by John Ayang
The urge to start the quest for her biological father really consumed Crystal one day when Kelechi, Edo-Mma’s boyfriend, announced to them jubilantly that he had traced his biological mother and found who she was. Kelechi was adopted at birth because his mother got pregnant with him at 16 by a 19-year old Nigerian man, Kelechi Ugobueze, who was sent to prison on a two-count charge of rape and sexual abuse of a minor, despite her insistence that she consented to the sexual encounter. Her parents, livid that she had to drop out of school, had prevented them from running away and getting married, a tryst which would have made Kelechi Sr. escape prison, since by marriage, she would have assumed the status of an emancipated minor. It was quite obvious that her parents were bent on punishing Kelechi Sr. So, left with no future with the man of her dreams, and under family pressure, she gave up her baby for adoption, after giving birth and naming him after his father. All this had happened years ago, in Louisiana. Little Kelechi’s adopted parents first moved to North Carolina, then eventually to Texas. Kelechi Jr. grew up not knowing his mother, much less his father, whose student’s visa had long expired as he served time in prison, and he was deported after serving seven years, without a chance to renew it or change his status. Kelechi Jr. had traced his mother to Baton Rouge, and had gotten all the story about his father. His mother had later married a lumberjack and had three children—two girls and a boy—ages eight, six and four. Kelechi Jr. made a promise to himself to, one day, travel to Nigeria to search for his father. Kelechi’s success in tracing his birth mother had given Crystal the impetus to enlist his help in tracing her own biological father.
“Crysie, that’s your bag there,” Barbara’s voice jolted Crystal out of her revelry. “Get it.” Crystal pursued the bag and got it, snaking her way to avoid colliding with other baggage claimers. They waited for another five minutes before her mother’s bag came through. Having retrieved their luggage intact, mother and daughter headed for the car rental desk by the airport exit door. The rental process was quick: five minutes of filling out a form, a show of ID cards, a swipe of a credit card for money to exchange accounts, then a further ten-minute wait, and a BMW SUV pulled up outside. The attendant walked in briskly and handed the keys to the cashier, who invited Barbara to sign on the dotted lines. She did and was promptly handed the keys with a smile and the words, “Thanks, Ma’am, for doing business with us. Enjoy your ride.”
“You bet, I will,” Barbara said, returning the lady’s smile as she walked to the sliding doors, Crystal in tow, feverishly texting on her iPhone. Barbara couldn’t quit wondering how the youngsters did it: texting while walking on a crowded sidewalk, mall, or airport concourse without bumping into people or, worse, tripping and falling. She didn’t mind Crystal performing the feat, as she was used to it, but she had absolutely forbidden her from trying that while driving. As they reached the car and Barbara remotely opened the trunk, she watched with mixed amusement and vexation that Crystal picked up her bag with her left hand and dropped it in the trunk without even looking, while she continued texting with her right hand. Barbara kept watching Crystal out the corner of her eye as they got into the car. Crystal eventually took note and turned to look at her mother.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Nothing,” Barbara replied, dismissively. “Why?”
“Well, I caught you looking at me,” Crystal said. “You’re driving. I’m not driving.”
“As if that isn’t obvious enough,” Barbara replied, mockingly.
“Well, you act as though it isn’t,” Crystal parried. “Mom, you should really learn how to text. It’s fun. When we get to the hotel, I’ll show you.”
“Who says I don’t know how to text?”
“I…” Crystal interjected.
“I just don’t make a show of it,” Barbara replied.
“You don’t know how to text. I’ll teach you when we get to the hotel,” Crystal insisted, annoyingly.
“Alright, Madame Professor,” Barbara countered, impatiently. “Have it your way, but quit yapping and let me think.” She nosed the car onto the airport main exit and headed out to their hotel reservation, calling out, “Seatbelt.”
Crystal clicked the seatbelt to and chuckled quietly at her mother’s unease. Whenever they had an argument, she almost always enjoyed brow-beating her mother into giving in to her and would derive a kind of impish pleasure watching her do so with her characteristically mild vexation. She knew her mother doted on her, being an only child, and, although she sometimes pushed the envelope, she also knew when to quit.
The Marriot Hotel, where Barbara had booked their reservation, was barely three miles from the airport hub, but it took them almost ten minutes to get there because of the heavy traffic leaving the airport. When they had settled into their room, Barbara took her phone and quietly disappeared into the bathroom, and pretentiously turned on the shower while placing a call to the Norfolk Fertility Clinic. Within a couple of seconds, a man’s voice came on the other end of the line and she engaged him in a brief conversation. When she was done, she took a deep breath, exhaled, and thought to herself, ‘It’s gonna be alright’. She turned off the shower and went back into the room.
“I thought you were taking a shower?” Crystal inquired.
“Changed my mind,” Barbara replied. She noticed that Crystal had changed from the t-shirt and pair of shorts she wore during the flight, into a body-hugging dress that emphasized her blossoming adolescent curves. Barbara permitted herself a faint smile and turned her back toward her daughter to hide it. She knew Crystal was eager to make the best first impression on her father, and she also knew that only an insane man would refuse to acknowledge such a beautiful young lady as his daughter. In that dress, Crystal was a paragon of beauty. Barbara moved closer to the dressing mirror and, looking at the image that stared back at her, knew that she, herself, wasn’t ugly, either. She picked up her handbag and moved to the dresser in front of the mirror, emptied the contents onto the dresser, and, for the better part of fifteen minutes, mother and daughter applied themselves diligently to the art of cosmetic make up. When they were done, the results were exquisite. As they later joked about it, they left the hotel lobby headed for their car that late morning, looking like a couple of Hollywood A-list stars on an Oscar awards night.
It was 11:25 a.m. when Barbara Sanders eased the car onto the road heading toward the Norfolk Fertility Clinic. She purposely took a detour to drive past the Norfolk General Sentara Hospital at 600 Gresham Drive. The drive brought back vivid memories of her first pregnancy ordeal as a surrogate mother making countless trips to the hospital Gynecology Department to receive her drug regimen. In hindsight, she felt as though she had been used, but she needed the money back then, and twelve grand was not peanuts at that time. She wondered where the baby—certainly a young man of 30 by now—was and what he was doing with his life. She wondered if the parents were still living and how they looked now in their late 70s. She wondered what her life would have been like if that first pregnancy was her own and she didn’t have to give the baby away. As she kept wondering, she realized she was getting farther out of the way. So, she turned into a side street, and made a U-turn to head back and connect to Fairfax Avenue. Crystal was unusually quiet, but very alert. Barbara noticed she was taking in the view of Norfolk with relish. She kept darting her glance this way and that, and didn’t seem to notice that her mom was doubling back. Normally, Crystal would have faulted her mother’s sense of direction and criticize her for losing her bearings, but she seemed too busy sight-seeing to mind. And Barbara was secretly happy to be spared her daughter’s complaining.
As Barbara pulled into the parking lot of the Norfolk Fertility Clinic on Fairfax Avenue, she felt as though she was back again, seventeen years ago, when she would pull up that way as she arrived for work. Everything was very familiar—the dull, light-beige color of the brick walls of the clinic building, the front entrance double glass d
oors with Dr. Horacek’s name and clinic hours embossed on them, the front desk and receptionist post—except for two things: the sign outside had changed from a regular to an electronic LED, displaying and changing information in beautiful characters of assorted fonts and colors, every ten seconds or so; and there was a modest-looking, but beautifully designed, duplex building behind the clinic, occupying not more than eight hundred square feet of space. Barbara noticed all this in one sweeping glance as she and Crystal got out of the car and walked toward the double glass doors.
“This is the clinic where I worked for thirteen years,” Barbara said, looking sideways at Crystal.
“Nice-looking place,” Crystal complimented. “Did you like working here?”
Barbara nodded, affirmatively, but wordlessly.
As they walked in through the double doors, a young lady, primly dressed in the clinic receptionist uniform, came around the desk to greet them with the bright welcoming smile that Dr. Horacek insisted his receptionist must cultivate as the door opener to patients, guests, and clients coming to do business in his clinic. He was a stickler for good image and excellent first impressions—and Barbara loved that about him.
“Good morning, ladies,” the receptionist said, looking first at Crystal, then directly at Barbara, holding her glance with her own smiling eyes. “How can we help you today?”
“We have an appointment with Dr. Horacek,” Barbara said.
“And what’s your name, please?” the receptionist asked politely.
“Sanders,” Barbara replied. “Barbara Sanders. And this is my daughter, Crystal.” Crystal and the receptionist shook hands and exchanged their “hi.”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Sanders. He is expecting you,” the receptionist said. She reached behind her to pick up and present the visitor’s register to Barbara. “Please, sign your names and I will take you to the house. Dr. Horacek said I should bring you to the house when you arrive.”
“The house?” Barbara asked as she took the pen to sign in.
“Yes, the building behind this clinic,” the receptionist replied, noticing the wonder on Barbara’s face.
Barbara thought it was a good idea that Dr. Horacek decided to build himself a house behind his clinic so he wouldn’t have to keep commuting the long distance in the traffic from where he lived before, off Jefferson Drive, a good twenty miles away. She wrote her name and the time of arrival, and had the urge to ask when the house was built, but she decided against it, not wanting to engage in conversation with the receptionist. Dr. Horacek would probably tell her before their encounter was done. She gave the pen to Crystal, who quickly scribbled her name and handed it back to the receptionist.
A second receptionist was already at hand to cover for the first as they were being ushered out through a side door.
“This way, please,” the first receptionist said, taking the lead.
“Quite a busy place!” Crystal commented, almost whispering, for her mother’s benefit.
“Yeah, it was always like that,” Barbara concurred, spotting a middle-aged nurse coming out of a consulting room with a pregnant woman and making her way to the nurses’ station. Barbara recognized her immediately and was thankful that the nurse didn’t see her. She was in no mood to waste time on elaborate hugs, greetings, and story-swapping about old times, questions and answers about the present, and whatever else Nurse Jackson would bring up. She was always chatty and friendly, and Barbara liked her very much, not only for her easy, friendly ways, but also because Nurse Janice Jackson—Nurse JJ as they fondly called her—was one true friend who would always have your back, no matter what. Their work partnership was so strong that on the day Barbara left, JJ cried while helping her pack. Barbara made a mental note to seek her out and reconnect for old time’s sake if all went well at their meeting with Dr. Horacek.
They took a short thirty-foot walk to the house, which was linked to the clinic by a roof-covered cobblestone pavement. Neatly cultivated flower beds lined the base of the walls outside, breaking the monotonous light-beige motif of the brick house, which was built to match the clinic. Barbara was impressed. She recalled that Dr. Horacek was one person who always strove for the good life. He was hard on himself when it came to working to achieve what he thought he needed to achieve, and Barbara respected this driving force in him. The receptionist pressed the doorbell button and a soft, beautiful chime came from inside. Barbara looked at Crystal, who looked back, smiling very faintly, but nervously. Barbara took a deep breath and exhaled, arranging her apparel and brushing an imaginary lock of hair into place by her right ear.
The door opened with a swish to reveal a tall gentleman in his late 50s, with a broad forehead and receding hairline with a few strands already turning blond. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt of light-blue color and khaki pants. His lean frame gave him an athletic bearing. Barbara thought Dr. Horacek had not changed much; he was still his usual handsome self with a slight swagger to his demeanor. Crystal took one look at him and was transfixed, not knowing what demeanor she could adopt—formal or informal. He was just rounding up a phone call he had and was trying to unglue his ear from the phone.
“Yeah! Yeah, that’s correct,” he said to the person on the other end of the phone. “It’s left for the Institutional Review Board to come up with some guidelines of their own, if they’re not completely satisfied with the protocol, but…listen, let me call you back. I have very important visitors now.” He finally unglued the phone from his ear and pressed the ‘end call’ button as the receptionist quietly retreated.
“Barbara! Barbara!” Dr. Horacek called, smiling warmly and extending his hand for a shake. “It’s so good to see you again, after such a long time. But guess what? It’s just like it was yesterday. It doesn’t feel like fifteen years have passed since we set eyes on each other.”
“Sixteen years,” Barbara corrected, ignoring the hand and striking a pose, cocking her head slightly to one side and putting on a swag of her own. “And it’s good to see you, too, Dr. Horacek. As I can see, things are looking bright for you. The clinic is booming and you have a nice new duplex. Congratulations! I’m happy for you.”
“Well, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek demurred, “I don’t know about things looking bright, but I thank God it’s not all bad. It could have been worse, after all. You look great! That’s one thing I always liked about you. You know how to take care of yourself. And the young lady with you…, is she the one? My goodness, she has grown into such a gorgeous beauty!”
“Well, Dr. Horacek, I thank God, too. It’s not all bad. It could have been worse, as you said,” Barbara mimicked his comments. “Yes, Crystal is my daughter, and she is here on a quest with which I hope you can be of some help to her.”
“Of course, Barbara. I told you there is nothing to fear,” he replied, extending his hand toward Crystal. “Josef Horacek. Nice to meet you, and welcome. Please, come inside.”
“Crystal Sanders. Nice to meet you, Sir,” Crystal introduced herself, taking the proffered hand. Feeling the warm, friendly grip, she knew it was going to be okay. She followed her mother inside and was awed at the interior furnishings of the house. “You have a very beautiful house.”
“Thank you, Crystal,” Dr. Horacek replied, pleased that the young lady was impressed. “What can I offer you? There is wine, soda, scotch, bourbon, cognac, and Jamaican rum. Barbara, I remember you used to like Jamaican rum. Can I offer you some?”
“Not anymore,” Barbara replied. “You don’t seem to recall that I quit drinking after I was pregnant with Crystal.”
“Oh, I AM sorry. I did not know you quit,” Dr. Horacek replied with candor. “What about you, Crystal? Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, Sir,” Crystal replied. “I don’t drink.”
“Not even soda?”
“No, Sir,” Crystal replied, shifting uncomfortably on the settee.
“I think Cry
sie is nervous because she had a question for you,” Barbara said, rummaging in her handbag for something. “She won’t be able to drink or eat until she finds out what she came to find out. I think that makes sense, Doctor? Don’t you?”
“I do, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek concurred, somberly. “But that is no reason to reject every one of my gestures of hospitality. We are not enemies, Barbara, are we? And I don’t think you came as enemies.”
“No, Dr. Josef Bernard Horacek,” Barbara replied, spelling out his name for effect. “We are not enemies. We are not rejecting your hospitality. We are simply a puzzled mother and daughter seeking the truth, and our appetite for food and drink will only be whetted by a true answer to our quest.”
“And you will have that answer, today, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek continued, gently. “And honestly, too. I did promise you that. Didn’t I?”