Page 27 of When I'm Gone
“So, you’re Dana’s dad. So nice to meet you.” She thrust out her hand, her excitement so real Luke almost felt bad he didn’t have a pregnant daughter hanging out in the restroom for a ridiculous amount of time. Luke shook her hand once.
“Actually, I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. I’m not here with my daughter.”
Ms. Stephani took her hand back and tilted her head side to side like a cockatoo, her friendly demeanor fading fast.
“Oh? Did she change her mind?” Her face looked older when she wasn’t smiling. Late fifties maybe.
“No. My daughter is nine and is having fun in the fourth grade learning about tadpoles and long division.” He wanted to add “thank God,” but thought that could sound judgmental.
“Your daughter isnine?” Lacey chimed in, leaning over the counter.
“Hush, Lacey. Go into the house. This is none of your business.” Ms. Stephani shooed the girl, flapping her hand toward the open doorway. “Now. Or you lose your front desk shift and have to switch with Daisy in the kitchen.”
“Fine,” Lacey huffed but stood and waddled toward the door, glancing at the closed bathroom one last time before turning the corner as if she still expected someone to come out of it. Once she was gone, Ms. Stephani turned around to face Luke, her face distorted, suspicious.
“Please, follow me into the office.” On the other side of the desk, there was a sliding door with anOFFICEsign printed in bold letters above it. The office within the office. This couldn’t be good. Once when Luke was eleven, his fifth-grade teacher sent him to the principal’s office when he refused to dissect a frog in science class. Eleven-year-old Luke was only slightly more nervous than thirty-seven-year-old Luke at that moment.
Luke didn’t know what to expect inside the Maranatha House office. Judging by Ms. Stephani’s appearance, he’d guess piles of dusty books and maybe a cat or two. So what met him inside was a pleasant surprise. First, a large oak desk with a rolling leather chair behind it and two neatly upholstered wing-back chairs covered in a floral print. The room was painted a soft yellow with white trim; pictures hung on the wall with hundreds of anonymous faces staring back at him. He felt like he was in the sitting room of an old country farmhouse, not the office of a mysterious adoption agency. Once they both sat down, Ms. Stephani spoke first.
“I’m going to stop making assumptions about who you are or why you are here. But before you speak, please understand we respect our residents’ privacy and cannot release any information about guests past or present or their children. So if you are here to ask questions of a confidential nature, I’m sorry, but I must ask you to leave.”
Ignoring her request, Luke reached into his coat pocket, grabbed a slick piece of glossy photograph paper, and slapped it down on the amber wood desktop. “This is my wife.”
It was a picture of Natalie two Easters ago, when her mother visited and insisted the children attend church. Before Ewing’s sarcoma was a regular part of their vocabulary. Natalie wore a yellow sundress with lace around the shoulders and neckline. The yellow made her skin look like porcelain. May wore a light-pink dress with tiny flowers printed on it. She was seven at the time and looked like a smaller version of her current self. Will had gone through puberty since then. The little boy in that picture, his hair combed back with a perfect part, tie on crooked, was so familiar, yet so different than the son he’d left at home.
Ms. Stephani didn’t move to touch the photo, but leaned forward just enough to peek at it. “She seems very nice, but we don’t serve adults here, only young women ages twelve to nineteen.”
“She’s not pregnant.” He nudged the picture forward. “Her name was Natalie Richardson, and she’s dead.” Luke tried to gauge Ms. Stephani’s reaction to hearing Natalie’s name, but her face was blank. “While going through some of her belongings, my fourteen-year-old son found an envelope from Maranatha Family Services postmarked a few weeks before his birth. Now the kid has it in his mind he’s adopted.”
Ms. Stephani kept her arms folded in front of her on the desk, not letting her gaze leave Luke’s. “I still don’t see how we can help you.”
“Listen. I know he’s not adopted.” He wrestled the folded envelope out of his pocket, a flake of spiral notebook paper fluttering onto his thigh. Luke stared at it for a moment before sliding it off into his palm. As discreetly as possible he dropped it back into his pocket, patting it softly to make sure the scrap of paper was secure. Ms. Stephani cleared her throat, and Luke remembered why he was there. “I mean, I wasn’t actually there through the whole pregnancy, but still ...” Luke unfolded the envelope and held it up for Ms. Stephani to inspect. “I was hoping you’d have some idea where this envelope came from since I can’t exactly ask Natalie.”
She squinted, her lashes, heavy with mascara, nearly touching. “That is from the legal arm of our organization in Chicago. It facilitates any adoption from a young lady who spent her time at one of the six Maranatha Family Service homes throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The adoptions are usually regional. Other than that, there’s not much I can tell you.” She leaned back in her chair till it squeaked as if the springs were about to break.
This was a dead end.
Swallowing his irritation, Luke snatched the documents and picture off the table and stood quickly. Defeated and disappointed, he needed to get out of the office before he exploded.
“Well, thank you for your help,” he spat, twisting the words enough to make it sound like an accusation. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but an immovable, compassionless wall was not it. Luke turned to leave, his face hot and teeth clenched, but he heard Ms. Stephani’s voice one last time over his shoulder.
“I’m so very sorry for your loss. Natalie was a ...” Her voice wavered like she was holding back tears. She coughed and tried again. “I’m sure your wife was a wonderful woman.”
When her words soaked in, the room began to spin. He caught hold of the door frame and turned around, mouth open. He’d push harder this time, get real answers. But one look at Ms. Stephani’s face let him know that all kindness and pity were gone. If he was going to go up against this version of Ms. Stephani, he’d need more information and maybe a lawyer.
“Thank you.” Luke cleared his throat and put his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. Taking a moment at the door he paused, straightened his back, and turned his face to stone before walking into the lobby. In that pause, one of the hundreds of pictures covering the wall caught his eye. It hung right above the door, a group of six smiling couples wearing matching purple T-shirts with Maranatha Family Services across the front. The photo was faded from years of sunlight pouring in from the curtained window on the opposite side of the room, so determining its age was difficult. But looking at the photo he did know one thing—Natalie was one of the faces smiling out at him. Her hair was pulled back in a long dark ponytail, and she was smiling so widely he could almost see her molars. Right next to Natalie was another familiar face: her high school boyfriend, Andy Garner.
CHAPTER 10
Luke stumbled out of the Maranatha House in a fog. With one hard push he opened the front door, the ancient hinges whining back at him. A hand tapped him on his back as he started down the peeling wooden steps, and he slowed only for a second to take the off-white trifold brochure Ms. Stephani silently offered him.
It wasn’t until he smashed the unlock button on his car that Luke realized he’d never even told them his name. It was too late; nothing could entice him back inside now. He tossed the brochure onto the passenger seat, slid inside, and slammed the door.
Revving the engine, he forced the car into reverse, creating a cloud of dust. No careful turns and easing over hills this time. Luke needed to get away from this place and the secrets inside it as fast as his three-ton SUV would take him. As soon as his tires hit asphalt, the undercarriage scraping as he left the dirt road, Luke flicked on the radio, punching buttons till he found a song that suited his mood. He needed something confused but angry, with a touch of betrayal.
Once the bass was pumping so loud his eardrums hurt, he pushed the gas pedal to the floor, merging onto the empty highway within minutes. He didn’t want to think. Thinking only hurt, only made tears of fury cloud his vision. He didn’t know what that picture meant, but it did explain why she had the Maranatha envelope in her box. It’s not like he could tell Will that. Damn it. What was he going to tell Will?
Despite the blaring music, Luke’s mind raced through various scenarios of why Natalie could possibly be in those pictures and why she was in them with Andy. He’d seen Andy several times since reconnecting with Natalie at Michigan University. Andy’d been to their wedding, and in the early years of their marriage, Andy would sometimes stop by for dinner if he happened to be in town. But Luke hadn’t seen him in over ten years.
