Chapter 7 #2
“That was a coincidence, nothing more. I told you, I wanted a connection with the birth mother, and we clicked the day we
met. Her appearance was secondary.”
Maybe, Victoria thought, but she was doubtful. It was too easy to pretend the similarities weren’t important when they simply
were.
“Whatever,” she said. “The point is you had the child you wanted. You did all the things. With Shannon, you’d never have to explain why she was different.
” She’d spent a long night thinking about what her mom would have gone through as she waited for Cindy to give birth.
“You were going to be Shannon’s mother. And then without warning, you were denied the one thing you wanted more than anything else.
Your perfect, blonde baby girl was taken from you.
One second you were her mom, and the next you weren’t. ”
Her mother flinched as if she’d been struck. “It was a difficult time,” she admitted, her voice soft. “But that has nothing
to do with you being wanted. You’re my daughter, and I love you.”
“Now,” Victoria said quietly. “Today. But not back then.”
“That’s not true. You don’t get to tell me what I felt when you were a newborn.”
“Then you shouldn’t have lied.” Victoria drew in a breath and tried to stay calm as she explained. “It was too soon, Mom.
Only four months after you lost Shannon. You were devastated. I get it, or at least I can try to understand. But that’s not
the point. You weren’t ready. That’s why my adoption story never made sense. You weren’t looking for a baby, you were in mourning
for the one you were supposed to have. You’re really strong, and you don’t do helpless well. But you were helpless. Cindy
was the birth mother. It was entirely up to her, and she betrayed you. I’m sure you were in so much pain, and then the maid
showed up pregnant.”
She told herself to just get through it without crying. She wasn’t ready to show that much emotion. “On paper, it seemed like
the perfect solution. Sure, let’s take this baby. Only it wasn’t the right time, and I wasn’t the baby you wanted.”
Her mother pressed her fingers to her mouth, as if holding in words or feelings. Victoria wasn’t sure which.
“It wasn’t like that,” she whispered.
“Sure, it was. It was too soon. You weren’t ready.
Describe it however you like. I suppose I get why you didn’t tell me, but in some ways, knowing would have helped to explain a lot.
Every time you looked at me, I wasn’t her.
” She paused to hold in the pain. “I know you love me even when I make you crazy. But how many times a day did you wonder if everything would have been just a little bit better if I was her? How many times did you stand by my crib and wish I was Shannon?”
Ava took a step back. The involuntary movement was all the information Victoria needed. She was right about all of it. And
while she wanted an answer to her question—had her mother regretted her daily? More than that?—she wasn’t likely to get the
truth. Honestly, what did it matter? Looking for more pain made her seem kind of pathetic.
“I want to say I get it,” she continued, “but I don’t. I can’t know what you went through. I can try to imagine, but it’s
not the same, is it?”
Her mother dropped her arm to her side and shook her head. Her pain was palpable, and Victoria was sorry for inflicting it—only
Ava wasn’t the only one suffering.
“Which means you have no idea what I’m going through either,” she continued. “You don’t know what it was like when I was younger.
I always knew there was something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I tried, I asked, but you both told me you loved me and
that I was looking for trouble.”
“We never said that.”
Victoria waved away the words. “Not exactly like that, but the implication was everything was perfect.” She stared at her
mother. “It wasn’t, and you should have told me the truth.”
Tears filled her mother’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Ava had perfected the art of not crying. Victoria admired that about
her. In truth, she admired a lot about her mom, but there were also sides of Ava she didn’t like very much.
She glanced toward the hallway. “That’s why you kept the baby room the same, isn’t it? For a while I thought it was because you were hoping to adopt another baby, but that wasn’t the reason. It was because that had been Shannon’s room.”
The catch in her mother’s breathing told her all she needed to know. Ava turned away for a moment, then reached for the carry-on
bag.
“I’ll take this downstairs for you.”
For the second time in her life, Victoria didn’t mind about the elevator. Even when it shuddered halfway through the journey,
she simply waited until it reached the main floor, then hop-stepped toward the open front door. Her mother was outside, placing
the suitcase in the trunk while the Uber driver watched. Victoria carefully hopped down the main stairs, holding her crutches
in one hand and the railing with the other. She was sweating by the time she reached the driveway, and her heart was thumping
in her chest. When she was healed enough to start working out, she was going to have to get serious about replacing the muscle
she was losing and getting back her endurance.
She walked to the open rear car door. Ava hovered there, her fingers twisting together.
“I’m sorry,” her mother told her.
“It’s okay, Mom.”
They looked at each other, then Victoria got in the car. Ava closed the door, stepped back and returned to the house.
Victoria stared unseeingly out the window. Traffic was light, and it didn’t take long to get to her condo. She had a brief
argument with the driver who didn’t want to help her with her bag until she offered him an extra twenty dollars for a tip.
He deposited it on her doorstep and stared at her until she hit the correct keys on her phone.
Not her best day, she thought as he left, and she unlocked her front door.
She managed to support herself by leaning against the doorframe and dragging her suitcase.
After closing and locking the front door, she maneuvered her suitcase to the center of the room where she let it fall to the carpet.
She carefully lowered herself to her knees, unzipped the bag, then she dug out her prescription.
She hadn’t been taking her pain pills for a few days but knew she needed one now.
Every part of her hurt including her heart, but the medication was only going to help with the physical aches. When it came
to emotions, medical science couldn’t do much.
Once she’d swallowed the pill, she got herself into the bedroom and collapsed on her bed. She stared at the ceiling and willed
the tears away. Only they didn’t listen, instead slipping down her temples and into her hair.
She remembered being fourteen and finding out her biological mother had been Ava’s maid. Until that moment, her birth mother
had always been described as a poor young woman in trouble. A technical truth, Victoria supposed, but one that left out the salient facts. Back then she’d been so hurt to find out
that her parents hadn’t actually gone looking for her. Milton had talked about how she was a gift—better than found treasure.
But she’d been suspicious. Somehow she and Ava had gotten into it. She couldn’t remember the particulars of the fight, but
it had been loud and angry, at least on her part. Her mother rarely lost control, which was fine. Victoria had been pissed
enough for the two of them. She remembered screaming that Ava should have returned her when she’d had the chance. She’d been
fourteen—with all the hormones and entitlement that went with the age. Her mother hadn’t fought back, but even now Victoria
remembered the look on her face—an odd combination of pain and longing. With new information and hindsight, she wondered if
her mother had been thinking of Shannon.
How many times had Ava looked at her and pictured what her perfect, tall, blonde daughter would have been like? A younger
version of Cindy and herself. How many times had Victoria disappointed her instead?
As more tears fell, she recalled how her mother had frequently looked at her school picture and sighed.
“Did you have to make that expression?” Or “What are we going to do about your hair?” Victoria was sure at the time she’d simply rolled her eyes and had gotten on with her life, but now, looking back, she felt another wave of rejection.
There had been the time her parents had been looking for private high schools. She’d overheard them talking. Ava had agreed
that the one Victoria liked was a good choice, only she would look terrible in the school uniform. Had her mother thought
of Shannon then? How could she not?
There were so many small slights, so many misunderstandings, so many versions of I-thought-you’d-be-taller. But it all came
down to a simple question—was it love when you didn’t have a choice?
Ava would always do the right thing. Being that person was in her blood, so of course she would love her child, regardless
of how that child came to be in her life. But Victoria knew that, in her heart, her mother had never forgotten the child she
was supposed to have. The one like her. Always perfect, always just out of reach. Always and ever, nothing like Victoria.
Ava called her office and said she wouldn’t be coming in, then spent a quiet day at home. There were always things to keep
her busy, but today she found her mind wandering. Even as she went through Milton’s clothes to pick out what needed to go
to the dry cleaner and as she planned menus for the next week, she found herself thinking about what had happened.
It had been nearly twenty-five years, she told herself. That was plenty of time for her to get over the loss. So why was the
wound suddenly so fresh? She supposed it had been the shock of seeing Cindy after all this time. The other woman had looked
almost exactly the same, and seeing her daughter, well, Ava was doing her best not to think about Shannon.