The Choice (12 page)

The following day Angelica didn't show up in homeroom. When the minute hand crept up to the time for first period, Sandy started getting worried. Although she'd only seen him for a few seconds, Angelica's boyfriend didn't look like a good guy. Sandy went to chemistry class but had trouble concentrating on Mrs. Welshofer's lecture. Halfway through the class, the door opened and Angelica, her head down, slipped into the room.

“Angelica, do you have a tardy note from the office?” Mrs. Welshofer asked.

Angelica looked at Sandy, who quickly translated the question. Angelica handed a piece of paper to the teacher, then joined Sandy at the table they shared.

“Why were you late?” Sandy asked in Spanish.

“I had a fight with Ricardo, the baby's father.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Girls, pay attention,” Mrs. Welshofer said.

When class ended, Sandy herded Angelica into the restroom. Another girl was washing her hands. As soon as she left, Sandy put her hands on Angelica's shoulders and repeated her question. Tears came to Angelica's eyes. She started to cry and talk, which made it impossible for Sandy to understand what she was saying. The bell rang, and they had to separate. It wasn't until lunchtime that the two girls were able to talk. The same table where they'd sat the day before was empty, and Sandy headed directly toward it.

Angelica told Sandy her story. Angelica's father owned an import/export business that shipped expensive Mexican furnishings and artwork into the United States, and Ricardo worked for him as a salesman. Atlanta was the East Coast headquarters of the company and the location of a warehouse and sales office. Toward the end of the summer, Angelica came to Atlanta with her father for a visit and met Ricardo. A romantic attraction in a new place led to the pregnancy. Her father and mother decided it would be better for Angelica to remain in the United States until the baby was born rather than return to Mexico. No one in Monterrey except her immediate family knew she was pregnant. Her mother was telling her friends that Angelica was going to an exclusive school in the United States and wouldn't be back until late spring.

Angelica was sharing an apartment with a woman employee of her father's company. Ricardo had to drive her around and pay her expenses to keep from losing his job. If he got fired, Ricardo would be forced to leave the States. The previous evening he'd gotten mad at Angelica and hit her. Capitola, the woman she lived with, promised to keep the assault secret, but Angelica wasn't sure she would. Up close, Sandy could see a red splotch on Angelica's cheek.

“What are you going to do with your baby?” Sandy asked in Spanish.

“My mother wants me to leave it here with a family who wants a child.”

“Adoption?” Sandy used the English word and explained its meaning in Spanish.

“Yes,” Angelica said. “But Ricardo and I want to get married and keep the baby.”

When Sandy pulled into the driveway that afternoon, Linda came out the front door.

“Don't get out of the car,” Linda said. “I called the adoption agency this morning and scheduled an appointment with your caseworker. We have to get going or we'll be late.”

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Make it quick.”

Sandy returned and backed the car out of the driveway.

“Why am I driving?” she asked.

“Because I want you to know how to get there on your own. I won't be able to go every time.”

Sandy tried to concentrate on the route; however, Linda began asking her questions about the
Roe v. Wade
decision.

“Not bad,” Linda said. “Turn right at the next light.”

They reached the adoption agency. It was in a modern business complex of ten or twelve identical three-story brick buildings, each surrounded by parking spaces.

“Park there,” Linda said. “The doctor's office is on the first floor; the agency is on the third floor.”

“Are they going to ask me to sign papers today?” Sandy said as they got out of the car. “I'd like Daddy to read anything before I sign it.”

“Based on your insight into Justice Blackmun's reasoning, I think you already have a better legal mind than your father.”

They went inside the building.

“Up the stairs,” Linda said, steering Sandy away from the elevator. “You're young, and I need the exercise.”

They climbed to the third floor. The entrance for the adoption agency was on the left. Sandy's heart began to beat faster. She followed Linda into a small, plainly decorated reception area. An obviously pregnant woman was sitting in a plastic chair reading a magazine. A middle-aged woman sat behind a glass opening. Linda introduced herself to the receptionist.

“We're here for an appointment with Mrs. Longwell.”

“I'll let her know,” the woman replied.

Sandy and Linda sat next to each other across from the pregnant woman, who ignored them. Sandy studied the woman and wondered about the path she'd taken to get there. Her clothes were plain, and she was wearing slightly dirty tennis shoes. She was chewing bubble gum. While Sandy watched, she blew an enormous bubble. Sandy's eyes widened as she waited for the bubble to explode across the woman's face. At the last instant, the woman sucked the gum back into her mouth. She looked up and caught Sandy staring at her.

“First time?” the woman said with an accent that revealed she wasn't from the South.

“Yes.” Sandy nodded.

“Number three for me,” the woman replied, rubbing her hand across her stomach. “My second baby at this agency. It's a lot better than the outfit I went to in New Jersey.”

A door near the receptionist's window opened. A man stuck his head in the room.

“Tia, I'm ready for you.”

The woman left. A few minutes later, the door opened again. This time a tall, middle-aged woman with brown hair came into the room. She shook Linda's hand and introduced herself to Sandy.

“I'm Stephanie Longwell. Let's go to my office and talk.”

They went down a hallway lined with adoption-themed posters: “Babies Deserve a Loving Home” and “Every Child Is a Wanted Child.” They entered a small office with three chairs in front of a wooden desk and sat down.

“Sandy, before we start, you need to know that I'm not going to ask you to commit to anything today. As I told your aunt, our goal is to treat you as gently as we would a newborn baby. I'm glad you're considering adoption, especially with the changes in the law over the past year, but no one at this agency is going to pressure you to do anything.”

Mrs. Longwell had compassionate eyes and a calm voice that put Sandy at ease. She could understand why Linda had selected her. The caseworker asked Sandy a series of background questions. While Sandy spoke, Mrs. Longwell took notes.

“That's all the preliminary questions,” Mrs. Longwell said. “Let me ask you an open-ended one. Why are you here?”

Sandy pointed at Linda. “She talked with my mother about adoption. At first, I wasn't sure, but now I think it's the best way to go.”

“Can you tell me more about how you reached that conclusion?”

Sandy gave her a fairly lengthy version of the past few weeks' events. Of course, she left out the encounter with the old woman at the convenience store.

“Thanks for sharing,” Mrs. Longwell said when Sandy finished. “It helps me to hear from you. Now let me tell you what we can offer you and your baby.”

The caseworker handed Sandy a brochure that explained the basics of adoption and went through the information with her. Sandy stopped her when she started talking about open and closed adoptions.

“Sometimes the adoptive parents stay in contact with the real mother after the adoption?” she asked.

“We prefer the term
birth mother
. When I first started working in this field, most adoptions were closed, with no contact or knowledge about the identities of the birth parents and the adoptive parents. The court would seal the records and rarely open them. That's been changing over the past few years, and various levels of contact between the parties are now more common.”

Sandy turned to Linda. “I didn't talk about that with Mama or Daddy. What do you think?”

“I think it should be up to the child later in life to decide whether to initiate contact with the birth parents. It's my understanding you can leave your personal information with the agency in case the child is curious at a later time.”

“That's one option,” Mrs. Longwell said. “We maintain a database that can be updated if you move or get married and have a new name. You can also decide to delete your information at any time if you want to.”

“What if I wanted to find the child?” Sandy asked.

“That's okay if the adoptive parents agree.”

There were a lot more decisions to be made than Sandy had imagined.

“I need to think about that.”

Because Sandy was covered by her father's health insurance policy, her prenatal care and the hospital charges for delivery of the baby would not have to be paid by an adoptive couple.

“Which expands the pool of prospective parents for you to review,” Mrs. Longwell said.

“You mean I'll have a say about who adopts the baby?” Sandy asked in surprise.

“Yes, except for their names and specific address, we'll give you a lot of information about the families.”

Sandy's head was spinning.

“How can I know—”

“You'll do the best you can,” Mrs. Longwell answered with a smile. “We administer a battery of tests to you and the prospective parents that will help us make recommendations. The tests aren't perfect, but they increase the odds of a good match. There are thousands and thousands of couples in this country who would love to adopt your baby. We have scores of them in our files. I'm sure there will be several excellent candidates in that group.”

Another thought shot across Sandy's mind.

“What if I have twins?” she asked.

NINE

T
wins?” Linda blurted out.

“Is there a history of twins in your family?” Mrs. Longwell asked.

Sandy looked at Linda.

“Not that I'm aware of,” Linda said. “Why in the world would you bring that up?”

“She told me I could ask any questions I wanted to.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Longwell replied soothingly. “There are no wrong questions in this office. What about the birth father's family? Any twins in his background?”

“I don't know.”

Thirty minutes later Sandy left with a stack of information to read and questionnaires to fill out. They stopped by the office of the ob-gyn doctor on the first floor and scheduled an initial appointment.

“I liked Mrs. Longwell,” Sandy said to Linda when they were in the car.

“I knew you would. And I thought it was a good meeting, except when you threw in that off-the-wall question about twins. Where in the world did that come from?”

“Uh, I thought about it during the drive from Rutland.” Sandy paused. “Is there someone famous named Rebekah who had twin boys?”

Linda thought for a moment. “There was a woman named Rebekah in the Bible. She was the mother of Jacob and Esau, who were fraternal twins. Why bring that up?”

“Just wondering.”

They turned out of the parking lot onto Roswell Road.

“I'm more worried about Brad Donnelly refusing to consent to the adoption than finding a home for two babies,” Linda said. “Contrary to what people claim, men can be much less logical than women.”

Sandy thought about her last conversation with Brad and what he'd done since them.

“I think he'll do it.”

“And you also thought you knew him pretty well before this happened, didn't you?”

“Yes,” Sandy admitted. “And I was one hundred percent wrong.”

Over the next two months, Sandy settled into her new life in Atlanta. Her morning sickness subsided, and she started cooking her own breakfast. The absence of extracurricular activities at school or a social life in the evenings opened up hours and hours of free time. Linda filled some of that space with reading material that she required Sandy to study and discuss. They covered such topics as Greek mythology, the Vietnam War, and the themes of sin and guilt in
The Scarlet Letter
, a book that Sandy now read more as fact than fiction. Because of their discussions, Sandy realized she'd spent most of her school career memorizing facts, not learning how to think.