I close the door behind us as we enter my bedroom. The beds were here when I moved in so they’re staying behind when I move out. The mattresses look so bare without the sheets and blankets. I sit down and he hands me the envelope as he sits next to me.
I look at him for a moment in the daylight and try to determine what’s different about him. “You got rid of the nose ring?”
“Yeah, I took it out of my nose and popped it straight into my lip.”
“That’s gross.”
“You’re the one who had it in your mouth when you were kissing me.”
“You kissed me!”
“Is that the official story you told your boyfriend?”
“It’s the truth and his name is Adam.”
“Your face is wet,” he says as he reaches up and brushes a drop of water from my jaw.
The familiarity with which he touches me, the comfort and ease of reaching for someone who you once knew better than yourself, all of this is embedded in this single touch. The second his skin touches mine, a shudder travels through me.
I quickly push his hand away. “Don’t do that,” I whisper as I stare at the tattoos on his arms to keep myself from looking into his eyes.
Most of them I recognize, but there’s a new one on the inside of his right forearm that wasn’t there last year. I can only see half of it from this angle, but it’s definitely a shattered heart. I begin unfolding the metal clasps on the envelope and he puts his hand over mine to stop me.
“Wait. I need to explain first.” I push his hand away again and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “I felt really lost after you left on Friday. I’ve been feeling lost for a long time. I come home to visit every once in a while and you’re not there and my mom is a fucking saint, but—”
“Chris, I’m sorry I didn’t visit Jackie on Saturday.”
“No, don’t apologize for that. I told her what happened and she understands.”
“You told her?”
“Well, I told her I ran into you at the show, but I didn’t tell her what you told me.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“And I didn’t tell her you ripped my heart out.”
He sits up and looks me in the eye and I feel like I’m sixteen again, waiting for him to tell me he loves me. His skin is so perfectly smooth. I stare at the bow of his lips the way I used to right before we were about to kiss. I wrench my eyes away to meet his gaze and his dark eyes glint with a hint of a smile that barely curls his lips.
“Claire, you don’t have to keep hiding this. I’m going to fix it. I swear.”
“You can’t. This isn’t something that can be fixed the way you fixed me.”
“I’m not stupid. I know I can’t get back what’s not mine.”
I don’t know if he’s talking about the baby or me, but I suddenly feel the need to meditate. I scoot back on the mattress and lay the envelope on my lap as I curl my legs underneath me.
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m here to tell you that I want to try. I talked to my lawyer about everything and he recommended a good adoption lawyer.”
My heart pounds wildly as I anticipate the direction this conversation is going. I think I know what he’s going to say, but what scares me the most is that I might not want to hear it.
“I’ve been talking to the lawyer this week and she’s been talking to the agency that handled the adoption,” he continues. “The guy at the agency thinks the couple who adopted our baby might still agree to an open adoption, since the baby’s only four months old.” I can’t move or speak so he takes the envelope from me and pulls out a stack of papers held together with a paperclip. He sets the papers facedown on the bed and smiles. “Her name is Abigail. She lives in Raleigh.”
“She?” I whisper as I press my lips together.
“Yeah, and she looks just like you.”
He turns the stack of papers over and there’s a picture clipped to the front. She’s lying in a crib on top of a fuzzy cream-colored blanket. She’s lying peacefully asleep and is almost bald, but I can still glimpse a tuft of soft blonde hair growing on the top of her head. Her top lip is much bigger than her bottom lip as her mouth hangs open in a silent O. She’s clutching a piece of the blanket in her chubby fist the way I do when I sleep.
“Abigail,” I whisper as I shake my head.
I still can’t believe it. I’ve been calling her Baby in my mind for four months. Every night I say a prayer that Baby is safe and warm and loved. I can see from this picture alone that Abigail is all of those things and more.
“We might be able to see her soon, but I need to know that this is what you want.”
I can’t tear my eyes away from the picture, as if staring at it long enough will cause some kind of cosmic epiphany and I’ll suddenly know what to do and say. I made the tough decision of giving her up four months ago so that I wouldn’t have make these kinds of difficult decisions until I was old enough to know better.
She looks so peaceful. Will I ruin that just by being me?
Chris lifts my chin to tear my gaze away from the photo. “I can’t do this without you.”
The sound of Adam’s voice in the apartment startles me. He’s asking for me. I push Chris’s hand away and stuff the papers back into the envelope just as Adam walks in.
“What’s going on, Claire?” he asks, but his eyes are on Chris.
I shoot up from the bed with the envelope clutched in my hands. “He was just leaving me some documents. He’s leaving now.”
I push Adam back through the doorway, but his eyes are locked on Chris.
“I’m not leaving until you give me an answer,” Chris says, and I can hear his voice behind me getting closer.
Adam resists me as I push him toward the living room. “Stop pushing me. I can control myself. I’m not a fucking child.”
“Yes or no, Claire?” Chris asks.
I look over my shoulder at him and shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“What is he talking about?” Adam asks.
I want to tell him. If I’ve learned anything over the past month it’s that keeping secrets from the one you love is a recipe for disaster. But I don’t want him to judge me if the answer is no. And I don’t want to scare him away if the answer is yes.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say, and he glares at me incredulously.
“Are you fucking kidding me? After everything that just happened, you’re going to give me that shit again?”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Chris says, and I can hear the threat in his tone.
“Stay out of it, Chris,” I warn him.
“You let him talk to you like that?”
“I said stay out of it!”
Adam pushes my hands off his chest. “Keep your secrets. I’m out of here,” he says before he storms out of the apartment.
Senia, who’s been standing quietly in the kitchen this whole time, creeps toward the front door. “I have to get something from my car,” she whispers.
“You deserve better than that, Claire,” Chris says as he moves toward me. “You deserve someone who knows you and respects you.”
“Adam respects me. You don’t know him.”
“Do you know him? How long have you two been together?”
“It’s none of your business,” I say as he stops a couple of feet away from me.
“It is my business if you’re planning to stay with him. I don’t want someone like that around our daughter if they grant us visitation.”
“He’s not a monster. He has a right to question why you’re here in my apartment after what happened last week.”
He takes another step forward and I take a step back, bumping the backs of my legs against a box. “I don’t want to talk about him,” he says, taking another step forward so our faces are inches apart. “I came here for you and believe me when I say that I won’t stop until I get you back.” His fingers graze the side of my face and I hold my ground, unwilling to crumble for him. “Think about this. Think about what it will be like to hold her in your arms.”
He kisses my forehead and leaves me with a handful of legal documents and a heart full of questions. I don’t know if this is the best or the worst news Chris could have delivered to me, but a huge part of me has never felt more grateful for him. Chris has always known exactly what I need and he’s always been willing to do whatever it takes to give it to me.
I take a deep breath and grab my keys off the breakfast bar. I lock the front door and head for the beach.
I find Adam sitting near the edge of the water and he doesn’t look at me as I sit next to him. I dig my hands into the warm sand and scoop up a handful. I let it fall slowly and watch as most of it is carried away on the breeze. I guess that’s the way secrets are. They’re only heavy when you’re holding them. As soon as you let go, the significance of keeping those secrets hidden blows away and everything falls into place.
“My daughter’s name is Abigail,” I say, and he finally looks at me. “That’s what he came to tell me. He thinks he can get his lawyer to arrange an open adoption.”
“Is that what you want?”
I shrug as I wrap my arms around my knees. “I don’t know if I could handle seeing her and leaving her. I’ve already done that before and it nearly destroyed me.”
“But you wouldn’t be leaving her forever this time.”
We sit in silence for a long time until the sun begins to touch the horizon and Adam grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s see if the water has the answer.”
He kisses my hand before he stands and pulls me up. “I love you, Claire. I’ll support you whatever you choose to do. You know that, right?”
I smile as I breathe in this moment. “I do.”
He pulls me toward the water and we trudge through the knee-high waves, in our clothes, until we’re waist deep. A small wave crashes into me and I get a mouthful of ocean. He laughs as I spit out the salty water. Then he kisses me. The salt in my mouth mixes with the sweetness of his tongue and I can feel his smile curving against my mouth.
He pulls away as he looks into my eyes and doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to.
As soon as the sun begins to set, it seems to fall too quickly from the sky, like a heart in love. The relentless pull of love is a thousand times harder to fight than the tides. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it out before you drown. If you’re even luckier, you’re pulled under just long enough to wash away the sorrow. If you’re really lucky, like me, you resurface just in time to find the one you love floating right beside you.
THE END