Page 18 of When I'm Gone
“I’m sure you are aware of what she called me about. Correct?” He made his voice stern, fatherly.
“Uh, yeah.”
Luke thought for sure he could hear remorse in Will’s voice. The hint of regret was almost enough to make Luke willing to drop the whole thing. Almost.
“Will.” Luke had to pause to take a breath, frustration stacking up inside him like blocks in a tower. “What possessed you to tell her you are adopted?” Will didn’t respond; instead, he shrugged and picked at his thumbnail. “No.” Luke slapped the unmade bed. “I know I’ve let you get away with a lot of things lately, but I’m not letting this one go. You answer me. Now.”
“Fine.” Will hit his crumpled bedding and threw his head back against the old-school Metallica poster on his wall before pushing himself off the bed and on the floor. Digging around under the bed he finally slid a medium-size cardboard box out from under the overhang of his covers. It had the word “Memories” written across the side in Natalie’s handwriting.
Luke knew this box. She brought it with her when they got married. At least once a year he’d find her curled up in a corner examining its entrails. Sometimes she shared a scrap of paper or a memento, but most of the time she kept its contents private. He’d never been tempted to look inside, understanding the desire to keep some memories to herself. Natalie had always respected his boundaries, so he’d always tried to return the favor. Knowing Will had broken that trust made Luke angry and jealous at the same time.
“That’s your mom’s box. You shouldn’t be rummaging through it.”
Will already had half his arm buried inside the box, shifting objects around, searching.
“She’s dead, Dad. Nothing belongs to her anymore, remember? You taught me that a long time ago.” He whipped out a business-size envelope with black lines of writing on the back. “Here. This is what got me thinking.Youtellmewhat this means.” He shoved the hair out of his eyes, settling back on his knees.
Luke took the envelope reluctantly. On the one hand, he hated the idea of breaking Natalie’s confidence in him by snooping. On the other hand, he was eager to know what Will had found that made him so suspicious. Curiosity and a desire to figure out what his son was going through won out over loyalty.
The back of the envelope was filled with names and phone numbers. Some were first names only, others the names of companies or hospitals in several different colors of ink. Some were crossed out and others underlined. There was no way to know when the names and numbers were written or what they were for. This random list couldn’t possibly be the catalyst for Will’s lie.
“I don’t get it. Is this supposed to explain something?”
“You’re holding it wrong.” Will took the envelope and flipped it over. The front was addressed to “Mrs. Natalie Richardson,” and up in the corner a return address emblem read: “Maranatha Adoptions, Chicago, Illinois.” Postmarked the month Will was born. Luke peeked inside the roughly opened envelope, but it was empty.
“What did the letter say?”
“It was empty when I found it,” Will mumbled.
“So let me get this right,” Luke said, trying to keep his voice steady and his blood pressure from skyrocketing. The large vein in his neck pounded against his collar. “You decided to make up some extravagant story about how your whole life’s been a lie off an empty envelope with random names written on the back?” Luke was almost yelling. He took a breath before continuing, remembering how distinctly he and Jessie had heard Clayton through the ceiling during her first visit. “You’ve seen all the pictures of Mom pregnant with you, of you lying in her arms at the hospital, the videos of you coming home. You really think we staged all those?”
Will went back to picking at his thumb. Luke couldn’t see his eyes, but when his son started sniffing, he knew Will was crying. He put the envelope in his shirt pocket behind the folded list of grief counselors. Once his hands were free, he slid an arm around Will’s shoulders and touched his forehead to his son’s.
They hadn’t cried in front of each other since the day Natalie died. Sometimes Luke thought he could hear Will crying in his room as he walked by, but he’d always assumed Will needed his privacy. Now that Will was in his arms, Luke knew he’d been wrong. What he needed was for his dad to tell him everything was going to be okay.
“No,” Will sobbed, “I guess I knew it wasn’t possible.”
“Why did you say all those things to Ms. Mason?” Luke asked calmly, kissing the top of his son’s head like he used to do when he was little.
“Because I wanted it to be true,” Will choked out.
The admission stabbed Luke in the heart. Will wished he didn’t belong to their family.
“You don’t feel like you fit in?”
Will sat up and pulled away from Luke’s arms. Thick trails of tears traced down his cheeks.
“No, it’s not that.” Will shook his head. “When I saw the adoption agency and the date, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You weren’t there when I was born.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, catching his breath. “You guys always talked about how you were in China for most of Mom’s pregnancy and how hard it was to get pregnant. How I came a month early and you weren’t back yet. I thought, maybe, there was a chance.”
Luke put a firm hand on Will’s shoulder. “But Grandma was here, and I got home the day you came home. Your mom was tired and sore. The nurses had taken those Polaroid pictures for me right after you were born. Plus, no adoption agency would give a baby to someone without the father being there.”
Will nodded repeatedly. “I guess I know that, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted it to be true. I kept thinking: if I was adopted, if that letter was about me, my mom’s not dead. She’s out there somewhere, waiting for me.” When Will choked on the last words, Luke knew why people wanted to believe in heaven so badly. If only he could pretend he believed. He’d say: “Don’t worry. Your momiswaiting for you. You will see her again.” Now he didn’t know what to say.
“You still have a mom; she’s real, she existed, and you have all your memories of her.”
“Lucky me.” Will placed the box back under the bed and yanked up his sagging jeans.
Luke ran a hand through his hair, scratching his scalp in thought. “Um, about the adoption, if you are still worried, I can look into that Maranatha place. Maybe find out why they were writing to your mom.” Luke told himself it was to placate Will, but he couldn’t deny the embers of curiosity stirring in his mind. Will was his child, he didn’t doubt that, even with all of Will’s convoluted points. But an adoption agency and a list of hospitals—what did it all mean?
