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“We all told him to do right by her. To marry her, or at least be in the child’s life. He thought she was trying to trap him into a relationship. He claimed they’d already been as good as over—that she knew he was going to leave, and she thought a baby would force him to stay.
“So she was on her own.” She paused. “That woman’s name was Macy.”
My chest was tight. I could hardly breathe. There was no doubt anymore—Ava was describing my mother.
“You knew about me all along,” I whispered. “My—my dad knew.”
“He’s not the most reasonable person,” Ava said apologetically. “His position was that the choice to have a baby was Macy’s, and so you were her responsibility. My parents and I didn’t agree. We stayed in touch, and we tried to help out. From time to time, once you were born, we brought your mom a bit of money.”
“In person?” I pressed a hand to my chest. “You mean you met me?”
“A few times, yes. You would’ve been too young to remember.”
Or was I? Now that she’d placed the suggestion in my mind, I had a vague impression of saying hello to unfamiliar adults—of being coached to call one Grandma.
“But if you knew…” I swallowed, unsure if I wanted to hear the answer to this question. For so long, my life had involved so much pain. This woman might have been able to avert all of it. “If you knew, why did you…”
“Let you go into foster care.” Ava’s voice was resigned. “I’m so sorry, Tara. We never meant to. Your mother wasn’t in touch often, maybe a few times a year. She moved, and then we moved—she wasn’t at the top of our minds. When we didn’t hear from her, we assumed she didn’t need anything. We weren’t checking the obituaries.”
She sounded genuinely regretful, but that didn’t count for much. Years of life experience had taught me that what seemed genuine could be deceiving.
“We kept sending Christmas cards for years,” she said. “Eventually, they started getting returned. We just thought your mother had moved again. At some point, we decided to Google her.”
“So it was years later that you found out.” My words came out choked and raspy. “Not twenty years. That’s how long it’s been since she died. Why didn’t you look for me earlier?”
“It’s not easy to find a child in foster care. We didn’t know who your case manager was, we didn’t have any rights to visit you…”
“Why didn’t you try harder?” I was transported back to the days when I’d sat listening to my foster siblings spin tales about being adopted out of the hell we were living in. “You could’ve hired a private investigator. You could’ve done anything.”
“We didn’t have that kind of money,” Ava said simply. “We’re not wealthy people. Helping Macy was already stretching our budget. And what would’ve been the point? You have to understand, if we’d found you, we wouldn’t have been able to adopt you.”
My gut wrenched. I’d been right—I hadn’t wanted to hear this.
Ava’s answer wasn’t good enough. Even if the family was broke, they had a place to stay. They could’ve let me live with them. They could’ve been my foster parents—the stipend would’ve paid for my food and expenses. But they hadn’t done it. They hadn’t cared enough. They’d chosen to let me suffer instead.
I’d been unwanted since the day I was born. My own father resented my existence. The only person who cared about me was long since dead. So much for Chelsea’s daydream about my billionaire relatives whisking me away. They couldn’t even be bothered to try.
“Once Facebook became popular, we searched for your name every now and then.” Ava’s voice cracked as if talking so much was an exertion. “You have to understand, that was all we had of you. For the longest time, there was nothing—and then a few years ago, we finally found you.”
“Years,” I hissed. Even if they’d only found me as an adult, that wouldn’t have been too late. That would’ve beensomething.“So why didn’t you reach out?”
“You seemed happy and healthy.” She sounded less confident now. “We didn’t want to disturb you.”
Basically, they’d let me struggle to survive all on my own because it was awkward. “Great,” I said tightly. I wasn’t going to let this woman hear me cry. “Thanks for that.”
“I’m sorry, Tara. I know this must be difficult to hear—”
“You don’t know anything, actually. You have no fucking idea what your actions and inactions put me through.” My voice rose higher. “Why are you contacting me now, lady? What made this the right moment?”
There was a long pause, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. Had she hung up? If so, good riddance.
“That’s an interesting question,” she finally said. “I was going to hold off on telling you for a little while—to let you get to know us first.”
“Say it.”
Another pause, and this time I was on the edge of the bed, my free hand gripped painfully into a fist.
“I’m dying, Tara. I’m in stage five kidney failure.”
