Chosen (23 page)

“I know who he is all right, but he won’t admit it.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe says, as she has a hundred times, “in Oregon
we’re not required to notify the father of the baby; we don’t need his consent. It’s just that adoptive families like as detailed a medical history as we can provide, for the baby’s sake.”

“Oh, he’s healthy, you don’t gotta worry about that. He’s the same daddy as my Mike, who I did with Catholic Charities two years ago. Nice couple.”

And against her better judgment, Chloe says, “A full brother, then? Catholic Charities has a family who has a full brother to this baby?”

Debra nods, dumping sugar onto another lime slice.

“Then you should really be working with them. They might want this baby very badly.”

Debra slurps on the lime wedge. “Nope. I’m going private again, like I did with my Hayley.”

“Okay,” Chloe says, but in the long, drawn-out way that means
Why?

“I told you. I promised; I’m taking my kids to Disney afterward.”

O
N THE WAY OUT
, Chloe stops at the bar and orders a diet Coke, hoping the caffeine will energize her. She slumps onto the chili-pepper-red Naugahyde bar stool, her eyes zoning out of focus as she waits. Debra has gone, waddling out to wait for the MAX line with the folder, Chloe’s business card tucked in her hip pocket, and Chloe would bet her favorite brown suede boots she’ll never see her again.

Suddenly, on the TV over the bar, something catches her attention.
Paul
. Chloe leans forward, trying to hear more.

“Tragically, Ned, Portland police and the Nova family are still waiting for a break in the case of the kidnapping of Baby Wyeth one week ago today.”

And flashing across the screen is the image of Eva Nova, hunched over the podium, Paul’s arm wrapped behind her shoulders, his hand like a bear’s paw against her wrinkled white shirt, her hair like it hasn’t seen a brush in a month. She looks directly into the camera and says only, “Please, please.”

Across the bottom of the screen, Chloe reads the “
BREAKING NEWS
: Amber Alert” and the date, January 29, 2001—a week ago. The night she saw Paul in the driveway, the bitterness in his voice. God, where has she been, under a rock? In a Portland winter fog? She remembers now, coming into work earlier this week, she’d overheard Beverly and Casey talking, a local kidnapping, but she’d had to pee so badly she walked right past them. Oh, Paul…

“In his statement this morning, Detective Haberman says there are currently no new leads in the case, though the former employee of a Portland Heights gas station has not reported for work since the incident and cannot be contacted. Though she has not been formally named as a suspect, police are seeking information on the whereabouts of Brandi Gardham, age sixteen, last seen at the Portland Heights gas station on the twenty-ninth.”

There is no photo, just a police sketch that could be any cracked-out ethnic teenager, and Chloe stands and pays for the soda. They flash an image of the Novas at the news conference again, a slightly overexposed photo of the baby. He is wearing a white outfit with a pale blue puppy chasing a red ball on the chest, and he is mostly bald, nondescript hair, worried eyebrows, slightly crossed eyes, a smattering of baby acne on his newborn nose. He could be any baby, but if you look closer, if you know them, you can see Paul’s serious expression in his eyes, Eva’s broad Scandinavian forehead.

In the parking lot, though it is not their scheduled Sunday-night chat and it will cost her a minimum of eight dollars, Chloe calls Dan’s apartment in Hawaii, her hands shaking. After Debra Disneyland and now the Novas’ tragedy, she really needs to hear his voice.

“Hey, babe,” he says, and he sounds so happy to talk to her, she wants to turn her car west and keep driving until she reaches him. She is so tired, feels like she has been physically stretched, trying to span a hundred miles to the coast and huge stretches of ocean to connect with him, physically here but mentally there.

“I just needed to hear your voice,” she says, and her own breaks.
Outside her windshield, the used-car sales lot flags dance, the sun catching on the silver. The motor is running, the heater on high. What is she doing here?

“Nice to hear you too.” They sit in silence for a few seconds, and she can hear him running water, brushing his teeth.

“I miss you,” she blurts, but it is a filler, like Styrofoam peanuts.

“Yeah, me too.” Crunch crunch, light and fluffy; crumbling to nothing.

“Remember the Novas, from the agency, from our neighborhood?” she says.

He waits; she can hear him spitting his toothpaste. “Nope.”

“Paul and Eva, they live just a few streets over, off Patton. Their baby got kidnapped last week.”

“You’re kidding! What happened? The birth parents steal it back, or what?”

“No, they used to be my clients, but they got pregnant on their own.”

“Oh.” Long pause. “That’s terrible,” he finally says, and she can feel the ocean between them, the tall pines by the coast, the rocky shores, the millions of fish and sharks and ships and orchards and buildings, every bit of it, as though she has to literally crawl, paddle, swim, climb it all, to reach him. Her stomach rolls, her eyes tearing.

“Babe, you okay?”

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Baby. Sorry to hear that. You work too hard for those people. Hey, there’s a waitressing job here, at the Cannery.”

Could she do that? Chloe can just hear her father:
A waitress, now? This is why I paid for college, so you can follow your surf bum around?

“Yeah.” In her mind’s eye, she can see the seconds ticking by, the pennies adding up so fast you can barely see them, like a Manhattan cab meter.

“Well, you know, I’m just a plane ticket away,” he says lightly, and Chloe takes her foot off the brake, and puts her car in gear.

OREGON OPEN ADOPTION
—
A place for all mothers

FRANCESCA97201

Joined: 26 Jun 1998

Posts: 17823

Posted: Mon, Feb 12 2001 7:37 pm

Many thanks for all your prayers for the safe return of EvaSuperNova’s baby.

I was at their home today; they are doing as well as can be expected.

She’d come at Paul’s urging. When she had called to ask if there was anything she could do to help, she had envisioned bringing them takeout from Strohecker’s hot case, watering a few plants, maybe taking a stack of posters to put up around town. Maybe he would ask her to feed the cat or run to the post office, as though the Novas were simply on vacation. So Francie was taken aback by the urgency in Paul’s voice when he simply croaked, “Yes. Please. Come.”

When she had arrived, the vestibule reeked of vinegar, as though grief was marinating in the kitchen, but perhaps it was just the brother’s size 12 tennis shoes. Francie tried to breathe inconspicuously through her mouth. Eva’s brother and Paul had shot stricken looks to each other when she lowered Angus’s car seat to the floor of the front hall so she could unbutton her quilted car coat.

I took Angus along—what else would I do with him?

“What?” She crossed her arms over her chest. They, of all people, should understand you don’t leave your baby with just anyone these days, and it’s hard enough to find a cleaning lady, let alone a reputable sitter.

“She has a baby?” the brother hissed to Paul as Eva, looking haggard but enviably thinner, appeared at the top of the stairs and exclaimed, “You brought the baby!”

The first few moments had been undeniably awkward. Eva was in constant motion, moving stacks of flyers and papers from the couch to the coffee table to the window seat, putting the kettle on, twisting fistfuls of her uncombed hair into a messy knot on top of her head, her eyes darting to the car seat where Angus slept.

Then they were settled, two mugs of tea sending up steam on the coffee table, Paul in the kitchen clattering through the dishes. The brother (Magnum, was it?) was at the computer in the dining room, out of Francie’s line of sight but within eavesdropping distance; she could hear him hunting and pecking away.

It was oddly cozy—all these family members within earshot of one another.

Fortunately, Eva is surrounded by men who love and care for her in the face of this tragedy.

It was enough to make Francie in her dark, dusty, spacious mansion jealous. To make herself feel better, she added a mental note to look into cottages, carriage houses, for her and Angus.

But then there was nothing to say. Francie had of course done an earnest “How are you holding up?” hyper aware of the pause at the keyboard and sink as the men waited for Eva’s reply. It had been disappointingly vague, something about “layers” and “waves,” as though they were discussing hairstyles and not the deepest form of grief. There was nothing Francie could get her teeth into, and there were Eva’s eyes settling, like a butterfly, on Angus’s face, before flitting away again.

Perhaps this seems strange to some of you, but I offered Eva a chance to hold Angus.

“Would you like to hold him?” Francie had asked, and again the
household clatter ceased and the silence blew up like a balloon on a helium tank.

“No!” Eva blurted as Francie unbuckled the car-seat straps, lifting Angus’s slack sleeping form out. “I mean, no, I don’t mean for you to wake him.”

“Not at all. He sleeps through everything,” Francie replied with some pride before she remembered this was one fellow mother she did not need to be competitive with. “I mean, it’s odd, considering how quiet the McAdoo house is these days, that Angus sleeps so well. Always has.” That sounded wrong too; she had only been trying to allude to John leaving her, hoping to spark a conversation in more comfortable territory:
Let me tell you how my husband left me for a teenage whore in Singapore.
“Here—” Francie offered Angus on outstretched arms. Eva’s own, crisscrossed over her stomach, unfolded. Francie pretended she didn’t hear the tiny moan in her friend’s exhalation as she received Angus’s warm weight. “That’s better.”

Francie felt the burning disapproval boring into her back from the dining room entry. “That’s better,” she repeated, for Lurch’s benefit. She wasn’t trying to be cruel—just the opposite. She knew, could feel the ache in the biceps that came from waiting, arms flexed, for a baby to fill them. In the years she had waited, whenever they came close, Francie had found her body practicing, around the house, doing the Mommy bounce, her empty arms circling, tensed, without her even knowing it until she found she couldn’t even lift a milk carton without wincing.

The family was disapproving, but I think it was just what our dear friend needed.

Eva’s brother crossed the living room to lean over Eva in the rocker. He bent in and pressed his lips to the top of his sister’s curly head, squeezing her shoulder. With his other hand, he palmed Angus’s round head, such a picture, the three of them, that Francie’s
neck prickled in a sweat. Never again would Angus sit in his mother’s arms while a man looked lovingly on. Her mind drifted back to that awful day at the hospital, with Jason jerking around the room, throwing glances like fastballs at his sleeping son.

“Handsome little man,” the brother said. “Does he look like your husband?”

Like a bad case of food poisoning, Francie spewed nine years of explosive personal information at Eva’s brother. The infertility, John’s disfiguring varicose veins, the treatments for both, the adoption, the frightening birth parents, the nicotine addiction, the haggard, sleepless weeks before she got the baby on a good schedule, but she didn’t stop there. No, Francie just plowed right on to the Singapore slut and the deserting husband. It was better to distract them this way, her own misfortunes hung out like damp underwear on a line in this house where their grief filled the room, mounded in the corners and on the furniture like unfolded wash.

Eva had wiped at her eyes with her free hand (they had been streaming tears ever since Francie put the baby in her arms) and murmured noises, appropriate shock and disapproval.

“And then I have the added anxiety of the follow-up home study. Chloe Pinter has been calling me, and…Every day I live in fear that the agency is going to figure out John and I are divorcing. I’m terrified they’ll come and take my baby away! So…” She petered out, realizing she couldn’t quite make out the look on the brother’s (Was his name Magnum? No, that’s a gun, or a condom, maybe) face. Had she said something wrong again? Besides, there really wasn’t anything more to say. Her throat felt scratchy, and she wondered, sipping at the tea that was now cool, how long she had been talking.

We talked, about this and that, current events.

She does not recap the horrors of her personal life for the boards; they have no idea that she and John are in the process of divorcing.
It has taken her years to create this image, this persona, the happy family, and there was no need for John’s sex addiction and philandering to drag her down.

“Oh, dear,” Eva said then, gesturing to two wet circles on the front of her shirt. “I, I’m going to go change. Here, Maggie,” and she had handed the baby off to the brother. After watching her friend’s retreating back (definitely losing weight!), Francie turned her attention to the brother, who was holding her son with Angus’s feet against his chest, stretched on the length of his forearms. There was only one word for him, talking to Angus, who was now waking, stretching his arms and yawning that perfect little round O of a yawn; Eva’s brother looked
natural
. Francie thought of John, and how he never got past the shoebox-full-of-snakes phase of holding Angus.

“You’ve got a good one here.” The brother inclined his head toward Angus, whose eyes crinkled at the corners when he gave away his unabashed gummy grin.

“Thank you.” Francie’s chest filled and fluttered the way it did whenever her good fortune was noticed, appreciated, by others. “I do.”

“Even so, it must be hard on you, doing this on your own now.”

Francie was so surprised at this, at the tenderness in his voice, that she had to quickly look at her hands, busying them at her diaper bag, so he didn’t see the tears in her eyes.

“I’m allergic to cats,” she’d mumbled, swiping at her eyes with a wet wipe.

“We could keep Angus here a few hours, if you like. If you have an errand, or you just want to go sit in Powell’s with a stack of books or get a coffee, take a nap, or something. It would be nice for us too.”

Eva appeared at the bottom of the stairs in an unstained but wrinkled T-shirt and seconded his urging, crossing the room to lift Angus out of her brother’s arms, to rub her cheek against his dark hair as she settled him against her shoulder.

And then, ladies, though I know this may seem beyond crazy to many of
you, I left Angus with them for the afternoon. There were three of them there anyway, and it seemed to be just what we all needed.

This was how Francie came to be walking, fairly skipping down their driveway, fighting the urge to windmill her empty arms, free free free! She had trouble keeping it under seventy on the Sunset Highway—the Mercedes as excited as she was to be bouncing over rain ruts and potholes toward 185th and the familiar stomping grounds of Nordstrom Rack. There had been no question about what she would do, from the second the brother suggested it.

I went clothes shopping, alone.

The store smells greeted her like an old friend; the sharpness of dry-cleaning chemicals, a hint of smoke, the slightly gamey scents of wool and weather, the industrial twang of rubber soles.
Slow down, Francine!
she told herself, her hands tight on the cart handle when the fabric hues, patterns, textures, assaulted her from the glinting of stainless steel racks.

First, a quick overview tour, sifting silk through her fingertips, a flip through the clearance rack for leftover holiday party dresses, a glance toward shoes, but she’d want to go back and linger there later, and accessories.

She should start back at the beginning and go more slowly, categorically, but every time she turned, she saw another shopper touching something, pulling it off the rack, and she frantically veered there, in case they bought something she might have wanted.

After the first forty-five minutes, the anxious adrenaline, what she had mistaken for the thrill of the retail chase, hadn’t subsided, only settled into an uneasy, queasy ball in her stomach. Francie checked her cell phone—nothing. She picked up a plaid Carolina Herrera blazer. Interesting lines, but scratchy fabric—she pictured Angus’s butter-smooth cheek coming to rest on her abrasive shoulder. No.

The truth? It wasn’t all I thought it would be.

Across the department store, in the children’s section, she piled the cart with footed sleepers, corduroy pants, and the tiniest argyle sweaters, a pair of leather shoes so small she danced them on her first and second fingers, imagining her son’s plump feet filling them. And not that he needed any more, but a handful of chunky board books from the toy section, and a heavenly soft brown bear. Francie clutched it to her as she walked, settling its nothing poly-filled weight on her hip. Better.

I ended up looking at things for Angus, LOL! Imagine—the boy’s closet overflows into the guest room, I’m finally out by myself, and all I can do is shop for my son!

Francie checked her watch—he would be hungry shortly. She had given them the diaper bag, gotten out the bottles, but then she worried, wondered, How well does she know Eva? What if she so militantly believed breast was best that she tried to—

Shoes! Francie pounced on a shiny brown-heeled pump. She could practically hear it echoing, striking the hardwood floors in empty houses while she pointed out original fixtures, peg detail in the woodwork, crown moldings, to potential clients.

As I mentioned, I will be returning to work soon, so I did some preliminary scouting for my professional wardrobe.

Francie slumped on a shoe bench, halfheartedly slipping out of her loafer. Everything, the clamoring of the shoppers and the hideous colors and the excess and the overabundance of choices, was competing for her attention. Francie put her own shoe back on. She stood up. Backtracking past the racks, she found each thing uglier, more ridiculous, than the next. Who would wear this dreck?

An ache started, low in her abdomen, where she has imagined her defunct ovaries might be. Francie has pictured these interior
body parts throughout the years and always come up with the same image—a pair of withered, imploding, moldy figs, smaller than a baby’s fist, left at the bottom of the decorative, exotic fruit bowl she put out to impress her book-club friends years ago.

Francie abandoned her half-full cart by the exit, ovaries throbbing, a magnetic, desperate pull.

In the end, I left with nothing!

What was wrong with her? She wiped her damp palms on her trousers. Outside, she gulped the deliciously cold winter air. Off the exit, she could hear cars
shh-shh
ing on the highway, late-afternoon light coming to rest like a curtain over the parking lot, everyone going home.
Home.

Not entirely true, LOL. I got myself a speeding ticket, racing back along the Sunset Highway to Angus.

The ache in her gut continued to pain her on the twisting roads toward the Novas. Her heart rate didn’t settle until she burst, palms slippery on the handle, through their front door and laid her eyes on Angus, just where she left him, sleeping in Eva’s arms in the rocking chair.