Book 2 in ~The Ocean Series~
Everyone has a calling, a path through life that God has paved for them to follow. But how does one find that path? Meredee has a great job and wonderful friends, yet she feels like something is missing, like there is mo...
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Silvana fixed her piercing dark eyes firmly on Meredee's matching brown ones, "Ka'leisha, this is where you were born."
Meredee blinked, unsure if her ears had suddenly imagined that some new cryptic riddle had been muttered by Silvana. That possibility would be a relief, for she had been expecting something unsavoury or mysterious; but the way Silvana looked at her with her head slightly tilted as if reading Meredee's reaction very carefully, somehow seemed truthful. But that couldn't be possible.
"I...I was born here? No, that's impossible. I was born in the United States of Ameri-"
"Now that is impossible. I remember the day perfectly well. I held you tightly, against my chest. You were so tiny..." Silvana's stony expression almost melted for the briefest of moments. "I know for sure you were born here, Ka'leisha – my daughter."
"No....no..." Meredee took a step back, then another as the gravity of Silvana's words washed over her addled mind and took up residence in her trembling heart. She grasped for another explanation. This woman was definitely mistaking her for someone else; there was no way Silvana could be her mother. "My parents were Andrew and Melissa Blake. We moved to China as missionaries when I was only little –"
"Perhaps they found you as a defenceless child and took you as their own," Silvana countered.
"You - you must think I'm someone else, because you are definitely not my mother," Meredee spoke with tremulous lips, forcing the words past the hammering of her heart in her chest and throat, as if saying them out loud would confirm what she had always known to be true.
"You don't believe me? See for yourself," Silvana replied calmly but with a sharpening clip in her tone. Taking a step toward Meredee, she placed her arm around her shoulders and pushed her towards the edge of the pond. Forcing her head down, Meredee could only stare into the mirror that reflected their images perfectly against the clear blue sky. There was no mistaking the resemblance, the undeniable similarities between them – the dark hair and eyes, the shape of their nose and chin, even the hand that Meredee reached up to touch her own cheek as if for the first time, strikingly matched Silvana's delicate hand that rested on Meredee's shoulder.
For an undefined amount of time, Meredee seemed to forget how to breathe. Her chest felt like someone had ripped it out and placed a stone there in stead of her heart, her lungs were constricting with a sudden attack of asthma, the light faded from the perimeters of her eyesight, and her knees buckled as the earth heaved up beneath her. She sank to the soft grass in a heap of skirts and refused to believe this new version of truth that could only stare at her in the face, in Silvana's face. It had to be an illusion, a mirage; a veil that clouded her eyes and twisted everything she believed. How could – how could Silvana be her mother? Her mother, Melissa, also looked like her, Meredee had always thought. Sure, she hadn't had a slender frame like Meredee's , but she did have short black hair and warm brown eyes. But – so did most of the world's population if Meredee was honest with herself.
