Picture Us In The Light

by Kelly Loy Gilbert

  A smiling white woman opened the door. “Hello!” she said loudly, the way people talk to you when they aren’t sure if you speak English, like maybe half shouting will help stamp the words into your brain. “Can I help you?”

  It was an office building—there was a reception area with lounge chairs and magazines, and there was a front desk and then three open doors leading into offices. There were no children. Their daughter wasn’t there. The awful possibility my parents had refused to speak of all this time—that she was forever lost to them—reared up like a shadow behind them in the night.

  “Our daughter was brought here,” my dad said. I didn’t know him then, obviously, but I know the way his accent gets more pronounced when he’s nervous. He held out the picture of her—now a year and a half out of date—they’d brought along. “We’ve come to get her.”

  The woman’s smile wavered. “Well!” she said brightly. “How nice of you to think of us—I’m not sure if…” Her voice trailed off, and she glanced behind her toward the rest of the office. There was no one else there. “I’m not sure I understand your question, but I can put you in touch with—”

  “We know she was brought here. She was sold here.”

  The woman’s smile slid off. Nothing of the sort happened here, she insisted. This was an organization that provided homes to the orphans of the world, rescuing them from lives of suffering. They were bringing light and hope to children, not snatching children away from their parents. When my parents told her they knew about Hu and about the orphanage, they knew about the babies bought and sold, she denied it, her voice rising higher and higher.

  I’ve never known my dad to be anything remotely approximating violent, not even close, so I can’t imagine what happened next. He lunged forward and caught the woman by the throat, squeezing until her face turned red. This time it was my mom who screamed.

  “My daughter,” he said. “Tell me where she is.”

  He let go. The woman doubled over, gasping for breath. She clutched at her neck. She tried to reach for a phone, but my dad caught her wrist. “Tell me where my daughter is.”

  The woman gave in. Her hands trembled as she went to a filing cabinet and pulled out a stack of files.

  “These are just the files on the children. The adoptions are closed. The information about adoptive families isn’t kept here.”

  She let my parents comb through the files, looking for their daughter. In the bottom third of the stack, there she was: Baby Girl, with a photo. According to the file, the unnamed man who’d brought her to the orphanage was her father. He had chosen to relinquish her for adoption to give her a better life.

  “This is her,” my mom said. “This is our daughter.”

  The woman was having difficulty breathing, less because of any injury and more out of fear. She stared at the file.

  “You have no proof,” the woman said, her voice shaking. “You have an outdated photograph, and that’s all. We were told the man who brought her to the orphanage was her father. We would never participate in stealing children.”

  My dad was trembling. His fingers burned from where he’d used them to hurt another person. “Tell us where she is,” he said. “This is our daughter. We have proof. We’ll tell the authorities you’re trafficking children.”

  “Please believe me,” the woman said. She reached out a hand to my mother, imploring. “Please. I have two children. I’d tell you if I could. The information isn’t here.”

  “Then where is it?” my mother said. She didn’t feel some kind of shared maternal bond, if that’s what the woman was getting at—she felt rage and injustice, since the other woman had her two children still, and my mother had none.

  “We don’t store it. Some of our adoptive parents don’t want their children coming back to search.” She looked at my dad again, and shrank back. “I can—I can give you the names of everyone who’s done business with us. That’s all I can do.”

  And so she let them go through all the files and make copies of all the charges billed to adoptive parents from the past year. It was nothing. Compared to the feeling of their daughter safe in their arms, it was less than nothing.

  They wanted vengeance. They wanted someone to pay for the loss of their child. But the woman was young and had children herself, and in the end it was impossible to blame only her. So they left her there, the same way they’d left the baby and their homeland to begin with, the same way they’d leave so much more. That was the beginning, maybe, of how my parents had grown so skilled at leaving things behind.

  They were going to tell someone, but who was there to tell? Back in the US, my parents looked for a lawyer, but they had no remaining money and no real case. Their daughter was gone, that part was true, but it was going to be next to impossible to prove that any kind of crime had occurred on US soil. Likely none had.

  There were forty-seven families from the accounting statements. And that was all there was—just names and routing numbers. They were common names, mostly, the kind of names where googling didn’t narrow anything down but did the opposite: suddenly the world exploded with Susan Cerras, Helen Starks. They remember the names still.

  For seven years they searched. They posted her picture in private adoption forums; they worked their way through phone books; they scoured blogs and public Flickr albums and newspaper articles. When they could afford it, they took trips to try to find the families they’d tracked down, each time staked out somewhere watching for their daughter, only to find an adopted Chinese son, or a girl the wrong age. It took seven years to find the Ballards, another two years to save the money to go see them. I was six years old.

  That was the trip from Texas, then: to go to her. They’d flown to California and gotten a car and made their way to the Ballards’ house and watched from the street, waiting to catch a glimpse of my sister. They were parked there on the side of the street when two girls came out of the Ballards’ house, and their hearts nearly stopped. They were convinced it was her, the eleven-year-old, the older of the two: their daughter. After all these years.

  They thought that if they talked to the Ballards, the Ballards would understand, and would relinquish the child. They would find a way to come up with the money the Ballards had paid for her, if that was the case. They would do whatever it took.

  The girls disappeared back inside. My parents knocked on the door. They clutched each other’s hands while they waited. My mom was tapping her feet up and down, picturing what it would feel like to finally hold her baby in her arms, trying to practice holding her face steady so she wouldn’t burst into tears at the sight of her daughter. Would she recognize her parents right away? Would they recognize her?

  The woman who answered the door was small and blond, well-dressed and perfectly made up.

  “Hi there,” she said, giving them a practiced smile. “What can I do for you?”

  My parents introduced themselves. My mom’s voice was shaking in anticipation. The woman’s eyes went wide, and she stepped back. “Clay!” she yelled. “Clay!”

  While Sheila Ballard was standing there, frozen in place, my parents stumbling over themselves to explain the situation, there were soft footsteps in the entryway and someone came up behind her. And there she was.

  My mom gasped. My dad’s eyes filled with tears. They both started toward her, crossing the threshold into the house, but then before they could touch her Sheila Ballard yanked the girl back. “Clay!” she screamed. “Joy, come here!”

  This time he showed up, his footsteps quick and heavy. “Who is it?” They were all talking over each other, my parents trying to get close to Joy, and finally my mom grabbed for her, and wrapped her arms around her. Her daughter; the first time in ten years she’d held her. Joy yelped in fear and reached for Sheila Ballard, crying “Mom, Mom,” and my own mom’s heart shriveled into something hard and small and parched. She clung tighter, desperate.

  Clay Ballard lunged for my mom. My dad crouched and rammed his elbow into Clay Balla
rd’s solar plexus as hard as he could, and Ballard doubled over in pain, struggling for breath. Then he went around behind the half wall and came back holding a gun and a camera.

  “Let go,” he yelled. “Sheila, call the cops. Let go of my daughter this instant.” He took a picture of my parents—my dad lunged at him, knocked the camera away, but he raised the gun higher. “Let go or I’ll shoot you.”

  Joy was crying, and when my mom let go, uncertain, Sheila Ballard swept Joy into her arms. She held her fiercely. Joy melted into her, and my parents felt that rift in every one of their cells.

  I was the reason they left. If Joy had been their only child, they would’ve stayed there; they would’ve fought to the death. But without talking, they each thought about me back home, playing obliviously with Ethan Parker-McEvoy, and so they stepped backward, and they let themselves be chased out with the gun, let themselves feel cold and afraid and panicked. Clay Ballard slammed the door behind them. They could still hear Joy crying inside.

  On the porch, on top of a bin of well-loved toys, was a small stuffed bear. My dad picked it up. He felt numb and hollow, ice coating him from inside. He thought he might be sick.

  On the way home, on the plane, my mom said, “I won’t lose another child.”

  My parents understood they weren’t the kind of people who would win this case in court—what did American courts know of leaving a child behind to work at a better life, of children traded on the black market? The Ballards were white and rich and well spoken and well connected; they’d given their daughter American clothing, an American bedroom, an American name. They had, in the eyes of the United States, legally adopted her and made her their own. No laws had been broken in the US, except by my parents, who’d broken into a house and attempted to kidnap a child who wasn’t legally theirs and who’d assaulted that child’s parents. It would be very easy for them to be deported. If the woman from the adoption agency had reported them in China, surely they’d eventually be caught there too.

  And that was no life for their second child. They would lose me to the foster care system if they were both incarcerated; I’d grow up shipped off from house to house, in and out of group homes, maybe, unloved and unwanted; they might never get me back. Maybe they’d never be permitted inside the US again, and then they’d lose me altogether.

  On the plane, the two of them sitting stiff and frozen in their seats, their grief too huge to fit into the whole vast land beneath them, my mom said, “Our daughter is dead.”

  My dad protested. He wanted to try again. But my mom insisted: now I was all they had in life. I was their only child. Their daughter was gone, and now they had a son who needed them, who had no one else in the world, and so they would give her up. They would consider her dead, and they would bury her.

  They didn’t know whether the adoption agency would have contacted the parents whose names were given out. Maybe they did, and maybe that’s why the Ballards were so instantly wary of my parents. Either way, the Ballards had gotten that photo of them; they’d gotten a picture of the rental car’s license plate. It was only a matter of time before the authorities showed up at their registered address in Texas.

  And so they went to California, where they weren’t expected, to be close to her. Even if they could never see her, even if their paths would never cross, something in them pulled them closer. California was big enough and Asian enough that no one would find them there; no one would think to look for them. They would go and change their names and change their identities, and they’d give up everything for their son. For me. They’d hope to cross paths with her someday, maybe, but then life went on, and that dream sputtered and died.

  They knew the Ballards were still looking for them. There was the plainclothes detective who’d come by right before we left Texas, the police report they saw. There was the blog post Sheila Ballard wrote and then deleted (then deleted the whole blog) about how they’d never feel safe and she’d never relax until my parents were behind bars.

  It’s not that I didn’t feel my sister there, even before my mom told me she was dead, because I did. I felt the way they grieved, but I was always wrong about what it was for. I thought it was for a dead sister whose body had long ago broken down, her molecules dissipating back into the world, but I was wrong. It was the grief of parents who chose one child over another, who chose me as the one who lived.

  It’s six in the morning when I slip past my mom, who’s passed out on the couch, and walk out to the concrete stairwell and call Harry. He’s probably not up yet, but it’s the longest I could possibly wait. I haven’t slept all night.

  He’s groggy when he answers. I say, “Did I wake you up?”

  “No.”

  He’s lying. I can’t tell from his voice, though, if it’s just that or that he doesn’t want to talk to me. Maybe, unlike me, he hasn’t been waiting for his phone to ring.

  I tell him all of it, keeping my voice low, watching a pair of birds descend onto the dumpsters in the parking lot below. I feel like I’m talking forever. I can feel the force of his silence emanating back at me—that he’s stunned within it, at a loss, for once, for words.

  Or maybe I’m wrong there. Maybe it’s just that I already lost him.

  “I need to know if it’s her,” I say. “I can’t just sit here and wonder.”

  “What are you going to do? Are you going to talk to her?”

  I found out she’s stationed at the Tule Field Station on a fellowship. It’s in the Modoc National Forest, just outside Alturas, way up in the far northeast corner of the state four hundred miles from here. “She’s in California. I have to find a way to get to her.”

  Silence on his end again. “Where is she exactly?”

  “Near Oregon. It’s seven or eight hours by car.”

  “Ah.”

  The thing about asking someone for something huge is that you can’t take back the request—if they turn you down, you can’t ever pretend away that gap between what you stupidly thought they might give you and what you’re actually worth to them. I jam my free hand into my pocket and kick at a pebble on the concrete. “Will you take me?” I say to him, before I lose my nerve. “I know it’s far, but if it is really my sister—”

  “It’s eight hours?”

  “Yeah.”

  He could hang up on me, and I’d probably deserve it. He could also make me wait, or he could try to extract something from me first. He does neither one.

  “Yeah, sure, of course I’ll take you,” he says instead. “Just say when.”

  I shower and pack an overnight bag just in case while I’m waiting for Harry. I try to contain the noise as much as I can, peeking out every couple minutes to check whether my mom is still sleeping.

  In my room, I write a note: Going to Alturas with Harry. I’ll be careful, I promise. Don’t be worried. My phone lights up with Harry’s text telling me he’s downstairs.

  I haven’t lived here long enough to learn the creaky parts of the floor, and I stay light on my feet. I hit a loud spot near the kitchen and freeze. My mom stirs, and my heart explodes against my chest. I stand perfectly still. She stays asleep.

  I get to the door and reach for the deadbolt, turning it slowly and cringing at its soft metallic click. My mom stays asleep.

  I turn the knob and the door creaks open. The couch springs groan.

  “Daniel?” My mom sits up, squinting at me. “What are you doing?”

  My heart slams into my throat. “I’m—” My voice cracks. I cough. “I’m taking out the trash,” I lie. She doesn’t have her glasses on; she can’t tell what I’m holding. I imagine her panic when she finds my empty bed, my phone and wallet gone, how she’ll hold her breath each time footsteps come falling down the hallway.

  “Oh.” She yawns. “All right.” Then she mumbles something that sounds like be careful, but her voice slurs—the medication, probably—before dropping off. It has a deeper hold over her overnight. It’ll be a few hours before she wakes up and realizes
I lied.

  Harry’s car pulls into the lot just as I come out of the stairwell, and I am so happy to see him I feel weak. He leans over to unlock the passenger door. The air inside his car smells vaguely soapy, and his hair’s still wet.

  “Thank you,” I say. I toss my bag into the back seat, buckle my seat belt and turn to face him. “Seriously, Harry, thank you. I owe you.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it.”

  I swallow. I wish I’d never told him about the election. “And look—I’m sorry about—”

  He looks away. “Don’t mention it.”

  I know he means it, that he’d rather I didn’t. So I don’t.

  I’d almost forgotten how quickly he can change the mood. But he does it—he adjusts his rearview mirror, then holds up a brown paper bag with grease spots on the bottom. “It’s your lucky day: I stopped at Donut Wheel on my way here.”

  I’m so flooded with gratitude for him, for everything, it takes effort to sound normal. “Excellent.”

  “Maple bar or cinnamon twist?”

  “You pick.”

  He breaks both donuts in half, holding the bag out to me. I take the half maple bar and eat it while he backs out of the parking spot and onto the street. We’re doing it; we’re officially on the way. The donut is pillowy and sweet.

  “So where am I going?” he says. “Do you have an address?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my mouth full. “It’s a field station. Here.” I reach for his phone, which is charging on the dashboard, and tap in his password and put the address in. “Eight hours. There’s some traffic.”

  “You’re sure she’ll be there? You didn’t call her or anything, did you?”

  “No, I couldn’t find a phone number, just the address. But I’m assuming she’s just living there.”

  There’s a sort of a sense of magic that can envelop you, a sense of destiny, that feels vulnerable to parsing everything out carefully or overthinking things. I wonder fleetingly if maybe that’s what my dad always felt, and maybe that was his mistake—believing it would inoculate him. Whatever, though; that’s the whole thing about that feeling, that you have to leave it intact so it doesn’t evaporate on you. I change the subject. “Did you tell Regina you were coming?”