Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
SAbrINA
C ould a person get dehydrated and need medical intervention from crying? Because I honestly felt like there were no more fluids in me. My stomach hurt, my head hurt, and my heart was broken. I was too exhausted to get water, but I was thirsty and kept licking my dry lips with my dry tongue.
I woke to the pinging of messages on my phone. All from Cricket. She had been the one to see the articles and alert me. I ran down the hall and woke up Paul. In real time, we watched comment after comment get posted. They talked about me like I wasn’t a person who had feelings and desires and whose feelings and desires they were currently mocking and judging. To be fair, some were defending me. But nice voices always got lost in the louder, negative ones.
That was when Paul made me go back to my room. I thought about waking Cal instead, but I knew he would need to loop Paul in, so I cut out the middleman, maybe partly because I didn’t want to have the adoption conversation with Cal. I was relieved knowing Cal hadn’t pursued the path of family and kids. If he had, how could I not believe he’d been right to dump me because I never would have been able to give him kids.
And yeah, when I pictured what life would be like when this job ended, I pictured him going back to his death-wish lifestyle, and I would go back to mine, only with adding a baby. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I didn’t want Cal to know about my reproductive issues.
When I thought things couldn’t get worse, which was such a cliché but only because it was true, my adoption coordinator called me. Mrs. Monighan and I had been on this journey together from day one. I had cried in her office while filling out the paperwork. She’d been the gentle guide I needed.
“Sabrina.” The way she said my name was not gentle at all but cold. Practical. All business.
“Yes, hello, Mrs. Monighan. I was going to call, but I was waiting until my lawyer and PR person had done due diligence so I could pass along what they found.”
“I understand. I’m calling to let you know the agency has frozen your application.”
“What does that mean?” I’d been sitting in a chair by the window, looking out across the vast landscape of the mountains, feeling almost like I was out of my body. But her comment drew me back in and snapped me to attention.
“It means right now that we will not be moving to the next step.” She almost sounded like a recording, her voice a monotone.
“For how long? And then when it’s unfrozen, do I start at the bottom of the list again?”
“Indefinitely.”
I bent over, resting my chest against my legs, a cheek on my knee, as I faced the window and felt faint. “Is there a policy on what indefinitely looks like and how to unfreeze?”
“It’s being crafted as we speak.”
Which meant freezes weren’t a thing. So why don’t they just drop me?
I would find out later that they froze me out because dropping me could have exposed them to legal issues, and with being hacked, they were already facing a lot of those.
“Mrs. Monighan, I’m not the one who hacked the company. Why is this affecting my application?”
“We were hacked because of you.” She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, it was in a whisper. “They see you as a risk. Having it known that the information of hundreds of private adoptions is in the hands of a hacker has made our families panic. Which has made our board panic, and you are the scapegoat.”
The sudden switch in tone and divulging of information made me think her call was being monitored on her side of the wire.
“So essentially, we are through.”
“I’m so sorry, hon. And you should know a few of our board members sit on boards for other adoption companies, so you might have a hard time with some of them too. When you’re researching who to go to, make sure you look at their board.”
Tears ran down my temple onto my knee, burning a path down my leg to my ankle. All I could do was sniff in response.
“I am so sorry.” She cleared her throat and said in her robot voice, “Have a good day, Ms. Holloway.” And hung up.
I stayed like that until my legs started to tingle, no more tears were coming out, and the sun was sliding lower in the sky. I stood up slowly and looked around, stunned by how quickly my life had fallen apart.
That was when the next stage of grief hit me—anger. I stomped my feet into my cowboy boots while still dressed in my capri yoga pants and a maroon sleep shirt that had a Labradoodle on the front with a ball in his mouth and the words Fetching Tired underneath.
I was so tired. I wanted to hide in the bed with the covers over my head until someone fixed this. But I had to get out of the room. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
I whipped open the door and came face-to-face with Cal. He opened his mouth, and I said, “Nope, not yet.”
I brushed past him as I rushed down the stairs and out the door. I headed straight to the corral, where some horses were grazing. When I got to the fence, I hung my top half over the upper bar and closed my eyes, trying to take in deep breaths.
Apparently, you could still cry when you were dehydrated. Cal joined me but faced the horses, not looking at me once. He didn’t say anything, just stood next to me while I cried. I wasn’t sure how long we stood there before he climbed up the fence to sit on the top bar. A few minutes later, I did the same. As I was climbing up, he glanced at me, paused at my shirt, and gave a slight smile. Then he looked away once I settled next to him.
The paint I’d ridden came over, and I started petting her muzzle. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” he said.
“But you can say I told you so .”
“About what?”
I sniffed. I had been so cavalier about taking on his dad that I really hadn’t given Cal’s warning its due. “You were right about me not being able to handle this. Your dad hit me right where it hurts the most.”
“I never said you couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry about those articles today.”
“I don’t think I can do this.” I stared at the horse but saw the quick side-eye he gave me.
“Okay, it’s over. Done. We’ll make a statement. I’ll talk to Paul right away.” But he didn’t move off the fence.
“But then again, it’s stupid to quit now, because the worst has happened. What more can happen?” I probably shouldn’t have said those last few words.
“That’s a fact.” Cal nodded.
“Facts!” I held up one finger. “No one cares about facts. But here are some fun facts. I have three. One, even after a ton of treatments, I was still not able to get pregnant. Which leads me to two: I have depleted my savings account, even used some of my dad’s life insurance money for three shots of in vitro that all failed. And the third fact is this is hard proof that the universe hates me.” I now held up three fingers.
“That’s not really a fact.”
I thrusted up my arm, one finger pointed to the sky and exclaimed, “Fact! I am so angry I could punch Calvin Beckett in the face. You’d think he’d just let me rant instead of chiming in.” I put my face to the paint’s muzzle and scratched his ears. They were very soft and soothing.
He cleared his throat. “Uh…” He scooted away.
I turned to him then. He looked as sad as I felt. And the intensity of it was the same as that picture Paul had taken of us at the hotel. That had been deep longing. And this was deep sadness. He hurt for me. Which made our break all the more confusing, but whatever. We were together right now, and this was one of those moments when I needed someone, and had I been alone, I would have thought of him and wanted one of his healing hugs.
“I bet you have a lot of questions for me.” I threw him a bone.
“Only one.”
“Which is…?”
“This thing you have, what you had the surgery for… is it serious?”
“It’s not terminal, if that’s what you’re asking. Endometriosis.”
He nodded. I narrowed my eyes. He wanted to ask another question but kept it back.
“Just ask,” I said irritably.
“You need a hug?”
That was not what I was expecting. The man had just learned I was trying to be a single mom and hadn’t asked one question about that. He had to be curious. But that was for later. He’d offered me a hug, and I desperately wanted one.
I nodded, and he scooted closer to me and wrapped a long arm around my shoulders, drawing me into his side. Then his other arm came around, and somehow, there on the fence, sitting by my side, Cal gave me exactly what I needed—comfort. He held me and maybe even kissed my head, but I was trying really hard to not cry again because I was sick of it. He let me pull away when I was ready, his hands brushing across my body as I straightened, then across my hair and my shoulder, with a gentle swipe over my cheeks to wipe away the tears.
He nodded once as he met my eyes. “If you ever want to talk, I would like to know the whole story.” He jumped down off the fence into the corral. “Let me know if you decide to stay.” And with that, he walked away.
I stayed on the fence and watched the horses. Some of the ranch hands were driving in cattle, and Cal had gone to help guide them in. He looked so natural, and his body looked looser and more relaxed. The ranch suited him. I was so captivated watching Cal, marveling at the subtle change, that I didn’t even notice Rod climbing up beside me.
“My favorite is when the calves are born.” He took a large square wrapped in a paper towel out of his jacket pocket and started unwrapping it.
“You’ve been here when calves have been born?”
“Sure. My dad has worked this ranch for years.” He displayed a piece of what looked to be banana bread.
“Which one is your dad?”
“He’s not here. He took off for a bit.” He looked at me, his eyes sweeping across my face. “You look like you’re having a bad day. Want some?” He held out his bread. “It’s really good. Mrs. Claudia makes it for me and gives me a big slice when I have a bad day.”
I confirmed his statement with a head nod. “I lost something I really wanted. What about you?”
“I failed a math test. I hate math. I don’t get it.”
“I’m actually pretty good at math. I can help if you want.” I took the piece he was offering. It was still warm. “What do you mean, your dad takes off for a bit?”
“Sometimes he gets itchy legs—that’s what he calls it—and will take off for a while. But he always comes back.”
“Do you always stay with Mrs. Claudia when he does?”
Rod nodded.
“Do you have any other family?”
“Nope, my mom’s in heaven, and there ain’t no grandparents.”
Rod was kind of like me. His lack of family was something I was familiar with.
“My mom and dad are in heaven with my grandparents. It’s just me,” I told him.
He broke off another piece. “Are you scared?” His eyes grew large with wonder.
Lonely was always the word that came to mind... but scared… I hadn’t really thought about it that way. “You know what? Sometimes I do get scared.”
“What do you do?” He paused his eating as he waited for me to answer.
“Well, I’m lucky and have really good friends. They’re almost like family. Like Mrs. Claudia is for you.”
He nodded again and looked to be tucking away that tidbit of info for later use.
How hard must it be to have his dad get itchy legs without any warning and uproot this kid’s life. Yeah, things in my life sucked at the moment, but I’d always had the security and safety of my family. I hoped that Rod’s dad would return while I was here. I had a strong urge to give him a piece of my mind.