Happily Letter After by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 29

SADIE

“That’s some crazy story.” My father shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. I’d just spent a full hour unloading the entire unbelievable tale, from how I’d come to meet the Maxwell family because of Amanda clipping my articles to how they’d received a donated egg. He’d known some of it already, but not the entire crazy thing. Honestly, saying it out loud truly made the whole thing sound like something from a soap opera. It had been a week since Sebastian had told me everything, and it still felt surreal.

“I know. So many things had to happen for everything to wind up where we are today. I mean, let’s say it turns out that I was their egg donor and somehow Amanda found out my information and started keeping tabs on me. Someone was going to be the recipient of my donation, so that’s not even the outlandish part. Though of course I realize the donation itself probably isn’t something that is commonly done. But even if that happened, Birdie still had to find her mom’s clipped articles in the bottom of a box and write to Santa on her own. And then I had to decide to start playing Santa Claus, which eventually led to me being nosy and walking by their house. Birdie had to lose a tiny little butterfly clip on the ground, which I happened to have stumbled across. Not to mention, when I attempted to return it, I was stricken with a sudden case of insanity and decided to pretend to be a dog trainer . . . one who trained in German. And let’s not forget that the actual dog trainer had to coincidentally not show up that day because she happened to have had an emergency on the exact same morning I walked by. And even then, after every one of those crazy chain of events actually did somehow transpire, Sebastian and I still had to fall in love. What are the chances of all those things happening, Dad?”

“You know I’m practical to a fault. I believe most things in life come from our own doing. You don’t find a five-dollar bill on the ground because you’re lucky. You find it because you’re paying attention to your surroundings. But this story here, it’s making me think there’s more to it than that. Your mother was more religious than I am. I believe that if you work hard, you get to put food on the table for your family. While your mother believed God takes care of the people who serve him. I gotta say, sweetheart, right about now, I’m feeling like maybe I should be going to church on Sundays.”

I smiled. “What do I do, Dad? Do I open that envelope?”

“Would it change anything today if you did?”

I thought about it and shook my head. “I love Birdie already, so it won’t change how I feel about her. And I’m not sure it would be the right time to tell her now. You and Mom never hid it from me that I was adopted. I don’t remember a time that I ever didn’t know. So I never felt like one day you pulled the rug out from underneath me by dropping a bomb that you weren’t my biological parents. I always knew who I was, and I would think Birdie would feel like she suddenly didn’t anymore, if that makes any sense.”

Dad nodded. “We struggled to decide how to handle that. But in the end, we felt that the truth always comes out. And often that happens when it’s not a good time for it to appear. We didn’t want you to believe something your entire life and then find out that everything you knew had been a lie. Your mother and I were afraid that could lead to you having trust issues.”

I sighed. “Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, and I’m glad I always knew. But in Birdie’s case, things are a little different. She’s ten years old already. The fact that her mother isn’t her biological mother has been hidden from her for a long time now. So she would feel like her world got turned upside down. And you’re absolutely right, she might not trust anything her dad, or me for that matter, tells her after springing something like this on her. It’s almost like the damage has already been done for ten years. That can’t be changed.”

“When we were debating how to deal with letting you know, we asked the adoption agency for their opinion. You know what the woman said?”

“What?”

“She said if you have to sit down with your child and tell them that they’ve been adopted, you waited too long.”

I blew out a deep breath. “I think you’re right. Since it’s already been kept from her, the focus needs to be on when the best time to come clean is. Is that now or when she’s more mature? Or is it not at all?”

“It sounds to me like you already know the answer to that question.”

I smiled sadly. “Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks, Dad.”

He patted my hand. “There’s something I want to show you. Come with me.”

I followed Dad into his bedroom, and he took an old shoebox down from the top of his closet. He dug around for a minute and then pulled out something. “Here it is. Take a look.”

It was a wrinkled-up piece of paper with one line of script on it. The handwriting I knew was my mother’s. I read it aloud.

“When two people are meant to be together, God makes it happen.”

I looked up, confused. “What is this?”

“You know that I was in the military when your mom and I met. I’d come home on leave and met her. We spent every moment we could together for two weeks, but then I had to fly back to where I was stationed overseas. I still had six months left of my tour.”

“Yeah, I knew that.”

He took the paper from my hand and smiled looking down at it. “We said goodbye the morning I had to ship out. I was crazy about her, but six months is a long time. I was afraid I’d come home and she’d have moved on.” Dad winked at me. “Your mom was quite the catch, especially for an average guy like me. Anyway, we said goodbye, and I spent the next eighteen hours traveling back to base. That night, when I got changed, this here note fell out of my jacket pocket. Your mother had shoved it in there without my knowing about it. I kept it on me every day until I could get back to her.” He paused and then looked up at me. “Then the day we brought you home, your mother was sitting in that rocking chair she loved so much, cradling you in her arms. And I couldn’t stop watching her.”

My heart squeezed. It was such a beautiful thing for him to say, but it also made me sad, too. I leaned my head on my dad’s shoulder and looked down at the paper with him.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway . . . your mom caught me staring one time too many and asked me what the heck I was doing. You know what I said?”

“What?”

“When two people are meant to be together, God makes it happen.”

I swallowed and tasted salt in my throat. “Oh, Dad . . .”

He folded the piece of paper in his hands and tucked it into my pocket. “Keep it. Share that wisdom with your child someday. Whether that turns out to be Birdie or some other lucky little kid.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. So I texted Sebastian and asked him if I could come by at almost eleven o’clock.

“Hey.” He opened the door before I even knocked.

“How did you know I was here?”

Sebastian smiled. “I was watching out the window for your Uber.”

“Oh. Okay.” I took off my coat and hung it on one of the hooks in the entranceway. “Sorry to come over so late.”

When I turned around, Sebastian immediately pulled me into a hug. “I’m glad you’re here.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m just hoping the urgency I felt in your text wasn’t because you needed to come dump my ass and get it over with.”

I pulled back. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

He let out a ragged breath. “I haven’t heard from you much over the last couple of days. I thought maybe you came to your senses.”

I smiled sadly. “I’m sorry. I just needed some time to think.”

“Of course. Come on, do you want some tea or something?”

I shook my head. “No thanks.” We walked into the quiet living room. “Birdie’s sleeping, I’m assuming?”

“Yeah.” He held up his wrist where there was a friendship bracelet tied on. “She made me take her to get another kit, and then she interrogated me about whether Santa Claus was real while she taught me how to weave these things. I made one for you.”

I smiled. “You did?”

“Yeah, but don’t get too excited. I suck at it.”

I laughed. “Okay. Well, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Keep thinking that when you see how lumpy your new jewelry is.”

I nodded toward his bedroom. “Why don’t we go talk in private? Just in case she gets up.”

“Good idea.”

Sebastian led me into his room before sitting up against the headboard of his bed, and I settled in facing him, tucked between his open legs. I took his hands.

“So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I don’t think we should open the envelope.”

He held my eyes. “You sure?”

I nodded. “I think at this point, it’s Birdie’s decision. When she finds out how she was conceived, she may or may not want to find out who her biological mother is. I’ve never wanted to know mine, because I have my family, and I just didn’t need anything else.” I shook my head. “Maybe my decision was born out of an allegiance to my parents. I’m not really sure. But it was my decision, and I think this is Birdie’s, not ours.”

Sebastian dragged a hand through his hair. “Okay. But do we give her that decision now?”

“Ultimately, I think that’s your choice as her father. You know her better than anyone. I feel like it would be better to wait until she’s older. But really, it’s your call.”

He went quiet for a long time before he spoke again. “What about you? Won’t it be difficult for you to not know if I put off telling her?”

“Sometimes a difficult thing is also the right thing to do.”

Over the next two hours, we debated all the pros and cons of telling her now or in the future. I shared my honest opinions, and Sebastian listened and told me all his fears. One thing was for sure—I didn’t envy him for having to make such a tough decision. The hardest questions are always the ones that don’t have a wrong or a right answer.

Eventually, he shook his head. “We’ll put the envelope in my safety-deposit box tomorrow. I don’t know when we should tell her, maybe when she’s eighteen . . . I’m not really sure. I guess we’ll figure out when the time is right when it’s time. At least I hope so.”

I smiled. “Yeah. I think we will know.”

“But I want to discuss something else. I hate to be morbid, but one thing the both of us have learned is that life changes in the blink of an eye. If something happens to me, and you’re her mother . . . she should be with you, Sadie. Right now, my will has custody going to Macie.”

“Oh wow. Okay. Yeah, I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

“I think we should go to my lawyer and get a consult on how it should be handled.”

“That makes sense.”

We looked into each other’s eyes for a long time. “Well, I guess it’s settled, then,” I said.

Sebastian smiled. “I guess so.”

I took a deep breath in, and my shoulders relaxed for the first time in days. He cupped my cheeks.

“I don’t know if it’s fate or a series of crazy coincidences that brought us together. But whatever led me to you isn’t as important as what will keep you here. I love you with all my heart, Sadie.”

“I love you, too.”

He smiled. “Good. Now. Umdrehen.”

“Umdrehen?”My brows furrowed. “Roll over?”

Sebastian did some stealth move and I went from sitting up to flat on my back.

His eyes twinkled. “You know, deciding not to open that envelope until years from now works in my favor in another way.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“It’ll give you a reason to stick around and find out the answer.”

I smiled. “You mean another reason to stick around.”

He seemed genuinely confused. “What’s the first reason?”

“You. I never needed any other.”