“Yeah, I’m sure,” Darren said. “Then there was you.” He pushed some of her hair behind her ear. “Everything about you...a lot of the stuff I saw when you at the bar that night. The coincidence of it all, really, was probably what made me look a little closer. I’m looking int your eyes and then Gabriel's. My mother and Aunt Carol were right?”
“Your mother and aunt were right about what?” Sherry’s heart thumped. “You didn’t tell them how you originally met me, did you? I only met your mother that one time, but I can see how she would react already.”
Darren laughed. “No, no. She and Aunt Carol mentioned to me how much Gabriel looked like you.” Darren decided to leave his mother’s foreshadowing words out of the discussion. “At first, I didn’t see it. It was just odd they would say the baby looks like you then me.”
Sherry cried a bit more, stepping up to the crib. She reached in and pulled some blankets over Gabriel's tiny body. “The more I think about it, Darren, I feel like it’s my child. I really feel like this my little boy.”
Darren had never cared about a woman’s emotions and feelings the way he cared about Sherry’s right then. He felt his own heart breaking at just listening to and witnessing Sherry’s strife, even if it was well over a year after she gave the child up for adoption. He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulder while her head dropped and she cried. “We will find out, Sherry. And I hope...” He paused and smiled, thinking about the great conversation he had with Sherry – how he loved to spend time with her, their competitiveness in cooking, their nights sitting out on the terrace. “I hope Gabriel is yours...ours.”
Chapter 12
Love blossomed in ways Sherry and Darren would never imagine in the days following that afternoon where Sherry divulged that she felt deep in her heart Gabriel was her child. The very next day, Darren made some calls to find out where to go for paternity and maternity testing. By the middle of next week, they had an appointment set for April 17th at 1 pm. No matter how busy life got for Darren, he always made time for Sherry. They made passionate love every few nights, and Sherry had gotten so used to sleeping in Darren’s room. And he liked her there. He enjoyed waking up out of his sleep to find Sherry creeping into the room then climbing into the bed with him.
“Even if this child isn’t mine...” Darren began, realizing what he was going to say wouldn’t make sense. He drove the MKZ, curving with the road as it rounded a bend then crossed over a river. “I mean...”
“If it’s not mine,” Sherry said, looking down at her twiddling thumbs. “Then nothing changes, I guess. I still won’t know where the baby I gave up for adoption is. And that’s okay, if that’s the case. Maybe that’s for the better.”
As the MKZ turned off of the road and into the parking lot wedged between two generic looking, glass office buildings, both Sherry’s and Darren’s stomachs turned a little bit. If one was excited, the other was nervous. Should Sherry’s guilt come flooding back into her heart, Darren’s mind wrestled with the idea that this woman he hired to be the nanny to his adopted son may not only be the child’s mother, but the child may also be his as well. He parked then they headed inside. Their silence was so loud.
Darren smiled then sighed when they got back out to the car. Sherry shuttered, the situation seeming so surreal. The test results came back within forty minutes. Darren’s adopted son Gabriel was not only the little boy Sherry had given up for adoption a little over a year ago, but he was also Darren’s child. He pulled out of the parking lot. He felt as if he were in some crazy dream and trying to make sense of it. Glancing over to Sherry, he could only imagine what she was thinking.
“I had a child all his time?” Darren asked, talking to himself.
Sherry looked over at Darren. She wondered what was going through this guy’s mind. “You all right?”
Darren smiled. “What are the chances of adopting a child that winds up to be your own child that you didn’t even know existed?”
“Hmph,” Sherry said under her breath. “What are the chances of getting a job as a nanny and it just so happens to be to the baby you gave up for adoption?” She looked down at her fingers, nervously fidgeting with her nails. “Never thought my life would turn out like this.”
“Are you happy?” Darren asked. He wanted to hear about Sherry’s feelings before he voiced too much of his own. “I mean, what are you thinking about it? I can tell you’re excited, but...”
“I don’t know what I am, really,” Sherry said. “Sometimes I wonder if I'm dreaming of something. But...to answer your question...Of course, I’m happy… I would think I’m supposed to be. I love Gabriel more than anything in this world, but...”
“But what?” Darren asked. The moment of silence at the end of Sherry’s statement lasted too long for him. “But what, Sherry?”
“Still doesn’t change the guilt I feel,” Sherry finally admitted. “It’s not like I found my child by searching for him because the guilt got to be too much. I just sort of...sort of...”
“Stumbled upon him?” Darren asked, finishing the statement.
Sherry turned and looked into Darren’s eyes. “Yeah, basically. I was looking for a job...not looking for my child.”
Darren nodded, pulling up to an intersection and turning after making sure the coast was clear. “I can imagine.”
“What about you?” Sherry asked. “I mean, I know you might feel some kind of way about me now. I know how guys look at some women...at least, the guys around here. I probably could’ve looked around for your card or something, but I never did. My life was just so...so devastating then. I had just gotten that diagnosis and was scared for my life.”
“Yeah, well I was coping with having this gnawing void,” Darren said. “Not that that’s anything compared to what you were feeling, as I’m sure it’s not. For me, it just blows my mind to know that all this time I’ve had a child and didn't even know it.” He thought back to the day where his own adoption case manager had showed him a few babies for him to basically pick from One of the requirements for Darren was that the child look somewhat like him. He wondered what it was about Gabriel that spoke to him. “How did I know without even knowing that I know?”
Sherry listened as Darren explained the adoption process. Her heart went out to some of the stigma he faced trying to adopt a child. She admitted that a single, handsome man of means adopting a child with no wife certainly was a little strange. She scoffed. “If you were back in my hometown, people all over town would be talking about you. They would probably be staring at you when you come out of the post office on Main Street.”
Darren laughed at Sherry’s sense of humor even in this emotional situation. He looked over Sherry. Of course, how he saw her changed at this point. She went from being the nanny he hooked up with one night a couple of years ago to the mother of his own child – his own flesh and blood. “Yeah, I could see that.”
The sense of riding down the street like a couple rather than a boss and his employee was uncanny, but comfortable.
“So, you never answered my question from a couple weeks ago,” Sherry said.
“What question?” Darren asked. He tu
rned off of Broadway then drove slowly down the brick street leading back to his part of the neighborhood. “What are you talking about?”