A Southern Girl (25 page)

“Steve Zarnell,” he said. “This is my wife, Betty.”

“Oh,” I said. “We have a son named Steven. Do you have children?”

“This will be our first,” said Betty Zarnell, a plump brunette with dark eyes and a faintly pug nose.

“Boy or girl?” I wanted to know.

“A boy,” she said. “Three months old. We can hardly wait.”

“A new one, younger than our daughter,” Coleman observed. “Have you picked out a name?”

“Steven, Jr.,” said Steve.

The Zarnells lived in Pennsylvania, near Scranton. They had married knowing that he was sterile and had been on a number of adoption waiting lists for several years. “We couldn’t wait any longer,” said Betty Zarnell, her excitement growing visibly as she rocked on the balls of her feet. “And just think—only twenty more minutes.”

Coleman excused himself and walked to a nearby monitor displaying arrival updates. Northwest Orient Flight 451 “on time,” he reported when he returned.

I saw an older couple with three Korean children, two boys and a girl, talking to the Open Arms representative. All about us families clustered, talking in low voices and repeatedly looking toward the arrival gate. Through the window flanking the gate we saw the jetway, ready to swing out to couple with the aircraft.

Coleman surprised me by a serious question. “Remember when you suggested this? It was what, four years ago?”

“About that.”

“Did you ever think you would be standing here, waiting?”

I didn’t answer right away, but nodded. “My instincts for things like this are pretty good. I thought it would happen one day, although you put me through some anxious moments in the process.”

“I’m sorry for that,” he said, and I knew he meant it. “Resolving my doubts was an essential part of the journey for me.”

“I realize that now. Are they resolved?”

“Ninety percent. That’s close enough.”

My attention shifted to a young Asian girl, maybe six or seven, who appeared to be Korean clinging to her mother’s dress. Would our child grow to look like that? I knew Coleman wanted a daughter, and when he pictured one he no doubt had envisioned someone who looked more like me than that girl. I wasn’t sure I wanted biological competition. Was that catty?

An excited murmur went through the crowd as people began edging closer to the gate. I looked out the window as a giant 747 maneuvered into position beside the jetway, which swung out to meet it when it came to a stop. I grabbed Coleman’s arm and pulled him toward the gate.

A man dressed in a blazer and identified by the Northwest Orient insignia over the breast pocket addressed those pressed around the cordon separating them from the gate. “The regular passengers will deplane first. When they have left the gate area, the children will deplane in order of age, oldest first. This was the procedure requested by the chaperons on board the flight.”

An attendant propped open the door leading to the jetway as the first passengers filed out. We waiting families created a thin corridor just wide enough for them to pass. Several of those leaving flight 451 paused at the back fringe of the crowd to watch. “Cute kids,” I heard a woman carrying a briefcase say as she elbowed her way through the crowd, which contracted gradually as the plane emptied. Finally, the stream of passengers stopped. The gate area beyond the cordon was deserted. The waiting crowd settled into a collective stillness as all eyes focused on the doorway leading to the plane.

A small, slender boy of perhaps fourteen emerged alone, his eyes widening in bewilderment as he took in the crowd. He was dressed in jeans and a navy coat, on which a name tag identifying him as Roy Malone was affixed. As he approached the cordon, a couple I could only guess to be the Malones reached out from the crowd, which parted to absorb the boy. My view of their greeting was obscured.

Then came a girl, her hair in barrettes and dressed in a skirt and sweater. Her name tag read, “Melissa Thompson.”

On they came, one by one, each claimed by a family of at least two when they reached the cordon. We moved steadily toward the front of the crowd as all around us adults presented flowers and embraced the new arrivals. Children stared at new brothers or sisters awkwardly before braving the first contact, a practiced phrase or a reticent touch.

Finally, it was just us and the Zarnells who stood gazing at the doorway. All of the children who had deplaned so far, down to a very overwhelmed two-year-old girl whose hand was held by a chaperon, had come off under their own power. The math was simple; Soo Yun would be next.

The chaperon returned to the plane as I brought my hands up to my face, trying to hold it together manually. Coleman put his arm around me. At the door, the chaperon again emerged, carrying a blanketed bundle. When she reached a point halfway to the cordon, I could not stand it another instant. I broke through, taking the bundle in my arms and retracing my steps to where Coleman stood watching. As the chaperon, following me, handed the plastic travel bag to Coleman, I peeled the blanket back from the child’s face.

And there she was. Tiny, sleepy, in desperate need of a new diaper and fresh clothes, but there, lying in my arms like she belonged. I bent over her as tears came.

“They said not to cry,” Coleman reminded me, but I sensed he was a bit emotional himself. He told me later about seeing the Zarnells receiving their son, but I was too overcome to notice anything but the baby who was now my baby, our baby. When I pulled myself together, I started toward the Zarnells to wish them luck, but they were as focused on their new arrival as I had been, so I settled for a thumbs up which Steve Zarnell acknowledged by one back to us. It was just as well, because at that moment Coleman, glancing at the wall clock, said, “Let’s go. We can’t miss that flight home.”

We hailed a cab and arrived at La Guardia with a modest margin of time. I used it to change Soo Yun. I carried her into the ladies room along with the change of clothes I brought from New Hampton.

“Wait here,” I told Coleman at the door. “This child could use some freshening up.”

It took longer than I thought. The dress I had selected swallowed her. “I had no idea she’d be this small,” I said as we emerged. “Josh and Steven were bigger than this at birth.”

Thirty minutes later, as Coleman looked out his window at the jeweled tableau which is Manhattan from the air at night, Soo Yun, awake but hardly alert, contorted restlessly in my lap as the plane gained altitude and the seat belt sign went off. Coleman ordered drinks. When served, he proposed a toast.

“To the future,” he said, touching the plastic rim against mine. I sipped my wine as Soo Yun stirred.

“It’s going to work out,” I said. “I can feel it.”

“Promise me that before her fifth birthday you’ll let me hold her.”

I smiled and said, “You know what amazes me? Your mother. I never thought I’d hear from her what we heard yesterday. I can honestly say I’m not sure I would be capable of that kind of grace.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” he agreed. “One of these days she and this little one will be great pals, but it won’t be overnight.”

“They would get closer sooner if we lived in Charleston, don’t you think?” I turned my head away as he absorbed my words.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“Sure. The offer from Barron Morris is almost too good to pass up. Besides, I think you want to go home.”

“I never sensed that Charleston held any appeal for you.”

“No, but I’m not sure I’ve given it a fair chance. And it’s your heritage—Josh’s and Steven’s, too.”

It was almost 11:00 when the plane touched down in New Hampton. Forty minutes later, we pulled into our driveway. The house was lit up on both floors, and from the cars parked along the street I knew Ross and Carol Vernon had organized a small welcome party. We parked and started up the walk, Coleman walking in front to open the door and I followed with Soo Yun. When he reached the front door, Coleman paused, then erupted in laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, looking over his shoulder as he pointed to the door. Hand-printed on a sign were the words, “Aliens use rear entrance.”

“I’m going to kill Ross Vernon,” I said as we opened the door and entered the living room, where Betsy and husband David, Ross and Carol Vernon, Josh and Steven, and two other couples waited to welcome the new addition to the Carter household. Our boys, extended hours beyond their normal bedtime, were given a quick introduction and sent to bed.
As I displayed the baby, our friends offered congratulations. It was well after midnight when Betsy and David, the last guests, yawned and stood to leave.

I carried Soo Yun to her room. When I reached into the bag that had accompanied her from Seoul, my hand fell on the pearl-backed mirror, around which had been attached, by means of a rubber band, a piece of paper. I unrolled it and spread it on the changer.

The two scars under this child’s arm are a result of biopsies performed at the Korean Children’s Hospital. They are not serious. Her medical records are available for your doctor’s review.

/s/ Faith Stockdale

P.S. The mirror belongs to the child.

I removed her dress and inspected the scars. They were indeed large, and alarming. I marveled that I had not seen them at La Guardia. In the morning, I would take her to be examined by a specialist, to have confirmed by American doctors the reassurance contained in the note.

But now it was late. I dressed her in the sleeper set out on the changer. As I laid her in her crib, she seemed to settle in with a sigh of approval, although it was undoubtedly mere fatigue from a trip halfway around the world. I placed the mirror on the night stand, turned out the light, and closed the door gently, to give her peace.

Part 2

RAPIDS

Ever thus the pulse of Time

Ever thus youth sings its song

Ever thus day ends with moaning

Time is fierce, and tides are strong.

ROBERT WOODWARD BARNWELL, SR.

“The Course of Life,”
Realities and Imaginations

16

Elizabeth

Those scars? Of course they worried us, but our doctor reviewed the records from Korea and reassured us so promptly that had it not been for seeing them when we changed or bathed her, I would have forgotten they were there. Of far greater concern, to us and to every adopting couple who lacks knowledge about the biological parents, the child’s prenatal care, and genetic predispositions, are signs of impairment, mental or physical. The ones that take some time to manifest themselves. And there is a name for adoptive parents who deny that these were a concern with their particular child. They are called liars.

We named her Allison and called her Allie. The first few mornings revealed something about each of us. The mobile suspended above her crib fascinated her. From the doorway of her bedroom I watched as her eyes went from the monkey to the fish to the giraffe to the squirrel. When she moved, they moved, and this brought the first smiles we saw. I say ‘we’ because Coleman joined me there on several of these first mornings, and sideways glances told me she was not the only one smiling. Aside from occasional squawks from hunger or irritation, she impressed me as content in her new environment, which naturally justified my “it-was-meant-to-be” optimism.

The most remarkable thing about Allie’s early childhood development was how unremarkable it was, as if she had started life over within traditional markers. She ate everything put in front of her (except squash) or left within reach. Her neck, too weak to support her head when she arrived, strengthened. Her legs lengthened until her body took on proportion. Gradually, she thrived, but with developmental differences I
noticed and Coleman ticked off to me one day not too long after her first birthday. Josh and Steven had crawled looking up; she kept her head down. The boys, taking their first steps, had fallen backward, on their diapered bottoms; she fell forward. The boys deflected strained vegetables with their right hands; she used her left, and only for squash, which she hated. “Mom” was the first word said by the boys; for her it was “milk.” At least that is what I think she said.