Suze looks up from the front desk as Blitz and I enter the building.
“Gwen and Danika are in the office,” she says. “Gwen's pretty upset.”
“Has she been here long?” I ask.
“Less than five minutes,” she says.
I glance over at Blitz. He takes my hand and squeezes it. “Let's face this together,” he says.
Tears prick my eyes. Gwen has figured it out. It makes sense that she would. She looks at my daughter every day and sees me twice a week. Once she knew I had a baby, she would recognize the resemblance. It's obvious to anyone who knows.
We cross the foyer and head through the doors to the side with the recital hall and Danika's office. My feet feel heavy. I just thought that a twenty-foot drop on an aerial silk was the scariest thing I would do today.
I am terrified.
Danika's door is closed, which is very rare. Her office is already isolated on the opposite side of the building from the dance classes. I knock on the solid wood surface.
No one calls out, but after a moment, Danika opens the door. She nods at me. “Hello, Livia,” she says. She swings it wide. “Gwen is here.”
My daughter's adopted mother has her head in her hands, her elbows braced on the edge of Danika's desk. She doesn't look at me as we all enter.
Blitz stands back in the corner. I take the chair next to Gwen. Danika settles back in her seat on the opposite side of the desk.
Danika speaks first. “Gwen wants to know if Gabriella is your daughter,” she says. “She's the right age, and the resemblance is definitely there.”
I glance over at Blitz. He nods. Gwen hasn't changed her position. All I can see is her curly dark brown hair and the curve of her back in a gray sweater.
“Yes,” I say. “I gave birth to Gabriella on May 12, 2012. She was six pounds and eight ounces. Fifteen inches long. They tried not to let me see her, but I held her once for a few minutes before they took her away.”
“At 8:52 p.m.,” Gwen says. “We were downstairs.”
“That's what they told me,” I say. “The caseworker didn't want me to know if she was a boy or a girl. She was terrible. But I was so scared. I didn't say anything.”
Gwen looks up and her eyes meet mine. She looks anguished. “The caseworker was awful,” she says. “I never liked her, but she brought us our daughter.” Her gaze drops. “That was the happiest day of my life.”
“It was the worst day of mine,” I say simply.
This makes her sit up straight. She looks back at Blitz, then to me. “You're going to take her, aren't you? You have money. Lawyers. You're trying to win her love with these dance lessons so you can have her.” She stands up so abruptly that her chair falls back. “Don't you dare! Don't you come near her! Don't you ever look at her again!”
Danika also stands. “Gwen, I assure you, this will be okay.”
Gwen turns on her. “What do you know? I've already lost my husband! I can't have children of my own! She will take the only thing that matters to me!” Gwen points at me, her finger an accusation.
“I wouldn't!” I try to say, but it comes out weak and dry.
Gwen stands and hurries for the door. “Don't talk to me!” she says. “I'm hiring a lawyer! Stay away!”
And she's gone.
Danika sinks back down in her chair. She doesn't speak for a moment.
Blitz comes up beside me and wraps his arms around my shoulders. “We have no intention of trying to take Gabriella,” he says. “Livia means no harm.”
“Harm has been done,” Danika says. “Anyone here could connect the dots as well as Gwen has done.” She presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I think it's best if the two of you take a leave from the academy.”
When I make a small strangled sound, Danika looks up sympathetically. “I know it's hard, Livia. I have suspected Gabriella was yours for a while, since that boy came here shouting about your baby. I should have acted on it. I am equally to blame.”
“We understand,” Blitz says. “Please extend to Gwen, if you get a chance, our regret and that we have no intention of fighting the adoption.”
“I'll never see her again,” I choke out.
“You've put your name in her files,” Blitz says. “She can find you when she is eighteen.”
That's an eternity. She’s only four. My body feels liquid, like my strength has left me. I want to go back in time. Never go on Blitz's show. Never be in the limelight. Never step from the quiet shadows. At least then I could see the little girl I had been forced to give up.
“Let's go,” Blitz says. He tries to lift me from the chair, but I can't do it. I can't find any strength to move.
“I'll let you two have this space for a little while,” Danika says. “I need to think about how to broach this topic with the staff and the other mothers in Gabriella's class. I would hate for them to reveal her identity to the gossip sites, either accidentally or on purpose.”
I can't answer her. I thought I'd grown so strong in these past months by Blitz's side. But I'm overwhelmed again by shame. Not just in getting pregnant. But in finding my daughter, following her, inserting myself into her life.
I should have left them alone.
I did everything wrong.
I can't even cry. I'm so empty, so bereft of anything. Danika leaves the office, closing the door behind her.
“We'll get through this,” Blitz says.
His words do not comfort me. “How?” I manage to say, words rising up from the vastness inside me, the huge empty hole.
“Because we have to,” he says. “We can't let this swallow us up.”
My vision is dark, as if the lights have gone out. No matter where I look, within or without, I see nothing but darkness anywhere.
I had one thing I held most dear, and I lost it.