Finally, anticipation mounting, she brought up the most likely Trina. The woman had created a close-up profile picture from her larger cover photo. The photo captured her solo, standing on a balcony overlooking a beautiful Italian-looking town. She was half turned to the camera with a relaxed smile.
Leah went still. Trina’s face was lined with years, but her facial structure, height, and body type were very similar to Leah’s. She’d styled her blond hair in a long bob that was slightly shorter in back than in the front. She wore a navy-and-white-striped boatneck shirt with roomy sleeves.
Unfortunately for Leah’s purposes, Trina was indeed someone who had regard for privacy settings. She’d made zero information about herself available to people she hadn’t approved as Facebook friends.
Leah typed Sophie Brookside into the search bar. Again, she knew at once, from the picture alone, who her Sophie was. Again, she eliminated the others first before visiting her Sophie’s page.
The circular profile picture of Sophie (Brookside) Robbins revealed a lovely brunette. For her cover photo, she’d chosen an outdoor wedding shot. In it, she was beaming at the camera while holding the hand of her good-looking groom. She’d chosen a strapless wedding dress and knotted her hair into a sophisticated style at the nape of her neck. The veil attached to the top of her bun extended into the breeze in a whimsical line. Her groom regarded her with a besotted grin.
Sophie was slender, stylish, and, judging by this photo, terrifically happy.
Leah had never wanted to marry! Even so, a slither of jealousy snaked around her ribs and squeezed.
Was Sophie (Brookside) Robbins living the life Leah was supposed to have lived?
Was Leah the one who’d been intended for the gown, the veil, the groom? But instead had become, because of all the “nurture” factors in the “nature vs. nurture” equation, the one supporting her brother on a teacher’s salary?
Like her mother, Sophie shared no personal details with those outside her circle of friends.
Leah opened Instagram and hunted for Trina and Sophie there. She only found Sophie, who’d used the same wedding photo on Instagram as on Facebook. Here again, she maintained a private account. Leah tried the remaining social media platforms but wasn’t able to find them.
She surfed back to Trina and Sophie’s Facebook pages and spent more time absorbing the images.
Upon further reflection, she did not feel that she’d been intended for a gown, veil, and groom. But she did feel—very strongly—that she was intended for a PhD. It had been her dream since Ms. Santiago, her second-grade teacher, had told her about the career paths open to academics.
If she’d gone home from the hospital with Trina and Jonathan, she might have been free to follow through on Princeton’s PhD offer. She might be teaching at a university right now. Writing papers, giving lectures, meeting with students.
Grief sent her bolting into the kitchen. She opened a can of mixed nuts and munched while her mind churned. With one hand, she scooped up more nuts, with the other, she slid her phone from her pocket and indulged in her guilty pleasure—browsing the digital album where she kept the dozens of pictures of Princeton she’d collected over the years.
She had so many pictures of the school, and had studied them all so carefully, that she probably knew the campus and the college’s history better than most of their incoming students.
She never could decide if these pictures were a healthy way to process her loss or an unhealthy fixation on her loss.
Both?
She could bear without too much difficulty the idea that she may have missed out on a wedding because she’d been switched at birth. But it was much harder to bear the idea that she could have missed out on the chance to further her education because she’d been switched at birth.
She still had every intention of furthering her education when Dylan left for college. She’d take as many courses as she could handle time-wise, while continuing to work, and money-wise, while contributing to Dylan’s tuition. Eventually, she’d achieve her PhD. She would. It’s just that, to get there, she’d have to climb a challenging uphill path. The prestigious, fully funded route of years ago was gone.
She shoveled more nuts into her mouth.
It was too soon to think about her doctoral work. Nearly a year remained until Dylan’s graduation. For now, her primary focus was to ensure that he made it to his freshman dorm room in one piece and well prepared for independence.
With God’s help, she and Dylan had come a long way together. With God’s help, they’d cross the remaining distance.
A snide voice within her sneered, He’s not even your brother.
“Yes he is,” she whispered to the empty room. The mighty ties of love and loyalty that bound her to him had not changed. The truest truth of her life was that she’d love Dylan always. Unconditionally.
The things she’d learned today didn’t have to mean that Sophie had been the beneficiary of the switch and Leah the loser . . . because Leah had gotten Dylan, and she wouldn’t relinquish him for anything. She’d chosen his well-being above Princeton, and she’d chosen rightly. She didn’t regret it. Given the same set of circumstances, she’d make the same decision.
It would serve her well to remember that none of the ramifications of the switch were Sophie’s fault. She and Sophie had been minutes old when the mistake had occurred. Both of them helpless newborns. Victims. Sophie had been robbed of the opportunity to grow up with her biological family just like Leah had.
She should feel kinship with Sophie. And she did. . . .
It’s just that she felt a bit of hostility toward her, too.
How many nuts had she just eaten? Hopefully not half the can. She set them back on the shelf and returned to the dining room to Google Jonathan Brookside.
She hadn’t been able to find anything on him last week, but she’d given up after the first three or four pages of hits. This time, she’d dig deeper.
Sure enough, on the eleventh page of hits, she came upon two future-casting articles attributed to Jonathan Brookside, Founder, Gridwork Communications Corporation. The pieces were both well written. One article had appeared six years ago, the other eight. She had no way of confirming if this was her Jonathan, because no information was given about his age or family status.
She went to Gridwork Communications Corporation’s website and learned that they were a computer services company located in Atlanta. It made sense that a man who’d lived in Atlanta in young adulthood might have founded a business in the same city.
Carefully, she deleted her browser history in case Dylan attempted to snoop.
She and her brother were about to leave on their epic road trip. Her goal for their time away: to rest and to fill her days with new places and experiences. She refused to let this thing with her past distract her so much that she couldn’t enjoy the vacation she’d spent six months planning.
Fate, destiny, paternity were weighty issues. Twenty-eight years had gone by without her knowing anything about the Brooksides. It wouldn’t hurt to give herself time to strategize her next move.
One afternoon in mid-July, Sebastian assessed the couple who’d just taken the seats across from him in his office at Beckett Memorial.
Timothy and Megan Ackerman, both around his age, were sitting in the two chairs no parent wanted to sit in. All the parents who sat in those chairs were forced to face one of the worst things that can happen to a person—the life-threatening sickness of their child.