Child of Her Heart

“I’ve had a little practice.”

“That’s nice to see.” She closed the back door and opened the front. “I feel like I owe you.”

He glanced toward the sun setting over the ocean in the distance. “You can buy me dinner next time.”

Meredith’s heart felt as though it dipped in her chest. Was he suggesting a date?

He looked directly at her. “Do you have a problem being with me and the boys in public?”

Heat flashed through her chest and up to her cheeks. “Did you— You didn’t think that I was embarrassed to be sitting with you in there.” She pointed over her shoulder. “Did you?”

He raised his eyebrows and set his lips thoughtfully before speaking. “I wasn’t sure. You said you were embarrassed.”

Meredith glanced at the boys still selecting rocks. “Like you said, I’m extra sensitive right now.” She wanted to mention the woman in the rest room, but didn’t know how to put it that wouldn’t sound self-pitying or be insulting to him. “I’m embarrassed to be singled out. I’m angry that Anna’s skin color has to be an issue at all.”

She looked up at him, silently pleading for understanding. “I wasn’t embarrassed to be with you or your sons, Justin. Please don’t think that.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

His simple word hung between them, amiable closure to a touchy subject. Its very simplicity and his acceptance of her feelings lightened her spirits and made her smile.

A breeze caught her hair and his attention focused on it for a moment, then found her eyes.

“We’ll see each other again,” she said, finding the words bold, but not wanting to miss the chance.

“Actually,” he said, “I’d like for you to meet Mauli.”

She thought about it and didn’t see any reason to say no. She gave a little shrug. “All right.”

“Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

“Yes, I have an important meeting with the beach. Is there rain in the forecast?”

“This is February on the coast. There’s always rain in the forecast.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“If it’s warm and clear, we’ll meet on the beach. Say around one?”

She nodded. “One it is.”

He turned and called to his boys. “Come on, fellas, let’s go. Tell Miss Meredith good-night.”

Jonah waved, but Lamond ran over to where she stood at the open car door and looked up at her. He was as endearingly straightforward and open as his father. “I think you and Anna are real nice. And pretty, too. Bye, Miss Meredith.”

“Bye, sweetie.” She instinctively reached out to touch his face and found his cheek as smooth and warm as Anna’s.

“Step back from the car,” Justin called and Lamond obeyed.

Meredith got in.

“See ya later, alligator!” Lamond called with an energetic wave.

She returned the wave and called, “After a while, crocodile!”

He broke into giggles and ran to join his father and older brother.

Meredith closed the door and started her car, a good, warm feeling replacing her earlier chagrin. She would see the Webers again tomorrow…if it didn’t rain. Glancing at the sky, she turned on the radio to find a weather report.

At 6:00 a.m. when Anna woke to nurse, it was raining. Meredith settled in the comfortable chair near the bay window that overlooked a portion of the beach and watched the gray drizzle coming down. She wasn’t here to socialize, anyway, she told herself with glum resign. She’d accepted the Children’s Connection’s offer in order to escape her mother’s constant harassment and have some time alone with Anna to think.

Adoption, as her mother had insisted from day one, had never been an option. She’d wanted this baby. She’d gone to extreme measures to have her, and Anna was the fulfillment of her dreams. Just because she wasn’t the particular baby Meredith had imagined didn’t mean she didn’t love her and want her.

Her fears were about her own inadequacies. She hadn’t been prepared to raise a child of mixed race. Right now Anna’s needs were simple and Meredith had the capabilities to meet them: breast milk, clean clothing, hundreds of diapers and a lot of love. But later—maybe only three or four years from now—her daughter would begin to recognize the differences in their appearance. She would notice the stares and hear the comments and need skills to cope. And how would Meredith know how to instill those tools, give her child the confidence and sense of identity she would need?

Whenever Meredith gave in to those thoughts, she sank into a pit of self-doubt and insecurity.

During Anna’s wakeful time, she bathed her, sang her nursery songs and admired her toothless new smile.

Her main dilemma was the question of responsibility. No, she did not want to sue the clinic. But neither did she want a terrible mistake to be made again—perhaps to someone who couldn’t accept their unexpected child.

She could probably discover who the sperm donor was, but in her heart she didn’t want to know. It couldn’t possibly matter. The one thing she knew with confidence was that she had to be certain her own eggs were used in the in vitro process. In her heart Anna was her own child and always would be. She’d carried her inside her body, underneath her heart, and had gone through the birth process. Anna was her baby. But was she truly her biological child? If one mistake was made, why not another?

Time and again she stared at her child, trying to find similarities in appearance, wanting more than anything to see physical traits. But Anna was a baby. A dark-skinned baby. And it was difficult to tell.

While Anna slept, Meredith checked her voice mail and deleted all the messages from Veronica without listening to them. Then she called her counselor at Children’s Connection.

“I need assurance that my own eggs were fertilized and implanted. I don’t care about the donor. I don’t want to know and I don’t want anyone else to ever be able to find out.”

“I understand perfectly,” the woman said. “I’ll check all the paper trails and I’ll call you when I have an answer.”

Already feeling less burdened, Meredith hung up and gave herself a manicure and pedicure, using a bright shade of red nail polish she’d received in a basket of personal items as a gift from her friend Chaney.

Thinking of the bubbly redhead, Meredith glanced at the clock and called her friend’s cell phone, hoping Chaney had it turned on where she worked at a medical billing company in Portland.

Chaney answered the phone. “Hey, it’s about time you called.”

“I’ve been settling in.”

“How’s the Lighthouse Inn?”

“It’s marvelous. I have a huge suite with a bay window and a balcony that’s only a few hundred feet from the beach. There’s a whirlpool tub and a little kitchen.”

“Been in the whirlpool yet?”

“Not yet. It’s an executive suite decked out so well that a person could live here.”

“I figured it would be pretty classy. They’re trying to buy you off.”