Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Pleasure,” I replied. “I’m Jory Kage, this is my husband, Sam, my son, Kola, who you know, and my daughter, Hannah.”
We all shook hands then, Sam and Mikhail, me and Danique, then she and Sam. Their kids smiled, and when I offered for them to take seats, they all sat down on our couch.
“Can I get you all some water, soda, tea, coffee?”
We settled on unsweetened ice tea, and Hannah and I brought out glasses for everyone, and Sam told them where the coasters were in the drawer in the coffee table. He then brought chairs from the kitchen so the three of us could sit down, as Hannah was in the recliner. She’d met her father’s gaze and tipped her head at the chair she was in, but he clearly wanted to be across from Mikhail, not beside him.
Once we were all settled, Mikhail took a breath.
“I’m so sorry to be so adamant about this meeting, but we have to return home to Amsterdam in a few days and could not miss this opportunity to see Mykola.”
“Have you been visiting Chicago for a vacation?” I asked.
“No,” Kola told me. “He’s here at a medical conference presenting his paper on new strategies for treating Alzheimer’s.”
“You remembered,” Mikhail said with a sigh. “That is wonderful.”
“He brought his family with him, and they’ve all been sightseeing,” Kola explained.
“Do you like Chicago?” I asked Danique.
“The variety of food is wonderful.”
I smiled at her and noted how she watched Kola as he moved his chair closer to mine.
“So,” Sam began, taking a breath before he bent and picked up Dobby and put him on his lap. “While you were here in Chicago, you wanted to see your son and so called him up out of the blue?”
Mikhail gave Sam a tight smile. “We hired a private detective to find him. It wasn’t hard, we had both your name and your husband’s, but I knew he was old enough now to be approached on his own, and that way he could make his own decision to meet with us or not.”
“Sure,” Sam agreed curtly. “It might have been better to involve us, though.”
“Yes,” he agreed, turning to his wife. “Danique thought the same.”
Sam nodded.
Mikhail turned to Kola then. “I would like to explain to you what happened and how you came to be placed with an adoption agency.”
“Sure,” Kola replied, glancing at Sam, who moved his chair closer to his son and then put his arm around the back of Kola’s.
“You were born before Danique and I were married. I had to go back to Russia to finish school. We decided to separate then, as I couldn’t be sure when I could return, or even if I would be allowed to, and very soon after I left, your mother found herself pregnant.”
Kola nodded.
“When I called and spoke to him––” Danique sounded shaky as she took over the story. “––he left the decision of what to do about the pregnancy to me.”
“It was cowardly,” Mikhail quickly admitted, “and I have no excuse.”
I was not at all impressed with Mikhail. His earlier “found herself pregnant” didn’t sit well with me either. She was having his baby and he abandoned her. And no, I couldn’t speak to his circumstances, but still, it wasn’t great.
We were all quiet for a moment.
“After much thought,” Danique began again, her eyes on Kola, “I made the decision to have you.”
I wanted to thank her, but I didn’t want to interrupt, and neither did I think it was the right time. The thing was, though, I needed her to know that Kola was a gift that Sam and I treasured every day.
“My sister and mother took care of you while I went back to school, but once my sister left to begin her own studies, my mother felt that you deserved a family of your own. I saw you only when I came home on the weekends twice a month, she had to have help from several people, as she also worked, and the situation quickly became untenable. We all agreed to place you with the agency right after your second birthday.”
“It seems like you wanted the best for me,” he told her. “That makes perfect sense.”
She smiled at him. “Yes, but then Mikhail returned three years later when I was out of school and working as a teacher. He immediately sought me out, and before we began dating again, I told him all about you. You can imagine his surprise, but he was happy,” she said, taking his hand, and I watched him enfold hers with both of his. “But then he was sad when I told him of your adoption. He thought somehow that a boy as sweet as you would still be at the orphanage.”
“But I wasn’t,” Kola whispered.
“No. You had been adopted at three and brought to the US with your parents.”