“That’s just one side of the story.”
“And Amelia has another side. I want to hear it. That’s why I invited her over tomorrow.”
“Does Carmen know that?”
“No, but only because I don’t feel like listening to another one of her rants. I enjoy spending time with Amelia. She’s being honest with me, which is more than I can say about other people right now.”
“You should think twice before letting Amelia into your life.”
“She’s my mother.”
This is the first time I’ve spoken those words. I pause, letting them percolate through my brain. On the one hand, it’s true. On the other, I’m turning my back on the only mother I’ve known. I still can’t decide whether she deserves that rejection or not.
“Eileen is your mother.”
“Eileen is comatose in a hospital bed. Eileen stole me from my parents when I was a baby.” My words are so bitter I can almost taste them. “And Eileen refused to answer any of my questions when she had the chance.”
My phone pings with a message from Carmen.
Don’t freak out. I’m giving you a head’s up.
She attaches a link to an article written in the New Hutton Star.
“Oh no,” I say, my stomach dropping before I even begin reading.
“What is it?” Evan asks, but I ignore him.
The article is titled “Baby Caroline Has a Baby of Her Own.”
The woman believed to be at the center of the Baby Caroline mystery is now a mother herself…
“Oh no. Ava.”
“What is it?” Evan asks, concerned. “Did something happen?”
“The New Hutton Star has written an article about us. It’s talking about me being a single mother to Ava.” My voice catches. “See the shit we’re having to go through because of Eileen?”
“Just wait a minute. What does it say?”
My eyes scan the article. It’s talking about my life in North Bay. About my decision to have Ava on my own. None of it is new information to me, but I hadn’t planned on sharing the details with the rest of the world. And someone close to me must have passed on this story to the press. I don’t know who would have betrayed me like this, but the newspaper wouldn’t have access to this information otherwise.
“I’ll send you the link,” I say, my tone cynical. “I have to go.”
I stuff the phone in my pocket and start jogging toward the dock.
“I’m sorry, Marion,” Evan shouts after me.
Knowing Evan, he wants to say more. He won’t. If anyone understands my stubborn nature, my reluctance to forgive, it’s him.
26 MarionNow
Ava was never a guarantee. Now I’m replaying everything that happened in the years leading to my decision to have her, each milestone rolling into the next, like film on a reel.
I’ve always been a strategic planner. Maybe it’s because so much of my life with Mom felt thrown together. If Des hadn’t come along, our lives might have continued on that unpredictable trajectory. I always knew I wanted my life to be different. I wanted solid relationships. A dependable job. A stable place to call home.
That all changed after my breakup with Evan. After six years together, he was gone, off to pursue his new dream, the one that no longer included me. I’d spent my entire adult life creating my world with meticulous precision, and now I was abandoned in it.
I had my career. I owned a home. I tried dating, and yet it always felt forced. A relationship wasn’t what I was after. I’d already found my compatible match, and he was living on the other side of the country. He’d chosen to leave, and I’d chosen to stay. Evan wasn’t the type of person I could replace. And even if that had been my aim, North Bay didn’t have much of a dating scene. Most of our peers had already been married a couple years, were starting to have children.
It hit me this might be my life. Sure, I could see what would happen if Evan ever made the decision to come back, but that was still years away, and so many things could happen during that time. It’s the reason we’d agreed to break up in the first place. I had to adjust to this new version of life without him in it.
Mom was the only person I could fully share my feelings with. The only person I felt wouldn’t label me as whiny or pathetic, but simply accept my fears for what they were.
“What’s bothering you the most?” she asked. “Is it Evan you miss?”
We were sitting in my newly decorated living room. This space was meant to reflect my independence, a place I could call my own; instead it seemed to echo the loneliness aching inside, an isolation that felt unending.
“I don’t know.”
Of course, I missed Evan. A part of me always would, I thought. He’d been gone over a year at that point. My feelings for him had faded, yet at the same time, nothing had really glimmered since he left. “I guess I just feel like I’ve put all this work into building the life I want, and it still might not happen.”
“What might not happen?”
“Starting a family. Having kids. I’m in my thirties. That’s still young, but it feels a lot older when you consider I’m not even seeing anyone. If the guy of my dreams walked into my life tomorrow, it would be years before we’d even consider settling down and having children. Time is not on my side, and it sucks. I don’t want to be one of those girls who marries a guy simply because she’s running out of options. That never turns out well for anybody.”
It was an honesty I could only manage with my mother. I’d just revealed so many of the secret thoughts I felt I couldn’t share with anyone else. Mom sat there, watching me cry into a throw pillow. She didn’t speak until I’d let it all out.
“So, you’re worried about not having a child?”
“Mostly. Love can come around at any age. Motherhood,
