Lucky Girl

by Mei-Ling Hopgood

  “Move closer together. Smile for the camera.”

  She tried her best. Ma stood next to the nun, squinted in the springtime sunshine and forced a faint smile to her lips. She reached out and touched her fidgeting baby’s arm. It was the best she could do. Maybe I might see this photo one day and sense the apology that shuddered in the depth of her heart.

  4

  THE ODD COUPLE

  Taylor, Michigan, 1972

  Rollie Hopgood was not Chris’s type. At all.

  She knew him through the small universe of teachers in Taylor, Michigan, where she had recently taken a job. Who didn’t know Hopgood? Rollie was a bald, bushy-bearded art teacher and well-known union leader in the blue-collar Detroit suburb. He led the union meetings, and he told everyone what to do and how to do it. You either adored him or despised him, depending on the side you were on. You definitely could never forget him once you met him, or heard him. He filled rooms with his presence and his opinions. On the picket line, he rarely needed a megaphone, thanks to his booming voice.

  Diane Christner—nicknamed Chris by friends and family—was a quiet blonde, thoughtful and meticulous, who had grown up in a suburb of Flint. Chris had accepted a job as an elementary school teacher in Taylor just before her first marriage failed.

  She and Rollie were paired together during a bowling outing. The players with the higher bowling averages were paired with those with lower scores; Rollie had bowled a perfect 300 before; Chris averaged around 150. He was divorced, too, and seemed interested in her. He complimented her game and hinted that they should go out sometime. She tried to change the subject; his boldness intimidated her.

  A friend slipped Rollie her phone number. He called, and the two talked for almost two hours. He convinced her to go out with him. She was single now, a bit bored and lonely. Why not?

  He showed up on the steps of her Southgate apartment wearing stylish red plaid pants and shiny black shoes and carrying flowers. He arrived in a blue Porsche, and told her that he thought they could go to Northville Downs, a nearby horseracing track. Chris had never bet on horses before.

  “Sounds fun,” she said.

  To her pleasant surprise, Hopgood was not slick. He did not drive or talk fast. He politely held open the car door. He patiently taught her how to place a bet on a horse and gave her money to place those bets. He spoke passionately about the things he loved: teaching, his students, the union movement, baseball. They discussed their profession and all the people they knew in common. Chris’s ex-husband had been a scientist, a brain, and she always felt silly talking about her career with him. Rollie loved what they did for a living. His enthusiasm and good humor charmed her. Joy spread like sunlight, lighting up his blue eyes and opening a wide, toothy grin, silver-filled molars and all. He had a laugh like a whip.

  They talked about everything. He told her about his childhood in Taylor, she mentioned her family in Burton, Michigan. He attended Western Michigan University, where he briefly pitched on the baseball team; she attended Adrian College. They both said they wanted children and were ready now. They gabbed all night and did not realize the sun had risen until the paperboy came to her door.

  Chris had never been out with a man like Rollie before, so attentive and compassionate. He made her feel safe, like he would take care of everything she needed before she knew what she needed. She was quiet and he was loud. He thrived on attention; she liked her privacy. They were yin and yang, but they seemed to fit just right. She knew immediately, when she felt the pounding of her heart, the lightening of limbs and head, that she had fallen in love. It was a connection she had never made before. He seemed smitten as well. Surely, he would call the next day. Surely.

  But Saturday passed and Sunday passed. And then Monday. Chris was shocked.

  Play it cool, she thought. When he did call on about Wednesday, she acted like the minutes had not crept by.

  Rollie asked her out again and she agreed. They met for dinner, and he explained that he had gone out with three different women he had been seeing casually, one each night. He told her that he needed to break the news to all of them. He told them that he had met the One.

  Chris was the One.

  They had seemed an unlikely pair, but immediately they were inseparable. Rollie moved into Chris’s apartment within days. Three weeks after they met, on a Friday, September 15, 1972, they invited two friends out to lunch in downtown Detroit. Motown continued to smart from the race riots of 1967, but Rollie still loved the city. They met in the City-County Building on Woodward Avenue, where sharply dressed lawyers and politicians rushed in and out of heavy doors. Chris wore a beige suit, with a short jacket and a skirt that cut above the knee and complimented her shapely legs. In the lobby, Chris and Rollie announced to their pals that they were getting married and they wanted them to be witnesses.

  Are we insane? Chris asked herself as she stole a second for herself in a quiet corridor before the ceremony. She was not impulsive, but she was thirty and he was thirty-two. They had both suffered the trauma of failed marriages at a time when divorce was neither common nor socially accepted. They knew what they wanted. They wanted each other and they wanted a family, and they weren’t going to go about it in the conventional way.

  She straightened her suit, and she and Rollie took their place in a queue of couples. They stood before a judge and repeated the generic oaths, though they made sure that neither of them had to say the word obey. The judge pronounced them husband and wife; they kissed and went out to lunch to celebrate.

  That evening, the newlyweds crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Windsor, Ontario, for an international wedding night. They called their parents from a Holiday Inn room that overlooked the Detroit River.

  “Guess what?” Rollie told his mother. “I’m lying next to the most beautiful woman in the world. And she’s my wife.” The Taylor School District was abuzz with the gossip that the uproarious Rollie Hopgood had married the composed Diane Christner. Did you even know they were dating? They are sooo different! How could this possibly work?

  The couple drove home on Sunday, stopping in Pontiac to attend a Detroit Lions football game. They each wore the wedding rings that Rollie had designed and made at a Dearborn jewelry shop, yellow gold on a black background, straight, narrow lines with circles on the ends, each nestled perfectly against the other.

  ROLLIE HAD PROBLEMS having children with his first wife and had a hunch that he was sterile. Tests confirmed his suspicions, so he and Chris began to inquire about adoption. Yet, in the eyes of the many adoption agencies at the time, the couple had an endless number of strikes against them: They were both teachers, and Chris was not willing to quit working. They were older and both had been divorced. Plus, they did not practice a religion, which some adoption agencies considered a problem. Chris’s family had never been particularly religious when she was young, although they did attend church regularly. Rollie rejected organized religion after he almost died in a horrible car accident when he was about twenty. He was in the backseat of a car that was hurling way too fast down a city street when another car struck his. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and crashed through the windshield, nearly splitting his skull. His minister came to his bedside in the hospital and told him he was being punished for not attending church that weekend. Rollie never went back.

  My parents’ prospects did not look good. Then a friend who worked in the school district told them about her sister-in-law, Maureen Sinnott, a nun who worked as a midwife in rural Taiwan.

  Chris and Rollie wrote to Maureen, introducing themselves politely and directly: “We want a child, and we hope you can help.”

  ALMOST EVERYONE WANTS to be a nun at some point, at least that’s what Maureen Sinnott once thought. Religion was an essential part of her childhood in Allen Park. Her parents prayed with a black rosary every night before going to bed, said grace before every meal, and attended church at least once a week. Maureen deeply admired the nuns at St. Frances Cabrini Grade School and
St. Francis Xavier High School. When she was in eighth grade, she even asked her parents if she could become a nun.

  “Not yet,” they said.

  Maureen asked again when she graduated from high school.

  “Why don’t you get a professional degree first,” suggested her parents, who were not opposed but wanted her to think hard about such a big decision. Maureen started to date a nice man. He wanted to marry her. She loved him but knew she had to try her dream, to follow that part of her heart to see where it led.

  In 1960, at eighteen years old, she took her first plane ride ever to Boston to join the Medical Missionaries of Mary, an Irish order of nuns. She liked the order because their hair showed beneath their veils and they wore slightly shorter skirts than in other orders, just below knee length. They seemed more feminine, more like her. She studied there for three years and professed in 1963. She then went on to nursing school and later Ireland to study midwifery. She loved this world of intimacy with God, of sisterhood. She was wide-eyed and full of hope that she could do good in the world. She wanted to go to Africa because she had seen movies about missionaries who saved people in the bush. Later in life, she would turn against going to foreign countries with the goal of converting the natives, but at that time she believed spreading the word of God was the most meaningful thing she could do.

  In 1967 the Superiors asked if she would go to Formosa.

  Where is that? she thought. She went to the library and read about this place off the coast of China, known to the Western World as Formosa and to its inhabitants as Taiwan, which means “the terraced bay” in Chinese. Taiwan was completely new and seemed exciting.

  “I’ll go,” she said. At twenty-six years old, she flew west, to California, Seattle, and then Taiwan. She spent two years in the city of Hsinchu, where she studied Mandarin with other nuns and priests. They sat in a small classroom almost every day, all day, reading, writing, reciting. “Wo … Ni … Ta …”

  In 1969 Maureen began her time as a midwife in southern Taiwan. She took the train to Kaohsiung from Taipei and then the bus to Taitung. She was enchanted by the simplicity of the town back then: the palm trees; the bald Buddist nuns on their old bicycles; the short, one-story buildings, except for St. Mary’s Hospital, which had two levels. She lived with three Irish nuns on the second floor of the convent next to St. Mary’s. The dozen or so local nurses lived beneath them in cramped quarters on the first floor. From the convent, she could see a Chinese temple. During the mornings, farmers hauled buckets of manure on bamboo poles laid across their shoulders. The nuns and nurses ate vegetables and rice for most meals and sometimes fish on special days. They didn’t have luxuries such as sugar, sweets, or milk for their morning coffee, but Maureen loved this bare-bones existence.

  Many of the mothers who came to the hospital were poor women who had been matched through arranged marriages. They often were very young girls with old husbands. Maureen and the nuns took turns staying up at night, attending to patients and babies. At St. Mary’s, the midwives were expected to do procedures that they might not in other places, such as delivering twins and handling cases of placenta previa, in which a lowlying placenta endangers the health of the mother and fetus. Resources and help were short, so everyone pitched in.

  At first, Maureen struggled with Mandarin. For example, for a long time she thought she was asking women who did not plan to breast-feed: “Would you like your breast milk dried up?” The women stared blankly at her. Weeks after she had been repeating this phrase over and over, the nurses and the patient broke into a shy giggle.

  “Why are you laughing?” Maureen asked.

  “Because you are asking us if our cow’s milk is dried up.”

  Maureen had worked at the hospital for about three years when her sister-in-law in Michigan wrote to her to tell her about two friends, Rollie and Chris Hopgood, who wanted to adopt a baby.

  “Maybe you could help them,” she suggested.

  Sometimes babies, especially girls, were abandoned at the hospital. Not often, but once in a while. It was not something Maureen normally did; she was swamped with work and patients at the hospital, and it would take considerable perseverance and time to pull this off.

  I will do it, she decided, unaware of just how tough it would be.

  • • •

  May 15, 1973

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hopgood,

  Thank you very much for your letter and I want to assure you that I will do everything possible to help you. Unfortunately the agency that had given me such hope now tells me that it is the policy of Taiwan to completely resist adoptions to foreigners at the present time. He said that in the future it will be possible again. Please do not get too downhearted because I still plan to contact other agencies … It would mean a lot to me if I could help you to adopt a Chinese baby because I am so in love with the Chinese people and their culture that I want to share this love with everyone. I know life would be so much more meaningful for you if you had a baby … Keep optimistic—if possible. I will do my very best to help you. Love, Sr. Maureen

  July 9, 1973

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hopgood,

  It has been a while since I wrote to you because until now I have not had any news. But on my way up to meet Danny [Maureen’s brother], I stopped at a convent. They said that they have a baby for adoption, a one month old girl who was abandoned on a train so she has no known parents which means that the adoption procedure would be very simple and you could have her within 1 or 2 months. The only problem is that she has a lip/cleft palate but with surgery she could look normal. Nowadays this type of surgery is commonplace. If you are doubtful as to what harelip/cleft palate means, you could ask your doctor. I would advise you to adopt this baby because there seems to be very few babies available, and because her parents abandoned her the adoption procedure will not involve all the red tape in ordinary cases. I am going to see the baby in Taipei Monday and then I will await your answer … I think it would be beautiful to give love to a little girl who was abandoned but this must be your own decision … Love, Reen

  Rollie and Chris wrote back that they could take the child but then received this letter:

  August 20, 1973

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hopgood,

  Yesterday a baby girl was born in our hospital (perfectly normal) and the 21 year old mother wants to give her away. The reason: because the father of the child was already married but he didn’t tell this woman until she was already pregnant. They have already (she and her mother—the mother’s permission is very important in Chinese society) agreed to give you the baby if you want her. So now I must ask you if you are willing to accept an illegitimate baby? To tell the truth, I think that would be the only kind of a child that the parents would be willing to let go to the U.S. Please talk it over and then let me know what you decide as soon as possible. Love, Maureen

  Chris and Rollie again were willing to take the child. However, this postcard arrived ten days later:

  August 30, 1973

  Quite a few of our [letters] from here have gone astray lately so I am writing twice to tell you about the beautiful baby I have for you. Since I wrote you the letter last week I have another one—much more beautiful and legitimate. So I am looking forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. She is tiny and has long black hair. I’m in love with her. Her parents already have 5 girls and cannot afford to raise another. Her 5 sisters are very pretty. Love, Sr. Maureen

  The Hopgoods told Maureen to proceed with the adoption.

  Maureen advised that my parents come to Taiwan with a letter from the police saying they were good citizens and with financial records showing that they could support the child. She told them they might have to appear in court with the birth parents. On September 28, 1973, she wrote:

  They are a beautiful couple and I know that you will love them. They have never mentioned money to me but it is a Chinese custom that the adopting parents would give $75–100 American dollars. The court fees should not exceed
$100.

  Did you receive the photos of your new baby? She is much more beautiful than the photos!! I am anxiously awaiting your arrival … God Bless you, Maureen

  October 4, 1973

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hopgood,

  Today I received this very disappointing letter from Fr. O’Neill who is in charge of Catholic Relief Services and has a lot of experience helping people adopt babies. But please don’t be too disappointed because with God’s help we will find a way. My purpose in writing you is just to tell you [you] had better wait in making definite plans about coming to Taiwan. Please forgive me because I know that I have caused you so much trouble in already writing to tell you to prepare.

  In a letter to Maureen, dated October 4, 1973, Francis O’Neill, director of Catholic Relief Services in Taipei, Taiwan, wrote:

  I am afraid you are going to run into difficulties in the case that you are handling for your friend. The child has both natural parents still alive and they are willing to go to court with you which is very good but I do not think you understand that the American consulate here has a regulation for the child whose natural parents are still alive. The Chinese legal procedure is very simple but the U.S. Consulate requires that such a child remain in the country of its origin for one or maybe two years before they will issue a visa for the child to go to America. The reason for this I am told is that the U.S. people must be assured there will no “kick back” from natural parents … Sincerely yours, Francis K. O’Neill