Year of the Monsoon (15 page)

“Are you going to meet him?”

Nan brushed back the loose strands of hair hanging along her cheek. “I wasn’t going to when Chisholm first contacted me, but now…” she glanced at Todd’s letter. “I’m not sure when, with his treatment schedule, and he wants to stay caught up in school as much as he can. He and his parents will drive up from Georgia and we’ll meet in Raleigh.”

She looked over at Leisa. “What about you? It sounds as if you’ve been thinking a lot about your birth mother. Have you considered trying to find her?”

Leisa took another bite of roast before replying, “I think I may have already found her.”

“Really?” Nan asked, sitting back in surprise.

“In New York, if both parties register and indicate they want to exchange information, the state will do it. I registered a couple of weeks ago and I think someone else has registered also.”

“Wow.” Nan was at a loss for words. “I’m just surprised, since you never seemed like you had any desire to find her before. What did Jo Ann and Bruce say?”

Leisa took a long time chewing and swallowing before replying, “I haven’t told them.” Nan stopped as she reached for her wine glass. “I’m not sure how they would feel about it,” Leisa said, staring at her plate. “Especially Jo. I don’t want her to feel like I’m trying to replace Mom.”

Nan sat back and looked at her fork as she twirled it in her fingers. “So,” she began in a cautious tone, “you’ve avoided telling your aunt and uncle about this because you’re not sure what their reaction might be and you don’t want to hurt them.”

Leisa froze as she caught the full weight of Nan’s implication.

“I’m going to get dessert,” Nan said as she rose from the table.

Leisa followed a couple of minutes later, bringing dinner dishes in and rinsing them for the dishwasher.

“What triggered this sudden desire to search for her?” Nan asked, her back to Leisa as she set out coffee cups and began cutting a large carrot cake.

“I guess it was the note mostly.”

Nan turned to her. “What note?”

“I forgot. That was one of the things we never got to talk about.” She accepted a cup of coffee and a plate from Nan, and returned to the dining room. “In Mom’s papers I found my adoption folder. There was a handwritten note from my biological mother. Apparently, when I was born, she changed her mind about giving me up and kept me for six weeks before deciding to go ahead with the adoption.”

Nan stared at her. “Your parents never told you any of this?”

Leisa shrugged. “Jo said that was part of what they wanted to explain when I started asking questions, and I never did.”

Nan watched Leisa’s face intently. “So, you lose your mother, and find out that she kept a secret from you your whole life, then find out that I’ve kept a secret from you, too.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “That’s a lot to deal with.”

“Don’t!” Leisa said angrily. “Don’t treat me like one of your clients.”

Patiently, Nan said, “I’m not treating you like one of my clients. I’m treating you like someone I love, someone I know I’ve hurt; only now I’m finding out that I’m not the only one who hurt you.”

Leisa pushed away from the table and called Bron. Nan hurried after her. At the door, she caught Leisa by the arm, and said, “Whatever you’re going through, I’m here for you. I love you, and I am not giving up on us.”

Unable to say anything in reply, Leisa broke loose from Nan’s grasp and bent to snap the leash to Bronwyn’s collar. She hurried down the steps with Bronwyn, fighting the urge to run, wishing she could run from the person she’d become. A person guilty of exactly the same kind of lie of omission Nan had committed, by not telling Jo Ann and Bruce about the adoption registration.
And guilty of not telling Nan about Sarah tonight
, she reminded herself. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that she hadn’t said anything because it was meaningless, part of her knew better. Realizing she was capable of lying about this, she wondered what else she was capable of.

“Well, that explains a lot,” Maddie said later that night when Nan had told her and Lyn about the evening. “No wonder she’s been so angry, pushing everyone away.”

“Keep a close eye on her,” Nan pleaded. “She’s standing on quicksand right now, and I don’t think she knows it. It’s going to pull her in at some point.”

“Maybe that will be a good thing,” Lyn said. “It might force her to realize she needs to reach out to you.”

“I just hope it’s me she reaches for.”

Chapter 12

LEISA’S TELEPHONE BUZZED. LOOKING
at the blinking light, she could see it was Sadie from the front office.

“Yes?”

“Maddie needs to see you as soon as you can get up here,” Sadie announced.

“What’s up?”

“You’ll see.” Sadie loved knowing things others didn’t yet.

When Leisa got upstairs, Sadie said, “Maddie wants you to sit and wait until he leaves.”

“Until who leaves?” Leisa asked, her curiosity piqued now.

Sadie raised her penciled eyebrows. “You’ll see,” she repeated mysteriously.

Puzzled, Leisa took a seat in one of the chairs along the wall. Within a few minutes, Maddie’s door opened and she escorted a man out. He was small in stature, dark-complected. Maddie towered over him.

“When can I take her?” he was asking.

“I’m not exactly certain, Mr. Gonzalez,” Maddie responded. “I’m sure you understand that there are several legal steps we need to follow before Mariela can be released to your custody.” Leisa nearly fell off her chair as she heard Maddie add, “I’m sure Mariela will be very happy to learn she has an uncle.”

Leisa tried to observe him surreptitiously as he left. Maddie went to the window behind Sadie’s desk to watch him descend the front steps. After a few seconds, she turned to Leisa and said, “Come on into the office.”

Maddie shut the door behind them. Leisa imagined Sadie’s chagrin at not being able to eavesdrop.

“Mariela’s uncle?” Leisa asked incredulously.

“So he claims,” Maddie said, picking up her pad of notes from her conversation with him.

Leisa was relieved to hear the skeptical tone of Maddie’s voice. She leaned forward and started to move a water glass sitting on Maddie’s desk.

“Don’t touch that!”

Maddie leaned forward, and used a tissue to carefully pick the glass up and move it to the bookshelf behind her desk.

“What are you doing?” Leisa asked in confusion.

“I thought it would be a good idea to ask the police to run his prints,” Maddie explained.

“What is going on?”

“I don’t trust this guy. He shows up out of nowhere, claiming to be Florida Gonzalez’ brother. He supposedly just returned from Mexico to find his sister dead and his niece here with us.”

Leisa leaned her elbows on the desk. “Mariela has never mentioned any other family.”

“I know,” Maddie nodded. “And Florida’s police record didn’t indicate any family in the States.”

“Who do you think he is then?” Leisa asked.

Maddie shrugged. “Pimp? Dealer? Those are my guesses. What I do know is that he’s not asking for Mariela because he has paternal feelings for her. He wants something from her. I just don’t know what it could be.”

Leisa looked alarmed. “Surely, no one would order her handed over to him?”

Maddie’s eyes glinted angrily. “Not if I can help it.”

“It happens to all of us, if we’re there long enough,” Maddie had said to Lyn when she first saw the connection between Leisa and Mariela. “We fall in love,” she said wistfully, and Lyn knew Maddie was thinking of Tobias.

Tobias Baker was the youngest child of Mathias and Loretta Baker, of whom the caseworker from Social Services had said, “I swear those two were related before they got married and bred.” Tobias was different from all the other Bakers. Where his elder siblings had all been dim-witted and had missed more school than they attended, Tobias was intelligent, and lived for a kind word or a hug. Despite his smelly clothes and unkempt straw-colored hair, when Tobias’s grubby face broke into a smile, he could charm anyone.

He was pulled out of the home briefly a few times, but was always returned to his parents who angrily insisted they would school him at home, “the Lord’s way.” Always, he managed to talk his mother into letting him return to school where, despite his obvious disadvantages at home, he quickly made up ground from his lapses in getting any real education. He finally came to Maddie and St. Joseph’s when it was discovered that he had suffered a broken arm, most likely at the hands of his father, although it could never be proven. Toby’s elbow was permanently crooked because the fracture had never been properly set. The bond between Tobias and Maddie was instant and deep. It was Maddie’s first year as director, and “I’m trying so hard not to show any favoritism,” she told Lyn, “but I love that little boy.”

Tobias had been at St. Joseph’s for about three months when he was once again ordered to be returned to his parents’ custody despite overwhelming evidence from social workers, teachers and neighbors that the Bakers were abusive and that Tobias would be in grave danger.

“I promise to be good,” he cried as he clung to Maddie.

“Oh, honey, you’re not being punished. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Maddie murmured as she knelt and held him tightly, choking on her own tears. “The judge said you should be back with your mom and dad. But I’ll come see you soon, okay?” The social worker had to pull him loose. “I promise,” Maddie said through the car window as he was driven away.

But the very night Tobias got home, his mother locked the two of them in his room and poured gasoline around the bed. Mr. Baker told authorities later that Loretta had only said that no one would ever take Tobias from her again. All anyone could do was watch as the house burnt to the ground.

Maddie channeled her grief into a campaign to have that judge removed from the bench. She personally went door to door with a petition; she got churches and civic organizations involved with more petitions and protests in front of the courthouse; she got Baltimore news stations to air Tobias’s story.

“He has no idea what he has unleashed,” Lyn said.

In the end, the judge was promoted to a federal appeals court. “I don’t care,” Maddie swore, “as long as the bastard can never hurt another child.”

“Not if I can help it,” Maddie repeated, more to herself than to Leisa.

“Good,” Leisa sighed in relief. It had already crossed her mind in a wild, fleeting thought that she would take Mariela and flee before she would let that man have her.

As if she could read Leisa’s mind, Maddie narrowed her eyes and said, “I promise. I won’t let anything happen to her. Oh, and we got the burial service for Mariela’s mother scheduled for the Saturday before Easter.”