“For years I tortured myself that you’d think I couldn’t care less about you… that I’d forgotten about you, but not a day has gone by when I haven’t regretted what happened.” Without thinking my hand covered hers and my heart clenched at our connection. Tears instantly rolled down my cheeks, quickly followed by some down hers, and I fought hard to swallow back the ball of emotion that prevented me from saying more.
“I believe you. You were only sixteen,” she replied, empathizing with my position back then. “You would have had no choice in what happened to me. I feel no malice toward you at all.”
James instantly rubbed my back; a gesture that showed me he knew her words would have gone straight to my heart.
“Thank you,” I choked out, staring in pure adoration for the conviction in her tone.
“I look at you and I see me. You have no idea how that feels in here,” she said, tapping her chest. “Both my parents had dark hair and dark eyes, almost black eyes. They explained that away as a recessive gene since my … dad’s mom had hazel eyes.” Erin shrugged. “But when I look at you there’s an instant familiarity I can’t explain.”
I nodded because I felt the same, yet I had so much to learn about her, but from the way she spoke I felt we had time … plenty of time, yet not enough. Nothing gave us back the years we’d already missed.
“This … is all new … but it’s not,” I started, unable to find the words I’d needed to tell her what meeting her meant to me. I shrugged, lost again and stared at her, taking on how alike we were. I sat trying to get my head around the image of that tiny baby I’d caught a glimpse of and tried to equate her to the beautiful, self-assured woman in front of me. My chest tightened again, and Erin took my hand in hers.
“I don’t know what to say … I mean I’ve had years to think about this, but … words are failing me right now.”
Erin nodded, her eyes misting with tears. “I can’t imagine how this feels for you, only how it feels for me. I want you to know you needn’t have worried about me. I had a great life with my parents. I grew up an only child, I wanted for nothing, and my adoptive parents loved me greatly. This may sound horrible to say, but ignorance was bliss. I had no idea you existed and grew up in an idyllic setting.”
I wasn’t sure what had felt worse. That Erin had done well without me, or that she grew up oblivious to the fact I’d existed.
“Can I ask about my birth father?”
“He was a little older than me. He was a nice boy, but it was a one-night stand … he died in a skiing accident, Erin,” I said, sparing her the details about Donnie and that night.
She took a moment to digest that and shook her head. “I only found out about you when my mom was dying,” she said flatly, changing the subject again. “I suppose you could call it her deathbed confession,” she added and snickered. “That came from a conversation we’d had a couple of years earlier when I had wanted to be a living donor for my father when his kidney was failing. When my parents objected, I had thought it was because they loved me too much. When I kept pressing the issue my mom told me in private, I couldn’t possibly be a match.”
“That must have been awful for you. And that’s how you found out?” I asked.
Erin shook her head. “When I challenged my mom on how she could know this, she told me I had been the result of an affair and I wasn’t my father’s daughter.”
I was instantly furious she’d been lied to. It was bad enough she’d been adopted, but for them to have hidden the fact from her by burying it in another lie, felt horrific.
Scoring her hand down her face she sighed. “When she told me about you I was angry—with her and my dad for keeping my adoption a secret from me—with you too,” she confessed, swallowing hard. “But mostly with her, and if I’d felt angry at her when I thought she’d had an affair, it was nothing to how I felt when she had confessed I wasn’t hers either. My anger toward you dissipated the moment I heard how old you were when you had me.” James immediately clutched my hand and squeezed it on hearing her words, like he also felt hurt for me.
“Shit, that’s insane, you must have been wrecked with all that new information, on top of the death of your parents as well,” James chipped in, unable to stop himself from commenting. Turning to look at me, his face suddenly hardened. “Okay. You know what? I think this is a huge amount of data to sort through in one day. Should we eat and talk? Maybe you can ask Tricia some questions about her life in general, and if you’re not busy, can I suggest another meeting next week?”
“Tomorrow,” I blurted out. “I’ve waited thirty years for answers, we need to keep talking.” A streak of fear ran through me at the thought she may walk away and never come back.
“Tomorrow would be amazing. I never expected us to get this far today. Now that I’ve found you …” She trailed off and I could see a mixture of hope and anguish in her eyes.
“Oh, I’m not letting you go again,” I blurted out, “I mean, if that’s what you want. James gave you his number but before we leave here today, you’ll have mine. I’d love you to be part of my life, Erin. If that’s what you want …” I trailed off and glanced toward James, wondering how he felt now that this had become my reality.
“Yes … Tricia speaks for me as well, sweetheart,” James agreed. “You have a whole family to meet. But, if it’s okay with you, I think we need to take this a little slowly. Going from nothing to everything in a day can have serious repercussions for you both and no one in Tricia’s family … I mean, your birth mom’s family, knows that Tricia even had you, apart from her mother.”
James slid his hand from my back to the back of the booth seat and waved Brian over. “Let’s grab something to eat. The food here is delicious. I can guarantee this, since Brian works the front of the house and leaves his good wife in the back. Apart from being gorgeous, her cooking’s the reason he married her, isn’t that right, Brian?” he joked as his good-natured friend wandered up to the table with a tablet in hand, ready to take our order.
The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and we found the more Erin disclosed, the more coincidences there were. We had both attended Rochester Business School, both had excelled in math, and both had similar body types and fashion sense. It was a weird sensation feeling close to someone I’d only just met, it was a feeling I knew I’d never be able to explain for the rest of my life.
I also knew if I lived another hundred years, I could never have thanked James enough for his patience and support in coaxing me in there on the day. I’d gone there fearful of rejection, when the hardest part of the day had been when our lunch had ended, and I’d had to walk away again without her.
Chapter Four
As we walked home, I knew from the way people scowled toward James as they passed us by in the street, I must have looked a mess. James had offered to wave down a taxi, but we both knew the taxi driver would have thought us both crazy as we were only a few blocks from home.
I had cried several times during lunch, but as we walked home my heart felt like a weight had been cut free. A torrent of feelings swirled around within me and I’d felt anxious that Erin may have gone home, deciding she knew enough and would change her mind about growing a relationship with me.