James took my hand again, his warm palm sliding against mine as he pulled on the handle of the sports bar door and held it open for me to enter. For a few seconds, I stared at my feet until we came to a halt beside the wooden hospitality stand. Glancing up, I saw a dark-haired man about the same age as us. “James, great to see you. We need to catch up for a beer.”
“I know, I know … I’ve been busy.” He smirked, gazing toward me with a smile on his face.
“So I see.” The good-looking guy grinned knowingly.
“Tricia, I don’t know if you remember my good friend, Brian?” James asked.
Inside my heart flipped in somersaults as the two men spoke and I wanted to scream I couldn’t have given two fucks who he was. I shook my head no, even though he was vaguely familiar to look at. I lifted my gaze and glanced impatiently around the room. My heart stopped for a beat and a jolt of electricity threw it back in motion.
“Is Erin here?” I heard him ask, as my hand left his and my feet moved toward a younger version of me who moved toward me at the same stalking pace I took. Every step closer to her was accompanied by a rough swallow as I fought desperately to tamp emotional swells in my throat that had threatened to choke me.
Chapter Three
“Mom?” she asked, the word halting all movement in my legs, my body, my heart. I stood paralyzed by the sound of a voice not dissimilar to mine; calling me by a name I never thought would ever be directed toward me.
“Tricia?” I heard James question from behind, and realized I hadn’t responded. I couldn’t move, or even react, as my whole body stiffened in defense to the moment I’d secretly fantasized about for nearly two thirds of my lifetime.
Coming up behind me, James laid a gentle hand on the base of my spine and as soon as he came alongside me, he continued walking, urging me forward. The move was both welcomed and subtle, exactly what I’d needed to jolt my thoughts back to the present.
Next thing I knew, Erin’s arms had been wrapped around my neck while mine were clasped tightly around her back. We both sobbed quietly, and neither of us had exchanged another word. There wasn’t one to define a moment such as that.
I had no idea how long we stood there, but it was Erin who pulled out of our embrace first. The loss of her warmth surrounding me instilled a sense of panic within me. Immediately I knew, without doubt, I’d take whatever relationship she wanted from then on. I’d been the one who had let her go, therefore, I had decided before we went there, if Erin had wanted to come back, then the terms should be set by her.
“Shall we take a seat, ladies?” James interjected; sounding every part the assertive businessman I’d learned he was.
“Great idea, I don’t know about you, but my legs feel like Jell-O right now,” Erin replied, flashing a nervous smile toward James after directing her answer toward me.
James signaled us to a booth and both of us slid into the seats. James took one next to me.
“Erin, I need to be straight with you,” James said, rubbing his hands together, the only sign of nerves I’d seen from him during the whole situation. “When I came to meet with you, I already suspected Tricia was your mom. When I saw you, I was sure, even before the DNA test was done. Tricia and I are together, so I need to apologize for stringing you along.”
Erin frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“The circumstances around your adoption were so traumatic for Tricia, she had never spoken about it to anyone until she told me.” James stopped and looked toward me. “I hope you don’t mind me filling in the gaps a little, then I’ll make myself scarce and leave you two to talk.”
I nodded, thankful he was taking some of the strain from me and allowing me to gather my own thoughts for what I’d wanted to say next. In my head, in the days leading up to meeting my daughter, I’d thought of so many ways I had envisioned our initial conversations going, but when it had come down to it, I had been struggling for coherent thought when faced with the beautiful woman I’d given birth to.
“Tricia has been in therapy for the last year. The story surrounding your adoption is your birth mom’s to tell, but there are some aspects I’m sure you’ll both have questions about. When Marnie mentioned the connection between you and her from the DNA test, we were shocked because Marnie had no idea what had happened to Tricia. The moment she mentioned you, both of us suspected you could be Tricia’s daughter. Hence, my offer to help. It was delicate… still is, but I am here to support you in any way that I can.”
Erin glanced toward me, and her gorgeous hazel eyes ticked back and forth over my face, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, before she glanced back toward James with a worried look on her face.
Reaching out she placed her hand just short of mine on the table. “I didn’t contact anyone with the intention of making trouble for you, or to force you to be something you don’t want. All I want is the truth. Like you, I have so many questions and no one to ask, and to be frank, I really wanted some honest conversations. I grew up having no idea I was adopted. In fact, had my father not gone into kidney failure I may never have known.”
“I don’t understand,” I frowned. “How could you not know? Surely, you’d have seen your birth certificate. Wouldn’t my details have been there … doesn’t it mention you were adopted somewhere?”
When she scoffed and looked toward James, I wondered if she’d told him this part of the story already and he’d kept the details from me.
“My adoption was buried beneath secrets and lies. My parents were desperate to have a baby. They’d tried for six years before my mom got pregnant. Naturally, they were ecstatic when she finally conceived and at eight weeks along my mom’s pregnancy was progressing fine. She had seen an obstetrician and had some prenatal tests done. Unfortunately, at twelve weeks she lost the baby.”
“I don’t get it, what does this have to do with Tricia.”
“That’s just it. When she lost the baby, she didn’t seek medical attention in the US. They were heavily into the church and had gone abroad for a short spell of missionary work. My mom and a woman called Lydia from New York were great friends, having met on one of these missions. The woman was a lot older than my mom …”
“My aunt,” I informed her, numbly.
“Right,” Erin noted, and paused to absorb that information before she continued. “When Mom was abroad, they apparently wrote regularly. In one of her letters my mom told her she had lost her baby. Apparently, Lydia wrote back and told her she knew of a young pregnant teen who wanted a private adoption.” Erin shrugged helplessly. “My mom would have been due with her baby around the same time… I guess you can figure the rest.”
I gasped. “So the adoption had been planned way before my mom told me and the birth date brought forward to fit with when she had been due to give birth?”
My thought tumbled out of my mouth as I considered what Erin had said. I had been three months along before I’d confessed to being pregnant, but the way my mom had spun it was that these great people had come forward only a few short weeks before we had gone to New York.
“The details are murky at best, but my parents came home to the US a month or so before I was born, hung around in New York until they took charge of me, and headed straight to Baltimore. Apparently, they knew some health professional, and as she had documentation regarding her pregnancy, this person had helped them verify me as a home birth. Whether the health professional knew I was theirs or not isn’t clear, but with the necessary verification they were able to register me as theirs.”