I’m still a shaky, tear-stained mess by the time the worst of it passes and I can breathe again. I feel weak, shaky, when I go to the bathroom to wash my face. When I come out, Maggie is brewing me a cup of tea at Liam’s instruction. He sits me down in the kitchen. “Are you happy?” he asks.
I can’t believe he needs to ask that. “I’m overwhelmed,” I admit with a shaky laugh, “but I’m happy. It doesn’t feel real!”
“I’ll bring her out here as soon as possible,” he promises. “We can work all of that out. Whatever the two of you want.”
His phone buzzes and he checks it. “Six o’clock. That’s when she’ll be free.”
Six o’clock? That’s five hours. But then I guess I’ve waited all my life, right? I can wait until then. “I’ll be ready.”
The thing is, how is a person ready for something like this? Time has never moved so slowly as it does today, every minute feeling like an hour. I wind up abandoning my reading for now—there’s no way I can concentrate. Instead, I fool around with one of the games I downloaded to my machine, but even then I can’t concentrate well enough to make any progress. What has she been doing all this time? Was Dad the reason she left? Did he force her into it, or did she make her own decision? I should write these questions down, but then I don’t want her to feel overwhelmed. Besides, we have plenty of time now. There’s nobody keeping us apart anymore.
Finally, it’s a few minutes to six. I spent a little more of my time finding the right thing to wear. I mean, I’m meeting my mom. I want to look my best. The one thing I don’t bother with is makeup, since something tells me this is going to be emotional.
“How do I look?” I ask Liam, running my hands down the front of my blouse.
Smiling down at my from beside my desk, he murmurs, “Beautiful, as always. She’ll be so proud when she sees you.”
That was the perfect thing to say if he was trying to make me cry. “Please, not yet,” I beg, fanning my hands in front of my eyes. “I don’t want to start off crying my eyes out.”
I sign in to the link Ethan sent, my nerves jangling, my hands trembling. My heart is going a million miles an hour as the screen changes and a video window pops up.
And then there she is, already waiting. I know the second I lay eyes on her that this is my mother. She looks just like me. I always wondered how I wound up with blond hair and blue eyes. I got them from her, along with her complexion, her nose, the shape of her mouth.
“Oh, my God.” She covers her mouth with shaking hands. “Is it you? It’s really you!”
“It’s me,” I whisper. “Hi.”
“Oh, Aurora…” she breathes, crossing her hands over her chest now. “I can’t believe it. I tried for so long. I wanted you so much. Please, I need you to know that. I need you to understand it.”
“We can talk about everything, I promise,” I reply. “But I understand.”
“Do you? That’s the one thing that’s kept me up at night all these years. Whether you understand. Look.” She holds up a framed picture of what could easily be me holding a newborn, but it’s her. I’m the baby. “I have slept with this by my bed every single night all these years. This is all I have. I just want you to know, I never stopped loving you, baby. Not for a minute.”
It’s too much. My heart is too full. All I can do is laugh and cry at the same time and cover my face with my hands.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she tells me with tears in her voice. “This must be a lot for you.”
Liam hands me a tissue, and I take it, dabbing my eyes before blowing my nose. “I’m so happy. I really am,” I tell her in case she has the wrong idea. “He told me… I thought you were…”
“I understand. The man who found me gave me the rundown. I understand he’s gone now, your father.” She doesn’t bother hiding her bitterness, not that I would expect her to after he kept us apart all this time.
“What happened?” I guess that’s the first thing I need to know. How it all happened to begin with.
“I decided I needed to get away from him.” Her voice is so soft, so sweet. It’s filled with all the love I missed for so long. “I needed to get you away, too. I didn’t want to raise you in his world. I was young and stupid when we got married—but you came out of it, so there was a purpose, anyway. Look at you. You’re so beautiful!”
“So are you,” I croak before blowing my nose again. I’m sure I look very beautiful right now, all red-faced and snotty and teary.
“He found out about the plans I was making.” Sorrow fills her voice and her chin trembles. “It was very ugly. I finally had no choice but to leave town when you were around two years old. He threatened all kinds of things if I ever tried to take you. And I did,” she adds. “I tried to take you away from him. I guess you could call it kidnapping, but I was unsuccessful. He had eyes in the back of his head,” she mutters with a miserable groan.
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” I decide. “I want to talk about you, and me. When can we meet up in person?” I blurt out.
She laughs gently. “Am I dreaming?”
“If you are, then I am,” I point out. “But I think this is real.”
I look up at Liam, standing off to the side. He smiles. “Yeah, I think it’s real,” I decide.
“I love you very much,” she says. Tears stream down her cheeks the way they stream down mine. “Thank you for wanting to find me. I gave up hope of ever seeing you again.”
