He nods, then studies the rug below them as if reordering his stories, tucking all he meant to tell her about Lailan away. He looks worried.
Suddenly she looks down the hall. “She’s not here, is she?”
He laughs. “No. No.” But then he’s serious again. “You really didn’t want to see her?”
“I couldn’t say goodbye to her again. I didn’t want to reopen that. You get it. You said it yourself, about why you didn’t want to go back.”
“I want to be with you. You know that.”
“And we will be.”
“What I said before, I thought you’d be happy about it.”
“You’re talking in circles. What did you say before?”
“About the paperwork, the bureaucracy.” He reaches for his glass of wine on the end table, brings it to his lips, but doesn’t take a sip, just sets it back on the table and stares at the rug as he speaks. “I’m in the process of adopting her.”
A pounding begins in Olivia’s chest, one that fills her ears. “Adopting her.”
There are reasons I can’t come home.
“I know I don’t have much. A house that needs work. Odd jobs.”
He’s not coming back. His new life is here. His parents, his friends, a daughter. She tries to remain calm, to keep herself grounded. This is okay, she tells herself. This doesn’t matter. But the words are frayed. Worn. They don’t apply, and she knows it. Still, he’s talking, but she’s lost inside herself. Realizing that though Olivia loves Delan, Lailan both loves and needs him. And if there is anyone, anyone in the world Olivia would give him up for, it’s her.
“Miriam is not well,” he’s saying. “She wants this for her.” And it’s then that he finally looks up, away from the rug. “You’re crying.”
“Of course I am. I don’t want us to be over.”
“It only has to be over if you want it to be. I don’t want that. She’ll be mine, my responsibility, forever. No matter what. I’m not taking that lightly. And never would I want this to affect your work. I’m home during the day, so it shouldn’t get in the way, and if you want nothing to do with her, then I understand. But maybe you can just see when we get there what you think.”
When we get there. “You and—?”
“Me and Lailan. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first, but it has to be done. Whether I lose you or not, which I do not want. I want you. More than I’ve wanted anything. But Lailan has no one. My parents are old, but I can help. My brother, he would want this. I want this. I cannot leave her, this girl who is loved but has no one.”
Understanding hits in waves. A possibility she’d never considered. A life with Lailan that can actually happen. “You wouldn’t leave her here.”
Now he’s frustrated. “This is the point. I’m a US citizen and she’ll be my daughter, and I’ll need a lawyer, I know. I had a good one before; I’ll find him again. As soon as I can, I’ll take her to the States and we go from there. A month is what I’m told. It’s who you know, and I know someone. I’m lucky.”
Olivia swipes at her tears, which have only increased. Though he’s pale and nervous, he must now see that though she’s crying, she’s also smiling.
Family sometimes just happens, Soran had told her.
“Delan,” she says. “Bring her home.”
CHAPTER 18
June 15, 1979
Friday. Gray and stormy. The words June gloom tossed about like everything is better with a label. News about the contest will send someone into a celebratory weekend, while the rest will need the time to armor themselves for the following week. She doesn’t care. She made it back. A trip with no issues—a short one, granted, but proof that she could do it. That if need be, she could go again.
And both he and Lailan will be here. A month, he thought. Their night continued with talk of logistics, everything tinged with nervous excitement. Where would she go to school and would it be kindergarten? Which room would she have? Mine, Olivia said. Or Rebecca’s. Did I tell you? She’s moving in with Gary. To that, Delan just smiled. You see how that worked? And Olivia had no retort, because she did see. Still, there was an impetuousness that only edged their conversation, known but never settled, because in truth it wasn’t crazy. It was risk, but it was good. It would be hard, but it was right. It was saving one person, and it was a choice she had no hesitation in making.
And like before, at the airport she would not say goodbye.
“It worked last time,” she told him.
“I will say something else, though,” he said as he pulled her to him, his lips to her ear. “Olivia. Liv. I love you.”
And that, she decided, she could say back.
A breeze. It feels like there’s a little gust that carries her into each room—and muffles the annoying gossip about the contest that is everywhere. In the copy room, a secretary with bright nails tells another woman from upstairs that Miller’s got it. Then she turns to Olivia, as if just having remembered she, too, was in the race. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.”
“But did you hear? That was his grandma’s last breath. He said her skin changed, became smooth. Monday he’s bringing in a photo that’ll prove she was all wrinkly before.”
The photos of the dying grandmother were just of a woman in a hospital bed. Nothing more. The story existed outside the frame, not within. Peter Darrow had been right—there wasn’t a reaction, not one other person to show the moment for what it was. Not only
