Butchers Hill (16 page)

Kitty ignored the dig.
"It's not illusions you lack, Tess. It's
a Sancho. With Whitney in Tokyo and Crow in Texas, you need a sidekick.
There is no Don Quixote without Sancho Panza, you know."

"Whitney will be back. As for
Crow—I never think about him."

"Liar."

"Probably. At any rate, Esskay is
all the Sancho I need."

The dog looked up at the sound of her name,
jowls dripping, chest heaving, tongue lolling from her mouth in an
antic grin. One ear stood straight up at attention, while the other
flopped forward at half-mast.

"She'll do,"
Kitty said. "Until the real thing comes along."

"I
think coffee is getting better," Tess said, sipping a cup as
she and Jackie waited for the Adoption Rights meeting to get under way.
"When the prices were raised—when people became
accustomed to paying two, three dollars, expectations went up, too. Now
places that used to serve that overscorched, underbrewed crap have to
offer something decent. Even places like this, where it's
free."

Jackie said nothing, just wrapped her arms
tighter around her middle and shoved her long legs backward beneath her
plastic chair.

"Then again, there's
this whole instant coffee mystery," Tess kept prattling,
hoping it might calm Jackie down. "I read in the paper that
the vast majority of people who drink instant are senior citizens. When
asked why they drink instant, they said it takes too long to brew a
fresh pot. Takes too long! Like, they have something better to do than
wait the ten minutes it takes to make real coffee."

Jackie bent forward at the waist. She now
looked like someone with severe abdominal cramps. Tess was beginning to
think Jackie wanted her here in case she lost her nerve and bolted from
the room. Then again, the Columbia Interfaith Center made her stomach
ache, too. The ecumenical, all-religions-welcome-here place of worship
was part of the original Columbia vision and the building still had a
touchy-feely vibe.

"They're not going to
make us form a circle and hold hands, are they?" Tess asked
Jackie. "And sing those Jesus songs that sound like bad folk
music?"

"Don't be silly,
we're just meeting in the community room here,
we're not going to a service." Jackie's
tone was snappish and impatient, but Tess was happy just to get a
response.

Still, Jackie continued trying to fold
herself like an origami swan, as if she might be able to disappear if
she made herself small as possible. But Jackie couldn't help
being noticed. There was the fact of her clothes, casual for her, just
navy slacks and a matching sweater, but nicer than anyone
else's here. There was the fact of her beauty. There was the
fact that she appeared to be practicing yoga.

And there was the fact she was black, the
only nonwhite person in the room.

A brisk-mannered woman with graying sandy
hair approached the podium at the front of the room. She turned on the
microphone, made all the usual tapping tests, then turned it off.

"I guess I don't really
need this tonight," she said in one of those clear, bell-like
voices that carry easily. Most of the crowd laughed, Tess included, but
Jackie looked impatient and edgy.

"My name is Adele Sirola and this
is Adoption Rights, a support group in the best sense of that much
overused term. We help reunite adoptees with their biological parents.
We also lobby, at the state and federal level, for increased access to
adoption records and more resources for mutual consent registries. Last
month, as we do every May, we marched on Washington for ‘Open
My Records Day.'" She smiled ruefully.
"And last month, as they do every May, the media ignored us.
We've had what you might call something of a public relations
problem over the last few years."

A hand waved down front. "A friend
of mine warned me not to come here tonight. She said you were really a
radical fringe group that thinks all adoptions should be
banned."

Adele sighed. "That's
the legacy of Baby Jessica, Baby Richard, and other totally aberrant
cases in which a remorseful birth mother wants to reclaim a baby before
the adoption is final and some loophole in the law—often
her
flat-out lie about paternity—provides the opportunity she
needs to take the child back. The television cameras gather
'round and record the moment when the screaming, confused
child is torn from the arms of the adoptive parents and placed into the
arms of virtual strangers. It makes good television, but it's
not what we're about."

Adele was pacing back and forth behind the
podium, off-script now, but on fire.

"My hackles go up when someone
tells me I don't understand something because I
haven't experienced it. I like to think of myself as the
empathetic type. But the fact is, people who aren't adoptees
don't
get it. They don't know what it's like to have two
wonderful, loving parents and still stare in a mirror, wondering who
gave birth to you. Why did they give you up? What is their legacy?
Given all the ground-breaking research in genetics, how can you not
want to know who your biological parents are?"

Another voice piped up from the left side of
the room. "The agency that arranged my adoption said I was
entitled to medical information, but that if they couldn't
guarantee lifetime confidentiality, the whole system would fall
apart."

"Let me guess, you were placed
through Catholic services," Adele said. A few people laughed
with indulgent familiarity.
Every group has its
own language and folklore, its own private jokes
,
Tess thought.

"Yeah, I know that
argument," Adele continued. "Kind of outdated,
don't you think? I mean, it rests on the assumption that
adoptions result from shameful secrets that can be revealed only at
great risk to the parent or the child. Well, last time I checked it was
almost the twenty-first century and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy is
nothing more than a career move. From Ingrid Bergman to Madonna in one
generation. When they use the ‘shame' argument,
they're saying in essence, ‘You're a
mistake. You're an embarrassment.'
Ridiculous."

Jackie was fiddling with her earring now,
opening and closing the back with a loud snap, over and over again.

"Are you an adoptee?" a
woman called from the left side of the room.

Adele smiled. "I'm a
mother of three who works at the National Institutes of Health and felt
I needed to do more with my time."

Tess noticed the women in the group laughed
at this, while the men looked blank.

"Of course I was
adopted," Adele said. "I knew that all my life, but
I didn't start looking for my mother until I was in my
thirties and had my own children. That's pretty common, by
the way—a major life change jump-starting the process. I
found my mother in a state nursing home in New York, sick with
pneumonia from living on the streets for much of her life. She died a
week later. Let me tell you, the only thing I ever regretted was not
starting the search sooner. I might have had six months, a year, five
years with her. I got a week. It was better than nothing."

"Why don't you tell us
how you found her?" This woman's question sounded
rehearsed to Tess's ear.

"Thank you, Terry.
Terry's a plant, by the way, she's supposed to ask
that question." Adele's manner was at once so
breezy, yet so practiced, that Tess wondered if she could turn it on
for anything. This crowd was eating out of her hand. She could have
sold them Tupperware or lingerie, timeshares or those magnetic healing
pads.

"I did it the way you're
going to find your parents. Start with whatever you know—the
agency that arranged the adoption, any clues you can glean from the
medical records to which adoptees are now entitled by
law—thanks, in part, to groups like ours. Wheedle, beg,
cajole. Get a first name. Get a home state. You'll be amazed
at how far you can get."

Tess, thinking of how hard it had been for
her to get leads on four children whose names she actually knew,
blurted out: "It's not that simple, finding people.
You're making it sound too easy."

The rest of the audience turned back,
frowning at the skeptical stranger in their midst. But Adele just
shrugged.

"Of course it's hard.
That's why we have this twenty-page
booklet"—she held up a pamphlet with a peach cover
and black plastic ring binders—"which is yours for
the unbelievably low price of absolutely nothing. We also have Internet
resources and a network of similar groups nationwide, for those of you
who trace your parents to other states. Now, if all this help moves you
to make a donation, large or small, so be it. Maryland Adoption Rights
is a registered nonprofit, and your gifts are tax deductible. Any more
questions?"

A few eager hands shot up.
"Generic ones, I mean, not about your specific
cases." The hands went back down. "Then
let's break up, freshen up our coffees, and grab some
cookies. Our search consultants will set up at various spots throughout
the room, so you can have confidential briefing sessions on how to
start your searches. You may also want to talk to some of our folks
about whether you're ready to start. But you're
here, that's the first step."

Jackie didn't move. Tess went over
to the card table, refilled their cups, and filled a napkin with
cookies. Pepperidge Farm and those French cookies, Lulus, Sumatra decaf
and chocolate almond regular.
Toto, I
don't think we're in Baltimore anymore
.

Jackie ignored the coffee and the cookies.
Around the room, the one-on-one sessions had started, and the air
filled with a hushed, urgent buzz, but she showed no sign of moving
from her spot. She was rocking slightly now, holding herself as if she
were cold.

Adele walked over and sat down in the chair
on the other side of Jackie. Her blouse was half out of her skirt, she
had cookie crumbs on one side of her mouth and she was stirring her
coffee with a ballpoint. Tess had already been inclined to like her,
but something about the Bic pen rattling around the paper cup clinched
the deal.

"Feeling a little
skittish?"

"
No
!"
Jackie said. "It's just
that…I'm different from the others here."

"Because you're
black?" Adele looked genuinely puzzled. Race wasn't
supposed to be a factor, not in the Inter-faith Center, not in utopian
Columbia. It was impolite to even remark on its existence.

"You kept talking about looking
for one's parents. I'm not looking for my mother. I
was…I am…a mother."

Adele picked up Jackie's hand.
Tess was surprised that Jackie let a stranger touch her. She expected
her to snatch her hand back and tuck it under her. But she let Adele
hold her hand, while Adele talked to her in a soothing voice, so much
softer now, but still as casual and light as it had been during the
presentation.

"You were a young one,
weren't you? Sixteen? Seventeen?"

"Eighteen," Tess
answered when Jackie said nothing. "She's
thirty-one now."

"Well, you're right, we
don't see as many mothers as we do kids. And we
don't see a lot of mothers your age. But that's a
good thing, see? Each year, the trail gets a little colder. Did you
give birth here in Maryland?"

Jackie nodded, staring into her lap.

"Which part, which
jurisdiction?"

"Baltimore, in the city."

"Did you go through a church
agency, a private or the state?"

"Private. It was a little office
on Saratoga Street."

"You remember a name?"
Adele's voice had gotten softer and softer, as if Jackie were
a scared, wounded animal she was trying to lure from a hiding place.

"Something Alternatives."

"Okay, Something Alternatives on
Saratoga Street. Now I bet you don't think that sounds like
much, but I'm going to call Jeff over, and you'll
be surprised at what he does with a little piece of information like
that." She addressed herself to Tess, as if Jackie were her
ward. "Jeff knows Baltimore. I'm more oriented to
the Washington suburbs."

She walked over to a thin man with a narrow
face and intense brown eyes. If Tess had been noticing such things
these days, she would have thought him handsome, but she
wasn't noticing such things. Adele and Jeff separated from
the group, talking to each other in low, urgent voices. Tess thought
she heard a muttered "Jesus Christ," then their
voices dropped again. After several minutes, both walked over to where
she and Jackie sat. Tess knew from their faces that things
weren't quite so easy as Adele had thought.

"It's kind of a good
news, bad news situation," Jeff said. "Yes, I know
the place. Family Planning Alternatives. It advertised in the yellow
pages, pretending to offer a full range of services, from
contraceptives to abortions. But they were funded by a radical
anti-abortion group. They did some adoptions, but their real purpose
was to scare women out of abortions by giving them a lot of
misinformation. The state shut them down five years ago."

"What does that mean for
me?" Faced with a problem, Jackie was no longer passive. She
was a self-made businesswoman again, impatient with all obstacles.

"It means you can't do
what we normally advise in this situation, which is to return to the
agency and see if you can convince them to offer any leads,"
Adele said. "And since they've disbanded, it will
be virtually impossible to find the people who worked there, much less
the records. It's a setback, but it's not the end
of the world."

Tess extended her pinkie finger, so the nail
was poking into the side of Jackie's thigh. She kept her
nails quite short, but there was enough there to dig a little bit.
Remember,
that's what you have me for. I found you. I can find a lot of
people who are hard to find
.