Chapter Forty-Six

"Well, I did it," I said solemnly as I walked back out into the waiting room, the last words he had said to me ringing painfully in my ears as I subconsciously noted passing Diana and Walker in the hallway on my way back to where Reese was waiting for me in the waiting room.

"And...?" Reese prompted me.

"And he kicked me out," I said, smiling ruefully.

"Really?" he said, not a bit of surprise in his voice. I felt offended by that. I loved Reese, but every once in a while his constant "I told you so" attitude overshadowed all that was good about him. Which is hard to do. "Is that better or worse than you were expecting?"

"Better," I said, shrugging, not going into any detail. I didn't mention that I had planned out two scenarios in my head, one positive one, and one extremely negative one. At least the negative one was long, and well thought out, giving me a chance to explain what had happened. I hadn't expected it all to be so short. I hadn't expected to chicken out at the last second. I hadn't expected him to kick me out that soon.

"And now we catch a flight back to Oklahoma?" he said hopefully.

"No," I said, sitting down next to him. "Now we try again. In a few days."

He shook his head. "Annie, it's not going to work. Why can't you just leave well enough alone? The Hansons and the Lowells are good people, you've said so yourself a thousand times over. And now that Parker and..."

"Taylor," I supplied. "Count on Diana and Walker to come up with a stupid-ass name like that," I add under my breath.

"And now that Parker and Taylor," he continued, "have found each other, it's pointless. You play no part in all of that."

"What do you mean I play no part? I'm their mother. As long as we're all having a reunion, I think this is the perfect time to tell him," I protested.

He rolled his eyes but didn't bother to respond. He knew he couldn't win battles with me just as well as I knew I couldn't win battles with him. We constantly found ourselves in a stalemate.

"You may as well spare yourself the heartache, Annie," he said after a moment.

"I know," I said. "Look, this is going to sound like it's all been said before, but I can't go through life knowing that my own sons have no idea who I am or where I am or even what I look like. I can't not try. I'd hate myself."

He shook his head.

"You're making a mistake," he said.

"No, I already made the mistake. I'm just trying to fix it now," I said to him firmly.

"Annie, giving them up was not a mistake, it was the right thing to do. You couldn't have been a good mother to them at the time. You were going through too many things, it would've been too hard. You were in the right when you gave them up," he said.

"And the you brought one of them back and I fell in love with him and then I had to give him up again," I said. "This is all your fault, you know, not mine." I knew I was jabbing a nerve when I said that. I knew it would hurt him. I was too angry to care.

"It's nobody's fault," he said, though he sounded guilty.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the longest blonde hair I had ever seen and turned my head to focus my attention on Diana and Walker as they re-entered the waiting room.

"That's his mother to him," Reese told me softly, noticing the same thing I had noticed. "He doesn't even know you."

"That's why I'm here!" I shouted, thankful that there weren't many people there at the time of morning. "Because they don't know me. I don't care if I can be a mother to them. I want them to know me. I want to be their friend or at least just have an understanding between us as to why I gave them up."

He sat back. Maybe for once, an argument had been won.

"You can go back to good ol' O-K if you want but I can't," I went on. "That was my son back there and I love him no less than I did when I had to give him up. The only problem is, he doesn't know me."

"And maybe he doesn't care to know you!" Reese snapped. "Maybe he doesn't care where you've gone or why you gave him up, he has a perfectly loving family and doesn't need you or need to know you."

Now I was the one who sat back, shocked at his words. Reese had always reprimanded me for wanting to know Parker and Taylor, but he had never been so harsh before. The hard thing about it was I was beginning to think he was right. And I didn't want him to be right.

"Shut up," I said, turning away from him, the tears flowing freely.

"Annie," he said, more sympathetically.

"Shut up," I repeated, feeling pathetic because that was my only defense against his words.

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Index
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Seven