A Walk Down the Aisle

“Losing you... I didn’t get rid of you, I didn’t throw you away. I lost you.” Sophie recalled when the doctor said she’d had a baby girl, and how she shouted about wanting to hold her, but her mother had been there, shaking her head. They’d taken Sophie’s baby away, and all she remembered after that was screaming until a nurse gave her a shot of something that knocked her out. Then it was the next day and her baby was gone.

She’d never held her baby. But she’d had some comfort imagining her baby’s adopted mother holding her. She’d thought about how joyful her baby’s parents must have been after trying for so long to have a baby.

“How did you lose me?” Tori asked.

Sophie offered a weak smile, emotions rolling and mixing together into a tsunami of feelings that she couldn’t sort out. “I wanted what was best for you, and best for you wasn’t being raised by a mother who didn’t even have a high school diploma and who had no way of earning enough money to support you. I lost you because I loved you that much. I swear we’ll talk about all of it, but not now. Right now we need to call your parents.”

“Why don’t you call them my adopted parents? You’re my mother.”

“No, I am the woman who gave birth to you when I was little more than a girl myself.” That was the moment she stopped being a girl. She’d lived her entire adult life with the pain of not being able to hold her baby, or to keep her, embedded in her soul.

“They are your parents. They’re the ones who made you feel better when you were little. They’re the ones who know you best. They know your favorite color. They were there your first day of school. They came and comforted you when you had a bad dream.” At least she hoped they’d done all that. Things like that were what she longed for growing up. She had wanted to give the gift of those moments to her daughter.

Quietly Sophie asked the questions she needed answers to. “Did they ever hurt you?”

“You mean like hit me or lock me in closets?” Tori shook her head. “No. They love me...or love the me they want me to be. But I’m never going to be a straight-A student. And I’m never going to be an artist or even a vegan. I can’t be. They gave me everything, and I’m still a screwup.”

“You’re perfect,” Sophie told her.

Tori snorted.

“You can’t be what they envision, or even what I envision. And if no one else has ever mentioned it, let me assure you that you shouldn’t try to be what any of us want. You need to be you. And you’re perfect at that...at least you’re perfectly equipped to do that. To be the person you’re meant to be.”

“So, your day job is writing lyrics for bad country songs?” Tori sniped.

“I wish someone had said those words to me when I was growing up. Even more, I wish I’d figured that all out when I was still in my teens.”

Tori didn’t say anything this time. Sophie pushed. “I need your parents’ number.”

“I won’t go back.”

There was a stubbornness in Tori’s expression, and Sophie could hear her mother telling her, “I hate it when you look like that. Like you’re almost daring me to try and get you to...”

The getting-you-to changed. Her mother had tried to get her to do ballet. Sophie had refused after the first few lessons. She’d hated it. If there was a rhythm gene, then she had received the antirhythm variety. There had been other attempts at getting-her-to. Piano. Drawing lessons.

Which made her think of Tori’s artist father. “You need to call them.”

“I came here to know you, and I’m not going back yet. I have so many questions, and if you try to get rid of me again, I’ll run away and—”

“No threats,” Sophie warned. “Don’t say things you might feel obligated to make good on. Legally, I’m nothing to you. They’re your parents, and I guarantee they’re worried.”

“I—”

Sophie interrupted again. “No excuses, no threats. The number. We’ll call them and then we’ll work something out. Even if they take you home right away, you’ll go knowing that I love you. That I never gave you away. And that that was the single most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. If your parents do insist that you leave now, then when you’re old enough, you’ll come back and we’ll talk. No matter what, you’ll know you’re loved. Maybe you don’t believe it but, Tori, of all the things you need me to tell you, that’s the most important thing. You were loved. You are loved. You were wanted. You are wanted. And as far as I’m concerned, not knowing anything more about you than the fact you’re tenacious, you have blue hair and you’re very angry, I still know that you are absolutely perfect.” And for the first time ever, Sophie leaned over and touched her daughter. She gently ran a finger over Tori’s cheek, brushing against a strand of her blue hair.

It was such an easy gesture, but Sophie knew that she’d remember that one small touch for the rest of her life.

“But...” Tori started, then looked at Sophie and nodded. She rattled off a number.

Sophie dialed, and felt sick as she said, “Hello, uh, you don’t know me...I’m Sophie, I gave birth to your daughter fourteen years ago. Tori’s here with me now....”

CHAPTER TWO

IT TOOK A LITTLE MORE than two hours for the Allens to drive from their home outside Cleveland, Ohio, to Valley Ridge, New York. The little slip of Pennsylvania that stood between the two states didn’t usually take a long time to navigate.

After she’d made the call, Sophie had slipped off her wedding dress and hung it carefully in her closet. She’d stroked the material for a minute and tried to imagine what she would be doing now at the reception. She shut the door on that fantasy. She knew that life wasn’t a fantasy. She’d met Colton and, temporarily, she’d forgotten that fact.

She slipped on a pair of jeans and a blouse. She thought about taking her hair down, but there were so many bobby pins, and so much hairspray in it, she didn’t think she could until she showered.

She didn’t want to lose a minute of her time with Tori to showering, so she’d gone back into the living room. She’d stood in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her daughter on her couch. Anger. Pain. Blue hair. Still gripping the throw on the couch between her finger and thumb. Every inch of Tori was...perfect.

She wished she could make her daughter see that.

During those one hundred and twenty minutes they waited for Tori’s parents to arrive, Tori peppered Sophie with questions ranging from her family’s medical history to Sophie’s educational background. She asked about Sophie’s job here in Valley Ridge.

She didn’t ask again why Sophie had given her up.

She didn’t ask about her father.

The questions she didn’t ask bothered Sophie more than the ones she did.

Tori startled when the doorbell rang. “It’s them, isn’t it?”

Sophie nodded. “I imagine so. Do you want to get the door, or shall I?”

“You. They’re going to kill me.”

Sophie got up and, before going to the door, walked by her daughter and patted her shoulder to comfort her and to allow herself one more touch. She went to the small foyer and opened the door. The woman, Tori’s mother, wore a pair of black pants, low heels and a no-nonsense fitted white blouse. She was wearing a very classic set of pearls and had pearl studs in her earlobes. Her light blond hair was pulled back into a chignon.

Tori’s father had on jeans with a hole in one knee, wear marks on the other and a couple of paint splotches. He wore brown loafers and a T-shirt with pictures of doors on it that read The Doors. His dark brown hair was shaggy, as if he’d forgotten to get it cut for several months.

“Sophie?” the woman asked.

Suddenly, it occurred to Sophie that she didn’t know Tori’s last name. She’d only mentioned her parents’ first names. “Gloria and Dom?”

They both nodded.

“Thank you for calling us,” Gloria said stiffly.

“Tori’s in the living room.” Sophie knew that Tori’s parents needed to see her—to touch her, to know for themselves she was all right.

Sophie had been right. As her parents entered the room, Tori got up from the couch and was enveloped in her parents’ hugs. For as completely composed and business-looking as Gloria appeared, she was unabashedly crying as she embraced her daughter. “Don’t you ever do anything like that to us again.”

Dom sounded heartbroken as he added, “You could have talked to us. We’d have brought you—”

Tori pulled back, the happy reunion forgotten. “No, Dad, don’t say you would have supported me and brought me to meet Sophie. You didn’t even tell me I was adopted. I still wouldn’t know if I hadn’t seen that envelope. You both lied to me my whole life.”

“Victoria, it’s time to go,” her mother said, tears forgotten. “We’ll discuss this later. Right now, you’ve barged in on Sophie and—”