Found (16 page)

Angel did not know me, nor did she care. I had no relevance to her life. I was a name, in a file, as was my mother.

 

 

LATER THAT SAME day, Spencer and I were in the car and on our way to Target. He juggled a thick wad of bills, saved from birthdays and allowance. The money was alive and he had to set it free. Target was the only store in town that carried the object of his desire—a mega-LEGO tech-tronic laser doohickey.

I was in no state to shop after my conversation with Angel. I needed to be on the sofa with a glass of wine and a bowl of extra perfect popcorn, my crazy comfort food—air-popped corn, melted butter, flax oil, salt, and a huge handful of Parmesan cheese. I needed to be watching a movie with the kids, letting them snuggle close while I numbed myself against the fact that someone else—a stranger—knew my mother. But there I was, being what I thought was a good mother.

Spencer chattered about the toy he wanted to get, with a LEGO magazine spread wide over his lap.

I nodded along with the cadence of his voice and kept my eyes on the six lanes of erratic traffic.

“What’s going on, Mom?” he asked. “You seem different, kind of sad or something.”

I made a lane change, checking my blind spot and just smiled.

“Nope, everything’s fine. Just driving here.”

Spencer reached over and touched my arm. “Come on, Mom,” he said. “I can tell you are upset.”’

I stopped at a red light and sighed.

Spence had a remarkable sensitivity to other people, especially me. Steve said no child should worry about a parent the way Spencer worried about me. “It’s not healthy,” he insisted.

With Steve’s voice in my head, I adjusted the seatbelt strap and rolled my shoulders back. I tried to be reserved and cautious with Spencer. I certainly didn’t want to screw up my child and I didn’t want to burden him. I told Spencer a bit about the conversation with Angel.

“She had my mother’s name, right there, and wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why not? ”

“It’s the law,” I said.

“Well, that’s a bullshit law!”

“Spence!” I said. “You owe me a quarter.”

“Fine,” he said, digging into his pocket and putting two quarters in the cup holder between us. “It’s a totally bullshit law.”

“Spencer!”

“I paid in advance, Mom. I bought that word.”

I held the steering wheel with both hands, shaking my head and just imagining Steve’s disapproval at the loose way I was raising our boy.

“Well, fine, it is a bullshit law,” I said, passing him one of his quarters back.

Spencer grinned. He pocketed the quarter again.

The light changed and the driver behind me honked. I waved into the mirror and went through the intersection.

Spencer watched me and I smiled over at him.

“It just took the wind out of me, you know, like when you get body-checked in Tae Kwan Do? Maybe I’m never going to find my first mother. Maybe I should just quit.”

Spencer nodded like yes, indeed he did know. Body blows were the worst, in his book. He cleared his throat then and spoke to me directly, with great earnestness.

“Master Dan says it’s normal to get sad, Mom,” he said, “but he also says to never give up.”

Master Dan was Spencer’s Tae Kwan Do teacher, a little Nepalese man wired as tight as a snare drum. I could hear his lilting Asian accent, “You, Spencer. You never give up! Okay? Never give up!”

My boy had turned the tables on me. He was giving me advice with my own example.

I took up his other quarter and gave it back too.

“You’re going to need that for your Legomegawhozit,” I said.

Spencer laughed and took the quarter, shoving it into his front pocket. He looked at his magazine again, making his plans, and I moved my hand over the back of his head—one of his favorite things. I had been touching him that way since the day he was born. He smiled a little secret smile.

“You’re a great kid,” I said.

“You’re a great mom,” he said.

 

 

MY INVESTIGATOR HAD me register on something called the online bulletin boards, Internet sights where adoptees and birth parents placed posts.

“Looking for a young man born around Feb. 8, 1976, his birth name was—. Please, if anyone knows anything please let me know.”

“MY NAME IS—, I’M SEARCHING FOR MY BIRTH
FAMILY I WAS BORN IN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA AT SUNRISE HOSPITAL ON FEBUARY 6, 1968, AT 8:26 AM.”

“My son, born Feb. 8, 1976, Elko, Nevada. Welfare took him away, please tell him I love him and never stop thinking of him.”

Reading these online postings was like being at the sight of a great tragedy where people wandered in a daze as they called out the names of missing loved ones. It felt like futility to add my own information. I was sure if my mother didn’t register to find me in her own state, she was not out here surfing obscure Internet sites. But I added my information anyway—just in case.

The next idea was to write to the Reno High Alumni Association. Very likely, according to my investigator, my mother had been a student there. She said girls didn’t usually have babies in towns like Reno. Most often they were sent away to places like San Francisco or Los Angeles.

I found the Reno High Alumni Association online and wrote to every registered member. I attached a photo of myself.

Several graduates wrote back. Names like Donna, Lanette, Lenda, Linda, Ruby, and Alice passed through my email account. They all wrote the same thing:
So many girls were pregnant during those years. It was all so hush-hush. It was better to be a murderer than to be pregnant.

I was given several names and with the help of the investigator, I found each woman.

When I called these women, my hands shook and my heart caught a beat. I was potentially about to meet my mother. I had to
remind myself that I had been a reporter who once interviewed murderers, beauty queens, and even presidential candidates. If I did all that, I could ask a stranger if she was my mother.

Not one of the women turned out to be the one.

All of them were very gracious, apologetic, and even hopeful. One woman, who gave up her son when she was sixteen, offered to be my mother. “You seem so nice,” she said. I asked why she hadn’t searched for him yet, and she became very quiet. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I don’t want to upset his life.”

 

 

FOUR MONTHS PASSED with no success when Aunt Georgia, a longlost relative from the past who lived in Carson City, told me—in an offhand conversation about my search—that I needed to contact Catholic Community Services.

She insisted this organization had my non-identifying information.

Georgia, the wife of Janet’s brother, Uncle Charles, had long been a true angel in my life. She had been the reason Bryan and I were saved from L.A. and Deb, but over the years—especially after my divorce from Steve—we had lost touch.

And I felt guilty telling her about the search for my birth mother. I didn’t want to insult Janet’s memory or her relatives by suggesting I might need more than the memory of a dead woman. I knew Aunt Georgia came from the old school of people who said things like: “Adoption means nothing. You were loved and that’s all that matters.”

While Aunt Georgia didn’t understand my need to search and couldn’t raise the empathy to encourage me forward, she did make a point of telling me to look in the right place. “I’m telling you it was Catholic Charities that managed your adoption. Not the state.”

 

 

A FEW DAYS later, an email came in from Catholic Community Services of Northern Nevada.

The email began: “Dear Jennifer, Thank you for writing and yes, indeed, your adoption was facilitated by our organization ...”

I sat back in my chair, my hand over my mouth.

It was an ordinary day—another fall day—the leaves on the red oak were turning yellow again.

Aunt Georgia had been right.

The email went on to say a file was in their office and that I needed to send a certified letter to request a copy of the Non-Identifying Information Report.

I typed a message back to the organization. I wrote that a certified letter would go out immediately.

TWENTY-THREE

FOUND

MY MOTHER HAS BEEN FOUND. She lives in Reno, Nevada. Her name is Catherine.

Catherine, Catherine, Catherine.

How did I know?

Within one hour of receiving the Non-Identifying Information Report from Catholic Community Services, my investigator unearths Catherine’s birth records, marriage records, and even a couple divorces. She lives in Reno and has been there—a few miles from St. Mary’s Hospital—nearly all of her life.

Knowing she is out there and has been there all this time becomes such a blow, I have to bend over to catch my breath.

Knowing she has been found also sets me into a shaking fit of urgency as if I will burst from my skin.
I must get to her.

In order not to explode or pull myself apart, I concentrate all my energy into a calm, unemotional focus that is a bit frightening to observe from the outside. It’s like being in a newsroom, listening
to police scanners and picking out the tragedies that will lead the evening report—Murder? Drug bust? Massive pileup on the interstate? As a reporter, I didn’t let myself feel the sorrow that came with such tragic events and I do not let myself feel anything now.

Calculating. That’s what I become. I am streamlined calculation.

I determine that my first contact with Catherine will not happen near my children or Rogelio. Complete silence is what I require to maintain focus and to hold steady.

As I drive through town, navigating through traffic, I must ask myself, Why I am hardening in this way? What am I afraid of?

I cross the Willamette River via the steel bridge and sunlight shines on the surface of the water. A few kayaks are out, drawing ripples on the surface of the river.

The answer to my question is obvious. I am terrified she will reject me, yet again.

I pull into the parking lot of my office, pop the trunk, and unload the back of the car. The world goes on around me—birds singing, wind blowing, sun shining—and I carry all my equipment up the stairs and juggle out the keys that open the front door.

Crazy spaghetti western movie music plays in my head—that whistling dusty tune—and I feel like Clint Eastwood with a dirty five o’clock shadow and spurs on my boots. All I need is a ragged wool poncho and a couple guns in my holsters.

As I go inside, I know I am preparing myself for a showdown with the mother who never searched. I am getting ready to hear the truth, even if it includes, “Go away. I don’t want to remember.”

MY OFFICE IS a lot like a favorite living room might be—a dream space with overstuffed furniture covered in velvets and silks. Fresh flowers are on a low pewter table and pillows are scattered around. My desk, from France, is hand painted and overhead is a chandelier of draping crystals and sweeping brass.

Josephine calls my office the Princess Palace. To her eyes, it’s a fairy wonderland for a little girl who still believes in magic.

Did I ever believe?

Before living with Jo, I’d say no.

After seven years of being her mother and having access to her way of thinking and living, I’d call myself a full convert.

But as I turn on the overhead light, setting the chandelier on dim, I forget all that Jo has taught me. I lose track of the power of fairies and dreams and magic. I am again, once again, governed by fear.

One thing I finally possess, though, is certainty.

I am certain I will not leave this office until I have made contact with Catherine.

 

 

I UNPACK MY files, computer, and telephone. I unwind my power cords, get a wireless signal, and put my phone on the charger.

As command central comes to life, an email beeps into my account. It is a message from my investigator. She has typed Catherine’s phone number in large, bold text.
I’m sure you’re overwhelmed right now,
she writes.
I can’t wait to hear when you make contact.

 

 

I SQUINT AT the numbers on the screen, pick up the phone, and dial.

Catherine’s number rings several times and then a series of clicks send the call to her answering machine. A woman’s voice says, “No one is in to take your call. Leave a number and we’ll call you right back.”

Is it her?

The
t
’s and
k
’s are clipped and quick, in the same way I clip my own
t
’s and my
k
’s, and my tough-guy façade shifts—just a little—like a poncho sliding off my shoulders.

Jesus—my voice.

I’m a wicked mimic of other people but I have never heard my own voice coming back at me.

I barely pull myself together to leave a message, which is short and odd—I think I leave a name and ask that she call me.

After I hang up, I imagine Catherine listening to my message, screwing up her face with the question—
What? Who the hell is this?
I see her hit the erase button and continue on with her life.

I hit re-dial on my phone and her machine picks up again. After the beep, I speak with more authority: “This is Jennifer Lauck, again. I need to leave a little more information ...”

When I am done, I do not press the off button or close the phone. I exist in the silence of the open line as if she were standing right there, listening, and might just pick up.

 

 

THE INVESTIGATOR SENDS one, two, three, and then five more emails. They come in a fast sequence and each holds more information, lists
of telephone numbers for those related to Catherine—brothers, a sister, an ex-husband, friends, and her kids. This is when I discover my father’s full name too. William Wright.