Читать книгу Mother Mother - Jessica O'Dwyer - Страница 10

THREE

BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER 2002

Until they got DNA approval, they weren’t telling anyone about Juan Rolando. They’d learned their lesson. They’d even debated whether they should hang his picture on the fridge, agreeing to wait until after DNA. Kate promised to have the test done by late summer, early fall. Halloween at the latest.

Despite her caution, Julie couldn’t stop herself from prowling the aisles at Babies “R” Us after work, comparing cribs and bedding, car seats and bottles, making notes on what she planned to buy when they were sure Juan was theirs, when she wouldn’t have to hide or donate painful reminders of what might have been, in case they lost him.

On weekends, she and Mark hiked the trails around their house and biked the path at the Cove, the waterfront park with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Julie dug out her high school Spanish CDs and enrolled in a three-night-a-week Adult Ed class in intermediate conversation. At Kate’s suggestion, they joined an online group of waiting families from around the United States who used Kate’s agency. The group was called Guate Parents. Members signed their posts with timelines, stacking up dates.

Paper ready 2/14/2002

Got DNA 2/28/2002

Moved into Family Court 3/16/2002

PGN 4/12/2002

PINK ??????????

—Sandra, mom to three homegrown, one Guatemalan princesa

PGN stood for Procuraduría General de la Nacíon, the bureaucracy that bestowed final Guatemalan approval on a case before passing it to the U.S. Embassy. And PINK, Julie learned, was the color of the paper on which the U.S. Embassy printed its final approval, the green light to get the baby’s medical exam and temporary Guatemalan passport necessary for travel.

At night over dinner, Julie kept Mark up to date with what she’d learned from the group by reading from the yellow legal tablet that now never left her side. “Sandra moved from DNA to PGN in two months. If we get DNA by Halloween, Juan’ll be home by Christmas.”

Mark nodded while Julie pondered the logistics. The new director would need to hit the ground running after Talbot left. Some of the work was doable from home, but much would need the director’s on-site attention. There’d be meetings with the board to discuss long-range goals, finances, and acquisitions, in addition to ideas meetings with staff, gallery personnel, conservators, maintenance people. Plus, many more evening and weekend events—cocktail parties at donors’ homes, speaking engagements, dinners with artists. And those were just the expected responsibilities. Talbot was wonderful, but he never reached out to community leaders the way he could have, the way Julie did. Julie believed everyone deserved access to art, just as she believed artists thrived in every neighborhood.

Luckily, she’d be the boss, and bosses made their own schedules. Either way, she’d need daycare. A provider for Juan she could trust. She jotted a new note: Find nanny.

And if she didn’t get the job? If that happened, she’d take advantage of the Clay’s family leave policy—twelve weeks. Then again, they might not be finished as quickly as Sandra, mom to three homegrown, one princesa. Amber, waiting on Ella, for example, had been in and out of PGN three times.

Submitted PGN 6/14/2001

Kicked out PGN 8/12/2001

Submitted PGN 9/3/2001

Kicked out PGN 10/2/2001

Submitted PGN 1/16/2002

STILL IN PGN

— Amber, waiting on Ella

The smallest clerical error—a misspelling or typo—got a file ejected from wherever it was in the process, leading to weeks or months of delay before a Guatemalan attorney corrected the error and put it back in the queue.

“No clerical error will trip us up,” Julie told Mark emphatically. With her color-coded schedules and flow charts that tracked future exhibitions three years in advance, Julie was a master of organization.

Mark smiled indulgently. “You got that right.”

Babies were what Guate Parents wanted, the younger the better. Not because of their own narcissistic need—we must have a baby!—but because the younger an infant, the more chance he had of forming a healthy attachment. Attachment meant touch and snuggles and hugs and trust. Lack of attachment meant the opposite.

Charla T., MSW, a behavioral therapist in the group, sounded alarms in her posts.

All: This is not your mother/sister/best friend’s toddler experience. Don’t compare! Think about it. Before our kids come to us, they’re born and separated from their natural mothers, and cared for by strangers for months or years. Then they come to us and the real fun begins. New language, food, smells, sounds. I’d scream, too, people!

—Charla T., MSW, Mom to a Guate kiddo in process, two foster-adopts

“I thought my life was hard,” Julie said often to Mark. “Not anymore.” After her father left, Julie’s mother kept Claire and Julie with her, even while drinking, even while suffering from lung pain, up until the very end when she died when Julie was fifteen and Claire only nine. Their aunt may have been chilly and reserved, but she respected her sister’s wishes and saved the girls from being thrown into the foster care system by taking them in herself.

Adoption from Guatemala felt to Julie like a roulette wheel, with an outcome unpredictable. For all the Guate Parents, the deadline of December 31, 2002 loomed like a chasm, ready to swallow their children whole. Panic reigned in the tone of every post:

The back of Taylor’s head is flat from lying in the crib. Anyone else see this? He needs to come home!

Trying to get a medical visa for our Doris, with club feet. Who was the attorney someone used that was good?

Gilma’s legs are covered with flea bites. Our girlie can’t stop itching. Foster family great except too many cats!

Agency promised we’re in PGN. Seven months later!

WE MUST GET OUT BEFORE THE SHUTDOWN!!!

For Julie, December 31 may as well have been doomsday. Adoptions would close, possibly leaving Juan in a legal limbo. She’d either be the new director, or not. Both outcomes were out of her control. She managed to stay composed in the office because she had to—people were watching—but at home, she let out her pent-up steam. She slammed the dishes Mark had left in the sink into the dishwasher and plucked up the dirty clothes he’d dropped on the floor and hurled them into the hamper that sat inches away.

“How many times do I have to ask you?” she said.

Mark raised his hands as if shielding himself from a projectile. His natural sloppiness never seemed to bother her before. She’d tolerated his untidiness for years. He demonstrated the way she should breathe, intensely with lungs filled, while Julie glowered, not trusting herself to speak.

“We might not even get him,” she said finally.

“We’ll get him.” Mark opened his arms toward her. “We’ll get him.”

“How do you know?”

He kissed her neck and moved downward. “You need to stop reading this Guate Parent stuff. It’s like poison.”

But Julie couldn’t stop reading. The other Guate Parents were the only people who understood what it felt like to be a mother, yet not a mother. An almost mother. Mothers in name only.

*

An envelope from the DNA testing company arrived in their mailbox on Monday, October 28, a few days before Halloween. Two points for Kate. Julie carried the legal-sized envelope with the Labcorp return address into the house and picked up the phone to dial Mark. “We got DNA!” she said to his voicemail. “Call me!”

She wanted to open the letter, but dreaded opening the letter. Instead, she opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of white wine. Normally she didn’t drink during the week, if only because her mother did, and Julie tried in every way to live her life differently from her mother. Tonight, though, belonged to her alone. To her and to Mark, and, fingers crossed, to her and to Mark and Juan. This was it.

She took her glass and the letter into the living room and parked herself on the couch. Setting down her drink on the coffee table, she took a deep breath, blew it out, and carefully unsealed the envelope with an index finger. “Labcorp,” the masthead read. Finally.

Official stamps crowded the margins. A bold-faced line said the lab results indicated 99.9 percent accuracy, the highest number possible, proof that Karla Inez Garcia Flores gave birth to Juan Rolando.

They’d passed the first legal hurdle.

Julie skipped the rest of the paragraph and jumped directly to a color copy of a Polaroid in the middle of the page. The image showed Juan cradled on Karla’s lap, both facing the camera.

Juan was dressed in a yellow onesie and white socks, too small to sit up without help. Karla supported him with her arms around his belly, so they formed almost a single being, and for a second, Julie imagined her son floating in the other woman’s womb, his body tightly curled, safe and protected.

The last thing Julie wanted to imagine was her son in another woman’s womb. She preferred not to think of her son in utero at all. Nobody had warned her, the impact of seeing her son with his mother. The image was physical evidence of Juan’s origins, a beginning that didn’t include Julie. He was only a baby, but in Karla’s face, Julie could see the man he would become. Karla was gamine and slight, enchanting. Adidas hoodie, hair parted down the middle and tied in a ponytail. Perfect except for one small flaw: her left eye drooped slightly. This Kate had not mentioned. Juan’s eyes were half-closed, as if his tummy were filled with warm, delicious milk, and he was ready for a nap.

Julie stood and walked to the kitchen. She needed to move, to shake off the mental picture of her baby with the woman who gave birth to him, their connection and closeness, their identicalness. She opened the fridge and stared at the contents, then closed it empty-handed.

She returned to the front window. Orange jack-o-lanterns glowed on the steps of the house across the street. On Halloween, like always, their doorbell would ring nonstop with trick-or-treaters. Next year would be different: she’d buy Juan a duckie costume and a basket shaped like a pumpkin. They’d go out early, down the hill to a few houses, then come home to open the door and give out candy.

At least he was only two months old. Too young to remember the cradle of his mother’s arms, the soft cushion of her body. Infants didn’t have memories from that age. Julie certainly didn’t.

The room had turned dark. Julie turned on the floor lamp. Squaring her shoulders, she picked up the letter from the couch and studied it again. At the bottom of the page, Karla had signed her name. Hers was a rounded, precise signature, the careful penmanship of a girl just learning cursive. Karla was eighteen, but maybe never had much reason to write. Kate said girls like her didn’t study past third grade.

So much to do. They’d just taken a giant step forward and must keep the momentum going to get grandfathered in before the shutdown. Julie grabbed her legal tablet and made a list.

 Email Kate to bug lawyer.

 Family Court. PGN. ASAP.

 Book flights. Reserve hotel.

The list was short, and she couldn’t focus on it. She picked up the letter to study the picture again. Her son. He was exquisite. So small and so exquisite. Kate had said they’d be allowed to visit after DNA. Soon, Julie would hold Juan, her son, in her arms. She felt a pang of longing.

Her cell phone chimed. “Did we pass?” Mark asked.

“The DNA matched!” She read him the results, the 99.9% certainty, the irrefutable proof that Karla was Juan’s biological mother. “Her left eye slants on the side.”

“Probably a birth injury. Nothing genetic to pass on to Juan.”

“She’s young. Pretty.”

“As are you,” her husband said.

Julie pressed her lips together, silent. Before, Karla was a name in an email, an anonymous giver of life. Now, she had a face, a signature, a distinctive eye. Julie felt as if she were drowning in a swell of emotions: joy, sadness, gratitude, guilt, love. All from seeing Karla holding Juan.

After they hung up, Julie folded the letter into thirds and inserted it back into the envelope. In the family room, she opened the black metal file cabinet and stuffed the envelope in the manila folder labeled JUAN ROLANDO. The cold metal drawer clicked shut.

She’d tell Mark where to look if he wanted to read the report himself. She couldn’t bear to see the image ever again.