inexplicable weakness for one who’d always eschewed her parents’ penchant for keeping up appearances in their upper-middle-class crowd.
Pierce, the son of a single father who was a happy drunk, hadn’t been good enough for them.
And in the end, Eliza hadn’t been, either. The summer after her sophomore year of high school, they’d shipped her, their only child, off to her grandmother and bought a four-bedroom home on a golf course in Florida.
In their defense, they’d expected her to join them eventually. To graduate from high school in Florida. Her mother had decorated a suite just for her, with her own bathroom. Eliza was the one who’d opted to stay in South Carolina. They’d agreed to let her do so as long as she agreed to get good enough scores in high school to be able to attend Harvard.
She just hadn’t been able to picture Pierce coming home to that house in Florida.
As it turned out, he hadn’t come to South Carolina, either. Not until a long time later.
“That’s it. Just breathe. Calm will come,” Mrs. Carpenter said. Which was when Eliza realized the woman was still holding her hand.
She felt like an idiot. Slipped her hand out from the counselor’s and sat up straighter. “I had a baby.”
The sky didn’t fall.
“I’ve...actually never told anyone...not since the day they took him away from me.” She’d been sixteen. Had been in labor for almost two days. Had been certain she was going to die—that she was paying for having sinned so horrendously. She’d been delirious before it was over. “I never even saw him.”
She’d been told he was perfect.
“Was that your choice?” Mrs. Carpenter’s tone was soft.
It had been her parents’ choice. They’d also insisted that she be homeschooled during her pregnancy. Which was why she’d been shipped to her grandmother. Her mother’s mother had been a schoolteacher before she’d retired to go into the B and B business.
“It was for the best,” was all she said. Her parents had given in to her need to stay, permanently, with the grandmother who’d saved her life that year—emotionally if not physically. But their acquiescence had come with cost. After her baby was born, she was never to speak of it again. Not to tell anyone. Ever. When she’d started attending her new school her senior year, she was just a new girl. They said to handle it. Any other way would brand her as someone who couldn’t control herself. Who didn’t make wise choices. Who was irresponsible.
There was truth to that.
“So...you’ve never told anyone you had a baby?”
The caring in Mrs. Carpenter’s tone brought tears to her eyes. She shook her head.
“I notice you’re wearing a wedding ring...” The words trailed off.
Eliza looked over, meeting the counselor’s compassionate gaze. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
She expected some reaction to that. Horror. Disgust. Shock, at least.
Judgment.
“So, tell me about this letter.”
“I didn’t realize that Family Adoptions had sister agencies,” she said, naming the agency her grandmother had chosen in South Carolina all those years ago.
“We’re one of the few licensed nonprofits with offices around the country. It opens our pool of birth mothers and adopting families to suit everyone better, while still allowing us to do on-site home studies over the course of a couple of months for each one.”
Up until a month ago, Eliza hadn’t known the ins and outs of adopting a baby. She’d trusted her grandmother to make certain her son had a good home. She’d trusted the agency she’d visited one bleak day that horrible fall.
She knew now how families were vetted. The paperwork and legalities and home visits. The social workers assigned to prospective families. All of it had comforted her. She wished she’d done the research sooner.
And yet, how could she research something that, for all intents and purposes, had never happened?
She’d borne the child but had no rights to him. At all.
“I gave up all rights,” she said now. Except the one her grandmother had insisted upon. “Except that he’s allowed to know who I am. If he ever asks.”
Mrs. Carpenter nodded.
“His family got him through this office,” she said.
Feeling slightly woozy, muddled, Eliza stared at the gray patent leather shoes. Wondered how long she’d be able to walk in them if she owned a pair.
“Has he asked to see you?” The soft words broke into her consideration of crunched toes, foot cramps and blisters. None of which were likely to be a problem for her.
Because she’d been wearing heels since she was seventeen. And because she wasn’t likely to be wearing four-inch ones any time soon. She was an innkeeper. The owner of Rose Harbor Bed-and-Breakfast. Making a home away from home for hundreds of people every year.
“No,” she said now. “The letter just told me that he’d contacted your office to inquire about my identity. I guess I had the right to know that they’d given him what information they had on me. My name, where I was living at the time of the adoption and the office through which he originated.”
Nothing else. It was so...open-ended.
But tightly shut, too.
What if he wanted to find her and couldn’t? She’d married. Her name was different.
And the address was, too. Back then, her grandmother had lived in a separate house off Shelby Island. She’d managed Rose Harbor in those days. But the year Eliza had graduated from high school, when her grandmother had turned sixty and had been able to access her retirement fund without penalty, she’d used it to buy Rose Harbor.
What if he found her, came knocking on the door, and Pierce answered?
“I...came here to find out...”
She broke off as she started to shake. And get too warm again.
“If, as you say, you gave up all rights, I can’t give you any information on him.”
Swallowing, she attempted a smile, one she gave to reassure an agitated guest, and failed. “I know,” she managed. “I’m not asking. I just...wanted to know if you could maybe find out...somehow...if he wants to see me.”
Please, God. Yes. Let me meet my baby boy. Finally. Please. Just to touch his hand once. To look in his eyes one time before I die.
Oh. God. No. Have him be happy. Fulfilled. In want of nothing. Including the need to see the woman in whose body he was created.
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. “If there’s something in his file that indicates that he’s open to seeing you, I can pass on your information.
