Prologue
"I'm pregnant, Derek," She mumbled quietly without being able to meet his eyes.
Derek's jaw dropped. His 21-year-old girlfriend of three months was pregnant. They were barely halfway through their first semester of medical school. They had worked their entire lives; skipped grades, taken college classes in high school and overloaded a few semesters in college to graduate early. He was only 22 and barely able to take care of himself. His heart was pounding and his head was spinning. He had no idea what to say.
"I scheduled an abortion," she continued. "I didn't want to go in and have it done without talking to you."
Derek nodded, "Good, that's good," he mumbled in a shaky voice. "Oh! It's not good that you scheduled an abortion! Wait, no, it's not bad. Uh, it's not good or bad! I just said good meaning I'm glad you told me. I uh, I wouldn't want you to do that alone. If an abortion is what you want then I'll support you."
A week later he drove her to a clinic and held her hand as she laid on the examination table with her legs in stirrups. He could practically see her heart beating out of her chest and the only thing he could do was hold her hand and tell her everything would be okay. She ended up stopping the procedure before it ever started.
"I can't do this," she whispered, sitting up on the table and looking him in the eyes. She couldn't maintain eye contact for too long before she dropped her head on his shoulder and started sobbing.
Derek put his arms around her and soothingly rubbed her back. "It's okay, it's okay…" he repeated softly. "We'll figure it out, okay?"
Addison sniffled and straightened up, "I love you, Derek. I didn't want the first I love you to come in an abortion clinic but…" she trailed off. "I can't go through with this because we made this baby together. It is a part of me and it is a part of you."
Derek nodded understandingly and kissed her head, "If you want to keep it then we can keep it."
"We can't keep it. What about med school?"
"We'll figure it out," Derek insisted.
"Maybe we can do an open adoption. We'll still be able to have contact with the baby but we won't have to quit school to raise a child full-time."
Derek nodded again, "We can look into that," he replied. "First let's get you dressed and get home," he said softly, reaching up to her face to wipe away a tear off her cheek with his thumb.
They chose a family to adopt their baby five months into the pregnancy. Two weeks before the due date they backed out of the adoption and opted to keep their daughter. It wasn't easy for either of them. They alternated attendance in classes and swapped notes. Derek's mother would take their daughter, Adrianne, during clinical rotations and test days. True to Derek's word, they made it work. It was difficult but they found a way.
Derek proposed to Addison during their final week of medical school. They got married right after graduating. Taking the unconventional route, Derek and Addison decided to take their three and a half year old daughter on their honeymoon with them. They both knew that they wouldn't have too much time to spend with her after starting their surgical internships and they wanted to have as much time with her as possible before that. Ten days with no interruptions with their daughter; it was everything they could have ever wanted. After returning to New York Adrianne went to live with Derek's mother. It was the only way they'd be to make sure their daughter was well cared for while they worked a minimum of 80 hours weekly.
"You'll come home on some weekends and we'll spend every day we have off with you, sweetie," Addison promised, crouched down in front of her three and a half year old daughter. "And after daddy and I finish our intern year we'll go on vacation again? Somewhere just as cool as Tahiti okay? You'll spend the whole day on the beach or by the pools again. We just have to get through this year."
Adrianne nodded her head. "Okay," she whispered.
"We'll visit you and you'll come home. We'll call you all the time. You won't even have time to miss us," Derek promised as lifted his little girl and cuddled her closely. "We love you, sweetheart. We want to make sure you're well taken care of while we're at work. Do you understand?"
Adrianne nodded again, "Love you, too," she mumbled. "Daddy, can I go play now?"
As promised, a year later the family of three celebrated the end of intern year with a trip to Barbados. However, that did not mark the end of Adrianne's living situation. She ended up staying for eight years while her parents worked on their residencies and started their fellowships. They dedicated every free minute they had to her. They would arrange visits on any and all days off, they would call her every night before bed to hear about her day. At some point during those eight years Adrianne grew distant and less interested with her parents. It wasn't that she felt neglected, unloved or forgotten; she just didn't care to put in the effort anymore. She'd put up with occasional phone calls and she'd only see them from one holiday to the next. She didn't care to spend their every off day with them anymore. The arrangement was bearable and easy enough until Adrianne received the game changing news.
"You're pregnant?!" she yelled in disbelief over lunch with her parents.
"Lower your voice, please," Addison replied softly.
"You're a gynecologist! You're not supposed to get pregnant."
"Gynecologists don't sign a clause renouncing their right to procreate," Addison informed her daughter.
"I meant that you're supposed to know enough to know how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy."
"It is not an unwanted pregnancy. Your mother and I had been trying for 2 months. This is a planned and very wanted pregnancy." Derek intercepted.
"You can't even keep up with one kid! Are you going to leave this one with grandma too?"
"Adrianne, you're eleven years old, you are much too young to understand this. Don't talk to your mother that way," Derek scolded. "And you need to hear us out before making comments. We will not be leaving the baby with grandma. The baby will live with us and so will you. You can move back home at the end of the school year in a few weeks."
Adrianne stared at her parents in shock.
"Our fellowships are stressful but not nearly as stressful as residency. We have more time at home now and we want to shift our focus from our careers to our family."
"I don't want to live with your guys and I don't want a sibling."
Addison sighed heavily and turned her head to look at Derek. "This went well," she whispered.
"I wanna go home," she told her parents after a few moments of awkward silence.
That was the end of any form of functional relationship between Adrianne and her parents. After her brother was born she refused to go see him and ignored all phone calls from her parents. She wouldn't associate with her younger brother when they came to visit on occasional holidays. At family gatherings she would act like her parents were not there; she wouldn't look at them and she would not respond to anything they said.
"A," the toddler said, pulling on the hem of her shirt for her attention.
Adrianne pulled her shirt out of his grasp and took a step away from him.
Seeing the harsh response to her son, Addison moved toward her children and lifted the two year old into her arms. She saw Adrianne stiffen as she walked over and was surprised that she didn't turn to walk away. "Dylan has been hoping to get a picture with you. He wanted to take you for show and tell but we obviously can't do that so he agreed to settle for a picture," she explained.
Adrianne did not look her in the eye as she spoke, she kept her eyes on the ground. As soon as Addison was done speaking Adrianne shook her head and walked away.
Addison looked at the disappointment and confusion on her son's face and sighed heavily. She gently kissed his temple and hugged him tighter. "Its okay," she said softly.
"I want Daddy." he mumbled, dropping her head on his mother's shoulder.
Addison rubbed his back soothingly. "Honey, daddy is at work," Addison reminded her son.
"Daddy's always at work," he complained. "Can we go home?"
"Adrianne," Addison sighed into the phone tiredly. "Honey, please, I'm not in the mood for the silent treatment right now. I have to talk to you about something important. Your father left me," she said bluntly. "And um, I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're not longer together. If it was one of us that you wanted nothing to do with but you felt fine with the other than you can reach out and build a relationship now. No matter what happens to our relationship it doesn't change the fact that we love you and your brother."
"It was both of you. I don't want anything to do with either of you."
"Oh…" Addison sighed heavily. This was the most her daughter had said to her in years. It was a question that she had been asking herself for years and now she finally knew the answer.
"I'm kind of surprised he left you. But I'm also not surprised at all," Adrianne continued. "I mean, anyone with eyes knows that he hasn't been around for a while so there was obviously trouble so it's not so surprising if you think about it that way. On the other hand, you guys are both so much a like that I thought you understood one another and got along."
"I cheated on him," Addison mumbled quietly into the phone. "He left me because he caught me with someone else."
Adrianne laughed loudly, "You are unbelievable," she said before hanging up the phone.
Three year old Dylan sat across from his sister in a restaurant. He had never really spent time with her and she never spoke to him when he was around so it was awkward and uncomfortable. He stared at his unfamiliar sibling to study her features and all she did was glare back at him every once in a while.
"Why are you forcing me to have lunch with you?" Adrianne finally worked up the nerve to ask. "I didn't really like you before but now that you're an adulterous whore you think our relationship will change?"
Addison's eyes widened as she met her daughter's almost identical ones, her jaw dropped as the insult left her daughter's mouth. "You are fourteen years old. You might not like me but you have no right to speak to me that way," she scolded. "I didn't have the best relationship with my mother but I'd never dare speak to her that way."
"Trust me, you like your mother more than I like you," Adrianne shot back.
"I wanted to have lunch with you because I wanted to tell you in person that we are moving to Seattle to be with your dad."
"He took you back? You cheated and he took you back?"
"Yes," Addison replied with a nod. "Like you said, we're so much alike and so messed up that we're kind of bound for life. I was in Seattle for a case and I gave him divorce papers but he didn't sign. He wasn't sure that ending our marriage was the right way to handle our issues and I agree. He cheated too. I guess we're even now and we can put our indiscretions behind us and move on."
"And you forgive him?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes, you have a choice!" Adrianne snapped. "You don't have to forgive him. For once in your life you can do the right thing and just walk away from the marriage. He cheated on you. You cheated on him. Does that sounds like a loving, committed marriage that's built to last until death do you part? No!"
"I love him."
Adrianne groaned in response to her mother's words, "Fine, move to Seattle and forgive one another. You'll fight and have make-up sex then you'll get pregnant and it'll be a perfect baby to complete your messed up family and you'll live happily ever after."
"We're not going to have anymore children, Adrianne. We only wanted two and we have two," Addison reassured. "Anyway, our family is not complete with you living somewhere else. Your dad and I have been talking and we want to start over with a clean slate. We want a new beginning for all of us and we want you to be a part of our new beginning. Just think about it please?"
Derek stood in the Arrivals gate in the airport and waited for his family to walk out of the terminal. He kept glancing over at the flight schedule to make sure that the flight had arrived on time. After twenty-five minutes of waiting and watching other people greet family and friends he finally spotted Addison walking out of the terminal with their son on her hip as she pushed a cart full of luggage. He moved toward and wrapped an arm around her to greet her with a quick peck on the lips.
"Addie, there are only four bags here," he said as she looked over the stacked luggage on the cart.
"I've got more" Addison answered with a chuckle. "Three more actually."
"Oh, is Adrianne bringing them out?"
"No, she didn't come," she replied. Addison pointed to a uniformed airport employee standing not too far from them. "See that guy? He's pushing my stuff on that cart."
There was a moment of disappointment on Derek's face before he reached his arms out to take the sleeping child from Addison's arms, "Let me hold him and I'll take this cart. You take the other one. Less luggage on that, it'll be easier for you to push."
Addison watched as Derek settled their sleeping son on his shoulder. He gently kissed his forehead as he held on to the child with one arm and started pushing the cart with the other.
Addison followed a little behind him with the second cart and caught up with him at the crossing light leading to the parking structure. "Derek?" she spoke up softly. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I thought these bags would be heavier and harder to push."
"I'm not talking about the luggage," she replied, "You know what I'm talking about."
Derek shrugged, acting as indifferent toward the situation as possible, "It is what it is, I guess. It's nothing new, I shouldn't have expected anything different."
I am so excited to finally post this story. A huge, huge thank you to AmyHale who listened to my idea and helped me develop the story through every patch of writer's block. She's been super helpful and I would have given up on this story weeks ago without her help.
I realize that Addison with a long-lost daughter is a popular theme lately (not that I'm complaining). I'm not sure if this falls in to that category. I don't think it does because the daughter is not really lost. They know exactly where she is and they have some form of contact. Oh the other hand it has an absent teenage girl so some may call it a long-lost daughter.
This is my first long(ish) chapter story in a while and I'm super excited about that. I am guessing it will be about 14 or 15 chapters. 16 is my favorite number so if I can get it to 16 that would be pretty awesome. Right now I'm working on chapter 7 so you can expect fairly regular updates...And I think that's everything you need to know for now.
Let me know what you think!