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She moves the photo on top to the bottom of the stack and the next picture is of the brown-haired girl from the family photo. She’s obviously younger in this one, about eight or nine years old. She’s clutching a picture to her chest. It’s a photo of Abby I’ve seen before. This one seems to be too much for her. She turns the entire stack of photos over so they’re facedown in her lap.
“I have a sister,” she whispers.
“And a couple of brothers,” I say. “The youngest one looks like you, doesn’t he?”
She looks up, her brow furrowed. “You think so?”
Her fair skin is glistening with tears. How could her parents keep this from her for so long? She could have used a sister and brother with everything she’s been through. Then a slightly selfish thought crosses my mind. If she’d had siblings, would Abby and I still be this close?
I reach for the photos in her lap and she watches as I take them. It takes me a second to find the family portrait in the bottom of the stack and I hold it up between us so we can both look at it.
“Look. He has the same blonde hair and brown eyes as you.”
She stares at the picture for a while before she takes it in her hand to examine it up close. “He does.” Her silent tears turn into a soft whimpering cry. “These are my parents… This is the family I never knew I had.”
I quickly sift through the photos, searching for the one of the little girl holding Abby’s picture. “But it looks like they knew about you,” I say, holding it up for her, “and you never left their thoughts.” Her shoulders tremble as they curl inward, and she clutches her fist to her chest. “Abby, are you okay?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I CLAW AT THE HEAVINESS in my chest and wiggle my left shoulder a little to try to alleviate the sharp twinge in my heart. My vision goes dark for a split second and I blink furiously to hold on.
“Abby, what’s wrong?”
Drawing in a large gulp of air, I massage my chest until I can speak. “I’m fine. It’s just a spasm.”
“Don’t downplay it, Abby.”
Caleb reaches for my purse, lifting it off the floor where it rests at my feet. Then, he opens the glove compartment to get his emergency bottle of water, and moves right to my purse to retrieve the bottle of Nitrostat.
He hands both the water and the pills to me, but I shake my head adamantly. “I don’t need the water,” I say, gritting my teeth against the pain.
I place a sublingual tab of Nitrostat under my tongue, grimacing at the heavy peppermint flavor that seeps into my mouth as the pill dissolves. Now, we wait.
Caleb pulls me into his arms and strokes my hair because he knows it calms me. I close my eyes and take slow, deep breaths as I wait for the pill to take effect. About three minutes later, the pain in my chest is gone and my cheeks begin to flush. I push Caleb away so I can fan my face.
“Thank you,” I whisper, staring down at the stack of photos, which is now facedown on my lap again.
“Drink this.” He hands me the bottle of water and I take a small sip. “How are you feeling?”
“Exhausted.”
“Want to go back to the apartment and take a nap?”
I chuckle as I set the bottle of water down on the seat and lightly massage my chest. The pain is gone, but it’s relaxing.
“I’m like a senior citizen with my heart medication and frequent napping.”
“A senior citizen without the benefit of the early bird special.”
I turn to him and my smile vanishes. “What am I going to do if we ever break up? I don’t want to live with my parents the rest of my life, with my mom fussing over me while I lie back and wait… wait for the time to come when my only option is a transplant. What kind of life is that?”
“If it’s not your mom fussing over you, then it’s me. Sunshine, you just have to accept that we love you the way you are, broken heart and all. So I promise never to break up with you, if you promise me you’ll take good care of your heart. I might need it one of these days.”
I’m burning up, and it must be showing on my cheeks because Caleb grabs a few photos off the stack and uses them to fan my face. I lean back in my seat and close my eyes for a moment while Caleb pampers me. With my eyes closed, my mind wanders to thoughts of heart transplants. I’m pretty close to the bottom of the transplant list right now. I just don’t have an urgent need for a new heart. But we all know that the time will come soon when I’m moved up to the top. It could be in ten years, five years, or tomorrow. This heart is a ticking time bomb inside my chest.
The flushing finally passes. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is a wedding picture. Caleb continues to fan my face until I snatch the photos out of his hand.
The pictures he’s using to cool me down are obviously from my birth parents’ wedding. It’s a picture of my father kissing my mother on the forehead as they stand on an altar surrounded by beautiful flowers and glittering lights. They look exactly like they did in the other pictures where they’re holding Baby Me. They must have gotten married soon before or after that day. Why did they give me up if they were so in love when I was born?
“I want to meet them.”
“You will,” Caleb replies as he slides the bottle of water back into his glove compartment.
“No, I want to meet them now… Today. I want you to take me to meet them today. Can you check the memory card and see if there’s any contact information on there?”
Caleb slides the memory card into the slot on his phone, then he browses through the contents. There are about forty family videos and one text document. My fingers tingle as he opens up the document and it contains a brief note.
Dear Abigail,
We hope this letter finds you well and that your eighteenth birthday was everything you hoped it would be. This is the second time we’re visiting the safe-deposit box since your last birthday, and we will probably do it every month or so for a while. We don’t know if you’ve read any of our letters, but we hope you have.
We know you probably have a lot of questions, and the answers are far more nuanced than a letter can convey. If you’d give us the opportunity, we’d be honored to meet you at any location you choose. We are always here if you wish to talk.
Sincerely,
Chris and Claire Knight
Underneath their names is an address and phone number.
Ca
leb sits back in the driver’s seat, placing his phone down as he gazes at me across the space between us. “Are you sure you don’t want to give yourself some time to think about it first?”
I turn in my seat a little so I can face him head-on, then I look him straight in the eye. “I don’t know when I’m going to die.”
“Come on, Abby. Let’s not have that conversation again.”
“Listen to me, Caleb. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, my heart could give out for good at any moment. And there’s no guarantee they’ll find a donor in time.”
“You don’t know that. I think there’s a very good chance they’ll find a donor when the time comes. You have O-negative blood type and you’re young and healthy.”
“Stop. Just listen to me, please.” He heaves a long sigh and nods for me to continue. “The point is that I need to make the most of this opportunity. I need to meet them before it’s too late. Will you please take me?”
The muscle in his jaw twitches as he clenches his teeth, then he nods slowly. “You know you don’t have to ask. I’ve been wanting you to do this for ages.”
I smile and reach forward to place my hand on his cheek. “You’re amazing. You know that?”
He shrugs and grabs my wrist so he can lay a soft kiss on my palm. “You don’t have to butter me up, sunshine. You know I’ll give you anything you want.” He places my hand back in my lap, then he grabs the stack of photos and sticks them in the glove compartment. “Let’s go make some 3D memories.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
FAITH IS A double-edged sword. A little faith is healthy, even essential to get us through difficult times. Too much faith and you’ll appear delusional. And you risk falling. The loftier your beliefs, the harder you’ll fall when reality knocks you off your cloud.
