Chapter 5 #2
“We were,” Ava told her, still looking at Shannon. “You’re all grown-up. Of course you would be. It’s been years.”
She briefly rested her hand on her throat. For a second Shannon wondered if she was going to cry.
Victoria glanced between the two older women. “How do you know each other?”
Ava ignored the question and smiled at Shannon. “I’m staring, and I apologize for that. It’s just, I always wondered what you’d look like when you were older. The pictures I saw . . .” Her mouth straightened. “Not pictures, really. But I wondered.”
She turned her attention to Cindy. “You look well. You mentioned a fiancé. You’re getting married?”
Cindy nodded.
“Congratulations. We’re looking at a venue for Milton’s birthday party. He’s going to be sixty.”
“How is he?” Cindy asked, her voice faint.
“Well. He’ll be delighted to know you and—” there was a faint hesitation “—Shannon are thriving.”
“Okay, you have to stop ignoring me,” Victoria said sharply. “Mom, there’s something. This is incredibly awkward, and none
of us know why. How do you know these people?”
Cindy opened her mouth, then closed it. She sucked in a breath, as if gathering courage. “I met your parents when . . .” Her
mother went completely white, and for a second Shannon wondered if she was going to faint.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head. “It’s all such a surprise.”
“Would somebody tell me what’s going on,” Victoria demanded. “This is ridiculous. Mom, why are you acting so strange?”
Ava looked at Cindy. “Would it be easier if I said it?”
Cindy glanced helplessly at Shannon, then shook her head. “I can’t. You’ll have to.”
Ava shocked Shannon by looking directly at her. “When your mother was pregnant, she considered giving you up for adoption.
Understandable, of course. She was only seventeen and had her whole life planned out. A baby was a complication. My husband
and I were trying to adopt. Cindy chose us to be your parents.”
Shannon felt the ground shift underneath her as she heard but didn’t understand the words. Adoption? No way. Her mom wouldn’t do that. Only Cindy’s shocked expression had turned guilty, and that Ava person continued to talk.
“But when you were born, she couldn’t do it,” Ava said, her voice thick with an emotion Shannon couldn’t identify. “She kept
you, as was her right. And that was that.”
Cindy flinched. Victoria stared at her mother, obviously stunned by the explanation. Javiar moved close to Shannon and put
his arm around her waist, as if holding her upright.
She wanted to protest she was fine, only she wasn’t. Her mom had planned to give her up? Sure, it made sense—in theory at
least. But to hear the information was upsetting and confusing. Her mom loved her. They were a team. How could she have wanted
to give her away? But even as she thought the question, she told herself not to judge. Cindy loved her. She’d just been a
kid herself.
“Mom?” she said, then paused when she realized she had no idea what to say.
Cindy looked from her to Ava and back, then shook her head. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
Before Shannon knew what was happening, she’d turned and run back toward the bungalow and the parking lot beyond. Shannon
glanced back at Ava.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wanting to add something, but honestly, what was there to say?
She turned to follow Cindy, Javiar at her side. Thoughts crowded in her head, but none of them made sense.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Not even close.”
“You never knew?”
“That my mom was going to give me up? No. It’s not exactly a normal thing to discuss.” She rubbed her temple. “It makes sense.
She was a pregnant teenager. But it’s still a shock to hear.”
She found her mom waiting by Javiar’s car. He quickly unlocked it, and she slid into the back seat. Shannon got in next to him and turned to stare at her mom.
Cindy looked away. “Don’t ask me anything. I can’t deal with this now. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But, Mom—”
“No! Just let me be.”
The harsh tone was unfamiliar, as was the refusal to talk. In their world, honest conversation solved nearly every problem.
Javiar started the car, then reached across to squeeze her hand. His kind eyes told her he got that everything was messed
up and that he was on her side.
She appreciated the silent support but wasn’t sure it was going to help. Her mind couldn’t settle on just one thing, instead
jumping from revelation to revelation. Her mom had been planning to give her up for adoption. Another couple had wanted her
as their own. Ava’s brief recounting of what had happened hadn’t told the entire story.
Cindy had picked Ava and her husband and then had changed her mind, no doubt devastating them. Because people waiting for
a baby wanted kids desperately. They’d wanted her. But so had her mom. She’d been unable to go through with it—Ava had said
Cindy had changed her mind after she’d been born.
What must that have been like? To disappoint the couple she’d already chosen, to decide to keep a baby when she was barely
eighteen? To turn her back on all her dreams and plans. Had her mom been going to college? Cindy was smart—she always had
been. There could have been a scholarship and a career. But she’d walked away from all of that to keep Shannon. To raise her
on her own, because the guy who was her father had bolted at the news of the pregnancy.
At least that was what she’d always been told. Suddenly Shannon wasn’t sure about anything. Not her past or her mom’s. They’d always been so close, yet she was starting to see she didn’t know her mother at all.
Victoria watched the other people walk away. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and there was a weird pressure in her ears.
She told herself that the day had taken a turn for the interesting, and wasn’t that fun? Only she couldn’t breathe, and her
inability had nothing to do with ribs.
She’d always known she was adopted. She’d grown up with the knowledge, hadn’t thought much about it. Occasionally she’d asked
her dad for details about her parents, but he’d been vague, saying he didn’t know much. That unsatisfying answer had always
been followed with an earnest discussion about how she’d been a wonderful gift. He’d explained Ava had found out she couldn’t
have children when she was still a teenager and had immediately known she wanted to adopt.
When he’d married her, he’d been fine with the plan, and they’d gone looking for the perfect little girl. Her. It was an explanation
designed to make her feel loved and safe. Only it hadn’t been the truth.
When she was fourteen, she’d been assigned a genealogy project for school and had asked for a copy of her birth certificate.
On it she’d seen the name of her mother and the single word Unknown by the space for the father’s name. A little online research had her realizing that her mother had been a maid in the house.
She confronted her father, and he’d admitted that she had been.
One of the maids had come to them about an unexpected pregnancy. She was frightened and alone and didn’t want her family to
know about the baby. She’d been asking for help, but Ava and Milton had decided to adopt her child instead.
To her fourteen-year-old self, the news hadn’t been happy. Instead of the delightful fairy tale of them searching for their perfect little girl, the reality was they couldn’t be bothered to go find a child. Instead they waited until one was basically left on their doorstep.
“Oh look, Milton. A baby. We talked about having one and taking this one means we don’t have to bother with looking. One’s
as good as another.”
All these years later she could hear herself screaming at her mother that Ava hadn’t really wanted her. Obviously she’d been
a mistake—she and Ava were nothing alike. Victoria had told her parents they should have sent her back.
Her mother had told her not to be dramatic, but her dad had held her, promising her she was loved and wanted. But in that
moment, she’d known she was just some random baby. A convenience, not a gift.
Only now she knew the truth was so much worse because her parents had gone looking for a child. They’d found one. They’d done all the things to get their tall, blonde little girl. But the deal
had fallen through, no doubt devastating her parents. Then the maid had turned up pregnant.
“She’s the one, isn’t she?” she asked, her back to her mother. “The child you wanted.” What she thought but didn’t say was
It was never me. Because she’d known—even as a young child—that her mother didn’t love her the way other mothers loved their children. There
was always a sense of something missing—no, something held back. Only not with Milton. Never with him. With him, she was sure.
After a few seconds of silence, she turned. Ava stood in the center of the pathway, her face pale, her eyes unreadable.
“We were looking to adopt,” her mother affirmed, still staring straight ahead. “It’s not an easy process. Everyone wants a
baby. We met with so many young women, but it was never right. We both wanted a connection. And then we met Cindy.”
“You could have been sisters.”
Her mother looked at her then and nodded. “Yes, that’s true. We were mistaken for sisters more than once.”
“That must have made you crazy, Mom. With Shannon, you wouldn’t have had to always explain.” Because that was what her mother had done when someone commented on how different Victoria look from Ava and Milton.
Oh, she’s adopted.
“You wanted a kid that looks like you. It makes sense.” Victoria told herself she didn’t feel anything. That none of this
mattered.
Ava shook her head. “You’re wrong. That wasn’t a consideration. I needed to have a relationship with the birth mother. I wanted
her to be part of her baby’s life. With Cindy, I had a real connection.”
“That’s so much bullshit. You didn’t quote, unquote, have a relationship with my birth mother. She worked for you and after she gave me to you, she left.”
Her mother flinched. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Everything changed.”
“When you didn’t get the baby you wanted. When you were stuck with your second choice. Because I’m not just the maid’s baby,
Mom. I’m the one you took when you couldn’t have Shannon.”
A single tear rolled down her mother’s cheek, shocking Victoria. Ava never cried. She got annoyed or tired or impatient, but
there were never tears.
Victoria turned away. She wanted to feel bad, but there was too much going on inside of her, too many memories filling her
head. The times her mother had wanted to know why she had to be so difficult and why she couldn’t act “right.” The forever
trying to make her dress differently or be less loud. Her frustration with how Victoria’s dark hair had natural waves that
refused to be tamed.
They’d always butted heads about everything, but Victoria had assumed that was just natural. Now she wondered how much disappointment had played a role in their relationship. Because she wasn’t Shannon.
She started for the car, wanting to walk away from all she’d learned. Only with the crutches, she couldn’t move quickly, and
even if she could run, she couldn’t outpace her thoughts.
Ava quickly caught up. “You’re overreacting. You’re my daughter, and I love you.”
“Do you, Mom? Do you?”
“Of course. You know that.”
“What I know is you wanted another child. A different one. A girl who looked just like you. And what you got is me. That had
to be disappointing, and it explains a lot.”
Ava got in front of her and came to a stop, forcing her to do the same. “You weren’t our second choice.”
“Really? Did you lose Shannon before my birth mom came to you or after?”
Ava looked down at the ground. “Before.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She maneuvered around her and continued to hop-step toward the car. She had to get home. Once she was alone in her room, she
could think. More importantly, once she was alone she could try to deal with the way her heart had been sliced open and left
to bleed out. Because she’d always told herself that when it came to her relationship with her mom, it was only difficult
because they were so different. That of course she was loved and wanted, and she was being dramatic to assume otherwise. Now
she knew she hadn’t been wrong to wonder about the very foundation of what she’d always believed. The question was, what was
she supposed to do about it now?