Chapter 14
"Prentiss," Emily answered her phone as she slipped out of bed, trying not to wake Andrew.
She invited him over for breakfast when they wrapped the case in the early hours of the morning, but they'd spent more time in the bedroom than the kitchen. Emily picked his shirt up off her bedroom floor and slipped it on, fumbling with the buttons in the dark.
Hannah had exchanged a few text messages with Emily, but this was the first time she'd called the woman and the clipped professional greeting threw her off. "Emily?" Hannah said uncertainly.
Emily closed her eyes for a fraction of a second when she recognized her daughter's voice and heard the uncertainty in it. She'd answered the phone after the first ring without even looking at caller ID because she didn't want it to wake Andrew up. "Hannah. Yes, it's me," Emily said, adopting a tone that was a lot warmer and less professional as she closed her bedroom door behind her.
"Are you at work?" Hannah asked hesitantly.
"No, I'm not at work," Emily told her child.
"Oh, okay." Hannah moved on to the reason for her call. "I know we were going to do something this afternoon, but can we hang out next weekend instead?"
"You're blowing me off again?" Emily said in a tone of disbelief. "Really?"
She recognized the irony in it. How many times had she blown Andrew off? And now her kid was doing the same thing to her.
The man currently snoring in Emily's bed had the patience of a saint. But Emily wasn't as patient as Andrew Mendoza. She'd waited thirteen years and didn't want to go weeks at a time without seeing her daughter now.
"I'm sorry," Hannah apologized, her sincerity coming through over the phone even though Emily couldn't see her facial expression or body language. "I have to study. For real this time," Hannah added, knowing her birth mother might not believe her since she'd used school as an excuse to get out of brunch just last weekend. She didn't know it, but she sounded stressed enough to be convincing. "Finals are next week, and it's almost next week."
"Can't you take a study break?" Emily asked, trying to keep her disappointment out of her voice. Regardless of what Hannah was saying, Emily knew there was no way the teenager was going to study all day Saturday and Sunday without taking a break, and she wanted to see her kid. "I'll caffeinate you," Emily offered enticingly.
"You're a bad influence," Hannah told the older woman in a slightly amused tone. She thought about how much she still had to do before Monday when she had her algebra final and her health final, but the idea of a coffee break was too tempting. "Yes to caffeine, but can we go to this coffee shop by my house? And only for, like, an hour." The teenager was rationalizing it to herself as she agreed.
Emily smiled triumphantly. That was all she wanted – to spend time with her kid. "An hour? All right," Emily conceded in a deliberately resigned tone, feigning disappointment, "but that's not enough time to kick your ass at Scrabble again."
Hannah rolled her eyes even though Emily couldn't see her. "You won one game."
Emily chuckled softly at the slight annoyance in her kid's voice. "Okay, what time should I pick you up?"
"I can walk," Hannah said. "It's right by my house."
Emily decided to rephrase that and simply told the girl what time she would pick her up. "Bring your French if there's anything I can help you with," she instructed before hanging up.
"Hey. Where's your French?" Emily questioned when her kid emerged from the front door empty-handed.
"It would be kind of hard for you to help me with French when I haven't started studying for it yet," Hannah mumbled reluctantly, averting her eyes. She had kind of hoped Emily would just drop it if she didn't bring her backpack, but no such luck.
"There's no time like the present," Emily said pointedly, raising her eyebrows. No wonder her kid was so stressed if she'd waited until the last minute to start studying.
Hannah let out a long-suffering sigh. "My French final is on Thursday so it's the least of my concerns right now. First I have to get through algebra, health, biology, English, and history. There's only so much room in my brain," the teenager said dramatically.
"Go get your French," Emily ordered with a half-laugh at the teenager's logic. Hannah would need to know all of it eventually, and in this case, eventually was only days away.
"You're bossy today," Hannah told her birth mother, not really complaining. She wasn't too bothered by it because of how lightly the order was delivered…it was hardly even an order. The girl was already turning back around to the door to follow her birth mother's 'orders' even as she spoke. She was the one who'd asked for Emily's help with French originally, and she knew the woman was just trying to help her, even if the help was unwanted at that particular moment.
"Well, apparently you need an engraved invitation to study for your French final," Emily replied dryly.
The teenager glanced over her shoulder to give her birth mother an unimpressed look and then opened the door. "You can come in," she said, holding the door open for Emily as she expertly blocked the doorway so the dog couldn't get out.
"Where's your dad?" Emily questioned as she followed the girl into the kitchen where Hannah's notebooks and textbooks were spread out on the table. The profiler saw no sign of Steve, and it looked like the teenager had taken over the entire downstairs.
"He's running errands, which is code for Christmas shopping," Hannah said as she grabbed her French textbook.
"What'd you ask Santa for?" Emily asked her daughter curiously.
Emily was struggling with what to get the girl she'd only known for a month. She just knew she didn't want to be like her own mother. Elizabeth Prentiss had always given her impersonal yet expensive gifts that just showed how little she actually knew her only child. The worst was when her mother missed something – a first day at school, a school play, an awards ceremony – and then lavished Emily with gifts as a way to make up for it. Even as a child, Emily recognized those gifts for what they were – bribes. Throwing money at her hadn't made her problems with her mother go away.
Emily felt a little like she had thirteen Christmases to make up for, but she knew there was nothing she could buy Hannah that would make up for all the times she wasn't there. She couldn't buy her daughter's affections and didn't want the girl to think she was trying to bribe her. It hadn't worked with Emily when she was a teenager, and she didn't think it would work with Hannah.
"AirPods," Hannah answered Emily's question distractedly as she packed her backpack. "Cords are so old school."
"What's the Walkman I had when I was your age then?" Emily asked the overly dramatic girl in an amused tone.
"An antique," Hannah said with a small, mocking smile. "From the olden days when shoulder pads and big hair were cool." She didn't know how old Emily was, but, based on her own birthdate and the fact that Emily had graduated from college and was working for Interpol when she got pregnant, the fourteen year old guessed correctly that the woman would have been in high school sometime in the eighties.
"Hey!" Emily cried in mock-offense even as she let out a little laugh. She walked right into that one.
"Did you listen to New Kids on the Block on your Walkman?" Hannah asked with a teasing grin, choosing the ultimate cheesy boy band of the eighties because she figured any self-respecting woman would be embarrassed to admit to liking them.
"No," Emily told her. "The only boy band I ever listened to was The Beatles." She glanced at her kid with amusement in her eyes. "What about you? Any One Direction on your iPod?" Emily teased gently, turning the tables on her kid.
"No! I don't like One Direction," Hannah replied emphatically, making a face. She looked at Emily to see if the woman believed her.
"Riiight," Emily said slowly with heavy skepticism in her voice. She was enjoying riling her kid up after the girl made fun of her 'old' age.
"I don't," the fourteen year old insisted. "I mean, I like some of Liam Payne's songs," she admitted. "But he's the only one I like."
"Oh, okay. You just like one of them," Emily said with a small, knowing smirk. "Do you just like his music or do you like him?" The mother teased her young teenage daughter obnoxiously.
Hannah shrugged her backpack over her shoulder and fixed her birth mother with an unamused stare. "Okay, new topic."
After the mother and daughter settled down at a table in the back of the coffee shop with their drinks, Emily gave Hannah a minute to get situated and then told the girl to get her French out.
"Okay, so tell me about this test," Emily said.
"I don't know. It's just a normal test. Vocab, fill in the blank." Hannah shrugged. She hesitated before deciding not to mention the French paper she had yet to write that was part of her final grade - a fairly big part actually. She hadn't expected Emily to act like such a…well, parent, nagging her about not waiting until the last minute to study. She didn't want to get the woman started on the unwritten paper that was due in five days. "The hard part will be the oral test," Hannah continued. "It's just, like, a conversation, but there's no English at all."
"No! There's no English in French class?" Emily said, mock-scandalized.
Hannah blushed and failed to hide a sheepish smile, realizing how silly it sounded when Emily put it like that. "No, really though. We have to talk to her for ten minutes with no English even if we don't know a word or don't understand something. She's grading us on accent and pronunciation and stuff."
"Talk to me in French," Emily told her child. "It'll be good practice."
Hannah raised her eyebrows. "You want me to talk to you about animals or sports?" She said skeptically. "Because those are the words I know."
"Let me see that," Emily said, taking the girl's binder from her.
Emily took a moment to look through Hannah's old vocab quizzes, all of which the girl had gotten A's on except for the most recent quiz which had a big red 'C' on the top of it. The woman noticed the date – the quiz was the week Hannah found out she was adopted. The reason for the sudden drop in her daughter's grades was obvious to the profiler. It made Emily wonder if all the upset of the last few weeks was why her child wasn't more prepared for her upcoming finals.
Emily knew Hannah cared about her grades, but school was probably the last thing on the fourteen year old's mind when she had just found out she was adopted. The girl was trying to understand why Emily didn't keep her and was struggling with the knowledge that the father whose genes she had was a bad guy. While the teenager no longer seemed broody and subdued, Emily knew it had been a rough couple of weeks for her.
She also had to take into account that it was Hannah's first semester of high school and quite possibly the first time the girl had to take a true final exam – one that was worth enough to make or break her grade in the class. Some of it might have less to do with everything Hannah had to deal with over the last few weeks and instead may just be a normal part of growing up and learning how to manage her time and deal with the stress and anxiety.
Either way, Emily was determined to help the girl. No child of hers should have to worry about her grade in French, not with Emily as a mom.
Emily looked up from the vocab quizzes on things like numbers, colors, animals, members of the family, and sports. "Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your family. You should know enough to do that." It would help her daughter prepare for her oral exam and was also a way for Emily get to know the girl better.
"Okay," Hannah agreed with a nervous laugh, feeling awkward and self-conscious. She didn't really know what to say about herself and was limited in what she could say by the French she knew.
The teenager took a sip of her peppermint mocha to buy herself some time as she thought of something to say. She was pretty good at memorization so the vocab words themselves weren't a problem, but using them in an actual conversation was different. She could usually answer a direct question in class. That wasn't what Emily wanted her to do though.
When Hannah quit stalling and started talking, it was the very basic phrases she had learned month one of high school French and had down by now. She recited her name, her age, and her grade in school in a monotone. She went on to say she was an only child and mentioned that she had a dog. There was nothing she said that Emily didn't already know.
Emily started asking questions – in French – to try to turn it into a more natural conversation. She could almost see the wheels turning in the girl's head as she mentally translated Emily's questions from French to English before answering them. At Emily's prompting, Hannah described her extended family in very simple terms. She knew enough French to list off various relatives, give a physical description that included hair color and eye color, and use an adjective like 'nice' or 'funny' but that was about it. Hannah's confidence in what she was saying waned as she lost control of the conversation. She couldn't answer a question Emily asked about what her older cousins were majoring in at college. She didn't know how to say Mechanical Engineering or Business in French. That was when the young teenager finally gave up, knowing they'd exhausted the French she knew.
"And that's the extent of my limited knowledge of the French language," Hannah said dryly.
"If you ask questions instead of just answering them, it'll take some of the heat off you," Emily suggested. "We should do this again a few more times before your test to get you more comfortable with it."
Hannah groaned. "You do realize I have five other subjects to study for?"
"Do you need help with anything else?" Emily asked kindly.
"No," Hannah said quickly, not wanting a repeat of what happened with French. "Wasn't this supposed to be a study break? I'm still waiting for the break," Hannah said lightly.
Emily rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress an indulgent smile. "It was one conversation, not an all-nighter."
"How long did it take you to become fluent?" Hannah wondered.
"In French?" Emily clarified.
"Yeah," Hannah said with a half-laugh at the idea that she would need to clarify which foreign language she was referring to – just how many languages did Emily speak? Hannah gave Emily a speculative look as she thought about how many different countries the woman had lived in. "Why? How many languages do you speak?"
"Fluently? Let's see…French, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic," Emily said. "I know enough Russian to get by, but my Russian's not very good."
And here the young teenager thought just being fluent in French was impressive. "Your Russian's not very good?" Hannah repeated incredulously. "You speak five languages. And that's not counting English so you actually speak six languages." Meanwhile the ninth grader could barely have an intelligent conversation in French. "I feel dumb now," the fourteen year old said wryly. "Are you sure we're related?" She meant it as a joke, but Emily didn't think it was funny.
"Don't say that." Emily met her daughter's gaze and held it. "I spent a lot of time in France growing up. When I lived in Paris, I heard people speaking French in everyday conversation all day every day. You spend, what, an hour a day in a classroom learning French? And you were right - a lot of what you've learned would never come up in normal conversation. It would be hard for anyone to have a ten minute conversation with what you've learned so far."
Hannah nodded but didn't look convinced. "So how long did it take? For you to become fluent, I mean."
"French was one of the first languages I learned. I can't remember how old I was when I learned, but I was pretty young. They say it's easier to learn a new language the younger you are, and I guess it's true. I can't really remember a time when I couldn't speak French," Emily told her. "But for some of the other countries I lived in growing up, it felt like by the time I finally learned the language, we were already moving because my mom had a new posting."
"The exciting life and times of an ambassador's daughter," Hannah mused with a small smile.
Emily scoffed slightly. "It wasn't that exciting."
"Where are you going for Christmas?" Hannah asked curiously. "Your parents are still in Europe, right?"
"Yes, they are, but I'm staying here. I may have to work," Emily said simply, using work as a convenient excuse for avoiding her parents on Christmas. "Bad guys don't take the holidays off," the profiler tried to joke.
"Oh," Hannah said. She couldn't imagine not spending Christmas with her family. She frowned as she wondered if her birth mother would be alone, trying to come up with a tactful way to ask. "But what if you don't have to work? I mean, maybe you could spend it with us," Hannah offered tentatively. She didn't think anyone should be alone on Christmas, and it made her sad to think of Emily being alone for the holidays.
Emily would love nothing more than to spend Christmas with her child, but she didn't want to intrude on her daughter's plans with her adoptive family – people who might not roll out the welcome mat for Emily. "What are you guys doing?" Emily asked a question of her own to distract her teenager so she wouldn't have to respond to the impromptu invitation.
"We used to go to Chicago every other year, but now we just spend Christmas here with my dad's side of the family," Hannah replied. "My grandma always has everyone over for food and presents."
That reminded Emily that she still needed ideas for the girl. "What else do you want for Christmas? AirPods can't be the only thing."
"I don't know," Hannah said with a shrug. She didn't actually want that much, but she also didn't want Emily to feel like she had to get her something expensive. Most of the things she wanted weren't exactly cheap.
The days when Hannah had a long list of toys on her Christmas list were long gone. She mainly just wanted clothes now, but she didn't want other people to buy clothes for her. She needed to try things on to make sure they fit because her size varied across different stores and styles. She also didn't want her fashion-challenged dad picking out clothes for her. She'd encouraged him to get on the gift card bandwagon and usually got gift cards for all her favorite stores. Other than gift cards, Hannah wanted AirPods, an expensive makeup mirror, an Urban Decay eyeshadow palette, and new Uggs - none of which she felt comfortable asking the birth mother she only met a month ago for. She wouldn't expect anyone but her family to spend that kind of money on her. Even though technically Emily was family, it was different.
It hadn't even occurred to Hannah that Emily would get her anything, but it did now and she didn't know what to do. She wondered if she should tell the woman that she didn't have to get her anything but decided not to in case she was wrong and that wasn't why Emily was asking.
But, of course, it was exactly why Emily was asking, and the profiler was frustrated with the lack of response. Emily Prentiss interrogated hardened criminals as part of her day job but couldn't get her teenage daughter to tell her what she wanted for Christmas. The fourteen year old didn't give her anything helpful so the mother still had no idea what to get her kid for Christmas when she dropped the girl off at home.
