Birthright

I’m sorry? What good is it for me to tell you I’m sorry? It won’t change anything, it won’t give back what was taken from you. And how can I be sorry, all the way sorry? How can I regret having Callie? It’s not possible to regret that, to be sorry for that. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”
    “No, you can’t. Every time you held her, it should’ve been me holding her. When you took her to school the first day and watched her walk away from you, it should’ve been me who felt so sad and so proud. I should’ve told her bedtime stories and worried late at night when she was sick. I should’ve punished her when she disobeyed and helped her with her homework. I should’ve cried a little when she went on her first real date. And I should’ve been allowed to feel that sense of loss when she went off to college. That little empty space inside.”
    Suzanne fisted a hand over her heart. “The one that has pride at the edges of it, but feels so small and lonely inside. But all I had was that empty space. That’s all I’ve ever had.”
    They sat, stiffly, in the lovely room, with the hot river of their bitterness churning between them.
    “I can’t give those things back to you.” Vivian kept her head up, her shoulders stiff and straight. “And I know, in my heart, that if we’d learned this ten years ago, twenty, I would’ve fought to keep them from you. To keep her, whatever the cost. I can’t even wish it could be different. I don’t know how.”
    “I carried her inside me for nine months. I held her in my arms moments after her first breath.” Suzanne leaned forward as if poised to leap. “I gave her life.”
    “Yes. And that I’ll never have. I’ll never have that bond with her, and I’ll always know you do. So will she, and it will always matter to her. You will always matter to her.Part of the child who was mine all of her life is yours, now. She’ll never be completely mine again.”
    She paused, fighting for composure. “I can’t possibly understand how you feel, Mrs. Cullen. You can’t possibly understand how I feel. And maybe in some selfish part of ourselves we don’t want to understand. But I ache because neither of us can know what Callie’s feeling.”
    “No.” Her heart quivered in her breast. “We can’t. All we can do is try to make it less difficult.”
    There had to be more than anger here, Suzanne reminded herself. There had to be more, for the child who stood between them. “I don’t want her hurt. Not by me or you, not by whoever’s responsible for this. And I’m afraid for her, afraid of how far someone will go to prevent her from finding what she’s looking for.”
    “She won’t stop. I considered asking you to go with me. If both of us asked her to let it be . . . I even talked to Elliot about it. But she won’t stop, and it would only upset her if we asked something she can’t give.”
    “My son’s in Boston now. Trying to help.”
    “We’ve asked questions in the medical community. I can’t believe Henry . . . my own doctor.” Her hand lifted to her throat, twisted the simple gold necklace she wore. “When she finds the answers, and she will, there’ll be hell to pay. Meanwhile, she’s not alone. She has her family, her friends. Jacob.”
    “It’s hard to tell which group he fits into.”
    For the first time since she’d come into the house, Vivian smiled and meant it. “I hope the two of them figure it out this time. And get it right. I . . . I should go, but I wanted to give you these.”
    She touched the bag she’d set down beside the chair. “I went through the photographs and snapshots in our albums. I made copies of what I thought you’d . . . what I thought you’d like to have. I, ah, wrote the dates and occasions on the back when I remembered.”
    She rose, picked up the bag and held it out. Staring at it, Suzanne got slowly to her feet. There was a fist around herheart, squeezing so tight she wondered she could breathe at all.
    “I wanted to hate you,” she declared. “I wanted to hate you and I wanted you to be a horrible woman. I’d tell myself that was wrong. How could I want my daughter raised by a horrible, hateful woman? But I wanted it anyway.”
    “I know. I wanted to hate you. I didn’t want you to have this lovely home, or to hear you speak of her with so much love. I wanted you to be angry and cold. And fat.”
    Suzanne let out a watery laugh. “God. I can’t believe how