They hung up, and almost immediately, her phone chimed with a notification indicating that she had an email. When she saw who it was from, her heart literally skipped a beat and she strode into the den, where Kyle sat, working at his desk. The air smelled of the white bean and chicken chili Natalie had simmering on the stove, and the kids were in the backyard, playing on the jungle gym before the sky became too dark.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked when he saw the look on her face. He scrunched his eyebrows together. “Is it the kids?”
Natalie shook her head. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “But the adoption registry I put my information on just sent me an email. They think they found Brooke.”
“Wow.” Kyle pulled his hands back from the keyboard and set them in his lap. He had taken off the jacket to his suit when he got home from work but only loosened his tie instead of removing it, so it rested halfway down his chest like a green silk noose against his white shirt. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was just starting to feel okay about letting the idea of meeting her go.”
“You still don’t know anything about her living situation.”
“Right, but . . .” Natalie trailed off, unsure what else to say. She felt twin urges—one to call the adoption registry immediately and the other to delete the email and pretend she’d never seen it. She didn’t want to find her sister—to meet her—only to discover that Brooke wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to know. It would be easier to just let the situation go.
Kyle stared at her with assessing eyes. He knew how to read her, Natalie thought. She knew she couldn’t hide how conflicted she felt.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he finally said.
“You think I shouldn’t talk to her.”
“I think it might not even be her.”
“What if it is?”
“Okay. Let’s say it is. What if she’s just like Zora? What if she’s had trouble with the law, or a problem with drugs? What if she is a prostitute? Do you want to bring someone like that around the kids?”
Natalie realized he was using his careful, I’m-dealing-with-a-hostile-witness voice with her, and it made her jaw clench. She couldn’t blame Kyle for being concerned at the prospect of inviting a total stranger into their lives; his lawyer-brain was trained to automatically highlight areas of concern. Seeing all angles of a situation, looking for red flags so he could better argue his points was part of who he was; it was what made him good at his job. It was also what made him occasionally infuriating to have as a husband. Natalie tended to look for the good in every situation, and Kyle had a habit of pointing out the bad.
Natalie sighed, feeling like they’d already had this conversation. But things were different now. There was a real chance that the adoption registry had found out exactly where Brooke was. If Natalie didn’t at least talk to the woman who could be her sister, she knew she’d regret it for the rest of her life. Despite the apprehension she felt, she knew what she had to do.
“I need to call her,” she told Kyle. “I need to know if it’s her.”
He bobbed his head, once, and then stood up, coming to stand in front of her. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said as he slipped his strong arms around her waist, pulling her to him.
“I’m not saying I’ll meet her,” Natalie said. Adrenaline pumped through her body, and her cheeks flushed pink. “We’ll just talk. I’ll be careful.”
“That’s all I ask,” her husband said. And then Natalie pulled away from him, eager to reread the email from the adoption registry and take the next step.
Brooke
The Friday morning before Halloween, Brooke was about to jump in the shower when her cell phone sounded. She grabbed for it, half-expecting to see Ryan’s face and number—he’d sent her a couple of texts since they last spoke, despite her having asked him to stop—but instead, an unfamiliar number popped up on the screen. Brooke swiped her finger and said hello.
“Is this Brooke Walker?” an older woman’s voice inquired.
“It is,” Brooke said, cautiously, hoping she didn’t just get caught by a telemarketer.
“My name is Sarah,” the woman said, “and I’m with the National Adoption Registry. I’m calling about your sister, Natalie.”
“What?” Brooke said, squeezing her cell phone and pressing it hard up against her ear. Shivers shot across her skin. “What did you say?”
“Ms. Walker, were you surrendered to the state by your mother in October of 1980?”
“Yes,” Brooke said, hesitantly. On impulse, she had filled out a profile with the adoption registry in 1994, when she was eighteen. She had just left Hillcrest and thought her sister or mother—or both—might be looking for her, too. But the last time she had updated her contact information on the site was almost ten years ago, when she switched to her current cell phone number. As months passed, and then years, without receiving a single notification of a possible match, Brooke gave up hope.
“Did you have an infant sister named Natalie Walker, also surrendered, but adopted in November of 1980?”