He shook his head. “Falyn, I don’t know what’s going on here, but”—he cringed, already regretting his next words—“Olive wasn’t adopted. She is Shane and Liza’s daughter. There’s been a mistake.”
“You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“It’s just that … this is weird as fuck. I mean, what are the odds? She ends up with a couple from Eakins, who live next door to my dad, and then you and I meet and become friends. I don’t want to upset you, but this is wrong. I remember when Shane and Liza moved in. They have baby pictures of Olive on their walls, ones of Liza holding Olive in the hospital. They moved in next door when Olive was two. They’ve never mentioned that she was adopted.”
“Exactly,” I said, wiping my cheek again and pointing at him. “Exactly. It’s too perfect. You and I were supposed to meet. This was supposed to happen.”
Taylor’s entire face contorted, and he stood. “You’re serious. You’re really telling me that Olive is your daughter?”
My mouth fell open. “Didn’t you see her? Phaedra says she looks just like me. Think about Shane and Liza. Which one does Olive look like, Taylor?”
He thought about that for a moment, his eyes glued to the floor. “She does.” He looked up at me. “Same eyes. Same hair. Same nose and lips. The chin is different.”
I laughed once without humor. “She has her father’s chin.”
He blinked, trying to process what I had said. “But their pictures?”
“The pictures of Liza and Olive were taken right outside my hospital room. Go over there now, and look. Liza isn’t wearing a hospital gown. I can promise you that. I can take you to the birth center at Saint Francis in the Springs. If the pictures show Olive as a newborn in a hospital, those pictures were taken there.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just … I brought you here. You want to interrupt those people’s lives? I’m not okay with that.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“You know how I feel about you. I mean, you have to know. I’m not sure there’s anything I wouldn’t do for you. That sounds pathetically inadequate when I say it out loud,” he said, disgusted. “But this is …” He looked away, his voice trailing off. “We can’t do this to them.”
“I agree,” I said. “I don’t want to do anything to them either.”
He paused. “What is the plan, Falyn? I don’t think Olive knows she’s adopted. You’re not going to …”
“No. I just …” I took a deep breath. “My parents made me believe I had no choice, and I’ve lived with the decision I made. I’ll live with it forever, even now while sitting next door. I know she’s already suffered loss. I don’t want to turn her life upside down twice.”
Taylor looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “They made you give her up?”
“I didn’t tell them I was pregnant. I hid it until Blaire found me. I was on my bathroom floor, on all fours, soaked in sweat and trying not to push. I was barely eighteen.”
The visual disturbed Taylor, and he shifted his weight, unsettled.
“My mother heard noises coming from my room. She found me and took me to the emergency room.” I touched my fingers to my lips. “After Olive was born, I only had a few hours to decide. My parents said if I didn’t give her away, I would lose everything. My entire life, I had planned on going to college, having a career, making my parents proud.” I choked on my words. “A signature seemed like an easy solution. I didn’t understand what I was giving up.”
“How could your parents force that on you? That’s fucking atrocious, Falyn.”
The room grew quiet, and suddenly, it was too awkward to talk.
A sob was caught in my throat, and I swallowed it down. “I went away to college. It’s easier to think when someone isn’t in your ear all the time. I realized it wasn’t what I wanted, but it was too late. I couldn’t take Olive from her mother twice. I got sick not long after I started college. I thought it was the stress of everything. So, after a year at Dartmouth, I came home. That’s when it happened. Blaire took me to the doctor, and they told me I had developed endometriosis. That was my punishment for what I had done.”
Taylor shook his head, confused. “What does that mean?”
“I can’t have any more kids.”
His eyes fell to the floor as he thought about my words.
“I left my parents because I was surrounded by the things they’d promised, and I didn’t want it … any of it. I realized that anything I took from them was tarnished. It was all something I’d traded my own child for.”
Taylor reached out for me, but I pulled away.
“I just wanted to see her,” I said. “I can’t raise her. I accept that. But I can still be in at least one of her memories. Some days, I think that’s the only place where I want to exist.”
Taylor shook his head. “No wonder.”
“No wonder what?” I said, wiping my cheeks with my sleeve.
“Why you hate your parents so much.”
“I hate myself more,” I said, only just realizing this as I said the words aloud.
He clenched his jaw. “I can’t imagine someone making me feel so alone that I would feel like I had to give up my child.”
My eyes stared at nothing as I became lost in the memory. “I held her for just a few precious moments. Her entire body fit in my hands,” I said, showing Taylor how tiny she was. “I cried more than she did. I already loved her, and I knew I would never see her again. William wouldn’t come into the room. Blaire called him, but he stayed in the hall. He refused to even look at his grandchild, the thing threatening his entire campaign.”
I laughed once. “A baby. She was just a baby. Blaire whispered in my ear as I held Olive, as I cried over her, careful not to let the nurses hear. She said, ‘It’s called sacrifice. It’s the most loving thing you can do for her.’ And maybe she was right. Olive has a good life with Shane and Liza.”
“She does,” Taylor said.
“I’ve made it on my own—from nothing. I could have taken care of her. It would have been hard, but she was mine, and I was hers.” I sniffed. “I would have been a good mom.”