That's My Baby

by Frances Itani

  But was it Billie the man was looking for? Was he holding something in his hand? Hanora hasn’t written anything about that.

  SEAMAN’S CHEST

  SHE HAS HARDLY SLEPT. SHE CHECKS THE CLOCK—almost four in the morning—rolls over in bed, checks the time again. Drifts in and out. Wonders if the sun is up. Gets out of bed. The notebook is on the floor. She looks out at the night lights of the city, a soft orangish glow, a scene she loves, one that never repeats itself in the same detail.

  She makes strong coffee. Did the older man have something in his hand? Billie remembered, said he did. The man was acting strangely, she said.

  Hanora goes to the seaman’s chest, drags it across the floor and into the kitchen, raises the lid. Listens to the creak and groan and thinks of the whaler who raised the same lid two hundred years ago. Wonders if the man who built the chest is the same one who painted the image of the ship on the underside.

  She clears the table and begins to lift out the contents. Most are greeting card boxes of varying sizes. She opens each one and riffles through the contents before stacking the boxes on the table.

  What she finds: cards sent to Billie and Whit after they met, including cards they sent to each other (or in Whit’s case, several he made for Billie—she’s pretty certain Billie will want to see these); birthday cards; Christmas greetings; Easter cards; Valentines; thank-you notes; and letters from Billie’s former students. New Canadians she once taught. More new Canadians she helped. By donating a piece of old furniture that she and Whit had restored, or a shopping bag filled with food. By helping to write a letter to some government department or other, by organizing a picnic for her class, by making introductions to future employers, helping with applications, providing references, obtaining medical advice on someone’s behalf. There are birth announcements, wedding announcements, invitations, obituaries cut from newspapers.

  There are a couple of dozen photos: Billie with students, students as couples, students with babies, students with parents and grandparents who were sponsored as immigrants after the students themselves became citizens and were in a position to help.

  Hanora’s cards to Billie are here, postcards from abroad when she was travelling, researching, interviewing, meeting people in the Soviet Union, China, Romania, England, Ireland, France. Has Billie thrown nothing written away?

  One box contains the coded childhood letters Hanora sent to Rochester during the winter months, her first correspondence with Billie. Hanora doesn’t remember how the code works; she’ll figure it out. And here is a photo of the horizontal scar across the back of Billie’s upper thigh. A rough job of suturing, at the time. Nothing delicate here. Billie always wore long shorts in summer to cover the thick, permanent ridge of tissue. She never liked to be seen in a bathing suit, unless she wore something to cover her thigh. Hanora has no idea who took the photo of the scar. Probably one of Billie’s school friends in Rochester. Or maybe her brother, Ned.

  Hanora sets her childhood letters aside; she will read those later. Breaking the code won’t be difficult, given the age she was at the time of writing.

  She thinks about how she looked up to Billie. Her cousin: leader, creator of adventure and fun, never looking back. And yet, she stowed these markers of time past.

  There are photos of Billie’s early admirers. Here’s one of Hallman, taken outside a jazz club in New York. Another of Hallman in front of Billie’s apartment, also in New York. And then Socks, a black-and-white photo, but Hanora has no difficulty imagining the caramel shoes and royal-blue socks. This was taken inside Billie’s apartment. They were all in their twenties and thirties at the time. Before Billie moved to Canada after the war.

  Hanora returned to Canada in 1945, but was soon off again, earning her living by bringing attention to postwar refugees, divided families. She wrote stories of individuals who survived the infamous camps. Individuals who hoped their names and photos would be recognized by family members . . . if any were living. So many people were on the move in different parts of the world, looking for a country to welcome them, to enable them to start new lives. Some people whose stories she wrote contacted her later. When this happened, she made an effort to stay in touch. Then there was the post-Stalin era to write about, the Cold War, the space race. Hanora has been most contented when travelling from one place to another.

  She’s nearing the bottom of the chest now. Finds two sagging Laura Secord boxes crammed with summer costume jewellery. Much of it plastic, bright, gaudy. Necklaces and chains and clip-on earrings that Billie liked to buy. The jewellery was often discarded after being worn once or twice. The founder of Laura Secord chocolates was born in Deseronto in the late nineteenth century, close to the house where Hanora grew up. That’s a fact of town history Hanora has learned.

  She thinks she should take a few of the boxes to Billie at Respiro. Especially the original cards Whit made for her. Billie might also want to remember her former students and take credit for helping them create new starts in their lives. Looking at the memorabilia might give Billie a hold on the person she is. The person she was. And will give her something to do for a few days.

  With the boxes removed, Hanora now finds a sturdy file folder, wider than usual. She opens it and recognizes the Liste des Passagers from the SS Champlain. There are also dinner menus—one from the night of the Bal Masqué, another from their last night aboard ship. And a few blank postcards from Paris, pub coasters imprinted with ads, brochures from the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, jazz concert programs, a map of London, a map of the Underground, a hotel card bearing a street address—probably the hotel where Billie stayed with Socks while Hanora was travelling through pre-war France. Socks stayed on in England for a while after Billie left. When he returned, he’d have disembarked in New York on his way home to Canada.

  Billie must have continued to toss things in on top of the European souvenirs. At one end of the chest Hanora finds a thin envelope containing university course information, immigration information.

  And at the bottom. Beneath everything that has been lifted out. A thin bundle, tied with string. Probably never removed after being covered with souvenir papers, brochures, the folder, the ship’s list, the menus. She doubts that anything was removed, by anyone, after being placed there. By Billie? By Socks? Socks stored some of Billie’s belongings for her in London, and would have put them into the chest after she purchased it in the Portobello area. He had promised to deliver the chest when he returned to America, and had done that. But was Billie never curious? She threw nothing away. For her, the thin bundle was one more item, one small part of the history of the rugged old chest.

  Hanora unties the string and opens the top envelope. Her hands shake as if she has tremors. She takes her time over every word, every detail.

  March 30, 1939

  My darling child, my darling Hanora,

  I have decided to turn these over to you, random papers that survived only because of Zel and because of your late mother, my beloved Magreet. All correspondence was to have been destroyed, but sometimes when Zel sent news of you to Oswego, Magreet forwarded the letters to me in Toronto. I have a few in my possession. These I give to you.

  I met your mother, Maggie, in Deseronto in 1919, when she auditioned to sing in the New Year’s Eve concert. I went to your town to find work after the war. I wanted to disappear, live in a small community I’d never heard of before, far from anywhere I had been and from anyone I had known.

  Maggie was a wonderful, compassionate person. She was also a singer, an outstanding soprano. There are many things I can tell you about her, but the most important is how much she loved you. As I do. The decision to have her niece Tress and Tress’s husband, Kenan, raise you was the most difficult of her life and mine. We knew, however, that they would be loving parents, and that is why you were entrusted to their care and legally adopted by them.

  Maggie (she signed her letters to me as Magreet, because that is how, when I first came to Canada, I p
ronounced her name) was unable to leave her husband because of what they had been through in their lives, and because of earlier losses they had suffered in their marriage.

  By now, you will have been told of your adoption, even though details of your birth parents were never to be revealed. That was Maggie’s condition; we gave our word—the few people who were involved—collectively. Now that Maggie has died, I feel that I may speak out. I am your father. It is your right to know. Maggie died of illness, of pneumonia, only two months ago. She moved from Deseronto early in 1920, and chose Oswego, New York, because her sister, Nola, lived there. She travelled to Toronto for your birth, but returned to Oswego with you during the first six weeks of your life. She was forty-four when you were born.

  Tress has by now passed on the locket. I can tell you that it belonged to my grandmother from Vienna, and later to my mother, also born in Vienna. Both women were named Hanna, and you were named after them. The locket was my gift to your mother. Maggie wanted it to be given to you. Something from both of us.

  Ours (and yours) is a family scattered about Europe. The stories have not always had happy endings. My first wife, a Belgian, died in Dinant at the beginning of the First World War. She was executed, along with her parents. She had travelled there to help them shortly after war broke out. Although she and I lived in London, I had gone to Manchester to conduct a choral performance, and had not accompanied her to Belgium.

  At the end of the war, I left England and the Continent, where I had lived and studied and worked all my life. There was nothing left for me there, and I moved to Canada.

  Now I return to England. I have been invited to Coventry to take over the choir at Holy Trinity Church, but temporarily, for one year, possibly two. This will probably be the last position I will formally hold.

  After you read these letters, you may want to contact me. The address is enclosed. When I saw your name on the passenger list, I considered carefully how to go about this, not knowing how much you knew of the circumstances of your adoption. I leave it to you to make contact.

  The photo inside this letter was taken before I moved away from Deseronto. I held you in my arms. Zel took the photo. You were two and a half months old. Your hair was as red then as it is now, the same colour as Maggie’s hair, the same green eyes. Your mother was a beautiful woman. As you are now, Hanora.

  From Deseronto, I moved to Toronto. Your mother travelled several times to meet me there, and I am blessed to have those memories. Each time we were together, we talked about you.

  Last evening, I decided I would pass these papers on to you. I was sworn to silence by a woman who commanded my respect, and I owed it to her to stay silent. But I remain silent no longer. If only I could show you how much you have been in my thoughts since the day you were born. It is difficult for me to believe that I have finally met you again—and by chance.

  Your loving father, Lukas Sebastian

  Hanora cries and cries and cries. Her father, her birth father. She was face to face with him and hadn’t known. He had loved her.

  But he had been thinking of Billie when he compared the hair, the eyes. She and Billie were so much alike in their younger years, especially at the time they were aboard the Champlain.

  Hanora had met her father. She had talked to him briefly, written him into her shipboard notebook. She has read the entry for the day of disembarkation, but now she will read what she wrote every day at sea, starting with the day she boarded in New York, March 23. There will be more detail. There has to be more.

  She has names. Identities. Information. What she has sought all her life.

  She tries to stop the tears. Walks in and out of rooms because she cannot be still. Returns to the kitchen. Examines the rest. The photo remembered by Billie. He placed it in Billie’s hand. “That’s my baby,” he said. He didn’t say, “This is you,” because he wouldn’t have known how she’d respond.

  But Hanora was not given the opportunity to respond.

  She stares into the faces, the small black-and-white images. Lukas is wearing what appears to be the same scarf he wore on the ship. Hanora is wrapped in blankets and he is holding her securely. Both faces are looking at the camera. They are outside Zel’s rooming house in winter. Hanora recognizes the door that led into the spacious kitchen.

  WHAT else?

  A New Year’s Eve concert program from 1919.

  Music under the direction of Lukas Sebastian

  Maggie O’Neill, Soprano

  Lukas Sebastian, Piano. Liszt, Gilbert and Sullivan, Claude Debussy. He accompanied Maggie when she sang lyrics from The Mikado. Zel accompanied another of Maggie’s solos, also on piano.

  Hanora’s parents: Maggie and Luc. That is how he is addressed and referred to by Zel, in the letters enclosed.

  AND more.

  Obituary of Maggie O’Neill: who died January 23, 1939, in Oswego, New York.

  Who loved Hanora’s father. But remained with her husband, Am.

  She reads and rereads. The letters were supposed to have been destroyed. But Maggie sent these on to Toronto. Letters that mentioned her, Hanora. Maggie shared the news with Luc.

  Here is a notice cut from the Post in Deseronto, dated the first week of January 1920.

  Found on Main Street: a woman’s gold locket upon which the letter H is inscribed. The finder has conferred a favour on the owner by leaving it under lock and key at the office of the Post. The owner of the locket may present herself to the editor in order to identify and claim said item.

  One of Zel’s letters refers to the locket. So it was lost and then found, and Zel ended up having it in her possession. Or perhaps Maggie claimed it before she moved away and passed it to Zel, ensuring that it would eventually be received by Hanora.

  Zel’s letter of January 1, 1921, reveals more than Hanora has ever known, or could have guessed or suspected.

  The news you await is Hanora’s news, of course. I visit as often as I can, not only to send a report, but because she creates so much happiness around her. She is healthy and plump-cheeked and beautiful, just as she was when we were in Toronto in November. It goes without saying that she brings her new parents more joy than they have known since Kenan came home from the war.

  I visit Tress and Kenan at their home, which is where I see Hanora. No one discusses what so few of us know. You wondered, in your letter, about the rest of the town. Not a person, I believe, has made the connection to you. Especially as it’s generally known that you moved to Oswego to be close to your sister’s family. Hanora has been accepted as any other child is accepted. Nothing is known except that the adoption took place “away,” in the city. When I think of that day, I believe we live in the Dark Ages. Of one thing, I am certain: everyone involved is capable of closing around this secret.

  I, too, am trying to understand, now that I know the entire story. I try to understand what you are going through, knowing that Am was unable to accept the child as his own. You tell me that you stay with him because of what you both had, because of what you were together in the past, because of what you both lost. Tragedy, it seems, is measured out in unequal parts among us. I know that your heart must be broken yet again.

  And now Hanora understands.

  The graves in the copse at the O’Neill farm, sketched by a young Mariah Bindle. Maggie and Am O’Neill. The auction of their farm, the horses sold, the babies buried, the move to town. Where Maggie eventually met Luc.

  I have passed on the locket to Tress, and she understands that it is to be given to the baby when she is eighteen.

  Someday, who knows, Hanora may own her life story.

  I know you will destroy this and all my letters as they arrive, as we agreed.

  In the third of Zel’s letters to Maggie, written when Hanora was in her teens and forwarded to Luc:

  I would like to be free to tell Hanora what I know. The stories belong to her, whether they are joyous or sad. All that I know belongs to her and to you and to Luc. If ever you give permission,
I will tell her of her beginnings: her wonderful and talented mother; her humane and gentle and talented father. The great love between them. If you release us from our promise, Maggie, I will do this.

  Please reconsider all of the secrecy. Will it matter, after dozens of years have passed? When we are all dead, will it matter? Hanora deserves to know.

  Hanora wants to throw all the papers, the letters, the photo, even the old chest through the wall.

  No. She wants to fall to her knees.

  No. She will sit in silence and give thanks, because that is all she can do. She has no choice but to accept and understand what she has been given.

  WHO lied to her?

  Everyone lied. All bound by promise. A silence insisted upon by her birth mother.

  Tress and Kenan had known the identity of Hanora’s birth parents from the beginning; they had lied by omitting part of the truth.

  Aunt Zel, who wanted so much to tell Hanora, lied because of her friendship with Maggie. Zel, who had known all along, and who was present when Hanora was adopted. Who, in 1939, without breaking her word, placed evidence directly into Hanora’s hands. The photo of her and Maggie on the skating rink. Using the excuse that she did not want to be forgotten while Hanora was roaming around Europe, beginning her own adult life.

  Pull out the photo of Maggie and Zel. She knows where it is. She now has one photo of her mother. She will find others. She will find others of both her birth parents.

  WHO was Maggie, to demand silence, to demand this kind of loyalty and also receive it?

  Her mother. Maggie O’Neill, of the O’Neill family. Who lived in Deseronto, but moved to Oswego in the States with her husband, knowing she was pregnant with another man’s child. A child born of love.

  Maggie, who died of pneumonia two months before the SS Champlain sailed on March 23, 1939. Which is why Luc Sebastian left North America for good, and returned to England.