Kate regained a modicum of composure, grateful for the woman's understanding. "Thank you."
"I'll tell you this, Kate, from speaking with this birth mother several times now, I believe she's committed to adoption. I sense no conflict in her over whether to parent or give up her baby. And," Ellen added, "she is interested in you and Richard. You have many qualities that are important to her. With that in mind, I was wondering when you could get your photo album to me."
"I finished it last night and planned to run it over in the next few days."
"The sooner the better."
"I'm bringing it now. See you in forty-five minutes."
11
Julianna sat on her bed, back propped by pillows, legs stretched out in front of her, the Citywide profiles stacked on what was left of her lap. She gazed at the typewritten words of the profile on the top of the stack, her vision blurred with tears.
I've loved Kate since the moment I laid eyes on her. She's my partner, my lover, my best friend. I can't imagine my life without her.
Julianna drew in a ragged breath, rereading the words, an ache of longing, of hunger, in the pit of her gut. She wanted that. To be loved and needed so ferociously. To be someone's everything.
She closed her eyes, her thoughts whirling. She had planned to pretend to have considered all the profiles and just randomly pick one of the couples. After all, she didn't want this baby, and Ellen had assured her that every couple had been carefully screened as to their worthiness for parenthood. Any one of them would have done.
Then, for no particular reason, she had begun to leaf through the first of the profiles Ellen had given her. Something about that couple had jumped out at her. A tone underlying the words, a kind of sanctimony. As if they thought themselves a bit too good for this whole thing. Too good for Julianna. And her baby.
Taking an immediate dislike to them, she had tossed the profile aside and selected another. The next couple had seemed nice enough. Sincere. Eager to be parents. She was a homemaker, he an accountant.
They had bored her silly. Their life-style, what they'd had to say about parenting, their hopes for their child's future.
She had tossed them aside as well.
Then, on Saturday, she had found Richard and Kate. Everything about them had called to her-their life-style, beliefs, hopes and dreams and plans. Theirs was the life, the relationship, she had always fantasized as her own.
Now, on Monday, after having read their profiles a hundred times, she realized she had found so much more than just a couple to adopt her baby. The man she had been waiting for all her life. The one she was meant to be with.
Julianna drew in a ragged breath, struggling to get ahold of her runaway thoughts, denying them even as she was drawn back to his words, ones she knew now by heart.
We met at the university. She was so alive, so bright and eager and smart. I looked at her and saw the future in her eyes. My future.
What had John seen when he'd looked into her eyes? A child who needed protecting? An innocent who could be molded to his liking? Julianna swallowed hard. What had anybody ever seen in her eyes?
At the answer, the tears welled and spilled over, trickling slowly down her cheeks. Her mother had treated her like one of her expensive accessories, no different than a Hermés scarf or Gucci handbag. John, too, had had a narrow space for her in his life. And although he had professed to love her and had treated her well, he had wanted her to conform to that space and fill no other.
She wanted more now. She wanted what Kate had.
Angry, Julianna swiped at her cheeks and lowered her gaze again to the profile on her lap. She read about Richard's childhood and family, his dreams and aspirations. He shared his hopes for the future; his views on love, marriage and parenting.
She turned the last page, realizing only then that she was trembling. His words were her thoughts. Her hopes and dreams and prayers. This man, though they had never met, had reached into her head and heart, touching her in a way no one ever had.
It was as if he knew her. As if they were connected somehow, one person separated by time and fate.
Brought back together by the same.
Richard. And Julianna.
She tested his name on her tongue, saying it aloud, mating it with her own. Their names sounded…right together. They felt right together. As she said them, repeating them over and over, it was as if a bell went off in her head, a sort of chime, ringing out the beginning of her life. The real beginning, one that had nothing to do with her physical birth. Nothing to do with her past.
She was new now. Reborn. All the pieces had fallen into place. It all made sense. This was why she had gotten pregnant. Why John had driven her away. This was what every event of her life had led her to.
She believed in fate. In destiny. She had found hers.
Richard. And Julianna.
Julianna laid the profile aside and picked up its accompanying photo album. She ran her fingers over the embossed leather cover, heart beating uncomfortably fast, almost afraid to open it, though she didn't know why.
Perhaps because what she was feeling was so potent, so new and frightening. Perhaps because of the feeling in the pit of her gut-that she had just run headlong into her future.
Her future. Theirs. Richard and Julianna's.
With trembling fingers, Julianna opened the photo album. She went from one page to the next, turning them almost reverently, breathless at the enormity of what was transpiring, how her life was changing.
He was as she had pictured him through his words. Tall and dark-haired, with broad shoulders and an enticing, boyish smile. He looked strong and confident. A man a woman could lean on. One who loved deeply, passionately.
The man she had been waiting for.
Richard and Julianna.
And Kate. A problem.
Julianna drew her eyebrows together. She bore the woman no ill will. How could she? After all, she was a part of this, too, one of the pieces that had drawn them all together. If not for Kate's desire for a child, how would Julianna have found Richard?
Julianna skimmed her gaze from one photo in the album to the next, reading the accompanying inscription. Richard and Kate skiing in Aspen. Sailing on Lake Pontchartrain. Vacationing in the Tropics. Arms around each other. Smiling and gazing into one another's eyes.
Julianna stared at the photos, a knot in her throat. Kate wasn't gorgeous. She wasn't even beautiful, not really. But she looked smart. She looked classy. Not like a little girl. Not dependent. Not an over-sexed glamazon.
She touched one of the photographs, stroking her finger over Kate's glossy image. Kate was someone a man like Richard would fall in love with, she thought. Someone who would be this man's lover and partner.
Someone who deserved all the good things that had come to her.
Julianna frowned. At the tug of jealousy she felt. At the pang of insecurity.
She shook the emotions off. Those wouldn't do. She was prettier than Kate, younger and sexier. Class could be acquired, education feigned.
If she chose, she could be everything Kate was, have everything Kate had.
If she chose.
Julianna returned her attention to the album, to the photos of Richard and Kate. As she gazed at them, Kate disappeared and Julianna became the woman on Richard's arm, the woman he looked at with such love. The one to whom all the good things had come.
Yes, she thought. She chose to become the woman Kate was. To have what she had; to live her life.
All she had to do was make it happen.
12
The Saturday morning crowd at The Uncommon Bean consisted almost exclusively of college students and singles. The former came to visit with friends or to study, the latter to meet other singles, a healthy alternative to the bar scene.