Evan dropped down beside us and took us both into his tight embrace. We’d gone through the loss of Scout five years before, and while I’d come to love my husband’s dog, too, there was something special about Trixie. She’d been with me longer than anyone ever had been before. She protected me and loved me without condition. From the moment I scratched her belly in that kennel, she’d gone on to heal something deep and broken inside my soul. We’d healed each other.
And then she was gone. A dark sorrow rose inside me as I curled up on the carpet in my bedroom, holding Trixie while I cried. My insides felt itchy and wild; my skin felt as though it might crack right off of my body. I flashed back to the day I’d said good-bye to my children—the grief I’d felt so intense, I worried it might break me apart. I knew that loss was a part of life; it was a regular requirement of my job to administer euthanasia and help my clients say good-bye to their pets. But losing Trixie was different. It was the end of something I was afraid I’d never find again.
Evan curled up right behind me, holding me and Trixie both. He didn’t speak, he didn’t try to tell me everything would be okay. He was simply there, serving as an anchor, making sure I knew I wasn’t alone.
It took me over a year to fully grieve Trixie’s death—a year to get through a day without choking up when I thought of her. But after that, as I continued to train more dogs in need of a home, Evan and I decided it was time to adopt a few for ourselves. We ended up taking four pups from a litter that had been abandoned with their ill mother by the side of the road, two girls and two boys, who brought as much joy and unconditional love into our lives as both Scout and Trixie had.
But now, as I sat at my desk, staring at Natalie Clark’s phone number on my computer screen, I felt a panic rise in my body too similar to the one I’d experienced when Trixie died, threatening me just like the one I’d had that day when I snatched the little girl from the playground and ran away into the woods. Looking into who this woman might be was emotionally dangerous—it was a game I decided I couldn’t afford to play.
Instead, I deleted the number and put this message, like the other, into the shredder next to the filing cabinet. Tomorrow, I’d tell Chandi to stop giving them to me, knowing she was a good enough employee—a good enough friend—not to ask why. If I didn’t call Natalie Clark back, perhaps she’d give up and go away.
Grabbing my coat, I locked my office for the night and headed out to my car. It was already dark outside, a cold and clear late January evening. A few other businesses around the clinic still had their twinkling white lights from the holidays.
On the short drive home, I pondered whether or not to tell Evan about the calls from Natalie Clark. Knowing him as well as I did, I knew he would encourage me to call her back, if only to alleviate my fears about whom she might be. But the idea that she was my younger daughter was too frightening a prospect for me to decide to share the calls with my husband. This felt a bit like a betrayal of Evan, since we tended toward telling each other everything, but the anxiety I’d felt in my office and only barely managed to ward off still simmered in my belly. I was willing to do whatever I could to keep it at bay.
When I pulled into our long driveway, I saw a car I didn’t recognize. It was a silver SUV, and there was no one inside it. Evan often had customers mistake our driveway as the one for his business, so I simply parked in my usual spot before making my way to the front porch. “Hey, babe,” I called out as I entered the house. I’d barely taken off my coat and set my purse on the table by the door when I looked up and saw two women sitting on our couch. Evan and the dogs weren’t in the room.
“Oh, god,” I said, feeling a wash of icy cold work its way through my body as I took the women in. I grabbed the edge of the table with one hand and put the other over my mouth. It’s them. It has to be them. Both were petite, like me, and one could have been me fifteen years ago, when I’d turned forty. It’s Brooke. She had my pale skin, dark curls, and violet eyes—eyes that were staring at me so intently I feared they might burn a hole in my skin. She was a little heavy—her face was slightly round and full, but her cheeks were healthy and pink. She wore black leggings and a blue top with an empire waist.
The other woman, who wore jeans and a green sweater, was a pixie-faced blonde with big brown eyes; at least, I thought they were brown—she was blinking so fast I could barely see the color. Natalie. My baby girl. Tears blinded me.
The two women both stood. “Hi . . . Jennifer,” the blond woman said. “We’re sorry to just barge in on you like this. I called you earlier, at your office . . .”
It’s her, it’s her, it’s her. Natalie Clark is my daughter. I shook my head frantically. My jaw clenched together hard enough for my molars to squeak. The room began to spin, and I closed my eyes, wondering if I was simply imagining that they were here. Had I managed to conjure their presence with the panic I’d felt back in my office? Was I hearing things, the same way I’d heard Brooke’s voice that day so many years ago in the park?