“What about you?” she asked. “Any interest in Ancestry.com?”
“Not really. Like you said about your situation, if my father wanted to find me, it wouldn’t be that hard. It’s not like he doesn’t know about me. If she’d never told him, that would be different.”
“I get that. He knew and walked away, which is totally his loss. He doesn’t deserve to know you now.” She sighed. “Family is complicated.”
Shannon smiled. “Tell me about it.”
14
The food arrived just then. Once they were seated they passed around to-go containers of wonton soup, the filling for chicken lettuce wraps, crispy honey shrimp and fried rice.
Victoria eyed the amount of containers. “It’s possible I overordered. We can split the leftovers. There’s no way I can finish all this myself.”
“Thanks. It’s delicious, and food like this is always better the next day.” She moved her soup bowl closer. “Did you tell your mom I texted?”
“No. You?”
Shannon shook her head. “I can’t figure out how she feels about running into Ava. Obviously there’s guilt. She went to see her a few days after the dinner. I don’t know what happened, but when she came back, she spent the whole afternoon locked in her office crying.”
She paused. “Is it okay to talk about this?”
“Sure. We’re both the result of what happened, but we had nothing to do with the circumstances. If Cindy had given you up, you would have had my life. I guess my mom would have found another couple to adopt me.” Now it was her turn to consider her words. “Intellectually I can say that, but I can’t imaginewhat it would have been like to grow up with different parents. It’s strange to think about.”
“For me, too. Although I have the advantage of being able to look at you and try to picture myself in your world, whereas you have nothing to compare it to.”
“It is sort of like falling through the looking glass.” She smiled. “I have to warn you, when you’re doing your what-if dreaming, improvement is my mother’s love language.”
Shannon scooped up some fried rice. “What does that mean?”
“My mom shows she cares by trying to make you better. My dad totally gets it and loves when she steps in to tell him what he’s doing wrong.” She waved a piece of shrimp. “I wasn’t so understanding. Whether it was clothes or my hair or how I was training, she had an opinion.”
Shannon looked confused. “Training?”
“When I was little, I was into gymnastics. I was pretty serious about the sport.” More than that, it had been her world for years. “I was the kid getting up at four in the morning to train before school and then went back for an afternoon session. I competed until I was twelve.” She shrugged. “That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to make it past the state championships.”
Her coach had been hinting at that for months, but Victoria hadn’t wanted to listen. It had taken a very blunt meeting with him for her to face what she’d been avoiding. She simply wasn’t good enough to make the national team, and without that, she had no future in the sport. At least not one she wanted.
“Twelve?” Shannon sounded stunned. “But that’s so young. Couldn’t you have kept trying?”
“I didn’t see the point. Being the best in my region was like winning the Miss Apple Orchard crown or something. I wanted it all, and when I was willing to admit I didn’t have that extra spark of talent, I was done.”
“But you were twelve!”
Victoria grinned. “You need to let that go. I spent a couple of months feeling sorry for myself, then decided to find something else I could do. I picked cheerleading. All-star cheerleading.”
“Meaning you were really good?”
She laughed. “We were, but all-star cheerleading is about competing and performing. We don’t cheer for another sport like regular high school cheerleaders do. It’s a combination of dance, gymnastics and tumbling.”
“Oh, like when you all stand on each other’s shoulders and the guys throw the girls around and stuff.”
“Yes, that. Our team competed at the high school level. It was a female-only team.” The training had been hard, but she’d loved it.
“You were doing a lot,” Shannon said. “I’m impressed. My big high school thing was working on the yearbook. Did you compete in college?”
“I didn’t go. It turns out my mom loved that I was cheering and totally supported me. There was no way I could stand making her happy all the time, so I refused to go to college and went to stunt school instead.”
Shannon frowned. “Are you being funny?”
