“Son of a bitch. Don’t you want to call and confront him?”
“I think I’ve said quite enough.”
“At the very least, you could tell him to fuck off.”
“And read about it in tomorrow morning’s paper?”
“It might be worth it.”
The phone rang. Without a word, Caroline reached over and ripped the phone wire from the wall.
Whatever Caroline had been expecting, it wasn’t this.
For fifteen years, she’d been fantasizing about what it would be like to see Samantha again, and how their reunion would play out. In the beginning, she’d imagined the two-year-old, all jowly cheeks and jiggling thighs, running toward her with abandon, her arms stretched out in front of her, joyous cries of “Mommy” rushing from her bow-shaped lips as she flung herself into her mother’s desperate embrace. As the years slipped by, the fat cheeks and plump little torso had thinned and elongated, so that by the time she turned ten, the Samantha of Caroline’s imagination had morphed into a living, breathing Disney princess, all blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, but still with the face she’d possessed as a toddler, a face Caroline knew she would recognize instantly. And after shyly assessing each other from a distance, Samantha would smile and throw herself into Caroline’s arms, permitting her mother’s fervent kisses and returning them with her own.
The teenage years had proved more difficult to imagine. It grew harder to imagine or predict the changes puberty would bring. Would Samantha be short or tall, fat or thin, small-breasted or voluptuous? Would her hair be brown or gold, long or short? There were the sketches in the newspapers, of course, updated approximations from the experts, based on such tangibles as bone structure and shape of the eyes. But what about the intangibles, the things that couldn’t be measured? Caroline had always hated intangibles.
Look at Michelle. She’d changed so much over the years. The once plump little girl who adored all things sweet had grown into a slender young woman for whom sugar was the dietary equivalent of a four-letter word. There was little to connect the person she was today to yesterday’s child. Only her eyes had remained constant: demanding, angry, needy. Look at me, those eyes shouted across the years. Look at me.
But one thing Caroline was certain of: no matter what changes time had wrought over the last fifteen years, she would recognize Samantha on sight. And Samantha would know her. Mother and child would collapse, sobbing, into each other’s arms. One look and all the years would instantly melt away.
None of which happened.
“There’s someone named Lili here to see you,” her brother said. “She says you’ve been expecting her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Michelle exclaimed as Caroline ran from the room.
And now here they stood, staring at each other from opposite sides of the front door, and there were no lightning bolts of recognition, no cries of “Mommy!”, no joyous embrace. Just two strangers sizing each other up, trying to find hints of themselves in each other, to uncover lost or forgotten memories. But instead of answers and certainty, there were only questions and more uncertainty.
“Caroline?” the girl asked.
Caroline nodded, feeling the others crowd in behind her, four pairs of eyes bearing down on one young girl, trying to determine if she was one of their own.
The girl was tall and slim, although it was hard to tell how slim because of the oversized winter coat she was wearing. Her hair was dark blond, its ends dyed the same shade of navy blue as her eyes, its loose curls stopping just short of her shoulders. She wore no makeup and her skin was as pale and opaque as the sky of a Calgary winter. A pretty girl on the verge of being beautiful, as Caroline had been at that age. And she had Hunter’s jaw, as the sketches in the papers and on the Internet had suggested. In fact, she looked more like the artists’ renderings than she did either Hunter or Caroline. And she didn’t resemble Michelle at all. There was nothing about either girl’s face that suggested they were even vaguely related, let alone sisters.
“You’re Lili,” Caroline stated, her voice stronger than she’d anticipated.
“I probably should have called first.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“I was afraid to, in case I chickened out again.”
“You’re here. That’s what’s important. Come in.” Caroline backed up to allow Lili entry, stepping on Michelle’s toes as she did so, hearing Michelle curse underneath her breath. “Maybe you could give us a few minutes alone,” she suggested to her daughter, mother, and brother.
“Not a chance,” Michelle said, speaking for the three of them.