Carry Her Heart (8 page)

Two weeks later, I told my parents. They were marvelous. I asked if I could go away for the rest of my pregnancy. And I told them I’d decided to give you up for adoption.

They stood behind both my decisions.

I told them I wanted to go to Ohio and stay with Aunt Bonnie. My mother, your grandmother, was working toward her Ph.D. in addition to teaching. I didn’t want the stigma of having a pregnant teen daughter to follow her.

I was so relieved when Mom and Dad agreed that I could go to Ohio. Aunt Bonnie agreed, which we all knew she would. And we told the school that I was finishing out the school year in Europe.

My aunt helped me screen potential parents for you. We both fell in love with your parents. In the trunk, I’ve put the letter they wrote to potential birth mothers.

I haven’t read it in years, but they described themselves as normal and average. Your father was a professor and your mother was an elementary school teacher. They sounded like my parents, and I knew I couldn’t give you a greater gift than parents who were as wonderful as mine.

I caught only a glimpse of them as they picked you up. They looked normal. Bland, even.

Until the nurse handed you to your mom.

At that moment, they were transformed. Your mom was so beautiful. They were head over heels in love with you. And in that split second, I knew they were meant to be your parents.

And so I let you go.

But that briefest of glimpses has been something I’ve held onto all these years.

I hope they were—are—as marvelous as my parents are.

The last time I saw Mick was to have him sign the adoption papers. The caseworkers told me that the adoption couldn’t go through without his signature.

We met at a restaurant outside of town a month before you were born.

He didn’t ask any questions about me or about you. He simply took the papers, signed them, and got up and left.

When I returned to school for my junior year of high school, he wasn’t there. I heard he went to the local Catholic all-boys high school. Their sports programs were always on the news and occasionally, they’d mention his name.

Later, I heard he was going to Notre Dame, and though he didn’t make the team, he planned to walk on and try out.

I never heard if he made it.

I haven’t heard of him since those high school newscasts, and I haven’t spoken to him since he signed the adoption papers.

If I could, I’d have avoided telling you about Mick. I’d like to think he’s grown up and would welcome you with open arms if you ever look for him. But I wanted you to be prepared if that wasn’t his reaction. If you ever want to find him, you have his name and a few facts, so that should give you enough to point you in the right direction.

I hope finding out about him didn’t hurt too much. I’ll confess, I didn’t tell you about him sooner because I was afraid telling you about him would hurt you and hurt me. But I’m fine. I so hope you are, too.

The clock chimed in the hallway.

It’s midnight, Amanda. Another Christmas is over.

I hope it was a wonderful one for you.

I hope it was filled with love, laughter, and family.

Know you’ve been in my thoughts all day.

You’re in my thoughts every day.

Love,

Piper

Chapter Seven

I love April. The world comes back to life. More specifically, my backyard comes back to life with its dizzying array of blossoms and buds.

I added pawpaw trees to a blankish space along Ned’s side of the yard. I’d never had a pawpaw and knew it would be a few years before they produced fruit, but I was willing to wait.

I loved the sense of new beginnings that permeated everything in the spring.

I also loved that some of the year’s anticipated blockbusters came out. This year, the newest installation of the
Star Trek
reboot was hitting the theaters. I couldn’t wait. My inner geek flag was flying as I tried to contain my excitement.

If Anthony was not a fan of Broadway shows or opera, he was even less excited by science fiction.

As someone who grew up reading Heinlein’s young adult fiction, the genre was my particular delight. And a few months after Ned moved in, I learned it was his, too. Since Cooper and Mela both disliked the genre almost as much as Anthony, Ned and I went to the midnight opening.

It was almost three in the morning when Ned pulled into his driveway and we were still in the thick of our movie critique. “. . . and I love how Abram’s . . .” My comment faded when I noticed Mela’s car was parked on the street in front of Ned’s house.

At that moment, Ned’s front door opened and Mela stepped out onto his porch. She did not look happy.

Not happy at all.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said and hightailed it into my house.

Yes, I’ll admit, it was cowardly, but sometimes the greater part of valor was knowing when to retreat.

I’d planned to go straight to bed to gear up for the next day. This was my Saturday for Amanda’s Pantry and I’d promised to go in and help at the health clinic Friday afternoon. Since it was after midnight, Friday was today.

Man, I needed to get some sleep.

But I couldn’t manage it.

I’d doze off, then I’d wake up with a start and worry about Ned.

I gave up on the idea of sleep at five. While the water in my teakettle heated, I checked and Mela’s car was still out front.

Still in my pajamas, which were a pair of old yoga pants and a tank top, I put on an oversize sweater and I took my favorite forget-me-not teacup into the backyard. I sat on the bench in the back corner of the yard and, though I tried not to, I worried some more about Ned.

Mela didn’t like that Ned and I had been friendly neighbors since the day he moved in, and over time, we’d become more than simply friendly . . . we were friends.

I’d hoped that the fact I was with Anthony—that Ned had introduced me to Anthony, for Pete’s sake—would assuage Mela’s concerns, but if her expression last night was any indication, it hadn’t.

Normally, I found peace in my backyard, but just as I’d found no sleep last night, I found no peace this morning.

My tea grew cold in my cup. I was just thinking about making another one when the gate on Ned’s side of my fence flew open.

For a moment, I thought it was him, coming to tell me not to worry, that everything was okay between him and Mela.

But it wasn’t Ned. It was her.

“Hi, Mela,” I said, trying to pretend I didn’t notice that she was glaring at me.

She ignored my attempt at pleasantries and simply said, “I came to tell you that you won.”

“Won?” I asked, sounding as genuinely confused as I was.

She stood in front of me, hands planted on her hips, and glared. “I’ve broken up with Ned.”

“How does that make me a winner? I never wanted—”

She interrupted me. “I can’t compete with you.
Saint Pip
who writes stories for kids. Saint Pip who donates her time to feeding the hungry and nursing the sick. Saint freaking Pip. Well, you’ve won.”

“I’m no saint, Mela,” I said softly. “And I have never been your competition.”

She stared at me for a moment that felt like a slice of forever, then slowly she said, “You really believe that, don’t you? You really believe that you and Ned are just friends.”

“Of course I do, and of course we are. I’m dating Anthony. Ned and I are neighbors and friends. Just friends.”

Mela snorted. “I think it makes it worse that you don’t know.” She paused a moment, as if weighing the notion, then nodded. “Yes, yes, it makes it worse.”

She didn’t say anything more, just turned around and walked toward her car. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat and I felt like I should apologize to her.

I heard her car start and after a moment, I couldn’t hear it anymore. She was gone and I was torn. I wasn’t sure if I should go over to Ned’s or simply leave him alone.

I decided to give him some space.

Still, Mela’s words haunted me. I tried to take a true measure of my feelings for Ned. I’ll admit, the day he’d moved in, I had felt a bit of a . . . no, I wouldn’t say spark, but I did notice him. Maybe it would have developed into something more than noticing, but I’d found out he was seeing Mela and that was that. Now, I did feel a warm rush of friendship whenever I thought about him. And that was better than some fly-by-night spark that faded almost as soon as it started, as far as I was concerned.

Lovers came and went, but friends would always be there.

At that thought, I knew I couldn’t wait for Ned to come to me. A friend didn’t wait to be needed.

I knocked on his door.

I didn’t hear anything inside and was about to go back home and call and leave a message, when the door finally opened.

Neither of us bantered or teased, or even smiled. I just asked, “Are you okay?”

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I will be. How did you know?”

“Mela came over to tell me that I won. That she’d finally broken up with you because of me. Ned, I need you to know, I value your friendship, but I never would have wanted to come between you and Mela.”

“You didn’t,” he assured me. “And that’s not how it went. She didn’t break up with me; I broke up with her.”

With some men, I might have questioned whether or not they were being totally accurate about who did the breaking, but I knew Ned wasn’t like that. I’d never seen him pretend to be anything other than what he was . . . a very nice guy. “Why did you break up with her?”

“It’s been coming for a long time,” he admitted. “When I was out of town on that case last week, I realized that I didn’t miss her. There was no sense of anticipation when we talked at night, no longing for her. And I thought of your parents.”

“My parents?”

He nodded. “When I see them together, I can’t imagine one without the other. You said when your dad went to that conference a few months ago your mom was over every night because she couldn’t stand the empty house.”

When Dad had left, Mom said she was excited to spend time with me. She was over every night. She “helped” me clean out my closet, then took me shopping for new clothes to replenish it. We went out to eat and saw two movies. We talked and laughed a lot. I really think she enjoyed the extra time with me, but I also think my mom wasn’t sure how to be her without my dad around. “You’re right; I think all our girl time was more about her missing him.”

“They reminded me of my parents,” he said.

His parents lived in Seattle. They were getting on in years and didn’t travel much, but he visited them as often as he could.

“My parents are like that . . . incomplete without the other. And my bosses,” he continued. “Josiah and Muriel are like that, too. Your parents are quiet and strike me as people who rarely fight, but you know Josiah and Muriel always fight. They fight about cases, about the firm. I think they’re both attorneys because they like to fight. That comes through in their relationship. But even with that, I can’t imagine them apart.”

I’d met Josiah and Muriel more than once, but had only heard about their legendary arguments secondhand from Ned and Anthony. But Ned was right, they fit . . . they functioned as two parts of a whole.

Quietly he admitted, “I realized that I
could
imagine myself apart from Mela. And I finally admitted that wasn’t fair to her, or to me.”

“Still, if I had anything to do with it—”

He cut me off. “You didn’t. The fact that she distrusted you so much only illustrates my point. If we were truly meant to be together, she’d have known that I could never, would never, cheat.”

Even though he was saying it wasn’t me, I still felt guilty. “Can I do anything?”

He started to shake his head, but then nodded. “Yes. Let’s go sit in your backyard and watch the stars give way to the sunrise.”

“It’ll be freezing,” I warned him.

“When has that ever stopped you?”

I smiled at him. “Never. Come on then.” I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. “You’ll find someone else someday.”

He didn’t say anything; he just squeezed my hand back.

And we went and sat on the bench in my jungle-ish backyard and watched the stars in silence for a very long time. Slowly, they all gave way to the orange-pink sunrise.

And it wasn’t until he spoke a long time later that I realized we still held hands. “Thank you,” he said.

“That’s what friends are for,” I assured him.

And I realized that’s what we were. Friends.

Not just neighbors. Not just friendly neighbors. Not even just friends.

He was the type of friend that, if I called and needed him, would drop everything to help me.

We were the type of friends that if one of us moved from here, we’d still be connected. Our friendship began because of proximity, but it had grown beyond that.

I would have sat on that cold bench, not saying anything, and held his hand all day if he needed me to.

That’s the kind of friends we were.

Dear Amanda,

Ned broke up with his girlfriend. I realized he was the type of friend I could call in the middle of the night to come bail me out of jail. Or jump my car. Or . . . The point is, I could call him whenever and for whatever I needed.

It made me think of Aunt Bonnie. I know I mentioned her to you before. She’s the one I stayed with through the last few months of my pregnancy.

When I told my parents I’d decided to give you up for adoption, my mother started to cry and my father said, “Piper, I wish we could make this decision for you. It’s probably the most difficult decision you’re ever going to have to make. You’re turning sixteen in a week—that’s so young to be carrying a burden like this. But there’s nothing to do for it. This has to be your decision, and your mother and I will support you no matter what you decide.”

“I’m going to go stay with Aunt Bonnie and find this baby’s real parents. I know it’s not me, so they have to be out there somewhere, waiting for me to find them and let them know I have their child.”

My mother was still crying, but my father nodded. “I’m sure Bonnie will help.”

He was right, of course, because Bonnie Masters was his friend, in the same way Ned was mine.

Dad and Aunt Bonnie had grown up next door to each other. They’d gone to school together, even college together. Aunt Bonnie was my godmother. And she became one of my mother’s best friends, too.

She was family.

Not one of us doubted that she’d say yes and welcome me with open arms.

Which is exactly what she did.

As I sat with Ned, I realized he was my Aunt Bonnie. He was more than a friend . . . he was family.

I hope your life is full of friends like that.

Love,

Piper