me, just say so. But don’t leave me hanging while you ‘sort out your feelings’ and interview teenagers over ice cream.”

God, he could be infuriating. She paced around the small room, her heart beating too fast. Calm down, Gemma, she told herself. Just calm down. Look at this from his perspective. He wants what he wants just as much as you want what you want. “Alex, I’m just trying to . . .” Find my way through this new normal, she finished silently, one hand on her stomach again. Find myself in this.

“Just trying to what?” he barked. “What the hell are you trying to do besides screw things up between us? I want to know what the hell is—”

“I’m pregnant!” she shouted, then started to cry.

Oh God.

There was silence for a moment. “What? Gemma—what?”

“I’m pregnant, Alex.” She could barely believe she’d said the words aloud to him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the tone of his voice changing—dramatically. Instead of anger, there was . . . wonder.

“Two positive pregnancy tests and positive blood test results yesterday.”

“Oh my God, Gemma. This is amazing! We’re going to have a baby! Wait a minute,” he said, the voice changing again, growing hesitant. “How long have you known?”

“I took the first pregnancy test last Wednesday. It was positive. I was so shocked—as you can imagine. I thought maybe my cycle was off because of the stress of losing my job. I only took the test to rule out the craziest reason why my period would be late. We’d
used a backup plan when I was on those antibiotics.” She closed her eyes and sat down on the edge of her bed. “But there it was, a pink plus sign.”

He was quiet again for a long few seconds. “Gemma, you’ve known you were pregnant for a week and didn’t tell me? You left for Maine and didn’t tell me? What the hell, Gemma?”

“It’s a loaded topic, Alex.”

“Loaded?” he repeated, his voice full of disdain. “So you’re not happy about it? Is that what this is all about?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” he repeated. Flatly. “And were you going to tell me during this call if it hadn’t just come out?”

“I don’t know that either. I don’t know anything except that I don’t want to move to Dobbs Ferry and live next door to your parents. I don’t want a part-time job at the local paper if I insist—as you called it—on working. I don’t want this life you’re trying so damned hard to force me into.”

“Well, guess what, Gemma, you’re pregnant. It’s not about you anymore.”

“Who the hell is it about?”

“The baby. Me. Us. Our marriage, our family.”

She suddenly felt very, very tired. “I don’t know how I feel about any of this, Alex. I need time to—”

“Gemma, you’re not fifteen and pregnant like one of the girls you’re interviewing. You’re a grown woman. Act like it.”

“I’m going now, Alex. I need to go.”

Click.

She dropped her head in her hands and cried.

Gemma checked the address of the woman she was due to interview in three minutes. Caitlin Auerman, 33 Banyon Road. The small white cape halfway down the street with the tricycle and Big Wheels out front was the place.

The director of Hope Home had called Gemma as she’d been out on Main Street, needing to be alone in a crowd. The conversation with Alexander had drained her, and she couldn’t stay cooped up in her small room. She’d gotten an herbal iced tea and a bagel with cream cheese and was sitting on a bench, trying to calm herself down and eat a few bites, when Pauline Lee had called with the news that a woman who’d lived at Hope Home fifteen years ago, as a fifteen-year-old, and had placed her baby for adoption was interested in speaking with Gemma for the article, but only had a two-hour window. Gemma had been grateful for somewhere to go, to have something to focus on besides her marriage.

Gemma pressed the doorbell, and a woman who could only be described as weary opened the door. She looked like she hadn’t slept well—or perhaps in days. There was a baby swing in the living room, and lots of kid paraphernalia around the room.

“You must be Gemma Hendricks,” she said. “I’m Caitlin Auerman. I forgot to mention to the Hope Home director that I have to insist on anonymity—that you won’t use my name in the article. Hope Home was good to me, and I have only positive things to say about it, but if I’m going to be truthful about how my life has been since, I don’t want my real name used.”

“I can assure you I won’t use your name. I’ll make up a name and use your real age and time frame that you were at Hope Home, but I can assure you I’ll protect your identity. I appreciate your willingness to sit down with me.”

Caitlin led Gemma into the living room, full of toys, and they sat down on the sofa. Gemma pulled out her recorder and her notebook, and the woman started talking before Gemma could even get out her pen and ask a question.

“Everyone said: you’ll ruin your life if you have a baby at fifteen,” Caitlin said. “You have your whole life in front of you. Put the baby up for adoption. It’s the right thing. For both of you. On and on. I even agreed to go live at Hope Home so that no one in town would know I was pregnant, so that it would stay a family secret. Well, here I am, thirty years old, and I did everything everybody told me to do—I went to college. I went to law school. I got all the ‘see, you listened to us, and now look at you.’ Well, fifteen years later, I have three kids under ten, I can forget about my career, and I can’t even hear myself think ninety percent of the time. I’m not saying I could have achieved everything I did with a baby at fifteen—who knows, maybe I could have. I just know that it all added up to me sitting at home with three kids, a husband who’s never home, and a career that’s basically over. Why the hell did I work so hard? To be treated like the invisible woman at my husband’s business functions? I’m suddenly a stay-at-home mother so I have nothing of value to say? I hate this.”

This will be me, Gemma thought, her head spinning for a few seconds. I don’t want this to be me. Focus on the interview, she reminded herself. “Can I ask a personal question?”

Caitlin let out a harsh laugh. “I think I’ve made it clear you can.”

“Did you plan to get pregnant with your first child?”

Caitlin shook her head. “It was an accident. Twins. I wasn’t
really ready, but I was excited. I thought I could do it all, be superwoman, even though everyone said it was impossible. I thought I could work full-time and be a great mom and take cooking classes and learn to speak Italian and take yoga. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.”

“So you had a plan, but life didn’t go accordingly?” Gemma didn’t want to hear the answer. Clearly, Caitlin had had a big plan, big plans for herself.

“Exactly. One of the twins was sick a lot with ear infections, and the other would wake up every couple of hours, and my husband would argue with me endlessly about quitting the firm and staying home with the boys. I know it sounds awful, but I didn’t want to. I loved my job, loved the office environment, getting all dressed up every day. I didn’t want to stay home with the twins, as much as I loved them.”