"I have no idea. She wouldn"t leave her name and she said she had no phone. I was concerned about her."
"Could she be...waiting around? Outside maybe?"
"No, I told her Anna"s at Children"s Hospital with her daughter and that she wouldn"t be back for-"
"What do you mean "with her daughter"?"
I felt Emerson"s quick glance.
"Her daughter is very ill and Anna"s at the hospital with her."
"Could she...could my daughter... She knows Anna Knightly"s at Children"s Hospital?"
"I did mention it. But I don"t think-"
"Where is it. It"s in D.C., isn"t it?"
"On Michigan Avenue. But-"
Jenny was fast. She reached between my seat and Emerson"s to show me the address for Children"s Hospital on her iPhone.
"I"ve got it," I said to the woman. "Please call me back if you hear anything more from her." I hung up and turned to Jenny. "Can you get the directions?" I asked.
"Yes."
I tapped my phone against my lips, thinking. "She wouldn"t go to a hospital, though," I said. "You know how she feels about hospitals. I can"t imagine-"
"Should we call the police?" Emerson asked.
I shook my head. "Not yet," I said. "Not until we"ve exhausted every other way to reach her." I didn"t want the police between my daughter and myself. I wanted no one between my daughter and myself.
50.
Anna Washington, D.C.
I"d dreamed of this moment many, many times, yet what was happening now was nothing like my dreams. In my dreams, I"d seen the girl. Sometimes she was a toddler. Sometimes nine or ten. Occasionally this age: sixteen. This perfect age that fit reality. Yet there was one thing in each of those dreams that was missing in the here and now, and that was the instant recognition that this was indeed my daughter. My Lily. The child I"d carried beneath my heart. Sitting in the small lounge with Grace-and she seemed more like a Grace than a Lily to me-listening to her speak in a voice so quiet I had to lean close to hear her, I studied her lovely, heart-shaped face. She showed me the letter, her hands trembling violently as she pulled it from her backpack. She told me about the suicide of the midwife.
I read the letter and was still filled with disbelief. I was being suckered into something. There"d been so much publicity around the bone marrow drive. Bryan and I had been too open about Lily"s disappearance in our attempt to garner attention and sympathy for Haley"s plight. We"d al lowed Lily and our ordeal to be written about, talked about, embellished. Now someone had fabricated a letter, a girl, a story, all to mess with my mind. But why? Did someone think I had money? If so, they"d be wrong.
Where was the instinctive maternal bond I"d felt in my dreams? The girl looked nothing like me. Nothing like Haley or Bryan. Her eyes were large and brown, but the shape of them was off. How dare you dissect this child? I thought to myself. I felt her pulling back from me, shutting down, as if she was picking up on my ambivalence.
"When were you born?" I asked, determined to trip her up.
"September first, 1994."
"Oh, really?"
She dug her wallet out of her backpack, her hands only slightly less shaky than they"d been a few minutes earlier. She pulled out her driver"s license and handed it to me. I stared at the date. September 1, 1994. It fit. It fit all too well. Could the license be a fake? I didn"t know how to tell.
I looked at her again. I was afraid to let myself hope. So afraid. I"d been disappointed before. Maybe the girl was Lily, but I wasn"t thinking, Let"s do a DNA test right this minute! Instead, I was thinking about her bone marrow. My reaction horrified me, but I couldn"t help what I felt. I wasn"t ready to think of her as my daughter. Rather, I saw her as a commodity. A way to save the life of the daughter I knew for sure was mine.
"Do your parents know you"re here?" I asked. If she was for real, someone would be worried about her.
"My father is dead," she said. "And, no. My mother-the woman who thinks she"s my mother-doesn"t know I"m here. She doesn"t actually know anything about this yet. Her friend figured it out and hasn"t told her."
Her story was growing so convoluted that I was beginning to think it must be true. No one could make this up.
"Where does your mother think you are?"
"I... Probably with my boyfriend in Chapel Hill. My ex-boyfriend."
"You need to call her right away and tell her where you are," I said.
"But she doesn"t even know about this." She looked a little panicky. "She doesn"t know I"m not her daughter."
"You still need to let her know where you are," I said.
The girl licked her lips. "All right," she said, though she made no move for her phone.
"Listen to me," I said. "This is extraordinarily strange in so many ways. I don"t know you and you don"t know me, and in a...if things were different, we would slowly get to know each other and find out if you"re really my daughter, but right now, my daughter-" I almost said my real daughter "-Haley is very ill. She has leukemia. She"s a wonderful girl and she needs a bone marrow transplant to give her a chance to live. It"s her only chance. Only certain people can be donors and we haven"t been able to find a match for her." My voice started to break; sometimes the emotion still caught me by surprise. "It"s possible, just possible that a sister might be a match." I felt cruel. Whoever this girl in front of me was she had not asked for this. She hadn"t bargained for it. But I didn"t care. I wanted her tested. I needed to see if maybe, by some wild chance, she could be a match, whether she was Haley"s sister or not.
Grace swallowed and I could see how scared she was. What I was doing felt wrong and yet I couldn"t help myself. Haley was slowly dying.
"I"d like you to meet Haley, if you"re both willing," I said. "Then you can decide if you want to be tested to see if you"re a match. It"s just a cheek swab. Doesn"t hurt at all. Only if you want. Your mother would have to give permission." I sat back with a long sigh. The girl"s hands were folded together on her lap in a tense knot. "I don"t know what"s going on here, Grace," I said, "but sometimes things happen for a reason and they"re very hard for us to explain."
She lifted her chin at those words and I saw that they had meaning for her. "You believe that, don"t you?" I said softly. "That things happen for a reason?"
She nodded. "I want to believe it," she said, though her eyes, which were nothing like Haley"s, gave away her doubt. But her words, so tender and heartfelt, touched me and I softened toward her.
"I don"t believe you"re my daughter," I said. "It doesn"t make sense. My newborn baby had hair that was darker than yours, just like Haley"s. Like her father"s. I bet your hair was very light when you were born."
"Brownish. It"s really more brown than this." She touched her long, thick hair. "I get highlights put in it."
"I doubt it"s as dark as my daughter"s would be." I stood. "Do you need something to eat or drink?" I asked.
She shook her head. Hugged her arms. "I couldn"t," she said.
"You"re nervous?"
"I hate hospitals."
I c.o.c.ked my head at her. "You"re brave to come here, then," I said. "Let me talk to Haley first. You stay right here." I worried that I"d frightened her, that she might take off. I wished I had a long rope and could tether myself to her while I spoke to Haley. "Please promise me you"ll stay right here," I said. "And call your mother to tell her where you are and what"s going on. But please don"t leave. You don"t have to do the bone marrow thing. I just-"
"I won"t leave," she said. "I came all this way. I won"t leave."
"Where"d you go?" Haley asked when I walked back into her room.
"Well, Haley-" I stood at the end of her bed, leaning on the footboard "-something wild just happened."
"You"re shaking."
I was. I was making her whole bed rattle. I straightened up and smiled at her. "Did you notice the girl who was in the hallway a minute before I left your room?"
She shook her head.
"Well, there was a girl there. A teenager. And she claims to be Lily."
Haley"s eyes widened. "Our Lily?"
"That"s what she says."
Her mouth fell open. "Our Lily?" she asked again, this time in a whisper.
"I don"t know if she is or not, honey." I still wouldn"t let myself feel hope. "I don"t know what to make of it," I said. "She showed me a letter from a midwife.... Do you know what a midwife is?"
Haley shook her head.
"A woman who delivers babies. This one-the one who wrote the letter-delivered babies at home apparently. Anyway, I need to talk fast because I left the girl out-"
"Hurry, then!" She glanced toward the hallway. "Is she out there?"
"She"s in a little room down the hall." At least, I hoped that"s where she was. I knew I"d scared her in half a dozen different ways.
I told Haley what I could remember from the letter and she stared at me, openmouthed.
"Holy s.h.i.t," she said.
"Yes," I agreed. "Holy s.h.i.t. The dates match up to when Lily disappeared, and this girl thinks she"s Lily. She drove up here from Wilmington because she thinks I"m her mother."
"Is it her?" Haley asked.
"I remember Lily so well," I said. "I remember her like someone painted her in my brain, and I don"t picture her growing up looking like this girl. And yet-"
"I want to meet her!"
"Are you sure? It"s going to seem weird, Haley. And you don"t know if she"s your sister or not. You have to keep that in mind. Not get your hopes up."
"I definitely want to meet her. I"ve wanted to meet her my whole life."
"But she might not be-"
"I want her to be Lily so much!" she said.
I remembered when she was diagnosed with leukemia this time, she told me she wished I had Lily so I wouldn"t be alone if she died. I"d been touched by her bravery. Her generosity. Yet I didn"t want her to feel that way. Not at all.
I reached for her foot where it was covered by the blanket. "You know that no one can ever, ever take your place, right?" I asked.
"Let me meet her, Mom," she pleaded, shooing me away from her bed with her hands. "Go get her before she disappears again."
51.
Grace I folded my hands in my lap and sat very still. As freaked out as I was about what might happen next, it was my mother who kept popping into my mind. When would she have figured out I was gone? When would she figure out I wasn"t in Chapel Hill? She would be so worried. She"d call Emerson then, maybe, and Emerson would tell her that I wasn"t really her daughter. My chest hurt just thinking about it and I pressed my hands together hard. My mother would feel totally alone then. No husband. No daughter. She"d think about her real baby, the one who died, and wonder how amazing that baby would have turned out. Probably brilliant, like her dad, and a bubbly social b.u.t.terfly like her mom. Nothing like the girl they"d ended up with.
But my mother loved me and, right then, I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be able to let her know I was okay, but that I needed to work something out on my own. I was afraid to call her, though. I was going to be in so much trouble.
This Anna woman was cold. I"d expected something totally different. I"d expected her eyes to light up with joy when she heard who I was. I"d expected her to pull me into her arms and be filled with the kind of instant love all mothers had for their children. There"d been none of that. She was suspicious of me and all she really cared about was her other daughter, Haley. I was falling through the cracks between two worlds. My real mother-Anna-had long ago given me up for dead and focused all her love on her other daughter, while the mother who raised me was by now probably grieving for the baby she"d lost.
Mom. Why did I always push her away? She was worried about me. I knew that. She"d be seriously freaking out right now.
I pulled the phone from my backpack and dialed her number. It rang a couple of times before she picked up.
"h.e.l.lo?" she said, and I could tell with that one word that she was a mess.
"It"s me," I said.
"Grace! Grace! Where are you? Are you okay? Where are you calling from? You left your phone-"
"I"m okay," I said. "I just wanted to let you know that. I have to do something and then I"ll-"
"Are you at Children"s Hospital?"
I didn"t know what to say. How could she know that?
"I"m on my way there with Emerson and Jenny," she said. "Is that where you are? I love you, Grace. I love you so much. I"ve been so scared, honey."
"Mom. You don"t have to come here. I"m-" I looked up to see Anna standing in the doorway. "I have to go," I said, and flipped the phone closed.
"Was that your mother?" Anna asked. "You spoke with her?"
I nodded. The phone rang and I dropped it into my backpack.
"You don"t want to get that?" Anna asked.