Chapter 5: The Call to My Parents
The church office was cooler than the vestibule, and it smelled like old paper and lemon cleaner. Maya had closed the door behind us. My phone had two bars. Outside the little frosted window I could hear the faint sound of the string quartet still playing in the hall and a car door slamming in the parking lot.
Maya stood by the desk with her arms crossed, not touching me, giving me space. My tux jacket was over the back of a chair. The folded note was damp at the corner where my palm had sweated. The black-cased phone sat face-up next to it, screen dark.
"You don't have to do it on speaker," Maya said quietly.
"I want you to hear it," I said.
I called my mom. She picked up on the second ring with that bright, breathless voice she used when she was trying not to cry at weddings.
"Ethan! Honey, where are you? We're at the church parking lot, come celebrate, everyone's looking for you. Your father is trying to get the photographer to -"
"Mom," I said. "Maya and I are still in the church. In the office."
There was a pause, like she was covering the phone to tell my dad something. I could hear wind and distant chatter.
"Well, come out, sweetheart. People are waiting. Father Thomas said you stepped away. Is everything okay? Is Maya -"
"Mom, a woman stopped me on the steps," I said. My voice was lower than I expected. "She gave me a note. She said she used to call me her son."
Silence. Just the parking lot noise on her end.
Maya watched me. I unfolded the note and stared at the handwriting.
"Mom, what does this mean?" I read it exactly as it was written, my throat tight. " 'Ethan Carter, born March 3rd, 1993, at County General. I named you Michael. I'm sorry. - Diane.' "
The line went completely quiet. The bright voice was gone.
"Ethan," my mom said, but it was barely a whisper.
"Is it true?" I asked.
She didn't answer. I heard a muffled sound, then my dad's voice came on, steadier, the way he sounded when he was bracing for something.
"Son, where are you right now?" he said.
"In the church office," I said. "Dad, did you know she was alive?"
Another beat. I could hear my mom breathing in the background.
My dad exhaled. "Ethan, listen to me. Yes. We knew your biological mother was alive when we adopted you. The agency told us no contact was best. That was the advice at the time. Closed adoption was standard. They said it would be confusing for you if -"
"You told me she died," I said. It didn't sound angry. It just sounded flat.
"We told you what we were told to tell you," he said quickly, like he'd rehearsed that sentence years ago. "That she was young and couldn't care for you and that it was better to let you have a clean start. The caseworker said -"
"The caseworker said to lie?" Maya said, just loud enough for the phone to pick it up. She put her hand on my forearm.
My mom came back on, her voice cracking. "We thought we were protecting you, Ethan. We thought - oh, honey. Please don't do this right now. On your wedding day."
"Diane is outside," I said. "She's sitting on the bench by the side entrance. She hasn't asked for anything. She just... she handed me this and said she used to call me mom."
My mom made a small sound. Then she said something that stopped the air in the room.
"When you were twelve," she said, crying now openly. "She wrote us a letter. Through the agency. It was forwarded to us. She asked if she could send a picture, if you were okay. I... I kept it. I didn't show your father at first. I put it in my drawer."
I looked at Maya. Her eyes were wide.
"You kept her letter when I was twelve and you never told me," I said.
"I was scared, Ethan," she whispered. "You were my son. You are my son. I thought if you knew she was out there you'd feel torn. I thought I'd lose you."
My dad tried to cut back in. "Ethan, we can talk about this after the reception. Let's not -"
"No," I said. I felt the betrayal settle hard and cold, not hot. Like something shifting in my chest. "Not after the reception. Not in the ballroom with two hundred people watching. Come to the church office. Not the ballroom. Come here, both of you. We need to talk before I go back out there."
"Ethan -" my mom started.
"Please," I said. "Just come to the office door and knock. Leave the guests where they are."
I hung up before they could deflect again. The office was quiet except for the ticking of a wall clock. My hand was shaking. Maya picked up my tux jacket and held it without putting it on me.
May you like
"You did the right thing," she said softly.
I stared at the phone and the note on the desk. Down the hall, I could hear footsteps in the parking lot getting closer, and outside the frosted window, the dark shape of Diane was still there on the bench, waiting.
