“Nobody does, honey.”
“He was a good man. He would have done anything for Becky and me.” Felicia lowered her voice until it was barely above a whisper. “Sometimes, I think it was my fault.” They had thought finally they were free, but then it was too late. He was gone.
Ellie’s face grew serious. “Miss Becky told me your husband had a heart attack. That was not your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”
Felicia gave a small shrug. She’d never be convinced Ken’s death wasn’t caused by the stress of what they had gone through. She had made the decision for them both, and he had paid the price.
“Eat your breakfast,” Ellie said as she turned on the small television and found a channel with the morning news. “I’ll be back in a bit to fetch those dishes from you.”
Felicia glanced at the TV, but it was just noise. She didn’t live in the world they talked about anymore.
She was grateful she could still close her eyes and recall her life with her husband, their time together, Becky’s childhood. Her biggest fear was that she might lose the ability to remember how his love had felt. That terrorized her. Some memories she wished she could erase as if they never happened. She wanted that more than anything, but not if it meant losing the memories of Ken and Becky.
The last fifteen years had not been exciting, but she had finally found a certain kind of peace. Over time, she had noticed herself becoming more forgetful and confused about even the simplest of tasks. Lists littered the house as she left notes to remind herself. “All old people forget things,” she would tell Becky when her daughter looked concerned.
But it was the day she went out by herself and found herself lost and confused at the supermarket down the street that things had changed. She didn’t understand how she had gotten to the store, didn’t remember getting in the car and driving there. Bewildered and scared, she didn’t know what she was there to buy. In frustration, she just stood in the front of the store, between the express check-out and the display for buy-one-get-one-free mini-muffins and sobbed.
The manager, a nervous, somewhat disheveled, middle-aged man didn’t seem equipped to deal with a crying woman. Taking her by the arm, he tried to steer her off to the side where she wasn’t in front of the check-out lines. Felicia didn’t like him touching her. She didn’t like that at all.
A neighbor had observed the commotion and offered to take her home.
The front door to Felicia’s house wasn’t locked. After they went inside, the neighbor had walked around aimlessly and seemed to be looking for something, anything that would tell her who to call.
Felicia had pointed to the shopping bag hanging over the back of the kitchen chair. “My daughter owns that boutique.”
When Becky arrived fifteen minutes later, she thanked the neighbor for helping and hugged her mother tight. “You scared me half to death, Mom!”
Her daughter had taken her to the doctor. He told them about the silent strokes that had damaged parts of her brain, used the word dementia, which had made Felicia’s blood run cold. Becky told her she would need to move, someplace where she would be safe.
It hadn’t taken long. Becky had moved her here to Tranquility, her new home, where nothing was familiar, things smelled odd, and the pleasant woman brought her breakfast.
Chapter Eleven
Jules
Jules stared at her laptop, her fingers frozen on the keyboard. The confidence she felt when she started this search for her birth parents was wavering.
The conversation with her parents had left her feeling awful, but she knew this was something she had to do. She just prayed they’d come around and understand.
She had done the research, joined the adoptee and DNA Facebook groups. Despite what her mom had said, you could find someone with DNA. There were lots of members who would testify to that. The groups said if you were adopted, you should fish for matches in all the pools. Jules had sent in DNA tests to three different companies.
One set of results was in. Day after day, she had just stared at that email. It was crazy, she knew, this trepidation she felt. She’d been checking fervently, waiting. Now that her results were here, her heart was in her throat. Her DNA matches could hold the key to answering all her questions. It was the unknown that was petrifying. She couldn’t imagine if she found what she was looking for and her birth parents didn’t want anything to do with her. It would crush her. More than once, fear tried to convince her to abandon her search altogether.
Loading up the home screen for the DNA site, a brooding expression crossed her face. She had planned to work on Becky’s family tree too.
Jules had gone about it all wrong. She knew that now. She’d just been so excited about all this DNA stuff and wanted to share it with her best friend.
“Since you’re starting a family,” she had told Becky, “your baby needs a family tree. Maybe you’re descended from royalty. I mean, you do kind of look like a princess. Who else but someone your size could have worn those teeny tiny glass slippers anyway?”
Becky could fit the family she had on the head of a pin. Both sets of grandparents were gone. No cousins she ever mentioned. The DNA test would help Jules find all her missing second and third cousins and build up her family history through her great-grandparents and even further back if she could. Maybe she’d also find a relative that would have a piece of Becky’s history. She already had a vision of the framed gift she would present once the baby was born and she could add his or her information to the bottom of the tree.
She’d thought the idea was clever, and working on Becky’s tree would take her mind off her own. The idea wasn’t lost on Jules that most people took for granted they could build their family tree from people they knew were relatives. At this point, Jules didn’t have a single person she could add to her biological tree.
Becky had looked less than enthusiastic at the idea, but Jules had tried to reassure her. “When I’m done, your baby will know everything there is to know about both sides of his or her family tree. I ordered a test for Bryan too. You don’t have to do anything but spit in the tube and tell Bryan I’ll be back for his. I’ll handle it all, and I’ll work on your family tree as my gift to the new baby. Besides, I’m going to need a break from all the searching for my unknown family. Yours will be easy.”
But the DNA test in the little gift bag with the baby rattle on the front had made Becky uncomfortable. “We just met with the doctor—I mean, I’m not even pregnant yet,” she had stammered. “I’ve waited so long. The idea of a baby gift before…” her voice had trailed off. “I don’t know. It just feels like bad luck.”
Jules’s face must have revealed her disappointment. Searching for her birth parents felt like one of the most important decisions she had made in her life. She wanted her best friend to be part of it with her.