Page 208 of One Wild Wish

I choked on air. “That was specific.”

Ainsley gestured toward the door, as though August was there. “So was his extensive eye-fucking. He wants bikini-poster sex.”

Too frazzled to compute that, I stroked the sunflower’s petals. “I’m in deep water here. The shark-infested kind. I mean, August is, without a doubt, the one who got away. If I had another chance with him, I’d jump at it.” Pole vault, to be precise. “But there’s been another development.”

More drama to unload, because I was living in soap opera central. Once I finished outlining the arrival of my mother’s lost luggage, the time gap between its contents and it going missing, the journal, and the first clue I’d found, the girls had sat on either side of me, scooched close in a love sandwich.

Rachel gathered my hand in hers. “Are you nervous about searching for your dad?”

Terrified. Nauseated. Overwhelmed. “Definitely.” I tried dissecting the million and one thoughts boxing my brain. “I believe we get what we get in the family department. We don’t choose our parents or siblings or relatives. I got short-strawed and made it through, but I spent a lot of years resenting my mother, and resenting myself in the process. It’s part of the reason I pushed August away back then—my shitty self-worth. And I’m worried searching for my father now could take me back to that place, but I also see finding him as a brand new chance, my last-ditch effort to have family. I have so many questions for him.”

Did he seek adrenaline rushes, too?

Had he chosen to leave me, or had Mary never told him I existed?

Did he hate mayonnaise?

Was he afraid of spiders?

When he looked out the window at the moon, did he sometimes wonder what it would be like to float through space?

I had a journal full of questions, some silly, some scary, and I wanted to ask them all. Not at once, obviously. No sense scaring the man stiff. But the questions had built up over my teen and adult years, so many it was hard to breathe at times. Like the pressure against my breastbone would rupture if I never sat face-to-face with the man and found out who he was.

Ainsley pressed her hand to my knee. “What if he’s awful? You don’t know anything about him. Maybe there’s a good reason your mother never told you his name.”

She could be right, but the more I thought about meeting him, the greater my curiosity grew. Exactly why I’d needed to talk this out. “I think I’d rather know. I’d rather meet him and see for myself he’s an asshole. Without that, I’ll drive myself nuts.”

When families came to me, desperate to adopt, I’d warn them how long and grueling the process could be, how emotionally draining. Little good that did. Each phone call and meeting, nerves and fear would invade their voices. Wisps of hope. Nothing beat giving good news to prospective parents. I wouldn’t trade those joyful tears and hugs for anything. Letting others down often led to Ben & Jerry sessions with the girls, where we’d heckle bad reality TV and commiserate.

Still, I preferred it to the limbo of the parents not knowing. Answers, good or bad, meant they could move on. Make another choice. Reevaluate their lives. Like I had after I’d tracked down my grandparents.

That shit show had involved my grandmother asking if I’d found God, then listing all the ways young girls sinned. Instead of the cookies and tea and hugs I’d dreamed of, I’d gotten a fanatic only interested in preaching at me. The confrontation had been upsetting, but it had allowed me to quit obsessing over something I’d never have. I moved on.

Exactly what I needed to do with my dad.

Until I knew unequivocally, one way or another, if my father was a good or bad man, a drunk or a saint, funny or mean, warm or cold, I’d exist in a perpetual state of uncertainty, those wisps of hope to one day meet him never letting me close that door to my past.

“I think knowing is better than limbo. If he’s a dick, so be it.” I rubbed my eyes, forgetting I’d applied more eyeliner than usual. Raccoon eyes weren’t sexy.

Ainsley patted my thigh. “Then we’re here for you, for whatever you need. But back to the August issue.” She peered at me intently, getting up in my face. “You said you asked him to help find your father. Did he answer?”

I squirmed, remembering the solidness of him as he’d held me on his very firm lap. How I’d panicked afterward. “He flirted instead. And when I confronted him later, asked why he came by, he said he wasn’t sure anymore.”

“Your past is pretty intense,” Ainsley said.

“Maybe he showed up wanting closure.” Rachel’s soft voice was more soothing than her words. “He could’ve been surprised how much he still felt for you.”

That prospect was preferable. “But why now? My mom dying, the luggage, August—it all feels too coincidental. I’m not sure it’s smart to deal with August with all this other…stuff going on.”

Rachel rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “You guys remember the blackout when we made our wish? Last year?”

It was impossible to forget that crazy night: the three of us with our eyes closed, holding hands as midnight struck, making our resolutions as a blackout had pitched the bar into darkness.

Crazy with a side of loop-dee-loo.

“Well,” Rachel went on, “I kind of thought something larger was going on that night. Something bigger guiding our choices. It was part of the reason I worked so hard to realize my resolution. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with believing in the impossible. In us being connected to unseen forces that impact our lives. You wished to find your father because it was important to you, and now you have your mother’s diary and your first love giving you sexy eyes, all before your chosen deadline. If it were me, I’d stop trying to figure out why. I’d take the breadcrumbs offered and follow their trail. Maybe August turned up for a reason.”

“Aside from embarrassing me in front of my friends?”