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I carried the box to the bed and sat with it in front of me, some alarm inside telling me there might be something here I didn’t want to find. I’d begun to come to terms with my family’s origin, with the fact that I might never know myself the way most people did, reassured by an understanding of their bloodlines, their place in the bigger scheme of humanity. I wasn’t eager to have any more surprisesthat might unravel my understanding of myself further. But I couldn’t just push the box away, either.
The lid pulled off easily, the dusty green top lifting to reveal two items inside, one of which I knew immediately. The bear. A jolt of recognition hit me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, seeing the image again. The bear, the car door slamming. The hand on my cheek. I’d seen this bear hundreds of times in my mind, but never knew where the image had come from. And here it was. Here it had been all along. What did it mean?
I lifted the small stuffed bear to my nose instinctively, inhaling a stale memory. Mine. This bear was mine. My heart recognized it even if I couldn’t recall anything concrete about it. I set the bear on my lap and turned my attention to the other item in the box: an envelope with my name on it in my mother’s handwriting. I opened it, removing a folded piece of stationery. A picture dropped out of the folded letter, of a woman who looked like my father, holding a baby. On the back was written:Eileen and Oliver.
I took a deep breath and opened the letter.
Dear Oliver,
Parents make many choices, and not all of them turn out to be right. I am writing this letter, with your father’s approval, because we made a choice long ago and I still struggle with it. Maybe it wasn’t right.
I don’t know what the circumstances might be that have led you to this letter. Did I finally change my mind and hand it to you? Did you discover it? Am I still there to tell you in person how sorry I am for keeping secrets? For doing somethingI thought was right but may have been more wrong than anything else I’ve ever done? I wish I could see the future, see the man you will be, and know how this will affect you. But for now, all I can do is tell you the truth and hope you will forgive us for not doing it sooner.
Your father and I were there when you were born, Oliver. That might sound ridiculous, but it’s an important distinction because you are adopted. I am not your birth mother, and your dad isn’t your birth father. But we have known you all your life, and we are as closely related as we can be without being your parents.
You never really got to know your father’s sister, Eileen. You’ve heard of her. We were always very careful about how we spoke of her around you. Eileen made some choices, too, and I can say—with all the certainty that seeing how those choices hurt your dad can bring—that some of them were wrong. But her decision to have the baby she became pregnant with when she was nineteen was a good one. And you were a blessing not only to her life, but to your dad’s and mine. Eileen came to live with us when she was pregnant with you, since her mom and dad were gone. The three of us worked together to care for you when you were a tiny infant, and I couldn’t have loved you more if you were my own baby.
When Eileen found a good job and felt ready, she moved out, taking you with her. We thought she was doing well, believed she could handle everything. And she might have. But life isn’t fair. Your mom got very sick, Oliver. You were only two when she came back. The cancer was already stage four when she was diagnosed, and she knewshe didn’t have long. She didn’t want you to remember her sick, so she brought you back to us. You were both with us for a while, until your mom went to the hospital. The last time we visited her there, she gave me this bear to give to you, and she asked us to keep you, to raise you.
She also made us promise never to tell you. I didn’t understand it at the time, and honestly I still don’t, but Eileen wanted you to believe Adam and I were your parents. I hope that in your mind we still are. Maybe it’s just something I do to make myself feel better for keeping this secret, but I tell myself you are luckier than most kids. You got three parents for a while—three people who loved you more than anything or anyone else. Three people who believed you made the earth turn.
I’m sorry, Oliver. Your dad and I argued about this secret, about what a vow made to a dying woman really meant, about what this information would do to you. And if you’re reading this letter, we probably never overcame the bonds that promise put on us, never agreed about how or when to tell you the truth.
If you’re angry, I don’t blame you. Secrets rarely do anyone any good, and they have a dangerous power to hurt. Even if you are angry, though, please know how much you were loved. From the very first time I saw you I loved you, and I have never stopped.
Your mother,
Sonja
I stared at the picture for a long time after reading the letter, waiting to feel angry or hurt. But I didn’t. With the small bear in my hand and the picture on the bed in front of me, all I felt was understanding. The pieces of my heart thathad shattered when my parents had died began to meld together again, the pain scattering like dust motes in the light of understanding. I gave the bear a small kiss, and put it on the pillow of the bed just as Holland’s voice shattered the calm in the house.
“Oliver!” Her voice was urgent, and I leapt to my feet, setting the letter aside and running to her side. “We’d better get going,” she said, her eyes wide and a hand on her middle.
“Really? Now?” Excitement and nerves had made me dense.
“Please?” she said, looking exasperated.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus. This was it.
Epilogue
HOLLAND
Idon’t really know how it happened that I agreed to live with Oliver. Somewhere in the fog and stress of that last week of pregnancy, I just lost the motivation to struggle against the things I really want in life, the things that feel good and right despite the way they might look on the outside. I was already having the CEO’s baby. How much worse could it be to live with him, too? And at some point—maybe about the time my water broke and I let him know we needed to head to the hospital—everything stopped being about what other people might think or feel, and started being about us. About my family.
“Do you put this shirt in the dryer?” Oliver stood in the doorway of the nursery, holding a gauzy blouse I’d worn the night before and looking adorably confused.
I was sitting on the glider, nursing, which was something I felt like I’d spent most of my life doing since our son wasborn. “Oliver.” I smiled. “Just let Brenda do the laundry when she comes this afternoon.”
Oliver stood in the door a minute longer, watching me, a dreamy grin on his face that I’d seen a lot in the months that followed the birth. It was an astounding transformation, really. The arrogant, out-of-control man I’d seen throwing potted plants around Cody Tech and screaming at people was now doing laundry and goggling a baby. I’d worry that he’d become over-domesticated if not for the way those dark eyes still burned when we were able to find time alone together. “She has enough to do. I can help,” he said, putting the shirt aside with a shrug.
The baby had nursed himself to sleep, so I stood and put him into his crib, and Oliver stepped to my side to gaze down at our son.
“Sleep tight, tiny Adam,” he crooned, and I turned to look at the man beside me. He was still steel and strength, the brutal jawline and sable eyes catching me off guard with their intensity. But Oliver’s fire had been tempered and controlled by fatherhood. He was no less masculine or sexy, but I no longer felt that vibrating tension around him, that silent warning that he might explode. Instead, Oliver had become a steady column of power, one I could draw from when I needed support. He surprised me constantly, not just with spontaneous gifts or with his actions, but with his capacity to love, and to forgive. He’d let go of the anger surrounding his parents’ death—naming our son after his father had been his suggestion—and he’d found some peace in the knowledge of his roots. Though he still didn’t know who his biologicalfather was, he seemed content not to have that piece of the genetic puzzle to fit into place.
“Adam was my father,” he explained to me soon after the baby was born. “The rest is just molecular, insignificant unless you’re a scientist. Adam was the role model I’ll work to emulate, he was the man who loved and raised me. That’s what matters.”
I was happy to see Oliver at peace, and it made the home we shared that much more peaceful.
