Tracie Peterson (5 page)

Brad grinned and jabbed Kim playfully. “We should be detectives, huh? Confessions like that don’t come easy.”

“I’m serious,” Tess said, shaking her head. “I know how much you want me to accept this idea. Believe me, I lay awake half the night considering all the aspects of adoption. But you need to understand that to me, agreeing to adopt is like giving up the fight.”

“I didn’t know we were at war,” Brad said softly.

“Well, we are,” Tess replied. “It’s a war against our bodies. A war against time.”

“A war against God?” he questioned.

Tess was taken aback by his words. “Why would you say that?”

“Because only God can create a life and obviously He hasn’t created one through you and me. Are we warring against Him as well?”

“You know we aren’t.” She knew she didn’t sound very convincing.

“Sweetheart,” Brad said, reaching out to touch Tess’s arm, “I want to do whatever is right. I want you to be happy. But I can’t lie to you. I want children. Our own, somebody else’s—it doesn’t matter. We’re quickly reaching middle age. Most of our friends are battling teenagers and what colleges to choose. I don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”

Tess wiped the corner of her eye. She wasn’t going to break down. “Neither do I.”

Tess knew Kim was trying to make herself invisible as she excused herself and headed to the bathroom. Tess felt bad for instigating such a negative conversation about adoption.
Here Kim was due any day to receive the baby she’d so long dreamed of, and Tess was spoiling it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking long into Brad’s eyes. “I really will think about it, okay?”

“Pray about it, too.”

Tess nodded but secretly wondered if she could trust God with such a big matter. After all, she’d prayed so many times before and He’d never chosen to answer her. Well, maybe He had answered, but it had always been no.

“Look, I’ve got to get to work,” Brad said. He quickly gulped down the coffee. “I shouldn’t be too late tonight. Will you be here all day?”

“I think so,” Tess replied. “I have some packages to put together and I have all the materials I need. You can always reach me on the cell phone if I’m gone.”

“Will do.” He kissed her again, this time on the top of the head. “See you later, Kim,” he called as he headed for the door.

Kim had just returned to the kitchen. “Bye, Brad.” She eyed Tess cautiously. “I didn’t want you to feel ganged up on.”

“It’s all right. I love you both enough to tolerate your harassment,” she joked, then buttered a piece of toast and tried to think of how to apologize to Kim. “Look, I want to say something. It’s important that you hear me out.”

Kim nodded and sat down. “All right.”

“It has not been my intention to take away from your happiness in this adoption. I know you are doing the right thing for you, and I know you will be deliriously happy and you will be a wonderful mother. I’ve never meant to imply otherwise.”

“I know that,” Kim said.

“I can even admit that I’m being rather foolish in all of this. I’m working on it, however,” Tess admitted. She caught Kim’s sympathetic smile and knew her friend understood. Kim’s nature was so gentle. It matched her soft features and unpretentious heart. For a woman so strikingly beautiful, Kim hardly seemed to consider her looks important at all.

Tess drew a deep breath. “It’s just that it’s so hard. People
think that because I was adopted, I should automatically believe adoption to be the perfect solution for my problem.” She fell silent for a moment and quietly chewed on the toast.

Finally she continued. “I had good parents from my adoption. They were a far cry from the life I’d known. They offered me safety and security and that was something I couldn’t remember ever having. I slept under the bed instead of on top of it for the first two months, but finally I accepted that nothing bad was going to happen to me.” Tess smiled. “They were good parents—the best. I know adoption was my salvation. I would probably be dead now, just like my biological mother, if the social services hadn’t taken me out. She cared for no one but herself, doping up so much of the time, she didn’t know what she was doing. She used to send me out to pick up the stuff for her. Talk about scared. I wasn’t half as afraid of the drug dealers as I was of her—of what she’d do to me if I didn’t get back with her stuff.”

Kim only listened and picked at the bagel. Tess knew Kim had never known too many of the details about Tess’s background. She was probably mortified—as were most people when they heard of the horrors Tess had endured.

“Anyway, I’m telling you this because I completely support adoption. The young mother who is giving birth to your child made the right decision. She could have had an abortion—so many do. I’m glad she chose you instead. I want you to be happy with your decision, and believe me, I’ll be happy with you. This is a time to rejoice and I intend to be there with you every step of the way.”

Kim grinned. “Auntie Tess, huh?”

“You bet,” Tess replied, though her heart was no lighter than when she’d started the conversation. Why couldn’t she be free of her demons? Why couldn’t she just forget the sorrow of her past in the love of the present?

Just then Kim’s pager went off. She looked wide-eyed at Tess. “Oh, this could be it!” She hurried to the telephone. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“By all means.”

Tess knew she was waiting to be paged to come to the hospital for the baby’s delivery. In this day and age of very complicated adoptions, the birth mother had chosen adoptive parents who allowed her a time of bonding. Kim and Travis were supposed to be in attendance for the baby’s delivery, and Kim could hardly wait.

“Yes. Yes, I’m on my way,” Kim spoke into the telephone and then slammed the receiver on the cradle. “It’s time! She’s in labor and waiting for us at Mt. Sinai.”

Tess couldn’t help but laugh. “You’d think you were the one about to deliver.”

“I feel like I am. I even think my stomach hurts,” Kim said, grabbing her purse.

“Godspeed, then,” Tess replied, getting to her feet. She hugged Kim, then hurried with her to the door. “Let me know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Oh, you know I will. We’ll have the biggest party this town has ever known!”

After Kim had gone, the house seemed unnaturally quiet. Tess walked out onto the balcony and surveyed the blue-gray Atlantic. She loved Miami. Loved the smell of the ocean, the feel of the sun. She loved the palm and mangrove trees and the fresh fruit. She was happy here, at least reasonably so.

“Why can’t I work through this one?” she questioned aloud. “I want to trust you, God, but it’s so hard.” She looked up to pale blue skies. Cobweb clouds touched the scene from place to place. “I know I haven’t been much more than a pew warmer at times. I know I have a long way to go in understanding spiritual matters. But I’m trying. I’m trying to understand and I’m trying to trust that you know more about this than I do.

“I don’t want to be bitter, but I know I’m hurting in a way that only encourages bitterness. I don’t want to be that harsh, angry woman who has everyone’s pity but no one’s love.”

She turned and walked back into the living room. The
browns and beiges were complemented with cream and gold accents, but the room seemed very drab—almost cold. Her sister, Elaine, had chided Tess on one of her visits that this was no place to raise a child. The Lalique crystal would never hold up to an inquisitive toddler, she had insisted. But even that wasn’t as bad as what followed. Tess could hear the conversation as if it were yesterday.

“Maybe you’re not suited for motherhood,”
Elaine had said.
“It is a big commitment, and with your business and entertaining, a child might not fit in.”

Tess had been livid. It was one of the only times she had gotten ugly with Elaine. She had actually screamed at her sister for those painful words.

“How insensitive can you be?”
Tess remembered saying.
“You have three children. Your own children. You live the way you want to, and I’ll live the way I want to, but don’t ever think you can come into my house and tell me I’m not cut out for motherhood.”

That had been just the tip of the iceberg. After that, no matter how much Elaine tried to apologize or explain her words, Tess had simply gotten more and more angry. Finally she had asked Elaine to leave—to go back to Phoenix and her perfect life and her kids. Brad had tried to help them patch up the argument, then finally agreed to drive Elaine to the airport. The sisters hardly spoke again until nearly two years had passed. Even now, there was a sort of tender treaty between them.

“Elaine is right,” Tess said, looking around the room. “This is a showplace, not a home. We do business here, we entertain here, but we don’t really live here.”

The thought saddened her.

CHAPTER 5

“Well, you beat me again,” Brad said, wiping sweat from his face.

“Racquetball is not for the faint of heart,” Justin countered, his breath coming in heavy pants. “Nor for those whose minds are otherwise preoccupied. Wanna tell me about it?”

Brad gathered his things and went over to the bench. “It’s just this adoption thing. Tess isn’t herself. It’s been almost a week since we mentioned the idea to her, and she’s grown more despondent by the day. I think she knows it would be a good solution, but she’s terrified to admit it.”

“Well, parenting is a big responsibility,” Justin said, packing his racket away. “Maybe it’s just kind of overwhelming her.”

“Not Tess. It wouldn’t be the tasks or the responsibilities that would overwhelm her.”

Justin sat down beside him. “Look, I think you’ve both been so focused on this one issue, that there’s been little time for anything else.”

“I know that’s true. Between the doctors and the fertility shots and charting temperatures and making love when all the elements are just so . . . well, frankly, the romance has gone out of our marriage. I love Tess. I love her dearly. And I want children. But if I could only have one or the other, I’d take Tess, hands down.”

“Does she know that?” asked Justin.

“I’d like to think so,” Brad replied, twisting his towel. “I suppose I should be more vocal about it.”

“Sounds like you could both use a vacation—just the two of you.”

“I can’t argue with that. It’s been a while since we did anything just for the fun of it. Tess has to travel from time
to time with the business, and the same goes for me, but we haven’t gone anywhere together for at least four years.”

Justin smiled. “It might just do the trick. You know, get Tess out of her normal environment and maybe the world will look completely different to her.”

Brad ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I just want her happy. She means the world to me.”

Justin nodded and sounded rather sad. “I know.”

Brad suddenly thought of Justin’s loss and felt guilty for having gone on about his problems. “I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.”

Justin’s expression grew thoughtful. “I miss Cindy so much. Some days I almost forget she’s gone. I’ll pick up the phone to suggest we go out to dinner or to tell her about a case I’ve just finished, and then I realize the truth.”

“I don’t think I could bear it if something happened to Tess. How do you get through something like this?”

“My faith is all that’s sustained me,” Justin admitted. He looked at Brad for a moment, then stared up at the ceiling. “I know that God is in control. I know He has a plan—even if I can’t figure out what that plan is.”

“I believe He’s in control,” Brad began. “I just don’t know that I could be so strong in my faith.”

“Faith has to be grown. It doesn’t just blossom overnight. Life gives you all sorts of ups and downs, and usually those issues are small enough that your faith gets tested and stretched and hopefully produces even more faith. But the big things, things like losing your wife or . . .” He paused and looked back to Brad. “Being unable to have a baby when you want one so desperately, those are things that sometimes challenge your beliefs to the very limit of your ability.”

“What then?”

Justin smiled. “That’s where you rest in God. That’s where you let Him take the full burden, because believe me, buddy, there’s no way you can shoulder that load on your own.”

Brad’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t that like giving up? I mean,
you’re essentially saying, ‘I can’t deal with this. I don’t have the ability to see this through.’ ”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Justin asked quite seriously.

“I don’t know. I guess it just sounds like copping out.”

“Quite the contrary. Having faith requires us to have action behind it. That much we can all agree with. Sometimes that action comes in taking things in hand and doing for ourselves. But sometimes the action is simply to take it to Him. Because, Brad, there are some things that only God can see you through.”

“I know you’re right. I just feel so ill equipped. I mean, I do all the basics—I go to church and try to read the Bible regularly and pray, but I guess I’m starting to feel the need for something more.”

“So why don’t you join us at church for the men’s Bible study on Thursday nights?”

Brad shrugged. “I’ve never really thought much about getting into a regular study. My job keeps me working late sometimes.”

“So come in late or miss a week and come the next. We’re pretty laid back.”

“Do you really think it would help?”

Justin got up and slung his gym bag over his shoulder. “I know it helps. It’s gotten me through the last four months.”

“Then it must work,” Brad replied, gathering up the rest of his things. “Seeing you is all the convincing I need.”

“No, don’t look to me, Brad. I’ll disappoint you. Look to Jesus. Fix your sight on Him and don’t take it off. The road to either side might hail you with all sorts of promises and charms or terrify and threaten you with all sorts of horrors. Jesus is the only one who can get you through this.”

Brad considered Justin’s sorrowful past and held this statement as a testimony of the highest order. “I always like to quote the verse about how all things are possible with God, but I don’t think I really believed that until just now. Funny
how you can know of the Bible and God and yet not really understand at all.”