Page 108 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Boom.Half my purpose, half the reason for the nerves, the curiosity, the anger and all the mixed-up turmoil inside me is wiped out. I feel unbalanced, like I stepped on slippery ice and I’m about to fall if I don’t catch myself. So I do. I straighten. Lucas puts his free hand over mine as I strangle his other arm.
“Oh, I’m sorry. How did he die?” I sound mechanical although I am curious since I own half his genes.
“Stuart passed of heart failure. He was much older than me, by a dozen years.” She speaks in accented English though she must have lived in the states at least since I was born. I have so many things to ask, so many questions running through my mind, but only one important one. I need to ask it now. Steeling myself for the possibility of disappointment, I find the courage and my voice sounds strong.
“Why did you give me up?”
Lucas holds me closer to him. My insides jump as I see her eyes glisten, her smile falter.
“Of course, I understand. That’s what you need to know most of all. But it’s not a simple answer.”
I wait.
“Maybe we should sit down now,” she says, gesturing to a couch. Lucas sits next to me, puts a hand over mine on my thigh. She—my birth mother—sits across from us in a chair. Her maid delivers a tray with three glasses of water, just in time to help calm me. I pick up the glass and take a long sip while Elise tries to figure out a good spin on why she gave me, her baby girl, away at birth. Looking around her place, I’m thinking it wasn’t because she was poor.
Clearing her throat, she finally speaks.
“It’s a complicated story, but you deserve to know. Stuart, your birth father, was married with a family when we met. Whether it was wise to do so or not, we fell in love and he couldn’t give me up, nor could he give up his family.” She pauses. I stare at her, holding my breath. “So, we had an arrangement.”
“You were his mistress. Totally and completely dependent on him?”
She nods.
“When I got pregnant, I was terrified. Stuart had made it clear that he we couldn’t have any babies. He told me I had to give you up or I had to give him up. At first, I didn’t believe him. I thought I could convince him to keep you the whole time I was pregnant until the very end. He felt guilty, so he promised to make sure you had the best family possible.”
She paused again then said, “Are you sure you don’t want a glass of wine or brandy or… something?”
I shake my head, but my stomach sinks like cement then bubbles uncomfortably like a seething volcano. There’s something she has to say that’s worse than she’s already confessed. Something she thinks requires a drink to help it go down.
She studies me another moment and then continues. I feel Lucas lean closer to me.
“Stuart and Tim Cooper, your father, had been friends in prep school at St. Paul’s.—“
“What the—“ I can’t have heard correctly
“You know this for sure?” Lucas says
“Stuart told me that he was one of the rich kids and Tim was there on scholarship. He said they met on their first day of freshman year. Tim was being teased by some of the boys, it came to blows, but he stood up to them. Stuart told me more than once that Tim Cooper was the toughest person he knew. Stuart been a coward while he watched Tim deal with the bullies, not joining in, but not intervening either. After the fight Stuart helped Tim up and complimented him on his toughness, told Tim he admired him. They were friends for the rest of their time at St. Paul’s.”
The whole time she spoke, my head buzzed. My father knew. This whole time. And he never said a word. Not even when I begged. Then I realized if it wasn’t for my inheritance from my birth grandmother, that he would have never even told me I was adopted. Still as mother earth, all the roiling emotions are quiet inside me and I think I might be in shock. But if I am, I’ll use it to my advantage and listen to every horrible word Elise has to say.
Lucas murmurs something, but I just nod at whatever it is.
“When Stuart got into Yale he offered to lend Tim the money to come with him. Of course, Tim turned him down flat because he had what Stuart called an excessive amount of pride and didn’t want charity. Tim went to SUNY Albany, as you must know, on scholarship and they lost touch for a dozen years. But when I got pregnant, Stuart didn’t hesitate to call Tim, who was now married, with the proposition to take care of a baby we couldn’t keep. He asked Tim to participate in a private, ironclad adoption. Tim was the only one Stuart could trust to keep the secret and to take good care of the baby, our little girl. You.”
I don’t realize I’m crying until Lucas touches my cheek and gently wipes the tears away with his thumb. The protection of shock is gone and now I feel all the roiling emotions swirling and raging.
“Stuart wanted to give Tim money to help raise you, but Tim refused. He was happy to accept you without strings because he and his wife had no children. But he was angry with the idea of accepting money. Stuart was very proud too. I thought they’d come to blows about it that night.” She looks far away, like she’s back there now, young and helpless, so helpless she’s willing to give up her baby.
“When Tim stormed out the door, and I sobbed, Stuart went after him. I gave Stuart something of mine to give to Tim. It was a small sentimental thing, a stuffed rabbit I’d bought. Foolishly. When I still had hope that Stuart would change his mind about me keeping you.”
“You could have changed your mind about keeping Stuart,” I say. My voice sounds steel cold, rapier sharp and I don’t care that she blanches, that tears blur her eyes. I feel a stab at the memory of the stuffed rabbit. I remember it. Kept it until I was fourteen and then my mother threw it away. Now I know why.
Lucas puts his hand on my shoulder, but he doesn’t try to stop me from speaking. There’s no censure in his touch. I feel his support run through me like a vein of gold.
