by Janet Dawson
She glanced at her watch. Five minutes to eleven, when she was due to meet Flor.
She’d reread the transcript this morning. Flor’s words leapt from the page, describing her husband’s murder, her son’s abduction, the massacre at her village. It was such a small favor, a simple request. All Flor wanted Lindsey to do was look at a boy who bore a resemblance to her son. But Lindsey was having second thoughts.
She bought lemons from one vendor, broccoli and squash from another, then joined Nina at another booth. “I got strawberries. I’ll make shortcake.”
“Real shortcake? Not that icky spongy stuff the supermarkets try to pass off as shortcake.”
Lindsey chuckled. “I wouldn’t let that icky spongy stuff pass my lips. Real shortcake from scratch. With real whipped cream. Just add another layer to my hips.”
Nina glanced at her mother. “You look great for a woman your age.”
“My age? You make me sound ancient.”
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
Over half my life, Lindsey thought, looking at her daughter. She wouldn’t be that age again for all the tea in—wherever. She saw herself, a frazzled single mother, tussling day-to-day with Nina, the willful toddler from hell. That time had been hard, as Lindsey struggled to pay the bills, finish her dissertation, and raise her child. It had taken her years to build her financial security. The willful toddler was now an adult, but that particular struggle hadn’t gotten any easier. Just for today, they had a truce. It was good to stroll through the market together.
Eleven o’clock. Lindsey scanned the street leading toward the downtown Berkeley BART station. No sign of Flor.
“Who are you meeting?” Nina asked.
“A woman I interviewed for the book. She’s from El Salvador.”
“Do we need salad stuff?” Nina asked. They walked to a nearby booth where vegetables were displayed like jewels. Lindsey selected bell peppers in red, yellow and orange, while Nina chose a cucumber and a head of romaine lettuce.
Lindsey looked at her watch again. Five after eleven. Then she saw Flor, face flushed, her children’s hands clasped firmly in her own. “I am sorry to keep you waiting. There was some difficulty getting away. I hoped to leave the children with Tony. But...” Her eyes moved to Lindsey’s right, taking in Nina.
“This is Flor Cooper,” Lindsey said. “And her children, Michael and Antonia.”
Flor smiled. “You are Lindsey’s beautiful daughter.”
Nina looked surprised. “Is that what she calls me?”
Flor nodded. “Oh, yes. She is very proud of you. She shows me your picture and tells me about you working in Texas. Have you come for a visit?”
Nina gave Lindsey a searching look. “Sort of.”
“Mamá, can we look around?” Antonia asked.
Michael chimed in. “Yes, Mamá, please.”
Flor frowned. “No. It’s safer if you both stay with me.”
“There’s a guy over there selling cookies,” Nina told the children. “I’ll treat you, if it’s okay with your mom.” She glanced at Flor. “I won’t let them out of my sight. I promise.”
Flor hesitated. Then she nodded. Nina led the children toward the booth where cookies and other baked goods were being sold. “My husband, Tony, wanted to know why I wished to leave the children with him at the shop this morning. I told him about seeing Efraín at the market. We quarreled. He thinks I see ghosts where there are none to see.”
“Do you?” Lindsey had wondered as well.
“See Efraín because I want to see him? No, I didn’t make this up. I know my son. This boy is my son.”
“Where did you see him?” Lindsey asked.
“There, on the grass.” Flor pointed toward Civic Center Park, a square block of grass and trees. Center Street, site of the market, was on the north side of the park. The Berkeley High School campus sprawled to the south. “Three weeks ago my friend Carmen and I came to this market, late morning, like now, between eleven and noon. I saw this boy. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but the longer I looked at him, the more I knew he was Efraín. He was with two other boys, acting silly, the way boys do. He wore a Berkeley High School T-shirt. I followed him and his friends to a movie theater on Shattuck Avenue. I thought about waiting until the movie was over so I could follow him to where he lives now. But I had to go home. I didn’t see him the next Saturday. But last Saturday he was here, with the same boys. After they left the market they went to the BART station.”
The women walked onto the park’s grassy lawn. From here Lindsey could see most of the park, but the booths blocked her view of Center Street. A man sat on the grass nearby, wearing faded jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt, long blond hair cascading down his back. He strummed a guitar and sang “Yellow Submarine” in a clear tenor. The children clustered around him joined in the chorus.
“There,” Flor whispered as the song ended. “Those three boys. The dark one, in the middle, that’s my son.” She pointed toward Berkeley High as three teenagers crossed the street and cut through the park, heading toward the market. The short blond boy grabbed something from the dark-haired boy’s back pocket, ran a few steps, then tossed the object to the tall redhead. Rectangular, shiny, about six inches long—a harmonica. The dark-haired boy intercepted the harmonica in mid-toss and stowed it in his pocket. The boys were about ten feet away when the dark-haired boy turned and Lindsey got a good look at his face.
“Are you sure, Flor?” Lindsey tried to sound detached. But she wasn’t. Far from it. “It’s been a long time. Are you sure this is Efraín?”
Flor’s hungry gaze never left the boy. “Yes, I’m sure. It doesn’t matter how long. Would I forget my own son? Never. Every detail of his face is burned into my brain. I think of him every day. Finally, my prayers are answered and I see him again, right here. He looks just like his father. You see the resemblance, don’t you? From the picture I showed you. He has that scar on his chin, from the broken bottle.”
Lindsey looked at the boy who teetered on the precipice between boyhood and manhood. Thick black hair curled around his ears and fell onto his forehead, over his dark brown eyes. The crescent-shaped scar near the cleft of the boy’s chin stood out, pale against his brown skin. There were many ways a teenaged boy could acquire such a scar. It didn’t necessarily mean that he was who Flor said he was. Flor’s loss, what she felt, could make a woman see a resemblance where none existed.
“I know he is my son,” Flor said. “I want him back. You must help me.”
The boy smiled at Lindsey. Then he and his friends joined the throng on Center Street. Flor and Lindsey followed, locating Nina and the children. “Mamá, are you done?” Antonia asked. “I have to be at soccer practice at one.”
“Yes, I’m done. For now.” Flor took her children’s hands and looked at Lindsey. “I will call you. We must talk about what to do.” She turned and walked toward the BART station.
“What was that about?” Nina asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A ghost, Lindsey thought. The past always comes back to haunt us.
“Let’s go home,” she said. “This tote bag is heavy.”
“I knew we’d see you here.” Gretchen called, walking toward them, with her daughter, Amy, at her side. “Did you get everything you came for?”
More than I bargained for. Lindsey nodded. “Yes, including strawberries.”
“We’re going to make shortcake,” Nina said. “The real kind.”
Amy grinned. “I love strawberry shortcake. I’ll come over and help you eat it.”
The man who’d been playing the guitar in the park now moved among the crowd, strumming the strings, singing the blues, Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain.” A harmonica joined in, wailing along with the guitar. The harmonica player came up behind the man with the guitar. Then the song ended with a flourish and the listeners applauded.
Gretchen laughed. “Nat, love, please carry this bag.”
Nathaniel Segal, soon to
graduate from Berkeley High, took Gretchen’s bag and slung the straps on his shoulder. He smiled at Lindsey, as he had earlier. The crescent-shaped scar near the cleft of his chin stood out like a beacon.
Lindsey had been in denial ever since Thursday morning. She knew the Segals had adopted Nat from a Salvadoran orphanage. But how and when had he arrived at the orphanage? What had happened to his birth parents? Was Nat really Efraín, Flor’s lost son? Now Lindsey recalled how Gretchen found her son.
11
Berkeley, California, February 1988 and July 1989
The opening bars of “You’ve Got a Friend” poured from the car’s speakers as Lindsey took the University Avenue exit and headed into Berkeley. The sky was dark and full of clouds. Wind tossed tree branches. Friday night’s storm brought rain and bluster into Saturday morning. Raindrops splattered the windshield and Lindsey upped the tempo of the wipers.
She’d gotten up at five that morning, filled a thermos with coffee, dropped thirteen-year-old Nina off at her parents’ home in Paso Robles, and pointed her car north. All the way she listened to Carole King’s Tapestry, singing along while the cassette tape cycled repeatedly through the player.
It wasn’t the most convenient time for a visit. She had lectures to prepare and papers to grade for the history classes she taught at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. Friday, yesterday, was her catch-up day. She’d spread books and papers in front of her while eating the leftover casserole she’d brought for lunch. She’d already been interrupted twice when the phone rang. She sighed and picked up the receiver.
“Lindsey, can you come up?” Annabel asked. “We’re having a wake.”
“Who died?”
“Gretchen had another miscarriage.”
“Oh, no. Not again.”
“Yes. Please come. At a time like this, Gretchen needs her friends.”
Lindsey glanced at her calendar. “I can’t leave until tomorrow. Nina has a school thing tonight. I have to go. I missed the last one and she pitched a fit.”
“Believe me, I understand,” Annabel said. “Tess and Sharon fuss if I miss any of their school activities. Kids.”
“Yeah, kids,” Lindsey said. “If I can get on the road early I should be there by noon.”
Lindsey called her mother, arranging for Nina to spend the weekend with Grandma. But it wasn’t as easy for Lindsey to get away as she had anticipated. Nina objected to staying with her grandparents. She pouted all the way from San Luis Obispo to Paso Robles, and then threw a tantrum in Grandma’s living room.
Now Lindsey turned off University Avenue and headed north. Gretchen’s house was on Milvia, a block from Aunt Emma’s place. When she and Doug bought it, the two-story Victorian was shabby and run-down. Over the years they’d dealt with the neglect, and their efforts showed in the pale blue exterior, the house’s gingerbread trim decked out in contrasting dark blue with bright yellow highlights. Weeds and overgrown shrubs had given way to a front yard landscaped with native grasses and flowers in all seasons.
How cozy and welcoming the house looked. All it lacked, as far as Gretchen was concerned, was a baby to occupy the bedroom she’d decorated as a nursery.
Annabel’s Volvo and Claire’s Porsche were in the driveway. Lindsey parked her Honda on the street. Claire met her on the porch. “I’m really glad you could make it.”
“Me, too. How’s Gretchen?”
“She’ll be all right. She’s resilient.”
Lindsey stepped into the front hall, set her umbrella on the floor in the corner and removed her jacket, thinking of Annabel’s three children—and her own unplanned, unexpected pregnancy. “Three miscarriages in four years. It’s not fair.”
“Nobody ever said life was fair.” Claire led the way to the living room, where Annabel and Gretchen sat on the sofa. Red-gold flames danced in the fireplace, warming the cozy, comfortable room. Music played softly, from a stack of albums on the stereo system in the corner. Gretchen blotted her reddened eyes with a handkerchief. Lindsey sat down and put her arms around her friend.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Gretchen rested her head on Lindsey’s shoulder. Then she straightened and leaned back on the sofa. “I was five months along this time. I thought it was going to be all right. No morning sickness, nothing like that.”
Lindsey squeezed Gretchen’s hand. Three pregnancies. In Annabel’s case, they had led to three healthy children. For Gretchen, each pregnancy, so promising at the start, ended in a too-early splash of blood, pain, unfulfilled hopes, an empty nursery, tears of loss.
Gretchen managed a crooked smile. “I’ll be fine. I know. I got over the other miscarriages, I’ll get through this one.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I remember back in high school and college, fumbling around with condoms and diaphragms and those damn gels and foams. That little edge of danger when I did have sex, because I was afraid of getting pregnant. And now, when I want to get pregnant and have a baby, I find out it’s more difficult than I thought. I always figured I could have a baby. I have all the equipment. Who knew it wasn’t functioning properly? Ironic, isn’t it?”
Getting pregnant was something most women figured they could do, Lindsey reckoned, as inevitable as tempting fate by having sex without protection. Discovering that one was unable to conceive, unable to carry a pregnancy to term—yes, that was ironic.
Gretchen and Doug waited to start their family, wanting first to establish their home and careers. When they married in 1978, Doug was just a few years out of law school, working as an associate in a San Francisco law firm. Gretchen was an Alameda County social worker. By the early 1980s, Gretchen joked about feeling left out, as friends and relatives had children. Now they had the house and money in the bank. Now it was time to have babies. Out went the pills. In came the ovulation charts.
But nothing happened. The doctors said the problem wasn’t his. It was hers, so Gretchen felt guilty. She and Doug began the infertility roundelay—artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and Gretchen’s careening emotions and hormones. Finally she conceived, full of joy and excitement as she decorated the nursery. Then she wept when the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at two months. Again she conceived and carried the fetus for three months before losing it to another miscarriage. Now this third miscarriage, five months into a heretofore untroubled pregnancy.
Gretchen sighed. “Well, this is supposed to be a wake. Let’s have some wine. I haven’t had any booze since I got pregnant and I could certainly use a drink.”
“And something to eat,” Annabel said. A wake meant food and drink. Provisions covered the coffee table, an assortment of deli food—cold cuts, cheese, bread, potato salad and coleslaw—and a bottle of Chardonnay. Plates, cutlery and glasses crowded a side table. Annabel opened the wine, filled the glasses, and handed them around.
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and that was very early this morning. That pastrami over there is calling to me.” Lindsey picked up a plate and made herself a sandwich.
“Doug and I talked it over,” Gretchen said, sipping wine as she spooned up potato salad. “Four years on this fertility roller coaster is enough. I can’t do this anymore. I guess I wasn’t meant to give birth to my children. We’ll adopt.”
“I’m glad you’re taking such a positive attitude.” Annabel raised her glass. “A toast. Here’s to good friends.”
Four glasses clinked together. “Good friends,” Lindsey echoed. “Let nothing come between us.”
“Another toast.” Claire held her glass high. The others lifted their glasses again, waiting for Claire to speak. “Here’s to the kids you’ll have someday, Gretchen. I know you will, because you’ll make a helluva good mom. You’ll have your kids, by hook or crook, if I have anything to say about it. You deserve to have whatever you want.”
“Thanks for being my friends,” Gretchen said, wiping away tears. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
* * *
Nearly eighteen mon
ths had passed since the friends gathered to comfort Gretchen after her miscarriage. Lindsey received secondhand reports on the adoption saga from Annabel. The Segals discovered the wait for a healthy white infant—and the bureaucracy of the American adoption system—was as daunting as the infertility treatments. They plugged into the private adoption network, willing to take an older child, a toddler, or a child from a foreign country. More than a year had passed since Gretchen’s last miscarriage and several adoption prospects hadn’t panned out.
Lindsey drove up again and now they gathered in the Segals’ backyard, this time to celebrate. Gretchen, her face radiant, cradled a toddler in her lap, a sturdy little fellow with black hair and wide brown eyes, his dark skin contrasting with Gretchen’s fair coloring. He sucked his thumb, solemnly taking in the sights around him.
“We named him Nathaniel.” Gretchen hugged the little boy tighter. “After Doug’s grandfather. Nathaniel Douglas Segal. Nat for short.”
“The minute I saw him,” Claire said, “I knew he was Gretchen’s little boy.” She kicked off her sandals and dug her toes into grass. “I was in El Salvador on business, staying with my friends, the Medranos. They’re patrons of an orphanage. Cristina had some business there, so I went with her, and spotted this sweetie pie. I went right back to my hotel and called Gretchen.”
“At the orphanage they said he was two, but I think he’s younger,” Gretchen said. “We don’t know when he was born. So we decided his birthday is today, the Fourth of July. An all-American birthday.” Her eyes brimmed with happiness. Nat was decked out in crisp blue shorts and a white shirt, with red sneakers on his feet.
“How did he wind up at that orphanage?” Lindsey asked.
“Lots of kids down there are abandoned or orphaned,” Claire said. “Civil war plays hell with the coffee business, I can tell you.”
