“They’ll always be your stories,” Tej said. “These will always be your people. This is your family and family is so much more than blood.”
“I know.”
“But.”
“But.” Slowly Jude changed the status of Cleon and Penny from biological parents to adoptive parents. “See, just picking from a dropdown menu feels like betrayal. One click literally makes me feel like a shitty son.”
“You,” Tej said, sliding arms around Jude from behind, “are an extraordinary son.”
Jude shook his head. “I don’t want to be anyone else’s son.”
Tej held him tight. “You’re so good.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Trust me, I know good.”
Feeling loathsome and ungrateful, Jude created another set of parents for himself and chose “biological” from the dropdown. Unknown married to Unknown, Jude’s box dangling from the dotted line joining man and wife. He arbitrarily subtracted twenty-five years from 1973 to make an estimated birth year of 1948, in the assumed location of Santiago de Chile. He added four grandparents, all called Unknown, with “Spain or Italy?” as their assumed, estimated, hypothetical shot-in-the-dark birthplaces.
He sat back, gazing at his two-trunked family tree. One side fruitful with names and dates and history. The other barren. Just empty pink and blue boxes and question marks.
Is someone looking for me?
So many people in the world. Name. Date of birth. Date of death. Every dotted line between boxes was a connection. A relationship. A marriage. Every person’s leaf came from two leaves above. Child-parent-child-parent, backward in time, ad infinitum.
The exponential connections were staggering.
“The history of mankind is like one big love story,” Jude said, staring at his solitary blue box at the bottom of the inverted pyramid.
“You ever stop to think how many fucking people there are?” Tej said. “Not just right now but in the entire history of humanity.”
“I know.”
Millions and millions of accounts registered on this website, all with their boxes and dotted lines and stories.
“The Y-chromosome replicates,” Jude said. “Every father gives his son a perfect copy.”
Somewhere in the world, a certain tree had a blank box labeled “Unknown,” with a birth date in 1973. It sat there like a patient locked door and only Jude Tholet’s key, with his specific DNA, would fit it.
What’s behind that door, though?
Is someone looking for me? Waiting for me? Wondering about me?
“What if nobody is,” he said. “What if nobody is looking for me and I go looking for them. And I blunder into their neat, ordered lives with the news I belong to them, but none of them are happy about it? The news ruins their story. What if they always knew I was somewhere out in the world, but it was a dirty little secret and they hoped I’d never turn up?”
“Well—”
“Or what if they’re delighted. What if it’s a miracle to them. What if I bring an incredible amount of joy and resolution until they find out I’m gay, and then…”
“God, man, I know.”
“Then they turn their back on me.”
Or break my leg.
Throw rocks through my window. Spray-paint faggot on the sidewalk. Fill my car’s windshield wiper reservoir with blood. Then run me out of town.
Tej’s arms tightened around him and the side of his face pressed tight to Jude’s. “I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you one fucking bit for contemplating that scenario. I don’t.”
“I can’t do it again.”
“I know. But listen. Play it through. You’re not seventeen, you’re a grown man. If they reject you, you fall right back into the loving arms of your real family.” His finger reached to touch Penny and Cleon’s boxes. “This family. These people will never let anyone hurt you ever again. Your father will bludgeon them with his prosthetic leg first.”
Jude laughed.
“Then your mother and Serena will dismember the corpses and your brother will hide the pieces in various off-the-map locations around the world. The Tholets do not come to play.”
“Oh my God.” Still laughing, he hung onto Tej’s forearms.
“And for what it’s worth, any of them who survive that first line of defense will wish they hadn’t, because they’ll have to deal with me. Nobody fucks with my boo.”
Jude turned his face into Tej’s neck. “Am I your boo?”
“Damn right. I’d kill to have you find me all over again.”
“Okay then.” Jude drew in a ferocious breath, exhaled and reached for the mouse. “Jude the Obscure is going out there.”
He toggled the settings of the family tree from Private to Public.
“Telling you, man,” Jude said to Phil. “I am all over the place.”
“Can you unpack that?”
“I built my tree and made it public, then practically ran away from the computer. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. But every hour I’m checking the website and getting all huffy. No matches? Nobody? What am I, chopped liver?”
Phil laughed. “How dare nobody look for me when I’m so reluctant to be found.”
“It’s like a PhD in passive-aggressive.”
“How are you feeling otherwise?”
“No otherwise. Just all over the place. But I wanted to ask you something. My mom has been considering hypnotherapy.”
Phil’s head tilted. “For?”
“To see if she can find some of the lost memories from the day I was born.”
“I see.”
“My dad and I don’t want her going to some quack, though.”
“No, you want someone certified. I know a woman in Kirkland who does excellent work. Seattle PD often uses her with witness testimony. If your mom went anywhere, I’d rather it be her.”
“Will you give me her contact info?”
“Sure. I’ll drop a line and do a little intro, so she’ll know to look out for a call.”
“Thanks. It’s really weighing heavy on Mami that she can’t remember. I don’t know if hypnotism will do anything, but I think she’ll feel better knowing she did everything she could.”
“In competent, professional hands, it certainly couldn’t hurt.”
“Cool.”
The last thirty seconds of the session ticked away.
“How are things with Tej?” Phil asked.
“They’re good. I like how it’s going along. I like him.” Jude exhaled. “I really like him a lot.”
“That you?” Jude called.
“Does another guy have a key to your place?” A clattering jingle as Tej threw his keys down, then shuffled to where Jude sat at the dining room table. He rubbed his palms hard over his face and exhaled.
“Tough day?” Jude asked, leaning back in his chair.
“I took a suicide call.”
“No shit. Really?”
“From the Aurora Bridge.”
The legs of the chair came down and Jude got up. “You all right?”
“Yeah. It’s just… Yeah. I need a drink.”
“Sit down. Take your coat off.”
Jude popped two beers and grabbed an unopened bag of potato chips. “How many suicide calls do you get?”
Still wearing his coat, Tej drained half the beer in two swallows. “This was my second. First time, it was a guy contemplating. He had no plan, just the ideation. This was someone right on the edge, looking over.”
“What do you do? You’re trained for that, right?”
“Sure. You have cheat sheets around with basic steps, but you can’t be an automaton, you have to feel the guy out, get him to talk to you.” He killed the rest of the beer and plunked the bottle on the table. “Woof. That went down fast.”
<
br /> “Here.” Jude pushed his bottle across. “How long were you on with him before police got there?”
“Ten minutes. He kept saying, ‘Tell my sister I love her. Just tell her. Remember you gotta tell my sister. Don’t forget.’ So I grabbed onto that and got him to talk about her. I said, ‘She sounds really important to you, can you tell me why? When was the last time you saw her? What did you do together?’ It kept him talking. Kept a connection going.”
He brushed his hands off on his jeans and finally shrugged out of his jacket. “He got agitated when the cops and fire department got on scene. That’s when I really started sweating.”
“Do you handle this all alone, is anyone with you?”
“My supervisor was standing by. Couple of other co-workers came close. They don’t get involved or take over, they just keep eye contact with you, nod, make little gestures. You know.”
“I do nothing that is close to knowing, but okay.”
Tej smiled and dug in the potato chip bag.
“So they got him down?”
“Yeah.” A tremendous exhale. “Which is the hard part. When the call ends. You have this intense moment with someone and then it’s over and most of the time, you don’t know what happened. It’s hard to shake it off. Your mind starts making up the rest of the story, trying to close it up.” He killed the second beer and belched. “So. Let me piggyback on your lack of closure. What you got going on here?”
Jude had printed out satellite images of the city of Santiago, taped them together and spread the makeshift map out on the dining room table.
“I’m just trying to get an idea of where things were happening when I was born,” he said. “See, this is Hospital del Salvador. My mom was taken here after she gave birth. At some point in this hospital, her baby and I were switched.”
“You assume.”
Jude looked at him. “Well, yeah. Where else would it have happened?”
Tej hitched his chair closer. “Where was your parents’ house?”
Jude’s finger drew a line almost directly east. “Out here. In La Reina.”
“So maybe a ten- or fifteen-minute drive?”
“Sure.”
Tej shrugged. “Lot can happen in fifteen minutes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m just seeing a parade and raining on it.”
Jude uncapped a Sharpie and marked the Tholets’ neighborhood. He made an H on top of Hospital del Salvador. “Over here is Estadio Victor Jara. It was called Estadio de Chile in seventy-three. My father was taken here first. This is the Estadio Nacional, he was released from here six weeks later. In between…”
His finger glided east again, back toward La Reina, and made a little circle. “La Villa Grimaldi.” He capped the black pen. “So those are the places where my parents were. Pinochet had other detention centers in Santiago.” He took a red Sharpie and made circles on the map: London 38, José Domingo Cañas House, La Venda Sexy.
“Venda Sexy?” Tej said.
“You don’t want to know what went on there.”
“Not in my current state of mind, no. Tell me later.”
“I have two theories. One, the simplest, my biological mother was in the Hospital del Salvador at the same time as Mami. Human error. Baby in the wrong bassinet. The old switcheroo and here I am.”
“Or?”
“Or my biological mother was in one of these detention centers and gave birth to me there. Then I was brought to the hospital.”
Tej’s brows wrinkled. “So what is this map supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Jude said. “I wish my brother were here, he’s good at this kind of stuff.”
“Well, wait. Okay. I think I see where you’re going. If you and your mother ultimately ended up here together… Wait. Back up. If Penny lived here in La Reina, why was she taken all the way over to this hospital? Are there no hospitals in La Reina?”
Jude tapped the map and drew a circle with the red pen. “Hospital Militar,” he said. “It served the armed forces and didn’t start treating civilians until 1996. And with a military coup going on, it would’ve been the last place Ysidro and Tatán would want to take her.”
“Okay, so the next-closest option was del Salvador.”
“And if my real mother gave birth to me while she was detained, you’d think the detention center would be close to del Salvador. Right?”
Tej’s head bobbled back and forth. “In a rational world. From what you describe, things were anything but rational at the time. Still, let’s go with it. If you ended up at this particular hospital, assume you were born somewhere close by. So either of the stadiums qualify.”
“Or London Thirty-Eight or Casa José Domingo Cañas,” Jude said. “Except they weren’t fully functional in seventy-three.”
“The stadiums, then.”
“Yeah. I started looking back through the testimonials my father collected.” Jude indicated the stack of books on the table, all now dog-eared with a fringe of colored Post-its sticking out the top. “In the Estadio Nacional, the field and gallery were used to hold men, while women were in the swimming pool locker rooms. The interrogations were carried out in the velodrome.”
Tej’s thumb fanned open one of the books. He stopped at a random page, read a little, then closed it again. “Not for me right now.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll stop talking about this.”
“No, I’m fine listening to you, I just don’t want to read it. Go on, what were you saying?”
“I’ve been skimming these but I didn’t find any accounts of women giving birth. But I went online and I found this.” He pulled his laptop close and jiggled it awake. “It’s a forum for survivors of political violence in Central and South America. I found this post…”
“…My mother was arrested in Santiago during Pinochet’s coup. She was held three months in the Estadio. Horrible, horrible things happened there. She helped another woman give birth on the shower floor in the swimming pool locker room…”
“Hello,” Tej said.
“I know. I got all wigged out reading it.”
“Have you contacted the poster?”
“It’s over a year old.”
“So?”
“She might not have this email anymore.”
“And she might.” He glanced sideways at Jude and his smile was soft. “Are you wigged about taking a step? Or do you not know what to say?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Tej drew the laptop closer. He clicked the username to make an email message pop up, then began typing. Jude read over his shoulder:
Hello. I’m trying to find my biological parents. I was born in November of 1973 in Santiago. I have no idea if my mother was detained or not, in the Estadio or not, but your mother’s story caught my eye. I know this is random but if your mother remembers any details about that woman, please let me know. My email is below. You can also call or text me at the phone number. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.
“How’s that?” Tej said. “Short and to the point. Send?”
Jude breathed in. “Send.”
Before he could change his mind, Tej’s index finger clicked and it was done.
It was out there.
The first step taken.
“You don’t know whether to shit or wind your watch,” Tej said, sliding a hand up Jude’s forearm to his shoulder, giving him a little shake.
“I guess I’m doing this.”
Tej shrugged. “You saw something interesting and you’re making a simple inquiry. That’s all.”
“That’s all.”
Tej slid the laptop aside and pulled the taped-together map closer. “This reminds me of when I first started as a dispatcher. I didn’t have the boundary thing down yet. Nobody does when they start. You’
re a permeable membrane, every call is personal. Each emergency puts a dent in your frame and if they go south, they take a piece of you with it. It takes a while to build defensive distance. Anyway. I used to keep track of the locations of the bad calls, and when I got home, I’d map them. Like this. A geography of pain.”
“Why?”
“Not sure. Looking for patterns, maybe? Or it could be that lack of closure thing I was talking about. When the call disconnected and I was left without an ending, I’d literally stick a pin in it?”
“Hm.”
“I thought it was my weird little thing, but I found out a lot of dispatchers do it. They drive through Seattle and instead of taking in the scenery, they’re picking out locations and remembering calls. That apartment building was the overdose. That corner was the knife fight. That intersection had the T-bone. In the alley behind that bar was the rape.”
“The geography of pain,” Jude murmured, looking at the labeled locations across the city of Santiago.
“Soon you can’t go anywhere without connecting it to a call. So I stopped plotting disaster and made a new map. I only pinned locations of calls that had a good outcome. Like if I guided someone through CPR and it was successful. Or coached a woman through labor.”
“You did that?”
“Once. The ambulance got there before full-blown delivery, but she was hanging onto me over the phone. It was a trip.”
“My sister once helped a woman deliver a baby on a bus.”
“When?”
“About two years ago.”
“No way, I remember that.”
“Shut up.” Jude leaned back a little. “You took the call?”
“No, but a baby being born gets talked about at the proverbial water cooler. It’s exciting. It’s positive. You’re precipitating life, not fending off death. If it happens in your call center, you kind of own a piece of it. With every telling and retelling, you even feel like you were there. You know? Like we did it.” He smiled. “That was your sister? Far out.”
“The universe dropping hints.”
“The coy bitch.” Tej ran his hand over the terrain of Santiago. “Anyway, my man, I hope we can make some of this geography turn to joy.”
A Scarcity of Condors Page 25