A deafening silence seemed to smother the room and I shuffled the papers, pushing them farther away from me. Of course, Luke noticed and picked them up with trembling hands.
“You haven’t signed them yet, sugar.”
“I love my baby and I want what’s best for her. But. . . .” My voice cracked and I just couldn’t continue.
Luke patted my hand and pulled his chair close to my side. For a time, he just hung his head, studying the floor. At last he looked at me, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“I love her, too, Kelli. I have since—I don’t know when. The nurse was right, though, I shouldn’t have touched her. I shouldn’t have stared into her eyes or kissed her tiny forehead.” His voice broke; his face blanched ominously. “In my heart, I’m sure that giving her to a good family is best for her. With babies so scarce and in demand, no doubt, she’ll go to a wonderful family with plenty of money. She’ll have everything a kid could ever want or need. Orthodontia, college, ballet lessons—”
“A pony,” I added. I tried with all my soul to mollify my broken heart with the glorious picture he was painting. I crossed my fingers and prayed like never before. Despite my best efforts, however, it didn’t work.
Apparently, Luke wasn’t buying it, either. With a single, callous sneer, he decimated any hope I had for giving my baby away.
“No, she’ll never have a pony. Her new parents will live in the city where she can’t have one!”
“Luke!” I blinked, my bottom lip quivered.
Mindless to my bewildered plea, he was building steam, working himself up into a belligerent, heart-wrenching fury. “No pony, ever. Not only that, but that darling, precious baby will be damned to a lifetime of wondering who her biological parents were and why they didn’t love her enough to keep her! She’ll always imagine that there is something wrong with her, something that made her so detestable that they had to give her away—hand her off to strangers!”
“Luke!” Again, my own precarious sentimentalities took a backseat to his inconsolable ranting. Now, it was I who had to comfort him. “But look at your family, Luke. Your folks love you, and your brothers and sisters adore you. You’ve been happy, Luke. You know you’ve had a good life, despite being adopted.”
“That’s true,” he agreed heartily. “But I’ve wasted years wondering why. Why didn’t my real mom and dad want me? I’ve spent so much time wondering what was wrong with me that prevented them from keeping me.”
“But there is nothing wrong with you. I suspect your birth mother may have been just like me: a reckless girl, old enough to conceive, but too young to raise you herself. No doubt, Luke, your mother made the best of a bad situation. Just like I’m trying to do. You’ve got to believe that.”
“In here, Kelli.” Luke tapped his head. “I know you are right.” Then, he stabbed a self-castigating finger into his chest. “But here, I always wonder. Your baby doesn’t have to do that, not ever. I have another option for her—for us. One I thought of before, but didn’t have the guts to present to you.”
He picked up the papers that littered my table and heaved a great sigh. Placing my baby’s birth certificate on top of everything, Luke’s voice lowered, his eyes penetrating mine. His knuckles whitened as they seized the rail of my bed.
“I know ours has not been a traditional, romantic courtship, Kelli. I also know that there are eight years between us. But what I feel for you is genuine and lasting. What I feel for your baby is unquestionable and lifelong. We’ve been through so much, your baby feels like mine. Marry me, Kelli. Let me claim fatherhood to your little girl. I love her, and I love you even more.”
My mouth hung open and I couldn’t speak. As he waited for my answer, he found a pen and began writing in the baby’s legal birth papers.
Under Mother, he wrote my name, hyphenating my last name with his. Beneath Father, and though he knew the truth, he wrote his own name. Once the deception was made, he bit his lip and gave me a quavering look.
“Say, yes, Kelli. Say yes and I can have a justice of the peace here this afternoon. As soon as you and the baby are ready, we can drive down to Michigan and live in a mobile home behind my folks’ place. Just temporarily,” he amended hastily, “until we can afford a home of our own. Someday, when the baby is older, we can explain the truth to her, and, God willing, to her little brothers and sisters.”
Although his proposal seemed haphazard on the surface, deep in my heart, I knew it was not. He’d thought this “option” out meticulously. It was Luke’s nature, part of what made me feel so anchored, so safe, when I was near him.
And despite the cautious fluttering of my own heart, I was not too uncertain, either. For, in truth, I’d spent more time with Luke, understood the workings of his mind and soul, far better than I did my baby’s father—a man whose face I could hardly recall, a man I had never loved and could never love, now that I’d been so touched by Luke.
I took Luke’s hand, kissed its palm, then cupped it to my cheek. Impulsively, his fingertips dried the tears from my face.
“You don’t have to twist my arm, Luke. I love my baby and I want to keep her with me, be her mom. And, despite the goofy relationship we’ve had, I, too, have grown to love you and feel as if she is your child, as well. Maybe that’s because you have, from the very start, acted like her father. Yes, I’d be most happy and proud to marry you, Luke Jameson.”
Such a flood of relief and absolute joy wreathed his face—and mine, too. For the first time since I’d discovered I was pregnant, I knew without a grain of doubt that I had made the correct choice, finally done a complete right.
I grinned up at him.
A heartbeat later, Luke eased down the bed rail and carefully sat on the edge of my hospital bed.
With a tenderness and generosity I had come to cherish in him, he wrapped his arms around me, let his adoration caress away my every hurt. Our tentative kiss soon deepened and made honeyed promises for our future ahead. We giggled and dreamed, and then tore the adoption papers into a million shreds. Hand in hand, we ambled toward the nursery to say hello to “our” baby daughter. . . .
I cannot describe the sheer, sweet fulfillment that holding her close and touching her tiny features gave me that first time. I doubt any mother could. I only know that it was the single greatest blessing of my existence, and ultimately became worth every trauma and emotion I’d wrestled with.
Although marrying Luke, keeping my baby, and moving to Michigan was my saving grace, I know that it would not have worked for every teenage mother. Not every man is as forgiving and compassionate as my husband is; not every man is as devoted and good. Nonetheless, through perseverance, dedication, and unselfish love, Luke and I have forged a strong, lyrical union. Our daughter, Sabrina, is at its center, the sunshine of our lives.
We’ve been married three years now and have recently moved into a little brick bungalow on the outskirts of Lansing. Luke’s family members are regular guests and they are enchanted by their granddaughter. Even my parents have yielded and visit on occasion. Ours is a bountiful life.
In a few weeks, on my twenty-first birthday, Luke and I are leaving Sabrina with his folks
