Love Child

Casey sees the last of the movers to the door and turns to face the empty apartment, her home for most of her twenty-six years. Soft gray walls. Worn random-width oak floors. Windows overlooking Central Park. The furnishings are gone—the priceless antiques and extensive art collection sold to an auction house to help pay medical bills. And her mother’s wardrobe and personal effects all donated to charity. While Casey hated to give her mother’s belongings away, she has no place to keep them and no money to splurge on a storage unit.

Sliding down to the hardwood floor, she rests her head against the wall and closes her eyes. She can almost hear her mother singing loud and off key down the hall in the cramped corner kitchen—selections from classic musicals like West Side Story and Oklahoma. Her mother couldn’t hold a tune, but she sure could cook. Several times a month, Beverly invited her famous friends over for dinner. She hired waitstaff to serve and clean up, but she insisted on preparing the meal herself.

Tears stream down Casey’s cheek. She’ll never again hear her mother sing, never taste her gourmet cooking. Memories and a handwritten letter are all she has left of Beverly Hobbs, glamorous anchor of a nationally syndicated morning news show.

Casey tugs the crumpled paper free of her back pocket. Her mother had left instructions for her attorney to give the letter to Casey upon her death. For as long as she can remember, Casey had hounded her mother for information about her father. Where does he live? How does he earn his living? Do I look like him? Her mother’s answers were vague. They’d met when Beverly was in California on a business trip. They had a drunken one-night stand, and Beverly remembered little about him, including his name.

But her mother’s letter tells a different tale, the story of the summer she spent with Daniel Love in Napa. Beverly was taking a much-needed break from her demanding job at the network, and Daniel, a vintner from Virginia, was conducting research on the winemaking process. At the end of the summer, their affair ended, and Daniel returned to his wife and family—the wife and family he’d failed to mention until their last night together. Beverly was heartbroken. She would never find another love like the one they’d shared. When she discovered she was pregnant two months later, she viewed the baby as a gift from God, her love child.

Wiping away the tears, Casey gets to her feet and goes to the window, staring down at the new green foliage on the trees in Central Park. For the past three years, she’s watched the seasons change from the room down the hall while nursing her mother. Casey had been making a name for herself as a graphic designer when she quit her job to take care of Beverly. Three of the most critical career-building years of her life wasted. She has nothing to show for that time except a meager sum in her bank account, two suitcases of shabby clothes, and her mother’s 2005 baby blue Volvo convertible. Her friends have moved on with their lives. No reputable graphics firm in New York will hire her. Her future is a blank slate. And Virginia is calling her name. What if things don’t work out with her father? She’ll worry about that if it happens.

Turning her back on the window, she grabs her suitcases and leaves the apartment. She retrieves the convertible from the garage and navigates the city streets to open roads.

Casey’s mind drifts as she imagines the reunion with her father. She has the advantage. She knows who he is. He’s unaware she’s alive. She envisions herself bursting in on a Love family dinner—her father’s shock, his wife’s outrage, and their children’s confusion when she announces her identity. Casey chuckles to herself. She’s mild-mannered by nature. She could never do something so bold.

Casey had considered searching the Internet for information about the man, his family, and their vineyard. Fearing she might discover something that would dissuade her from making the trip, she decides to go in blind.