What Was Mine

by Helen Klein Ross

  If I’d signed up earlier, the conference organizers would have arranged one for me, but I was too late for that. The conference was only a few days away.

  There was a scanner at the entrance of the Chinese embassy and I half expected to be stopped when I unwrapped myself from my disguising coat, hat, and scarf. But I was waved through, without incident.

  Did the authorities have my name on a list? I waited in line, worrying that the bureaucrat behind the glass, sipping from a jelly jar of mud-colored tea might suspect something. My hand shook as I slipped my papers into a little well in the counter between us. I sweated as he examined my regulation photo (full color, front-facing, hatless, no exceptions), then looked up, searching my face. I was afraid he’d call for security. But he accepted my papers without question, a gesture of so little importance to him that he did it with one hand, while with the other he refilled his jar from a thermos.

  The next day (I’d paid extra for rush) I spent a trembling half hour in the pickup line. When I got to the window, a stern-looking man pushed a manila envelope to me. He didn’t say whether or not it contained a visa. When I asked, he shook his fingers dismissively. I retreated to a dark corner where I pried open the envelope. I slid out my passport and out fluttered a receipt for the visa. But I didn’t trust that. I flipped pages in my passport until I saw it. There it was, my ticket to freedom, a stamp taking up an entire page. It was decorative and colorful as a piece of art. I stared for some time at the line drawing: a long, orange winding road atop a pink Great Wall, leading toward a brilliant red, star-spangled sun. I imagined myself balanced on that wall, following in the ancient foot treads of fugitives before me—until my reverie was interrupted by an officious woman in uniform urging me to exit if I was done with my business.

  After that, I said my good-byes at the office. I couldn’t believe no one was suspicious about my going all the way to Shanghai for a conference on toilet paper. Or that T&A was willing to spring for the cost, which they let me put on the company card. But everyone was busy, so busy, and I was in middle management, and had convinced them, I guess, that my demonstrated interest in the tissue category might help grow a paper-towel client we already had.

  A shoot in Vancouver was coming up which I’d miss. I put one of the writers who worked for me on it, someone good enough to take over for me, if my absence grew prolonged.

  I put off the meeting Lance had set up with his agent.

  I bought a ticket to PVG with an open return. The conference would last a week. I didn’t have plans for what I would do after that, but by then I hoped I would have figured out something. I pictured the hotel in Shanghai as an exotic retreat where I’d spend long days in a room, considering my options. In fact, I had a hard time with room choice, which I’d needed in order to qualify for the visa. I’d e-mailed to ask for a nonsmoking room and the answer came back: Sure, if you smoke, no one care of it. I figured I could change rooms once I got there. I didn’t plan to go to the conference, of course. I didn’t want to risk someone recognizing me, if the story broke.

  In the days before I could get on that flight, I fretted about being apprehended. Every time I left the apartment, I steeled myself against a tap on the shoulder, a touch on the arm. When I came home, I’d search the eyes of the doorman for any change in expression or tone of voice, which would alert me to the fact that someone had been there, seeking information about me.

  The apartment echoed with the absence of Mia. She’d been gone before, to camp, to college. But this absence was different, making the dark rooms darker, a tomb from which I longed to escape. Part of me wanted to run, to find Mia. Poor Mia. I knew she was hurting. But I couldn’t run to her. I had to make myself run in the other direction, far away.

  I fled New York on Valentine’s Day. Mia and I had a Valentine’s ritual. We always exchanged some sort of heart on that day. When she was little, I’d scramble candy hearts into her eggs. I’d hide a note decorated with hearts in her backpack. After she left home, I always mailed her a card with a gift check enclosed, written in pink pen.

  So it’s ironic that now that day will always signify for me the dissolution of our togetherness.

  58

  marilyn

  I wanted to fly out to see her right away. I wanted to take my daughter in my arms, I wanted to reconnect to her physically; she’d been part of me, I wanted, I needed to be with her, to help her begin the process of healing. And the harmonious outcome was, there was room on a flight to Newark the very next day and the flight was direct and available at a discount.

  Of course, I reached out to Tom as soon as I heard from Natalie. It wasn’t easy to track him down. I haven’t had a phone number for him for quite some time. He moved to Costa Rica about fifteen years ago. But I had his e-mail and hoped he still had the same address. I sent him a message with the subject head shouting in caps: OUR DAUGHTER FOUND!!!!

  He called hours later, while I was making dinner. He said he was happy that Natalie had been discovered. But he couldn’t fly out right away to meet her. He thought she should bond with her mother first anyway. I couldn’t understand that. I thought we should go see our daughter together. But Tom is a limited person. He is just doing the best he can.

  We had a family meeting after dinner that night. Grant and I gathered the three kids in the living room, where our family focuses on important issues. It’s a place soft and giving: white fluffy carpets, overstuffed sofa, walls painted a calming shade of green. This is where we came to discuss whether or not I should go back to work and the boys’ decision to stop homeschooling and go to public high school.

  As they settled into their places—each of us has a spot where we’re most comfortable: Grant likes the cushy chair, I like the sofa, Connor and Thatch like the beanbags, Chloe lies on the flokati, her feet on the hearth—I told them I had an important announcement. We were welcoming someone new into our family. I felt a wholeness in saying the words in that room. It’s where we welcomed each of them into this world, their passage gentled by water in the tank we rented each time, the midwife, and Grant floating beside me, murmuring affirmations.

  “Are we getting a dog?” Thatch asked.

  “A baby?” From Chloe.

  When I heard “a baby” my eyes watered a little and I nodded.

  Connor, sixteen, gazed at me in horror.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Well, not an actual baby. She’s all grown up now. You know that special angel whose birthday we celebrate?”

  All I’d told the kids about Natalie was that our family had a guardian angel we celebrated on April 4 every year.

  “That angel was my first baby. I haven’t seen her since she was four months old.” My throat closed and I couldn’t say any more.

  The kids looked at each other. I was glad that Grant was there to step in.

  “How come you never told us before?” Connor asked.

  “We didn’t want to worry you kids, to make you think this could happen to you,” said Grant.

  The kids looked at each other, then at me.

  “You’re not the oldest!” Thatch said to Connor, grinning. It wasn’t the generous response I had hoped for. Thatch is a middle child, he has issues to work through.

  In a steady voice, Grant told them the story of what happened. He knew every detail. It’s a story I’d told him many times before. I watched the kids’ faces for how they were taking it. Thatch’s hair, as usual fell in front of his face and he sank his chin in his hands, so I couldn’t see his expression. He’s the one I usually worry about. But, now, I worried about all three. I didn’t want any of them to feel the bad energy that had capsized me for so many years.

  When Grant was finished, I took a deep breath and told them I was going to New York in the morning. I was going to meet their sister. Their sister. I was excited by the thought of having her with us, having all my family together for the first time. But I worried, too. I had never left the kids for even one night before. I ached to think of ho
w many nights I wasn’t there for Natalie.

  “Do you love her better than us?” Chloe said.

  “Of course not!” I said, briefly considering taking her with me. But I’d need all my energy for Natalie now. “Daddy can take good care of you. Just for a few days.”

  “I’ll take you to work tomorrow,” he promised, which is something Chloe loved to do. He sometimes took her along on a job, explaining what each heavy tool was for, teaching her to level a pipe or plane a board.

  “Is the angel going to move in with us?” Thatch wanted to know. This is something I wondered myself. I didn’t know whether or not my daughter would want to come home with me. I needed to leave that choice up to her.

  “She’ll want to come home to her real family,” Grant said. I hoped he was right.

  I looked around the room, with new eyes, imagining it through the eyes of a girl who’d been raised in New York. I loved this house. But what would Natalie think of it? I pictured myself explaining to her the power of the hanging crystals, the mirrors positioned for water energy. Or would she already know about them?

  She was my daughter, I’d given birth to her, but I had no idea of the kind of person she was.

  “We can make a big welcome sign!” Chloe said, and how grateful I was for her generous resilience, and for the calm sea of Grant beneath our children, there to steady their rocking boats.

  59

  mia

  The next morning, at Ms. Laniere’s, I stood in front of her mirror brushing my teeth. My face looked different. I was a different person. But who was that person? I didn’t know. I put on a black sweater, but took it off and put on a blue one, then a green. I was surprised at how nervous I was. What would my real mother be like? Would she like me? Would I like her? What if I wasn’t what she expected?

  Ms. Laniere told me how to get to Newark from Brooklyn: two trains and a bus from midtown. I had to leave early. Marilyn had taken a red-eye flight.

  I waited for her at the airport, feeling more alone than I had ever felt in my life. I was at baggage, watching one red bag go around and around on the carousel, going into the tunnel, coming out again.

  My phone kept going off. I knew who it was. No one else would be calling this early. I’d changed “Mom” to “Do Not Answer.” I wouldn’t pick up.

  Her texts were getting more and more pathetic:

  Please!

  I love you.

  I’m your mother.

  I need to explain.

  I couldn’t turn off the phone until I met up with Marilyn. If there was a problem, she’d call my cell.

  I finally texted Lucy:

  I’m at EWR, about to meet my mother.

  That shut her up.

  Suddenly there was Marilyn coming off the escalator. I knew it was her. She was tall, like me. There was something familiar about her shoulders, her walk. I felt like I was falling down a hole with no bottom.

  She saw me and started walking faster. Her clothes were bright and flowing, not right for winter, and they flowed behind her as she hurried toward me. I couldn’t move. I felt numb, frozen in place.

  “Baby.” She smiled. I knew her voice. She dropped her bags and opened her arms and pulled me into them. For the first time I was hugging a person who was half of me. She ran her hands over my hair and my back. Then she pulled up glasses on a bead chain and put them on and stared at me through them. Her eyes were the same blue as mine. She touched my cheek.

  “Look how gorgeous you are,” she said. “You are beautiful.”

  She was beautiful, too. I was crying and so was she. She hugged me again and we stood like that. I could feel her back shaking. There was something about the way she smelled that seemed familiar. But maybe that was my imagination. We didn’t let go of each other for a long time. I waited, letting her be the first to pull away. As we did, my hair got caught on one of her dangly dream-catcher earrings and we laughed, trying to extricate without hurting each other.

  “It’s like you’re a dream and I’m trying to wake up,” she said, and it was good she wasn’t wearing makeup. She kept wiping her eyes with a tissue she kept in her sleeve.

  “I’m not a dream.” Her hair was like mine. It looked like fog around her head.

  “You are the dream I had for twenty-one years.” And then, she started to cry again. The tissue was useless.

  My phone buzzed. Another text:

  Please call me. Please.

  I swiped the phone off and slid it into my back pocket.

  We walked to the carousel, not saying much. There was too much to say. She reached for my hand as we stood waiting for her bag to come out. As we stood, she took my hand in both of hers and stroked it with her thumbs. To the people around us, we must have looked like just another mother and daughter glad to see each other again. But they’d be surprised—and, I guessed, so would she—to know how awkward I felt about her grip on my hand. It was a gesture that made it look as if we had known each other forever, when really, we were as much strangers to each other as we were to everyone standing around us, all of us peering into a dark hole, hoping to recognize the next thing that came out.

  “There it is,” she said, and reached for a blue suitcase. Its size surprised me. It was giant, even though she was only staying for a few days, just till spring term started at Middlebury and I went back to my classes, back to my life on campus, as if nothing was changed. I thought I could do that. I really did.

  60

  marilyn

  I rented a car—I was stunned to discover that although my daughter was twenty-one years old, she didn’t know how to drive. In my experience, kids got their licenses as soon as they could. I grew up in New Jersey and got my permit when I was sixteen. Connor got his on his fifteenth birthday. Thatch is counting the days until he can do the same. But I guess it’s different for kids who grew up taking taxis or subways everywhere they needed to go.

  When I asked how she got around in Vermont, she said there were plenty of kids with cars there. There were shuttle buses between campus and town. She told me that not driving has greatly enriched her life, has made her open to alternative ways to get places. “And you meet great people!” she said cheerfully, making me worry about her falling prey to strangers who take girls for rides. She had expensive educations, I knew. Why hadn’t she been taught something so basic?

  The hardest thing to do was calling her by her kidnapped name. I have to show respect for who she was now. But who was she? How painful to be deprived of knowing my own daughter. So many questions popped into my head as we drove. I wanted to know everything about what had happened to her in the days she’d been separated from me, what had she seen, what had she done, what sounds, what touch, what colors had been imprinted on her. But I was conscious of how upset she must feel—her whole world upended—and found myself simply making small talk, to put her at ease. We had the rest of our lives to be together. There’d be time for real talk.

  I’d made reservations at an Embassy Suites in Cranford, New Jersey. It hadn’t been there when I’d lived in this area years ago—Grant had looked it up for me on the Internet. But before we went to the hotel, I wanted to show Mia the house where she was born. Well, the house she came to after she was born in a hospital. I thought seeing the house would help her connect with her essence, her self that had been subjugated for years.

  I didn’t tell her where we were going, I didn’t want to stir up any preconceived notions in her. I wanted the reconnection to be organic.

  I’m bad at directions. My kids—my other kids—often navigate from the backseat, and I was surprised I didn’t need the GPS to tell me where I was going, though it had been nearly two decades since I’d been to Cranford. The car seemed to know just where to turn, up this road, down that, almost without me steering the wheel, until we pulled up in front of the house that Tom and I had bought with such hopes, the house that was the embodiment of so many memories I’d tried to forget. The house was still there. They’d painted the white porch
gray. They’d changed the front window and added a basketball court near the driveway. But other than that, it looked the same. I eased the car by the curb in front of it and put the car into park.

  When I left this house, I’d been a different person. I was glad not to be that person anymore. I wished I could commune with my self who had lived there, the woman going through dark, panic-filled days, reassure her that things would turn out in the end.

  My daughter sat next to me on the front seat. She didn’t say anything. We both just sat staring up at the house on the little snow-dappled rise. I felt the Oneness flooding me, and when she closed her eyes, I guessed that she must be feeling the force of it, too.

  So I was startled when she turned to me and asked where we were.

  61

  mia

  It was important to Marilyn that I saw my first house. She wanted me to feel a connection. She thought something in me would recognize the house. But I didn’t recognize it. There wasn’t anything special about it, to me, it looked just like any other house in the suburbs like houses upstate where my aunt lives.

  When she told me it was the house where I’d lived as a baby, I was interested. I wanted to get out of the car and go see it. Marilyn didn’t want me to, she was afraid it was bad karma. But I had to feel what it would have been like to live there. When I got out, Marilyn did, too. She stood at the curb as I walked up the driveway. I wanted to get as close as I could to the house. I wanted to touch the place I was meant to grow up in.

  I walked off the asphalt and onto the lawn. I breathed in the air I would have breathed growing up here. I stood by a shrub that was shrouded in burlap. I put my hand on the stucco. There was a white wishing well in the side yard with a pail on a rope. I felt how my whole life would have been changed if this were my house. I would be a different person. I would be someone who didn’t live in the city, who would have gone to a normal school, like on Dawson’s Creek. I’d be a kid from the suburbs, a cheerleader, maybe, someone who only came into the city for field trips or museums or shopping, a kid who a city kid kind of looks down on, and I immediately hated myself for feeling that way, for being glad that I wasn’t raised here because that would mean—I was glad I’d been abducted.