What Was Mine (31 page)

I wait for what seems like forever for Mia. I am standing at Gate 18, which Wendy advised was the best place to wait for people flying international. It's opposite the arrivals gate. Both Wendy and Lin offered
to drive me here, to pick Mia up with me, but I insisted on taking a cab. I want to greet Mia alone, have her all to myself for at least the forty minutes it will take the cab to get to Wendy's house, where she will stay, where we will feast on a banquet that she's been preparing for days.

It makes me happy to picture Mia with her. I see Mia helping Wendy make dumplings, Mia's favorite dish from childhood. I see how quick Wendy's hands are, and Mia's, too, flouring the dough, cutting out triangles that Wendy flours and wraps around filling—some vegetable, some pork—then flutes the sides with pinches between thumb and forefinger, quick, quick, quick all the way around. I can almost hear Mia ransacking Wendy's memory for recipes: Three-Day Noodles, Seven-Egg Stew. And I fast-forward the vision, seeing Mia in the future, cooking the dishes for her own children,
xi fan
for them when they are ill, and how sad it makes me that I will not be there to see them grow up.

Sometimes I feel so heavy with remorse, I can't move.

Finally, the frosted doors open and people around me jostle for a better position, to ensure that they can see and be seen by the ones they are waiting for. I am pushed farther back in the crowd. I don't fight my way forward. I can wait. I've waited this long.

I
wait and wait. Huge pieces of luggage bang down the shiny slide. Boxes tied with fraying ropes, suitcases that are shrink-wrapped, black roller bags almost as big as refrigerators. But none are my duffel.

Finally, no one is standing by the carousel but me. I see that nothing new is coming down the slide. I walk toward a window marked
Questions
in English.

When I get to the window I am surprised at how much Chinese I know, how the words I need are flowing back into me. All this time, they must have been sleeping inside me, and even though I've never been in China, I feel, somehow, as if I am coming home.

When I was little, I used to be afraid my mother would die. If she died, who would take care of me? Ayi said she'd bring me to China and I'd grow up there. I couldn't imagine it. Now I was here.

The clerk asks for my nationality.
Mei guo ren
, I say. “Beautiful country person.”

“Who are you?” he asks in English, meaning what is my name.

I'm trying to figure that out, I want to tell him.

I am not Marilyn's baby (I feel for her delicate heart, safe in my shirt pocket). I am not Lucy's daughter. I am Mia.

They can't find my luggage. My duffel is lost. My clothes and my gifts to Ayi—the face cream and vitamins she asked for, cigars for
Feng, peanut butter for Lin—are in Singapore or Bangkok or Hanoi, they're not sure, and as I stand there filling out forms—so many forms!—I realize that I don't feel upset. In fact, I feel lighter, freer than I've felt in a long time. Maybe the luggage will make its way to Ayi's home. But whether or not it does—to my surprise, it doesn't matter.

I lift my backpack and slip it over my shoulders and walk toward the exit doors, passing a wall covered in metal, and I stop to fix my hair in its reflection. I peel a hair elastic from the rainbow of them on my wrist, and gather my hair into it, smoothing it back from my face, getting ready to see my mom.

O
ne by one, travelers who aren't Mia emerge through the doors, looking disheveled and weary, most hidden by suitcases big as mastodons they try to keep upright on shiny carts, so weighting the carts that they are hard to maneuver.

Once through the glass doors, the travelers must choose: left or right. It is as if they are celebrities. The crowd roars in welcome, hands and signs bobbing, trying to get their attention. Most stop and squint, trying to discern the presence of someone waiting for them. Once past the rail, travelers fall into embraces, so many encirclements of people holding each other, some screaming or crying, others silently hanging on, and I wonder how coolly or warmly Mia will greet me.

The crowd starts to thin. Where is she? Did she miss the plane? Change her mind about coming? Was she detained by authorities because of me?

The glass doors open and I see, in the distance beyond them, a silhouette too small to recognize, yet I know it is her.

It is as if an ocean is breaking inside my chest.

Of course she has come. I needn't have worried. But I can't help worrying. I am her mother.

THANKS

To Kate Johnson, my agent, enabler, and highest reader.

To Kathy Sagan, for acquiring this novel, and to Natasha Simons for invaluable editorial guidance. To Meagan Harris, Liz Psaltis, and Diana Velasquez for getting the word out. And to everyone behind this at Gallery Books. Thank you.

To Abigail Thomas, who midwifed this narrative in short-story form. To Karen Braziller, whose guidance and encouragement helped grow it into a novel. To the generous readers their workshops afforded, especially Jill Bauerle, Daphne Beal, Simone Bloch, Sarah Broom, Heather Cross, Elyssa East, Elizabeth Ehrlich, Kira von Eichel, Marcelle Harrison, Elizabeth Kadestky, Karen Crumley Keats, Dana Kinstler, Sharyn Kohlberg, Madge McKeithen, Sarah Micklem, Kathleen O'Donnell, Oona Patrick, Beth Passaro, Laurie Shapiro, and Liz Welch.

For reads of drafts in multitudinous forms: Ann Arensberg, Amy Axler, Valerie Borchardt, Anja Konig, Jane Otto, Carol Paik, Katherine Ross, Margaret Ross. Special thanks to Maggie Abruzese whose insights helped profoundly in character development.

For input on topics explored in this novel: Chris Allen, Patricia Allen, Marianna Connolly, Barbara Demick, Lee Gould, Charles Keil, Cathy Klein, Mara Klein, Cindy Kumamoto, Mary Shannon Little, Ellen Mahoney, Betsy Maury, Ruadh McGuire, Theresa Klein
Richter, Donald K. Ross, and Kathleen Voldstad. Special thanks to Katherine Kane, whose command of alternative medicine played a critical role in this story's development.

To my fellow students and teachers at the New School MFA Program, especially Jonathan Dee, Mary Gaitskill, Luis Jaramillo, and David Lehman.

To the New York State Summer Writers Institute, especially Bob and Peg Boyers and Frank Bidart.

To Bill Roorbach, for earliest encouragement.

To Clint van Zandt, for introducing me to the concept of restorative justice.

To James Hitchcock and David Lauruhn for invaluable corrections.

To Robin Wilkerson, for outside information.

To Peter Becket, who helped spare me from grammatical oversights. Similar thanks to Margaret Klein and to Judith and Ray McGuire, whose supportive friendship meant a lot on this journey.

This novel owes debts of detail to authors, editors, and publishers of the following:

All Souls,
Christine Schutt (Mariner Books)

The Child in Time,
Ian McEwan (RosettaBooks)

Daddy Love,
Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)

The Deep End of the Ocean,
Jacquelyn Mitchard (Penguin Books)

The Face on the Milk Carton,
Caroline B. Cooney (Laurel Leaf)

Finding Me,
Michelle Knight (Weinstein Books)

Ithaka,
Sarah Saffian (Delta)

Kidnapped,
Paula S. Fass (Oxford University Press)

The Light Between Oceans,
M. L. Stedman (Scribner)

Remember Me Like This
, Bret Anthony Johnson (Random House)

Schroder,
Amity Gaige (Twelve, Hachette Books)

Two Years in the Melting Pot,
Liu Zongren (China Books & Periodicals)

Wanting a Child,
edited by Jill Bialosky and Helen Schulman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

White Oleander,
Janet Fitch (Little, Brown and Company)

“In France, A Baby Switch and a Lesson in Maternal Love,” Maïa de la Baume,
The New York Times

“Kidnapped at Birth,” Robert Kolker,
New York Magazine

“The Mixed-Up Brothers of Bogotá,” Susan Dominus,
The New York Times Magazine

“The Real Lolita,” Sarah Weinman,
Hazlitt Magazine

“South African Teen Stolen as Infant Found After Befriending Sister,” Robin Dixon,
Los Angeles Times

Deepest thanks to my family: Donald, for unwavering support and good humor, which makes everything possible. To Katherine, Margaret, and to my parents and brothers and sisters and their spouses and children. How grateful I am to be a part of your club.

GALLERY READING GROUP GUIDE

what was mine

Have you ever done something in the heat of the moment that you could not undo? Lucy Wakefield never thought she would commit a crime, but when she finds a baby alone in a shopping cart, she is overcome by long-held desire for a baby, and in one life-altering, incomprehensible decision, she kidnaps a beautiful baby girl. For over two decades, she manages to keep this secret and raise Mia as her adopted daughter. But Mia's birth mother never gave up hope that she was alive and her unshakable conviction eventually helps bring the secret to light. When Mia discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she's overwhelmed by confusion and anger. Who is she? Who is her mother? And who is the woman she's called her mother all these years?

A tale of loss and grief, identity and reflection, hope and acceptance,
What Was Mine
is ultimately a story about the meaning of motherhood and the ripple effect of a split-second decision that alters so many lives.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. The title of the book,
What Was Mine
, gets at the themes of ownership and belonging. Discuss how that theme relates to the three main characters: Lucy, Marilyn, and Mia. What was theirs? What did they each lose throughout the story?

2. What is the effect of knowing from the beginning of the story that Lucy eventually gets caught?

3. In Lucy's mind, aside from her one egregious act, she is a normal person—a good person, even. Is it possible for someone good and normal to stray so far from the path of what's right and then simply return to it? Is it possible for a good person to do a bad thing, or are some acts so egregious as to define one as a bad person?

4. Marilyn's character is portrayed as almost a different person before and after her daughter's kidnapping. Discuss the ways in which she changes after going through this traumatic event.

5. 
“So much of who you are has to do with your mother.”
Do you agree with this statement? Who is a mother to Mia in this story? How do each of her mother figures help shape who Mia is? Do you think Mia would have been a different person if she had lived her life as Marilyn's daughter and had not been taken by Lucy? How is Mia's identity rocked when her concept of her “mother” is turned upside down?

6. Mia and Marilyn try to forgive Lucy for what she did, but others like Tom and even Lucy's own sister, Cheryl, are not able to. Discuss the theme of forgiveness in the story. Why do you think two of the people most directly affected are the most willing to try to forgive? Have you ever been asked to forgive someone for something you thought was unforgivable?

7. Throughout the story, Lucy's intentions don't always line up with her actions. Even as she was kidnapping Mia, she was in denial about what she was doing, intending to give the baby back somehow. When she then almost lost Mia in a store, she
“made promises to the universe”
to set things right which she wouldn't keep. She says she meant to tell Mia when she got older.
“Part of me thought that if I waited long enough, if I used just the right words, perhaps she'd be able to understand.”
Do you think Lucy ever really intended to tell Mia the truth—or was she lying to herself about that, too? Do you think Mia's reaction to the fact of her kidnapping would have been different if Lucy had told her herself when Mia was older?

8. After Mia discovers the truth about what happened to her, she has a hard time referring to either Lucy or Marilyn as “mother.” Discuss what the word “mother” means to you. What makes a mother a mother? Is it the person who birthed you, whose genes you share, who raised you—and what if these don't describe the same person? How do Mia's feelings toward both of the women who think of themselves as her mother change over the next ten months?

9. When Lucy confesses her crime to Wendy, Wendy is kind and understanding, as she has a secret of her own to confess. Why do you think Wendy's secret makes her sympathetic to Lucy? How do you think her secret compares with Lucy's?

10. If the kidnapping hadn't happened, Marilyn presumably would have chosen to remain employed and Mia would have been raised by a woman who, like Lucy, works outside the home. Compare the images presented in the book of different mothering styles and decisions that led to various choices. What do these differences in styles represent for Mia?