Drunk Dial(60)

“I was completely detached from not only my baby, but from the whole situation. I wasn’t thinking about the long-term repercussions of giving my child away. I was thinking like a child myself. I was just not emotionally ready to even think about it, much less experience parenthood. I let everyone convince me that I would be doing my child a favor by giving it up to this nice, loving couple.”

His eyes grew distant. I was terrified I was going to lose him over this. He was never able to truly forgive his birth mother for giving him up. I could only imagine what hearing me say I had made the same mistake was doing to him. He stared off when he asked, “What did you have...a girl or a boy?”

My eyes began to fill with tears. “I gave birth to a baby girl, and the hospital discharged her directly to the adoptive parents. I chose not to hold her because I was too afraid. I didn’t want to risk feeling anything for her, because it wasn’t going to matter. I knew I couldn’t handle being her mother. They made me wait a certain number of days to sign the papers, in case I changed my mind. The required time passed, and I signed my child away.” I swallowed. Those words were really hard to get out.

He blew out a long breath. “Just like that…”

I nodded in shame and whispered, “Just like that.”

“What happened after? I mean, what was your life like after you gave her up?”

“My life after that was very melancholy. I trudged through high school, feeling enormously empty and filled with self-loathing. No longer had an interest in boys. I was too traumatized by the pregnancy to let anyone touch me. In fact, that continued up until you came into my life. But back then, while everyone else was going to prom and looking at colleges, I just stayed isolated. I couldn’t stand myself. This went on for years. You already know that when I turned eighteen, I used money that was supposed to be for college to run away to Detroit to get plastic surgery. Well, now you know that the reason wasn’t entirely just to improve my physical appearance so much as masking the old one. I was just so disappointed in myself that I basically wanted Rana to disappear.” My lip quivered.

Sympathy returned to his eyes, which were now filling with moisture, although he didn’t fully cry. I suspected he was struggling with his emotions, probably unsure of whether to feel disappointed in me or empathetic.

I continued, “When I came home after running away for the surgery, I expected my family to disown me once and for all. But I got the opposite reception. The compassion they showed me during that time was beyond anything I ever expected. When I left, they’d thought they lost me forever. So, it was only upon returning home that I realized that, even though I didn’t have a mother who gave two shits about me, I had a dad and two grandparents who loved me very much. They never questioned why I ran away. They seemed to get it completely. They knew that my surgery had little to do with what was on the surface. Unfortunately, there isn’t a surgery for a broken soul.”

There it was. A teardrop fell from his eyes. He was truly pained to hear me say that. This was the moment that I really needed to try even better to make him understand.

Placing both of my hands around his face and wiping his tears with my thumb, I looked deeply into his eyes. “I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, Landon, that your birth mother may have given you up, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. She just truly believed that you were better off without her. And I want you to know that I fully understand if you can’t accept the fact that I made the very same mistake that she did. I don’t want you to look at me and see all of the resentment that you have for her. So, I’m going to ask of you the very same favor you asked of me back in California. If you can’t see past this, if you can’t be with me without being ashamed, then I would rather you not pretend.”

He wiped his eyes. “Do you know where she is?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know about you?”

“No.”

“What’s her name?”

Here it comes.

That was the other part of the story. Perhaps, the biggest part.

“Her name is Lilith.”





SAY SOMETHING





It took a while for the name to register in his mind.

“Lilith…isn’t that the name of the—”

“Yes. The girl I visit every week. Yes.”

“It’s her? Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

Landon got up from the bed and walked toward the window.

He paced for a bit before turning to me. “She has no clue?”

“No.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’m confused. Explain it to me.”