Page 2 of Forgotten Dreams

“Right now, I’m”—I look around the attic—“in my parents’ attic, looking for a picture from their wedding day so I can get it painted to match the other portrait.”

“I love looking at old photos. Okay, I have to go, but I just wanted to make sure I called you and told you I love you.”

“Love you more,” I tell her. “And tell Lucy I got her birthday video this morning, and it’s the best video I’ve ever gotten in my whole life.”

“She wanted to call you this morning first thing when she looked at the calendar on the fridge, but I pushed her off by filming her singing to you. She’ll force me to call you tonight.” She laughs. “I’ll speak to you then.”

“I can’t wait.” I smile, thinking of Lucy, her stepdaughter, and the infectious happiness she brings into your life with just one conversation. “I’ll talk to you then.”

I hang up, putting the phone back in my pocket, when I get on my knees and pull open the brown box. The white book on the top has my mother’s and father’s names, Marian and Joseph, on the cover in elegant cursive writing in the middle.

I smile, taking it out and opening to the first page, where my mother’s writing appears. She wrote their names and the wedding date as if they would forget such a momentous occasion like that. I flip the page and start reading the well-wishes people had written. Some are just the names; others are advice for a marriage. I laugh out loud when I see one of my uncles wrote, “If she asks you what twice, don’t repeat it the third time.”

I close the book and put it beside me on the floor, taking the newspaper from that day with their wedding announcement in it and placing it on the other side of me. I grab the next item in the box, a white envelope. I open the flap, seeing it’s little flower petals. Putting it aside, I grab the brown envelope under it that has wedding vows written on the top. I put it with the newspaper article before I go back and see the photo album and mumble, “Yes.” I pick it up and spot a gray lockbox under it. I pick up the silver handle, and it weighs almost nothing. I look and see it needs a key and wonder why the fuck it would be in this box. Putting it aside, I open the photo album, taking out the picture I was looking for. It’s the one where she’s facing the camera, but my father is looking at her. The expression on his face is between he’s the luckiest guy in the world and he would die for her. It was always one of my favorite pictures. She always took it out of the album when I was younger, and we would flip through it. I place everything back in the box except for the newspaper clipping, their vows, and the gray metal box. I hold everything in one hand as I grasp the ladder with the other.

I walk down the steps to the kitchen and the drawer where my father keeps all the keys. The ring of keys has about twenty keys on it from the padlocks around the house to extra keys for the shed and then the pool house. There is even a couple for the garage door and the two side doors to the garage. I look on the key ring, searching for a small key. When I see it, I slide it in and turn it to the left before pulling the top up.

The first thing on the top is a newspaper article. I open the folded paper that was once white and is now tinted a soft yellow. “Hours-old Newborn Left on Fire Station Steps.” I gasp out as my eyes scan the article, putting it to the side. My heart speeds up faster than it should, as if my body knows something is about to happen, but my head doesn’t.

Two pictures are in the article. One is of a fireman squatting down in front of a cardboard box with a baby wrapped in a white blanket sleeping inside of it. The other is with a nurse in a rocking chair giving the same baby a bottle. I put it to the side, seeing two Polaroid pictures that must be the same baby in a wicker basket. I lay them down softly and only then do I see a white folded paper. I pick it up at the same time I hear the sound of car doors shutting. I look at the side door leading to the mudroom right off the garage.

Turning back, I’m about to unfold the paper when another Polaroid picture slips out and lands on the counter in front of me. It’s of my mother sitting in the same chair the nurse was sitting in, with the baby in her arms. The wicker basket sits on the hospital bed beside her as she looks down at the baby in the blanket. My hands tremble when I unfold the triple-folded white paper.

Both of my hands shake when I see the top of the paper. “Certificate of Adoption.”

I don’t know why it feels like the room is spinning around me like it does in movies. My eyes scan the paper when I see the name Jane Doe, and the birthday is today’s date, just twenty-five years ago. The gasp that comes out of my mouth echoes in the room. My hand goes to my mouth as I see teardrops falling onto the paper, not realizing they are coming from me. My eyes scan down to the next line where it says Birth Mother’s Name: Unknown and the same for birth father’s name.

I move down and see the line for the child’s name after adoption. There, in bold letters, is my name:

Sierra Rose Davidson.

I hear my mother’s and father’s voices coming into the mudroom. “You are going to tangle the balloons,” she scolds him as they walk into the room.

The smile on her face falls when her eyes go from me to the box. My father takes a step toward me. “Is this true?” I hold up the paper, my heart shattering in my chest, making it hard for me to catch my breath. “Tell me.” My voice rises. “Is this paper true?”

Chapter 2

Sierra

My hands going into fists, my fingers gripping the white paper in my hand so hard the sound of it crinkling fills the room, as well as the sound of my breathing. Or maybe that only echoed in my ears, along with the thumping of my heart.

I see the tears rolling down my mother’s face as she tries to take a step toward me, and I snap, “Is this true?” I hold up the paper, my heart shattering in my chest, making it hard for me to catch my breath. “Tell me.” I’m shouting, and I don’t even know it. “Is this paper true?”

“Sierra,” my father begins calmly, his arm around my mother as she sobs, making her body shake.

“I asked you a question.” My voice never wavering from before.

“Perhaps we should sit down and discuss this.” My father doesn’t raise his voice.

“Discuss this?” I shake my head from side to side. “Discuss this?” The air suddenly leaves me, and I have to fold over to catch my breath. “Discuss this?” This time, I shake my hand with the paper still in it.

“Sierra.” My father is now by my side, his hand rubbing my back. “Breathe, honey.” I look up at him and move away from his touch. The man who would make sure nothing hurt me, who used to kiss my boo-boos away. The man I said I wanted my husband to be like. The man who taught me how to ride a bike. The man who taught me how to hang up a shelf by myself so I didn’t need a man to do anything. The man who lied to me my whole life.

“I—I—” I stutter and try to breathe in and out before I literally have a full-blown panic attack. I have never had one, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to have one. “I don’t.”

“Please sit down.” My father pulls out a chair at the breakfast table, where I had breakfast my whole life, starting in a high chair. The pictures are in my baby book. From me being on my knees since I wasn’t tall enough to finally being able to sit on my behind without hitting my face on the table. “Sierra, please, we will tell you everything.”

“Why should I believe you now?” I ask, and I can see the hurt all over his face. “You’ve lied to me my whole life. Why should I believe you now?”

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