Chapter Three
The woman with the dark hair and blue eyes stares at Cooper, her hand covering her mouth.
Cooper extends his hand out to her, "I'm Cooper Freedman. I was put up for adoption 41 years ago"
The woman removes her hand from her mouth and shakes hands with Cooper, "I know who you are. You look just like your father." The woman turns toward the house, "please come in." She motions to Charlotte and Cooper with her hand. The little girl runs ahead of them to open the front door.
As Cooper and Charlotte survey the living room, the woman calls out to the girl. "Emily pick up all your crayons off the couch and make room for our guests." She turns to Charlotte and Cooper, "I'll fix you some coffee or tea?"
"Coffee please" Cooper answers, not sure if this is a good idea anymore.
"I'll have coffee too." Charlotte tells her as she helps the little girl clear toys off the couch to make room to sit.
"I'm Emily," the friendly blonde girl bursts out, "wanna color with me?"
"Sure, I love to color," Cooper picks up a green crayon and starts doodling on some paper.
The little girl hands Charlotte a pink crayon and some paper, "here, you can color too."
Charlotte takes the crayon and looks at Cooper, "thank you Emily," Charlotte looks at the paper trying to figure out what to do with the crayon.
Cooper smiles, "it's not a contest Char, draw anything."
Charlotte shoots him a glare and Emily takes notice. "Don't you like to draw?"
Charlotte looks to Emily, "It's not that I don't like to draw. I just haven't drawn anything since I was about your age."
"Really?" The little girl asks, "you haven't drawn a picture since you were six? That's sad. I'll show you how."
Cooper chuckles as Emily instructs Charlotte how to draw a pink bunny rabbit. "Do you live here?" Cooper asks.
"Aha." Emily answers as she draws. "Me and my mom moved in after my mom got sick."
"Sorry to hear that." Cooper can't help his curiosity. "What kind of sickness does your mom have?"
"I forget the name. She stays in the hospital a lot so I stay with grandma and then we have to take care of her when she comes home."
"So this nice lady who invited us in the house is your grandma?" Charlotte smiles.
"Yup" the little girl looks at Cooper. "Are you the boy my grandma gave away for adoption?"
Cooper and Charlotte look at each other with wide eyes. "You know about that?" Charlotte asks a bit shocked.
"Yes, grandma told me and you look just like Uncle Steve so I thought you must be Michael, the boy my grandma gave away."
"My name is Cooper." He tells her, "and this is my wife Charlotte."
"Nice to met ya," Emily shakes her head and continues to draw.
Charlotte looks at the pictures lined up on the mantle. There's a photo of a young man with a striking resemblance to Cooper. "Is that your Uncle Steven?" Charlotte nods at the picture.
"Yup." Emily shakes her head again.
"He does look an awful lot like you Coop."
Cooper looks at the picture and nods. He has a sinking feeling in his stomach.
The woman comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray of coffee and cookies. "Here's the cream and sugar. I didn't know how much you both like."
"Yummy, chocolate chip," Emily grabs for a cookie and so does Cooper.
The woman sits in a chair across from the couch. " I'm sure you have a lot of questions, so ask away." She leans back in the chair and sips her coffee.
Cooper looks at her speechless. He doesn't know what to say. Charlotte takes notice.
"How bout if you start by telling us a bit about yourself." Charlotte hands Cooper his coffe cup.
"Well, I'll start by saying my name was Virginia Carlsen before I married your father..."
"You married my father?" Cooper interrupts "I didn't realize the two of you were married."
"We weren't at the time you were born. We married several years later." Virginia gets up and takes her a picture off the mantle. "This is our wedding picture."
Charlotte and Cooper look it over. "You do look a lot like your father." Charlotte glances at Cooper.
Virginia continues, "his name was Michael. We met out first year at college. We were both education majors and took most of the same courses. We began to date."
Charlotte shakes her head. "Go on, please."
"After we were dating about six months I found out I was pregnant. I was only 18 and the first female in my family to attend college, so you can imagine my parents were not happy."
"I imagine they weren't" Charlotte sips her coffee.
"No. They were very upset. They made me come home from school and have the baby. They encouraged me to put the baby up for adoption, told me it would ruin my whole life , my chance at a successful career to have a baby at 18, so I listened to them." Virginia looks down almost shamefully as she tells them her story." I thought I was doing the best thing for you Michael." She looks at Cooper.
"Uhm…My name is Cooper." He answers abruptly. Charlotte shoots him a quick look thinking it was a bit rude.
"I'm sorry. I called you Michael while you were in my belly. That was your father's name."
Cooper looks at the floor. "I'm Cooper my whole life," he makes sure she's clear on that.
"Of course, Cooper." The older woman is starting to get a bit teary, "well anyway, after I gave you up I went back to school for a degree in elementary education. My parents made me stay home and commute to a local University. They no longer trusted me to go away to school."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Charlotte tells her still holding the wedding picture.
Virginia takes a deep breath and continues. "It was about two years after I graduated from college, I was teaching kindergarten at a local school and I received a phone call from Michael Austin. He said he was coming to town and wanted to meet me. I was shocked. I hadn't heard from Michael, your father, since before you were born."
"He didn't keep in touch while you were pregnant?" Charlotte asks.
"It wasn't his choice. My parents forbid me from having anything to do with him. But now we were adults. I was 25 when he called me again. My parents no longer had a say in the matter."
"So you met up with him when he came to town I assume?" Charlotte's asking all the questions while Cooper looks on listening.
"Of course I did. Neither one of us were attached so we started dating. He took a job at the school I was working at and after only six months we were engaged to be married. We've been together ever since until the day he died."
Cooper glances over at the picture. "When did he die?" He asks softly.
"Two years ago from heart attack." She tells Cooper, "he was only 59 when he died."
"Too young to die." Charlotte says. She knows all about grieving fathers from big daddy's death. "Sorry," she tells Virginia.
"We always talked about you, Cooper." She smiles gently getting his name right this time, "we wondered if you were happy and what you looked like."
"You never looked for me?" Cooper looks up.
"No. I signed adoption papers and you would have been about 5 years old by the time we got married so it wouldn't be the right thing to do. It wouldn't be fair to you or your adoptive parents for us to try and get into your life." She looks at Cooper, "did we make a mistake?"
"No, No." Cooper answers in a strong voice. "My parents were great. They gave me everything I needed. They put me through medical school. I'm a doctor. A pediatrician."
"Fancy that. A pediatrician? Your father and I were both school teachers and your father went on to become the school principal, I guess our love for children runs in the family."
Cooper smiles and shakes his head. He looks at Emily who's quietly drawing as she listens to the adults talk. "So is this my niece?"
"Yes this is Emily. One of your nieces." Virginia smiles.
"Emily said her mother is sick, but she wasn't sure what was wrong with her." Charlotte smiles gently.
"Emily's mother," Virginia looks at Cooper, "your sister, Kim, is in kidney failure. She's on the waiting list for a transplant."
"I'm sorry to hear that.' Charlotte answers.
"We tried everything. My other two sons, Steven and Joe, were both tested but they weren't compatible enough matches for Kim, so we've been on the waiting list."
Cooper looks at Charlotte. Charlotte takes a deep breath. She knows what he's thinking. She nods her head no at him.
"It's getting late. Cooper and I better get going." Charlotte says as she stands up and takes Cooper's coffee cup out of his hand.
Cooper gets up and shakes his mothers hand. "I'll get in touch with you tomorrow. Charlotte and I are both doctors. We'd like to help you with Kim."
"Thank you." Virginia hugs Cooper as Charlotte looks on.
"Don't even think about it." Charlotte tells Cooper as they walk alone to the car.
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