The One I Trust (12 page)

“That’s why my husband and I adopted,” she said, almost in a whisper. “His brother got diagnosed and . . .”

A dark-haired woman appeared with a bag from the food court and a soft drink. Her name tag read “Tracy
.
”

“Sorry,” Tracy told Charlotte. “The lines were terrible.”

Charlotte glanced away long enough to tell her that it was fine. Then she turned back to me.

“Is his brother still alive?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“What about your husband?”

She nodded.

“Is he okay?”

Charlotte looked at me for a moment and then glanced at Tracy, who was busy adding extra salt to a sleeve of French fries.

“Did you say you were going to get something to eat?” Charlotte asked. “My shift is ending, but maybe we could talk over lunch?”

“Yeah, I probably better get going if the lines are long.” I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to be back at my booth in forty-five minutes.”

Charlotte nodded, said good-bye to Tracy, and grabbed her purse. Then we headed out of the exhibit hall and down a long, carpeted corridor.

“So is your husband okay?” I asked as we walked along.

She hesitated for only the briefest of seconds before saying, “He hasn’t shown any symptoms.”

I nodded.

“And so you never had any kids of your own?”

She looked me straight in the eye and shook her head.

“Do you regret that?”

“No,” she said. “We didn’t want to bring a child into this world that might have to suffer the way my brother-in-law did.

“And besides,” she said. “When you adopt they
are
your own. I love my kids every bit as much as if they were my biological children.”

“So you didn’t have any kids because you were worried about
them
?” I asked. “Because you didn’t want to take a chance on one of them suffering?”

She nodded.

“It wasn’t because you didn’t want to get stuck with a kid who might be sick?”

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Not at all.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She tipped her head at me, looking slightly confused. “Sure about what?”

“All of it,” I said, shrugging. “Are you sure you were just worried about a child suffering?” I stopped walking and looked at her. She stopped, too. “Are you sure it wasn’t because you didn’t want to be burdened with some sick kid?” She looked back at me, puzzled. I narrowed my eyes at her and I let the bitterness creep into my voice. “Are you sure you
never had a baby
?”

I felt my jaw clench, but other than that, I didn’t move. I just stood there, staring at her, wondering how long it would take.

As it turned out, not long at all.

Almost immediately, the blood drained from her face and her breathing quickened. She searched my eyes, obviously trying to decide if what she was considering was even possible and once she realized that it was, she clapped her hand over her mouth.

I didn’t stick around to see what she did next. Leaning in so she could get one last good look, I hissed, “I’m a pretty good liar, too, aren’t I? I wonder where I got that from?” And then I turned around and strode away.

“Wait!” I heard Charlotte cry from behind me.

But I wasn’t going to wait.

“Wait!” she cried again. I kept going but she caught up with me and grabbed my arm.

“Please wait!” she begged. I shook her arm off and picked up speed. She trotted along beside me as I walked down the carpeted hall. “Please let me talk to you!”

“Why?” I asked, not even glancing her way. “So you can lie to me some more?”

“No,” she insisted. “So I can tell you what happened!”

“I think I already know what happened,” I said, still keeping my eyes straight ahead. “You thought you were going to have a baby with some terrible disease, so you got rid of it.”

“No,” she said. “That’s not what happened.”

“I’m perfectly fine, by the way,” I said, still speed-walking along. “You got rid of a perfectly healthy baby for no good reason, just in case you care.”

“That’s not why I got rid of you!” she insisted, grabbing my arm again.

Those words brought me to a sudden stop and I wheeled around to glare at her. Her golden eyes were red and full of tears now and mascara was running down her cheeks.

“I had a little boy,” I told her, my voice trembling. “And there is nothing . . .
nothing
that would have made me give him away . . .
ever
. I don’t care what was wrong with him.”

“I didn’t give you away because I thought something was wrong with you!”

I turned away from her again and resumed walking. This time she didn’t follow.

“Jordan’s not your father,” she called after me.

“Another lie,” I called back over my shoulder, waving her words away with my hand. “I saw the pictures. You were dating him long before I was born.”

“But he’s not your father.” She was much quieter now . . . like she’d given up. But also like she was telling the truth.

I slowed—just a little—my mind searching for a way to explain what she was saying. I stopped and turned around. She was ten yards from me now, looking after me with tears running down her face. I stared back at her for the longest moment, and finally I walked back to her.

“Were you raped?” I asked, because that would have explained a lot.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and I turned around to leave her again. She called after me one more time. “But Jordan’s not your father!”

“Then who is?” I asked angrily, stopping again quickly to round on her.

She looked down at the ground.

“His name is Jarrett Wellehan,” she said quietly.

She raised her gaze to meet mine again.

“I saw a picture,” I said again. “You were with Jordan and you
had
to have been pregnant with me.”

“I was.” She nodded. “I started dating Jordan as soon as I broke up with Jarrett but then I found out I was pregnant and . . .”

She looked at me, her face full of pain.

“I never wanted to put you up for adoption,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes filling with tears again. “I wanted to keep you, but my mom . . .” Another tear ran down her face and she reached to wipe it away. “My mom convinced me that the best thing would be for me to give you to a family that couldn’t have kids of their own. She told me I’d be making somebody else so happy and that I’d be doing the best thing for you in the long run. Jarrett and I weren’t together anymore and we hadn’t even graduated from high school . . .”

Her voice trailed away and she looked off into the distance as if she were remembering. Another tear rolled down her cheek as I stared at her.

She finally looked back at me.

“I was seventeen years old,” she whispered, and just like that I moved to close the distance between the two of us and wrap my arms around her.

We stood there for the longest time. I could feel her crying softly, but that was okay, because I was crying too.

“I always loved you,” I heard her say as I held her. “I never stopped loving you.” And I pulled her even closer.

Finally I stepped back and she looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“Come on,” I said, taking her arm and guiding her toward the food court. “Let’s get something to eat.”

After we got in line, Charlotte looked at her watch. “You have to be back at your booth in fifteen minutes,” she said worriedly.

I studied her face to see if she was joking. She wasn’t.

“I don’t
really
have a booth . . .”

“Oh,” she said as realization crossed her face. She laughed and shook her head. “Sorry. It’s just going to take a minute for me to get my head around everything.”

I smiled at her.

A few minutes later we were seated at a table with overpriced burgers and chips before us. I started shoveling food into my mouth, suddenly famished, but Charlotte didn’t seem to want to do anything except stare at me.

“I want to know everything about you,” she said.

I nodded and swallowed.

“I want to know everything about you, too,” I said honestly.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

“North Carolina.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised. “What do you do?”

“Oh,” I said, reaching for a chip. “Just wait till you hear . . . you’re going to be
so
proud.”

TWO HOURS LATER I returned to the parking deck and took the elevator to the sixth level. As soon as the door opened, I could see Emily standing against our rental car, waiting for me. She didn’t see me and I watched as she lifted her hands to her mouth to warm them with her breath.

She wasn’t sightseeing. She hadn’t gone for a cup of coffee. I suspected she hadn’t even had any lunch. Something told me she had been there at the car—all afternoon—waiting for me.

Being there . . . just in case I needed her.

I walked faster as I approached—faster than I had when I’d been speed-walking away from Charlotte earlier. All I could think about was how things had been so much better since Emily had come into my life. I kept speeding up and by the time I reached her, I was at a near trot. She saw me at the last moment and barely had time to react in surprise before I grabbed her in my arms and swung her around and around, burrowing my face into the side of her neck and her hair as we went.

“What happened?” she cried. I heard myself laugh and when I set her down she pulled back to look at the giant smile on my face. “It was good?”

“It was perfect,” I said, and a huge smile stretched across her face, too, as her laughter joined mine.

“Oh, Reid!” she cried. “I’m so happy for you!”

She flung her arms around my neck and squeezed me tight. When she pulled back this time, she looked at me eagerly.

“Tell me all about it,” she urged.

I looked at her smiling face. I don’t think I had ever seen her so happy. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and her eyes were gleaming with excitement. I reached a hand up and cupped her chin.

“You’re so beautiful,” I said.

She looked at me, obviously confused.

Pleased, but confused.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, still smiling.

But I didn’t tell her what happened. Instead, I kissed her and after I kissed her for a long time, I finally pulled my lips away from hers enough to whisper, “I love you.”

I opened my eyes and we looked at each other.

“I . . . I love you, too,” she said quietly.

“Will you marry me? I asked.

“What?”

I moved back slightly and looked into her eyes carefully. “I said, ‘Will you marry me?’”

“What are you
talking
about?” Honestly, she looked horrified.

“I’m talking about how everything in my life has been better ever since I met you and I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you and—”

“But we’ve only known each other for like
two months
!” she cried.

“So?”

“So we can’t get married when we’ve only known each other for two months!”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because,” she answered. “We just can’t.”

“Why not?” I asked again. “You just said that you love me.”

“I . . . I do,” she admitted. “But we need to date longer than two months before we decide to get married.”

“Why?”

“Because! We need to spend more time together first. Get to know each other better.”

“How long did you know Ethan?” I asked.

She stared at me, not answering.

“What was it?” I asked. “Eighteen? Nineteen years?”

She stayed quiet.

“How’d that work out for you?”

“That was different,” she answered quietly.

I didn’t stop.

“Tori and I knew each other for a year and a half before we got married,” I said, “and we all know how that turned out.”

I looked at her earnestly and said, “You’re going to have to come up with something better than, ‘We haven’t known each other long enough.’”

“Okay,” she said, seeming to compose herself a bit. “How about I don’t really want you proposing to me just because you’re on cloud nine about how things went with your mother?”

“That’s not why I’m proposing to you!” I protested.

“Yes, it is!” she argued. “You didn’t plan this out ahead of time or anything—you didn’t even think about it! It just popped into your head and came out your mouth!”

“You don’t know that,” I argued. “Maybe I’ve been planning this out for a long time!”

“You haven’t been planning this out for a long time!” she cried. “If you’d been planning this out for a long time there’d be”—she thought for a second—“fireworks . . . and a ring! We wouldn’t be standing in a freezing parking deck filled with exhaust fumes!”

“I tried to give you a ring this morning,” I reminded her.

She sighed and tipped her head at me.

“Look,” she said gently. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t consider marrying you one day, but I
am
saying that you need to come down off this high you’re on first and that we need to know each other a little longer than two months.”

I looked at her for a long moment and then let out a sigh of my own. “I really do love you,” I said.

She gave me a little smile. “I love you, too.”

I smiled back.

“Now,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “Will you please tell me what happened?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, smiling even more. “It was unbelievable. She’s great. She’s so smart and she’s beautiful and she’s funny . . .

“And you were exactly right,” I admitted. “She was only seventeen years old when she had me and she wasn’t even dating my father anymore and—”

“Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “That Jordan guy’s not your father?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My dad’s name is Jarrett Wellehan and she thinks he lives in Maine now and she said she’s going to try to help me find him.”

Emily looked at me and smiled again.

“I’m really happy for you,” she said, squeezing my hand.

“Thank you.” I smiled back, giving her another kiss.

“I wish I could have met her, too.”

“Oh, you’re going to meet her,” I said, somehow surprised that she didn’t already know. “We’re going over to her house right now.”