Annabelle So Soon #3
I smiled as I removed the trinkets, hearing D-daddy say, “When you have this many girls, you have to have enough jewelry to leave behind. So you can’t have one fantastic bracelet, you have to have five.”
If that was true, then Lovey and D-daddy could have had a dozen girls, no problem.
I sifted through all of the jewelry but wasn’t able to find the precise piece I was looking for.
I piled them all back up, locked the door, and sighed.
As I did, I realized that I probably should have just picked another piece.
But if it wasn’t in the lockbox, that meant the treasure was probably in Lovey’s jewelry box at home. I’d swing by there when I left.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Melissa asked.
I shrugged. “Lovey was going to let me borrow her bracelet to wear for this party I’m going to, but I don’t see it in the box.”
Melissa smacked her gum. “Well she has two, you know.”
“Ohhhh,” I said. “It must be the wrong one.”
She grabbed her massive key ring again and stepped into the vault, holding her hand out for Lovey’s keys. “This key is for the big one, but this key is for the little one.”
I nodded, searching my brain for some sort of memory, for some inkling that Lovey had told me about another box, had told me to look somewhere besides the usual place.
I started to tell Melissa it was okay. I started to tell her not to worry about it.
But, before I even had a chance, she had inserted Lovey’s key, was fitting her key inside too, and the small silver door swung open.
“Thanks, Melissa,” I said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Take your time, shug.”
I lifted the thin metal handle and slid the drawer out of its cubby slowly, putting one hand underneath to support its weight.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I reminded myself.
I was simply going to look quickly for the bracelet, put the things back and leave.
Plus, it wasn’t like I cared about rummaging through Lovey and D-daddy’s stock certificates and bearer bonds.
I set the drawer on the floor, opened the lid and was surprised and delighted to find that, perched right on top, was the prize I was hunting.
I started to put the box away and leave when I realized that, far from boring paperwork, the drawer was filled with memorabilia from Lovey and D-daddy’s life together.
Old passports, wedding pictures, train tickets, snapshots of my mom and my aunts.
I pulled out each memento, so happy that I was able to see all of these beautiful things.
I put my hand to my stomach and took a deep breath.
No matter what I decided about Ben, it was all going to be okay.
Because I had this amazing, close-knit family that would stand by me and support me and help me raise this child. It was a moment of total comfort.
In the bottom of the box, in a neat stack, were five, perfect birth certificates, in age order.
Sally, Martha, Lauren, Louise, Jean. Underneath was a nondescript-looking white envelope, the edges yellowed with age.
I opened it carefully to find another birth certificate with my mother’s name on it.
I unfolded it, and, as I opened it, it seemed that another paper was stuck to it, almost glued.
I rubbed the pages between my fingers, the way I would have a pair of fresh dollar bills.
What I peeled from the back of the birth certificate was a carefully completed—in Lovey’s neat print—“Application for a Copy of a North Carolina Birth Certificate.” It was stamped “Copy.” I didn’t think much of it, figuring that Mom had gotten an extra birth certificate when she was married or traveling, and put it back in the box.
As I folded the form, a checked box caught my eye.
I didn’t even mean to read it; I didn’t mean to look.
But, there it was, unavoidable, on this form in Lovey’s own handwriting. Under “Your Relationship to the Person Whose Certificate Is Requested” the box was checked “Parent.” And under the column marked “Record Changes,” “Adoption” was checked.
I felt my breath catch in my throat, slammed the lid to the box, slid it back into its spot and ran out of the vault. “Thanks, Melissa,” I called, trying to rationalize in my mind what I had just seen.
“See you later, shug. Tell your momma and them I said hey.”
“Sure will.”
I walked out of the bank, my head lowered to avoid talking to anyone I passed on the way out. I felt like the bank was being held up at gunpoint and I was just standing there, watching a robber hold innocent people ransom, and not doing a thing about it.
I must have read it wrong, I kept reminding myself. I didn’t see what I thought I saw. Or maybe I just didn’t understand it. All of those questions I had had at the hospital flooded back to my mind, all at once.
With every step, I reasoned it out yet again. Mom’s blood type means she can’t be Lovey and D-daddy’s child. But she looks exactly like her sisters. There’s no way she’s adopted.
But there it was. In the box. Lovey had filled out a form.
She had checked that she was the parent.
And she was requesting that a change be made due to her daughter’s adoption.
Her daughter’s adoption. I gasped and stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot.
And then I started walking again. D-daddy wasn’t my mother’s father at all.
But there was no doubt that my mother and her sisters were the thickest blood you could imagine.
So there was only one explanation. Lovey had cheated on him with another man and he, in his infinite mercy, had forgiven Lovey.
He had taken her back and taken her love child as his own.
My phone rang, and I saw “Mom” flash across the screen.
How could I be normal now, knowing full well that I was the bearer of a secret so massive?
I wished so hard that I’d never opened that lockbox, that I’d never seen that birth certificate.
But that’s the thing about a secret that haunts your dreams and fills those empty spaces in your mind.
Once you know a thing so huge, you can never un-know it again.