A birth relation.
“Not adoptive relatives, Lexie,” she said, confirming my thoughts.
I banged my knee as I struggled to keep my bike upright. “What did you say?”
“She’s a blood relative. Maybe a cousin. Maybe closer.”
“How close?” I whispered. When I realized she hadn’t heard me, I cleared my throat and asked again, louder this time.
“She’s young, mid-thirties, I think, so she couldn’t be your birth mother. But still…”
“Why does the mutual friend think we’re related?”
“Well, we’re not positive about this,” Sophie said, “but we think that her mother, my mother, and your biological grandmother were all childhood friends in Indiana. That’s what we gathered when we met Marta at a conference a few years ago, anyway.”
I strained to listen as Sophie talked through the connections that had generated their theory that this Pennsylvania midwife and I could be blood relatives. Soon my head began to throb inside my helmet. Finally, I asked Sophie if I could call her back.
Even as I tucked away my phone, got back on my bike, and continued across the bridge, I knew what I was going to do. In my mind, I had already rearranged my schedule. I would fly out right away, but before starting the traveling nurse position in Philadelphia, I would help Marta for a couple of weeks in Lancaster County. The timing was perfect.
Sailing downhill through the last wisps of fog, I knew that if this Marta person did indeed turn out to be a blood relative, she would be the first direct connection to my past I had ever had.
Because of privacy issues, I couldn’t show James the photos of the two babies I received that day, one being Tonya’s baby that she had, in fact, kept. Sitting in my room, I looked at the photos again as I waited for him, flipping back past them in iPhoto to the previous photos too. Baby after baby. Some asleep; some bright eyed. A few yawning; a few screaming. Some with a shock of dark hair; some with no hair. Some with curly hair; some with straight. Some with fine hair so light it was transparent; two with red hair so bright it looked like flames.
I didn’t have any baby pictures of myself. Not one. In fact, I only had a couple of photos from my childhood. One of me as a distant two-year old in the garden under the windmill. Another on my first day of school. Three with Mama the year before she died. One with Dad in the orchard when I was eight. It seemed to me that my parents only used one roll of film over a span of ten years. When I started working for Sophie, I saved up and bought a camera. It was my first big purchase.
The intercom buzzed, and I pressed the button to tell James I would be right down. As I closed my laptop and gathered my things, I thought about our relationship and my urgent need to get away.
Anyone else in my position, feeling this isolated and alone, would probably be trying to reel James in about now. So why wasn’t I? If one is feeling kinless, why not start a family? I knew other adopted girls who always had to have a boyfriend, who always wanted to be needed, who always needed to be wanted. That wasn’t me. Once I finally got through my ugly duckling phase and started dating, I would break up when the guy became too serious.
James told me I did that because I was protecting myself. He said this happily at the time because we had been dating for six months, and he thought I’d made it past that phase with him. He wasn’t as happy now. Now he said I was pushing him away because I was afraid he would leave me, because I’d been traumatized by Dad “leaving” me. He was correct that I was pushing him away, but regardless of the reason, I was tired of his constant analysis. More than once, as he patiently outlined my actions in light of my damaged psyche, I was tempted to return the favor, telling him that his compulsion to practice psychology without a license was likely a natural defense mechanism against his own latent abandonment issues. Take that, Dr. James Nolan!
I met him on the sidewalk under a flowering cherry tree that rained pink petals on his head. He smiled as he brushed them out of his curls, but it was a melancholy smile with a hint of fear.
We walked around my neighborhood, strolling along the sidewalks. I stopped to window-shop; James grew restless and shuffled his feet. I was hoping to eat at the Asian Bistro on Twenty-third Avenue, but we ended up at Pepinos for their five-dollar special. James refused to let me pay when we went out.
“Tell me about Pennsylvania,” he said, unpeeling the foil from around his burrito. He knew I’d applied for the traveling nurse position; he knew I wanted to look for my birth family. In fact, I’d already posted my name, date of birth, and place of birth on the Pennsylvania adoption search site, hoping that someone from my family was looking for me too.
I told him about Sophie’s phone call and my change of plans. “I’ll work for a week or two in Lancaster County and then go to Philadelphia for four months.” Chances were, even if I put the house and orchard on the market before I left, it wouldn’t sell before harvest. I had to be back in case anything went wrong.
“Four months? Lexie, that’s a long time.”
I nodded.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Nothing’s certain yet. It’s just looking like this might be how it all plays out.”
As he tilted his head, a pained expression passed over his face.
I rushed on, telling him the midwife worked with the Amish.
“So you’re going to be an Amish midwife?”
I smiled, thinking how odd that sounded. “Well, technically I’ll be a midwife to the Amish. But just for a week or two.”
“Is Marta Amish?
“No.”
“But she’s related to you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” he said, smiling. Then he turned serious and added, “Are you really ready to find your birth family?” He’d broached the subject in the last couple of weeks, but I had evaded discussing it.
“You’re the one who’s wanted me to deal with my abandonment and attachment issues for the last year,” I said.
“But that’s different than looking for your birth family.”
“I just thought, you know, since Dad’s passed on that it was a good time to look. I won’t be hurting anyone’s feelings.”
“You were worried about that?”
“Or stirring up trouble.”
“Trouble for whom?”
“It’s not like I want a relationship with anyone, James. I just want to know…” my voice trailed off.
“Know what?”
I shrugged.
“What if it’s not what you expected?”
“Well, I don’t really expect anything in particular,” I lied. “So I think I’m good.”
He folded his hands on the table. “Wow.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
Then he said, “What does this mean for us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to take a break while you’re gone?”
I slumped against the bench seat. “Actually…” I’d been mulling this over and over. “I do. But just while I’m gone.”
He drew in a deep breath. He let it out slowly and then said, “Is this a break as in ‘so you can see other people’?”
I wanted to laugh. Who would I want to see? “No,” I answered quickly. “Just a break so I can focus, think about my birth family, think about finding the information I deserve to know. I need to devote all of my energies to that, not to us.” He looked at me intently, as if to say he hadn’t realized that our relationship was such hard work. We both knew it wasn’t. I dropped my gaze, adding, “But we can still talk. And text. Right? Occasionally?”
“Sure.” His voice was chilly.
My heart constricted. He was my best friend. What was I doing? I took my camera from my bag and snapped a picture of him, trying to lighten the moment.
“Stop.” He hated it when I did that. “You won’t be able to use that with the Amish.”
“Says who?” I put the camera on the table.
“The Amish.”
“What? Besides dressing as though it’s two centuries ago, they don’t believe in cameras?” I was especially sensitive to the dressing issue, even though my experience had been closer to dressing as if it were the 1930s. Still, I knew how humiliating it could be.
“I’ve been reading up on Pennsylvania.” James stood and put our garbage on the tray. “Apparently, they put photos in the category of graven images.”
“Oh.” Exodus. The Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thank goodness I’d only be in Amish country for a week or two. What would I do without my camera?
Darkness had fallen as we left the restaurant. “What do you hope to find?” he asked, stepping around me so he was walking closest to the street. Dad used to always do the same thing. I was pretty sure James learned it from Dad.
“Didn’t you already ask me that?”
“You didn’t answer.”
“My story,” I said. “The truth.”
James whistled. “That’s a pretty tall order.”
He didn’t come up to my apartment. As always, he would only do so if there was someone else with us. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t as chaste in high school.
I leaned in for a hug, but instead of embracing me, he grabbed my upper arms, pulled me toward him, and kissed me fiercely on the mouth. When the kiss was over, he straightened his arms, released his grip, and took a step back without a word. My face burning with heat, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it, I whispered my goodbye. Then I turned and unlocked the door of the building, stepped inside, and pulled it closed behind me. Climbing up the stairs, touching my lips as I went, I wondered what, exactly, I thought I was doing. When I reached my apartment, I switched on the living room lamp and stopped at the window. James stood on the sidewalk, just as he always did, waiting to make sure I was safe. Our eyes locked and held for a long moment, and then he walked away.
A coldness welled up inside of me. I turned on all the lights and my stereo. What was I hoping for? I shivered as I sank down onto my white couch. I wanted to know why they gave me up. And I hoped, once they got a good look at me, that they would be sorry they did. But I couldn’t tell James that. I could barely tell myself. My cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, hoping it wasn’t work. I was shocked to register that I wanted it to be James. I hadn’t felt this with other guys when I’d said I needed “a break.”
It wasn’t work or James. It was Sophie.
“I talked with Marta directly,” she said, without saying as much as hello. “And it’s worse than I was led to believe. She’s being investigated for manslaughter.”
“Yikes.” I’d need to rethink going to help her. This was serious.
“Two counts. Mother and baby. And the partner in her practice retired to Kentucky right before this happened and can’t come back because of health problems.”
“Oh no.”
“But it won’t be any of your concern after all.” Sophie paused.
I grabbed a couch pillow and held it against my chest, trying to follow what she was saying.
“She doesn’t want you to come. She wouldn’t tell me why. Just that some family matters are better left alone. She said to tell you thanks but no thanks. That was all.”
SIX
After that conversation I left for Pennsylvania as soon as I could. I zipped down to Aurora and finished a few last-minute tasks at Dad’s, and then I draped sheets over all his furniture. It seemed like the thing to do when closing up a house. I’d already hired a caretaker for the orchard, a man in the community who was working for another orchardist. He assured me he would spray for eastern filbert blight in a week or two and continue to prune the trees as he had time. Soon he would need to groom and level the ground, preparing it for harvest. He came highly recommended, and I trusted he would follow through with caring for the orchard.
I constantly thought about what I should do with the house and property and decided to at least gather information. A place with a thirty-acre orchard and another ninety acres in farmland had sold the year before at a good price, but I only had forty acres.
The Realtor, Darci, seemed to appreciate the house, which had been built in 1911. It was a simple structure with three bedrooms and one bath, but all of the old-growth woodwork was original and in good condition, as was the banister along the stairs. She said new window coverings and paint would help but weren’t necessary. She didn’t say anything about the kitchen, which needed to be redone, but the right buyers could do it themselves. She did notice where the foundation was crumbling and said that would probably be a costly and necessary fix.
I told her I was just gathering information, that I wanted to know how much the property was worth and then I would decide about putting it on the market.
She’d already run some comps and quoted me a price. It was less than what I had anticipated, but Dad’s mortgage had long been paid off, and all I had to worry about were taxes. If all went well, the hazelnut crop was usually good, although there were certainly years when it hadn’t been thanks to freak storms, droughts, blights, and the other everyday threats farmers have to deal with. The sale of the hazelnuts would more than cover the costs of maintaining the place, so I didn’t have to be in a rush.
I told her I would think about it and maybe get back to her in a month or two, but probably not until I returned in the fall. She made sure she had my cell number, and I took her card.
I walked through the orchard then, one last time. The loamy scent of earth and rain rose up from the soft ground. The buds were just beginning to swell and the branches created the structure of a tunnel over my head. In another month it would be a canopy of shady leaves. A movement danced ahead at the end of the row, and for a minute I thought, Dad! The image in my mind was clear—his weathered face, white hair, straw hat, and rounded-toe boots. But when I reached the last row, I found the shadow of a poplar tree manipulated by the breeze. I turned and walked back to the house, seeing myself among the trunks of the trees. A toddler squatting on the ground, playing with a stick. A five-year-old with my doll. An eight-year-old mourning Mama. A ten-year-old climbing a tree. A teenager helping Dad with the pruning, fertilizing, and spraying. I’d grown up in this orchard. It was home as much as the house.
I stopped by the coffee shop to check the adoption site I’d registered on but found no response. I definitely needed more information to conduct a thorough search—such as the name of my birth mother. I’d tried a couple of weeks ago to get a copy of my original birth certificate with no success. I was told that without the consent of my birth mother, the certificate couldn’t be released, but once I was in Pennsylvania I could go to the department of vital records in Harrisburg and make another request. Even if they blacked out the name of my birth mother, I still wanted a copy. Maybe they would leave my original name intact. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask again—and maybe someone would take pity on me if I did it in person.
Over the last two weeks I had called all seven of the hospitals I’d located on the Internet in Montgomery County, but every one of the records department clerks I spoke with said they couldn’t help me. My biological mom could make a request, but I couldn’t. I also came across a Pennsylvania law that allowed adoptees to write a letter to the court of the county they were born in, requesting information about one’s biological parents. Although I couldn’t request their identities, my letter would be put in a file and matched to them if they wrote in requesting information about me. It was a gamble, but I’d already sent off the letter, even though I only had my birth date, county of birth, and the fact that my grandmother was “tall.” It was a pretty pitiful collection of information to start a search on. But now there was Marta…
As I left Aurora, driving through town for a last look at the old buildings and antique shops, I felt optimistic. I was going to Pennsylvania. I was much, much closer to learning my story than I had ever been.
My hope and optimism lasted unti
l I reached my apartment and began packing, trying to decide what I should take on my adventure. I picked up the last photo I had of Dad from my dresser. As I focused on his angelic curls and faded blue eyes, grief descended again and I cried for him, for Mama, for my birth mother. For all my losses. Then I placed the photo in my suitcase and packed the wooden box and my baby quilt in a carry-on bag and felt a little better.
As cruel as it seems, I asked James to drive me to the airport. And, of course, he did, looking as if he hadn’t slept all week.
I hadn’t given him all the details about the reason for my sudden departure, but it seemed someone else had—someone named Sophie. “You’re setting yourself up,” he said.
“For?”
“Rejection.” His voice was deep.
“I never expected acceptance. Just information.” I knew I was lying. Of course they would accept me once they met me. They would love me and regret ever giving me up.
“I really have a bad feeling about this, Lex.” For being so smart, James relied a lot on his feelings. That was probably why he was so comfortable with the world of psychobabble. He should have become a surgeon—a heart surgeon or a brain surgeon—instead of tormenting me with his feelings.
“How about if I come with you?”
I reminded him that we were taking “a break.”
He turned his twenty-year-old car with the duct-taped bumper onto Airport Way. “I don’t care. I could come right now.”
I shook my head. “You have school. And you don’t have the money.”
“I can withdraw this term,” he said. “I’ll use my tuition.”
I looked straight ahead. “That would be ridiculous.” He would be done after the coming fall term, and then he’d move back to Aurora or at least close by and open a practice and go on short-term mission trips to third world countries instead of ever taking a proper vacation. And he’d never have any money because he’d do half his work pro bono, and the money he did make would go toward his mission trips. I clutched my Coach purse tightly, which, after worrying about it, James hadn’t even noticed. For all he knew, I’d bought it at a yard sale.
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