Finding Purgatory (8 page)

She was doing it for the kid, she told herself. She’d promised she would do whatever she needed to while the thing was dependent on her. At the very least, it would keep Ani off her back. That kind of annoyance had to be bad. Everything was bad for pregnant women. Which was annoying.

It was a vicious cycle.

Maybe it would be nice to have someone understand at least. That was the one thing Tori had liked about group before. At least the other kids knew what it was like being in the foster system. That was one of the weirdest things about living in Ani’s house—the way her sister just didn’t
get
certain things.

No one in Tori’s current personal sphere understood how creepy it was to have something growing inside her like a parasite. Misery loved company.

A few minutes to seven, a woman approached. She introduced herself as Dana Goulding, the group’s leader. Though Tori hadn’t asked, she spilled her life story. Pregnant with twins at seventeen, a girl and a boy she gave up for adoption. Third child at twenty. She’d kept that girl. And she and her husband had just had a baby boy last year. She was thirty-two now and had been running this group for going on six years. She asked Tori how far along she was and told her she was among friends.

“Yeah, I know. No one believes me. Not the first time, anyway.” Her smile was friendly rather than condescending. “But it’s a break, you know? Anyway. Just stick around. Listen. If you want to jump in, that’s fine. If not, that’s okay, too. I’ve never heard a couple of the other girls’ voices except for a hello here and there.”

Dana then moved off to call the meeting to order.

They were only five minutes into talking—a girl who looked way too tiny to be carrying a belly that big was recounting a fight she’d had with her mother the day before—when the door opened. Another girl walked in with a proud smile on her face and a car seat dangling from her hands.

It was obvious most of the group knew her. Tori caught up quickly. This was the first time the girl had been back since she’d had her baby.

“It’s been hard,” she said. “But also good. I’m really glad I didn’t give him up. I’m glad I have Keegan now.”

That was cue for one of the other girls to start crying.

“Talk to us, Alex,” Dana said while the girls on either side of Alex rubbed her back.

“It just that it makes me feel like a dick that I’m giving my baby up,” Alex said.

Dana nodded, her expression understanding. “It’s important to remember there are no easy choices here. There are positives and negatives no matter what path you’ve set down.” She leaned forward, hands on her knees, so she could look at Alex head-on. “It’s not selfish to decide the baby is better off being adopted. There’s nothing wrong with making that choice. Nothing at all.”

Tori scoffed before she could help it. “Sure there’s nothing wrong, if you’re lucky.” There was a bitter taste on her tongue, burning the back of her throat. “You can just leave it all to chance that the assholes you leave your kid with will keep their word."

The minute she said it, when she saw the pained expressions of some of the others, Tori regretted opening her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say anything so bitchy. These girls hadn’t done anything to her.

“What the hell do—” one of the girls began, but Dana held her hand out.

“Meg.” There was warning in her tone. She turned back to Tori. “It sounds like you have some personal experience. Do you want to talk about it?”

Tori felt bad enough about her callous comment that she thought she owed them some explanation. Disgruntled but resigned to the idea, Tori pulled her feet up on the seat. “It’s not personal. It’s just fact.” She paused and shrugged. “I was almost adopted once.”

“And what happened that you weren’t?” Dana asked, ignoring the startled reaction of the other girls.

Old habit had Tori reaching up to curl a tendril of hair around her finger. It was just long enough now that she could. “The couple I was with got pregnant with their own kid, and suddenly everything they told me about how they would love me like their very own went right out the window.” Tori hated the way her heart panged when she said the words. It made her angry. It had happened so many years ago, and she still wasn’t done crying about it. Disgusting. “It’s such bullshit. Once they found out they could have kids of their own, they didn’t need someone else’s baby.”

Alex put her hands to the swell at her middle. “Serena and Richard, that’s my kid’s adoptive parents, wouldn’t ever do that.” Her words were vehement.

Whatever. If they all wanted to live in dreamland, Tori wasn’t going to pull the wool off their eyes. She’d seen too much to trust other people to keep their word. Love wasn’t a promise anyone could keep. “If you say so.”

“I’m very sorry that happened to you, Tori.” Dana’s words were soft and sincere. “But on average, most adoptions turn out well, especially with newborn babies. Alex, you were able to choose the adoptive parents you were comfortable with, right?”

Tori was quiet for the rest of the meeting. She managed to keep her pessimistic comments to herself. If nothing else, it was interesting. The thirteen girls there each had a very different story. She didn’t hear them all that day, but the ones she heard were enlightening to say the least. Tori didn’t feel quite as dumb in comparison afterward. Some of these girls had gotten pregnant on purpose and been shocked when it didn’t go over well.

She listened to stories of supportive parents, overbearing parents, and parents who’d sent them off to be dealt with by grandparents or aunts. Some of the babies’ fathers were in the picture, some weren’t. The youngest girl, a fifteen-year-old named Allison, had gotten pregnant by her twenty-six-year-old boyfriend. She was very indignant that he was doing time for statutory rape.

As she got up to leave, Tori had to admit it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. Not once had Dana preached at the girls. She had simply reinforced over and over that it was a difficult position they’d found themselves in and that they deserved support without judgment no matter what their choices were.

When the meeting was over, she hadn’t gone more than a few steps toward the door when she was stopped by a touch at her arm and a tentative, “Hey.”

Tori turned, surprised to find the girl who had been sitting to her right all night staring at her with a nervous expression. “Uh. Hey.”

Awkward much?

“My name’s, um . . . Emily.” The halting manner in which she spoke made it sound like this was a revelation not only to Tori but to herself. She recovered and held her hand out.

“Tori.” She took the girl’s hand and gave it a small squeeze.

“So, um, sorry. I guess I just wanted to say hi. And I wanted to ask . . .”

“What?” Tori was trying to be patient, but this chick was drawing this conversation out way too much. Tori wanted to be out of this church.

“You said you weren’t adopted by those people? Did you ever get adopted?” Tori must have had a harsh look on her face, because Emily backpedaled quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s fine. Whatever. No, I never got adopted.”

“So was that, um, that lady who dropped you off your foster mom or something?”

Tori turned to her. “Jesus, kid. Are you stalking me or something?”

Emily’s eyes went wide. “What? No. I just saw you with . . . her. Before. Outside. I’m just observant.”

For a long moment, Tori eyed the other girl. There was something very twitchy about her, but it seemed ridiculous to consider her dangerous. Her belly was already big enough she had that whole waddle thing going on. “She’s my sister.”

“Your sister?” Emily ducked her head, clapping a hand over her mouth when she realized how loud that had come out. “Sorry. Just, errr. I mean, she looks a lot older than you.”

“You’re kind of a spaz, aren’t you?”

Emily pursed her lips, but then she rolled her eyes and grinned. “That’s exactly what my brother calls me.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. My sister is a lot older than me. My parents had me when she was sixteen.”

“That’s kind of the same as me and my broth—my brother.” A strange, sad expression came over Emily’s face for a moment, but it was gone the next instant. “But we don’t have the same dad.”

“Ah.” Tori paused a beat more because she was curious what else was going to come out of this near-complete stranger’s mouth. But the girl only looked back with an expectant stare. “Anyway. She’s probably waiting for me.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m, uh . . .” She glanced around. “I think I’m going to get a cookie before I leave.” She waved awkwardly. “See you next time?”

“Yeah.” Tori nodded. “Guess I’ll be here.”

She was a little surprised to realize she wasn’t lying.

Ani turned Shane’s business card over and over in her hands. She tapped it on the edge of her desk and tried to concentrate on the words on her computer screen. She was supposed to be replying to an e-mail, but it was difficult to concentrate on work these days.

More and more, Ani’s thoughts were consumed by the puzzle her sister presented. The want to know what had happened to Tori between the time Ani had left her in the supposedly capable hands of the Welches and when Tori climbed into her car, seventeen and pregnant, was consuming her thoughts more and more.

The previous night, when Ani picked Tori up from group, she’d been flippant about how it had all gone.

“They got a little pissed at me when I dared to mention how giving a baby up for adoption doesn’t guarantee its life is all rainbows and sunshine,” she’d said. “I guess I was lucky the Welches got pregnant before they could adopt me. After you sign all the paperwork, you’re stuck, right? And then they would have had the kid they really loved because it looked like them or whatever, and me—the kid they got stuck with because they were stupid enough to sign a piece of paper saying they would love me forever.”

Her final comment had made Ani’s stomach ache. “Guess we better hope this one looks like your old kid, huh?”

Ani put the card down on her desk and rubbed her temples. Her heart was beginning to pound, and an uncomfortable lump had risen in her throat. She was doing her best not to think about her sister’s baby. Not yet. There was still time for that.

She concentrated instead on the other tidbit of information. At least it was one of a million questions answered. She knew now why Tori had ended up tossed back into the system with no chance for permanence in her life. The Welches had changed their minds about adopting.

Giving up on the idea she was going to get any work done today, Ani picked up her phone and dialed.

“Thanks for doing this,” Ani said to Shane as they were led to their booth. He had agreed to meet her for dinner so she could talk about Tori.

Shane nodded. “Just remember I have a lot of privileged information I can’t talk about without Tori’s permission.”

“I understand. But if I know something from her past, I can talk about it?”

“I don’t see why not. I’m just telling you now, I can’t give you details.”

“Right.”

A waiter came to take their drink orders. When he’d gone again, Ani was as ready as she was ever going to be. Still, she didn’t know where to start, didn’t know how to begin to explain what she wanted Shane’s help with.

“How’s Tori doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Ani frowned. She wrung her hands. “Sometimes she forgets she hates me, and that’s almost nice. But she won’t talk about anything. She won’t talk about the pregnancy or the baby’s father. I want to have a relationship with her, but she’s not giving me that option.”

To her surprise, Shane laughed. “What did you expect when you took in a traumatized girl? You can’t have thought you’d be instant friends with a smarmy teenager.”

Tired of sarcasm in general, Ani fixed the man with a withering glare. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you said you were Tori’s friend, right? And as a social worker, I’m sure you understand the concept of needing to vent. I’m trying my best to help her. Maybe it would be more productive if you worked with me instead of looking down your nose.” She glanced around, self-conscious about her tone, but no one seemed to be paying attention to them.

Lowering her voice, Ani leaned in and continued. “Look. I get that you’re judging me for what I did to Tori when she was little. I understand. But I’m trying to make up for it now. Maybe it’s too little too late, but—”

Shane held up his hands, his expression abashed. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right. I’m not being helpful. In a lot of ways, I know I’m overprotective of Tori. She was the toughest of my very first caseload. She was assigned to me when I was twenty-five and I didn’t really grasp what the system could do to a kid.”

“How old are you now, if you don’t mind my asking?”

He gave a sad smile. “Thirty.” She must have looked as dismayed at that revelation as she felt, because he nodded. “Yeah. Not even social workers are steady for these kids.”

His expression became thoughtful as he rubbed a hand over his chin. “No one escapes childhood without issues. All of us are messed- up over something—over-parenting, under-parenting, Daddy issues, whatever. We all have the quirks our parents left us with. But these kids, most of them end up not being parented at all. They have a series of guardians who do their best, but they end up with more issues than there are tourists in Disneyland.”

Ani bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to ask the next question, but she felt she needed to. “I know you don’t know for sure, but given what you know of Tori’s life before, what’s the likelihood that the baby is a product of rape?” The last word, such an ugly, awful concept, was barely a whisper.

It bothered her that Shane didn’t deny it outright.

He sighed. “I honestly don’t know how to answer that. In my line of work you see kids who you wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up with three babies before they’re twenty, but Tori wasn’t one of them.” His shoulders slumped. “That doesn’t mean much, really. Tori is smart, but most of these kids are starved for love, and they take it where they can get it, if you know what I mean.”