Chapter 12
I’m on pins and needles as we wait to hear the final word from the ballet. I’m not sure I’ll even take it. Blitz has turned down gigs left and right to stay with me. Anything longer than a couple days for a talk show or a guest appearance is an automatic no.
We call off the search for a house here in San Antonio. He agrees that it’s not as necessary as it once was, when we were teaching Gabriella and planning our lives around her.
But I can’t stop thinking about the situation.
I have Gwen’s address. I’ve always had it, at least in the two years since I first found her. It’s the first thing I knew other than their names. I found it in an old-fashioned phone book.
When I was younger, I would sometimes call the number secretly from church, then hang up if Gwen or her husband answered. Once I heard a child singing in the background and it was literally the best day ever.
Until I got my license a few weeks ago, driving somewhere alone wasn’t an option. I couldn’t truly sneak around.
But now I can.
This is why, one afternoon after my private ballet workout, I sit alone in my car and pull out Google Maps. I tap in the address I’ve had memorized since I was seventeen.
It’s a bit of a drive, maybe half an hour from where I am right now. Blitz might wonder why I’m late, but he won’t question me. I’m not exactly the sort of girl who might be doing something wrong.
Is this wrong?
I guess so. Stalking.
My little white convertible pulls away from the curb. The Google voice tells me to get on the freeway, but I am too nervous for that still. When I stay on the frontage road and take a different artery through town, it adjusts.
It’s just a peek, right? I’ll see what sort of house my baby girl lives in. Maybe catch sight of a toy or two in the yard, and know a bit more about her other than her love of brightly colored tutus and ribbon sticks.
It strikes me how narrow my view of her has been. Gabriella has always seemed happy, but she loves dance. Maybe in other situations she cries, or whines, and maybe Gwen has to scold her.
I picture this and my stomach twists. No, I won’t think of it. Gabriella is cheerful, even when she has trouble. She once got a blister on her thumb from dancing in the wheelchair, before Gwen realized she would need gloves for dance.
Despite the bleeding painful sore, Gabriella didn’t cry over it more than the first few seconds after it popped. A Band-Aid and a hug cured her completely and she went on, adjusting by holding the wheel a different way.
And she had only been four years old.
No, I know her. I do. She’s tough and strong and sweet.
The best.
My eyes smart now. I shouldn’t do this. I should not invade her world or drown myself in what-ifs. I should turn my car around and go home.
But I don’t.
I cross through middle-class neighborhoods, cars parked on the street and bikes lying across driveways. In the cul-de-sacs, there are basketball hoops, sometimes with kids playing at them. It’s summer. Time for fun.
The voice guides me through turns and down streets. I pass restaurants, a bowling alley, two grocery stores. I wonder which of these places Gabriella has visited. I can see her rolling a heavy ball from the wheelchair, bouncing it off the guards until it finally makes it to the end.
I bowled in the time before my father shut down our family. Andy was too young, but some of the kids used a little ramp to send the ball down the lane.
I would do that with her. She would love it. Maybe Gwen has thought of it.
Does Gwen help her make the most of what she can do? She brought her to Dreamcatcher. The flier I mailed her with a stolen stamp worked. She looked for opportunities and took them. I have to believe Gabriella is the best she can be where she is.
I am close.
I turn down her street. My heart speeds up. What will I see? Gwen’s white SUV, if it isn’t in the garage. The front door. Maybe I will spot a neighbor or a friend.
I realize I’m not wearing sunglasses and fumble in the console to find them. They aren’t there. I left them at home.
No scarf for my hair. What if they are sitting outside? What if they see me driving by?
They won’t recognize the car. I never drove it to Dreamcatcher. The top is up. The windows are small.
I tell myself to breathe. The odds of them being outside their house are very low.
“The destination is on your left,” Google tells me, and I slow down.
I was right, and there is no one in the yard or on the sidewalks.
Gwen’s car is in the driveway.
I feel bold, and hit the brake to really take my time as I pass. It’s a simple limestone house with green trim. Pretty front door. The wheelchair ramp is obviously newer than the porch, as the concrete is bright white compared to the rest.
No toys in the yard. Everything is neat.
Right as the view gets too far behind me to look anymore, I spot an interesting-looking swing in the tree. But I can’t quite get a good peek. Did Gabriella swing there as a baby? Did they leave it because she still uses it, or because it is sentimental? Maybe the father hung it and Gwen can’t bring herself to take it down.
But something about it is unusual, not typical for a baby swing. It seems too big. Maybe it’s a special one for Gabriella to use.
I want to know.
At least this is what I tell myself as I circle the block and prepare to pass the house again. There was no one out. Nobody will notice a white car cruising by more than once.
This time, I approach from the other direction so that Gwen’s car won’t block my view until I’m too close.
The blue swing is oversized and has a large black harness. If it’s a baby swing, I’ve never seen one like it.
I’m so busy looking at it, that I’m passing the house by the time I realize one of the windows has purple curtains and a big flower sticker. Is that Gabriella’s room?
There were other stickers. I want to know what they are. Does she love My Little Pony? Or Disney Princesses?
My desperation to see some little thing about her hits a peak.
One more pass, I tell myself. I will drive by one more time and then I will go home.
I make a bigger circle this time, so there will be a delay.
But as I approach the house, a message dings through from my phone to my car dash.
Everything going okay today?
It’s Blitz.
I’m too close to stop and answer him. So I punch the message away and peer back at their house.
And almost scream.
They are outside, going down the ramp.
It’s Gwen and Gabriella and a man, probably the new boyfriend she mentioned early this year.
I freak out so hard that I slam on my brakes.
It’s the worst thing I could do.
My tires squeal a little on the pavement, making all three of them look up.
God, God, no no no.
I shield my eyes, hoping they can’t see in the car very easily, and hit the gas.
I race away from their house, their neighborhood, their lives.
Never again, Livia, I tell myself.
You have to stay away.
But I’m crying even as I think it.
How can I? How can I give her up completely?
I don’t know how to go on.
I should never have found her in the first place. Not knowing was so much easier than the pain of losing her a second time.