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I hang up and send a text.
“Lilly, it’s me. I don’t know if you hung up or we were disconnected. I’m going to go with disconnected just because the eternal optimist in me won’t let me think anything else. I want to talk to you. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you. I’m sorry I gave that ultimatum and I’m sorry that you’re gone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I loved you. I’m just so fucking sorry. Please call me back, text me back, let me know.”
The three dots inside the gray bubble appear almost immediately and I stare willing a message to pop up. But it doesn’t. And after a few seconds, the three dots disappear. And I sit there for ten minutes before I realize she’s not going to reply.
36
Lilly
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When I got back from the trip from hell, I’d sequestered myself in my apartment. Avoided everyone’s phone calls and logged onto FindMe to catch up on what I’d missed while I’d been away and too afraid to log on for fear of being caught. I’d been beyond the point of livid with Harry. I’d sworn I’d tasted a dash of hate in the aftertaste saying his name left in my mouth.
I spent a whole day looking at pictures of the little girl who had grown inside my body, who I’d given birth to, who had my mother’s eyes and my father’s smile - and who I didn’t know at all. She’s not your daughter replayed over and over again in my head.
But the seed had been planted. I couldn’t stop hearing his refrain in my head as I looked at the pictures. And suddenly, she looked like a stranger. Instead of feeling like I was watching my child grow up, I started to feel like a creep. A peeping Tom. A stalker.
A week passed, my interactions in my book groups stopped. I’d log in and look at the pictures she posted, but I didn’t see my mother’s eyes anymore. Instead I saw how her fingers twined in her mother’s hair in the selfies they took together. I saw how she and her older sister dressed alike on their first day of school.
The refrain in my head changed to she’s not my daughter, I logged into my online counseling portal and set up a session with the therapist I’d stopped talking to when I’d started my game of catfish.
Two weeks later, I’d been able to wean myself down to only logging in when I got a notification from Christina, Michaela’s mother.
Two weeks after that, it was over. I logged and read the post that ended it. My heart plunged to my toes and back up into my throat as I read.
“We’ve just been informed by our adoption agency
that their records were hacked a few months ago.
They couldn’t tell us if our files had been compromised, but they advised us that it was a possibility. So, I’m sorry to say that over the next few days, we’ll be closing both of our FindMe accounts.
We’re waiting a few days to give those of you don’t check in every day a chance to read this.
We’ve loved sharing pieces of our lives with our friends and family all over the world and are sad to have to stop. But, this is a small price to pay to maintain the privacy we chose for ourselves and our family when we adopted Michaela.
PS: If Michaela’s birth mother can read this, I just
want to thank you for giving us the chance to raise this exceptional child. We are forever grateful to you and when Michaela is old enough to decide, and chooses to look for you, we will fully support and help her do so.
We love you.”
* * *
I cried until my entire body ached. But, in the river pain, there was also trickle of relief. This torture was over. Because that’s what the last few months had been. A cruel and unusual punishment.
I took a screenshot of the message, suspended the Facebook account I’d created and then I called my parents. When I was done talking to them, I called my sisters. When I was done talking to them, I bought a plane ticket to Houston and I went home.
It’s been two months, three weeks and six days since I closed my Facebook account. I’m working, talking to my parents and healing. My sisters had both come down twice. I moved back to Houston so that I could be close to my parents again. And even though it’s great to have them so close by and to be back in the city that I called home for the first sixteen years of my life, I know it’s not where I will settle.
My heart is across the Atlantic Ocean, held firmly in the grasp of a man whose trust I shredded and whose generosity I squandered. I’ve told myself that he’s lost to me. That the bridge I crossed when I told him about Michaela and what I said about wanting her more than him, had left me firmly in the camp of “burned to ashes.”
His family probably hates me. When we left Castle Burne, the only person who was there to see us off was Jan. She apologized for everyone’s absence, but had been unable to meet our eyes.
I know for a fact that my sisters wouldn’t spit on Freya if she was on fire. My parents don’t speak of her and I try very hard not to think of that night. And, I haven’t heard from him since. Not that he would know to reach me, but he wouldn’t have to try too hard with his brother being married to my sister’s best friend and all. So, I take his silence to mean that he hasn’t made the effort. And I haven’t found the courage to call the way Jan had implored me to when we were leaving.
Then, I’d been sure I’d never ever want to speak to him again. Not after the way he’d decimated me. Not after the ultimatum he’d issued as soon as I’d told him the truth.
Now, I’m nursing a soul deep throb of longing for Harry. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone that I’d only known for totality of a six weeks so intensely.
