by Gayle Roper
entered by the said court in the above case, to wit:
Now, the 20th day of August A.D. 1919 the court, upon consideration of the foregoing petition, being satisfied that the welfare of the said Lehman Biemsderfer will be promoted by the adoption prayed for in said petition, do upon motion of A.R. Furst, Esq., for petitioners, grant the prayer of said petition, and do order and decree that the said Lehman Biemsderfer shall assume the name of the adopting parents, and be hereafter known and called by the name “John Seward Bentley, Jr.” and shall henceforth have all the rights of a child and heir of the said John Seward Bentley and Charlotte Brooks Bentley, equal with any other children they may have, and shall be subject to the duties of such children in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Assembly in such cases made and provided.
In testimony whereof, I have hereto set my hand and affixed the seal of the Court, this 20th day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen.
The red, raised seal of the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County decorated the lower lefthand corner of the paper while the signature of Herman F. Walton, the prothonotary, filled the right.
Todd looked up when he had finished, and I handed him the letter that always made me want to weep.
Chapter 2
I had gotten Todd Reasoner’s name from Mr. Havens, our family’s business lawyer.
“So you plan to do an adoption search?” Mr. Havens was careful to sound dispassionate. He was a spare little man who somehow commanded great attention and respect. I think it had something to do with the way he carried himself, exactly like the ex-Marine he was, and the absolute authority with which he always spoke. It was like a real-life equivalence of the old ad, “When Dean Havens speaks, everyone listens.”
I nodded. “I want to find out what my heritage is—what our heritage is.”
“Do you have a medical reason for seeking this information?” He seemed genuinely concerned. “I never heard your grandfather mention any genetic problems, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t or isn’t one.”
I shook my head. “No medical problems that I know of. I just want to know who we are if we aren’t Bentleys.”
“Cara, my dear, I think a search going back three generations is most likely doomed to failure.”
He made his observation gently, but its effect was to stiffen my backbone. When we quiet, go-with-the-flow people actually make a decision, we get very stubborn about it.
I smiled with a sweetness I didn’t feel. “I just know I feel compelled to try.”
He nodded. “I wish you well. You understand that you’ll need a member of the Pennsylvania bar to assist you since state laws differ on adoption and the accessibility of pertinent information and records.”
I blinked. Even though I knew the adoption happened in Lancaster County, I hadn’t considered the very real need to find a Lancaster area lawyer, but I quickly realized that Mr. Havens was correct. I thought of the Yellow Pages and all those lawyers smiling charmingly out of the full-page ads. The thought of picking one to be my attorney was daunting. “Can you recommend someone in the Lancaster area?”
He spun his chair and stared out his window at the ancient willow tree with its feathery branches touching the ground. I sat and waited while he went through his mental Roladex. After a minute he turned back to his desk, grabbed the phone, and pushed a couple of buttons.
“Martin, come in here a minute, please.” He hung up immediately, the prerogative of the senior partner who assumed—and received—unquestioned compliance.
Immediately there was a knock on the door, and a young man poked his head in. “Yes, Mr. Havens?”
“Come in, Martin.”
Martin, wearing bright red suspenders to hold up his navy slacks, smoothed his red-and-blue rep tie as he walked to Mr. Havens’ desk.
“Martin, this is Cara Bentley. Cara is in need of legal advice in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. You graduated from Dickinson Law School…
“That’s in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, my dear,” he said in an aside to me.
He turned back to Martin. “You must know some lawyers who have begun practicing in the Lancaster area.”
Martin nodded. “I can think of three who graduated with me who practice either in Lancaster City or close by. Paul Adamson is associated with a large firm in the city. Allison Fleet is the junior partner in a three-partner practice in Manheim, just north of Lancaster, and Todd Reasoner is a sole practitioner in Bird-in-Hand, a small town just east of Lancaster.”
“Which one do you recommend most?” Mr. Havens asked.
“What kind of work is needed?”
“Legal advice on an adoption search,” I said.
“Paul’s firm is located right near the courthouse and has the prominence to help someone high profile like you, Miss Bentley.”
Martin didn’t actually bow as he spoke, but that suggestion of special care because of Bentley Marts and the family money was there too strongly for my taste.
I shook my head. “I don’t want anyone to know I have any connection to the family’s business. I know it’s improbable that someone would try to claim me and my brother as relatives because of our money, but it’s possible. I’m making this trip as Cara Bentley, writer. Bentley is a common enough name that it shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t want flash and prestige in my lawyer. I want competency.”
Martin nodded as if he understood, but I didn’t think he did.
“Then I recommend Todd Reasoner. He’s more than able, has excellent credentials, sailed through the bar exams when the rest of us were sweating bullets, and is conscientious to a fault. He’s very religious, but I mean that in the good sense that it makes him want to do everything right.”
I nodded. “He sounds like the man for me.”
As soon as I got home, I called to make an appointment, hoping I could see him immediately.
“Mr. Reasoner can see you on Friday at three PM,” I was told.
“Not sooner?” I asked. I was used to Mr. Havens seeing any of us whenever we asked. Not that I’d ever asked much, but I knew Pop and my brother Ward saw him at their convenience. Of course, Mr. Havens and his considerable staff were on retainer for Bentley Marts and better hop to it when any of us called. Todd Reasoner, Esq., had no reason to revamp his schedule for Cara Bentley, writer.
Now I sat in Todd’s office and handed him my second document. Again I read along mentally.
It was a personal letter dated August 1919 to my great-grandmother from Mrs. C.A. Yule, written on the stationary of The Children’s Home Society of Lancaster: For the Relief of the Poor and the Care of Destitute Children.
Dear Mrs. Bentley,
I am enclosing herewith the certified copy of the decree of adoption, which finishes up the case.
When visiting with the mother of your dear little boy, she asked me as a last request if you would give me a picture of Lehman for her. She felt that having it would do much to make her live her life as she should. She is doing so well. We are proud of the effort she is making. I shall appreciate it very much if you could send a picture very soon.
I’m glad you were able to get away for a little while. I’m sure John Seward had a lovely time playing in the sand at the shore.
I sincerely hope the dear baby will grow up into the kind of man you will have reason to be proud of. You are doing a very noble thing indeed in taking a baby to raise as you would one of your own. There is no telling what this will mean to his future.
There was also a receipt signed by (Mrs.) C.A. Yule.
Received from Mrs. Bentley, six and 00. dollars: cost of adoption papers.
It broke my heart to think that Pop, who had made millions with his quick mind and canny business sense, cost six dollars.
Todd looked up when he finished reading.
“I’m hoping these documents will help me gain access to the original documents so I can find the names of Pop’s birth parents,” I said.
He said nothi
ng.
“Can you help me?” I prompted.
Todd shook his head. “Pennsylvania guards its adoption records very carefully. In fact, they are literally locked in a safe for protection. It would be very difficult for you to gain access to your own adoption records without written permission from the birth parents. To gain access to someone else’s is virtually impossible.”
I frowned. “There must be a way. I see stories on TV all the time about parents and kids finding each other.”
He shrugged. “I know there are many adoption advocacy groups that help break the seal of adoption, convinced that knowing is preferable to not knowing.”
“Maybe it is,” I said, thinking of the yearning in my heart to know something that was three generations removed.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not an expert in adoption or adoption law. I haven’t thought much about it to be frank. That being the case, I’ll have to research this issue before I can give you my final thoughts and recommendations.”
“And how long will that take?”
I must have sounded more confrontive than I’d meant to because he sat up straighter and said in a cool voice, “I can have some information for you by mid-week.”
I looked at him thoughtfully. Mr. Havens would have had it for me by tonight or tomorrow at the latest—even if tomorrow was Saturday. He’d have underlings like Martin poring through books looking for precedents and loopholes and options. I was missing those perks of power more with each passing minute.
“May I ask why you’re conducting this search?” Todd asked. “For medical reasons?”
“Not really,” I said. “I think that if there were to be any medical problems, they’d have surfaced in the past ninety-two years, don’t you? I just want to know where we come from.”
“Three generations is pretty far back to trace.”
“My grandparents raised my brother and me,” I said. “So three generations doesn’t feel that far removed to me.”
He nodded, his hands folded on his desk as if he was about to pray. “I still feel compelled to inform you that you may be wasting a lot of time and money on this project, Miss Bentley.”
“Mr. Reasoner,” I began. My Bentley assertiveness doesn’t show often, but when it did, Pop always said everyone should duck, and duck fast. “I’m not asking for your approval of my project. I am merely seeking your legal expertise.” I gave him my imitation of Mrs. Smiley’s gimlet eye. “Your friend Martin Somebody from the offices of Havens, Smith, and Associates recommended you.”
Todd looked surprised. “Martin Stewart?”
I shrugged. “He seemed to feel you were more than competent.” I unfortunately made that fact sound somewhat questionable.
He clenched his fine jaw at my lack of conviction but only nodded. “Res ipsa loquitor,” he said.
“Yes.” I rose. There was no way I was going to ask what in the world he’d just said. With my nose deplorably high in the air I asked, “Shall I make an appointment with Mrs. Smiley or will you call when you are finally prepared?” I emphasized finally just a little bit.
Suddenly one corner of his mouth twitched while he leveled his deep-brown eyes at me. “May I inquire as to your profession, Miss Bentley?”
Nonplussed by the quick change of subject, I replied, “I’m a writer.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Of course. A wordsmith.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you use them well.”
“Res ipsa loquitor,” I said, hoping I wasn’t saying that the judge would be back in a minute.
Chapter 3
Saturday morning I sat on my bed at the Horse and Buggy, pillows plumped against the headboard behind me, Lancaster area phone book in my lap. I turned to the B’s to look up Biemsderfer.
“Rainbow, I am very nervous.” Understatement. “What if there’s a bunch of them? What if there are none of them?” A wild thought struck me, and I gave a gurgled laugh. “At least if I’m a Biemsderfer, I won’t have to change my monogram.”
Unimpressed by the fact that any towels I had wearing B’s could remain in use, Rainbow yawned and settled herself more comfortably on the pillow she’d claimed as hers.
I was undeterred by her lack of interest. “This whole situation is making me nuts. I hate surprises. I hate the unexpected.”
She probably didn’t react because she already knew this fact about me.
My brother, Ward, always told me in great disgust, “You’ve got no sense of adventure.” Ward is six feet tall, handsome in a Christopher Bale sort of way, and has enough energy to make me tired just hanging out with him. “Surprises are what make things fun,” he said.
“For you maybe. But I say, ‘Remember Disney World.’”
Remember Disney World was my personal battle cry whenever I needed to remind my family that I was different.
Mom and Pop had planned a surprise vacation to that magical place the fall Ward was nine and I was seven. We kids didn’t know we were going anywhere until we got up one morning and Pop drove us to the airport instead of school.
I couldn’t handle the spontaneity of that move. I became cranky, moody, and an all-around pill, and we hadn’t even checked our luggage yet.
“You didn’t tell me,” I cried to Mom that night as we sat on the bed in our beautiful room at the Grand Floridian. Pop and Ward had gone down to the lobby to listen to the pianist or, more likely, to get away from me. “You’ve got to tell me! I need to know ahead of time!”
That night as I cried myself to sleep, despairing that no one understood, I heard Pop tell Mom, “We will never surprise her again. Do you understand?”
In spite of his dictum, which, incidentally, neither of them kept, I’d found a surprise like I’d never known two weeks ago. A surprise that sent me reeling.
The day of the surprise, Pop had been dead only two months. He’d been an old man of ninety-two when he died. His spirit and mind remained keen to the end, even though he slowed down physically.
“I hate this,” he’d growl when he could no longer lift a box loaded with books or bring in more than two pieces of firewood at a time.
He went to the office every day for at least a few hours, just long enough to tell Ward how to run the show. Then Pop had a stroke that incapacitated him. He knew and we knew he’d never recover his speech or his motor skills. He knew and loved God, and I think he asked the Lord to take him. His death was a release and a relief to all three of us—Pop, Ward, and me. Mom had died three years earlier, just before their fifty-ninth anniversary.
I’d never left the home I grew up in, the home made vibrant by Pop’s presence. I’d seen no reason to. I was happy there, loved there. Now Pop had left, and the emptiness in my heart and the house yawned before me like a great gray chasm. I knew I had to climb down into that pit of sorrow to be able to climb out the other side to normalcy, whatever that was to be without Pop.
I got through the first weeks after his death by finishing my latest book. I had a deadline looming and I wrote nonstop day and night. I schlepped around in sweats or my nightgown, ate junk food and home-delivered pizzas, and emerged only long enough to go to church on Sunday. My characters lived such full lives that most of the time I was able to ignore the emptiness in mine.
But eventually the book reached its conclusion, I sent it off to my publisher, and I came back from the post office to that empty brick Georgian. In the past, every time I finished a book, Pop and Mom, then just Pop, took me out to a fancy restaurant for a spare-no-expense dinner.
“To Cara, the great American novelist,” Pop would always toast me, flashing his warm, magnetic smile. I knew he knew I wasn’t that good, but he was acknowledging that I was succeeding in a field where many failed, even if he thought the field I was competing in was effete. I knew he never read my books, but I didn’t take it personally. He never read anything but the Bible, the Wall Street Journal, and business magazines. It was the dinner and the toast that told me that even though he couldn’t comprehend that I actually like
d writing romances, he was proud of me.
As I entered that silent, still house after my trip to the post office, it hit me that there would be no dinner and no toast ever again. It was now just me and my microwave.
Pain unfurled in my chest, a black banner expanding, filling my lungs until I could barely breathe. The weight and mass of distress gripped my heart so tightly I felt I had to push on my chest to make certain it continued to beat, sort of self-administered CPR.
I don’t know how long I lay on the sofa in the living room trying to survive the pain, but the bright, early June day had become dusky by the time Rainbow climbed on me, her four little feet like four nails being driven into my chest. She stood over my face, staring down at me in her slightly haughty, intimidating way.
“Don’t let her push you around, Cara,” Pop told me the first time Rainbow stared me down and got an extra serving of Fancy Feast. “She’ll be a bully if you let her. Remember, you’re bigger. You’re the boss.”
The problem was that no one had told Rainbow that bigger meant boss. We had to keep reminding her.
That evening I grabbed her and hugged her tightly. Her silky orange, black, and white fur soothed with its touch.
She struggled against my hug, broke free, and waited at a safe distance for me to get up and let her out. When I didn’t, she climbed back up on me, and when she reached my face, she put her nose on mine.
I sighed, surrendered, and sat up. She jumped to the floor. She had been Pop’s cat, sitting on his lap purring, lying on the back of his chair, one paw on his shoulder, sleeping beside him in the king-sized bed he and Mom had shared. She had only recently stopped her intense grieving for Pop, and I had become the focus of her attention. She didn’t love many, but she had apparently decided to love me. I think I alleviated her grief somewhat just because I was present. I know she made me feel better.