Page 117 of Promise

And suddenly snapped in half.

34

[Trinity]

Summer moves on, and every day brings us one day closer to Mirabelle’s adoption.

Dart and I fall into a routine. I work. He watches Mirabelle.

One day in August, ten days out from Mirabelle’s adoption date, I’m at work and get a call from the waiting room desk clerk that I have a visitor. Typically, I have a hint from Dart when he’s about to visit. A silly text with sexual innuendos about meeting in his truck for meal breaks, me being his meal, which doesn’t happen with Mirabelle present.

I’m surprised to find a young woman seated in the waiting room outside the unit instead.

Strawberry blonde hair. Blue eyes. College age.

“Hello,” I hesitate as she doesn’t look familiar to me.

“Trinity.” My name seems like a relief to her. Slowly, she stands holding out a hand like she’s about to interview for a job. I am no longer in the director of nursing role, nor do I have hiring power. Still, I shake her hand.

She smiles cautiously. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I’m sorry. Should I?” I question, the fine hairs on my arms rising.

“I’m Marissa Olsen. Mirabelle’s mom.” She swallows thickly. “Well, the woman who had Mirabelle.” The clarification sounds almost as painfully said as her first statement. Mirabelle’s mom. A label on her that feels like someone punched me in the gut.

Sweat trickles down my back, but I’m suddenly cold to the bone.

“Would you like to take a seat?” I point toward the row of green waiting room chairs. I’m not certain we’re allowed to speak to one another, but she looks so young, so fragile.

Marissa shakes her head. “I won’t take much of your time. I just . . . I wanted to know how she is.”

Her concern drops like an anvil on the eggshell of my heart.

A million questions fester fast and furious.

Is she going to contest the adoption? Does she want Mirabelle back?

My knees begin to tremble, and I desperately want to sit down, but if she isn’t willing to take a seat, neither will I.

“She’s . . . she’s wonderful, and beautiful, and perfect in every way,” I admit because I cannot hide the truth. She’s an angel. One I suddenly, overwhelmingly fear might be taken from me. A fear that’s been an undiagnosed nausea in my stomach for weeks.

With shaking fingers, I reach for my phone in my back pocket. “Would you like to see a picture of her?”

Slowly, Marissa shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

My brows squeeze. She wants to check on Mirabelle, but doesn’t want to see her?

Pain slashes the young woman’s face. “I just want to know I made the right decision. Giving her to you.”

I blink. Tears burn at the back of my eyes. “Yes. Yes, absolutely. I love her with everything I have.” I clasp my hands and press them to my chest where my heart hammers and my breath saws at my lungs. That nauseous sensation grows more prevalent, and bile tickles the back of my throat.

She nods, as if agreeing love is a good thing.

“I didn’t know you were married.” She glances at my hand, where the rings are still absent from my finger.

How would she have known? Did it even matter? She left Mirabelle with me because of our distant relationship.

However, the courts prefer a couple adopt Mirabelle.