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He winced. “Do you like cats?”
“God no,” she said. “I’m not much of an animal person really. They are fine for other people but not me. Call me selfish, but that is a responsibility and time to care for them and makes it hard for me to do my own thing.”
It was the tongue-in-cheek way she said it that had him laughing. “Then what is going on or happened today to make you sad and distant?”
“Those are good words. But it’s not either of those things. I’m not sad. Or I wasn’t until you hugged me. Why did you?” she asked. She went back to checking on the dinner.
“Because you looked like you needed it. You know, what a friend might do.”
“I guess I did need it with the tears coming into my eyes like that. I appreciate you seeing and recognizing something I didn’t even know. You’ll be a good catch for a woman someday.”
“Says no one ever,” he said.
He wasn’t going to think of being with anyone else other than the woman in this room. He was staying in the present and not trying to figure out the future.
“I think the same has been applied to me multiple times too,” she said.
She was almost avoiding his questions and he wondered if maybe he should just let it drop. He wasn’t going to beg her to open up.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine. Just know you can.”
She flipped the burgers over without saying a word and then opened the oven and shook the fries in the pan.
“I received a letter from my birth mother today out of the blue sent to my office. I opened and read it an hour before you showed up. It’s knocked me back several steps in my mind.”
“Oh,” he said. “Did you know her name and all?”
“I do. As I said, my parents have been very open with Dane and me about where we came from and who they were. We knew we could ask them questions and just never did. I never saw the reason. They are my parents and they raised me. Like any other kid, I had fights with my parents, but I never once said to myself I wasn’t their kid and maybe I was going to find out who my real parents were. They are my real parents in my eyes.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “I’ve got to imagine they are thrilled you feel that way.”
“I think so. We don’t talk about it because if Dane and I don’t bring it up, they don’t.”
He found that kind of odd but figured she seemed to have a good handle on this. “What was this letter about?”
She moved to her purse and pulled it out and handed it over for him to read while she got plates down. He was surprised she’d done that.
“It’s not much, as you can see. I don’t know why she reached out, but she did.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“I called Dane and told him. As always, he said things that made me think more.”
“Like what?”
“He said it’s going to open a Pandora box. It could be good or bad, but once the box is open I can’t shut it again. I think this letter already lifted it a crack though.”
“He’s right. There is this other family you’ve never thought of before and now they are in your head. Do you want to know them or not? Can you turn them out at this point either way? You seem to have a questioning mind, but I’m also willing to bet you want to know more before you make the next step.”
“I do,” she said. “Dane told me his ex-wife wanted him to find out about his birth family and he didn’t. He’d had all these thoughts in his head that I didn’t know about so he was good about giving me advice. Melanie said she wanted to know before they had kids, but obviously that didn’t happen. If Dane feels the need to do it, he will. I think it was wrong of Melanie to do that to Dane. What if he didn’t know who his birth parents were? Would she say he was tainted or something and couldn’t give her a child?”
“That might be part of the reason they aren’t married anymore,” he said. “I’m going to assume Melanie knew this when she married Dane so why bring it up after the fact.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I know when my time comes I’ll make sure who I’m with knows my history. If it bothers them though, then they can go fuck off. It’s not like I had or have any control over it.”
He laughed. “You took the words right out of my mouth. How many people stayed with their birth parents and know their genetics and are still assholes?”
“See, you get it. And Dane is a doctor. We probably all have poor health genes in our system that are dormant. If someone wants genetic testing done from me before I give them a child then they can go find some other Stepford wife to be on their arm.”
