Page 82 of Forgotten Dreams

“I don’t know.” He looks up at the ceiling. “They said—” His voice trembles, and I can see the heartbreak in his eyes as he walks to me. He stands in front of me. His hand comes up, and we can both see that it’s trembling. He palms my cheek. “You are so fucking beautiful.” He smiles through the tears, and his eyes shut as he sobs. “You take my breath away, you are so beautiful.” He pulls me into his arms to hug me. I can’t help but feel like I’m being hugged for the first time. “Jesus,” he hisses. “You are fucking beautiful,” he repeats it over and over again.

I don’t know how long I stay in his arms, the two of us just holding each other. Then I feel Caleb beside me, rubbing my back. “Perhaps we should sit down.”

“That would be good,” Carl agrees, letting me go but grabbing my hand to keep me close to him. “My legs are about to give out.”

I laugh as I move with him to the library. “Do you want water?” I ask him as he looks around. “Juice, coffee?” He shakes his head. “Whiskey?” He chuckles.

“I’m good,” he assures me. I sit down, and he follows my lead. His hand immediately goes to hold mine as Caleb stands on the side of the couch, giving us our moment. “I want you to know that I never knew, or else I would have taken you,” he starts, and I can’t help the tears that run down my face. The feeling of knowing that at least someone wanted me makes all of this up-and-down worth it. “Your mother,” he begins and shakes his head, “I loved her with everything I had, and I wanted to give her the world.”

“How did you two meet?” I ask, and he smiles sadly.

“I was walking home from my job at one of the ranches nearby. It was summer, and she was stuck on the side of the road. Her tire was flat. She was trying to change it, but the lug nuts were just too tight. So I helped her.” He smiles. “She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. I asked her to have dinner with me the next day. She showed up, and I knew she was the one for me. Knew I wouldn’t ever find someone who would take my breath away. Still is to this day, the love of my life.”

“But she moved.”

“Yeah, her parents found out we were dating. It wasn’t a good look. Her grandfather was a newspaper tycoon, and I was the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, with barely any schooling and no prospects. My parents were hardworking people, but we still lived paycheck to paycheck, and that wasn’t what they envisioned for their daughter. So they moved her away.”

“But you never stopped?” I ask, and his smile gets even bigger.

“Never,” he admits. “We snuck around for over a year. I would work eighty hours a week just so I could buy a car and get gas money to go see her for a couple of hours on the weekend.” My heart breaks for both of them. “Losing your mother and then losing you. I knew there was no way I could ever love anyone as much as I did you guys.” He brings my hand to his lips. “I never moved on.” I don’t know if I gasp or if Caleb is the one who gasps, but the whole room goes silent. “But now you’re here.”

“Now I’m here.” I smile at him, the tears running over my lips to my chin. “And—” I’m about to say something else when the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” Caleb states, and he walks away from us, but Carl is on his feet.

“I should have told you,” he starts to say, but then stops when I look over at the woman who is now standing in the middle of my foyer and the living room. Her eyes go to Carl first and then to me. “Fiona,” he says, and before I can say anything, she falls right there in the middle of my foyer.

“Holy shit!” Caleb catches her right before her head hits the floor. Carl rushes to her while I stand here frozen in my tracks.

“I’ve got her,” Carl assures him, taking her in his arms and carrying her over to the couch.

“I’ll get her a cold rag,” Caleb offers, rushing to the bathroom upstairs.

“I’ll get her some water,” I say, running out of the room and toward the kitchen, grabbing a water bottle and then walking back into the room. She’s lying on the couch, a pillow under her head with Carl putting the cold rag on the back of her neck.

“Fiona,” he says her name as he brushes the hair away from her face. Her eyes flutter open as she tries to focus. “Hi,” he says, smiling down at her, “you fainted.” He fills her in as she looks up at him. Her hair is very different from the picture I found of her. It’s more brown with soft blond highlights.

“Carl,” she says his name as if he hung the moon and the stars, “tell me it’s not true.”

“Someone needs to tell me what is going on,” Caleb interjects. “Please fill us in. What is she doing here?” He points at her.

“When I got off the phone with you, I called her.” Carl fills us in as Fiona sits up on the couch, her eyes going past Caleb and to me.

“Oh my God,” she gasps, “it’s true.”

I look at Caleb and see he’s about two seconds from going Hulk on both of them. My hand reaches out to grab his arm. “It’s okay,” I assure him. “I’m okay, I promise, and if I’m not, I will let you take me away from it all.” I kiss his lips before I turn back to my birth parents.

“I called you last week,” I tell her, and her face goes even whiter than it was before.

“No, you didn’t.” She shakes her head. “There was no way in hell you called me last week.”

“I mean, I called Sonia. Surely, she would have told you I was looking for you.”

“She would one hundred percent not tell me that,” she rebuts. “Oh my God, she’s alive.”

“What?” I shriek. “What are you saying?”

“I went into labor,” she starts as she looks at Carl, who is squatting beside her now, his hand still holding hers, “my mother didn’t want me giving birth in town because it was a secret. No one could know I was pregnant. For six months I was tucked away and hidden from everyone for them to make sure that my secret didn’t get out. I didn’t even go to the doctor, he came to the house. When my water broke, I thought this was it. I would go to the hospital and get someone to call Carl. Except it wasn’t really a hospital, it was this private clinic. We got there, my mother, my sister, and I were ushered in. Not one other person besides the doctor and two nurses were there. I thought it was strange but then the contractions started, and I told them I wanted to do it naturally. They gave me an IV and the next thing you know I’m waking up two hours later…” She trails off as if she is remembering it.

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