Kiss River

by Diane Chamberlain

  Clay nodded. “I can understand that,” he said. “So—” he looked back at the monitor again “—how old is she now? When do you get her?”

  Gina wasn’t sure how much to tell him, and she was surprised that what she had told him so far had been the truth. “It’s a long process to adopt a child from India,” she said. “First of all, only certain children can be released for foreign adoptions. They’re the ones who have special medical needs, for the most part. Rani fit that bill without any problem, but she still needed to be formally evaluated. Then I had to go through a home study, which terrified me, because I’m single and I rent a town house. I don’t own any property. But I passed. Then they had to check my finances, which was also scary. My divorce didn’t leave me in the best of shape financially. But I guess they figured a teacher has job security these days. So, my dossier was okayed, and a couple of months ago, Rani was cleared by the agency for me to adopt her.”

  “Will you go to India to get her?” Clay asked.

  “I already did, actually.” She smiled weakly at him. “This is the hard part,” she said. “I went to India in April to pick her up. There was one more step to go through, and that was to get a court order to release her to me. That shouldn’t have been any problem at all. But while I was waiting for the hearing, the Indian government suddenly cracked down on all the orphanages in the area, because there were reports of black-market selling of children.”

  “Was that really happening?”

  She nodded. “Yes. In some less scrupulous agencies, babies were being bought from poor parents or because they were girls, who were seen as more of a liability than an asset. I heard of cases where the Indian parents were paid about twenty dollars for their baby girl, while the adoptive family paid forty thousand. I’m not certain that the orphanage Rani is in is one of the good ones, frankly. I’d been told they were licensed, but who knows? And even if it was licensed, it didn’t matter. All the orphanages had to go through a new licensing procedure before any of the children could be released.”

  “But your…Rani…needed urgent medical care,” Clay insisted, and she loved the indignation in his voice.

  She nodded. “You’re thinking far too logically,” she said with a rueful smile. “It’s just not working that way. All adoptions were frozen, regardless of the needs of the child. And I honestly understand that they had to do that to protect the majority of the children. But you’re right that Rani was a special case. She needed surgery. I needed to get her home to Washington and onto my insurance policy so I could have that done for her. Even though the older Rani gets, the more risk there is that…” Gina shook her head, not wanting to finish the sentence. She looked at him. “She’s sixteen months old and she only weighs thirteen pounds.”

  “Sixteen months!” Clay looked at the picture. “I don’t know much about babies, but I would have said she was a lot younger than that.”

  Gina felt the tears she’d been fighting burn her eyes. “She’s severely malnourished. When I was there, I brought food with me, because there just isn’t enough for all those children, and her body doesn’t seem to use it properly. I wanted to stay there with her until I could get her out, but I was out of money and had to get back to my job. I would go there now just to be with her and make sure she’s all right, but I can’t afford it. And they won’t let her go. There’s nothing I can do but wait and pray she holds on until she’s released to me.”

  “Is the agency trying to get licensed?” Clay asked.

  Gina sighed. It was such a complicated issue, so hard to explain. “Yes, but I’m not sure it will succeed. And that’s not the only problem now,” she said. She lifted the picture from the desk and stared at the little girl. “Since the whole adoption situation came to light in India, there’s been a huge backlash against foreigners adopting Indian babies,” she said. Then she looked at him. “For example, they’re holding up the adoptions of the children who were going to couples who haven’t been married long enough, in the opinion of one judge or another,” she said. “So you can imagine how anxious they are to place a child with a single woman.”

  “Have you hired a lawyer?” he asked.

  “Several. But it’s useless.” And she had no more money to pay a lawyer.

  “What will you do now?”

  “Wait and worry,” she said. “That’s all I can do.” She had to look away from him then. She couldn’t lie right to his face. “It’s looking grim, though. Terrible things are happening.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m part of an Internet group of parents waiting for children from India. One couple has been told their child is gone. Just disappeared. They don’t know if she died or was sold or moved or what. There’s no record of her anywhere. Another couple went to stay in India until their daughter was released, and they found another child was in her place. They’d met their daughter before, so they knew what she looked like and acted like. This little girl was older, scrawnier and lighter-skinned. But the orphanage kept insisting it was the same child.”

  “Was there anything they could do?”

  She shook her head. “They went to other orphanages searching for her, but they couldn’t find her. You know…” She tipped her head back, looking blankly at the ceiling. “I think it’s hard for people who haven’t gone through this to understand how attached you can get to these children you don’t really know. But I think it’s like being pregnant. You start dreaming about that child, getting ready for her.”

  “And you’ve met Rani,” Clay said. “Of course you’re attached to her.”

  “I was even before I met her,” she said. “But yes, once I held her in my arms…she came right to me. Maybe she goes to everyone, I don’t know. But she just climbed right into my arms like she knew she belonged there.”

  “I’m sorry, Gina.”

  “The woman who took this picture of Rani has been in India for the past couple of months, so she can keep an eye on her little girl and bring food for her and play with her and make sure she’s getting cared for while waiting for her to be released. But it could be months. It could be years. It could be never. That’s the real fear we all have. Here’s the e-mail I just got from her.”

  Gina used the mouse to click back to Denise’s e-mail. “‘I know you want the truth about how Rani is doing, dear Gina,’” she read from the screen in front of her. “‘It’s hard to tell you, but I would also want to know if I were in your position. She seems more isolated than when you were here. I always try to include her when I play with Sunil and the other children, but Rani has trouble keeping up with them because of her shortness of breath. I’ve advocated on your behalf to get her medical treatment, but you know how it is here. She is one of so many special-needs children. They can’t possibly get as much help as they need.’”

  Gina let out a sob. She lowered her head to her hands, and felt Clay’s palm resting against her back, while Sasha prodded her temple with his nose. “I’d do anything to get her out of there,” she said, lifting her head again. “Anything! I’d sell my soul. I’d sleep with the devil if it would make a difference. I’d…” Her voice trailed off, and Clay pulled a tissue from the box on the desk and pressed it into her hand.

  “You know what amazes me?” he asked.

  She shook her head, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the tissue.

  “That you can spend even a second thinking about the Fresnel lens when you’ve got all of this going on in your life.”

  There wasn’t a moment she didn’t think of that lens. “Look at yourself,” she said. “You work all hours of the day. Lacey said you didn’t used to be that way. That it’s your way of dealing with grief over your wife.”

  He sat back in his chair, his face suddenly unreadable, and she knew that she’d trod too hard on a place too tender. His obvious grief over the loss of his wife touched her. Their marriage must have been very strong.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No, you’re right.” He shook his
head. “I guess we’re both escaping.” He sighed, standing up. “If there’s anything I can do to help, Gina, please let me know.”

  She looked up at him, at eyes that mirrored the sadness in her own.

  “It helped just to be able to tell you,” she said. And she meant it.

  CHAPTER 26

  Tuesday, April 14, 1942

  I am so mad and embarrassed and just plain aggravated that I can hardly write this.

  First, let me explain about what happened last night. I was on the beach with Sandy when we heard these BOOMS. By now, we surely know what that sound means. Another one of our ships had been attacked. But we couldn’t see any light from a fire or anything, so we figured it had happened pretty far away. It wasn’t until this morning that I learned what it was: one of our ships called the Roper sunk a U-boat! The U-85. Daddy was hip-hooraying over that news. Finally, we’re fighting back. I don’t feel nearly so scared now, because I’m sure this is just the start of the turning tide.

  So I was by the lighthouse after school, raking up the twigs and leaves left over from winter, when Dennis Kittering came limping along. The school in High Point where he teaches is on a spring vacation, so he will be camping on the beach all week. He was whistling that “Perfidia” song.

  “What’s that song mean?” I asked him.

  “What song?” He looked confused.

  “That one you’re whistling. ‘Perfidia.’”

  “I don’t really know the words,” he told me. “Just the tune.”

  “But what does Perfidia mean?” I asked him. “Is it a girl’s name?”

  “Ah.” He smiled at me then, this smile he uses sometimes when I know he’s feeling like he’s better than me. “You have a dictionary, Bess. You look it up.”

  That annoyed me right there. We were off to our usual bad start. (I did look it up when I got in the house, though. It means “deliberate breach of faith or trust.” I still don’t know what that has to do with the song, though.)

  Anyhow, then Dennis said, “It’s such a beautiful day. How about we go up to the top of the lighthouse and look at the view?”

  I’d taken him up last year when I first met him and he hadn’t been up since, and while I felt sorry for him about that, I didn’t want to take him up today. The truth is, I don’t feel all that trusting of men these days, and I was not about to climb through that closed-up lighthouse with him. I said if he wanted to go up, he could go alone. He had my permission. But that obviously wasn’t what he wanted. He said what he really wanted was to talk to me, that he was concerned about me. I immediately felt embarrassed, as I do anytime I think someone knows what happened to me in my bedroom with the German. People are always telling me they’re sorry my family had to go through that ordeal, and I can’t look them in the eye, wondering exactly how much they know. I said I didn’t really have time to talk, but he somehow talked me into sitting on the bench near the lighthouse with him, and I got ready to accept his sympathy or whatever it was he was going to offer me. I did not expect him to say what he did, though.

  “I’m aware that you’re meeting a sandpounder on the beach at night,” he said.

  I was horrified!

  “What makes you think that?” I asked him.

  “I’ve seen you,” he said. “Remember, I camp on the beach.”

  Thoughts were flying through my head. There were no lights on the beach now. Dennis could have been anywhere. He could have been a few feet from Sandy and me and we never would have known it. That thought made my skin crawl!

  “The patroller and I are just friends,” I said.

  Dennis shook his head. “I believe you are far more than that,” he said. “And I’m sure that since you’re out there at all hours of the night, your parents have no idea.”

  I stood up then, feeling really angry and also scared that he planned to tell my parents what he knew. I couldn’t bear the thought.

  “You are nothing but a meddlesome snoop!” I said.

  He grabbed my wrist, not hard, but tight enough to keep me from leaving.

  “Don’t run off,” he said. “I’m not going to tell your parents, and I don’t mean to embarrass you. I’m talking about this because I care about you. I’m worried about you. That’s all. You’re getting in over your head with an older man who—”

  “He’s younger than you,” I said.

  “He’s what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

  “None of your business,” I said.

  “Boys that age are out for one thing, Bess,” he said.

  I figured he knew that because that’s what he’d been out for at eighteen or nineteen.

  “He’s not like other boys,” I said.

  “Look, you’re pretty and smart and I just worry that you could get hurt,” he said. “I’d like you to seriously consider moving to High Point. You could live with me and my sister. I’ve already talked to her about it. I told her how smart you are, how your potential is getting wasted here and all. Do you think your parents would let you if I talked to them about how good it would be for you?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re crazy!” I told him.

  “No funny business,” he said. “As I said, I would talk to your parents about it. My sister and I have a little house, but it’s nice. It belonged to my parents. You could attend a great Catholic school in our neighborhood. Your parents have to know you’re getting a substandard education here.”

  “I’ve probably read more books than you have,” I said.

  He smiled at that. “Maybe you have,” he said. “And that’s exactly my point. You should be going to school somewhere where that brain of yours is appreciated. Where you can end up doing something more with your life than whatever sort of job a woman can get around here. Which isn’t much, is it?”

  He was talking about something that has truly been on my mind lately. I love it here. It’s my home. As Daddy says, I have salt water in my veins. But not much is expected of the women here. My dream is that someday, when I’m older and when the war is over, I can move to Vermont with Sandy and go to college there and become a teacher.

  “My parents would never let me leave here,” I said.

  “Are you sure about that?” Dennis asked me. “I know what happened at your house a few days ago.”

  I don’t blush often, but I know my cheeks turned bright pink when he said that.

  “Maybe a week ago, your parents wouldn’t have given your safety here another thought. But now, I’m sure they’d love knowing that you were away from here, with all that’s going on.”

  “It’s getting better here now,” I said. “That ship, the Roper, sunk a U-boat last night.”

  “We sunk it twice.” Dennis had that look on his face I’ve learned means he’s angry about something.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We sunk it, and all the men from the U-boat were in the water, begging to be picked up by the Roper. Instead of saving those men, the Roper bombed the damn submarine again. It was already sunk. All they did was kill a bunch of men begging for their lives in the ocean.”

  I honestly did not know that, but I couldn’t get worked up about it like he was.

  “Those Germans would’ve killed our men if they’d had the chance,” I said.

  “It wasn’t honorable,” Dennis said. “You don’t kill a drowning man, even if he is the enemy.”

  I didn’t want to talk about that anymore. I stood up.

  “Well, back to our other subject,” I said. “I’m not leaving Kiss River. And don’t you dare say a word to my parents about the sandpounder, Dennis,” I said. “Swear to me you won’t mention anything about that to them.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “But as an adult in your life, I need to do what I can to keep you safe. That’s why I’m talking to you rather than to them. You’re smart. Act smart.”

  I walked away from him, just bristling all over with anger, but knowing I’d better stay on Dennis’s good side, anyhow. I can’t take
the chance that he’ll tell Mama and Daddy what he knows. He made me feel about ten years old. I will act smarter though. I’ll be far more careful that Dennis doesn’t see me with Sandy from now on.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Gina?”

  She thought she was dreaming. The voice came from far away. But then she heard the faint knocking sound and opened her eyes. Through her bedroom window, she saw the lighthouse, the white brick almost blinding in the early-morning sun, and she could hear the soft rhythmic lapping of a calm ocean.

  The knocking came again. “Gina?” It was Clay, outside her door.

  She looked at the clock radio. Six-thirty in the morning on her day off.

  Sitting up, she brushed her hair back from her face. “Yes?” she answered.

  “You need to get up, Gina,” Clay said. He sounded as though his mouth was right against her door. “I spoke to my friend, Dave, after you and I talked last night. You know, the pilot. He offered—”

  “You can come in,” she said, suddenly wide-awake. She was still in her nighttime T-shirt, sitting up with the sheet to her waist, her hair a mess, but she didn’t care. She wanted to hear what the pilot had said.

  Clay opened the door. He kept one hand on the knob, looking a bit uncomfortable about being in her room. “He offered to fly us over Kiss River,” he said.

  “We can go with him?” She hadn’t expected that. She’d thought the pilot would make his own search, if he was willing to do it at all. The thought of being in the plane with him was both exciting and unnerving. She was not a great flier.

  “Right,” Clay said. “First he said he could take us out tomorrow, but he called just a few minutes ago and said we should go now, that the conditions are perfect. You interested?”

  “Absolutely!” she said, waving him out of her room so she could get up. “I’ll be ready in two minutes.”