“Hmm,” Miss Dottie said, pressing her lips together and making them pooch out a little, like she was about to give someone a kiss. “Not that I recall. Pretty sure she was a quiet one. Kept her head down.” She shrugged. “That’s all I remember. Does it help?”
“I think it will,” Natalie said, thinking that Miss Dottie’s description of Brooke matched what Gina had said about her. “Thank you.” She stood, and Miss Dottie joined her.
“My pleasure, honey,” she said. “Your life turn out all right, after being here?”
Natalie smiled, thinking of her parents, of Kyle and the kids and the home they shared. “I was only here a month when I was a baby,” she said, “but yes. It did.”
“Glad to hear it,” Miss Dottie said, bobbing her head and then repeating the phrase. She gave Natalie a wave and then headed back into the kitchen.
Five minutes later, Natalie sat in her car, doing an online search for “Zora Herzog, Seattle,” on her phone, relieved that the girl Brooke might have moved in with after leaving Hillcrest had such a unique name. It would make finding her all that much easier. She could have waited until she got home and done the search on her laptop, but she was too excited about what she’d learned. Maybe Zora and Brooke were still friends. Maybe their shared background at Hillcrest had created a bond that linked them. Maybe once Natalie found Zora, she’d find Brooke, too.
It didn’t take long for Zora’s name and contact information to come up on the search engine, and Natalie was grateful the other woman hadn’t chosen to keep her address and phone number unlisted. She glanced at the clock and saw she still had plenty of time before the kids got out of school, and a quick check on the map told Natalie that Zora lived in White Center, which was on the south side of West Seattle and only a fifteen-minute drive from Hillcrest. Again, she thought about calling first, but she couldn’t contain her enthusiasm and decided to head right over to Zora’s house. Even if she wasn’t home, Natalie could leave her a note. She put her phone on the passenger seat, started her car, and went exactly where her GPS told her to go.
Brooke
When Brooke’s cell phone rang about a week after her argument with Ryan, she almost didn’t answer. But when she saw his face on her screen, she decided it was only fair to hear whatever else he might have to say. A small voice in her head even went so far as to suggest that he might have changed his mind and would support her in her decision to keep the baby, and though she was hard-pressed to admit it, this possibility was what made her pick up the phone.
“Brooke, please,” Ryan said. From the horns beeping in the background, she could tell that he was in his car, on his headset, likely on the freeway on his way to a job site. “I know you’re upset, but we need to talk about this.”
“I don’t really see what else there is to say,” she said. She tried to sound strong, unshakable, but she worried that he could still hear the tremor beneath her words.
“You can’t just make a unilateral decision,” he said. “It’s my child, too. I have a say in how we handle it.”
“It’s not an ‘it,’?” Brooke snapped. “It’s a baby.” She had lain in bed just that morning, running her hand over her stomach again and again, marveling at the fact that there was a human being growing inside her. She’d gone online and discovered that at nine weeks, her baby was about the size of a peanut and already had earlobes, which seemed to Brooke like such a random thing for her to know. But it also made what was happening seem more real. “It’s my body,” she told Ryan now. “So it’s my decision. I don’t need anything from you except to be left alone. You’re off the hook.”
“It’s not that simple!”
“Actually,” Brooke said, “it is.” She hung up the phone, steeling herself against the rush of conflicting emotions she felt. One part of her, the part she had honed over the years to keep the men in her life at an emotionally safe distance, was determined that cutting Ryan out of her life completely was the right call. She didn’t need him, that part told her. She could do this. She’d be fine. But another part of her, the more exposed, needy part that had risen to the surface as soon as she found out she was pregnant, screamed at her to call him back, to ask him to support her, even if he didn’t agree with her decision to keep the baby. But the idea of this, the idea of admitting her weakness, made Brooke squirm. She’d learned a long time ago that it was safer never to show anyone that kind of vulnerability.