8. Auden
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I was fine. I was prepared.
Now that I’m standing at the end of the driveway staring at a beautiful baby blue and white house that belongs to my birth father—holy fuck!—there’s this weight pressing down on my chest, restricting my breathing.
I’m here. I’m actually fucking here and I’m actually doing this. Oh, God.
I walk in the other direction, back to town, and take my phone out calling the one person who knows how to calm me the best. Two rings later, Sean answers. “Hey, kid. What’s good? You there yet?”
“I can’t fucking breathe,” I say, fanning my face. “Oh, God, Sean. What if he doesn’t like me? What if he never wanted to see me again and that’s why he gave me up? Fucking shit, why didn’t you talk me out of this, you asshole.”
Sean laughs on the other end, it’s deep and hearty. “Take a deep breath, Charlotte. It’ll be okay. You wanted to do this remember? To meet him and learn about your history. Think of the outcome. When you get back, you’ll have a whole new outlook on yourself. Like you always say, something is missing right?” I nod, breathing slowly as I walk back to the house. “Well, you’ll finally be whole, kid.”
Another deep breath releases from my lips. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Whoo, I got this.”
“Yeah, you do, baby,” he cheers, making me laugh.
“Thank you.”
“Ahh, don’t sweat it, kid. I’ll always just be a phone call away.” He clears his throat, gulping from something. “I’m here for you. I’ll be waiting for your call, okay?”
I sniff, looking at the house again. Property spanning all around it with a large willow tree in the distance. The blue paneling isn’t faded or chipped. The white shutters are pristine. This house is too perfect. It makes me wonder if he’ll think I’m here to ask for money. I shake my head, snapping me out of that thought. “Okay, wish me luck.”
“Break a leg, Char. I love you.”
I groan, placing a hand on my stomach. I hate when he tells me he loves me. It’s the second time he’s said it today. Sean and I haven’t been a couple in ages, but he doesn’t mean it the way I do, and I hate that I know this. “Love you, too.”
I fix the strap of my lilac dress on my shoulder, lock my phone, and exhale again. I don’t feel any better. In fact, speaking to Sean only made things worse. All I want to do right now is go home and burrow in his king-sized bed until I have to be at Millie’s rehearsal dinner on Friday, then the wedding on Saturday.
My entire body is vibrating. Christ, my ankles are shaking in these wedges I’ve worn a million times. Walking in these bad boys has always been easy, but right now, I can’t even walk down the dirt and gravel driveway without my ankle buckling.
I’m going to puke. I can feel it marinating in my esophagus. But I gulp my nerves down, moving toward the front door. Fuck. My shaking hand reaches up and knocks. Fuck. I can’t breathe. I CAN’T FUCKING brEATHE. Can my heart beat any louder? The buzzing insects are barely making it through, all I hear is thump-thump, thump-thump.
It’s no big deal, right?
Nope, it’s fine.
It’s okay.
Shit, this was a mistake.
Turn around and leave.
Just LEAVE!
The door opens and there he is. Right fucking there. It’s astounding. My birth father is right in front of me. He has short light brown spiky hair with hints of gray in it. He’s much taller than I expected but there’s something about him that reminds me of the countless hours I’ve spent looking in the mirror and wondering where I came from.
Our eyes, that’s what it is. I have his eyes. And his mouth. The way his lips are set in a hard line is making my stomach churn.
I can’t speak. The air is stuck; constricting, squeezing, and choking.
He takes me in, frowning as he does. “Can I help you?” he asks, then a soft grin spreads to his lips. My grin!
“H-hi, um,” I stammer, gulping and wiping the beads of sweat from my brow. “You don’t, um, this is. Shit. Sorry, I had this whole speech written in my head and I can’t even get it out.”
“You selling something?” he asks, chuckling awkwardly, still studying me with confusion on his face. My chuckle!
My hands are shaking at my sides. I don’t know how to steady my voice, either. But I manage it through a breath and tell my birth father who I am. “My name’s Auden, and, um, twenty-four years ago you, uh, you…well, you’re my dad.”
His face drops and the color completely drains from it. But something tells me he knew the moment he opened the door. That frown he gave me, the way his eyes scrolled over me. He knew.
I’m standing there, shaking still, and hoping he’ll say something. I’m also expecting him to slam the door in my face. We owe each other nothing—instead, he covers his face and starts to sob, shaking his head, and removing his hands to look at me.
“You—God, you have her hair,” he says through a whimper.
I let out a chuckle and feel myself tearing up. I don’t know anything other than what I read; my birth mother died delivering me and my birth father gave me up for adoption. There was no name, just an address. And now I see him. He’s real. He’s right here taking me in. Now I know I’ll have my history and understand my mannerisms. I’ll finally understand me.
He takes a step forward and embraces me with such force, it’s the strength of a hug that should’ve been given to me the day I was born. Twenty-four years released in a moment.
This feels good, my nerves have uplifted and floated away. There’s no regret in meeting him. All I thought about on my ten-hour drive was what if I met him and regretted it? Would he slam the door in my face or laugh that I showed up thinking I wanted something from him? I just want to know about the side of me my parents couldn’t give me. Like my chuckle, the shape of my eyes. How we both crinkle our noses. My parents gave me everything I could ever imagine, but this man right here gave me life. I am a part of him and I can’t wait to learn what that entails.
I release him and wipe under my eyes. “I should’ve come to see you sooner. But I just…I was always so scared.”
“I tried to find you so many times,” he says, studying my face. “You look just like her, just with my eyes. You definitely have my eyes.”
I sniff. “Sorry to show up unannounced.”
“No, no. It’s not unannounced. Come in, please,” he says. “You can meet my wife.”
He places a hesitant hand on my upper back and chuckles, a smile so big has touched his face that it reminds me of myself every Christmas. “The name’s Frank, by the way.”
His name is Frank. All this time, my birth father’s name is what my father calls his hot dogs.
My parents told me I was adopted when I was pretty young. I’d have to be an idiot to think I wasn’t, too. And my extended family made sure I knew it. They set me aside like I was an outcast, an alien, all because I wasn’t one of them. So from a young age, all I wanted was to find that piece of me that helped me fit in. Meeting my birth father is that missing piece. I see myself in him and it’s nice to feel normal.
My birth father leads me through a farm-style home. White wooden floors, and blue walls that are riddled with family photos. He has a whole other family. A family that doesn’t include me.
There’s a reason he put me up for adoption. There has to be.
A curvaceous woman with short sandy hair and wrinkles around her eyes is standing at the stove flipping bacon when we enter. The kitchen is large, much larger than the one I have at home. A dining room table sits at the center of it, white tablecloth with blue pigeons is so cleanly draped on it, too. Everything is wood. The cabinets are dark wood. The chairs a light wood. The moldings around the windows are wood, too. This is normality here. Everything is decorated with wood.
She smiles at my birth father and gives me a once-over. “Hello,” she says, a dazzling smile touching her face.
“It’s her,” is all he says and she clasps a hand on her mouth.
“My dear God!” she gasps, coming over to me and taking my hands. “I was wondering when this day would come.” I can’t help but smile as she squeezes my hands, flickering her gaze between my birth father and me. “Wow. You look so much like your mother.” She chuckles, touching my face. “With this goof’s eyes…what’s your name?”
I’m so welcome in a home and a family I just met. They’ve been expecting me all these years. This feels too good to be true. Surreal. I must be dreaming. This is Hallmark perfect. I’m so happy I might just cry.
I wipe an escaping tear and look at my birth father. “Auden is what people call me.”
“Stevie and I would love to have you for breakfast,” he says, pulling out a chair for me.
I nod, smiling. I can’t stop smiling. “I’d be delighted to.”
I don’t even think it over. I want to be here. I want to learn all about him.
“How do you like your coffee, dear?” Stevie asks.
“Black is fine,” I say, sitting beside my birth father. I have so many questions. So many things I want to say, but I don’t know how to voice them. “Um, did you have any other kids? After me?” The family photos I walked past come to mind. I might have siblings. Blood relatives.
“I did.” He nods. “Your mother and I were seventeen when she got pregnant. I only gave you up for adoption because I had no means to raise you. My parents disowned me. Her parents hated me. I had no job, no money, and the agency offered me so much money. So, I did it. I regretted it the moment my signature was on the paper.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.” I want to know everything, just not right away. Right now, I want to bask in his presence.
“I know. I feel like I have to.”
“Frank has been calling everywhere for you,” Stevie says, placing a coffee mug in front of me. “Not a single agency will divulge any sort of information.”
“How did you find me?” Frank asks, taking his mug and stirring it even though Stevie hasn’t put anything into the coffee.
“My dad’s a cop, so I used his password to access the data in the police system. Didn’t take me long to track you down. But I didn’t know your name, so I backtracked to hospital records, and lo and behold, presto.” I snap my fingers. “I knew everything about where I came from in the matter of a click of a button. Except for your name, that was stricken from the records.”
Pain paints his face. “Were they good to you?”
I nod. “The best.”
“What about you, dear, you married? Kids?” Stevie asks.
“No, no. None of that.” I laugh, it makes Frank laugh. I think he realizes I have his laugh. “I’m a graduate of Princeton University.”
Frank gasps. “My daughter went to Princeton?”
“Full scholarship, too.” I boast because I worked damn hard to get this scholarship and even harder when I almost lost it.
Stevie chuckles, placing the bacon on a cloth. Frank still hasn’t looked away from me. His eyes are bluer than mine, but we both have that striking shine to them. This is the best decision I could have made. Sitting beside the man who is a part of me, it’s everything I could have asked for.
“I have two other kids. Boys, Lloyd and Johnson,” he says, still staring at me. “And a stepdaughter, Maddison. She has a little boy.”
Holy fuck I have brothers!
I’m about to cry, scream, and cheer. My parents are my home, but this. I have no words to explain to them that knowing these people share my mannerisms, my thoughts, and know what it’s like to be me. This is insane. No, this is sanity. This is my family.
Stevie scrunches her nose, cracking eggs into a pan. “We’re grandparents. Isn’t that weird?”
Frank places his hand on the table, seemingly going to touch mine but stops himself. “Do you have any siblings?”
I sip my coffee. “No, my parents couldn’t have kids, that’s why they adopted.”
He nods, eyeing my coffee as he takes a sip as well. “I take my coffee black, too.”
“My mom has always made her coffee black and when I was a kid, I always thought that boys have sugar in their coffees because they’re not sweet enough and girls always have black coffee because we’re tough. So, when I was a teenager and started drinking coffee, I just had that thought process in my head.” I shrug.
I don’t know why I explain myself. I’m never this open with new people. Maybe it’s our connection that’s changing me. Father and daughter. “It’s silly, I know.”
He smiles. “It’s perfect.”
Thumps move down the stairs and a young man appears; he must be no older than sixteen. He smirks and plops down in front of me. There it is. Those blue eyes like mine. His hair is dark like Frank’s, but those eyes. This is my brother. Holy shit, I have a brother.
He nods his head at me. “Who’re you?”
Another boy comes in, he’s much younger and he’s holding a Jane Austen novel, placing it on the table. He doesn’t have Frank’s eyes; he has Stevie’s gray ones. But there’s something about this boy that makes me feel at ease. He gawks at me, then looks at Stevie. Thickness fills the air. What if they don’t like me? What if they resent me? Hate me? Oh, God, what if they blame Frank for what he did? Judge him? I’m nervous. For the first time since walking into this house, I’m nervous as all shit.
“Boys, this is…this is Auden.” Frank touches my hand. “She’s the baby I had before you two.”
“Oh, shit! You’re the adoption baby?” the older one exclaims.
I chuckle nervously. “I’m, yeah, sure. I’m the adoption baby.”
“I have a sister with red hair,” the younger one says.
I wonder how much they’ve spoken about me over the years. If I was a main topic or if they all tried to help find me.
“I’m Lloyd,” the older one says, then points to his brother. “That’s Johnson.”
I can’t stop smiling. “It’s nice to meet you.” I’ve always wanted a sibling, but my parents didn’t want to go through the grueling process of adopting again, so it was just me. Their pride and joy. Now, I get to share my stories, my life with people who are a part of me. My brothers. More missing pieces.
“Are you coming to the barbecue this afternoon?” Johnson asks.
I raise my eyebrows. “What barbecue?”
“We’re having my stepdaughter and her fiancé’s family over for a barbecue. You’re more than welcome to join. I’d love to introduce you to everyone,” Frank says, bringing the coffee to his lips again.
I wipe my hands on my legs. “Oh, boy.”
“They all know our story.” Stevie sits at the table. “They’ll absolutely love you.”
“It’s so weird,” Lloyd says, scrunching his nose. “It’s like looking in a mirror. We have Dad’s eyes.”
I laugh at this, putting my hand on my mouth.
When I walked up those porch steps I expected the worst outcome, but I never expected this. Meeting a family I’ve been too scared to meet is euphoric.