We Never Told

by Diana Altman

  “Do you think her cats are dead?”

  Instead of driving back to Manhattan with Joan, I rented a car and drove to my mother’s house. Vines had choked the gardens and, as I got out of the car, some creature darted away into the woods. The house seemed to be reverting to the self it was when Mother bought it. Maybe its fate was to be a hopeless wreck. The front door was open. Vandals had ransacked the place, took her television, the computer, the stereo, the coffee table. Her cats were walking skeletons but kept themselves alive by eating mice. There were tiny bones on the floor. The most disgusting thing was someone’s shit in the downstairs toilet. I flung up the windows, the cats raced outside, and I went into the study to begin the tedious search for documents that might help us locate her assets.

  It was haunting to see her handwriting still on this earth though she wasn’t. Her spidery scrawl appeared in a collection of ledger books, Large Cap, Mid Cap, Market Value, Fixed Income, PG, XOM, CVX, MSFT. I found birthday cards from Joan and me, and there was a poem I wrote in second grade, all the letters painstakingly drawn, some well-balanced on blue lines and some hanging down underneath: Once there was a tree, now it is my desk, by Sonya Adler.

  Then I came upon a letter from a case worker at Children’s Services in Louisville, Kentucky. Its tone was tender but firm. Of course the caseworker could understand Mrs. Adler’s reluctance to admit to the birth of a son she gave up for adoption, but the birth records showed that she was, in fact, the mother of a baby boy given up for adoption …

  The letter was dated a few days before we arrived at Mother’s and sat in her living room anticipating the Y2K bug on New Year’s Eve. Here was the reason she didn’t want me to sit at her desk, here was what she didn’t want me to see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I phoned Children’s Services in Louisville. The caseworker who wrote the letter wasn’t working there any more. I was given the new caseworker’s number but she never picked up. I left messages. Then one day a woman picked up and told me what to do. I had to fill out a form saying I did want contact, sign it, send twenty-five dollars, and she would write to the adopted person. “Does he know about me?”

  “He knows you exist.”

  “Does he know my name?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That information is in the birth records.”

  “So you mean he can find out where I live?”

  “I suppose he can.”

  “But what about him? Can’t you tell me anything about him?”

  “No, ma’am. I can’t do that.”

  “But suppose he’s some serial killer or something. Are you saying I just have to take a chance?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But that doesn’t seem fair.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So, you mean he might be stalking me right this minute?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “In Massachusetts.”

  “I can tell you he doesn’t live anywhere near you.”

  “So, do you think I should do this?”

  “I can’t advise you, ma’am.”

  When the forms arrived in the mail, I sent a copy to Joan. She had to request contact in her own name. “Does he have any right to our money? I don’t feel like sharing. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

  “But shouldn’t he know his mother’s dead?”

  “Can’t the caseworker just tell him?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t you want to meet him?”

  “Not if he wants my money.”

  “Maybe he’s rich in his own right.”

  “We should find that out first.”

  “I don’t think adopted people have any rights to the property of the person who gave them up,” I said.

  “You don’t think? Who are you, Clarence Darrow? Perry Mason?”

  When cleaning out my mother’s desk, I came upon careful records of her financial transactions and her meetings with various lawyers. I also found her will, phoned the lawyer who signed it, and went to visit his office. Violet left everything to Joan and me. She had more than doubled the money her father left her and had turned Joan and me into wealthy women. The will had to be probated, so I wouldn’t know for quite a while how it felt to be free and easy with the monthly bills. I felt so lucky to have this inheritance and so sad that my mother waited until she was dead to share with me.

  I phoned Children’s Services again. The woman I spoke to before didn’t work there any more. Her cases were being handled by a different woman. I left message after message on her machine. One day I tried and there she was. “You have to understand,” she said, “we get hundreds of requests like this. I have a whole pile on my desk.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “I write him a letter informing him you want contact.”

  “You mean, he doesn’t know?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  I wondered if my mother had confided in Shanice. It didn’t seem as if she did because Shanice didn’t mention the baby when we got together shortly after Joan and I buried Violet’s ashes in one of the overgrown gardens on her neglected property. Shanice had been in Trinidad at her father’s funeral. Her cousins had gone with her so Shanice had to hire a woman she didn’t know very well. She was distraught, blamed herself, said she should have known that woman was irresponsible. It was alarming to see Shanice cry not only because she was such a large person but because she cried in a way that wasn’t American. It was as if her sobs were indoors then burst outdoors then ran indoors. We vowed to stay in touch.

  About five months later, while working on a new book at my desk upstairs in my house, I took a break and clicked on my email. The subject line was, “Hello, I am your brother.” If my eyes had been on springs, they would have boinged in and out.

  “Hello, Sonya. I hope this email finds you well. The reason for my delay in responding to your request for contact is that I’ve been conflicted about whether to respond at all. It’s not that I don’t want to know you or our sister, but I appreciate how Violet handled the matter of my adoption so much that I didn’t want to violate any trust she may have placed in me to leave things alone. It may well be that she was so afraid of losing your love and respect that she continued to deny my existence when I originally attempted to make contact some years ago. At that time, I was more interested in my family medical history than in establishing some kind of relationship, but I didn’t get the chance to let her know.

  “If you wonder when she had the time to have another child, I want you to think back to when you and your sister were seventeen and fifteen. As I get the story, she told you that she had to have surgery in Louisville to have an ovarian tumor (or other such gynecological problem) removed. I was the ‘tumor’ in question. I hold no ill will against Violet because I recognize that, during the 1950s, having a child out of wedlock was a social disgrace, and I’m sure she did not want to lose her social standing or the love and respect of her family up in New York. Also, I was adopted by a couple who raised me and made my life a complete joy. So if Violet had any doubts about raising me, she did the right thing by giving me up for adoption.

  “Our mother named me Sebastian upon my birth. The name was later changed on my new birth certificate. Today, I am fifty-three years old and have been married for thirty years to the love of my life. We have two children. Both boys are businessmen. I am a partner in Baroff and Holder, a real estate business founded by my father’s father. I am also Jewish. My daughter-in-law just gave birth to my first grandchild, so I’m in Chicago enjoying him for a while. That’s about it for me. If you are so inclined, a note about you and our sister would be appreciated. Take care. Franklin Baroff.”

  I read the letter again and again. How did he know that “our” mother said she had a tumor? What made him think that I didn’t know he existed? What did he mean that he appreciated how “our” mother handled his adoption? “Our” mother? I bristled at his claiming her.
He had no idea who she was. The mother in his mind was entirely different from the mother I knew. Joan was “our” sister? He had every right to that pronoun but it made me feel invaded nonetheless.

  “He thinks you don’t know about him,” Leo said.

  “But how can I not know about him?”

  “Maybe his mother told him he must never contact his birth family because that would be betraying his beleaguered birth mother who was only trying to protect her teenage children? Maybe he thinks it’s his duty to keep Violet’s secret?”

  Much as I was excited to be in contact, much as knowing his name brought me down to earth with a satisfying jolt, his letter made me angry. His life was a complete joy while I was telling lies to my grandfather and sitting in the waiting room of the hospital where Ruby was rushed with a heart attack. “I’m writing to him,” I said to Leo. “I’m going to tell him I’ve known about him my whole life.”

  “Not the best plan.”

  “I’m going to ask him how come Violet went to Louisville. What’s in Louisville?”

  “Wouldn’t do that either.”

  “Then what should I do?”

  “Don’t challenge him at all. I wonder if he was adopted right away.”

  This seemed an odd thing to say. I never wondered if he was adopted right away. Of course he was. Wasn’t he? I didn’t like having Leo’s thought in my head. That secret baby was mine, and Leo didn’t have the right to color my ideas of him.

  “What are you expecting from this guy?”

  “I don’t know. That he’ll be my brother?”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll be all snuggly and he’ll be my brother.”

  “It was nice of him to write to you.”

  Nice of him? What did Leo mean by that? Of course he wrote to me. What was nice about it? I didn’t like thinking that my brother had an existence outside of my head. I didn’t like thinking that he had a choice, that it was in his power to ignore me.

  He wasn’t on Facebook. There were a few articles in the Louisville newspaper about Baroff and Holder, a real estate development company. I waited a week until all of my impulsive responses had cooled then wrote, “Dear Franklin, Thank you for taking a chance. I was hesitant to contact you too. The woman at Children’s Services in Louisville said you knew about me but wouldn’t tell me anything about you. It made me so happy to learn that you are a kind and intelligent person with a life that is full of love. I’ve been married for a long time too. My husband is an architect, and we have two daughters. Congratulations on your new grandbaby. You mention wanting information about your medical history. I’d be glad to answer any questions you may have. I’m so happy everything turned out well for you, and I know Violet would be too. Unfortunately, she recently passed away. I hope you’ll write back to me. Your sister, Sonya.”

  I visited Joan in New York so I could tell her in person. She was furious. “I’d never do that!” she yelled. “I’d never contact him behind your back! Never!” I explained that it wasn’t behind her back. I’d sent her the contact forms, and she didn’t sign them. Just because she didn’t want contact with him didn’t mean I didn’t. I intended to contact him even if I was opening a can of worms, and I intended to never tell her about him or him about her if there was danger. She yelled and yelled and I was just about to pack up my suitcase and drive back to Boston when she said, “You just wanted him all to yourself.”

  How could that idea enter her head if the reverse weren’t true, she wanted him all to herself? I’d never thought of that, competing for his friendship. When I imagined a meeting, it involved three people. Joan and I were somehow attached in that blurry vision, The Sisters. I sat down again and said, “No, Joan. I don’t want him all to myself.”

  She said, “She named him Sebastian. I just can’t believe it.”

  I handed her my cell phone so she could read the email I’d sent. “Leo said I shouldn’t challenge him at all.”

  “This is a good letter,” Joan said and handed the phone back to me. “I mean really what are we to him? From his point of view we’re just two old ladies.”

  He wrote back to me, sent me pictures of his children and his new grandson. I sent him pictures of my family, asked if he’d like a photo of Violet, and when he said yes, I sent him a photo of her dressed in a black bolero jacket arms above her head clicking castanets. He replied, “Thank you!!! She was quite the looker. I see where we get our good looks, right?” Hoping for something more personal, I sent him a photo of her when she turned sixty-five, but he didn’t respond to that, just told me how busy he was at work and how he and his wife bought a new house and how he was about to go get a colonoscopy. I decided to defy Leo’s advice.

  “Dear Franklin, I’ve known about you all my life. Your birth has been my most sacred secret. My children don’t know and neither do my cousins. When I was fifteen, my (our) mother left Joan and me alone for four months. When relatives called from Chicago, we had to lie and say that Violet was in the tub, or at a class, or asleep. By the second month, her parents began to worry. By the fourth month, they were frantic with worry. Even my grandfather, who never chatted on the phone, called and I had to lie to him. We had to lie to our father. I worried that my mother might die. I also knew she wasn’t in the least bit sick. In my twenties, I figured it out. She would not tell me the name of your father. Most surprising was the news that Violet named you Sebastian. That was the name of her baby brother who died age two when she was four. Sebastian was a little ghost who hovered over our family. I keep wondering why Violet went to Louisville to give birth to you. Do you have any idea?”

  He wrote back that Violet’s doctor in Scarsdale was friends with the doctor in Louisville. They were in medical school together. I imagined my mother and her doctor in Scarsdale, imagined her in his office weeping when he told her the abortion had not been successful and now it was too late. Perhaps it was his idea that she leave town.

  Franklin sent the hospital records to me. All I had to do was click on the attachment. I read: “Telephone call from Dr. Jerome Levanthal advising that a baby boy had been born to the mother Violet Adler. Dr. Levanthal advised that it would be all right for a worker to interview Mrs. Adler.

  “Visited Mrs. Alder. She is a charming, attractive woman with brown hair and brown eyes. She is of medium height and a little on the plump side. I advised that I had come to talk with her, as I understood she was placing her son for adoption. She welcomed my visit and had many intelligent questions to ask me. She was not curious and did not want to know details of the placement but wanted to make sure that the adoptive parents would allow him to grow up independently and not try to mold him into their set pattern. She also wanted to be sure that they would be financially able to enable the child to have higher education. At this point, I asked about her education. She advised that she only completed high school. She studied dancing in Spain and later gave concerts. She brought out that she comes from a creative family. Her father, Max Greenstone, is an inventor. Her mother, Hazel Greenstone, is an authoress. Her uncle is Maurice Ravel, the author of Bolero. Her father was born in this country, and her mother came from Lithuania when she was three years old. Violet is forty-two years old. She was born in El Paso, Texas, where her parents still live. She was the middle child. She has a brother and a sister. She married and has two children, aged fifteen and sixteen. They are both attending school. She is divorced. She hopes to return to her home in Scarsdale, New York by May 10th, as her maid wants to leave on that date. She spoke of what wonderful daughters she had, and she wanted me to know that she had been a good mother to them. In fact, they said that when they had children they were going to rear them just as she had done. She has always enjoyed good health. She came to Louisville under the arrangement of her physician, who is a friend of Dr. Jerome Levanthal. Her family thinks that she is being operated on for a tumor. She asked me several times whether this information was confidential, bringing out that she had the responsibility
of rearing two teenage daughters and, if they ever found out about this, she might lose their love and respect. I assured her of the confidentiality of our office. When I asked about the baby’s father, she asked if it would be possible not to give identifying information. She pointed up that he does not know of her pregnancy and she does not want to hurt him. All she would say is that he is also Jewish, in good health, has had a high school education, is forty-three years old, and has brunette coloring and is of average size. I told her that I thought this information would suffice. I described the necessity of signing a surrender at the Chancellor’s office. She was most accepting of this and asked if I would check with the doctor to see when she could leave the hospital. She does not know the name or anything about the adoptive parents. When she asked whether these were people were of a high cultural level, I told her merely that they were professional people and she seemed pleased at this. She brought out that by the law of averages her child would be creative. She has been doing interior decorating independently. For a while, she taught Spanish dancing but did not care for the teaching phase and gave it up. When I started to leave, she said that she would like to discuss her plans with me. She is thinking of marrying another man who has three sons. She spoke longingly of always wanting to have a son. She could not allow herself to see this baby as she knew that if she saw him she would love him and then would be unable to give him up. We talked for a while about the difference of middle-age marriages and marriages of youth and what one looked for in this type of marriage. She felt that companionship and security and having a big family was now what she wanted. She said that she had time to think about this and would make up her mind on her return home whether the man would fulfill her expectations.

  “I asked if there was anything I could do for her. She said that she could not think of anything but would like to have my name and address so that if she thought of something later she could call me. I told her that I would be in touch with her baby for a year after the interlocutory decree and that we would use the same measure in appraising the adoptive home as we had done in appraising her. She seemed pleased to hear of this. Told her that I would call her before she left to again wish her good luck. She seemed pleased at this. On my return to the office, spoke with Dr. Jerome Levanthal, who felt that she could leave the hospital on Monday. He was quite surprised that I had no difficulty in getting the information I needed.”