Again Chad glanced around the room. His suspicions were true, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“I still don’t want to know.”
“Why, Chad? It seems so unusual,” Lorene said. “Most people are curious about their family roots.”
“I don’t know exactly. I thought about it a lot when I was a boy, but as I grew older, it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe I didn’t want to admit that my birth parents didn’t want me,” he said, almost in a whisper.
Chad paused, and a chill seemed to have penetrated the room. The silence was deafening. Except for Amy, who was squirming in Lorene’s arms, no one moved. Almost it seemed that no one breathed. After a suffocating moment, Mr. Reece cleared his throat.
“You’d always said that you didn’t want to know, and frankly, we preferred it that way, too. I guess we wanted to feel that you were really ours. But when the surgeon said that your chances of recovery were low if you didn’t have a replacement kidney right away, we had to choose between your life and letting you find out your roots. Sometimes it takes years to find a donor with a matching organ. We didn’t want to lose you. We told your biological parents about your injury.”
Breathing deeply, as if he found it hard to reveal the past after concealing it for so long, Mr. Reece said quietly, “As soon as Perry and Lorene heard from us, they boarded a plane immediately, either of them willing to be a donor.”
Chad’s gaze sharpened and he studied each of the adults individually. His mother had covered her face with her hands. Lorene’s eyebrows had drawn together giving her face an agonized expression. Stewart Reece studied his son with curious intensity. A momentary look of pain crossed Perry’s face, and a wistful plea for forgiveness shone in his eyes.
Chad turned his head and closed his eyes. His heart beat erratically. Learning about his bad injury was a bitter pill to swallow. He had told his parents that he didn’t want to know anything about his origin, but surely after he met Perry and Lorene, he should have been told the truth. He felt betrayed, humiliated, and actually stupid that he hadn’t even suspected who his parents were.
When he opened his eyes, the Reeces had gone. Perry had wheeled his chair close to the bed and Lorene stood beside him. Under Lorene’s watchful eye, Amy was toddling around the room.
“We owe you an explanation, Chad,” Perry said.
He shook his head, and he couldn’t keep the tears from seeping under his eyelids. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He had idolized these two people. He didn’t want to hear a sordid story that would topple them from the pedestal where he’d placed them.
“If you don’t want to listen for yourself,” Lorene said, “at least, for our sakes, let us tell you what happened. We’ve waited years to ask for your forgiveness.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Just leave me alone!”
“We are not leaving, Chad,” Perry said in a voice that brooked no argument. “You need to hear the truth—after that, if you don’t want to see us again, we won’t bother you. But we’ve waited for years to explain what happened. You are going to listen.”
Motioning to all of the tubes and medical equipment that held him immobile, Chad said bitterly, “I’m a captive audience, so I have no choice except to listen. But I promise you, I’m not going to like it.”
Chapter Two
Dreading the upcoming exchange, Chad squeezed his eyelids tightly to stop further tears, hardening his heart against Lorene’s pleading voice.
“The first time Perry and I had seen each other for over twenty years was in Woodston, Kentucky, where we first met you. We were college sweethearts who’d been engaged. Only once did we let our emotions get out of hand—the night you were conceived.”
For the next half hour, Chad listened to the rich timbre of Perry’s voice as he explained how through a misunderstanding and the stubborn conniving of Lorene’s father, he never knew she was pregnant. Lorene thought that Perry had abandoned her and didn’t love her. Perry was angry because he thought Lorene didn’t want to marry him and had moved away without leaving a forwarding address. Because of these misconceptions, they didn’t try to contact each other. They had remained unmarried because memories of the true love they had shared prevented them from having relationships with anyone else.
Every word they said was searing Chad’s soul with the deepest agony he had ever known. His heart searched for an answer.
God, why didn’t You let me die without hearing these things? I’ve always been happy. I had a good life. I’d rather be dead than to know that the four people I’ve loved the most have betrayed me. Why, God, why?
Their words were destroying one of Chad’s fondest memories, and he wished they would stop talking and leave him with a few pleasant memories of their association.
“When you came to town with the Jon Preston group, we both suspected that you were our child for you looked exactly like Perry did at that age. Then we learned that you were adopted—and that your parents were the Reeces—and little doubt remained.
“Perry was determined to tell you that we were your parents, but I didn’t think it was fair to the Reeces. I’d given you to them, and we agreed to say nothing. But the Reeces knew my name. And when we all met at your last college game, they knew who we were. They volunteered to let us share your life, and we’ve been grateful for that.”
Through clenched teeth, Chad said, “Shouldn’t I have had a say in that? I was old enough to make my own decisions. Was it right to treat me like a child?” Even as the words left his mouth, Chad realized he was acting childish now.
He heard Lorene’s quick intake of breath, and he knew he had hurt her. Shattered by his own physical and emotional injuries, he had the desire to hurt someone else. If he lashed out at others, that might ease his own hurt.
But he didn’t think he could ever forgive either set of parents for deceiving him.
In all fairness he had to admit he had always told the Reeces that he didn’t want to know. So why did he suddenly feel as if the whole bottom had dropped out of his world?
He made no gesture to stop them as Lorene picked up Amy, and his biological family left the room.
Chad didn’t see Perry or Lorene the next day, nor did Vicky Lanham show up as he had hoped. His parents spent the day in the room with him, but fortunately he dozed a lot. Apparently aware of his mood, they didn’t force a conversation.
The surgeon came in late afternoon.
“You are doing great,” he said, “and so is Mr. Saunders. Your body is accepting the transplant remarkably well. There’s no reason you can’t live a perfectly normal life, if…” He paused and again Chad sensed deep compassion in the doctor’s voice and eyes.
“If?” Chad prompted. “If what…?”
“If you give up contact sports,” the doctor said bluntly.
“I’d rather die,” Chad said without hesitation. “Football has been my life
