Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
These people hadn’t even told him he was adopted. He didn’t know of her existence at all, had never once thought of the unknown woman who’d carried him within her, and that knowledge cut her to the quick. Because she’d fought so long and so hard, every day, rationing and struggling and surviving, so she could give her child life. She gripped her hands in her lap as she attempted to gather control of her spinning emotions. “I know you’ve raised him, and to him, you’re his parents. It will be…an adjustment. I understand that. I would never remove you from his life. You can visit him in Oxford where I own a farmhouse. You can even help him get settled, make it as easy for him as possible. I’d be grateful if you would.”
The couple shot each other a wide-eyed glance, and then Emery Davies bent toward her large purse where it sat on the floor and pulled a photo album from it. She handed it to Josie. Josie reached out tentatively, taking the book from Emery’s hands. Their eyes met, these two women who desperately loved the same little boy. Josie looked down, letting out a small gasp when she saw the photo of the chubby baby on the front cover. She ran a shaking hand over it, her eyes greedily taking in every feature of her son’s face.
He looked like Charles; he did. She couldn’t deny that. But he also looked like her. She saw herself in his eyes, in the particular way his cheek muscles bunched when he smiled. Mostly, he was himself, the unrepeatable combination of genetics that had come together to form this perfect, individual boy. “He’s beautiful,” she said, her voice breathy with emotion.
She looked up at Emery, and her eyes were glistening with tears. “Yes. He is beautiful. And he’s smart and kind. He’s the most special little boy I’ve ever known.”
Josie smiled, and for just a moment, she felt not a competitiveness with this woman but a bond. She opened the front cover of the book and began looking through the pictures. His baptism, first birthday, grinning with blue frosting smeared across his joyful face, swim lessons, more birthdays, his front teeth missing. Josie flipped each page, more tears flowing, her eyes moving from one happy memory to another. “He’s had a happy life.”
Emery and Jeb Davies nodded in unison, something desperate in their gaze. She knew what it was. She looked away. These were memories. But none of hers. Because she’d been robbed. She deserved the memories she’d make now. And her son deserved to know his mother.
Didn’t he?
She handed the album to Emery, but the woman gestured no. “It’s yours. I have copies of all those photos. Please keep it. I brought it so you could take it home with you.”
Josie slowly took it back. It felt like a consolation prize, like the woman thought the pictures of her son’s life would be enough. They weren’t enough. But she held tightly to it anyway. For right then, it was all she had. “We need to talk about the…transfer,” she said. It was such a cold word, but it was the one her attorney had used, and so it was the one she used as well. Defeat appeared on Emery’s face, and Josie saw that Jeb tightened his hold on her hand. A tear rolled down the woman’s cheek, but she sat up straight, obviously pulling herself together. Despite herself, admiration rose inside Josie. Emery Davies wasn’t going to crumble. At least not now.
“Please let us tell him,” Emery Davies said softly. “Please. Just give us a week. He doesn’t even know he’s adopted, yet. We were…waiting for the right time. And now…well, it will all be a blow. A terrible blow. Please, just a week, it’s all we ask,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word.
Josie watched the woman struggle, her heart softening even if she didn’t necessarily want it to. It was far simpler to call these people adversaries rather than allies. She knew eventually she would have to see them as the latter for her son’s sake, but right then, she had to do what was easiest or risk falling apart. She nodded. She needed a few days anyway. The last couple had been a whirlwind of emotions and lawyers, and meetings with the police as they broke down exactly how the crime of Caleb’s illegal adoption had been committed. She’d fallen into bed each night and slept like the dead. She still needed to get a room set up for Caleb, figure out how to enroll him in school… “Yes, of course. Take a week.” She stood. “My lawyer will be in touch.”
Emery and Jeb Davies stood shakily, and the lawyers followed suit. At the haunted look in Emery’s eyes, Josie again had the sudden desire to reach out to the woman, to comfort her, but she didn’t. She glanced at Zach, and he was looking between them, his expression worried, deep conflict in his eyes.