Read Online Paige Rewritten by Erynn Mangum - Free Book Online Page A

just really appeals to me right now.
    I still haven’t read Preslee’s note. I moved it to six different places around the apartment, and it finally ended up on my bedside table. I look at it, frowning, and look back at the Bible.
    Maybe I need a little preface to tonight’s Bible reading.
    I bite my bottom lip, take a deep breath, and pull over the cream-colored envelope. She scrawled Paige across the front in her distinctive chicken scratch. I can recognize Preslee’s handwriting anywhere.
    I open the envelope and slide out a little folded note card, taking another deep breath, my lungs tight.
    Paige,
    Happy birthday, sister. I know this is a shock to have me here, to have me this close to home. Honestly, I am shocked as well.
    I know I made your life and Mom and Dad’s lives miserable. I know I wasn’t the little sister I could have been. I missed birthdays, I missed Christmases. I missed Mom and Dad’s twenty-fifth anniversary. You have no idea how much I wish I could get those back.
    I’m sorry, Paige. I don’t know any other way to say it, but please know I mean this with all my heart. I am so sorry. I hope someday you can forgive me.
    I love you, sister.
    Preslee
    Tears burn the backs of my eyes when I close the card. Sister. The word should mean so much more to me. Something along the song in White Christmas . Like matching blue dresses and peacock feathers and piano music and tap dancing.
    It doesn’t bring up any feelings of happiness in me at all.
    There was a point when Preslee and I were close. When I was in middle school and she was in elementary school, we did everything together. I was the cool big sister who got to have her ears pierced, and Preslee idolized me.
    She started getting mixed up with the wrong crowd in late middle school, and by sophomore year in high school, she was pretty much as far down the path as she could get.
    Or so we thought.
    I rub my eyes and look back at the Bible verses swimming in front of me. Psalm 27 catches my attention.
    â€œWhen You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘ Your face, O L ORD , I shall seek.’”
    I could feel it now. The gentle longing. The whisper.
    Seek My face, Paige .
    I’m trying, Lord. Show me how .

Chapter
    7
    W ednesday morning.
    Eleven o’clock.
    I have now answered the phone sixteen times. Eight were potential adoptive parents. Two were potential birth mothers. The other six were all Mark’s wife because he apparently left his cell phone at home, and this was just not acceptable.
    The phone rings again and I don’t recognize the number on the caller ID. Part of me is relieved not to have to talk to Mark’s wife again. I like Cindy most of the time. I don’t necessarily like her on days when she is feeling clingy and I’m the one standing between her and her husband.
    Or sitting, rather.
    â€œThank you for calling Lawman Adoption Agency, this is Paige, how may I help you?” I say this phrase so often, I’ve answered my cell phone like this without even realizing it until my mother started laughing.
    â€œHi, um yes, I’m assuming I’m calling the right place.”
    I immediately take in the nervousness, the approximate age, and the way she’s phrasing her sentence. Potential adoptive mother.
    I grab the appropriate notebook to start writing down notes. Mark likes to have first impressions of both the adoptive and birth parents. “What can I help you with?”
    â€œMy husband and I are looking to get some information on adoption.”
    I smile to myself. Score for me.
    â€œI’d love to give you some info, Mrs. um …” Kind of my informal way of saying, “Name please.”
    â€œOh, it’s Tammy.”
    I end up talking to Tammy for over an hour, going over fees, legal questions she has, and then she just starts talking about how long they have been trying and hoping for a baby.
    â€œWe’ve spent