“I would have had the same DNA,” she said slowly. “But if she had given me up, if Ava had been my mom, I wouldn’t have been the same person at all.” She looked at him. “Just as huge, my mom would have had a totally different life. She would have gone to college. She would have gotten her degree and had a career and met someone and had a whole different family.”
She was stating the obvious but was still having trouble grasping it. “Her life would have been easy. But she chose to keep me. At the very last minute, she changed her mind, altering all our lives. Just one decision did that.”
“It wasn’t your decision,” he told her. “Nothing that happened or didn’t happen is your fault.”
“I know. But it’s so strange to think about. What could have been, what was. That Ava woman. She wanted a baby. Me, I guess.” She couldn’t imagine not being able to have kids and being dependent on someone else giving up their child. “Mom picked her and her husband to be my parents, so she must have seen something in them. She must have liked them.”
“She would only want the best for you,” he said. “She always has.”
“Mom said Ava became like a sister. She went to every doctor’s appointment, they hung out and stuff. They were so close. But she started having doubts and then knew she couldn’t give me up.” She clutched Aaron’s hand. “She told me she knew she was breaking Ava’s heart, but she didn’t have a choice. My mom gave up everything for me.”
“Does that make you feel like you owe her something?”
“More like I owe her everything.”
He nodded. “I get that. It’s like now you’re even more responsible for her happiness.”
His words surprised her. “I’m not.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m not,” she repeated, only to realize that in some ways she’d always felt responsible for her mother’s life. Even without knowing about how her mom had given up college and all her dreams and plans for the future to become a single mom at eighteen, she’d known her mother had sacrificed for her. Cindy wanted her to be happy and was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen. She’d given up having her own life to make sure Shannon was doing well. She’d frequently gone without to provide everything from the new clothes to dance lessons to a shiny new phone every couple of years. Cindy had made do, had pretended she didn’t care that her shoes were falling apart or that she hadn’t had a professional haircut in years.
When her grandfather had been alive, he’d mentioned how much his daughter was giving to both him and her. Shannon had frequently vowed to be the perfect child to make her mom’s life easier. But being perfect was impossible, and after a few days she always forgot her vow and returned to just being a kid. After her grandfather had died, there hadn’t been anyone to do the reminding, and she’d been a self-absorbed teenager.
“I didn’t even see how much she’d given up for me until she started dating Luis. I finally realized that she’d never dated the whole time I’d been growing up. My life had been her life. My dreams were her dreams.”
“And when you let her down?” he asked gently.
Shannon hung her head. “It was so awful. I knew how disappointed she would be in me.” She sucked in a breath. “I knew I was in trouble at college long before I flunked out. But I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t face her. I knew she’d be crushed. So it was a shock. The look on her face when I told her... I don’t want to think about it.”
She raised her head and stared at him. “You’re right, I’m responsible for my mother’s happiness.”
“Technically you’re not.”
“I shouldn’t be,” she corrected. “But we’re so entwined. It can’t be healthy. In some ways, it’s worse now because I know that she could have taken the easier path. It’s what she was supposed to do.”
“But she loved you too much.”
“Yes, she did. And then she was a teenager with a baby and no way to make it. She felt so guilty for keeping me from the life she thought I was supposed to have that she spentherlife trying to makemylife perfect. In her mind, she had to make up for everything I’d supposedly lost. She should have given me up, for her own sake, not mine.”
“But she didn’t.” He leaned close. “Don’t take this wrong, but maybe what happened today was a sign that you two need to start living for yourselves and not because of what the other person will think.”
“But that’s so logical.”
“I can’t help the way I think.”
“I love how you think,” she told him. “So to answer the original question, I think I’m okay. This is all confusing and strange, and I can’t reconcile how I feel with what I know. At the same time, I’m telling myself nothing has changed. I’m still me with the past I always had. Yet I feel totally different.”
“Don’t be different,” he said, leaning in and kissing her.
She let her lips linger, then drew back enough to look into his eyes. “You had tone,” she said. “We’ve been talking about me and my mom all this time. Areyouokay?”
He raised one shoulder. “I don’t like thinking about you being someone else. It scares me.”
His confession surprised her. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” He avoided her gaze for a second before looking at her. “I love you, Shannon. I’m not sure you understand how much. If your mom had given you up for adoption, I would never have met you. And even if we had met, you would have been different. I don’t like thinking about us not being together.”
