I raced down the hall from my office to the front of the building, where I’d been summoned the moment a woman entered the reception area, cradling her bleeding dog in her arms.
“Where are they?” I asked Chandi, who sat at her desk by the door, typing something into her computer. Like me, she was in her midfifties, and at this point, we’d worked together for more than thirty years. She was my business manager, my accountant, and, besides Evan, my closest friend. When Randy had retired and sold me his practice, one of the first things I did was make sure Chandi knew I couldn’t run the clinic without her.
“Room three,” she said, nodding in that direction. “Paula is with them.” Paula was one of the inmates I’d worked with for the past six years, a woman convicted of check-writing fraud. As I had, she earned her vet tech degree while still incarcerated, and when she was released, I gave her a full-time job. She was a short, heavyset woman with a big smile and sparkling green eyes; since joining my team, she’d met and married her husband, and given birth to a little boy named Joseph. Not all of the women from the prison took to the service-dog training program—some quit, some ended up committing other crimes and returning to jail—but Paula was one of my success stories.
“Dr. Richmond,” Paula said as I entered the exam room. She wore light blue scrubs, and her auburn hair was pulled into a ponytail on top of her head. The dog lay on the paper-lined table, its white fur bloody along its side, its breathing pattern staggered and irregular. I looked at the owner, a woman I recognized as someone new to the clinic—I’d seen her and her dog only a handful of times, so I had a hard time recalling her name. “This is Gretchen,” Paula continued. “And her pup, Wiley.”
I stepped over to the table and rested a gentle hand on the dog’s head. “It’s okay, boy,” I said in a soothing voice. He had a deep, six-inch laceration along his rib cage that I immediately knew would require stitches. But first, we’d need to get him into X-ray to make sure he didn’t have any broken bones, and then perform an ultrasound to find any possible internal bleeding. I raised my eyes to Gretchen, a thin blond woman who was trying not to cry. She appeared to be in her mid- to late thirties. The same age as my girls. I blinked a few times, attempting to push down this thought. Even now, more than three decades after I’d last seen them, they were always lurking in the dark corners of my mind, ready to take me back to the moment in which I lost them. I still wrote each of my daughters a letter on her birthday, filing them away in the same box where I kept the notebooks I’d written in while in prison. I told them about my marriage to Evan, my growing vet practice, and the volunteer work I did with other incarcerated women. I told them that after I’d reached out to my mother several times over the years, her husband finally called me and said that she’d had a sudden heart attack when she was fifty-seven and died. I told them how deeply I grieved the fact that she and I never were able to resolve our differences, and that I hoped their relationships with their new families were healthy and strong. I told them that I thought about them every single day.
“What happened?” I asked Gretchen, forcing myself to focus on the situation right in front of me.
“I was at the grocery store,” she said. “I opened the hatch to put the bags inside and he just took off across the parking lot, into the street. A car’s brakes screeched and tried to stop, but it still hit him.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, remembering. “The sound he made was so horrible . . . like he was screaming. It sounded human.”
I nodded, carefully moving my hand down Wiley’s neck to check his pulse. It was fast, but still strong. A good sign. “Dogs can do that when they’re in pain or scared,” I said. I glanced toward Paula and looked down at Wiley’s head. She stepped over and held it steady, as she understood I needed her to do in case Wiley decided to try to bite one of us. His dark eyes were glassy, and he seemed to be in shock; from his earlier appointments with me, I remembered him being a sweet, gentle boy, but an injured dog was an unpredictable creature..
“Is he going to be okay?” Gretchen asked in a shaky voice.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure he will be,” I said. “He’s conscious, which is a good thing, and it doesn’t look like he’s had any trauma to his head.” I paused, feeling my way carefully down Wiley’s sides to check for broken ribs. “He’ll need stitches, but my biggest concern is that he might have broken bones and/or internal bleeding, so Paula and I are going to take him in the back for a bit and run some tests, okay? You can stay right here. One of us will be out to talk with you as soon as we can.”
Gretchen nodded, Paula lifted Wiley into her arms, and we both made our way to the lab, where we quickly performed the necessary procedures. The ultrasound was negative for bleeding, but the X-ray did show a hairline fracture of his proximal tibia on his left hind leg, so Paula prepped the operating room, and I administered Wiley a strong sedative. Once the anesthesia had kicked in, I had Paula go and update Gretchen. When she returned, she assisted in setting the break and stitching up his wound.
“I take it Chandi rescheduled the last few appointments I had this afternoon?” I asked as Paula handed me the sterile bandage to set on top of Wiley’s newly shaven side. The cut was deep, but not so much that I was concerned about its ability to properly heal.
“She did,” Paula said. “Once you’re finished here, you’re done for the day. She also said to tell you that that Natalie woman called again.”
The muscles in my gut spasmed. That would be the second call in a week—the second time a woman named Natalie Clark had left only her phone number, never saying what it was that she needed to speak with me about. It wasn’t the first time over the years that I’d encountered a woman with the same first name as one of my daughters, but something about the fact that this woman wasn’t one of my clients and that she refused to tell Chandi why she was calling set me on edge.
“She’s probably just trying to sell me something,” I said to Paula. But even as I spoke, I knew this wasn’t true. The phone number Natalie Clark had left had a 206 area code, which meant she lived in Seattle. Could it be her? I wondered. Could it be my younger girl has come to find me? The thought filled me with terror; it shook me to my core. The girl I’d been when I gave my children up didn’t exist anymore—she seemed like another person’s ghost. I’d worked so hard to forget her, to focus on everything I’d managed to gain instead of all I’d lost. To become a successful, stable, happy woman. For the most part, the life I’d built with Evan and our dogs was so peaceful, so perfect, the idea of disrupting it made me feel wobbly and loose, as though the ground beneath me might melt away.
“Probably,” Paula said.
I gave her a quick smile before carefully detaching the face mask from Wiley’s muzzle. His eyes were closed and his heartbeat was slow and steady, but before I asked Paula to move him to the large cage we used for dogs recovering from surgery, I shot a strong dose of painkiller into his IV.
“Time for the cone of shame,” Paula said, and I chuckled. We put a soft plastic device around his neck, which was meant to prevent Wiley from chewing at the stitches I’d just put in his side.
An hour later, after I’d reassured Gretchen that Wiley would live to chase another cat and made sure that he came out of anesthesia without vomiting or suffering a seizure, I returned to my office to go over my schedule. This was something I always did before I went home—to mentally prepare for my next day’s appointments, and make sure I left room for any emergencies that might come through the door.
I sat down at my desk, which like everything else in my life, I kept as tidy as possible. I glanced down at the small stack of messages Chandi had taken for me while I was in surgery with Wiley, and the one from Natalie Clark was right on top. I ran my finger over the phone number, wondering if I should plug it into an online reverse directory and see if I could find out more about the woman who had called. Giving the wireless mouse next to my computer a little shake to bring the screen out of hibernation mode, I opened up a search engine and typed the number in. But before I hit return, my head began to spin.
Oh, god, I thought. Not again. The last time I’d had a serious panic attack was when Trixie died. She’d lived to be sixteen, well past the life expectancy for a dog her size, and had drifted off in her sleep in the middle of a warm August night. When I found her, cold and unmoving on her bed the next morning, I’d dropped to my knees and begun to wail, even as my lungs seemed to shrink and my breath became something I had to pursue.
“Babe,” Evan had said, jumping up from his side of the bed and racing over to where I knelt. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t speak. I only slid my arms beneath Trixie’s limp body and pulled her to my chest. I buried my face in her fur, sobbing so hard it felt as though my rib cage might shatter.
Evan dropped down beside us and took us both into his tight embrace. We’d gone through the loss of Scout five years before, and while I’d come to love my husband’s dog, too, there was something special about Trixie. She’d been with me longer than anyone ever had been before. She protected me and loved me without condition. From the moment I scratched her belly in that kennel, she’d gone on to heal something deep and broken inside my soul. We’d healed each other.
And then she was gone. A dark sorrow rose inside me as I curled up on the carpet in my bedroom, holding Trixie while I cried. My insides felt itchy and wild; my skin felt as though it might crack right off of my body. I flashed back to the day I’d said good-bye to my children—the grief I’d felt so intense, I worried it might break me apart. I knew that loss was a part of life; it was a regular requirement of my job to administer euthanasia and help my clients say good-bye to their pets. But losing Trixie was different. It was the end of something I was afraid I’d never find again.
Evan curled up right behind me, holding me and Trixie both. He didn’t speak, he didn’t try to tell me everything would be okay. He was simply there, serving as an anchor, making sure I knew I wasn’t alone.
It took me over a year to fully grieve Trixie’s death—a year to get through a day without choking up when I thought of her. But after that, as I continued to train more dogs in need of a home, Evan and I decided it was time to adopt a few for ourselves. We ended up taking four pups from a litter that had been abandoned with their ill mother by the side of the road, two girls and two boys, who brought as much joy and unconditional love into our lives as both Scout and Trixie had.
But now, as I sat at my desk, staring at Natalie Clark’s phone number on my computer screen, I felt a panic rise in my body too similar to the one I’d experienced when Trixie died, threatening me just like the one I’d had that day when I snatched the little girl from the playground and ran away into the woods. Looking into who this woman might be was emotionally dangerous—it was a game I decided I couldn’t afford to play.
Instead, I deleted the number and put this message, like the other, into the shredder next to the filing cabinet. Tomorrow, I’d tell Chandi to stop giving them to me, knowing she was a good enough employee—a good enough friend—not to ask why. If I didn’t call Natalie Clark back, perhaps she’d give up and go away.
Grabbing my coat, I locked my office for the night and headed out to my car. It was already dark outside, a cold and clear late January evening. A few other businesses around the clinic still had their twinkling white lights from the holidays.
On the short drive home, I pondered whether or not to tell Evan about the calls from Natalie Clark. Knowing him as well as I did, I knew he would encourage me to call her back, if only to alleviate my fears about whom she might be. But the idea that she was my younger daughter was too frightening a prospect for me to decide to share the calls with my husband. This felt a bit like a betrayal of Evan, since we tended toward telling each other everything, but the anxiety I’d felt in my office and only barely managed to ward off still simmered in my belly. I was willing to do whatever I could to keep it at bay.
When I pulled into our long driveway, I saw a car I didn’t recognize. It was a silver SUV, and there was no one inside it. Evan often had customers mistake our driveway as the one for his business, so I simply parked in my usual spot before making my way to the front porch. “Hey, babe,” I called out as I entered the house. I’d barely taken off my coat and set my purse on the table by the door when I looked up and saw two women sitting on our couch. Evan and the dogs weren’t in the room.
“Oh, god,” I said, feeling a wash of icy cold work its way through my body as I took the women in. I grabbed the edge of the table with one hand and put the other over my mouth. It’s them. It has to be them. Both were petite, like me, and one could have been me fifteen years ago, when I’d turned forty. It’s Brooke. She had my pale skin, dark curls, and violet eyes—eyes that were staring at me so intently I feared they might burn a hole in my skin. She was a little heavy—her face was slightly round and full, but her cheeks were healthy and pink. She wore black leggings and a blue top with an empire waist.
The other woman, who wore jeans and a green sweater, was a pixie-faced blonde with big brown eyes; at least, I thought they were brown—she was blinking so fast I could barely see the color. Natalie. My baby girl. Tears blinded me.
The two women both stood. “Hi . . . Jennifer,” the blond woman said. “We’re sorry to just barge in on you like this. I called you earlier, at your office . . .”
It’s her, it’s her, it’s her. Natalie Clark is my daughter. I shook my head frantically. My jaw clenched together hard enough for my molars to squeak. The room began to spin, and I closed my eyes, wondering if I was simply imagining that they were here. Had I managed to conjure their presence with the panic I’d felt back in my office? Was I hearing things, the same way I’d heard Brooke’s voice that day so many years ago in the park?
“Jen.” Evan’s voice called to me through the fuzzy cloud that clogged my head. I felt his strong, warm hand on my cheek. “It’s okay. They showed me the paperwork. It’s definitely them.”
I shook my head again, keeping my eyes shut. I was too afraid to find out what might happen if I opened them. How did they have paperwork? Gina had told me all the records were sealed, that the state would only open them in case of an emergency. What if this is an emergency? What if one of my daughters is sick?
This was not what I’d imagined would have happened if I ever saw my girls again. Even with all the letters I wrote them, I had never let myself believe this moment would ever come about. It was too terrifying, too overwhelming to even consider as a possibility. I’d let them go, for their sakes. And for my own. I clung to Evan, worried I might pass out.
“Let’s just go,” I heard Brooke say. At least I assumed it was Brooke because her voice sounded different from that of Natalie, who had spoken before. “She doesn’t want us here.”
“Wait,” Natalie said. “We’ve just shocked the hell out of her. Let’s give her a minute.”
“Evan,” I whispered. “I can’t do this. Please.”
He leaned over and pressed his cheek against mine. His lips were next to my ear. “Yes, you can.” He hugged me, rubbing a soothing circle on my back. “They only want to talk. To ask you a few questions. You can do that for them, can’t you? It might be good for you. For them, too.”
I forced myself to turn my head, open my eyes, and look at my daughters. My heart fluttered inside my chest as I pulled back from Evan’s embrace and slowly reached out a hand, thinking I needed to touch them to believe that they were actually here. But at the last second, I jerked my arm back to my side, unable to go through with it. What did they want to say to me? What would I say to them? How could I explain the decisions I’d made, the pain of letting them go, which had torn me apart in ways that seeing them here, in my living room, made me realize just how delicately I’d been sewn together all of these years. All the progress I’d made, the confidence I thought I’d earned, now vanished, and I felt like I was right back in that room where I’d last held them—fragile, uncertain, full of soul-scorching regret. My seams once again threatening to burst.
“Jennifer,” Natalie said. “I’m so sorry if we’ve upset you, just showing up like this. We’ll go, if you want us to.” She’d taken a few steps closer to me, and Evan stood to the side. I could see the shadows of the baby I’d held around her edges, the shape of her eyes, and the soft curve of her smile. Brooke stood with her arms crossed over her chest, still so much the defiant little girl I remembered, the girl who pretended to be brave when she was riddled with fear. It shocked me, how easily I recognized them. All of those faces I’d searched for in crowds—the ones I thought might be my daughters—were nowhere close to being my girls.
These were my girls, standing right in front of me, asking me to talk. And no matter how hard it might be, telling them the truth about their past was the very least I could do.
The four of us sat down, Brooke and Natalie on the larger couch, and Evan and I across from them on the love seat. “Where are the dogs?” I asked Evan. I was accustomed to our pups’ welcoming presence the moment I came home from work. It was odd not to have them lying at my feet.
“They’re outside,” he said. He held my left hand in both of his, and I was pressed up tight against him. Evan was my touchstone, my security, the place I felt most safe. If I was going to do this, if I was going to talk with my daughters, I needed him there with me.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the floor. We were all quiet, but I could feel my girls’ gazes upon me, waiting for me to begin. “How did you find me?” I finally asked.
“A friend of Brooke’s,” Natalie said. “A detective.”
“And your adoptive family,” I said. The words came out staggered—I felt as though I were in a foreign country, speaking an entirely new language. “Do they know you’re here?”
“Mine does,” Natalie said.
“I was never adopted,” Brooke said. Her tone was clipped. “I grew up in foster homes and a facility run by the state.”
I snapped my eyes up from the floor to look at my older daughter. “You weren’t raised together?”
Brooke shook her head. “We only just found each other in October. Up until then, Natalie didn’t know I existed. We were separated about a month after you gave us up.”
“Oh my god,” I said. My lungs felt shriveled; I couldn’t get enough air. “I’m so sorry . . . I assumed . . . I never thought . . .” I let my words trail off, not having any idea what to say to them. My heart pounded an erratic rhythm behind my rib cage. I couldn’t believe that Natalie hadn’t even known she had an older sister. The only comfort I’d had over the years was in the knowledge that the two of them had each other after they’d lost me. Discovering this belief was false made me feel as though I’d been shoved off a cliff.
“You didn’t know,” Natalie said, kindly. “It’s just . . . the way things turned out.” She paused, fiddling with the strap of the black leather purse resting at her side. When she spoke again, she kept her eyes on my face. “We only know a little about your decision to give up custody. We were hoping . . . wondering, really, if you could tell us a little about what led you to make it. We know you were young, and that things had to be tough for you, having the both of us.”
“But people do it,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Young, single mothers manage to raise babies all of the time. You want to know why I didn’t.”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “Were we that terrible? That hard to handle?” Her violet eyes flashed, filled with what looked like years of inflamed fury and pent-up grief, both of which I knew I was responsible for.
I glanced at Evan, who had been sitting quietly next to me, and he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “You weren’t anywhere close to terrible,” I said, unable to keep my voice from wavering. “You were both beautiful. I loved you so much. My decision . . . what I did . . . it didn’t have anything to do with you. It was about me. I was a mess . . . so insecure and scared. I was doing an awful job as a mother . . . having to beg for money . . . living with you both in my car.” I looked back and forth between my daughters. My daughters. I still couldn’t believe they were here. “I was terrified of things getting worse. I was afraid if I raised you, I’d do a horrible job of it. That I couldn’t take care of you properly and you’d end up as screwed up as I was. I wanted you to have a better life than the one I could give you. I’d made so many mistakes . . . so many wrong decisions. I was going to jail. Giving you both a chance to start over without me seemed like the only right choice to make.”
“I can see that,” Natalie said. She looked at her sister, whose chin trembled. Brooke was almost forty and yet, in this moment, still four, looking every bit the wounded little girl I remembered leaving alone in the car with her sister that night at the store.
“Brooke, I’m so sorry—” I began, but then she cut me off.
“I thought you were going to come back for me,” Brooke said. “Did you know that? I cried every night, waiting for you. I thought I’d done something wrong. That I made you leave. Did you think about me at all?”
“I thought about you always,” I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Both of you. Every minute of every day for the longest time. I was sick over how much I worried about you both. So much, it made me feel like I was going insane.” Again, I looked at Evan, who gave me an encouraging nod. When I looked at my daughters again, they both stared at me, expectantly. “If you found me through the police,” I said, “I assume you know the reason I went to prison the second time? For attempted kidnapping?” They nodded, and so I continued. “That day in the park . . . the little girl I picked up and took into the woods . . . I thought it was you, Brooke.”
My elder daughter’s expression didn’t falter. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. I felt crazy. I wasn’t stable. It was like I was in the middle of a flashback to the moment Gina and that other woman came to take you away from me. Giving you girls up . . .” My throat closed around these words and I had to cough before I could go on. “The day I said good-bye to you both broke something in me. Finding my way back from that . . . finding a way to live with myself for letting you both go hasn’t been easy. There have been moments it’s been downright impossible. If it wasn’t for Evan”—here I gave my husband a grateful look—“and my work, I’m not sure I would have survived the guilt.”
We were all silent for a few moments after I finished speaking. I struggled not to give myself over to hysterics.
“I’m sorry you’ve gone through so much,” Natalie said. “But we’re together now. Maybe we can find a way to get to know each other.”
I thought about this as I kept my eyes on my daughters, amazed that these two gorgeous women were the babies I’d brought into this world. But in the very next moment, panic overtook that sense of awe, and before I knew what I was doing, I had let go of Evan’s hand and stood up. “I’m sorry,” I said. I was done; I’d given them all that I could. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Natalie asked, but instead of responding, I did the only thing I could think of. I raced out of the living room and disappeared through the back door, into the dark night.
