June 1994 

Mickey Mouse Club Wrap Party

Ashton didn’t want to leave. To leave meant actually leaving the set that had been her home for the last three years. It also meant she would have to say goodbye to JC even sooner and that just made her gut wrench even more.

Having been on the most popular show on The Disney Channel for the first three years of her teenage years. Ashton had met some of the most wonderful friends she knew she’d ever have. And she’d been with JC for two of the three years she’d been a club member on the show.

Now, he was moving out to L.A. and Ashton would be returning to her hometown in North Carolina. She would start her junior year of high school with people she hadn’t been in school with since the end of her seventh grade year. When she’d gone home during the summer breaks, her friends had seemed to move on. And while they thought it was cool that they had a friend on television all over the nation, they couldn’t quite get on her level so they had given up and barely talked to her.

“Hey.” JC interrupted her thoughts and Ashton turned around to face her boyfriend.

“Hey.” She smiled at him and he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Come on. Let’s go. Tony and Dale aren’t home and I have a surprise for you.” JC met her forehead with his and kissed her.

Ashton turned slightly to see Lindsey and Jennifer hugging each other and crying. Britney and Christina were writing something on a piece of paper, then handed it off to one another. Britney looked up at her and gave her a tiny smile, then walked away from Christina over to Ashton and JC.

“Bye.” Britney put an arm around Ashton’s waist and immediately started to sob.

“Oh, Brit.” Ashton couldn’t help but tear up once more and hugged her little friend. Britney and Christina had only been given two seasons on the show and had become Ashton’s shadows. Ashton had been the first to hear about Britney’s kiss with Justin in a game of Spin the Bottle and hadn’t even told JC about it.

“Here.” Britney wiped away a tear and handed Ashton a piece of paper. “That’s my address and phone number in Louisiana.”

“Thanks.” Ashton sniffed and hugged Britney once more.

“Ready?” JC asked Ashton once Britney had walked away.

Ashton nodded. “Yeah. If I stay here any longer I’m just gonna cry more.”

Ashton’s mother was waiting outside with the other cast moms. She waved to her daughter and Ashton broke away from JC to let her mother know where she was going.

“I’m gonna go off with Josh for a couple hours.” Ashton didn’t divulge any more information. Her mother trusted her and had no idea that for the last two months, JC and Ashton had been having sex. She knew it wasn’t a huge deal to anyone but her mother, because half of the older kids on the cast were doing the same thing.

“I’ll bring her home,” Josh assured Mrs. Diehl. “We just gotta say goodbye.”

Mrs. Diehl smiled at JC, someone she’d grown to love as the son she’d never had. “Thanks, Josh. You two have fun.”

The apartment was empty. Boxes had been packed, beds taken down, and all that remained was a twin mattress in the middle of the living room. It was dark by the time JC and Ashton entered and the only light was that of the porch light flickering into the living room.

“Stay here.” JC instructed Ashton and walked into the bedroom that he’d shared with Dale for the last four years. He came out holding a lit candle and smiled at Ashton. “I wanted our last time to be romantic.”

He set the candle down across from the mattress and walked over to Ashton. “I just want you to know the last two years have been amazing. I don’t want to think about not getting to see you everyday.” He kissed her cheek and then her lips.

“I don’t want to think about that, either.” Ashton looked up at him. “Do you really have to go to L.A.?” Her mind wandered to his roommates out there. Living with Dale and Tony would be one thing. She just didn’t understand why Nikki was a part of the deal.

“It’s where everything is happening, baby.” JC placed his hands on her shoulders. “I promise I’ll call you everyday and come visit whenever I can.”

Ashton could only force a smile. Her stomach and her heart were constantly switching places now and all she could do was go with it.

“I love you, Ashton,” he whispered into her ear and Ashton felt herself melting in his arms once again.

The next morning, Mrs. Diehl and Ashton pulled out of the rented apartment complex at 7:00 sharp. It would take nearly 10 hours to get home, whatever home was now. The goodbye between Ashton and JC had been painful, but he promised he would visit as soon as he could.

Ashton was quiet all the way out of Orlando. Nothing her mother could say to her would make her feel any better. She’d lost her boyfriend and her friends all because Disney decided the demographic was changing and the show was done. She played with the gold chain around her neck.  JC had given it to her for her birthday the first year they’d been together. That along with countless pictures and little trinkets was all she’d have left of him for a while.

August 1994

Ashton was sitting in her History class trying to focus on what Mr. Hewitt was saying. Something about the Civil War, something about brother divided against brother, something about….Ashton couldn’t focus. She felt the wave of nausea hit her once more and this time she had to excuse herself.

“Um, Mr. Hewitt?” Ashton raised her hand and spoke at the same time.

“Yes, Ashton?” Mr. Hewitt stopped writing on the chalkboard and turned around to face the students.

“I need to go to the bathroom. It’s an emergency.” Ashton could feel the color draining from her face and knew if she didn’t get out of that classroom, she’d throw up all over Jenny Stephens, who sat in front of her.

“Go.” Mr. Hewitt looked annoyed but Ashton didn’t care. She ran out of the classroom, ever grateful for the bathroom across the hall. She pushed on the first open stall door and threw up all over the toilet seat.

“No fever,” the school nurse told her after she’d gotten a pass from Mr. Hewitt. “What did you eat for lunch?”

“A ham sandwich, Fritos, and an apple.” Ashton listed off her normal, everyday lunch that she packed. She missed the Disney Commissary food. No more hamburgers and fresh cut French fries for lunch anymore. It made her sad, thinking back on a year ago how she and JC and their friends would break from school and eat together in the huge commissary down from the set. Today she’d eaten with Mallory and Toni Ann, two friends from middle school who still talked to her.

“Hmm.” The nurse turned her back and scribbled something on her pad of paper. “Ashton, when was your last period?”

Ashton shrugged, trying to remember. It had to have been a few weeks ago, but then again, Ashton confused the weeks with the months because since she’d returned from Orlando, everything seemed to run together.

“I don’t know. A few weeks ago, maybe?” Ashton replied.

The nurse looked at her questionably. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Ashton cringed. She and JC hadn’t spoken in almost two weeks now. He’d called like he promised to do, but the last few times had seemed distant. She had asked him about it and he’d suggested they take a break. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out he was with Nikki now, just like she had always assumed would happen.

“No. We broke up.” Ashton felt that hurtful pang in her heart and did her best not to burst into tears.

“Were you sexually active?”

Ashton bit her lower lip. Nobody knew about her and JC having sex, except for Dale and Tony and Ilana, maybe a few other friends from MMC. Certainly nobody there at her high school.

“Yeah,” Ashton admitted.

The nurse pursed her lips together. “I see. Well, I’m just putting this out there, but you may want to go and take a pregnancy test.”

“We were careful!” She tried her best not to sound as defensive as she felt, but the nurse saw right through it.

“Ok. Well, it’s just a precaution I would take if I were you. You might not be, but you’re not running fever, you had a normal lunch. Anything for breakfast?”

“A pop tart.”

“There’s not a stomach flu or a virus running around. I’m just telling you what I think. You don’t have to listen to me.”

Ashton let out a frustrated sigh and looked at the nurse. “Thanks. I’ll grab one after school today.” She hopped down off the stool she’d been sitting on. “Can I have a pass for sixth period?”

The nurse nodded and quickly scribbled something on a pink piece of paper, then handed it to Ashton. With that, Ashton took the pass and reluctantly headed to her next class.

Ashton sat on the toilet in a public restroom at the drugstore. She’d made sure nobody she knew saw her buy the pregnancy test. Her hands shook as she held it in her hand and waited for a line to appear or not appear. Her thoughts ran rampant about what she would do if she were pregnant. She would tell JC, maybe he’d come back for her and they could get married. It was a silly dream and she knew it but it gave her hope to think that maybe he’d come back to her if she was carrying his baby.

She thought about her parents and how disappointed they would be. She thought about how she’d be an outcast even more than she already was at her high school. She couldn’t be pregnant, though. They were careful every time and JC had worn a condom. Even though Ashton wasn’t on birth control, she knew the other girls on the show weren’t either and that had made her feel better about it.

She looked down at the white stick in her hand and her heart sunk when the two lines appeared across the previous blank space.

She was pregnant.

October 1994

Ashton followed her mother into the adoption agency. Ever since she’d broken the news to her parents, she hadn’t been given a choice on what to do with her child. She wasn’t to tell JC because her mother assured her he wouldn’t care, especially now that he’d moved on. And Ashton had also heard rumors from other friends on the show that JC was about to start a new band and had moved back to Orlando. Her mother told her it wouldn’t matter to him and that giving the child up for adoption was best for all.

Ashton secretly had fantasized about what if she’d told JC and what if he’d decided to come back to her. They’d get married and move to Orlando together. Even if he was in a new band, he’d give it up and be the perfect father and husband.

She knew it was a fantasy but it kept her hopeful in the midst of all of the chaos.

Today she would meet prospective birth parents. The week before, she’d found out she was having a girl. It had broken her heart. A little girl was something Ashton had always wanted but she couldn’t have her.

The prospective parents were a couple in their late twenties who’d been unable to get pregnant. The father, Paul, was a broker for a firm in Charlotte. The mother, Melodie, was a Kindergarten teacher who would quit work to stay at home with their future child.

“They seem perfect,” Mrs. Diehl was saying as she and Ashton walked down the hall to meet them. She looked over at Ashton. “Stand up straight, honey. Look excited.”

“Excited? That’s the last thing I am,” Ashton grumbled. “I told you I don’t want to do this!”

Mrs. Diehl stopped and turned to face her daughter. “You have no way of supporting a child, Ashton. You’re going to finish high school and go to college. The money you’re getting from the Mickey Mouse Club is going towards an education, not raising a baby!”

Ashton winced and Mrs. Diehl realized just how harsh she’d come across. “I’m sorry, honey. I know this has to be hard for you. I just…I want you to be realistic.”

Ashton knew realistic wasn’t calling JC and telling him about their baby. No. Realistic was having to grow up faster than she’d wanted to and give away something she desperately wanted.

March 1995

Ashton had been allowed to hold her baby girl for a few moments. She looked at the perfect little human being in her arms. Brown hair and blue eyes. Just like her daddy. Ashton’s heart ached more than she ever thought possible and something inside of her burst with love for this little alien looking baby. She cried as she held her child, knowing Paul and Melodie would be here soon to take her away.

“Is there a name you’d like us to use as part of the name we give her?” Melodie had asked a few weeks before.

Ashton had secretly named her baby Elizabeth. She’d always liked that name. It was the name she referred to her baby as the entire time she’d been pregnant.

“Elizabeth,” Ashton had answered.

Paul and Melodie had chosen Madison but were going to use Elizabeth for the middle name.

She would always be Elizabeth in Ashton’s mind.

“The Boens are here.” Mrs. Diehl walked into the room where Ashton was holding Elizabeth in her arms. She walked over to her daughter. “She’s beautiful, Ash.”

Ashton was crying as she held Elizabeth closer. “I just want more time with her, Mom.”

“I know, honey. But you know what the adoption counselor said. It’s better to let go now or you’re going to have a harder time doing it.” Mrs. Diehl smoothed out Ashton’s blonde locks of hair.

Paul and Melodie Boen walked into the room. Melodie looked at Ashton and smiled.

“I know today is hard for you, Ashton,” Melodie said as she walked over to her. “Are you sure you want this to be a closed adoption?”

Ashton cried even harder as she nodded. “I..I just…I can’t know anything because I’ll want her back.”

Melodie looked over at Paul, who joined her next to Ashton’s bed. “You have no idea what you’re giving us.” Paul told Ashton and reached over to touch Elizabeth’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Ashton looked down at Elizabeth once more, a sob escaping her lips. She kissed her baby for the last time and closed her eyes as Melodie took her from Ashton’s arms.

Orlando, the same day 

JC woke up earlier than usual. His dreams had been wrought with visions of Ashton. As guilty as he’d felt ending things the way he had, he still thought about her. Nikki had just been a fling and as much a JC hated admitting that, he knew that Ashton had been the real thing, at least for the time they’d been on MMC.

Now, he was starting a new venture. A boy band called Nsync. It was supposedly going to be the next big thing and he believed that with all of his heart. He had secretly wished Ashton had been there to be a part of all the hype. She would have been supportive, unlike Nikki who had laughed at the idea and basically had told him it was her or the band.

JC knew Ashton would have never given him that ultimatum. Ashton would’ve done a lot of things differently from Nikki.

“C! We’re gonna be late for rehearsal!” Chris called to him from down the hall.

JC sighed and finally rolled out of bed, his mind on Ashton more than ever before.

March 2015, Charlotte, North Carolina

Madison ran a hand nervously through her long, brown hair. She knew she was old enough to make this decision and old enough that telling her parents what she was going to tell them on her birthday shouldn’t matter. In fact, her mother had told her time and time again that whenever she wanted to search for her birth parents, she was more than welcome to do it. But it still made her stomach churn thinking of what she was going to say.

She only lived an hour away from them but every time she came home, her parents acted as though she’d gone to school in California and not a state school in North Carolina. She could understand, she supposed. Madison was an only child and adopted at that. Even though her first choice for college had been the University of Miami, her father deemed it too far (and too expensive) for her to go. Plus, she’d been offered a full ride at NC State and she knew she would’ve been crazy not to take it.

And truth be told, she was having a great time with her major – Communications – and her sorority – Kappa Delta – so all thoughts of heading south to Florida had disappeared.

Madison finally opened the front door after standing there contemplating exactly how to broach the subject. She walked inside the large, two story home that Melodie and Paul Boen had lived in for the better part of twenty-five years now. It hadn’t changed much since Madison’s fifth grade year of school when her mother decided to hire a decorator.

“Maddie, is that you?” her mother called from the kitchen.

Madison placed her duffel bag at the bottom of the stairs and walked down the hall into the kitchen. Melodie was pulling out a pan of chocolate chip cookies from the oven.

“Hi, Mom.” Madison stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Her mother turned around and smiled at her, placing the cookies on the cooling rack on top of the stove.

“It’s good to see you, baby.” Melodie walked over and held out her arms to her daughter. Madison returned the hug and then pulled away. “Good to see you too, Mom.”

“How was the drive?” Melodie went over to the oven and turned it off. “I decided tonight we’d go out for dinner and then come back for cookies and ice cream. I know they’re your favorite.”

“Thanks mom.” Madison had never preferred a birthday cake on her birthday. Singing the birthday song was always awkward to her and she’d rather have her mother’s homemade chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream than cake any day of the week. “The drive was fine.” Madison sat down at the kitchen table while her mother moved the cookies from the cooling rack onto a plate. She hesitated, wondering if she should ask her mother now or wait until dinner. She tried to imagine sitting across from her parents in a public place and bringing up the subject of meeting her birth parents. Would her mother start crying? Would her father get quiet and not want to say anything else about it? Maybe it was better to ask now than wait until –

“Hello?” Her father had just come in from work. “Maddie, are you home?”

Madison held her tongue. She would wait until they were home for dessert.

Nashville

“You are coming tonight, right?” Ashton’s best friend, Alicia, was asking her over the phone.

Ashton had been pretending to be busy at work typing up a draft for her boss to approve the latest idea she’d had for a local beer commercial. She knew Alicia wanted to go out and celebrate the engagement to Patrick, but Ashton was exhausted. Then again, it wasn’t everyday that her best friend got engaged to the man she’d been dating for the past five years.

“Of course I am.” Ashton had tried to be excited in her response but Alicia read right through her.

“Are you okay?” Alicia asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Work’s just been crazy today.” Ashton looked at the time on her computer screen. “And I still have another hour.”

“If you were doing what you loved you wouldn’t be miserable.” Alicia always had to point that out to Ashton.

“Unfortunately what I love requires too much work and a lot of ‘no’s’ and I’m too old for that right now.” Ashton sighed into the phone. Her boss came out and gave her the once over with a blink of his eye. “I have to go. I’ll see you at seven.”

Ashton hung up and pulled up the document she’d been working on. It shouldn’t have taken her that long to pitch this idea, but the graphics weren’t cooperating and today her mind had been a billion other places.

“Ugh.” She heard her co-worker, Byron, groaning on the other side of her cubicle. Ashton popped out of her seat and stuck her head over the side.

“What’s wrong?” She rested her arms on the side of the cubicle.

“I can’t be creative today.” Byron stretched his arms above his head. “And I’m supposed to have this blind date with some Match girl and I don’t want to go.”

“Why?” Ashton was intrigued. Byron was a guy who looked somewhat like a cartoon character. Big glasses, a long, protruding nose, and comical facial expressions. He wasn’t handsome or cute by any means but he always had a date because he was on every single dating website, including Farmers Only. And he was the first to admit, he hadn’t a clue about farming.

“Because she sounded cool at first but now she’s been emailing me every hour telling me how excited she is.” Byron rubbed his eyes. “It’s annoying.”

“You can’t cancel. That’s douchy of you.” Ashton reminded him. “Just go. Have a coffee and be done with it.”

“Fine.” Byron leaned back in his seat and yawned. “God this job is draining.”

“It’s a job, though.” Ashton muttered and looked at him. “I think the same thing, then I remember how many people I know of that are out of work.”

They worked in an advertising agency and what should have been a fun use of Ashton’s marketing degree had now been turned into tedious work, coming up with commercial ideas for different clients. It used to be fun when she’d started twelve years ago. But the fun had quickly worn off and now it was more or less sitting behind a computer, looking at graphics, and deciding which ones would be best used for beer.

“Yeah, yeah.” Byron shook his head. “You’re right and all that, but don’t you just wish sometimes you’d pursued a dream?”
Ashton nearly cringed. She’d wished it all the time. She wished she would’ve gone onto major in music or theatre or dance like her other MMC friends. She’d seen Ryan become a fast A-lister and went to support all of his movies. She’d watched every episode of Felicity just to see Keri every week. And just last year, Lindsey had come into town with her one woman show and Ashton had met her backstage. Lindsey worked a lot of hard hours and barely got recognition but she was happy and wasn’t afraid to tell Ashton that.

And of course there was Justin who was bigger than anyone ever had dreamed. Ashton had yet to catch him in concert but she reckoned that he was so big now he probably had forgotten anyone in MMC besides Ryan, Matt, and JC.

Ashton hadn’t talked to JC in a long, long time. She would Google him every so often just to see what he was up to since he’d more or less fallen off the planet when his album went south. When Nsync was big, she’d gone to a concert with Jennifer McGill but hadn’t breathed a word to her about the baby she’d given up for adoption. Jennifer had gone backstage but Ashton conveniently got a migraine and had to go home. She caught up with Jennifer the next day and she’d told her that JC had asked about her but that was it.

She knew she hadn’t been the only one to be out of the spotlight. There were countless others from the show who were doing just fine being at home or working in a different career path. But she missed performing and she’d missed it for a long time.

“Sorry.” Byron broke the silence. “Didn’t mean to make you all silent.”

Ashton shook her head. “No, I was just thinking about…something.” She smiled at him and then ducked back into her cubicle. She looked at the document again and started to type.

Dinner with her parents had seemed to drag on and on. Normally, Madison wouldn’t have been so anxious to get home but she knew when they got home that she would be able to ask the question she’d been wanting to ask for years now. Her parents didn’t seem to notice that she was fidgety. They were laughing with each other about their first few years with Madison, talking about how they couldn’t believe she’d grown up so fast, or that they now had a 20-year-old child and were they even old enough for that?

“Next year you can have champagne.” Her father winked at her from across the table and Madison just smiled. The countless parties she’d been to with her sorority sisters had made up for all the underage drinking she’d missed in high school. She never got plastered, but she was tipsy enough to where she had a great time at every Kappa Delta party thrown.

“Yeah.” Madison cleared her throat. “Dinner was great. Thanks, Dad.”

“Happy Birthday, honey.” Paul smiled at his daughter and squeezed Melodie’s shoulder. “Here.” He slid a small box across the table. Madison opened it and gasped when she saw the Pandora bracelet complete with an “M” charm and the Greek letters for Kappa Delta.

“Thank you!” She immediately took it out of the box and tried it on, holding out her wrist. She’d wanted one for years. It fit perfectly on her wrist and she shook it as it dangled in the light. Looking up at her parents she knew she couldn’t wait until they were at home.

“Um, there’s something I want to ask you.” Madison cleared her throat and watched as her parents waited for her to continue.

“What is it, hon?” Melodie leaned toward her. “Is everything ok at school?”

“Oh yeah, everything’s great.” Madison nodded her head, thinking that school was the least of any of her worries. “It’s just, well, I guess I was kind of wondering, um, if you guys would mind if I looked for my birth mom and dad?”

Ashton was exhausted by the time she got home. Her head was throbbing with a slight headache and her wrist was aching from typing so much that day. She immediately went into the kitchen and poured a glass of red wine, then leaned against the counter, staring at the refrigerator. She walked over and opened the door and stared at the small pink cupcake that she’d bought that morning on her way to work. Taking it out of the box it was in, she set it on the counter, rummaged through a drawer for a match and a candle, then brought it over to the kitchen table and sat down with the cupcake and the glass of wine.

“Happy Birthday, Elizabeth.” Ashton blew out the candle just as she had every year this time for the last 20 years.