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Claire
THE SQUEAK OF THE NURSE’S Crocs on the shiny floor is making me even more nervous. I already feel as if I might collapse at any moment. My thoughts keep rewinding to the day I gave birth and I can’t remember if the nurses ever said there was something wrong with my baby.
Not my baby. She’s not mine.
A burly man stands with his back to us in the corridor about forty meters ahead. He’s speaking to a doctor who stares at us as we approach. There are too many of us. I wonder if we look intimidating to them. The burly man turns around and the worry in his eyes turns to annoyance.
We’re not welcome here. We’re just the stupid kids who gave Abigail up and now we’re crashing motorcycles and trying to ruin their lives.
I stop in the middle of the corridor and Senia stops next to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
The burly man with the dark hair and four days worth of scruff on his jaw watches me. Senia catches me around the waist as my knees begin to buckle under the weight of his glare.
“He hates us,” I whisper, my shoulders weakening as the resolve drains from my body.
The nurse pushing Chris stops and turns back to look at me. She sees Senia holding me and immediately switches into “nurse-mode.” She comes back to help Senia as they attempt to hold me steady.
“Do you feel like you’re going to pass out? Do you feel cold or dizzy?”
Chris looks over his shoulder at me and immediately turns his wheelchair around.
“I’m fine,” I say as I push away the nurse and I finally see her nametag: Francesca. Chris attempts to push himself up from the wheelchair and I throw my hand out to stop him. “I’m fine. Sit down. Please.”
He grimaces with pain as he sets himself down in the wheelchair. “Claire, come here.”
“I am here.”
He shakes his head. “No, come here,” he says, beckoning me with his finger.
Senia and Francesca let me go and Tasha watches me as I step forward. He beckons me closer so he can whisper something in my ear. I lean forward and his fingers hint against my skin as he pulls my ear closer to his mouth.
“I need this. I need you to be strong like you were the day I met you and the day you broke up with me. You’re not that broken girl your mom left in the trailer. You made the right choice giving her up, but I need you to be strong right now because I fucking need this. It’s just you and me, babe. Okay?”
I nod as I blink furiously to staunch the tears. “Okay.” Francesca comes to turn the wheelchair around and I stop her. “I’ll do it. You guys can stay here.”
I turn the wheelchair around and Tasha falls in step with me.
Chris turns to her and shakes his head. “We’re going in there alone.”
“This is a bad idea,” she warns him and I try not to glare at her burgeoning cleavage.
“Tasha, this isn’t about the adoption,” Chris says, then I push him toward the doctor and the burly man.
My feet seem to sink into the hard floor as I walk, holding me still, yet somehow I keep getting closer. Help, I want to cry out. Please help me get through this.
The doctor holds out his hand to Chris. “I’m Doctor Buchik. I’ll be handling the surgery today.” Buchik holds his hand out to me and I shake it. His hand is dry and warm and, as stupid as it is, this gives me comfort.
The burly man looks conflicted, like he’s not sure he wants to meet us. Maybe he can deny our existence just a moment longer.
Chris pushes himself up from the wheelchair and I hold the chair steady as he offers the man his hand while standing on one leg. “I’m Chris.”
The man looks a bit annoyed by this gesture, but he takes Chris’s hand. “Brian.”
It seems both of them want to introduce themselves as Abigail’s father and I want to run away and never show my face again for what I’ve done to them.
I take a deep breath as I try to compose myself. I have to control the guilt. I have to get through this, for Chris.
I hold out my hand to Brian and he takes my hand. “I’m Claire… Nixon.”
Somehow, I feel as if saying my last name will establish a modicum of trust between us. I know Chris didn’t introduce himself as Chris Knight because he didn’t want to remind Brian of the reason they backed out of the meeting two weeks ago. I blame myself 100% for getting pregnant and having to give Abigail up. But, though I’d never tell Chris this, I do blame Chris Knight for that failed meeting.
“Lynette is in the room with Abigail,” Brian mutters as he nods toward the open door on his left.
Doctor Buchik smiles at me. “I’ll take you in.”
Buchik has thin lips and short gray hair, but I can’t decide if his gray eyes are filled with pity or skepticism. He knows this will not end well.
The room is small and a woman with light-blonde hair, lighter than mine, is hunched over the bed. Her pink cardigan hangs loosely on her shoulders and arms as if she’s lost weight recently.
I didn’t want to meet the adoptive parents when I decided on a couple to adopt Abigail. I didn’t want to know their names or even see a picture of them. I wanted to know nothing other than their stats. I didn’t want to be tempted to look them up.
“Mrs. Jensen?” Buchik whispers.
Lynette Jensen. Brian Jensen.
Abigail Jensen.
The woman turns around and she appears frightened at the sight of Chris. “Oh, my God!”
She claps her hand over her mouth and glances over her shoulder at the bed, probably to make sure she didn’t wake Abigail with this outburst. She turns back toward us and I can’t help but notice the striking similarities between Lynette Jensen and me: the blonde hair and blue eyes, the small frame, the pouty upper lip, the exhaustion. She’s at least ten years older than I, but she’s actually quite beautiful—much classier than Tasha Singer.
She turns back to us and I can see now that she’s star struck. “Chris Knight?” she whispers as she moves toward us. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe this.”
It’s as if I don’t exist.
She takes his hand in both her hands to shake it and I’m almost waiting for her to kiss his pinky, but she eventually lets go. Chris bows his head a little as he gives her a humble smile.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Lynette,” he says and I breathe a sigh of relief that I have Chris, and his fame and charm, to make this introduction smoother. “This is Claire,” he says, looking up at me.
He flashes me a quick smile, but I know in that one smile he’s saying, “You can do this. I’m here for you.”
I hold out my hand to her, to Abigail’s mother, and I feel the emotions building inside me, threatening to thwart me. I bite my lip to hold back the tears as I imagine all the times she probably rocked my baby to sleep, kissed her forehead, made her smile. I hold out my hand to her and she can see how difficult this is for me. She reaches her hand out slowly and I do something so stupid, but I can’t stop myself.
I pull her into a hug. “Thank you,” I whisper through the tears. She hugs me weakly and I know she wants me to let go. “I’m sorry. I’m just really grateful for… for this.”
I want to thank her for taking care of Abigail, but I’m afraid this might come across as patronizing since it’s their job to take care of her—because I wasn’t able to.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she says as she takes a step back so I can’t hug her again. “I was really scared about doing this, and Brian was pretty dead set against it, but I’ve been up many nights these past few weeks just… agonizing over what I’d want someone to do if I were in your position.”
Brian comes in and kisses Lynette’s forehead as he wraps his thick arm around her shoulders. Buchik steps forward so he’s standing off to the side between us.
“Would you like me to explain the procedure for the birth parents?” Buchik asks and I nod even though he’s obviously not asking me.
Lynette looks uncomfortable with this, but she nods.
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“You can explain it to us out in the corridor,” Chris says, nodding toward the door.
I don’t want to go out there. I want to stay in here with Abigail. I haven’t even seen her yet. But I follow reluctantly as everybody shuffles out into the corridor where Buchik explains the procedure for correcting an AV canal defect.
“Does your family have a history of congenital heart defects?” Buchik asks us and Chris immediately shakes his head. Buchik turns to me awaiting my answer. Everybody is waiting for my answer, but I don’t have one.
“I don’t know.”
Is that what this was about? Did they ask us here under the guise of allowing us to see Abigail so they could find out our family history?
“I don’t have a family history. My mother died…. She’s dead. I never knew my father.” Stop it, Claire. “He raped my mother and she killed herself when I was seven. I don’t know anything about my family history. I’m sorry.” Chris grabs my hand and squeezes. “I’m sorry.”
I take off running down toward the exit door at the far end of the corridor.
“CLAIRE!” Chris calls after me, but I keep running.
My legs fly across the floor as silent as my past. Not a single secret given up. No history to speak of. I’m a ghost. A phantom. A flicker of an actual soul.
The exit doors slide open and I rush out onto the pavement then into the parking lot. I don’t stop until Senia grabs my arm and I’m wrenched backward.
“Claire!”
I cover my face in shame. “Get me out of here.”
“I thought you wanted—”
“Just get me out of here!”
