by Meg Kearney
about poems or school or Karen Mason or
the search or Rhett or Sam or even Tim.
The truth is, I want to talk about Ruth.
Journal Entry #2205
Karen Mason called again—thank God both times she’s called, Mom has been out walking Butter.
My conversations with Karen aren’t a big secret, but talking about my search with Mom is worse than having to talk about sex. We’d both rather talk about Butter, who has actually learned how to fetch Mom’s slippers. Next, he’ll be driving the car.
Back to Karen: she’s given me a list of things to ask Sophie. I could ask them over the phone, she says, but it’s best to go back to The Foundling in person—“You tend to find out more that way.” That’s for sure.
The list:
1)Confirm maternal grandparents were born in Scotland.
2)Was grandmother a nurse, or nurse’s aid? (degree = the question)
3)Did grandparents continue careers as baker/nurse here in the U.S.?
4)Does b.m. live in tri-state area? (Sophie might not be able to answer this, but push for as specific information as possible.)
5)Name of doctor who presided over my birth? (Unlikely Sophie can reveal this, either, but try.)
I have this recurring feeling that I’m living a movie, starring me. But where’s my script? What happens next, and next after that?
_______
Text from Rhett: OMG you MUST read Bleak House. Esther = adopted . . . birth mother just revealed! Wont give it away. (Hope alls ok there.) xoxo
The Butter Cure
Mom should know it will stun me.
She says, “Come in” when I knock
on her bedroom door. I enter—
and there is Butter, stretched out
on Dad’s side of the bed like a sun-
bather on the beach. Mom looks
serene, propped up on pillows, a book
in her hands. The air smells faintly
of lotion—mandarin orange—and of
dog. Mom always said that if Dad
weren’t allergic, we’d have a dog—
but it would never be allowed
on the furniture (as they are at Aunt
Marge’s house), much less our beds.
“Mom,” I say, “Butter sleeps here?
On your bed?” “Yes,” she replies
matter-of-factly, “unless he kicks
me out. Then I sleep on the couch.”
My chin must be near my knees,
it’s dropped so far. “Mom, you sleep—
Butter kicks you out?!” A laugh,
soft as Butter’s fur, escapes her.
“Lizzie, I’m kidding,” she says,
laying her book aside. She pats
the bed for me to come sit. Butter
wags his tail; its thumps are muted
on the mattress. Reaching over
with one hand, Mom rubs his ear.
“Butter has given me a much-needed
gift,” she says, putting her free hand
on mine. “I’ve been—” she stops.
Her face looks fragile, as if it might
break. But a faint smile radiates
underneath all that sadness, as
an unseen sun brightens a cloud.
“All of my excitement over Butter
probably seems—well, a bit
outrageous.” Suddenly I want
to protest—No, no it doesn’t.
Mom takes a deep breath, starts
again, “But a dog’s joy—it’s so
simple. And very, very contagious.”
Journal Entry #2206
I’ve been blind as a newborn mouse. Blinded by my own stuff. Poor Mom! She’s been so lonely! And, duh, she misses Dad maybe even more than I do.
When Mom and Butter come back from their walks, he greets me as if we’ve been parted for years. It’s true—it’s impossible not to smile when Butter’s around. Mom is almost like her old self again. Almost. She’ll never be the same person she was when Dad was alive—but neither will I. Neither will Kate, or Bob. We’re just—different. But that’s okay. That’s what happens when someone you love dies. Like stars, the dead keep on shining, making bright new constellations in the galaxy of your heart.
I want to bury my face in Butter’s fur and thank him. I think Dad’s ghost already has.
Three Mothers
It was here on this bench beside the river
in New Hook that I used to sit during
my lunch break and think. It was here
I wrote a poem about a party where I had
too much to drink. Here that Tim first
kissed me, his arms a shield from all I
feared. How I could use those arms now,
knowing any minute, any day news of my
birth mother will turn my life upside-
down. It can’t be otherwise, I realize—
even if she’s my dream mother, best-
selling author who’s been drowning
in sadness, trying not to remember
the day she surrendered me to social
workers at The Foundling. As if
the universe is reading my mind,
a woman strolls by with a baby
strapped to her chest. “Mama’s best
little girl,” the woman sings softly,
words that soothe and sting me.
She stops to gaze at the river, molten
glass flowing south toward the city.
The baby can’t be more than a couple
of months old. At that age, a stranger
held me—not my birth mother, not
Mom, but another woman paid to be
my caretaker. A third mother of sorts—
I have to believe she was good to me;
I’ve always felt so loved. How would
this woman feel if she had to give her
child away? How could my first mother
do it, unwrap her arms, deliver me to
another, say farewell forever? Such
heartfelt torment—those words from
her letter keep whirling in my mind.
She felt so much sorrow. So why not
at least ask for an open adoption, where
we could be in touch? Was that too
much to bear? Wouldn’t that be less
hellish than this? Perhaps someday
she’ll tell me. Perhaps I’ll never know.
Not Here
My father’s disappearing from this house.
His navy wool coat’s no longer hanging
in the closet; dress shoes, work boots, not
on the mud room floor. His robe doesn’t
dangle from the back of the bathroom door,
eyeglasses don’t rest atop today’s New Hook
Star. His photo’s in the living room next
to the couch, on Mom’s dresser and taped
to the fridge, but his voice no longer rings
from the kitchen as he cooks, his hands
no longer bring in logs for the fire, slippers
don’t wait beside his chair. His stack of books
lean now on a shelf, unread. Dad, where
are you? I call one night in a dream. Dad,
I miss you, I whisper to the morning sun.
Scrabble
My old friend Cornelius calls from out of the blue—
a bunch of friends from high school are going to
Noah’s Ark to hang out and shoot pool about
eight o’clock tonight. “You have to come, Lizzie,”
he says. But they’ll have to have fun without
me—I want to stay home and play Scrabble
with Mom, who made a yummy vegetable
stew for dinner and is now about to
open a bottle of wine. “Liz, are you sure
you don’t want to go out? Your friends miss you.
You still have time,” she says
, but I assure
her I’m where I want to be. Butter
is stretched before the fire—“Watch out
you don’t melt,” I warn him. He thumps his tail
once, his eyes all dozy. There’s no doubt
this dog knows he’s landed in heaven. Mom sets
the Scrabble board on the coffee table, gets
two wine glasses from the china cabinet.
“You’re not driving,” she says, “you can have some
wine.” “Butter, do you know where my Mom went?”
I ask this so seriously, Butter opens an eye, rises,
pads over to lick my face. I’m surprised
he doesn’t join us on the couch, expecting
to play. Mom counts out our letter tiles—
“He’d cheat, anyway,” she says, laughing.
Over cabernet, firelight, and words like “napkin”
and “poignant” I start to tell her all about Tim
and Sam, Rhett, Calvin, Henri, and Louise—
so many stories, we laugh hard when I spell
“restraint.” “Well, Liz,” Mom says, “I’m relieved—
don’t take this wrong—I adore Tim, and think
he’s right, though his timing is bad.” Butter blinks
his assent. “You should date other people—
now’s the time—and if you’re meant to be—”
(she stops, her hand hovering with a tile
that turns out to be a “y,” turning “leather”
into “leathery”) “. . .you’ll get back together.”
“That doesn’t mean—” (I use her “y” to write
“yonder”)—“I should date Sam.” “No. It means,
as your dad used to say, and he was right—
the universe is unfolding as it should.” I want
to believe that, and wish it could apply to my
search and wherever that leads. Mom’s thinking
the same. “Yes,” she says, “that includes your
birth mother.” We set down our glasses and hug.
Back at Mack’s Auto
“Look, this Ruth can’t be your birth mother. That’s too crazy—
just because her last name is Smith, she plays songs for you
on her guitar, likes poetry—” Jan steps back from the hood
of a black car, shaking her hot-pink head. Suddenly my mouth
tastes like dread. “Don’t even fantasize, much less hope—” she
stops when she sees my face. Perched atop my old metal stool,
breathing in the smell of gasoline and oil, admiring the tools
strung along the shop’s walls, I’d felt content until the subject
of Ruth popped up again. Obviously, Jan’s been pondering what
I told her and Jade at Gertie’s the other day. “I know, I know,”
I say, “Ruth’s even the right age, I think, but—damn. She can’t
be her.” Jan wipes her hands on a rag, studying me. She’s too
perceptive, knows me too well. The pink spikes of her hair are
dotted with the grease she’s trying to clean from her forearms
and hands. Those hands. Capable as any man’s. Now one is on
my shoulder. “Liz, you’ll hear from Kin Solvers—maybe soon.
Then—well, I hope your story’s happier than mine. But mean-
while, please don’t write Ruth into some fairy tale you tell
yourself.” Abandoned by not one mother, but two, Jan’s no
believer in Disney-like stories. Hers could have been written by
the Brother’s Grimm. I wonder if she’s too cautious. But no.
She’s just being realistic. She knows what’s at stake. I try to
smile. “Coffee? Diet Coke?” she offers, glancing at the clock,
“Jade will be here in a while, and we both really need a break.”
Journal Entry #2207
How fast do four greeting cards burn? In 1.3 minutes if you count the last paper embers brightening, then dying out like silent, miniature fireworks.
When Jade got to Mack’s Auto after her class, we made a little ceremony out of incinerating the Christmas and birthday cards Jan’s mom and birth mother mailed her. Of course, this was Jan’s idea. She sometimes talks on the phone with her mom, who actually married that slick lawyer dude she left Mr. Mack for, but they moved to New Jersey and Jan doesn’t see her. I don’t know if that’s Jan’s choice or her mom’s, but I fear it’s the latter and so don’t ask. As for “The B.M.,” as Jan calls her—well, she sends two cards a year. So much for open adoptions. Some of them, anyway.
We burned the cards in a little black cast-iron woodstove Mr. Mack used to fire up when he needed to heat the shop. Now that Jan’s taken over, she just turns on the thermostat, and the stove sits cold in its corner. As we stood there watching the flames, I thought how all three of us are puzzles with pieces missing, moons separated from our planets.
Jan says all of her anger and disappointment rises with the smoke every time she has one of these ceremonies. Maybe I should create something similar, a ritual to ease my nerves before I go back to The Foundling. The more I picture myself back in Sophie’s office asking questions about myself and my blood relatives—questions I have every right to ask and have answered—I feel like someone who’s been booed off stage, a poet smashed in the face by a rotten tomato thrown from the front row. Who threw it? My birth mother? “Lawmakers & the system”? History?. . . Me?
Visiting Dad’s Bench:
Sacred Heart Cemetery
I stroke this marble
as if it is your face,
smooth after shaving.
Remember how, when
I was a little girl,
you’d chase me down
the hallway—your face
buried under a blizzard
of shaving cream—then
cover my cheeks with snow
kisses? I was your
captured snow girl. Your
mint-scented snowflake.
You’d carry me giggling
back to the bathroom,
hand down my blue plastic
razor with its cardboard
blade, and we’d peer into
mirrors (yours above
the sink, mine running
the full-length of the door)
and make our faces tingly
new. I didn’t think you
could ever disappear,
leave me here alone to trace
the letters of your name
carved in stone.
End of Spring Break
“Next train to Grand Central Terminal will be leaving
from track two in eight minutes,” booms a man’s voice
over the loudspeaker as Mom pulls up to the Poughkeepsie
train station. In the back seat, Butter’s panting. He knows
now what my suitcase means and probably feels the strain
of this goodbye. Mom and I aren’t at each other’s throats
as we were back in January—this is a tension we share.
A question mark dangles in the air above our heads like
a piñata about to crack. What secrets will it spill? Maybe
next time I see her I’ll know my birth mother’s first
name, maybe I’ll know more than that. Where we’ll go
from there, who can guess. Joe will give me tips. All I can
tell her now, I do: “Mom, I love you. You’re the best mother
anyone could ever ask for.” A March wind whips my hair
into my face as I step from the car. Caught in an updraft,
a plastic bag swirls past my head, then sinks. “Be a good
boy,” I tell Butter. Then, Brace yourself, Girl, I think.
Journal Entry #2208
Scene: Heading back to NYU on the train after Spring Break
Out the window to my right, the Hudson Ri
ver seems to flow in two directions. Like me.
So what did you do on spring break? asks an imaginary friend. Oh, I moped, cried, hid from most friends, hung out with my Mom, visited Dad at the cemetery, I answer. You know, the usual things college kids do on break.
It seems right to be on this train, heading south. My birth mother didn’t want me to grow up in the city—well, I didn’t, and I love the country, this wide river. But obviously my living in New York is meant to be. (So where, first mother, are you?)
_______
The closer we get to Grand Central, the more my heart pounds like a prisoner in my chest. I close my eyes, sing “When You Never Said Goodbye” in my head. Two seats in front of me, a couple shares a bag of popcorn. The smell makes me nostalgic for Calvin’s “cooking.” I don’t know yet how I’ll deal with Sam—maybe just tell him I can’t date someone who’s so tan he makes me look as white as Florida’s beach sand. (That won’t work; he’s seen Tim’s photo.) Maybe I’ll tell him I just need a while for my feelings about Tim to settle. Tell him meanwhile, Rhett—oh, forget it. She’d kill me.
_______
A little while ago, a woman got on at Croton-Harmon, sat in the seat across the aisle from me. Her hair falls in loose, sparrow-brown curls around her shoulders. It’s hard to tell, but she could be late-30s. My birth mother is 37, if The Foundling info was right. Cathy said there were mistakes in hers, stuff her crazy b.m. told her adoption agency. (“The Home for Little Wanderers.” As if the babies there just wandered in off the street, asked if there were any parents around they could spare.)
There’s a plastic scrish-scrish sound; the woman’s eating potato chips. She catches me staring. Her eyes are dark. Brown. Her long gray coat, black cashmere scarf, designer-looking jeans, tall black leather boots practically reek of money. She could be . . . what number reunion fantasy is this? Maybe it will be better if my b.m. isn’t rich. I don’t want her thinking I want a relationship just because of that. Does my b.m. have kids? They’ll like me better if they aren’t worried about my taking a cut from their inheritance.
