Reunion

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Reunion
Therese Fowler

A heartbreaking new novel about lost loves and past regrets. A guaranteed tearjerker.Blue Reynolds has the world at her feet. Her successful daytime chat show and the attendant wealth make her the envy of women all over the globe. But little do her fans know that behind the façade of designer clothes and luxury apartments, Blue is tormented by a tragic event in her past.Whilst on a work trip to Florida, Blue finds herself caught up in a love triangle between two men - a situation made even more problematic by the fact that the two men are father and son. Whilst Blue is drawn to her old flame Mitch, she also finds herself deeply attracted to his enigmatic son Julian.Her troubles are further increased when the press discover that she gave up a child for adoption as a troubled teen - a child that she has desperately tried to find in the years that followed.With the media camping outside her door, desperate to tarnish the reputation of one of the world's most famous women, Blue realizes she must face her demons and overcome her fears as well as follow her heart - even if that means giving up the life she has worked so hard to create.Old conflicts, long-held secrets, and thwarted expectations provoke the question of what makes love true. A compelling and poignant novel that will captivate readers of Anita Shreve and Rosie Thomas.

Reunion

THERESE FOWLER

Copyright (#u16723e4b-046e-5242-b128-b579a8e9c660)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Therese Fowler 2008

Therese Fowler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847560247

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007287635

Version: 2018-05-29

This, my second novel, was so much a labor of love: Love for writing and for telling a story that engaged my imagination so thoroughly; love for my new profession and all the excellent people who publish my work; love for the readers whose responses to my first novel, Souvenir, have humbled me beyond words . . . To those readers I send my most heartfelt thanks.

Second novels are, they say, the hardest to write. The quandary is in deciding how similar the second book should be to the first. I decided to approach the matter much the way a singer might when selecting which songs to record for a new CD. Listeners don’t want the same song on every track, but they do need to recognize the sound as uniquely that artist’s. Consider this book my track #2, a contemporary, slightly up-tempo offering that I hope will be as captivating as readers and reviewers say the first track is.

I have to thank my lovely UK editor Maxine Hitchcock, as well as the entire HarperCollins/Avon team, for their faith in my taking this approach.Without Maxine, I would not have UK readers waiting to see whether this book measures up.

Linda Marrow,my US editor, has earned my unwavering respect, affection, and gratitude for her expert editorial guidance and overall wonderfulness.

Speaking of wonderful: my agent,Wendy Sherman, is precisely that. She and Jenny Meyer, who handles most of my foreign rights, are an author’s dream team. It’s my good fortune to be in their capable hands.

I treasure the camaraderie and support of my writing pals, who know better than anyone else the struggles that take place at the keyboard and behind the scenes.

Most of all, I treasure and thank my enthusiastic family (and not only for the unpaid publicity efforts!). My husband Andrew and our four boys get both the pleasures and the pain of living with a “creative type,” and seem to love me just the same.

For Andrew, who reminds me that things always turn out pretty much the way they’re supposed to.

Love to faults is always blind,Always is to joy inclin’d, Lawless, wing’d, and unconfin’d, And Breaks all chains from every mind.

William Blake

Contents

Cover (#ue463e8b0-4b0c-56e7-99a3-204d2050ec64)Title Page (#uc0150e58-c018-5b82-a370-493d73411bef)Copyright (#ua84ad72c-38cc-56c9-a0cc-f6922d0bb241)Epigraph (#ue4f4165f-6af7-5d9c-b08f-314aa34bb534)Prologue (#u2adcc1a7-4e6a-5f33-9660-b9491c4ba398)Part I (#u6c5c5fac-f414-5a40-a4c7-c181b0adb687)Chapter One (#u9cf033a5-bc11-53d9-9a7c-fb2f2b0eba60)Chapter Two (#u1ce56552-574c-5c03-9893-0e0369e20ae8)Chapter Three (#u2a74ac5b-af76-50c2-af37-200900b2d752)Chapter Four (#uf150fcd6-6019-504e-b8a4-a622bcd76d40)Chapter Five (#ubf4829b3-c793-5c96-9097-a766bb07d6b8)Chapter Six (#ufc40df25-45e9-5609-abc5-807bf93f4937)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Part II (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Part III (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Part IV (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)By The Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u16723e4b-046e-5242-b128-b579a8e9c660)

Her name was Harmony Blue. Harmony Blue Kucharski,not Forrester, as it ought to have been by then. Unmarried,nineteen, she lay in her narrow bed in the smallest of therundown rental’s bedrooms. Her groans had already drivenone of her housemates away, leaving only two people to tendher: the midwife, whose name at the time was MeredithJones, and a teenage girl who wanted to be known as Bat.

“I’m looking out for you,” Bat said, sitting on the bed’s edgeand holding her friend’s clammy hand.

Like all of the fledgling adults who came and went here,Bat was hardly capable of looking out for herself. But if herwords had little impact—the young woman hardly cared whatshe said—the fact of Bat being there was real comfort inbetween the pains.

Harmony Blue, sweaty and exhausted, had once beendescribed as “fetching.” She tried to remember where she’dheard it, who had used such a word … Then she had it: anold farmer in Wisconsin, five or six years earlier; she had beentrying for the Miss Junior Dairy Maiden crown, despite neverhaving been within milking distance of a cow. Entering thepageant had been her mother’s idea, a chance for the two-hundred-fifty-dollar prize. Pink and white hair ribbons, theyoung woman remembered; ruffles at her throat and knees;a rhinestone tiara that was lost in the next move.

She looked at Bat’s reflection in the mirrored closet door,at bony shoulder blades visible inside a black Duran Durantour t-shirt, black hair cut asymmetrically, longer on the leftand striped with one fuchsia swath behind her ear. Bat hadstyle, identity, whereas she had neither. What she had wasmatted hair, a stretched-to-its-limits red sweatshirt, a swollenbelly and a rounded, pallid face.

Excepting the belly and the fullness of her face, she appearedto be the same untethered person who’d taken refuge here tenmonths earlier—which just went to show how untrustworthyan image could be; nothing but the visible bit of an icebergthat was otherwise out of sight. She wasn’t the innocent she’dbeen when she got here. She was no longer quite so naïve.

She watched the mirror, saw her eyes narrow and her lipsflatten as another contraction began and tightened, a cinchedstring yanking her entire body inward to its core. Then shewas seeing nothing but the black heat of pain as Bat said,“Breathe, remember? Breathe!”

Slowly, her vision cleared, and the midwife examined heragain. “Just about time to push,” Meredith said. Meredith’sface was thin but kind, and not so much older looking thanher two companions’, whose desperate faith in her was all toocommon.

Harmony Blue panted, avoiding the midwife’s eyes andwords and looking, instead, at the pink ceramic lamp on thedresser. A painted-on ballerina smiled serenely from the lamp’srounded base. The light shining through the dusty lampshadewarmed the room the same way it had warmed the bedroomwhere the lamp used to be. Where her sister had been too,until adulthood—such as it was—had come for each of them.

She concentrated on the faded Journey band poster on thewall above the lamp, positioned just as it had been in thatother bedroom. “Don’t Stop Believin’” they urged in one oftheir songs, but she’d failed them, and now look at her.Pregnant not by a man she loved, not by the man she loved,but by a guy she barely knew, a guy she could not have caredless about. Pregnant and then paralyzed by the mistake,tortured, unable to decide what she wanted to do. Keep it? Endit? Indecisive weeks had turned to months, leaving her witha different pair of choices—and even then she’d had troublechoosing, until Meredith helped her see which way to go.

Meredith had supported her wish to give birth at home,where she would not be judged. Meredith was a facilitator—that was the term she’d used, a facilitator for the people onthe other end. There was some money involved, not that itmattered. There was always money in these situations,according to Bat, who’d found Meredith through the friendof a friend. The new parents’ offer to the girl, through somelaw firm, through Meredith, had been ten thousand dollars.For expenses, Meredith said. It would be a closed adoption.Anonymous. No strings. No names.

Bat squeezed her hand harder. “Why is there so muchblood?”

Meredith, sitting on a stool at the end of the bed, leaned backand sighed. With her forearm, she brushed dark bangs backfrom her narrow face. “It’s normal. Okay now, with the nextcontraction, take a breath, focus, and push.”

Focus. Icy rain blew against the window just above themidwife’s head, pattering, streaking. Focus. How was shesupposed to focus when her belly was going to split wide openat any second? This accidental baby … the pain was herpunishment, pain like a hot iron shoved into her lower back,proving that there was no escaping stupidity. So she’d gottenher heart broken by the man she’d believed was perfect forher, so what? Other girls didn’t deal with heartbreak byrunning away, by joining a group of directionless misfits likethe ones she was living with. Getting high. Getting pregnant.

Getting over it was what she should have done.

She was over it now, though. In her time here, she had notspoken of her past, not to Bat, not to Will—who’d gotten herpregnant, she didn’t care how much he’d denied it before hesplit—not to any of the people she’d met. If she revealed herheartbreak, they would see her for the fool she was. They’dreject her too, she was sure. She had not spoken of her past,and she would not.

“Deep breath,” Meredith said. “You’re almost there.”

“No,” she moaned, holding her belly. “No, I can’t.” If timewould only stop for a minute, let her catch her breath, let herspend a little longer with the baby there beneath her hands.It was true that she hadn’t been sure, at first, if she’d continuethe pregnancy. It was true that this baby owed its existencemore to inaction than intent. Even so, they were good friendsnow. She’d tried to protect him—or was it her?—she’d reallytried. A few more days as one entity. Maybe that would beenough.

“Push now.” The midwife’s face was lighted, eager. “Comeon, here’s the head.”

She began to cry, knowing there was no stopping it, painlike a locomotive pulling, pulling the baby on to its real life,its better life. She wanted that for this child, this unintendedeffect of too much fun, too little thought—same as its motherhad been, and its aunt. She wanted this child to have intentional parents, who would make its life everything that hershadn’t been.

“Happy accidents” was what her mother had liked to callher and her sister, even after they had little to be happy about.When the girls reached puberty, the refrain became, “Just don’timagine I’d be able to raise yours. We can barely affordourselves and, though God knows I try, I am not as capableas my mother.” That would be their grandmother, Kate, who’dhelped raise them. Until she died, and then they’d had to forthe most part raise themselves.

“Oh my god, oh my god.” Bat leaned over to watch thebaby emerging, still squeezing her friend’s hand. “Oh my god!You did it! Jesus! Check him out! It’s a boy!”

A son. Good. Everyone wanted a son. He’d be especially lovedby his parents. He was from questionable stock, but the adoptingparents didn’t care. It was enough for them that he be whiteand healthy—he was healthy, just look at him, listen to thatcry!—and free of complications. Meredith had assured her thatthis way was best, no strings for any of them. As soon as theadoption paperwork was filed and finalized, the original birthcertificate would be sealed away, accessible only by court order.She would own her future again, free and clear, as if he hadnever happened. No strings, no trail.

Meredith would be back later, and tomorrow, and again,if needed, in the weeks to come. Post-partum was the wordshe’d used. Any trouble and Harmony Blue was to call thenumber she’d called when her labor began, and Meredithwould come. “If it isn’t an emergency, don’t go to the ER,”the midwife had said.

Bat had nodded as though she, too, was wise, and said,“Not unless you want to have to answer a lot of questions.”

She didn’t. Not any. Ever.

“Not unless she wants to wait all day,” Meredith said.

Now Meredith held the baby up, one hand beneath hisbuttocks, one beneath his head. “Do you want to hold him?”

“I do!” Bat said.

Harmony Blue struggled to sit upright. The pain was ashadow now, the way her belly was a shadow of what it hadbeen just moments before. Her belly. Round but no longerbulging. A cantaloupe instead of a watermelon, and why wasshe thinking of fruit? Would the tiny thing, sputtering therein the midwife’s hands, that red-faced creature with blooddrying on his newborn skin, would he love fruit the way shedid? Would his parents one day tempt him with fresh pineappleand find he took to it like a duck to bugs? Her grandma, Kate,had always said that, like a duck to bugs.

Would he have her brown eyes, her slender fingers? Wouldhe love to play Scrabble the way she once had? Before, in thatother life that now seemed as far away as Sirius. Sirius wasthe brightest star, the most hopeful point of light in the sky.She had wished on it so often. Had begun, for a time, tobelieve she’d been heard.

“Yes, I’ll hold him,” she said. Meredith cut the umbilicalcord and tied it off. She squeezed drops into the infant’s eyes,then wrapped him in a pale yellow receiving blanket andhanded him into her arms. He continued to sputter, but itwas a half-hearted noise, as if he knew some sound wasexpected but really didn’t want to make any further fuss. He’dbe a good baby, she could tell already.

When the placenta was out and the contractions hadsubsided, stitches were put in, plastic bags filled and tied andplaced in the cardboard box that Meredith had put by thedoor. Meredith picked up the box and left the room, sayingshe’d be back in a few minutes. “We’ll do the paperwork, andthen … I’ll be needing to go.”

After the door closed, Bat smoothed the baby’s damp hairand traced his eyebrows with one finger. “You have to keephim. Don’t you want to keep him? God, he’s so … I don’tknow. I mean, wow!”

Harmony Blue recognized the feverish look in her friend’seyes. Speed, probably. She looked away, back to the purity, theinnocence of the tiny boy in her arms. “He deserves better.”

Meredith had quizzed her on her drug use when they’d mettwo months ago. How often? How much? She had backed offonce she realized she was pregnant, she truly had, even asshe’d still felt the need to disappear from herself. “Not toomuch,” was the answer she’d given Meredith, “and nothingreally, you know, bad.” Nothing from a needle. She’d heardof AIDS, she said—only to have Meredith look at her sideways.

“You know about AIDS, but not condoms?”

Guilty.

The baby seemed to be studying her. What did he see? Washer face, with its narrow nose and wide mouth and olive skinthat tanned so quickly, being stored in his memory, so that ifhe saw her one day he would know? Would she know him?Not that such a meeting would happen: the adopting parents,whom she’d spoken with twice before making her decision,lived far from Chicago. They said they were West Coast peoplewho had tried every fertility treatment medical science hadto offer. They seemed caring and kind—she’d thought so evenjust seeing the Polaroid Meredith had given her before they’dspoken, anonymously of course. Meredith the matchmaker.To the couple, she had given two photos of Harmony Blue: aclose-up and a side view—to prove she was seven monthsalong, she supposed. At forty and forty-three, the parents-to-bewere a little older than she might have chosen, all thingsconsidered—but that was why they were using a law firm,and Meredith: no agency would approve them. They hadmoney though, so why not use it to help out a troubled youngwoman and fulfill their single most important dream? Theircompassion and their money meant this child would neversuffer for her weakness.

She whispered to him, “Never.”

They’d told her to take her time deciding—at least a dayor two after the birth, so she would be sure she was makingthe right choice for her, and them. But, having finally madeher decision, she’d told Meredith she wanted to get it overwith quickly. She was strong, but not that strong.

Soon the front door opened again. She could see Meredithshake out her umbrella then pull it inside and prop it by thedoor. Terrible weather for a first trip out into the world, butchildren were resilient, her grandmother had always saidso.

Wiping her shoes, Meredith reached into her trench coat’sright pocket. She crossed the front room and came into thebedroom, saying, “Where do you want me to put this?”

The envelope was so fat that a rubber band had to bindit. All twenties? The baby pushed a foot against her ribs reflexively, same as he’d done for months, only on the inside.

She shook her head. “I told you: no money.”

“And I told you, you need it. Take it.” Meredith’s eyes weresympathetic. “Consider it payment for the hard work you justdid for this family. Consider it a scholarship fund.”

“Take it,” Bat said.

She kissed the baby’s downy head, letting her lips linger asif to imprint herself on him. He wouldn’t remember her, notreally. Thank God he wouldn’t. Except in some quiet piece ofhis soul, where he would know she loved him.

“Have them start a savings account, with the money.”

Meredith came over and squatted next to her. “He’ll havea savings account already. And everything else he needs. Don’tbe foolish.”

“Too late.”

Meredith watched her for a moment, then sighed and putthe money in her pocket. “We’ll talk about it again later. Let’sdo the paperwork.”

She would not remember, in the years to come, much ofwhat was on the forms she signed. She would rememberinstead the warm weight of the infant in the crook of herarm, the vision she conjured of the new parents’ joy whenMeredith delivered the baby for the second time.

Meredith tucked the papers into a folder and set them aside.She asked Bat, “Do you want to go over the care instructionsonce more?”

“No, it’s cool, both of you can count on me.”

“All right then,” Meredith said, turning back to the girl.“Supplies are in the bag. I’ll check on you later tonight. Meanwhile, use cold packs for your breasts if needed, and Tylenolevery four hours. You’ll be sore all over—”

“I know. Take him.”

Meredith reached for her free hand, held it while she said,“Now I know what you told me, and I know we’ve signed theforms, but until I leave you can still change your—”

“Take him.”

“All right then,” Meredith said, reaching for the child. “It’sa good decision. I want you to know that.”

She could only nod.

Empty. Her arms, her belly. Now, quickly, she had to emptyher mind, too, or be destroyed. Teeth clenched, she watchedMeredith diaper the infant, watched her wrap him in a heavierblanket and put a cap on his head, watched her put him toher shoulder, watched her grab the file and leave the roomand grasp the front door’s knob. Meredith didn’t look back;she’d done this before.

The door closed, and it was over.

Part I (#u16723e4b-046e-5242-b128-b579a8e9c660)

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; giveme the man who living makes a name.

Emily Dickinson

Chapter One (#u16723e4b-046e-5242-b128-b579a8e9c660)

Present Day

In Chicago, the snow was falling so hard that, although quite a few pedestrians saw the woman standing on the fire escape nine stories up, none were sure they recognized her. At first the woman leaned against the railing and looked down, as if calculating the odds of death from such a height. After a minute or two, though, when she hadn’t climbed the rail but had instead stepped back from it, most people who’d noticed her continued on their ways. She didn’t look ready to jump, so why keep watching? And how about this snow, they said. What the hell? It wasn’t supposed to snow like this in spring!