One Pink Line (17 page)

grace

A
little over three years had passed since I learned the identity of my real father, but I had yet to see or speak to him. And although my desire to do those things hadn’t lessened, the desperation had faded. As I grew older, my few attempts at reaching out to him through my mother became more futile and discouraging.

My mom first told me about him when I was ten or eleven years old, after I threatened to run away if she didn’t fess up. She’d described him as a friend, a guy who was amongst a close-knit group of college pals.

“What did he look like?” I asked with eager ears.

“He was very tall, and handsome, and had a lot of dark wavy hair,” she told me.

I pictured him like Hugh Jackman, and Mom smiled when I told her that.

“What was he like?”

She said his name was Kevin, and that he was strong, helpful, funny, but with a dry sense of humor, and was always one of her favorite people during her college years. But that had all apparently changed when she told him about me.

“What happened?”

She didn’t give me very many details, other than he was unhappy with the news, and chose to end their friendship.

“Why?” I asked, guilty for ruining her relationship with him.

She shrugged. “I really don’t know, sweetie; he was young, and didn’t want to deal with having a child, I guess.”

“What did he say?”

Mom adjusted her posture on the park bench where we sat and looked away from me. I was old enough to know there were things she didn’t want to talk about, but I couldn’t tame my curiosity.

“He said that I would have to raise you by myself, which I had intended to do anyway, but he wanted me to understand that he wasn’t able to take part in raising a child together.”

“He didn’t want to marry you?”

She shook her head. “No, honey, we weren’t dating at the time,” she looked away again and batted her eyes before turning back to me. “I know this is hard to understand, because it’s obviously not the best idea to have sex with someone you’re not in a loving relationship with…but sometimes things happen that are out of your control, and this was one of them.”

I scratched my head. “It was an accident.”

“You were not an accident, but, I had not planned on being pregnant and unmarried at such a young age.”

“So, I
was
an accident.”

Mom’s head dropped back slightly, and then she sat straight and her neck made a crackling sound before she smiled at me. “No, you weren’t an accident. You were absolutely meant to be in my life, it was just the means in which you came to me that were unexpected.”

It sounded reasonable, but accidental nonetheless.

“Do I have any sisters?”

She grinned knowingly; I had always wanted a baby sister. “I don’t know much about Kevin’s life today, but I do know that he is married, and has two daughters.”

My heart beat faster at the thought of him and his family. I wanted so badly to go to their house and spend time with them. I wondered if I looked like him and his daughters, and what his wife was like. I wondered if she would be nice to me, or if she even knew I existed. But instead, I was asked to be content with the information my mom had given me, because apparently, Kevin had also asked to have no contact with me whatsoever.

I looked down at my lap that day at the park, embarrassed. “But that was a long time ago,” I said to my mom. “Maybe he wants to see me now, and doesn’t know where to find me,” I suggested, my voice filled with hope.

“Let’s head home.” She stood and grabbed my hand, but gave no response to my theory. Leaving me to assume he knew exactly how to find me, he just didn’t want to.

Right before I was about to start my freshman year of high school, I met a girl who had a similar, screwed-up situation like mine. She’d moved in two blocks from us, and was transferring to my school starting in the fall. Her name was Chloe.

Chloe was gorgeous, and all I could picture when we first met was her walking through the halls in slow motion with the wind in her hair as every prepubescent male within a stones throw turned to stare at her. She had long wavy brown hair, down to the small of her back, and almond shaped eyes, the color of smoky quartz. Her teeth were straight and pearly white, and you could see almost every single one of them when she smiled. I asked her if anyone ever told her she looked like Julia Roberts, and she said yes.

We met one day as she was jogging past my house and I was outside shooting hoops in the driveway. She had a very confident air about her, and approached me almost immediately.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Yes?” I let the ball bounce away from me as I walked toward the end of the driveway.

She extended a long, toned arm. “I’m Chloe, just moved in over on Queens Lane, and I heard you might be the same grade as me.”

“Incoming freshman?” I asked as we shook hands.

“Yup, good to meet you, your name is…”

“I’m sorry, it’s Grace, nice to meet you, too.” We stood almost eye-to-eye, which was a refreshing change. Most girls my age were still at least five to six inches shorter than me, causing me to slouch like an ogre and walk the halls with slumped shoulders. But on Chloe, the height was much more graceful and swan-like, and she wore it like a crown. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“My mom and I moved up from Miami, to be closer to relatives.”

“Just you and your mom?”

“Yeah, my dad left when I was young,” she said casually.

Her honesty and misfortune made me instantly attracted to her. I knew at that moment we’d be friends.

“I’m sorry to hear that, how old were you?”

“It’s fine.” She walked towards the ball and bounced it gently until it got higher off the ground. “I was two, hardly have any memory of him.”

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“Nope.”

She seemed so cavalier about the whole thing. There was no indication she harbored any anger or bitterness. No signs that her mother had lied to her as a young girl, or that her entire existence was the result of a drunken mistake. Her mom was probably straightforward with her from day one, and let Chloe digest the news of her father’s absence over the years on her own terms. I envied her disposition.

“What about you,” she started. “Your folks still together?”

“Yes, but my dad is not my real dad.” The involuntary, full disclosure shocked me, and I looked away as soon as I said it, feeling shy. I usually avoided discussing my familial situation with kids my own age, but I felt comfortable with Chloe.

“Are you adopted?” she asked and bounced the ball to me.

I took a shot and made it. “I’m adopted by my dad, because my mom is my real mom. She had sex with some dude in college, and had me. Then she married my dad, when I was two.”

“Your adopted dad?”

“Correct.”

We both laughed. “You’re almost as messed up as me,” she said and slapped me on the shoulder.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I smiled.

We shot hoops for about an hour before she checked her cell phone, flipped it closed and told me she had to go.

“I’ll see ‘ya around, Grace,” she waved and jogged away.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sydney

I
left Purdue for good with a packed car, and drove the two-hour drive to downtown Chicago. My plan was to stay with Kendra for two months (since my mom declined to offer me my old room), and then get my own place before I was scheduled to start my new job, at which point I would be a little over four months pregnant.

Kendra lived in a renovated building that was a converted chocolate factory, and I was thrilled to see that the lobby had bowls of complimentary candies at all times. I wiped the sweat off my brow, hit the number three button on the elevator, and she was there waiting for me.

“Hi, roomie!” she said, excitedly. “Let me help you with those.” Kendra grabbed one of the two oversized duffels I was dragging.

“Thanks, this one’s a beast,” I said and followed her down the hall to the apartment.

“I was thinking we could go for pizza tonight,” she suggested, and pulled my bag over by her balcony doors once we entered the apartment.

“Sounds great.” I threw myself down on her new, pullout futon, and landed with a thud. “This couch is terribly uncomfortable.”

“It’s cute though, right?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cute,” I agreed, then yawned.

“If you don’t want pizza, we can go somewhere else, or I can order in if you’re too tired.” She was in full hostess mode, wanting me to meet her enthusiasm and rally for a girls’ dinner, but all I really wanted to do was find a way to get comfortable on her wooden couch.

“Pizza’s fine,” I said and rested my heels on her glass-top coffee table.

Kendra grabbed me a bottle of water from her fridge. “I have a blow-up mattress for you in the bedroom, but if you’d be more comfortable sleeping out here, and having some space to yourself, just let me know.”

“Thanks Kendra,” I smiled at her. I really did appreciate all she was doing, and I could tell she was overcompensating for my parents. lt’d been a couple weeks since I broke the news to them, and my father still refused to take my call. Kendra had threatened not to speak to either of them unless they gave me their support, but that hadn’t worked, and I begged her not to make them suffer even more for my mistakes. It killed me that I’d brought so much pain on my father. After everything he’d done for me. He was speechless where I was concerned, and I got it.

“Have
you
talked to Dad lately?” I asked.

“About you?” she asked with a reserved smile, cocking her head.

“Yes, about me?”

Kendra took a spot next to me and briefly looked down before answering. “We didn’t really talk about your situation. Just that you were going to be staying with me.” She patted my leg. “He did give me some extra money for us to go out to dinner and buy groceries.”

I smiled at the consolation prize. “I’ve shamed the family.”

She burst out laughing, bent her knees and put her feet up on the couch. “You haven’t shamed the family.”

“I’ve shamed Dad,” I nodded, imagining him bravely facing his friends on the golf course after their wives had passed along the gossip about the ‘Shephard girl.’

Kendra held her gentle grin. “No you haven’t, he’s worried about you and he loves you. He just doesn’t know how to deal, but he will.”

“He won’t even take my calls.”

She nodded. “He will.”

We unpacked my things and put some clothes away in the drawers she’d cleared out for me. The rest of my stuff was jammed into a storage cage in the basement of her building. Once we were done, we ordered a pepperoni pizza and a tomato, gorgonzola salad from O’Fame in Lincoln Park. Once Kendra ate all the tomatoes, I was free to dip my pizza slices in the left over gorgonzola.

“I told Kevin today,” I said and wiped the grease from my chin. We were sitting on her floor with our backs resting against the futon.

Her eyes popped, and then she silenced the television with the remote. “Oh my God, today?”

“Yup,” my lips curled.

Her gaze was fixed on me. “And?”

“And let’s just say, you should hold off on buying him a World’s Best Dad mug,” I said and took a swig of my water. I’d cried enough on the car ride back to Chicago, and convinced myself that Kevin’s reaction was for the best. How could I count on someone who behaved so violently under pressure? I wanted nothing from him, and only wished I’d been able to convey that more clearly in my conversation to him. As a glimpse of the Sears Tower came into
view,
and I crossed over the Gary, Indiana border, I vowed never to shed a tear over Kevin Hansen again.

“I want to know everything,” Kendra demanded then sat up and grabbed another square slice of pizza.

I nervously played with my napkin, and then tossed it on the coffee table. “He wants nothing to do with me, or the baby.”

“What do you mean?” she mumbled with food in her mouth.