Page 83 of Heartache & Playdates
I checked my phone again to see if she had canceled, or if Nonna had texted that she needed anything. I’d gone home from work to check on her before coming to the restaurant and got her settled in bed. I told her that if she wasn’t feeling better by tomorrow, I was going to make a doctor’s appointment. She hadn’t been happy about that ultimatum, but I honestly didn’t care. Situations like this were exactly why I was here. To take care of her.
The glass door to the restaurant opened and the girl I’d seen in the photo of the background check walked inside. She had long, straight light-brown hair, a sweetheart shaped face with a turned-up nose and full pink lips. She was wearing glasses so I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes, but Maddox had told me that they were brown, just like his.
She spoke to the hostess who smiled and gestured for her to follow. My mouth went bone dry and my heart was beating so hard I was sure it was going to crash right through my chest like the Kool-Aid man as I stood. I couldn’t feel my legs, so I wasn’t sure how they were holding me up.
As she approached, a wide smile spread on her face. “Peyton?”
“Hi.” I wished that the first words I’d spoken to my daughter would have been more original or significant than hi, but it was all I could manage at the moment.
The hostess set the menu down on the table and returned to the front of the restaurant. We stood there, just staring at one another for a moment before she shook her head.
“It’s weird, we look so much alike,” she said.
“We do.” I nodded. Maddox was right, she had my same face shape, nose and lips, but his eyes.
I’d imagined this moment so many times in my life, but none of the scenarios I’d pictured had happened like this. Meeting in a restaurant, not knowing what to say, feeling like my head was going to float away from my body.
“Should we sit?” Lina motioned to the table.
“Oh, right, yes. Sorry, I’m not usually this…awkward.” I didn’t have a better word for it.
“Really, I am.” She laughed as we both took our seats.
“Have you ordered yet?” she asked as she picked up her menu.
“Um, no.”I didn’t think you were actually going to show up.
Her eyes lit up as she read the menu. “Ooh, do you want to start with potato skins?”
“Sure.” I nodded in agreement.
This entire encounter was surreal. It was so momentous yet felt so casual. I tried not to overthink it and just go with the flow, but all of my senses were short circuiting.
We talked about some of the items on the menu, she asked if I’d ever been a vegetarian, I told her yes, for about five years in my twenties. She’d tried to go vegan between the ages of twelve and fourteen, but it hadn’t stuck.
By the time Carson returned and took our orders, I was feeling a little less like I was either going to throw up or pass out, or both.
“Okay, great.” He smiled as he tucked our menus under his arm. “Your skins should be up soon.”
When we were left alone again, I found myself at a loss of what to say. There was so much, I didn’t know where to start.
“Wow.” Lina shook her head. “I can’t believe that it’s actuallyyou.I’ve wondered who you were for so long.”
“Same,” I smiled.
“Maddox said that you never even got to hold me.”
“No, I didn’t.” I was having a hard time reconciling that the baby they took out of me was the young woman sitting across from me. She was a fully functioning adult person.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“No! Don’t…you don’t have anything to apologize for.I’msorry. I should have… for so many years I wished I’d just…done things differently. I am so sorry that I wasn’t stronger. That I wasn’t braver.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you kidding?”
I wasn’t, but I also wasn’t sure she was actually asking me that.
“You weresoyoung. And you were in a totally different country. And you went to a hospital where no one spoke English. I’d freak out. I don’t know what I would do. You weresobrave. So strong!”
