Читать книгу Mother Mother - Jessica O'Dwyer - Страница 8

SIX MONTHS LATER

REDWOOD GLEN, CALIFORNIA

AUGUST 2002

Julie sat with her laptop in the Cowan kitchen and gaped at the digital photo of a chubby infant with a tuft of curly black hair. Propped against a giant teddy bear and dressed in a blue onesie, Felix Fernando smiled enough to show two deep dimples and sparkling eyes. Julie’s heart raced. Without a doubt, Felix was the cutest boy who had ever been born.

“Eight pounds of bouncing energy at birth,” the email from Kate Hodges-Blair at Loving Hands Adoptions read. “Two-month-old Felix Fernando is yours if you want him.”

Eyes on the computer screen, Julie called out, “Mark, we got a baby.” Her voice broke on the last word. When her husband didn’t arrive in seconds, she ran down the hallway toward their bedroom to get him. His gray-flecked brown hair was still damp from his morning run; he hadn’t yet cooled down. Julie grabbed his hand and led him to the kitchen. “Can you believe how adorable this child is?” Julie said. “How did we get so lucky?”

Mark squinted for a closer inspection, while Julie stared harder at the screen, as if to memorize every pixel. “It all makes sense now,” she said. “The infertility, the treatments. Everything led us to here.”

They drank in Felix’s marvelousness, too overwhelmed to speak. He was a beautiful boy, healthy and robust. “Is this how it happens?” Julie finally whispered.

They both laughed quietly. The air felt sacred.

Julie scrolled through Kate’s email seeking more details. There weren’t many. Only that one day a man rang the orphanage doorbell holding Felix. “This belongs to my daughter. She can’t keep him,” the man said. He handed Felix to the housekeeper, jumped back into an idling car, and drove away. Tucked in a fold of the baby’s blanket was a note with a phone number and the name of the man’s daughter, Felix’s birth mother, Ida Manuela.

Julie skimmed the lines of the email. “They found the mother. She lives in Guatemala City. Kate’s lawyer went to her house to get her to sign off with permission.” Julie stared at Felix’s photo, trying to picture Ida Manuela holding him, and Ida Manuela’s father, Felix’s grandfather, giving the baby away.

“What do you think?” Mark asked, his expression neutral as if not wanting to sway Julie either way. “Is this our son?”

To see a digital image of a baby and believe him to be hers would have seemed preposterous to Julie even five minutes earlier. Yet deep inside her, something stirred. The connection she felt to Felix transcended logic. It felt magic. Out of the thousands of babies abandoned in the world, this little boy was meant for her. Felix’s face went blurry as Julie’s eyes filled with tears. She stood up, wrapping her arms around Mark.

“Hello, Mommy,” he said.

*

Julie created lists of activities to pass the time required for Felix to become their son. Friday night she cleared out the art supplies she’d stored for years in the spare bedroom closet—dull charcoal pencils, used drawing pads, and dried paints she couldn’t resurrect but for some reason held onto—and filled a bag for Goodwill. The hundreds of postcards publicizing exhibitions at cafés and galleries: into the recycling bin those went. Saturday, she did laundry and she and Mark hiked six miles. In between, they spackled and sanded and primed, and applied the first coat of paint in Felix’s new room. Still, she wanted it all to move faster.

Sunday morning, they drove down the 99 freeway to Fresno from their home in Redwood Glen to visit Julie’s sister, Claire. Out the window, the rolling hills of California’s Central Valley glowed like spun gold. As Mark drove, Julie glanced at the legal pad on her lap, listing the items they needed to buy. “A stroller costs almost as much as my first car,” she said.

Mark grunted. He hated spending money. They lived in a bungalow they’d bought from Mark’s parents before moving them into assisted living, a year before they both died. Real estate in their neighborhood had since been bought up by tech zillionaires so rich they felt poor by comparison. This, despite the fact that Mark worked as a pathologist at San Francisco General and Julie was a curator.

Mark held the steering wheel with one finger. This stretch of road was so flat and straight, the car almost drove itself. The cruise control was set to eighty. Acres of lettuce beds spread in every direction. Those stooped figures could be from Guatemala, Julie realized.

“Did Claire like the picture?” Mark asked.

“She didn’t say.” Julie’s sister usually responded to email instantly, efficient as she was. After Julie sent the picture? Silence.

“Maybe she didn’t see it yet,” Mark said.

Julie doubted that. She knew Claire wasn’t off at church on Sunday morning. And that computer of hers could open anything. No, it was more likely the usual: Claire being Claire. Withholding and, dare Julie say it, aloof.

“She’s young,” Julie said, as usual giving her sister the benefit of the doubt. “She hasn’t started the baby chase.”

Claire was six years younger than Julie, only thirty. Mark clicked on his blinker and swerved to the right lane to exit at downtown Fresno. “Once they realize how cute this little guy is, they’ll fall in love,” he said.

A few minutes later, Julie and Mark stood in the front hallway of Claire’s sprawling faux Tudor, Julie’s purse still on her shoulder, front door not yet closed. After a round of air kisses, Claire squinted at the printout of Felix’s photo. “Is he really that brown?” Claire said. “Oh Jeez. What I meant to say is, ‘I love his color!’”

Julie grabbed back the picture as Claire’s husband Ethan appeared from the kitchen down the hall.

“Shut the door, Claire, you’re air conditioning the neighborhood.” Ethan skirted around Mark and Julie, pulling the door shut himself. “He’s Mexican, right?”

“Guatemalan,” Mark said.

“Indigenous Guatemalans invented the concept of zero,” Julie said. “They used it when they built the pyramids at Tikal. The indigenous are called Mayans, in case you’re interested.”

Claire reached out to pat Julie’s head as if her older sister were a puppy panting for a treat. “I love how you come up with these arbitrary facts.” Claire turned toward her husband. “Isn’t the groundskeeper at the club Guatemalan?”

“A bunch of the guys are.” Ethan clapped Mark on the shoulder. “Big news, bro. You didn’t want to go American?”

“Not a lot of babies are available.” Mark shrugged. “You have to compete for them. Make photo binders. Write up a story.”

“You’re an MD-PhD for Chrissake. You guys aren’t top of the list?”

“Birth mothers here often want religious parents,” Mark said. “And in domestic adoption, the mother can get them back. That happened to one of our nurses.”

“How awful.” Claire’s hand flew to her mouth as she frowned at Julie.

“You got a picture?” Ethan asked.

Julie handed Ethan the printout and he stared at the photo, tipping his head from side to side as though weighing two options. “What’s his name?”

“Felix,” Julie said.

Ethan leaned into Mark and spoke in a stage whisper. “You might want to change that, buddy. Guaranteed, first day on the playground, he’ll be Felix the Cat. Don’t do that to a kid.”

Ethan passed the photo to Claire. “One of our drywallers has a kid looks like that. Miguel. No, José.”

Claire looked at the photo again, then returned it to Julie. “What about adopting from foster care?”

“We liked Guatemala,” Julie said. “I studied Spanish in high school, in case you forgot. Plus, the country is kind of in chaos. A lot of kids need families.”

“Aww. Our resident bleeding heart saving the world,” Claire said.

“Why do I come here?” Julie said to no one, to the room. “That’s what I ask myself every time we get in the car to drive to Fresno. Why?”

“Joking, Julie,” Claire said.

“Ladies, ladies.” Ethan stepped between them. “We menfolk are hungry. Let’s eat.”

Julie stalked down the hall after her sister. In the kitchen, bright copper pots hung from a rack over a central island and the mahogany cabinet fronts gleamed. Fans with blades like oars scissored in the white cottage cheese ceiling. Cheerful yellow curtains framed the windows. Condensed steam dripped down the glass, making it look molten. The house was an ice box, frigid. Whatever the season, Fresno was twenty degrees hotter or colder than Northern California, and Claire and Ethan burned fossil fuel summer and winter. Carbon footprint be damned, thought Julie.

The huge farmhouse table was set with hand-painted Italian plates and linen napkins. Claire bustled between the table and the giant fridge, setting out plates of artfully arranged cheeses and olives.

“I made Thai coleslaw,” Claire said. “Knowing how much you like foreign foods. Here. Taste.” She placed the bowl of coleslaw on the central island while Julie grabbed a fork from the drawer. A splash of rice wine vinegar and some chow mein noodles and now coleslaw’s foreign? Julie wasn’t sure how they grew up in the same family. Claire was a great cook, though. Julie had to give her that. With their mom sick so long with emphysema, and their father gone, Claire had practically raised herself. They both had.

Dropping the fork in the sink, Julie moved the bowl to the table while Claire sliced a loaf of olive bread on a cutting board. As she returned to the island to ferry the bread, Claire put out a hand to stop her. “The last thing I want to do is offend you.”

“Noted,” Julie said, uncertain where the conversation was headed.

“You’ve got blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone will know Felix is adopted.”

“Certainly, everyone will know. It’ll be obvious.” Julie crossed her arms, frowning. “Can you please be happy for us?”

A cloud passed over her sister’s face. “I am happy. I’m just worried you don’t understand what you’re getting into.”

“We know exactly what we’re getting into. Felix needs a mother and father. Mark and I want to be parents. Why is that complicated?”

“Because you’re white and he’s Guatemalan?”

Julie threw up her hands. “Listen. I want to be a mother. Just like you, just like untold numbers of women since the beginning of time. I don’t care what color his skin is.” She picked up the bread to set on the table, but Claire wouldn’t let her go.

“This probably isn’t the time to tell you.” She laced her fingers across her belly, her smile sheepish. “We’re pregnant.”

The copper pots hanging from the dish rack seemed to sway and Julie held the counter to steady herself, as she might in an earthquake. Then she put down the bread and hugged Claire, careful not to press too closely. She wanted to stay positive for her sister.

Claire’s voice drifted to Julie’s ears as the sisters pulled apart. “We’re at twelve weeks. We’ll become mothers together.”

Julie clamped her mouth shut. She wanted to remind Claire that two of Julie’s three miscarried pregnancies went to seventeen weeks. Claire wasn’t out of the woods. But let Claire do things her way. She always did.

Ethan and Claire must have timed it to break the news together because Mark’s congratulations echoed in the kitchen. “Good deal. Outstanding.”

“Once you relax, maybe it’ll happen for you,” Claire was saying.

“Well, now we have Felix.”

“I mean if you want your own.”

It was at that moment that Julie decided to stop talking about Felix until after he arrived. She couldn’t bear to be told what she was doing wrong, or that her son wouldn’t really be theirs. True, he’d look nothing like them, but so what? They lived in liberal Marin County, close to San Francisco. Julie was proud they’d create their own rainbow coalition.

Felix would grow up the big boy to his younger cousin, the way she was big sister to Claire. He would be their own.

*

With her three lost pregnancies, Julie had felt changes in her body, kicks and turns, her belly getting bigger with new life. With adoption, she felt nothing physical. No moving, no kicking, no tightening of the waistband to announce, Hey, Mom! Here I am, don’t forget me!

What she fixated on, instead, were her copies of their one photograph of their son. One copy hung on the refrigerator door, where it greeted her every morning. Another lived in a Ziploc bag in her purse. A dozen times a day in her office at the Orrin Clay Museum she peeked at the Ziploc to study the details—his curly black hair, his round cheeks. What was Felix doing now? she wondered. Newborns slept and they ate and they slept and ate some more. A co-worker just back from maternity leave informed everyone who would listen about her breast milk: pumping it, banking it, its vitamin and mineral content. How much healthier breast milk was for babies than God-forbid-formula. Julie had to walk away whenever the conversation started or else she’d hyperventilate. With no breast for Felix to nurse, did he get enough nutrition? Did one particular nanny give him his bottle, or did the task rotate? Julie struggled to forget the image from Kate’s presentation of an assembly line of babies with bottles propped beside them. Were infants even strong enough to hold onto a bottle and suck?

Daily, Julie emailed for updates. “He’s thriving,” Kate wrote. “Don’t worry!”

But Julie did worry and couldn’t wait to visit so she could hold him herself and never put him down. Kate forbade the first meeting until after the test to ensure a DNA match. That was when birth mother and relinquished child were reunited in an office in Guatemala City, a photo was taken of the pair, and the inside of their cheeks were swabbed for tissue samples. Kate guaranteed DNA within one month. But a month was so far away.

After DNA, everything was simple. The social work report, the review by the Guatemalan attorney general’s office, the rubber stamp by the U.S. Embassy—none of it was going to present a problem. Until they got a positive DNA match, Julie should hold off booking any flights.

*

Fifteen days later, Mark stood at the kitchen counter in front of two bowls of homemade granola. “Bananas, strawberries, or blueberries?” he asked.

“Blueberries,” Julie mumbled from her chair at the table, opening her laptop screen as she waited for messages to appear. “Interview and DNA,” read the subject line from Kate. “About time she got it done,” Julie said.

“That’s why we pay her the big bucks.” Mark set down Julie’s bowl of granola and walked over to the sink while she skimmed the page.

“This is impossible.” She sat up straighter.

“What is it?” Mark was beside her, reading over her shoulder. A red flag by the U.S. Embassy. Based on the agent’s observations during an interview, DNA was not done. The agent believed the woman was not Felix’s birth mother.

“Not Ida Manuela?” Julie said. She read the sentences over and over, but the words didn’t change. “Now what do we do?”

Mark looked resigned. “We walk away. It’s over, Julie.”

“It’s not over. Felix is our son.”

“He’s not our son. He’s a baby we saw in a jpeg. We never even held him. For all we know, he’s not even real.”

“Felix is real, Mark. Trust me, Felix is real.”

She turned back to Kate’s email. This sometimes happened, Kate explained. Rarely, but it happened. They tried to be careful, but people occasionally slipped through. Blah blah blah blah. Excuses. Kate ended by saying they’d returned Felix to the lawyer, hoping caring relatives would raise him.

“The relatives are the ones who gave him away in the first place,” Julie almost screamed. “He’s going to wind up in an orphanage.”

“Maybe they’ll give him back to his birth mother. The real one.”

How could he just walk away? Julie knew she’d never forget Felix, or the way, for a few weeks, he had been her son. She grazed a finger over the print-out of Felix’s photo on the refrigerator door, a wave of sadness rising. “What are we supposed to do with this? Tear it up like he never existed?”

Mark walked over, removed the magnet, and took down the picture. He stared at the likeness for a long moment before folding it into quarters and slipping it into his shirt pocket. “I’ll put it somewhere.” His voice caught. “For the record, I thought Felix was a fine name.”

Julie bit her lip, grateful for this small acknowledgement. If Felix wasn’t real, why did it feel like somebody died? Why did her heart feel empty? She dreaded opening her purse to find his photo in the Ziploc, which she’d placed with such optimism. She asked Mark to fish it out and hide it with the other one. There was no ceremony to mourn a child who was never theirs in the first place.

Hours after losing their referral for Felix, they got a follow-up email from Kate. Forget Felix, she wrote. Focus on finding the child meant for you. Julie hoped they gave him back to Ida Manuela, or whoever his mother was. She hoped Ida Manuela loved and cared for him, always, the way Julie would have loved and cared for him, if she’d been given a chance.

That night Mark and Julie lay in bed with the windows open. They had debated whether to switch agencies and countries and start the process over again from the beginning. Everything about that plan exhausted Julie. Another country might be worse.

Mark folded his hands behind the pillow and sighed. “We never seriously considered an egg donor and surrogate. We know Claire can get pregnant. She might be willing.”

Julie sat up, wide awake. “My husband and my sister making a baby together. I’m not sure I’m that evolved.”

“An anonymous donor, then. We can pick traits. Athletic. High I.Q.”

“Egg donor is a little too engineered for me. At least this process is a hell we know.”

Julie flopped back on her pillow. She loved Mark and her job at the Clay and their life together, but it no longer felt like enough. She longed to be a mother, to shower a child with her love. To give her child the kind of life she never had.

She stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe we’re at square one. Do you think this is a sign?”

“Only a sign of how screwed-up the system is.”

Mark unfolded his hands and slid his body closer, melding into Julie. “Time to focus on something else.”

*

It was late Friday afternoon when Julie called Kate from the Clay conference room for extra privacy. Kate spoke briskly over the phone. “I don’t advise waiting to start a second adoption. Guatemala could close any minute.”

“Don’t they always say that?” Julie asked.

“This time it’s real. You saw the article. The U.S. government doesn’t like looking bad.”

An Associated Press article claimed professional “finders” called jaladoras were combing the Guatemalan countryside in search of pregnant women, and that adoption fees paid by Americans were given to birth mothers to relinquish their babies, after jaladoras took their cut. Yet Kate had told them their $30,000 went to attorneys, U.S. and Guatemalan, and covered the cost of foster care and doctor visits until the baby was picked up by adoptive parents.

Julie asked Kate point blank: “Is it true they’re paying birth mothers?”

“Nobody needs to go looking for birth mothers. Not when so many women are willing to give their babies away.”

Julie tried to visualize a place where mothers willingly gave away their babies. Where they presented themselves to jaladoras, saying Here’s my baby. Take him.

Kate’s voice pulled her back. She said the U.S. wasn’t fooling around. They were signing the Hague Treaty, which imposed strict limits on inter-country adoption. The Hague would require Guatemala to seek placements for children in-country first, as well as to adhere to a strict level of transparency. There was no way Guatemala could comply. The U.S. had set the closure date for adoptions. December 31, 2002.

That date was less than four months away. “You’re telling us this now?” Julie said.

Kate said if they held tight, she’d put them at the head of the line. The $30,000 would be carried over to the next referral. Julie’s shoulders shook, from excitement or fear. Maybe both.

“We’ll only agree if you promise you’ll get us a baby.”

“Done,” Kate agreed.

“Because we can’t go through that again.”

Kate clucked in sympathy. “You won’t have to, Julie. Trust me.”

Although no baby could replace Felix, a new dream child began to take shape. Probably another boy—most adoptive parents preferred girls, so boys were easier to get—handsome like Felix, but in his own unique way. A boy somewhere who maybe wasn’t yet born, who was waiting to come into this world. Wherever he was, whoever he was, when he finally presented himself, Julie and Mark would be ready.

The message from Kate appeared three weeks later. “Referral,” the subject line read, and although Julie trembled with anticipation, she didn’t open the photo attachment. She waited until nighttime, when Mark got home from the lab, so they could meet the boy who might be their son together. They stood at the kitchen counter in front of Julie’s open laptop.

His name was Juan Rolando Garcia Flores. Born on August 1, 2002, to a birth mother named Karla Inez Garcia Flores in a city named Escuintla. Five pounds three ounces at birth. Black hair and brown eyes, sitting up against a blue blanket, hands clenched at his sides.

Julie stared at the picture and tried to stop her heart from racing. Did she dare believe this time would be different? She’d already fallen in love with Felix and the three babies she’d miscarried. Juan was an infant alone in the world, and he needed her.

The baby’s Apgar scores were good, his vaccines up to date, and he showed no evidence of HIV. Was it true? Was Juan Rolando their son?

And just like that, they decided.