Page 77 of When I'm Gone
Mark Witling begged her to take the child back, keep her safe from his wife. Maria tried to refuse, encouraged Mr. Witling to go home and call the police, to take the little girl to a hospital, but then looking at the sick child, knowing she could have no children of her own, Maria made a decision that would change half a dozen lives. She took Mallory out of his arms and brought her into Maranatha.
When Maria told the story to Neal, he wanted no part of it. But Maria begged him to give her a day or two to figure out how to help the child without landing her in foster care or as a ward of the state. As sickly Mallory slept between them that first night, the news broke of a missing little girl from Lansing, Michigan. The news story methodically described the blood in the house, the broken screen to her bedroom window, the muddy footprints outside her window. Mark had faked a kidnapping.
So, there it was—they could keep the child, find a way to forge her adoption, care for her physically, emotionally, spiritually, or they could give her back to a family where the mother was hurting her and the father didn’t seem strong enough to stand up and fight. So they kept her.
After lying to you for decades, I’m so scared you’ll hate me, that the anger I see you fight will take over you and our family. Plus, the selfish part of me wants to die as your beloved wife. I want you to mourn the years we had together, not the years we could’ve had if I’d told you sooner. I don’t regret giving up our daughter; I know it was the right choice given our age and situation. I don’t even regret the secrets; I’m sorry, I don’t. But I won’t keep you from Jessie. Neal has agreed to help. I know some of these letters will be hard for you to read, but I hope others can be a place you can go for comfort. I know you don’t believe I exist anymore, that my time on this planet is over, but you’re wrong. I live in these letters.
Jessie doesn’t know anything beyond the fact that she’s adopted. I’ll leave it to you and her father to decide what and how much to share. If you ever tell her who you really are, who I was to her, who she really is, please give her my love—my love and my letters.
I’ll love you forever.
Natalie
“Jessie?” Luke asked, not trying to stop the tears this time. He’d always known there was something familiar about her. The rest of the letter, the admission of a felony, all the lies and secrets—he didn’t care. He’d thought his daughter was dead, and she wasn’t.
“Yes,” Neal said, sitting again, this time with Jessie’s hand in his. “She’s your biological daughter. Yours and Natalie’s.”
“She’swhat?” Terry’s shrill voice cut in from the doorway. She pulled the door closed behind her. Fortunately, there was no sign of May by her side. Luke sat frozen in his chair at the end of the bed.
Thankfully, Neal spoke up.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He looked over at Luke. “All of you, but yes, Terry, Jessie is your granddaughter. You might remember my wife better than you remember me. Maria Townsend. We were both much younger then.”
Terry’s hands shook by her side, her footfalls slow. “You adopted her? You and Maria?”
“Yes, we did.” Neal glanced at Luke like he was pleading for him to keep the secret they’d only just shared. Then he stood and helped a dazed Terry to Jessie’s bedside. “She’s been the greatest joy of our lives.”
“I’ve been looking for her, you know.” Terry didn’t take her eyes off Jessie. “Maranatha Adoptions gave me the runaround, so I’ve been saving up for one of those private services. When I lost my baby girl ...” Terry choked up. “When I lost my Natalie, I knew I had to find her daughter, maybe see a little of Natalie still living in her like I do in the other kids. And now, here she is.”
“She’s been looking for you guys too,” Neal responded, his lips trembling. “She’s never had much family beyond me and her mom. A few years after Maria died, she wanted to find her birth parents. I could’ve told her, maybe I should’ve, but she’s been getting sicker and sicker, and it just never felt like the right time.”
“Oh my God, she’s so sick.” Terry looked at Neal, panicked. “She’s not going to die, is she? I don’t know what I’d do if she died.” Luke cringed at Terry’s bluntness. To talk about Jessie’s death in front of Neal was cruel.
“They just don’t know. Her kidneys have given out completely. She was living on dialysis, but her body is not tolerating it well. Eventually, she needs a new kidney.”
“Oh that poor girl.” Terry stepped up to the edge of the hospital bed. Terry went to her knees, using the bed to balance. She took Jessie’s hand in her own. “I was the last person to hold her, you know, before they took her away. I ... yes ... I see it now. A mix of May and Clayton, and maybe my auntie Clara, don’t you think?” She reached out, tucked some stray hairs behind Jessie’s ear, and looked up at Luke.
“Sure,” Luke answered, completely overwhelmed by the revelation, Terry’s surprising joy, and Neal’s contrition. And what was worse, the child he thought was dead might actually be dying in front of his eyes. “Uh, Terry, where’s May?” Luke kept a cautious eye on the door. May couldn’t know, not yet. Jessie didn’t even know.
“She’s just down the hall charming the nurses.” She waved Luke off. “What was she like as a baby? May was fussy, but Will was a little angel.”
Neal opened his mouth to answer, and Luke was sincerely curious as to what he was going to say since he didn’t get Jessie until she was three. A knock sounded at the door, and a middle-aged doctor wearing a white lab coat and dark-rimmed glasses, holding a stainless steel clipboard, walked in. Terry wiped at her eyes, eventually taking off her glasses to get better access, and then used Neal’s arm for support to get on her feet.
“Mr. Townsend, can I speak with you for a moment?” The doctor’s face was stoic. He looked meaningfully at Luke and Terry, silently inviting them to leave. Luke took the hint and stood.
“Come on, Terry, we should give them some privacy.” Luke stood beside her and put out a hand. “Let’s go find May.” He could read Terry’s reticence as she glanced between Neal and the doctor, but after a moment she ignored his hand and headed for the door.
“Yes, that’s fine.” She seemed to have gathered herself enough to speak normally. “The nurses invited May to ‘help’ them for a few minutes over at the nurses’ station.”
As they left the dimmed room and entered the brightly lit hallway, Luke tried to tune out Terry’s grumblings about how as Jessie’s grandmother she should be allowed to stay in the room and since Natalie was gone she was the closest thing Jessie had to a mother. Instead, he strained to hear the half-whispered conversation between Neal and the doctor. As the door clicked shut, all Luke could be sure he’d heard were the words “transplant” and “terminal.”
CHAPTER 34
Luke finished counting the letters again. Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight ... yes, fifty-eight letters filled with Natalie, her words, her stories, her beliefs. He put them all in chronological order, one behind the other, in an oversize shoebox. He’d been counting them compulsively all morning, finding it was a better way to pass time in a hospital waiting room than reading a magazine. This must be what it was like for fathers back in the days before men were allowed in the delivery room. The waiting was unbearable.
When Neal popped his head into the sparsely decorated room, full of the most uncomfortable chairs known to man, Luke slipped the bright-orange lid back on the box. It was time.
“You don’t have long, maybe ten, fifteen minutes before they’ll come for her, but it should be enough for the basics.” Neal took several turns down seemingly identical hallways. It’d be easy to get lost in Detroit General, far bigger and more intimidating than quaint Botsford. Neal wore scrubs today, Luke wasn’t sure why, but didn’t care to ask. They looked more comfortable than Luke’s khakis and button-up collared shirt. Maybe he’d ask for his own pair.
