by S. E. Rose
Lance: Great – I’ll come get you at 8.
Lily: AM?
Lance: Of course
Lily: That’s early
Lance: I want to maximize my time with u
Lily: Alrighty then – c u at 8
Lance: [thumbs-up emoji]
I roll my eyes and get started with my homework helping.
On Saturday morning, we get a new sibling pair, nine-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. They walk in shyly with a social worker in tow. She introduces them to me. The boy, Alfonso, is adorable and looks more like a six-year-old, and the girl, Alicia, also looks younger than her real age. They cling to each other and grip the backpacks that carry all their worldly possessions. I show them to their rooms. They seem alarmed that they won’t be in the same room. I explain the girl- and boy-room thing to them. They still seem unsure. I can see Alfonso’s lip quiver, but he tries to fight the tears; he wants to maintain his big boy status. My heart goes out to them. I pull Patricia over as she walks past us and ask if I might be able to use the spare room downstairs to have a slumber party with them so they can spend their first night together and not be so scared. She shakes her head and explains that we can’t break the rules even if we mean well. I nod.
Later that night when I go to have story time, I strategically place myself on a chair in the middle of all the rooms. I ask the kids if they can hear me and they say yes. I ask if they are sure and some kids shrug. So I tell them tonight story time is special and that they can all bring their blankets to the doorways and sit and listen there. The kids who have been here a while have wide eyes as they listen to my instructions. Clearly, they don’t ever get to break the routine. I shrug; Patricia’s busy putting down five little kids and Yenny is already in her room for the night. So who would possibly care? I see Alfonso and Alicia make eye contact and I watch as they visibly relax. It brings a smile to my face and I start to read the next two chapters of Harry Potter. It’s interesting reading it in Spanish. As I finish, I can tell the youngest kids are having trouble keeping their eyes open. I tell them all to scurry into bed and they do. I let Alfonso and Alicia give each other a hug goodnight and then I go to my room. I look through my clothes and find a cute skirt and top and some comfortable sandals for in the morning.
I’m up at 7:00 a.m. to shower and then I wake the kids and get them eating breakfast as I wait for Lance. Yenny sees me. She asks if I’ll be back tonight. I contemplate this for a moment and then I smile and say probably in the morning. She says to enjoy my night and to sleep in on Monday because with the festivities the kids switch to a holiday schedule that is more relaxed and she can handle it till I get there. I thank her and tell her to let me know if I can return the favor sometime. She nods.
I hear a car pulling up and I grab my big purse quickly with some belongings for an overnight stay and then head downstairs to find Lance in the playroom playing with Leidy. She is making him put on a boa and tiara and then hands him a wand. He plays along with her as she dubs him her fairy godmother. I try to stifle a laugh, but I snort and they both look over at me. He looks incredibly ridiculous, as he sits in the tiny chair that looks like it should break at any second under his massive frame. It makes my heart melt a bit to see him with Leidy. She waves at me and asks if I can play. I play for a little while with them and then I explain that Lance and I have errands to run all day and that she should be a good girl and maybe Alicia will come play her fairy godmother. She nods enthusiastically, and I call for Alicia as we walk out the door. I can see the two of them giggling as I realize Lance still has a tiara on his head.
“Interesting fashion choice, I was pegging you more for Prince Charming, but a fairy godmother is a unique look for a man your age,” I tease him as I reach up on my tippy toes and grab the tiara off his head.
He grins a big stupid grin at me. “Thanks, I think it could have been a good conversation starter, but perhaps Alicia might want that.” I hand it to her and then we walk out to his car.
He opens the door for me and then walks around and takes his seat. “I need to fill you in on what I found this week. I didn’t want to do it over the phone,” he starts and looks at me.
“What?” I ask suddenly feeling a bit nervous.
“Well, I went to the church, the one Dr. Garcia described, and I found the name of the priest. His name was Father James and he was American. He was there for about ten years. When he turned forty, about five years after you were born, they asked him to retire. Some records say that he currently lives at a monastery near Bogota,” he explains.
“And the bad news,” I ask.
“No records of your mother actually working there,” he says. “They claim some records got accidentally destroyed a few years ago.”
“Great,” I say with a sigh. “Another dead end. Although retirement at forty sounds awfully suspicious to me.”
He leans over and gives my thigh a squeeze. “I agree. I was wondering if you might be able to take a few days over the holiday and we could go and try to find him.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking of cutting my month short and going to Bogota earlier. I’m supposed to be here for two more weeks, but I was contemplating making it just one more week,” I say as I ponder this idea further. I see his face fall as he realizes I’d be leaving earlier. “You can come with me if you like?” He grins.
“I’d like that very much,” he says. “So what shall we do today?”
“Well, I have the number of a woman who used to work here and I want to try and find her,” I explain as I pull out my phone. “I need to call her first, although the reception is so bad here.”
“OK, let me start driving and you can call when we get closer to town,” he suggests.
“Perfect,” I answer. I see him quizzically look down at my giant purse. I smile at him. “Just in case,” I say with a smirk.
“Just in case?” he says coyly.
“Well, last time I ended up staying at your house, so I just thought…” I trail off not sure what to say. I can feel the heat rise on my skin and I look down at my hands as I fiddle with my fingers in my lap. Then I feel his hand on my chin pushing it up so I have to look at him.
“I was hoping you’d say that, gorgeous,” he says. “The place is still ours. Cody won’t be back until Tuesday.”
He pulls out into the road and we silently make our way through the curved mountain highway back toward town. He keeps his hand on my thigh and I relish the way it feels against my skin. His hand is warm and slightly calloused. I’m thinking about tonight and then I look down and see I have a signal. I pick up my phone and call Maria Anna.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hello,” she says. I find it funny that so many locals answer with an American greeting. I explain who I am and my reason for calling. She seems overjoyed to hear from me and says she remembers my brother and me quite well. I ask if she has time to see me today and she enthusiastically agrees to host us for lunch as soon as she gets back from her 9:00 a.m. Mass. I agree to meet at her house at eleven and I take down her address and thank her.
“Well, we have lunch plans,” I announce to Lance as I hang up the phone.
He glances down at the car clock. It’s only 8:45 a.m.
“Breakfast?” he asks.
“I already ate,” I say.
“Oh,” he says.
Then I remember something that my Colombian friend once told me. Churches keep all kinds of records, birth records, death records, marriage records, baptism records.
“Can we go to Mass?” I ask him.
He looks at me and laughs. “Mass?” he asks, frowning. “I’m not…I never go…” He trails off, clearly at a loss for words.
“No, no,” I say. “I may have been baptized Catholic, but I don’t practice it either. I haven’t been to church in years. It’s just the churches often keep lots of other records and if my mom did work at this church, then maybe she also went there to be baptized or perhaps they would have her confirmation records.”
He
nods, a look of relief flooding his face. I can’t help laughing. “Lance, the look on your face was priceless. Did you think you would enter the church and burst into flames or something?”
He shrugs. “Or something.”
“Very funny,” I say sarcastically and roll my eyes.
We arrive at the church while Mass is still in full swing. I suggest ducking into the Juan Valdez across the street for a cup of coffee while we wait. Services here take over an hour. Two cups of coffee later, we make our way back over to the church.
I find a nun off to one side and ask her about looking at records. She looks at me strangely and I decide to only explain part of my situation. I’m an orphan looking for some baptism papers of my mother’s. She changes her tune after that and escorts us back to a room with an overwhelming number of cheap metal shelves lined with cardboard file boxes. She asks for my mother’s birthday. I tell her 1978, taking a guess since Dr. Garcia clearly thought she was fifteen. She walks down several aisles and asks Lance to come help her. They pull down four boxes and she sets them on a table. She asks us to be careful with the documents, but we may look.
We each start with a box. On my second box, I finally come across a document that bears my mother’s name.
“Lance, I found something,” I say as I hold up what looks like a baptism certificate. I read over it. “Rosa Miranda Rodriguez Ramirez was baptized on June 5, 1978. This says she was four months old, so that makes her birthday what, uh, February 5, 1978. Her father, Francisco Alberto Rodriguez Caraval, and her mother, Maria Liliana Ramirez de Rodriguez, and her godparents, godmother was Lorena Daniella Abando Aguilar, and her godfather was Felipe Jose Aguilar Sanchez.” I keep reading and then my mind goes blank as I see a name at the bottom. I grip Lance’s arm. “Lance, didn’t you say the priest’s name was Father James?”
“Yeah, why?” he asks, peering over my head to look at the paper. “Wait, that says Father James baptized her. That doesn’t make sense, the nun I spoke with said that he was only there five years before and then five years after she died.”
I sink into the seat behind me still clutching the document in my hand. “Something doesn’t add up,” I say and then take a few photos of the document with my phone. I hand the paper to Lance who reads it again and then puts it back in the box.
I look at my phone. “We should go,” I say. “We need to be there in twenty minutes.”
Chapter 9
Lily’s Playlist: “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” by U2
Lance pulls his car onto a small cobblestoned street. The houses are small and very close together. I can tell it’s a working-class neighborhood. I know Colombia is safer than in years past, but I also feel unsure in this neighborhood because I haven’t been here before and I don’t know if it’s a safe area or not.
“Lance, maybe you should stay with the car?” I suggest as I look at our surroundings.
“No way, I’m not letting you walk around here alone,” he says protectively as he surveys our surroundings.
“But the car—” I start.
He stops me. “The car doesn’t matter.” He reaches over to me and caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. I lean against it.
He pulls over in front of the house. It’s set apart from the others and has a small courtyard. It looks very old. We get out and Lance takes me by my arm and walks me to the gate. I ring a buzzer and a woman comes out. She looks older, maybe in her seventies.
She asks us to come in and introduces herself as Maria Anna. She has made us coffee and we sit in her living room and sip the warm beverage. I’m fidgety as this is my fourth cup today. She sees this and she reaches over and puts an old, wrinkled hand over mine and smiles like only a grandmother would. She tells me I haven’t changed a bit and then laughs. I smile at her. She asks me to tell her about my life in America. So I give her the five-minute-cheat-sheet version. She seems delighted that I have gone to college and she says a Hail Mary when I tell her my father died. When I tell her what I am doing and where I am staying, I see a distinct change in her face. I ask her if she can tell me anything, anything at all about my brother and me. She is cautious in what she says.
She says we were brought there when we were two days old. They couldn’t find any next of kin to claim us. She cared for us for three and a half years until we were adopted. She says I was a colicky baby and Nick slept all the time. She kept us in the same crib the entire time. She tells me my favorite fruits—watermelon and mango. I laugh and say that hasn’t changed. She says I had a stuffed bear that I named Didi. I pull out my phone and show her a photo. She confirms that it is the same one. I laugh again and tell her that Didi is safely stored at my mother’s house. She said Nick had a stuffed dog and I tell her that he still has that as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that she gave them to us.
She serves us a lunch of rice and beans. After a while, I can see her guard is down a bit and I ask her if she knew anything about my mother. She shakes her head vigorously, too vigorously and too quickly. She says all she knows is that my mother was very young and died in childbirth. She says they had no record of my father, but that he likely was another teenager. She covers up quickly saying it’s common that they get babies from young, unwed mothers who can’t afford to care for the baby. I ask if she knows the names of any of my other family members and I quickly rattle through them. She frowns at my grandmother’s name but says she can’t recall. I ask her when she retired and she says a few years after we were there. She was getting too old and needed to slow down. I nod and thank her for her time. On the way out, I give her a big hug and thank her for caring for my brother and me the best she could. She grips me hard and whispers in my ear that she is proud of us. I ask her to call me if she remembers anything else or if she just wants to talk again. I ask Lance to take a photo of us, so I can show Nick the woman who cared for us.
We get back to his car and it is still in one piece. “Where to?” he asks.
I sit and think for a moment. “Can we go back to the church?”
“Sure, why?” he asks as he pulls out.
“I want to talk with that nun again,” I explain. “I want to see if anyone there might remember my grandparents or godparents.”
“OK,” he says and heads back to where we started our day.
I find the nun we spoke with earlier and ask if she can help us. She says she doesn’t know of those names; however, an older nun there might remember them. She asks us to take a seat. We sit for a while, maybe twenty minutes and finally a very old nun comes walking up to us.
“I’m Sister Margaret,” she says in British English. “Sister Martha says you were asking about some of our community members.”
“Yes,” I explain. “I was adopted and am looking for my maternal grandparents. I don’t know if they are even still living.” I show her the photo on my phone. She lifts up spectacles to her eyes and reads the names.
“The name Rodriguez is very common here. I might recognize photos if you had any. The name Lorena Daniella Abando Aguilar is familiar. I believe she was in my Sunday school class. I think your godfather might be her cousin. Come with me,” she says and she waves a hand toward a dark hallway. We follow her down the corridor and up a flight of stairs. Eventually, we come to a small classroom and an even smaller office. She opens a file drawer and flicks through various files and then pulls out a photograph.
“This is her,” she says as she scans the back of the photo. “The second girl on the right.”
I take the photograph in my hand and look. The photo must be a class photo. All the kids sit in neat lines, some sitting and some standing behind them. They look to be about 8-16 years old. Lorena looks about fifteen or sixteen years old, if I had to guess.
“I have others, just a moment. I taught that class for nearly twenty years,” she says as she hands me a stack of similar photos.
I glance over the others and my heart stops beating. I flip a photograph over quickly and my hand flies to my mout
h.
“Lily?” Lance’s arm is around me and he holds me up as my knees go out from under me.
“Oh dear!” Sister Margaret exclaims. “Shall I fetch you a water, love?”
Lance helps me sit and I just stare at a face that looks just like mine. “This is my mother,” I manage to whisper after a few moments. The photo has no last names, but Rosa is written on the back and I cannot mistake the face. Sister Margaret takes the photo and looks at it carefully under the light.
“Oh my,” she says and she looks at me. I can tell she wants to say something, something very important, but instead, she just shrugs. “You look just like her. I had forgotten her. That was what, early nineties? Ahhh, yes, 1992. It was a very long time ago. I only remembered Lorena because her youngest sister became a nun and worked here with me for some time before she passed away of cancer about fifteen years ago. I’m sorry I don’t remember her better, so many children passed through here. So many young unwed mothers.” She shakes her head, clearly sad at the state of society.
“Sister Margaret,” I start, “do you remember Father James?”
Her eyes change when I say his name. The warmth that had filled them leaves and they become darker, colder. “Of course,” she says almost defensively. “He was here for a few years before he retired. I think he went off to some retirement monastery near Bogota.”
“Right, but was he here earlier too?” I inquire. I show her his name on my mother’s baptism certificate.
“Perhaps he was here for a short time while he trained? I didn’t come till two years later,” she explains.
“Oh, I see,” I say. “Is that common, that a priest studies somewhere and then goes back there?”
“Sometimes,” she says and then adds, “God works in mysterious ways.”
“I can’t agree enough,” I say to her. Her smile returns at that and she politely suggests we should be on our way as she needs a nap.
“Would you mind if I take a photo of this?” I ask. “I have never seen my mother before.”
“Certainly, dear,” she says and then in what seems like a moment of weakness or an inner struggle with the angel winning, she hands me the photo. “You keep it. I’m an old lady and I certainly don’t need it any longer. I think I have the negative in that file anyhow.”