Three Black Swans

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “The birth mother has a condition for adoption,” said Dr. Russo.

  There’s a birth mother? thought Kitty. She had actually forgotten that Missy was not hers.

  “Anything,” said Matt. “We’ll agree to anything.”

  “She does not want the adoption known. It is crucial that this baby never trace its origins.”

  There had been no time to tell friends and acquaintances anyway, because Matt and Kitty were practically living at the hospital. As for relatives, they simply phoned everybody and extracted promises of secrecy. Matt’s mother was the only relative to argue. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course I’m telling every person I know that I’m a new grandma.”

  “Right,” said Matt. “But don’t tell them your new grandbaby is adopted.”

  On the beautiful day when Missy was strong enough to go home, Dr. Russo had gone out to the car with Kitty and Matt, just as he’d done with Frannie and Phil.

  “And the adoption papers?” asked Matt. His mind was on the car seat, in which his tiny daughter had way too much room and needed the padding of rolled bath towels. He was desperate to get home. NICU had saved his baby girl, but he wanted miles between his baby and that hospital.

  “It always takes a while,” said Dr. Russo.

  * * *

  Babies require space.

  The Linnehans had needed a bigger house for Claire and ended up in New York State. The Vianellos had also moved. Both families were now among strangers who would never know that the baby next door had been adopted.

  But relatives did know.

  An uncle found it disturbing that the same doctor had given the same instructions to two couples: keep the adoption secret. “What’d he do—steal the kids?”

  An aunt found it comforting. “Dr. Russo is probably trusted in scary, sad situations. Probably has a reputation for helping unwed mothers.”

  In time, Claire’s adoption was finalized. Missy’s was not. But the Vianellos had bigger things to worry about. Their fragile baby was back in the hospital twice in the first year of her life.

  Matt called Dr. Russo to ask how the adoption was going. Dr. Russo didn’t return his calls. Kitty left messages. No response. Matt went to the man’s office, and Dr. Russo said he was working with the birth mother. Not to worry. Everything would work out.

  “What do you mean, working with her?” Matt had said, almost fainting for the first time in his adult life.

  “She’s a little skittish. But she’ll sign.”

  Matt and Kitty were terrified. What was there to be skittish about? What if she wanted her daughter back? Legally, Matt and Kitty Vianello had no claim on their baby.

  Time flew. Missy began to crawl and then walk. She was the most wonderful toddler in the world. They could not take their eyes off her.

  They forgot about the birth mother, because Missy was so completely their own. In the local paper they read a notice that children entering public school had to produce their birth certificate. Matt called Dr. Russo’s office. Dr. Russo had retired to Florida. The office refused to supply a phone number. It was the work of a minute to find it online.

  “I’m no longer sure,” said Dr. Russo, “that the birth mother will go through the necessary motions to sever parental rights.”

  “She has to!” shouted Matt. “Missy is our daughter! What’s going on? What does the woman need? We can pay her. We’ll do anything.”

  “I promised the birth mother I would never discuss her situation.”

  “Then don’t discuss it! Make her sign! We have to have a legal adoption!” Matt remembered the misgivings of his uncle. “You didn’t do anything illegal, did you? Missy isn’t stolen, is she?”

  “There is nothing illegal,” said Dr. Russo. “There is just something sad. Let it go, Mr. Vianello.”

  “How can we let it go? We have to have a birth certificate! We have to finalize the adoption.”

  Dr. Russo explained that a hospital issued a certificate of live birth, which would be superseded by a different birth certificate when the child was adopted. He would forward a copy of the original certificate so that they’d have some kind of paperwork.

  Matt and Kitty argued about what to do after they had the original certificate.

  “It will give the birth mother’s name,” said Kitty. “We’ll find her and get her to a lawyer and get the papers done.”

  Matt refused. “What if she sees Missy and wants her back? Who wouldn’t want Missy back?”

  The original papers never arrived. The next time Matt Vianello telephoned Dr. Russo, his widow explained that he had suffered a fatal heart attack during a tennis game.

  Their only route to a legal adoption was dead and gone.

  Matt refused to hire a lawyer. One toe into the mud of this situation and the birth mother might rear her ugly head and grab Missy for herself.

  Matt and Kitty Vianello’s daughter had no official identity.

  It was a sinkhole in their lives.

  * * *

  Missy’s father could not seem to get out of the swivel chair in front of the computer. He kept staring at the video, replaying this intensely shocking thing his daughter had done.

  His daughter’s entry into high school had increased the paperwork difficulty. The lack of social security number was insuperable. PSATs and driver’s license tests alone would bring a halt to their pretenses. Matt had already had two unpleasant discussions with a school vice principal and it was only October. He and Kitty did not even claim Missy as a dependent on their income tax forms because they had no social security number for her. He had been trying to think up new lies, such as pretending that fire had burned their documents. Ridiculous. If the originals were lost, you’d just order copies.

  He had known the truth would surface one day soon.

  Today, thought Matt Vianello, watching the video again. It’ll surface today.

  “Frannie is scared silly,” said his wife. “She can’t reach Phil. He’s at some construction site, probably can’t hear his cell phone ring, what with power tools screaming. Turns out Claire lied about where she would be today.” Kitty’s voice was shaking. “Frannie thinks the birth mother found both girls.”

  “The video doesn’t say what hospital or state or year or day those identical twins were born,” argued Matt Vianello. “How could some woman see the video and say, ‘There they are! My daughters! Let’s do lunch!’”

  “Oh, Matt,” said his wife, “the poor woman has probably wondered and yearned and wept for her babies all these years. I’ve always believed that the poor thing regretted so much that she signed one baby away, she couldn’t bring herself to sign the other one away. She sees Missy’s video, and let’s say our girls look a lot like her, and she guesses, and she calls.”

  Matt wanted to cite all the obstacles between seeing a video and phoning this house. But were there obstacles? Everything the birth mother needed she could find online, with the clues on that video.

  In a high, shuddery voice, his wife said, “The girls are perfect. So their mother has to be a good person too.”

  He stared at her. She was the mother. He pulled his wife into his lap. She wept against him. “I’m trying not to be scared,” she said. “Of course they want to meet her. And I’m sure she’s nice.”

  Anybody could claim to be a birth mother, thought Matt Vianello. Some stalker out there could easily convince two girls with romantic ideas about a hidden past to meet him somewhere.

  He decided not to share this thought with his wife.

  Frannie called again. She’d checked with neighbors, on the chance that Claire had just gone next door. The neighbor had seen Claire take a taxi. The Linnehans lived in a town where a taxi was a rarity. “If Missy took a train, then Claire took it too,” said Frannie. “If there’s no art trip, then maybe there’s a birth mother trip.”

  “You’re closer to the city than we are,” Matt told her. “Kitty and I are getting in the car right now. We’ll come to you. Keep trying t
o reach Phil. The minute the girls call, we’ll go get them.” He and Kitty got in their SUV. They loved it for camping and hauling and general comfort. It wasn’t a comfort now.

  “My theory,” said Kitty, who had a new theory each year, “is that the birth mother had twins. Twin number one was born in good health. The mom signed off within hours of birth, and Phil and Frannie took their Claire home. But the second twin was desperately ill and whisked to NICU. Nobody bothered with adoption papers because nobody expected the second baby to survive. Then, when it looked as if Missy might pull through after all, Dr. Russo phoned us.”

  Matt tried not to be a race car driver. What would be the point? There wasn’t even a point in driving to his sister-in-law’s. The girls would call their parents when they were good and ready, and that was that. But the adults had gotten into this nightmare together, and maybe together they could get out.

  “The poor mother was just a kid herself and couldn’t face those layers of attack a second time,” his wife continued. “All those counselors, social workers, nurses, doctors. She begged Dr. Russo to keep everything a secret so her own parents would never find out. Maybe she drove far from home to give birth, somehow escaping notice, and by the time Missy was adoptable, the poor teen mother was back home and she had no choice but to ward off official attention.”

  Matt was skeptical. Had this very young mother owned her own car so she could drive all that way? Been able to spend months away from home without questions as she grew visibly pregnant? Been able to bill her parents for doctors and hospital without their noticing what the bills were for? “If Dr. Russo really wanted to separate identical twins,” said Matt, “he would not have chosen adult sisters as the mothers.”

  “But Dr. Russo couldn’t have known that Missy and Claire were identical. The weight and health difference was too great. The girls didn’t look alike at birth. Even we didn’t notice until elementary school.”

  That was true. And outsiders, who could have offered opinions, did not usually see the girls together, since Missy and Claire weren’t in the same school system, church, Scout group or marching band. The only comments had come from strangers in stores. Easy to dismiss. Only the scrapbook had been hard to dismiss.

  Matt suddenly pitied Dr. Russo, who had obeyed that unknown mother—separating her twins and keeping her secrets, perhaps even designing paperwork saying that the little twin had a later birthday than the bigger one, so that no one would guess the babies were related. And then at the last moment, when the first adoptive parents had backed out, Dr. Russo had gone for the gold, choosing as the tiny twin’s parents the sister and brother-in-law of the woman who had adopted the stronger baby. It was a lot to shoulder: remaking a family, misrepresenting birth dates, hoping that two little girls would still have each other.

  Matt’s eyes stung. “The girls will be fine,” he told his wife. “We made some poor decisions because we were afraid. But nobody can take away a child of sixteen. We have nothing to be afraid of now.” In fact, he was more scared than she was. That video could have opened up a chasm and the girls could be falling in.

  * * *

  STILL SATURDAY MORNING

  Long Island

  NED CANDLER FELT as if he were diving into water whose depth he did not know. Water reminded him of black swans. Three black swans. Who could have guessed?

  “Vivi,” he said, trying to keep his composure, “you are not adopted. You are our daughter. I’m your father. Allegra is your mother.”

  “Ned, don’t! Don’t talk about it!” said his wife.

  “Allegra, we have to tell her.”

  “No!” she insisted. “You’re adopted, Genevieve!”

  “Mother, cut it out!” shouted their daughter. “You and Dad can’t have separate versions of who I am. Stop behaving like crazy people. It’s my life, not yours.”

  “You’re wrong, Vivi. Your life will be just the same,” said Allegra. “It’s my life that will change. I didn’t mean it to happen. I was young. It seemed all right at the time. I didn’t know it would haunt me.”

  Allegra walked into the kitchen. She opened a drawer and took out a knife. It was a small, very sharp knife for peeling.

  Allegra gripped it in her right hand and extended her left wrist.

  SATURDAY MORNING

  On the train

  MISSY HAD CROSSED from Connecticut into New York, and at this point, her parents could neither find her nor stop her. She decided to listen to her mother’s latest message. At last, it seemed that they had seen the video. They were hurt, sorry, furious and worried. Where was she? What was she doing? Was Claire with her? And then, in a tiny voice, as if adding a postscript that hardly mattered, her mother said, “Yes. You were adopted, Missy. But it never felt that way. Call me back, sweetheart. Call me now. I need to hear your voice.”

  Even though Missy had been sure that she was an adopted twin, and planned her television scene, and drawn her cousin in, and gladly forced this into the open—still, the bottom fell out of her heart. I’m not their daughter.

  The train sped on, lurching and rattling and clacking. Missy tried to find joy in the fact of Genevieve, but what was the joyful part? We didn’t have the lives we were born to have, thought Missy. We three babies should have stayed together. Who parceled us out to different families?

  Our real mother.

  If Missy had been driving a car, she would have turned around, fleeing to the safety and comfort of the parents who had always wanted her and who wanted her now. But a train can only go in one direction at a time. Missy was headed toward a collision with the truth.

  When her phone rang again, it was Aunt Frannie. Missy didn’t answer that either, but she did listen to the message. There was no trace of cheerleader in Aunt Frannie’s voice. She was furious. Yes, Missy was adopted! she shouted. Yes, Claire was adopted! So what? Why weren’t the girls answering their phones? How dare they worry their parents like this? Yes, their parents should have discussed this long ago, but that did not mean the girls could behave like children and run away and hide. Supposedly Claire was with classmates named Wanda and Annabel, but there didn’t seem to be any girls named Wanda or Annabel in Claire’s high school. Missy was to call back immediately and the entire family must get together.

  For better or for worse, thought Missy, I’m getting together with a different family. For better or for worse was a wedding-vow phrase. But this felt more like a divorce.

  The train stopped. More passengers got on. Missy didn’t think she’d seen anybody get off. They were all one hundred percent going to Grand Central.

  Her cell phone wouldn’t quit. Now she was receiving a text. But it was from Genevieve! Missy read greedily. Parent trouble. Taking later train. Will send arrival time ASAP.

  I won’t cry, she said to herself. I won’t break down. We’ve waited sixteen years. We can wait another hour.

  But a tear spattered her phone when she texted back, I’ll wait at Grand Central.

  Claire slid into the seat next to her, shivering, panting and identical. The girls melted against each other and held hands, fingers crushing matching fingers. The comfort of her cousin was total.

  Because she isn’t my cousin, thought Missy. She’s my identical twin. I’m her. She’s me. And because she knows it now. We both know it. “How did you get to this station?”

  “My taxi driver raced the train.”

  “I’m so jealous. I’ve never raced a train.”

  “Listen to these phone messages,” said her twin, dismissing trains.

  “Same as mine,” said Missy, after a minute. “Do we let them suffer?”

  “Starving people in war-torn countries suffer,” said Claire. “Our parents are just facing the consequences of their own choices for a few hours.”

  How bracing to hear Claire’s resentment. Immediately Missy’s own resentment passed. “Genevieve is going to be late,” she said.

  “Good. I need time to prepare.”

  Missy felt that “prepar
ing” to meet your identical triplet was hopeless. “Who are Wanda and Annabel?”

  “They aren’t anybody. We were going to use a fake name for Rick’s interview and those came to mind, but you forgot, so I used them again. Wanda and Annabel may be at the library right now, producing an excellent paper.”

  The train stopped at 125th Street.

  “If we were going to a Yankees game, we’d get off here,” Claire pointed out.

  They loved Yankees games. The stadium was awesome, the hot dogs were perfect, winning was fabulous, losing wasn’t the end of the world, and through it all, you got baseball.

  “This will be a home run,” said Missy.

  “I’m not so sure,” said her identical twin. “Even the best players strike out.”

  * * *

  When her mother removed a knife from a drawer, Genevieve vaguely assumed that toast interested her more than adoption.

  Of course, she’s not my mother, thought Genevieve. Maybe she’s haunted by the fact that she didn’t have her own child. She has me instead.

  Allegra brought the knife down. Not on bread. On flesh.

  Admitting that Genevieve was adopted was so awful that Allegra Candler would rather be dead? Genevieve felt as if she had been stabbed.

  Ned Candler leaped across the room, grabbed his wife’s wrists, knocked the knife to the floor, then pulled her into the living room and down onto the sofa. They stared into each other’s eyes. It was more dramatic than the usual, but essentially it was still the usual. Allegra and Ned were a unit, while Genevieve stood there watching.

  Ned held up the threatened wrist and examined it.

  No blood. Either Dad had been quick enough or Mom had not really wanted to hurt herself.

  One thing was clear. A career in emergency response was not in Genevieve’s future. She hadn’t even recognized an emergency, let alone responded.

  Allegra wept in Ned’s arms. She looked oddly like Claire in the video at the moment she was wrenched by the shock of Missy’s claim.

  Genevieve turned away from the parents she had failed. Even now, they’re fine without me, she thought. I feel like a dead soccer ball. Not even worth kicking.