Page 56 of Forever Then

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I asked them about her. I asked questions about who she was and where she was from. I asked them to find her for me.” Her voice cracks, eyes cloudy.

“When?” I don’t believe for a second that Paul and Kelly Fisher would intentionally withhold this information from Gretchen if they had it.

“I started asking questions in middle school.”

“And when did you ask them to find her?”

“I was a freshman.”

“In college?”

She shakes her head. “High school.”

“What exactly did they say?”

Her gaze drifts over my shoulder, lips tight, before she says, “They said they didn’t have any information because it was a closed adoption. That my birth mom wanted it that way.”

I sigh, scratching the hair under the brim of my hat. Her parents’ answer sounds entirely reasonable, but it must have sounded like a brush-off to a fourteen-year-old kid who just wanted to know where she came from.

“So, yeah,” she continues, indignation in her tone, “I do have something to be worried about. She may not want to see me.”

Far be it from me to know the right thing to say, but I try. “I know I don’t know all the details and I can’t read minds or predict the future, but…” I pause, lost in the sadness welling in her eyes, mad as hell I can’t take it away. “You werefourteenwhen you asked your parents to find her.” She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “Fourteen, Gretch. They were probably just trying to protect you. I don’t know anything about closed adoptions, but maybe they weren’t lying. Maybethey really didn’t have any information. Your parents love you, Fish.”

“I know that,” she says quickly, swiping a tear from her cheek. It guts me. It’s the first one she’s given me, but she didn’t offer it willingly.

Several beats pass with me not sure what else to say, and Gretchen’s mind working overtime. If I wasn’t terrified she’d reject me, I’d pull her into a hug and hold her until her pain went away.

Her sad gaze locks on mine, probing for something it can’t quite find, yet I feel the inquiry peel back my heart, layer by layer—nothing to numb the pain, just bare hands and a scalpel. “Sometimes it’s the people you love that hurt you the most,” she says quietly.

The waitress’ timing is impeccable as she interrupts the moment and sets our plates in front of us. She’s gone a moment later, Gretchen’s words still twisting knots inside me.

On a deep breath, I funnel all the courage I have left to the surface. I say the most honest thing I’ve dared say since I walked away. “Sometimes love makes you crazy. Like, you care about someone so much you can’t think straight. You do things, you say things, you…walk away from them only to realize too late that you made a huge mistake.”

She chews slowly, eyes never losing contact as she sets her burger back on her plate. Molars glued together, lump in my throat, I follow her every move until, finally, she whispers, “It’s never too late.”

After devouringour weight in greasy burgers and fries, we see our plan through and find an ice cream shop down the street.

It’s late afternoon now. The sun hammers down on tourists crowding downtown Sedona as they peruse souvenir shops, art galleries and boutiques. We sidewalk stroll but only last a grand total of thirty minutes before deciding we’re ready to head back to the hotel and get some sleep.

When we’re in the car, I connect my phone and press play on mychill vibesplaylist. We’re not even out of the parking lot before Gretchen lays her head back and shuts her eyes. I move to turn the volume down.

“No. Turn it back up,” she says lazily.

Several minutes later, I’m convinced she’s fallen asleep when James Morrison’s voice croons through the speakers singing “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Slower and more intimate than the original or the popularizedPitch Perfectcover, it’s my favorite version of this song.

On more than one occasion, Drew found me drinking myself into a stupor with this track blasting on repeat.What is it with you and this song?he’d ask. Then he’d shut off the stereo and yank me up off the floor. I never did give him the answers he was looking for.

When I finally reached my rock bottom later that fall and Drew forced me back into the land of the living, I began to skip the track altogether—my regret too much to bear.

Old habits have my finger reaching for the skip button, but something stops me—the book she’s kept for twelve years andIt’s never too late.The usual sadness I feel at the sound of the familiar mystical piano intro is absent—there’s hope there now. Hope that’s magnified when I chance a glance at the woman in the passenger seat silently mouthing the lyrics.

Reality getsits ultimate revenge when the dramatic start to our morning comes roaring to the forefront. Back at the hotel, the pull-out bed made of jagged metal and tears of orphaned children taunts us both, while the oversized bed in the primary suite that looks like heaven on earth screamschoose me, choose me.

Two deer caught in headlights, our eyes swing from the bedroom to the couch.

“You take the bed, I’ll take the sofa,” Gretchen says.

---