Butchers Hill

Chapter 12

"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.

"So where do I start?" Jackie demanded. "If I can't begin with them, where do I begin?"

"With your own memories," Jeff said. "Agencies often give a little information to mothers, to ease their minds. They've even been known to send out paperwork that reveals information they're not supposed to have. One of our clients got her birth mother's surname on a form the hospital routed to her by mistake."

"They told me my baby's adopted father was a doctor," Jackie began hopefully.

"Shit." Adele shook her head sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, honey, but they tell almost every girl that. It's one of the clichés of the trade."

Jackie looked as if she might cry. Tess dug her nail a little harder into her leg, signaling her to gain control, to have a little faith in the person she was paying.

"This agency," Tess said. "When it went down, did it end with a bang or a whimper?"

"What are you to her?" Adele asked. Not hostile, just a little curious. Tess wondered if she assumed they were lovers.

"A friend," Jackie said, before Tess could reply. It was as good a cover story as any.

"There were a few newspaper and television stories, nothing huge," Jeff said. "I think I've got a file on them back in my office. But there aren't any names that I recall. The clients were protected, the owners of the agency disappeared, along with all their files."

"But I bet there was a little flurry of action down in Annapolis, right? Probably some attempt to draft legislation to prevent this from happening again. Some tearful testimony-distraught clients, maybe a repentant employee or two?"

Jeff looked at Tess as if she were a psychic. "Yeah, that's exactly what happened, only the bill never made it out of committee. How could you know that?"

"Because if some politician can't make a little hay out of someone else's tragedy, what's the point of being a politician?" Tess turned to Jackie. "They keep files on bill testimony, and who testifies, even if the bill goes nowhere. By tomorrow, we'll have a list of names to play with."

"This is more than a scavenger hunt, you know," Adele said earnestly. "This isn't just about finding something and shouting ‘Eureka!' You're setting some up some mighty big dominoes, and you don't know how they're going to fall. You really should keep working with us."

Jackie reached into her purse, took out her checkbook and a pen-a Mont Blanc, of course-and wrote Maryland Adoption Rights a check for $250. "Thank you for your assistance," she said. "I'll worry about those dominoes after they fall. Meanwhile-"

Adele looked at her hopefully.

"Could I get a receipt for that, for my tax records?"