Saving Grace

Chapter 13: Linnea

[AN: I’ve been watching too many sappy shows. I apologize for the sentimentality of this chapter.]

[LINNEA’S POV]

I woke up late to find Kimberly already gone. Thank goodness her shift started late at the café today. I was worn out from the talk I had with Chris last night. He had finally provided the missing pieces of the puzzle for me about my past. He told me why they let me go.

[FLASHBACK, THE NIGHT BEFORE]

“Who is this?” I asked looking at the photo.

“It’s you,” Chris replied. I was too stunned to say anything so I stepped back and let him walk into the home I shared with Kimberly. He led me to the couch encouraging me to sit as he took a seat in the chair facing me. “I suppose you have questions?”

“H-How do you have a picture of you holding me as a baby?” I stammered out. “Di—did you know my parents?”

“I never knew your adoptive parents, but I did know your birth parents,” he chuckled. Why was he laughing? How could he laugh right now when he held all the secrets to where I came from?

“Tell me about them,” I rushed out. “About my birth parents. What were they like?”

“You look just like your mother. Always have. You have her smile,” he grinned losing himself in the memory of the past. Was he an old friend of theirs?

“Do I have any of my dad’s physical traits? Or do I just look like my mom?”

“You are the spitting image of your mom, but you have my eyes.” I have my dad’s eyes. That’s so grea—wait a minute.

“Did you say I have your eyes?” He nodded. “YOUR eyes?”

“I’m your father Linnea.” He just sat there smiling at me as if he hadn’t dropped the biggest bombshell ever into my lap. Chris? Chris was my father?

“I—I don’t understand.” He smiled indulgently at me. It was the same smile from that photo. The photo of me as an infant.

“Would you like me to tell you the whole story?” I nodded unable to speak. How about I start with how I met your mother?” I nodded once again. “We were high school sweethearts. I used to tutor her in math. She was horrible with numbers. Couldn’t keep the formulas straight. My folks thought the tutoring would look good on university applications, but they never imagined I would fall in love with your mother instead.”

“Was it love at first sight?”

“For me? Yes. For your mother? Not so much. She had heard rumors about me and my family. About the power we held here. She wanted nothing to do with me, but she really needed the tutoring. So she gave in and came to every study session. Eventually I wore her down.”

“So you bugged her until she went out with you?”

“It doesn’t sound very romantic at all, but yes. She finally broke after I asked her out for the sixtieth time. We spent all of our free time together. We went further than we should as high schoolers, and she ended up pregnant.”

“Did—did you want to keep me?” He smiled and moved so he was sitting next to me.

“Of course we did. That was the plan. Both of our parents pushed us to put you up for adoption. They made all the cases that we were too young and inexperienced to have children. Kelsey, that’s your mom, stood firm though. She even told me that she would keep you even if I left her. I would never leave her, but you get the idea.”