A Necessary End Read Online Free PDF Page B

know for sure. But I know.” She looks over at me, and her expression is so full of love and hope and wonder that it breaks my heart. I want to be the one to make her look that way; at the very least, I don’t want to take it away. But she’s talking crazy. Leah’s arriving tonight ? Leah doesn’t know the sex, but Adrienne somehow does?
    â€œThis is breakneck, Adrienne. This isn’t how people do things.”
    â€œI know it’s fast. But that’s because it’s fate.” Again, she doesn’t wait for my response. “Like you said, she can’t fly too late in the pregnancy so she needs to do it now.”
    â€œIt’s already too late. What’s she been doing her whole pregnancy, smoking crack?”
    â€œShe wouldn’t do that.” Her attention returns to the dough, which she kneads with an almost pathological vigor. “Seriously, I have a good feeling about her. It’s overwhelming, being her age andpregnant. Maybe she’s been waiting for Trevor to change his mind, to tell her he wants to raise the baby with her.” I can tell that Adrienne is convincing herself as she speaks. She nods authoritatively. Yep, she likes that explanation. So it must be true.
    â€œYou mean you didn’t ask what took her so bloody long?”
    â€œI wasn’t going to accuse her. I wanted her to like me. She needs to like us.” She looks over at me. “Maybe you could go get your hair cut before she—”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay, okay. Just a thought.” She smiles and raises her sticky hands in the air to indicate her harmlessness. Adrienne is many things, but harmless is not among them.
    â€œShe didn’t board the plane yet, did she? There’s still time to cancel?” Her head whips toward me. “I’m just saying, we can Skype with her first. Get to know each other that way. It’s safer for the baby with no air travel. Maybe we can fly out and visit her in Rhode Island, be there for the birth.”
    Now her eyes are downcast, on the bowl, and I feel the temperature in the room rising. “There isn’t time.” She pushes it out between clenched teeth.
    â€œWhat did Hal say?” Hal Grayson III, Mr. “Call me Hal,” we’re all friends here, especially since he’s going to make a mint brokering our baby.
    â€œI can’t reach him on a Saturday.” Her next glance contains a plea. “She’s got other birth parents in the queue.”
    The queue, like this is Netflix.
    â€œDo you get what that means? She likes us best. She likes how we look and the way we love each other. She wants to meet us first . We’re her favorites. But if we cancel, she’ll go down the list. We’ll lose her.”
    â€œThen there’ll be other birth mothers.” It comes out like I want it to—masculine and confident—but she’s not buying it. She doesn’t want others, she wants this one. It has to be this one.
    She’s turned into an ice sculpture. Her hands are frozen in thedough, and I can’t even see her mouth moving. “This is happening, Gabe. She’s flying out tonight. We’re picking her up at SFO at eleven twenty-three. You can cut your hair or not. You can drive us to the airport or not.” Her eyes flicker in my direction but don’t light on me. “This is in motion.”
    Motion, for Adrienne, is unidirectional. She never reverses.
    â€œTell me you haven’t signed anything,” I say. I don’t like my tone. Too wheedling. I make it stronger. “If we meet her and we don’t like her, we can back out. We put her on a plane back home.”
    â€œDo you hear yourself?” Adrienne asks, incredulous. “You want to turn a birth mother away? We don’t need to like her. We’re not going to raise her.”
    â€œBut she’ll be in our lives forever. Open adoptions—”
    â€œCan be