Avery steps forward to hand her the note, continuing to look down at the ground and the kind woman places her hand on Avery’s wrist, capturing her attention.
When Avery glances at her, the woman gasps and tears well into her eyes.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “You’re here, oh my God.”
Before Avery has a chance to speak, the woman turns and runs off, yelling for Joseph.
Standing at the door awkwardly, not sure if she should stay or turn around and run home, Avery takes the note still gripped in her hand and turns to place it on top of the cupcake box.
A large thud onto the porch startles her and Avery tur
ns around just before she’s wrapped tightly in the arms of the man she assumes must be her father. Minutes pass before the man releases his hold and when he pulls away slightly, holding her at an arm’s length, her assumptions are put to rest when Avery sees the wet blue eyes that mirror her own.
“We have been searching for you for twenty years. I...I can’t believe you’re here. Can you stay for a few minutes? Maybe we can head out back.”
“Sure,” Avery whispers, overtaken by the moment.
As she follows him through their house, not noticing any of the interior space, Avery’s engulfed in another hug as she passes by the woman she met earlier.
They usher her to a seat on their brick-lined patio, offering her a glass of water.
As she politely declines, she asks, “You said you’d been searching for me?”
Joseph continues to stare at her in disbelief, his eyes full of tears. His wife answers for him.
“We have. Twenty years ago, we received a letter from your mother that claimed she had a child with Joseph and that she had sent you away. She left no name or your whereabouts. We’ve contacted practically every child services office in the country and no one had any information on you. But we never gave up. We always held out hope that we’d find each other.”
“I don’t understand. My mother never gave me up for adoption, she practically banished me as a servant at my grandmother’s and she ran off. She had me when she was fifteen and I shamed their family. So they treated me like I never existed,” Avery confides through her tears.
“Fifteen?” Joseph asks, anger, disgust, and confusion lacing his voice. “She told me at the time that she was twenty-two. She was in a bar for god sakes. I’m not a pedophile, I swear to you!”
Avery attempts to calm him down, seeing how upset he is at her mother’s lies.
“Joseph, you’re not a pedophile. My mother was a sick human being and I have no doubt she lied to you. I was told by a friend that she had been having sex since she was thirteen, not to mention she had already had two abortions with children – who were fathered by my grandfather’s friends - before she had me. I was discovered too late apparently.” The admission stings her heart. “I’m not upset with you. I just never knew that you knew about me. It all makes sense though. Why everyone was always so keen on keeping me hidden.”
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the kind woman asks as she hands Avery a few tissues. “We’ve been searching for so long, and we don’t even have your name yet.”
“It’s Avery. Avery Poindexter and I live in Carson too, but I’m from just outside Atlanta, Georgia.”
“I’m Amy, dear. And well, this is your father, Joseph. We want to hear all about you.”
So Avery tells them. She divulges her entire past, holding nothing back: her entire life up until she moved to Carson. They are so welcome and open that Avery doesn’t hesitate as she reveals her turbulent history. Their presence is so comforting that Avery felt every moment of her life spewing forward without hesitation. She tells them of the abuse, her sister, her fiancés… everything.
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, Avery. My wife and I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose those close to you.”
A question burns deep in her mind and she tries my hardest to stomp it down, but with her emotions running high, it spurts forth without hesitation.
“May I ask what happened? Why I even exist? You two look like you’re really happy.”
Joseph squeezes his wife’s hand and takes the lead saying, “We are really happy and we were then too. We had just had our third child and I felt outnumbered, everyone needing something from me. Avery, don’t get me wrong, I love my family and I loved them then. Amy knows this. But I was thirty and I felt lost and she began to resent me and the long hours I pulled at the office. We had a mutual separation - we needed time apart. Her sister came to help with the kids, and I took some time to get my life on track. We had been separated for a month and I was hurting. I wanted my family back, but I knew Amy was still angry at me. I would have been, too, after all the nights I had come home and locked myself away in my office. On a business trip I went out with a few coworkers and I met your mother. I was two sheets to the wind when I went home with her, and I never even got her name. I swore we had used protection, but those things aren’t always fool-proof.
“The next day I felt like complete trash and came straight home to Amy. We talked and I told her everything that had happened. I explained how overwhelmed I felt with all of the changes in our life, but as always, Amy surprised the hell out of me, welcoming me home with open arms and she forgave me for every sin I committed.
“Until we received the letter four years later, we never thought twice about my indiscretion, but I always knew in the back of my mind that it would catch up to me. Amy was knowingly upset when she learned I had fathered another child and I feared every day that she would pack up the kids and leave me. But again she surprised me. I came home from work one day, just glad to see her car in the driveway and her standing on the porch waiting for me. To say I was petrified is an understatement, but when I looked at her… man, I remember like it was yesterday… she poured out her love for me. It was in her eyes, the way she smiled, the way she held me close as I wrapped her in my arms. And she told me...she said ‘Here’s a list of every adoption agency in the country. Let’s find our little girl.’” Tears sparkle in the corner of his eyes, and he dabs them away quickly. “I cried. She took an ugly situation, turned it around and embraced it. We had absolutely nothing to go on but your birthday, which we know she could have changed when she turned you in. But we never suspected that she had lied, though in hindsight we should have.”
“So, Amy, you forgave him? You just turned a blind eye?”
“I did. I had to, there was no other way. I love Joseph with all of my heart and we were separated, there is no question in my mind that had we not been, he wouldn’t have strayed. He isn’t wired that way. And I understood where he was coming from. Our kids are all two years apart and that’s a lot to handle for a man that was hesitant to become a father to begin with. But he truly is the best father to our kids,” she says, smiling at her husband with love pouring from her face.