by Julie Cohen
There was so much they didn’t speak of between the two of them. That they didn’t need to speak of. The cup of coffee that appeared at his elbow when he was in his workshop and tired; the reading lamp he fixed for her without her mentioning that it was broken. Often he would be on his way home from work, thinking about maybe building a barbecue on the beach, only to find when he got there that she’d already made the hamburgers.
Which was how, when she’d mentioned calling the adoption agency, he wasn’t surprised. And how he knew now that she was suffering from the death of this hope that they’d hardly dared to have.
When they’d chosen to be together, on another day of rain and storms, they’d decided that the two of them would be enough. Just the two of them, alone and together. That was the bargain they’d made with themselves and the world.
And they were enough. They were. But there was this yearning for more. Robbie’s instinct was to fix it: like he would fix a leak in his boat, a punctured tyre on his car.
But how could you fix the hole left by a child who had disappeared? Or another, who could never exist?
Robbie got up and went down the hall to the living room. She was sitting in front of the fan, also listening to the rain. Her hands were folded in her lap. She didn’t look up when he entered.
He knelt on the floor by her feet, and put his arms around her waist. He bowed his head and lay it on her stomach. She threaded her fingers through his hair. They didn’t need to say what they were thinking; they just sat there, holding each other, with the noise of the rain all around them.
Chapter Sixteen
December 1975
Miami, Florida
This was her fourth Christmas in Florida, and she still found it bizarre to open Christmas cards of snowy evergreens and sleighs, when outside it was seventy-two degrees and the palm trees were waving gently in the balmy wind. Robbie was at work and Emily was on call after working for the past two nights; she sat in her dressing gown by the phone and leafed through the envelopes that the postman had brought.
The cards were from her colleagues at the hospital, Robbie’s friends at the boatyard, their doctor, their dentist, their bank. Yesterday she’d opened one from their local taquería where Robbie got takeout on a Friday night.
She’d thought they’d be more anonymous here, but though this was a city, the communities within it were small. During the winter months and mornings and evenings, when the sun was less fierce, her neighbours spent a lot of time outdoors. You met them, tending their gardens; you saw them fishing or taking a stroll, in the shops downtown or at the Venetian Pool.
She poured a cup of coffee and took the cards to the kitchen table. She always looked at the envelopes first, searching for a familiar handwriting. She sent her parents a card every year. This year’s had a robin on it. She never quite knew what to write inside – they wouldn’t want to hear news, nor answer questions – so she only ever wrote Happy Christmas. I love you.
They never replied. But she kept on sending the cards, in case.
Robbie sent a card to William every year as well – and also on his birthday. He sent them to Marie’s parents’ house in Wisconsin and sometimes they came back marked, in thick black pen, RETURN TO SENDER. And sometimes nothing came back at all.
The last envelope wasn’t a card, it was a letter. The handwriting was unfamiliar, and the postmark was Miami. She opened it, drinking the last of her coffee, wondering whether to make another pot or whether that would stop her from taking a nap in the afternoon if she didn’t get called in.
It was a single piece of paper, folded. On the top of the paper was an address of an attorney’s office in Louisiana. Underneath it, in neat handwriting:
You seem like you would make good parents. Try this, if you are still looking.
Donna Hernandez
PS It’s a girl, 7 lbs 4 oz. Named Jeannie.
Chapter Seventeen
January 1976
New Orleans, Louisiana
It was the third week of 1976 when they drove the twelve hours up the length of Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. Elliot Honeywell’s office was in a gracious old brick building, the type that had shutters on the windows to be closed against the midday sun, a white wrought-iron balcony running the length of the first floor. Robbie parked the Plymouth in front and the car ticked, cooling, as he took her hand and they went up the stone steps together.
The receptionist wore what looked like a Chanel suit, and as they took a seat in the leather armchairs of the waiting room Emily noticed Robbie smoothing his tie. It was one of three that he owned, all of which Emily had bought him: for weddings, funerals, special dinners, and now for appointments with social workers or attorneys. He wore one of his two suits. She could feel Robbie’s slight discomfort which had nothing to do with their reason for coming here and more to do with the expensive, understated furniture, the pot of orchids on the receptionist’s desk, the sedate fan whirring from the ceiling, the framed certificates on the wall.
When she’d first met him he’d been utterly unintimidated by class differences. He had spoken of the rich people he worked for, servicing their yachts, without reverence – in fact, with a certain degree of disdain. But the years, and everything that had happened, had changed him. She supposed she was changed, too.
And now, of course, both of them were waiting to be judged and found wanting.
She took his hand. She wondered how many hopeful couples had sat in these same seats, shifting and pretending to read the magazines laid out carefully on the low table.
‘Dr Brandon? Mr Brandon? Mr Honeywell will see you now.’ The Chanel-suited receptionist stood next to them. She led them out of the reception room, up a grand polished, curving wooden staircase, to a door with a brass plaque on it. She knocked discreetly and, at the reply, opened the door and stood aside so that Emily and Robbie could enter.
Eliott Honeywell was slim and sharp, with white wings of hair and a three-piece suit in a rather gorgeous muted tartan, complete with watch chain, red silk tie and pocket handkerchief. He stood up when they entered and came round his vast mahogany desk to shake both of their hands. ‘Dr Brandon, Mr Brandon, what a pleasure.’
His hands were manicured and, in addition to his wedding ring, he wore a gold signet ring on the pinkie of his right hand. His handshake was dry and firm; he gestured to the leather armchairs facing his desk and spoke to his receptionist: ‘Sissy, some tea I think. Is tea all right for you folks?’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Emily, perching on one of the armchairs. It was big enough that she felt dwarfed, and set far enough away from Robbie’s chair that she couldn’t reach his hand without stretching the full length of her arm. Eliott Honeywell wore cologne, something strong and expensive-smelling, and the scent permeated the room with its striped wallpaper, bookcases lined with leather-bound books, and more certificates on the walls.
Honeywell returned to his own vast leather chair behind his desk and steepled his fingers. ‘Is that an English accent I detect, Dr Brandon?’ His own accent was Southern, pure honey.
‘Yes, I grew up in Norfolk.’
‘I’ve been there. It’s a beautiful country. We visited the Broads on our way up to Scotland to do some golfing – eight, nine years back. You earned your medical degree there?’
‘At Cambridge.’
‘I see. Very nice, and impressive too. And Mr Brandon, are you a sailor or a motorboat enthusiast?’
‘I work on both, but I’d rather sail.’
‘Now, there I’m in complete agreement with you. We took ours to the Caribbean two summers ago. I took two months off and it wasn’t nearly enough time, but then, of course, one has to earn a living. The sunsets! My wife enjoyed the beaches. I think St Lucia was our favourite. Have you been?’
‘Years ago, before I met Emily, I crewed a yacht from Annapolis to St K
itts. It was a good trip. The fishing was incredible. I’ve never eaten so well.’
‘So you know what I’m talking about. Our boat isn’t quite as nimble as I’d like it to be, but at our age my wife and I like the comforts. Ah, here’s Sissy with the tea. Thank you, dear.’
It was a tall, frosted glass jug of iced tea on a tray with three stemmed glasses. Sissy poured them each a glass and slipped out of the room, her high heels noiseless on the thick carpet. The tea was sweet. Even after years in this country, Emily wasn’t used to drinking cold sweet tea.
‘So,’ said Honeywell, taking a sip of his own tea and putting the glass carefully down on a silver coaster, ‘Donna Hernandez sent you to me. She’s a very pleasant woman, very good at her job. I’ve been able to help her with several cases in the past. Arranging matters privately means that I’m able to be considerably more discreet than the state allows.’
Emily exchanged glances with Robbie. ‘We . . . were hoping for discretion, yes.’
‘When I meet couples, they’re often at the end of their tether. They want a child to make a happy family, but they’ve hit roadblock after roadblock. It’s my greatest satisfaction in removing those roadblocks and helping them to the baby that they want so badly. I hope I can help you, too. I’m sure that I can, in fact.’
‘That’s quick,’ said Robbie, putting down his glass of sweet tea.
‘I’m a very good judge of people,’ said Honeywell. ‘I like you two already: a doctor, a sailor. And I can see that you’ve had a very sad story.’
‘Can you?’
He spread his hands. ‘Childlessness leaves its mark on people. It’s the American dream, isn’t it? A good education, a good job, the pitter-patter of little feet. No matter how happy an upbringing we’ve had, we always want to give our own children a better one. Isn’t that so, Mr Brandon? May I call you Robert?’
‘Yes,’ said Robert. ‘And yes, that’s true.’
‘And your adopted country is never going to quite feel like home until you’ve put down true roots here, isn’t that right, Dr Brandon? Emily?’
‘Yes.’
‘Family is the most important thing. The most important thing in the world. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or how many material possessions, or how much respect in the community: if you don’t have family, everything else is empty.’ He reached for a silver-framed photo, and passed it over the big desk to Emily. ‘That’s Phyllis and me, and our three: Glenn, Holly and Lou-Lou.’
It was a formal family portrait. Phyllis was slender and blonde, perfectly coiffed and dressed, standing next to Eliott, and the three children ranging in age from about twelve to eight stood in front of them in height order. They were all blonde and blue-eyed, dressed as well as their parents.
‘It’s a beautiful family,’ Emily said, handing the photo to Robbie.
‘That photo’s a few years old now, but you can see why I’m so proud of them. We adopted Holly, our middle child, at a few days old. Her story was very sad. Very sad. But we’ve been privileged to be able to give her the best home we can provide.’
‘She looks just like her mother, though,’ said Robbie.
‘A happy coincidence, isn’t it? No one would ever know she was adopted, if we didn’t tell them. Of course apparently a lot of family resemblance is because of environment instead of genetics. I’ve done some reading up on the subject – professional interest as well as personal. But we’re proud of her, and we’re proud of the services we can provide here for families like ours. And yours.’
He took the photo from Robbie and replaced it carefully on his desk.
‘Now,’ he said, folding his manicured hands, ‘you mentioned discretion. That is absolutely at the heart of what we do. Adoption is a private, personal affair. And among others we have helped couples who have been turned down by state agencies or charities, for various reasons. State agencies have rather a one-size-fits-all approach, whereas we realise that every case is different. And there may be details of a couple’s life that they do not wish to come to light, but yet will not be detrimental to their being good parents to an otherwise unwanted child. We’re all about bringing families together, not picking over every little thing.’
‘What . . . sort of detail are you talking about?’ Emily asked.
‘Obviously I can’t tell you facts. Discretion. But we’ve helped conscientious objectors, for example, men who have a prison record because they refused to fight, or couples who, though sharing a deep and lasting commitment, aren’t able to marry, or couples who have faced a financial mishap, for example. Most commonly, our clients are simply in a hurry to complete their family. They don’t want to have to wait months and years to be given a child of their own and they find that with private adoption, the wheels move much more quickly.’
‘What sort of documentation do you need from us?’ said Robert.
‘You already have a personal recommendation from Donna Hernandez, which is good enough for me. But for our files, another recommendation would be useful. And identification, of course: driver’s licence, passport.’
‘Oh. That sounds . . . easy.’
‘Why should it be complicated? You want a child, and there are children out there who are desperate for a home. It’s in everyone’s best interest that you are brought together.’
She exchanged a glance with Robbie. Hope had been too fragile a thing to think about on the way up here; they had told themselves that they were only going to rule out another option. But this . . .
‘What’s your fee?’ asked Robbie.
Honeywell wrote on a slip of paper and passed it to Robbie. ‘That’s exclusive of any additional unexpected fees that might come up, but it’s a ballpark figure.’
Robbie blanched. He handed the slip to Emily. It was . . . it was not far off Robbie’s annual salary.
‘We’re going to have to discuss this,’ he said quietly.
‘Of course! I wouldn’t have it otherwise. We can meet again, say in a month or six weeks, or sooner if you like. The sooner we get the ball rolling, the sooner you will have your baby in your arms.’ He smiled at them. ‘I know it’s a lot of money. But these are complicated arrangements, and my many years of experience mean that my time doesn’t come cheap. And, of course, the outcome is priceless. No one could put a cost on a family.’
They packed a picnic and went out on Little Billy for the morning on the Bay of Biscayne. For the first hour they didn’t speak; they worked together, tightening lines and raising sails and tacking, communicating with glances and experience, not setting a course but going where the wind took them. The noise of the boat cutting through water and the wind in the sails filled the silence between them and was part of their communication, part of all the times they’d done this before, in this boat and another, in this water and on the other side of the ocean.
Robbie poured them each a cup of coffee from the flask in the picnic basket and Emily pointed, wordlessly, at a pod of dolphins swimming alongside them. They watched the creatures’ sleek bodies cutting through the water, pointed fins and sudden leaps into arcs of motion. They were close enough to hear the wet gasp of their breathing, mid-leap, and to see the amused expressions on their faces, ends of their mouths turned up.
‘It’s that same family we saw last week,’ Emily said. ‘I can see the scar on the big one’s back.’
‘He must have been nicked by a power boat.’
‘It doesn’t seem to bother him, at least,’ said Emily. She leaned back against the side of the cockpit, her feet propped on the opposite seat. ‘I don’t like him.’
‘Honeywell? I don’t like him either. He’s one of these people who flatters you while they’re secretly thinking how much better they are than you.’
‘But we don’t have to like him, do we? We just have to hire him.’
‘That sounds easier than it is.’
&
nbsp; ‘Without any sort of documentation on our part, just identification and personal references,’ she said. ‘It seems too good to be true.’
‘Then again, he has helped a lot of people. And the social worker referred us.’
‘We should call those people whose numbers he gave us. Before we make any kind of a decision.’
‘What are they going to say?’ Robbie adjusted the sail. ‘They’re going to be happy with him. They wanted to adopt, and they did. They’re going to say it was worth every penny.’
‘We should still call. All of them.’
He nodded.
‘It’s all theoretical anyway at the moment,’ said Emily. ‘We haven’t got anything like that kind of money in our savings yet. And we haven’t anything we can take out a loan against.’
‘Well,’ said Robbie, ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Before Christmas we had someone in who talked about making me an offer on Little Billy.’
Emily sat up straight. ‘You can’t sell this boat. You made it. You made it by hand, yourself. It took you years.’
‘Her,’ he corrected her. ‘All boats are female. Because they take all your money and then do exactly what they want.’
‘You made her,’ Emily continued. ‘This boat is really important to you, and to us.’
‘But she’s worth quite a bit of money. A handmade boat, unique. The fellow was from New York and he said he wanted something for day sails.’
‘She’d only get used every now and then, in the winter.’
‘She’s a boat, Emily. And we’d have a child.’
‘You made her for William.’
