The sudden guilt she felt for being the one to change that added to the other negative emotions Charlotte was experiencing.
“Okay,” her mother said at length. “Well, I’m here when you’re ready.”
Squeezing her eyes closed, Charlotte began to knead her temples. “Lilly’s a pretty girl and will be beautiful one day,” she volunteered, just to have something to say that wasn’t emotionally charged. “She looks like her mother. Did you ever meet Sabrina?”
“No. Our caseworker had us come get you from the hospital. We were open to meeting her in person, but she didn’t feel up to it and, of course, we didn’t want to make the situation any harder on her. The agency agreed to deliver a letter we wrote, thanking her for letting us have you and promising to do all we could to give you a good life. We hoped it would reassure her. Of course, she already knew a great deal about us from the application. She picked us from among many families. We submitted pictures and everything.”
This revelation only made her feel worse. Penny was clearly proud to have won the parent lottery, but Charlotte could only focus on the fact that her birth mother had never even tried to see her. “So it was an open adoption, but she never reached out?”
Charlotte had looked up the difference on the internet. A closed adoption meant no identifying information was shared with the adoptive parents, and there was no ongoing contact. An open adoption meant that information, updates and sometimes even visits were allowed.
“It was a semiopen adoption, I guess you could say,” Penny explained. “Her parents didn’t hide her identity. They allowed us to have a few pictures, her medical records and background information. We wanted to be sure she hadn’t been taking drugs, you know, and tests revealed she hadn’t. But we didn’t have any other contact.”
Why not? Charlotte wondered. Sabrina hadn’t been curious about her? Hadn’t wanted to meet her first child, even after she became an adult and had Lilly? Why had Sabrina simply given Charlotte up and walked away without ever looking back? And what about Sabrina’s parents? Why weren’t they ever interested enough to contact her?
Charlotte couldn’t wait for the results of her DNA test with Ancestry.com, but she was scared about what they might reveal at the same time.
“What does she have to say about her father?” Penny asked. “And her grandparents?”
“I haven’t asked about them yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s twelve, Mom, and her mother died only a short time ago. Not only that, but I’m still almost a total stranger to her. I don’t want to make it sound like I only came to Italy to pawn her off on someone else. I want to build a relationship with her before going after certain information. If I can get her to trust me, she might open up and say more than she otherwise would.”
“I understand that. I just thought... She hasn’t volunteered anything about her relatives? I assumed she would’ve saidsomething.”
“She hasn’t. Not a word. So far, she’s been reluctant to talk about her mother at all—doesn’t even want to go through Sabrina’s belongings.”
“Did they not have a good relationship?”
“That’s hard to determine.”
“The Italian man they were living with can’t tell you that much?”
“They lived with Luca for three short months, and he and I have only had two conversations, both of which revolved around logistics—like getting Lilly and her things and Sabrina’s personal effects.”
“He gave you Sabrina’s stuff, too?”
“He had to do something with it.”
“What about shipping it to her parents or a sibling or something? What will you do with it?”
“It should probably stay with Lilly. Anyway, I have to see what’s all there before I make any decisions.”
“When will you go through it?”
“When Lilly has a chance to decide if she wants to do it with me. At the moment, she doesn’t seem eager to do so.”
“Maybe it’s too painful for her to think about her mother.”
“Probably. I’m giving her time to adjust to everything before I bug her about it. I have to get a few things done for my editor today, anyway.”
There was another pause. “Speaking of your editor, have you started your new book?”
The panic Charlotte felt clamped down harder. What was she going to do about her book? “Not yet. But I’m looking for an idea right now, and once I find one, I’m going to stick with it and push through. No more changing my mind. No more uncertainty.”
“Okay. If you need me to fly over there and help with Lilly so you can sequester yourself away and concentrate, let me know.”
