The Waiting

by Cathy LaGrow

  “Does it say who she was, Mom? Did you get her name?”

  “Yes.” Ruth’s gaze dropped to the page in front of her, a typewritten timeline of Case No. 359, her case.

  “Her name was Minnie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  LATE THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, Brian drove into Viroqua. After a long day on the road, he had dropped Teresa off at her parents’, his mind fixed on the package waiting on his mother’s table. Never before had he been so tempted to exceed the speed limit, just a little.

  Ruth met him at the door of her farmhouse. After the usual greetings with her and Charles, Brian couldn’t wait any longer. “Where’s the file, Mom?”

  “On the table,” Ruth said as Charles bade them good night.

  Ruth led the way into the dining room. Even after her description of the adoption file, Brian was startled by its thickness. He sat at the oval wooden table, and Ruth pulled up beside him in another chair. Brian began to read.

  Some of the documents were hard to decipher, the words barely legible due to light ink and poor copying, especially the letters from young Minnie. But her handwriting was consistent, and it soon became familiar enough for Brian to decipher most of the contents. There were also a handful of letters to and from his grandfather, Rev. Nordsletten, to this House of Mercy where Minnie had stayed. He thought of his grandpa Peder with his quotable sayings and silver coins and tried to imagine him as a young married minister writing to this house, seeking a little girl to join their family.

  Then something caught his eye. In the pages titled “child’s history,” there was a long paragraph under “disposition of case.” He stared, leaned in toward the page as if that would give him a different truth.

  He read the lines again.

  Anger swept over him, hot and swift. Brian was a career soldier. His instinct was to protect, to defend. He had a daughter of his own, a beautiful young woman. He couldn’t even imagine someone trying to hurt her.

  There was no other way to put it than bluntly. He turned to Ruth.

  “Mom,” he said, “she was raped.”

  Ruth stared at Brian, eyebrows raised, lips parted.

  “What?”

  “That’s what it says here. She was, uh . . .” he looked back at the paper. “She had been out with some friends, at a lake, and . . . some strangers accosted her. She was raped. They . . .” He checked the paper. “No, they never caught him.”

  Ruth flushed with anger. She sat for a few moments, wondering what to do with this startling information, but soon she was practically shaking. That man had done this. And however burdensome the fact was, that man was her father.

  The news cast a distressing pall over their discoveries. Given that the documents stated the man was older than Minnie, he was surely dead by now. Even if they could find his identity, he could no longer be held accountable.

  Ruth had lived almost eighty years protected from this truth. Her few imaginings of her parents had been of a young couple who had unintentionally conceived a child. Now she’d been handed the truth—her life had been created through a violent act. Her biological father had done a horrible thing. Ruth couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She’d admired her adoptive father to such an enormous extent; it had never occurred to her that her birth father could have been so different. The contrast was staggering. It was impossible to process the tumult of emotions washing over her.

  But one thing Ruth knew: it made her mother’s love for her all the more remarkable.

  * * *

  After Brian arrived back at his in-laws’ late that night, his mind raced. Reading the letters had created a deep affection for the young woman he’d never met, his grandmother, who’d loved her baby so much. Yet a powerful rage rose up against him, the man who’d fathered that baby. How could he! My own flesh and blood. . . .

  But another thought kept pushing in. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here. Mixed with the emotional conflict, pieces of new information flashed through his mind.

  Information that could be used to find out who this Minnie had been.

  According to the file, her birthday was November 10, 1911. Her given name was Minka. Her married name had been Disbrow, but there was no way of knowing whether she’d married more than once. She’d had at least one more baby, a girl named Dianna. The letters had stopped in 1947. There had been no new information in almost sixty years.

  Too many thoughts swam through his mind. Brian barely slept.

  Just after dawn, he pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and walked the half-mile back to his parents’ house, breathing deeply of the cool air that was such a relief after Alabama’s humidity. In his mother’s familiar kitchen, he poured grounds into a paper filter and dumped an entire pot of water into the coffeemaker. It was going to be a long morning. Ruth puttered around the kitchen, preparing to go in to Walmart for a work shift.

  Brian spread the contents of the adoption folder on the table. The task energized him. His pen scratched names and dates on the manila envelope. Locations, too, and time frames of where Minka had lived, and when. He arranged all the documents and letters in the correct order and then carefully read the letters again.

  Finally, Brian laid his pen on the stack.

  He had enough information to go on, enough to find somebody on the Internet. But he was in rural Wisconsin, and his parents had no computer. He would have to go back to his mother-in-law’s.

  An hour into his Internet search, Brian’s excitement drained away. Whoever this Minka had been, there seemed to be no record of her at all. There was nothing in the Social Security death index or the obituaries. Nothing in birth notices for the daughter, Dianna Disbrow. He searched every place that had been listed in the file: South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Rhode Island. He searched WWII records, looking for any mention of Minka’s husband, Roy. Nothing.

  He leaned back. Stared at the screen. He took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose. And then Brian thought of something he’d used before to get phone numbers, something much more convenient than a bulky phone book.

  Whitepages.com. He put his glasses back on, then pulled up the website.

  First and last name: Minka Disbrow. He had no city, state, or zip. He pressed “enter.”

  One result for Minka Disbrow. A California address. A phone number.

  Brian’s heart began to hammer. He stared at the name.

  He called to Teresa.

  “You have to see this,” he said. They sat in amazement, staring at the data, realizing what it could mean. Ruth’s mother could still be living.

  Brian needed to be sure. On the screen, to the side of Minka’s name and address, was an option—for a few dollars, he could obtain more details: age, relatives, past addresses, and more. This would allow Brian to back-check earlier addresses and some other information gleaned from the file. He glanced at his wife.

  “Do it. You have nothing to lose,” Teresa said.

  Feeling slightly intrusive, Brian clicked on a link and typed in a credit card number to retrieve more detailed personal information. And there it was.

  Minka Disbrow. Birthdate: November 10, 1911. Age: 94 years.

  It was her.

  * * *

  Hours later, Brian’s family sat together at the Lee house on the concrete patio next to their garage. Two of Brian’s siblings, Deb and Tim, were visiting too, along with their families. The outside table bore the remnants of Sunday dinner, their ritual when they were all together. Tim had grilled bratwurst, and they’d had potato and fruit salads and baked beans. From their seats near the vegetable garden, they could see bright-green stalks of corn and pumpkin vines glowing in the remains of sunlight.

  When Ruth rose to clear away the salad bowls and silverware, Brian and Teresa followed.

  “We’ll help you, Mom,” Brian said. They made their way along the worn path to the rear porch. Although the rest of the family didn’t know it, the three of them were anxiously waiting for a phone call. Earlier that day R
uth had left a message on an answering machine.

  Minka’s answering machine.

  After Brian had found Minka’s number that morning, he and Teresa had driven to Walmart. He’d gone in, found his mother in the employee break room. He blurted out the news.

  “I found your birth mother. She might still be alive.”

  Once home, Ruth had stared at the phone number Brian had written on the manila envelope. Her nerves flared, suddenly on edge. She knew that Minka, if she were still alive, would welcome this call. But what if she wasn’t living? What if Ruth had missed her by mere months? She felt a stab of anxiety.

  What if she’d found her birth mother but had already lost her?

  She’d swallowed her fear and dialed the number. Ruth couldn’t help feeling relieved when the answering machine picked up with a generic greeting. She left a faltering message that she immediately regretted. She wished she’d practiced it a little first.

  Ruth, Brian, and Teresa jumped every time the phone rang that day. But the callers were only local friends. Brian thought of the many possibilities. Maybe Minka hadn’t gotten the message. Or she was traveling, or visiting family members.

  But what if she had received the message and hadn’t wanted to call back?

  Or what if the phone number was outdated, and they hadn’t reached Minka Disbrow at all?

  Throughout that day, Brian had gone in and out of the house, fiddling with projects. Like his mother, he was unable to sit idly when things needed doing. A section of the Lees’ siding had ripped off during a recent storm. Brian climbed up a ladder to repair it. He fitted the white-painted boards back onto the wall above the porch and recaulked the seams, working up a sweat.

  Every time he came back in, he spoke quietly to his mother.

  “Has she called yet?”

  Every time, Ruth shook her head.

  They were distracted at dinnertime by the commotion of family arriving. The grill was fired up, the table was laid, drinks were opened. There hadn’t been an opportunity for more discussion until now, as Brian and Teresa helped Ruth clean up.

  “Mom, do you want to call again?” Brian asked when they were back inside, alone.

  Ruth gazed around the kitchen, nodding, not looking at Brian.

  “Yes, but let’s just get the kitchen cleaned up, and then we can sit down and relax.”

  Brian did not argue or push.

  “Okay. We’ll help you. What do you want to do first?”

  Together they scrubbed the bowls and silverware, covered leftovers with plastic wrap, wiped the counters. After they’d hung the dish towels back over the stove handle, Brian asked again.

  “Do you want to call now?”

  Ruth looked out the window. She touched the silver necklace hanging from her neck. She nodded again.

  “Yes . . . but let’s pick up the lawn chairs and clean up outside.”

  Teresa glanced at Brian. They followed Ruth outside. Scooping up napkins and paper plates, they tossed them into the fire pit. They straightened chairs as the rest of the family continued chatting next to the fire. Brian had the sense that his mother’s nerves could gnaw away the entire evening.

  “Mom, do you want me to call her?” he finally asked.

  Relief washed over Ruth’s face. “Oh, yes . . . would you?”

  They entered the screened back porch, out of earshot of the rest of the family. Brian had already sorted through—and rejected—possible ways to begin the conversation.

  Hi, I’m wondering if you possibly gave a baby up for adoption in 1929?

  No.

  Hi, I’m Brian, and my mother is your first child. . . .

  No.

  Hi, I’m your new grandson. . . .

  Um . . . no.

  Hi. My name is Brian Lee, and I’m calling from Wisconsin. I’ve been doing some research on my mother’s adoption from 1929, and your name came up. I’m wondering if I may ask you a few questions.

  Yes. That was better.

  He looked at the envelope where he’d written Minka Disbrow’s phone number. He punched in the digits.

  Far away in California, the phone began to ring.

  * * *

  Minka had stayed home from church that morning, something she rarely did. She’d been especially tired, and one of the preachers she liked to watch would be on the television soon. After lunch, she decided to take a nap.

  She heard the phone ring, but that was the beauty of an answering machine—you didn’t have to spring from bed like a jack-in-the-box to see who was calling. She let the machine pick up. She drifted off.

  Some time later, refreshed, she got up and listened to the message, left by a female caller with a hesitant voice. It made little sense. There was a name and phone number, but the woman had not said much except that she was calling from Wisconsin.

  Minka didn’t know anyone in Wisconsin, although she supposed that it could be someone she’d met at one of the church conferences she regularly attended.

  Minka hauled out her phone book, leafed through the front sections until she found the page listing state area codes. She ran her finger down, found Wisconsin. There were several area codes listed, including the one prefacing the number on the message. Minka considered for a minute, but she still couldn’t remember anyone she’d met at a conference who was from Wisconsin.

  Minka decided to ignore the message.

  When the phone jangled again that afternoon, Minka lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  There was a stranger on the other end of the line, an amiable fellow with a flat drawl that Minka couldn’t quite place. To Minka’s astonishment, he started asking probing, personal questions about her life, her history. She asked him to repeat what he’d just said. He did.

  He was looking for his mother’s birth mother.

  The man mentioned South Dakota. He mentioned the House of Mercy.

  Minka’s heart lurched. But she had not reached ninety-four years of age by being gullible—she’d read magazine articles warning of thieves trying to steal the identities of senior citizens. She cut the man off with some questions of her own.

  “What was your mother’s given name when she was born?” she asked, doubt thick in her voice.

  “Betty Jane.”

  For a moment, everything stopped. The silver clock ticking on the wall above the phone cradle seemed suddenly very far away.

  Although that name had not been absent from her head or her heart for a single day since her daughter’s birth, Minka had not heard it spoken in ages. That name had vanished six years earlier with the last person who’d known it—her sister, Jane.

  “Where was she born?”

  “Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”

  Minka’s pulse thudded in her chest and in her ears. There was only one more question to ask, and her entire body strained toward the only answer she wanted to hear.

  “When was she born?”

  “May 22, 1929.”

  Minka had to force her voice into something louder than a whisper.

  “I’m the person you’re looking for. I’m . . . I’m your mother’s birth mother.”

  And then the man said eight words. One word for each of the nearly eight decades she’d waited to hear them.

  “Would you like to speak to Betty Jane?” he asked, and the years began to roll back, with lightning speed. Everything was rolling.

  Minka’s legs buckled beneath her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  MINKA SANK INTO a dining room chair, placed her left fist on the clear plastic cover she kept over her tablecloth to protect it from spills. She squeezed the phone so hard her wrist hurt, but she didn’t notice the pain. She tried to remember to breathe.

  A voice came on the line.

  “Hello?” An older woman. A stranger. Her darling girl?

  “Hello,” the voice repeated. “This is your Betty Jane.”

  Minka would never remember exactly what she said next. For the next minute or so, there was too muc
h commotion in her head and in her heart. She introduced herself as though they had never met. As though she had not spent every day of the last seventy-seven years missing this person.

  Minka drank in her daughter’s voice. Her mind thudded: Betty Jane. Betty Jane.

  “. . . we have six children,” the voice was saying. Minka tried to stay with every word. “Two girls and four boys . . .”

  “Six children?” Minka said. Her number of grandchildren had just doubled. Betty Jane began to list the children’s names, their occupations. They were all grown, of course. Minka listened with a kind of numb astonishment to the cascade of details about these people who were her blood.

  A business owner. Air Force pilot. Four-time shuttle astronaut. Army. West Point. A teacher. A NASA contractor. Another teacher.

  It was too much to take in. NASA . . . West Point . . . educators . . .

  Astronaut?

  Minka would have to process it all later.

  In Wisconsin, the Lee family was in an uproar. After he’d handed the phone to Ruth, Brian had hurried outside to his siblings and father. His usual deliberate way of speaking gave way to obvious excitement.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, raising his voice. “Guess who Mom’s talking to?” He knew they’d never guess. “She’s on the phone with her birth mother. In California.”

  That got their attention. Brian had recently told his siblings that he was looking for their biological grandparents, but he hadn’t kept them updated on his progress. Until the last twenty-four hours, he hadn’t believed he’d find much.

  “She’s talking to her right now, on the phone.”

  Deb stared at him. “No kidding,” she said.

  “She’s still alive?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, still alive,” Brian replied. “I just called and asked her a bunch of questions—well, actually, I started to, but then she grilled me—and it’s her, all right.” He placed both hands on his hips, exhaled. “I can hardly believe it.”

  Deb stood up and began moving toward the house.

  “I’m gonna go back in too,” Brian said. “To hear what they’re saying.”