“Oh my God. You what?”
“Josh has been on it for several weeks. He’s spent an extensive amount of time in both Poughkeepsie and Houston.”
“Houston?”
“Yes.”
“What did he find?”
“It seems that a week before you were born, there was a girl who gave birth to a baby that was never assigned a social security number. The teenage girl left the hospital before she applied for it. Josh got ahold of the girl’s medical intake form. She’d given a bogus name for herself, but she’d listed her nearest relative as a Brad Spears, and that name checked out. He located Brad, who told him the real name of his friend who had disappeared years earlier. Her name is Lydia Van der Kamp. She was from Texas and had apparently been hiding her pregnancy from her parents.”
My heartbeat began to accelerate. “Lydia is my mother?”
Reed nodded. “It looks like it. This guy Brad and Lydia were pen pals when she ran away from her religious family and came to New York. He wasn’t the baby’s father, but Brad had a thing for her. The plan was that she’d stay, have the baby, and then they’d run away together. That’s the part where things get a little fuzzy. For some reason, Lydia had a change of heart. She disappeared from the hospital and took the baby without telling Brad, and that’s as much as he knows. Shortly after, you were discovered at the church. Josh located a Lydia Van der Kamp in Houston. She was the only person with that name in the area. Around that time, you told me you were found wearing an Astros blanket. That corroborated the Texas connection.”
I covered my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Since then, Josh has been in Texas and has spoken to Lydia’s children.”
“Children?”
I have siblings?
Reed half smiled. “Yeah. She has two sons. They confirmed that their mother recently confessed that she’d abandoned a child in a New York church as a teenager. We don’t have a blood test to confirm anything, but I think it’s safe to say we found your mother.”
I wanted to know what she looked like. “Do you have a photo of her?”
“No, unfortunately, I don’t. But I can get that for you.”
Nodding my head repeatedly to absorb all of this, I said, “Okay . . .”
I got the sense that he was hesitant to tell me something else.
“Is there more?”
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. “She’s dying, Charlotte.”
My heart felt like it was disintegrating. “What?”
“That phone call I just received brought some unsettling news. Apparently Lydia has been suffering from complications of Crohn’s disease, which hit her very hard and young. She got something called sclerosing cholangitis, which resulted in liver failure. She’s on life support at the moment and is not expected to survive.”
My mother is dying? She’s so young.
“Oh my God. What does this mean?”
He paused. “It means you and I are heading to Texas.”CHAPTER 31
REED
I hated having put her in this situation, but what was the alternative? She’d have regretted it for the rest of her life if she hadn’t come to Texas.
As we stood in front of the hospital in the sweltering heat, an overcast sky was a fitting addition to this ominous day.
Charlotte stopped short of the entrance. “I’m not ready to go in yet.”
“We can stay out here as long as you need.” Placing my hand on her shoulder, I said, “Can I get you anything?”
“I need some water, I think.”
“Let’s go to the cafeteria.”
“No. I want to stay out here. Can you just get me a drink and bring it back here?”
“Of course.”
Charlotte definitely wasn’t in her right mind today. Who could blame her? That was further evidenced by what I witnessed upon returning outside.
The skies had opened up and it was pouring rain. I was walking back with two bottles of water when I noticed that Charlotte was dancing with the man who had been smoking a cigarette outside when I’d left her. They were smiling and laughing as they rocked back and forth with their hands intertwined.
What the fuck?
Then it hit me.
Dance with a Stranger in the Rain.
She’d decided to take this opportunity to knock an item off her Fuck-It List. Kind of an odd moment to choose to do that, but if you knew Charlotte, you knew to expect anything. She’d likely needed the distraction from the stress right at this moment and had taken it.
I was trying not to let my jealousy creep in.
Charlotte stopped dancing when she saw me approach. “This man was nice enough to humor me. I explained the Fuck-It List.”
“Don’t worry.” He smiled. “I’m happily married. Didn’t mean to offend.”
The look on my face must have been obvious. “No offense taken.”
She turned to him. “Thank you. I really needed that.”
“My pleasure.”
As we walked away, I spoke in her ear. “What’s his name?”