She put on the nightgown, then sat down on the stool and stared at the toiletries, trying to remember her normal skin care routine. “This one,” Diaz said, nudging the toner forward. He had watched her get ready for bed on more than one occasion, leaning against the bathroom door frame and waiting patiently enough, but watching her with narrowed, hungry eyes.
Lethargically she poured toner on a cotton pad and wiped it on her face. Diaz pushed the moisturizer forward, and obediently she smoothed the cream on her face and neck. Then he leaned down and lifted her in his arms, carried her out of the bathroom and down the short hall to a bedroom. The bedside lamp was on, the covers turned down. He placed her between the sheets, pulled up the covers, and turned off the lamp. “Good night,” he said as he walked out and closed the door behind him.
She slept immediately, as if her brain simply switched off, and several hours later woke crying. She touched the tears on her face and stared at them in bewilderment for a moment, then memory rushed back and brought with it that clawing pain.
The agony was so sharp she couldn’t lie in bed. She got up and paced the small bedroom, her arms folded over her middle as if she could hold the pain in, but the same deep, tearing sounds she’d made earlier tore free from her chest and throat. She almost howled in her grief, and for the first time understood why in some cultures the bereaved tore out their hair and ripped their garments. She wanted to smash the furniture, throw something. She wanted to run screaming down the beach and throw herself into the ocean. Drowning had to be less painful than this.
Eventually exhaustion and that odd numbness claimed her again, and she fell back into bed.
Morning dawned clear and slightly warmer. She got out of bed, dressed, and looked out the window. Now that it was daylight, she could see the Atlantic looming just over a sand dune, all that water seeming to come right at her in an endless procession of waves. There was a row of houses much like this one marching up and down the beach; some were newer and bigger, others were older and smaller. During the summer the beach would be crowded with vacationers, but this morning it was devoid of people. After a while, she trudged to the kitchen.
Diaz had made coffee. He himself was nowhere in sight, nor was the Jeep parked outside. There was a note on the kitchen table that said, “Gone for food.”
Milla poured herself a cup of coffee and walked about the small house, familiarizing herself with it. Besides the kitchen, bathroom, and her bedroom, there were two more bedrooms, equally small. The one Diaz had slept in was right next to hers, the pillow dented, the bed unmade. The kitchen was an eat-in, with a laundry alcove off it that was just large enough to fit in a washer and dryer. In front was the living room, filled with cozy, overstuffed furniture and a twenty-five-inch television. Across the front of the house was a screened porch with a set of white wicker furniture with colorful floral cushions. From the porch she looked straight out over the ocean, blue today from the reflected sky. The morning air was cold, and after a few minutes she went back inside to sit at the kitchen table and drink another cup of coffee.
Desolation filled her. For over ten years she’d kept herself focused; there had been pain, yes, but also purpose. Now there was nothing.
She would have to get rid of the rocks in her house. Justin wouldn’t be needing them.
She had known for over three years now that even if she found him, she would still never have him. On his seventh birthday, she had awakened to the realization that he was irrevocably gone. Even if she found him that very day, his life and security were centered around other people, and to take him away from that would be devastating to him. Because she loved him, she knew she would have to let him go. She still had to search, she had to make certain he was okay . . . but he was gone. He would never be hers again.
She had hoped she would find comfort in the fact that he’d had a good life, good parents. And she did—she did—but the grief was still so immense she didn’t know how she could survive it.
It was as if he had died, as if she had lost him all over again. What she had done was irrevocable. David had been aghast when she told him what they had to do. He’d wept, he’d raged—all the stages she had gone through in private. “We’ve just found him!” he’d shouted. “How can we do this? Without even seeing him, talking to him?”
“Look at his face,” she’d said gently, once more directing him to the photographs she’d taken. “He’s happy. How can we take that away from him?”
“We could still meet him,” David had insisted, desperate. “He doesn’t have to know who we are. I—damn it, Milla, I agree we can’t totally disrupt his life by taking him away from these people, but we finally have a chance now to—”
“No. If we show up without giving his adoptive parents this security of knowing he’s irrevocably theirs, what are they likely to do? I know what I’d do. I’d take him and run.”
“But we could see him,” he pleaded, worn down by the truth in her argument.
“That will have to be up to his parents. It has to be. This is what’s best for Justin, not what’s best for us. David, you have a family you love. You have to think about them, too. We can’t tear up everyone else’s life because of our own selfishness.”
“Is it selfish to want to see our son? You, at least—you’ve sacrificed your own life to look for him, you’ve done so much more than I ever could. How can you not want to at least talk to him?”
“I do,” she said fiercely. “I want to grab him and never let him go. But it’s too late now, it’s been too late for years. We aren’t his family now. If we ever know him, it’ll have to be his choice. Otherwise the damage to him will be terrible, and I haven’t fought so hard and so long to find him just so I would be happy. I had to know if he was safe, if he was loved. He is.” She swallowed and repeated, “He is.”