Free Haunting Olivia by Janelle Taylor Page A

been willing.
    Just finish the story, she ordered herself.
    “My mother flipped out,” she continued. “Over and over she said, ‘How could you have been so stupid!’ and then she called my father, screaming at him that he’d let such a thing happen on ‘his watch.’ A moment later, she hung up with a ‘Your dad will handle this.’ Five minutes later, the phone rang. My father had made some calls, and I was being sent way up the coast of Maine to a home for pregnant teenagers. The baby would be adopted by a good family, I was told. It’s for the best, my mother said before dropping me off at the home.”

    HAUNTING OLIV IA
    75
    “The best for you, ” Olivia had wanted to scream.
    Olivia’s pregnancy was an embarrassment to Candace, even though no one knew about it. And the best for her father, who wanted nothing to do with his own daughter, let alone a “problem.”
    To everyone else, Olivia was in a Swiss boarding school.
    “I tried to call you back,” she said. “In the middle of the night. But a recording came on and said the phone had been disconnected.”
    “I remember that,” he said. “The phone was always getting disconnected every few months. My parents never paid the bill.” Now it was Zach’s turn to lean back against his chair and expel a breath. “I was so frustrated that I couldn’t get in touch with you. I tried to find you, but you were impossible to find. I went to New York to look for you, at your school, at shops around your house. I even waited on your doorstep to talk to your mother, but she refused to talk to me, refused to tell me anything.”
    “I didn’t know that,” Olivia said, in such a low voice she barely heard it herself. “I tried, too, Zach.
    I couldn’t reach you by phone, so I wrote letters.
    And they were all returned unopened and marked
    ‘Return to Sender.’”
    His mouth dropped open. “My mother . . . or father. Clearly, your father got to them. Paid them off. Paid them off to disconnect the phone most likely.”
    They sat in silence for a moment. Olivia was emotionally exhausted and they hadn’t even gotten up to the birth yet.
    “What was the home for pregnant teenagers like?” Zach asked.

    76
    Janelle Taylor
    Olivia could see the building, a mile down a dirt driveway and surrounded by nothing but trees and the ocean, as though she’d just been driven there for the first time. She’d never forget how unwelcoming the brick building had looked. Like a detention center, a juvenile hall.
    She shrugged. “It was what it was. No one was particularly kind there, but we were cared for physically. We were given prenatal vitamins and prenatal checkups and nutritious meals. I made a few friends there, but none of the girls really wanted to talk much; no one could bear to talk about how they really felt about being there or giving up their babies for adoption.” She took a deep breath. “I went into labor and I was so scared,” Olivia said, staring at her lap. “And then the baby was born and taken away. I didn’t even get to see her, Zach.”
    “And you were told she was stillborn?” he asked, his expression incredulous.
    She nodded. “By the doctor. By the nurse.”
    “An employee of your father’s arrived at my house with a baby in his arms,” Zach said, “a check for twenty-five thousand dollars, and a bus ticket to Boston. I was told you never wanted to see me again, that you thought I was pathetic trash who’d almost ruined your life. And then he handed over the baby, who looked just like me.”
    Olivia gasped and stared at Zach. “Why? Why, why, why would my father do that? Why would he lie and tell me the baby was born dead?” The tears came then, rushing down her cheeks.
    Zach reached across the table for her hand, and she was so surprised that she glanced up at him. “I don’t know, Olivia. If there’s an ‘at least,’ though, HAUNTING OLIV IA
    77
    at least he gave me the baby. I have no idea why he didn’t give the baby up for