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By Saturday morning she’d resigned herself to the way things were, convinced it was for the best all round. She’d spent most of the morning painting and now stared at the hues of color that had collided on the canvas. Rich greens and browns, smudges of yellow where light shone through. Pinks, purples, and blues to accent.
She imagined walking through a forest. Her path unfolding into the light beyond. It spoke of faith, and trust, and hope. All the things she felt were always just out of her reach.
Why couldn’t it be that easy? Follow a path and come out into a beautiful meadow, where everything was colorful and fragrant and soft. Her childhood had been a meadow. Perfect and safe. Innocent and comfortable.
When she’d found out about the adoption, her first reaction had been numb shock. Hurt and humiliation immediately followed. Her world had been blown to pieces. Her meadow destroyed.
Checking the clock, she saw it was already 2 p.m. She’d have to be at Ruby’s soon. Wiping her hands on a rag, she moved to her bedroom to get changed. On her bedside table, her phone vibrated spasmodically. Glancing at it, she saw her mother’s name flashing back at her.
Once upon a time, she and Audrey had had an enviable mother daughter relationship, but her cousin’s announcement at her sixteenth birthday party had made her start to question everything. By the time she’d presented her parents with the genetic test kit this past Christmas, the closeness she’d once shared with her mother had dwindled. The kit had been a formality. A final nail in the coffin.
But it had been the nail that hurt her parents the most. The devastation on Audrey’s face when she unwrapped and saw the kit, and the tears that immediately sprung to her eyes when Hope had said, “I want to know where I come from” — it had been horrible and awkward enough to make Hope believe there might never be any coming back from that moment.
Yep, she’d done a pretty bang-up job of ruining Christmas and blowing her family apart. But damn it, didn’t she have a right to know about her own life? Knowing they had kept it from her for so long made it feel like it was some dirty secret. Likeshewas some dirty secret, and that knowledge had clung to her like a stain.
She watched the phone buzz until it went silent. She hadn’t answered a call from her mother in a long time.
She’d pulled on a pair of jeans and sweater when the buzzing started again. And if ring vibrations came with emojis attached, this one would have had the red, angry face.
Joel’s name appeared on her call display. Perfect. When she didn’t answer, her mother must have called him. Again.
She never could ignore the brother, who’d put everything on the line for her more than once, so she steeled herself and hit the answer button.
“Mom’s trying to call you,” Joel growled by way of greeting. He sounded exasperated. Tired. Annoyed. Worried. The usual.
“Was she?” she replied in her most innocent voice.
“Hope,” Joel bit out through what sounded like clenched teeth. “You know I can’t keep doing this, right? I have too much on my plate to also play the go-between for you and Mom.”
More guilt crashed over her. She knew Joel was busy. He had been groomed to take over Morgan Construction all his life, and now, as their father was slowly stepping back, he was coming into that role. Truthfully, he all but sat at the head now. It was her father’s dream to see Joel and Hope at the helm, but she’d shattered that dream when she turned her back on the fancy position and the fancy office her father had been holding for her last Christmas.
So now Joel had all his balls in the air, including hers, and while he was a more than competent juggler, she knew it wasn’t fair to keep throwing him in the middle of her personal crisis with her parents.
“She wants to touch base with you about the hospital fundraising gala,” Joel continued. “Have you forgotten about it?”
Of course she hadn’t. It was an annual event that her family had taken part in for years.
She heard someone talking to him in the background, another phone ringing in the distance, papers rustling. He was at work, and likely swamped, yet he still took the time to call her. Joel didn’t ignore anyone. Not his mother, not his sister, not his responsibility. He wasn’t built that way. He was a Morgan through and through.
And he was right. She had an obligation to help the hospital that she wouldn’t ignore. “Okay,” Hope said. “I’ll call her.”
“Can I count on it?”
Ouch. “Yes, you can,” Hope replied, her tone clipped.
“Good,” came his equally curt reply. “We need to work through this, Hope. This can’t be the end of our family. I won’t let it be.” And with that, he hung up.
Joel’s words hung in the air. She hated that he resented her way of dealing with the situation. Hated that he was willing to move on, and she wasn’t.
She scrolled through her phone to her mother’s number.
Audrey answered after the first ring. “Darling?” she asked in a soft, tentative voice.
Darling. The term of endearment Audrey had used to address Hope her whole life. It was hard hearing it, because a whole lot of complicated emotions collided inside Hope’s chest whenever she did. An overall uncomfortable, confusing feeling. Precisely why she avoided these phone calls. “Yes, Mom. It’s me. Sorry I missed your call earlier.” Or the last dozen calls before that.
“How’ve you been?” her mother asked. In another lifetime, Audrey Morgan had known exactly how her daughter was. These days, she didn’t know when Hope had so much as a cold.
“Good,” Hope said, then after a moment added, “I got a job.”
