Chapter 4 - What He Signed
“Tell her what you signed,” Victoria said.
Thomas rubbed his thumb over a cracked knuckle.
Sarah watched him.
“What does she mean?”
“I agreed to the adoption.”
“Robert’s adoption?”
“Yes.”
Victoria gave a satisfied little nod.
“Your father chose to give you up.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“That isn’t how it happened.”
“But you signed.”
“Yes.”
Sarah stood so abruptly her chair scraped the floor.
“Stop doing that.”
Both parents looked at her.
“Stop talking around me like I’m still six.”
Daniel moved closer, but he didn’t touch her until she reached for him.
Thomas took a breath.
“Your mother brought paperwork while I was incarcerated. She said Robert could give you stability. Insurance. A home. She said you called him Dad.”
“I did.”
“I know.”
“So you decided that was enough?”
“I decided you shouldn’t lose things because of what I’d done.”
Sarah’s eyes shone.
“Did you ask to see me?”
“Yes.”
Victoria looked away.
Thomas continued.
“Your mother said visits would frighten you. Then she said you refused. Later, the letters came back.”
“What letters?”
“I wrote every month at first.”
“No,” Victoria said. “You sent guilt wrapped in envelopes.”
Sarah turned.
“You got them?”
Victoria opened her mouth.
Closed it.
I’d known that woman for fifteen years. I’d watched her turn criticism into concern and orders into favors.
I had never seen a question corner her so completely.
“Some arrived,” she admitted.
“What did you do with them?”
“I made a decision.”
Sarah let out a sharp breath.
“A decision.”
“You were a child.”
“And what was I at eighteen? Twenty-five? Last Tuesday?”
Outside the room, somebody knocked.
The hotel manager stepped in.
“I’m sorry. We need to know whether dinner should continue.”
Victoria smoothed her dress.
“Yes. Of course. Tell everyone Sarah needed a moment.”
“No,” Sarah said.
She removed her veil and placed it on the conference table.
“Tell them there’s a family emergency. They can eat. They can leave. I don’t care.”
“Sarah.”
But Sarah was staring at Thomas.
“Do you still have any of the letters?”
“Some.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
She lifted the front of her enormous wedding skirt.
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
Victoria blocked the door.
“If you walk out with him, you will regret it.”
May you like
Sarah looked at her mother’s hand on the knob.
“For once,” she said, “let me choose what I regret.”
