Danielle Steel - Journey

“I just want to talk to you for a few minutes,” she said, and Maddy realized the girl was about to cry, and the doughnuts had vanished.

“I don't know if I can help you,” Maddy said hesitantly, and then suddenly wondered if this had to do with her being on the commission about violence against women, or one of her stories. Maybe this girl knew she'd be sympathetic. “What's this about?” Maddy asked, mellowing a little.

“It's about you,” she said in a trembling voice, and when Maddy looked at her more closely she saw that the girl's hands were shaking.

“What about me?” Maddy asked cautiously. What had this girl come to tell her? But as she looked at her, she had a very odd feeling.

“I think you're my mother,” she said in a whisper, so no one else could hear them if they were walking by, and Maddy looked as though she'd slapped her as she recoiled in her chair.

“Your what? What are you talking about?” Maddy s face had gone white, and now her hands were shaking, as they continued to rest on the panic button. She had an instant concern that this girl was some kind of nutcase. “I don't have any children.”

“Did you ever?” The girl's lips were trembling and her eyes were already beginning to fill with disappointment. For her, this had been a three-year search for her mother, and she sensed that she was about to hit a dead end again. She had already had several. “Did you ever have a baby? My name is Elizabeth Turner, I'm nineteen years old, my birthday is May fifteenth, and I was born in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains. I think my mother was from Chattanooga. I've talked to everyone I can, and all I know is that she was fifteen when I was born. I think her name was Madeleine Beaumont, but I'm not sure of that. And one person I talked to said I look a lot like her.” Maddy was staring at her in disbelief, as her hand moved slowly off the panic button and onto her desk.

“What makes you think I'm that person?” Her tone gave away nothing.

“I don't know, I know you're from Tennessee. I read that in an interview one time, and your name is Maddy and … I don't know … I sort of think I look like you a little bit, and … I know this sounds crazy.” There were tears running down her cheeks now from the sheer stress of approaching her, and the fear of yet another disappointment. “Maybe I just wanted you to be the right person. I've watched you a lot on TV, and I really like you.” There was a long, deafening silence in the room, while Maddy weighed the situation, and tried to figure out what to do about it. Her eyes never left the girl's, and as she looked at her, she slowly felt walls dissolving within her, surrounding places she hadn't touched in years, and thought she would never allow herself to feel again. She didn't want this to be happening, but it was, and there was nothing she could do now to change it. She could end it easily. She could tell her that she wasn't the same Madeleine Beaumont, that Tennessee was full of them, even though Beaumont was her maiden name. She could say she had never been to Gatlinburg, and that she was sorry, and wish her luck. She could say everything she needed to, to get rid of her, and never see her again, but as she looked at her, she knew she couldn't do that to this girl.

Without a word, she got up and closed the door to her office, and then stood looking at the girl, who claimed to be the baby she had given up at fifteen, and thought she'd never see again. The baby she had cried for and mourned for years, and whom she no longer allowed herself to think of. The child she had never told Jack about. All he knew about were the abortions.

“How do I know that's who you are?” Maddy asked in a voice that was rough with grief and fear and the remembered pain of giving up her baby. She had never seen her after the delivery, and only held her once. But this girl could have been anyone, the child of a nurse who'd been there, a neighbor's child who wanted to blackmail her and make some money. There were damn few people who knew, and Maddy had been grateful that none of them had ever surfaced. She had worried about it for years.

“I have my birth certificate,” the girl said awkwardly, pulling a folded piece of paper from her purse. It was dog-eared and folded into a tiny wad, as she handed it to Maddy. And she handed her a tiny baby picture with it, as Maddy stared at it in silent agony. It was the same one they had given her, taken at the hospital, red-faced and brand new, wrapped in a pink blanket. Maddy had kept it in her wallet for years, and finally threw it away, for fear that Jack would find it. Bobby Joe knew, but he had never cared much about it. Lots of girls they knew got pregnant and gave up babies for adoption. Some girls had them a lot younger than she had. But in the years since, it had become her darkest secret.

“This could be any baby,” Maddy said coldly, “or you could have gotten this picture from someone else, from the hospital even. It doesn't prove anything.”

“We could have blood tests, if you thought maybe I could be your daughter,” the girl said sensibly, and Maddy's heart went out to her. She had done a brave thing, and Maddy wasn't making it easy for her. But what this girl was volunteering to do was destroy her life, and make her face something that she had finally put away, and didn't dare touch now. And how could she tell Jack?

“Why don't you sit down for a minute,” Maddy said, sitting down slowly in the chair next to her, and staring at her. She wanted to reach out and touch her. The girl's father had been a high school senior in Maddy's school, they didn't even know each other well, but she liked him, and she went out with him a couple of times, during one of the spells when she and Bobby Joe broke up. He was killed in a car accident three weeks after the baby was born and she'd already given her up. She never told Bobby Joe who the father was, and he didn't care much, although he'd beaten her up over it once or twice, but it was just another excuse to abuse her, once they were married. “How did you come here, Elizabeth?” She said her name carefully, as though even saying that much would commit her to a fate she was not yet prepared to face. “Where do you live?”

“In Memphis. I came here by bus. I've been working since I was twelve to save up enough money to do this. I always wanted to find my real mother. I tried to find my father too, but I couldn't find out anything about him.” She still didn't know what Maddy's answer to her was, and she looked extremely nervous.

“Your father died,” Maddy said quietly, “three weeks after you were born. He was a nice boy, and you look a little like him.” But she looked a great deal more like her mother, their coloring and features were the same, even Maddy could see it. It would have been hard to deny her, even if she wanted to. And Maddy couldn't help wondering how the story was going to look in the tabloids.

“How do you know about him?” Elizabeth looked confused as she stared at her, not sure what it meant now. She was a bright girl, but she was overwhelmed by the impact of what she was doing, as was Maddy, and neither of them was thinking clearly.

Maddy looked at her for a long time, her most secret wish having just come true, and not sure yet if that wish would become a nightmare, if she would be betrayed, or if this girl would turn out to be an impostor, but it seemed unlikely. Maddy opened her mouth to speak, and a sob came before the words, as she reached out and put her arms around the girl in the chair next to hers. It was a long time before she could say the words she had thought would never be hers, in an entire lifetime. “I'm your mother.” Elizabeth gave a sharp gasp, and her hand flew to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears and she looked up at Maddy, and then pulled her closer. And they just sat there for a long time, holding each other and crying.