by Lisa Wingate
“Thanks. That’s really nice of you.” I wondered if everyone here was so friendly. “Do you know where they have birth certificates and stuff? Which office, I mean?”
Scratching her ear with one knuckle of her glove, she left a little trail of dirt next to a line of melting orange makeup. “Down the…well, I’m not sure. Used to be they didn’t have those at the county courthouse and you had to write off for them, but I think maybe that’s changed. BB, do you know where she needs to go?”
“Here, I’ll take her.” A heavyset woman with graying hair and Choctaw features stood up. “I need to go get the dead leaves off those ficus trees inside. Can’t stand to see a plant in such bad shape. I’m done with my flat out here anyhow.” She glanced pointedly toward Cecil’s flat. “More than I can say for some people.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Cecil glanced at the waiting pansies. “It ain’t a race, BB.”
“It ain’t social hour, either,” BB countered, pulling off her gloves and tucking them in her apron pocket as she started around the railing. “If some people don’t hurry up, the lunch crowd is gonna beat us to the café.”
“There’s no lunch crowd at the café today. Everyone’s at the festival,” Cecil pointed out.
“Even so…”
My cell phone rang, and I fished it from my purse while pulling open the courthouse door.
Karen was on the other end. “Hey, kiddo, how’s your trip?”
“Good.” My throat went dry and prickly, like a puff of cotton with a cocklebur in it, needling me with little stabs of guilt.
“You haven’t checked in today.” Karen’s voice was pleasant, but there was an undercurrent of suspicion. “I just wondered how you were doing.”
“Fine. Sorry I forgot to call. It’s such a pretty day, I was just out”—looking for my birth family, because for reasons I can’t explain, the one I have isn’t enough for me—“ goofing around a little this morning.”
Karen hesitated, and I had a feeling I’d tipped her off. “It’s not raining there? It’s pouring buckets here.”
Glancing up at the clear blue sky, I was conscious of the garden club ladies listening, trying to piece together my story like one of their flower plots. I slipped through the door, and let it close behind me, then cradled the phone close to my shoulder. “I’ve…been inside a while,” I hedged. The door swished open as BB came in.
“Oh.” Karen wasn’t ready to let me off that easily. “Are you having a nice visit?”
“Yes.” The answer sounded false. I’d never flat-out lied to my parents about where I was. I’d never had to. “I’m meeting some new people.”
BB started down the hall and motioned for me to follow. “This way, honey.”
“That’s good.” Karen hesitated again. She wanted me to offer more information. I couldn’t, of course.
“Mom, I’d better go. I’m trying to get directions to one of the offices.” As soon as the words came out, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Now Karen would be sure I was considering enrolling at Missouri State. “I’m meeting up with Barry there,” I added lamely.
BB quirked a brow at me and looked up and down the hall. “Whoever you’re meetin’, he ain’t here.” She waited with her arms crossed over her chest as Karen and I finished our conversation and I hung up. “They ought to be able to help you in there,” she said, pointing through a doorway toward a counter which at the moment appeared to be unmanned. “They’ll fix you right up, I’m sure.” Patting my shoulder, she gave me a speculative look, then turned her attention to a sickly-looking ficus tree near the office door. “Good luck, sugar. I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”
CHAPTER 15
BB had sent me to the right place, but nobody was eager to fix me right up. There seemed to be only one clerk in the office. She was busy doing something behind a row of file cabinets and wasn’t in a hurry to acknowledge my presence or find out what I wanted. I could only see the top of her head, but her hair was dark, not blond, so she wasn’t Shasta’s stepcousin.
“Excuse me,” I said, still feeling guilty and nervous about Karen’s phone call. Whatever information was here, I wanted to get it and be gone.
The top of the clerk’s head hesitated behind the cabinet, then disappeared again. “Be there in a minute. Someone’s coffee just got spilled back here.” Her voice seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I heard the sound of paper towels ripping, then an exasperated sigh. High heels clicked rapidly on the linoleum floor as she headed into a back room. A door swished open in the hallway, then another, and I had a feeling she’d left the office altogether.
Bracing my hands on my hips, I stretched upward and tried to take a deep breath. My chest squeezed tighter, as if my lungs were caught in a vise that was slowly being closed. The scent of plaster, a musty air-conditioning system, and decaying paper transported me to the courthouse back home in Missouri, to the weeks after Granny died, when James and Karen stood with me in front of a weary-looking family court judge and told him that they wanted to raise me.
The judge glanced toward the wall clock, squinting at the numbers through cloudy gray eyes, the edges of the irises faded into the whites. I tried to imagine eyes like that on a young person, but I couldn’t. Those eyes looked like they’d seen it all before. He explained that it would have to be foster care, and possibly adoption later, if no biological relative could be found. He pointed out that this was a big decision, not one to be made in a moment of emotion.
James said we didn’t need a trial period. Our minds were already made up. Karen slipped her hand over mine, her fingers a warm, trembling circle.
For the first time in my life, I knew how it felt to be wanted.
“That so, young lady?” the judge asked.
Something cold and invisible squeezed my chest.
Karen’s fingers tightened reassuringly around mine.
Don’t mess this up, Dell, I thought. You always mess things up. “Yes.” The word was quiet, considering the effort it took to produce. I was afraid anything I said would be wrong. I was afraid the judge would look up, see who I was, and say I couldn’t go home with James and Karen, that I’d have to go back to the emergency shelter, Debuke House, where CPS had sent me when the ambulance came for Granny.
The judge never looked my way at all. He only signed something on my paperwork and said he was approving foster placement with James and Karen, pending a search for blood relatives. I didn’t know what he meant. There was only Uncle Bobby, and by then he was in jail for DUI, on his way to prison for what would probably be a long time. I tried not to think about how mad he probably was about that, about everything. No doubt, he was cussing a blue streak and throwing things around his jail cell.
Someone had to clean up all that mess. In county, maybe they’d make him do it for himself.
Even though I didn’t want to, I felt sorry for him, sitting in jail. He’d hate it there, locked up in a cell, with so many people nearby, so much noise. He didn’t like to be around a lot of people.
If he got out of jail, he would come looking for me….
The judge was going through a long list of details I didn’t understand—something about foster care forms, and in-home visits, and when I’d have to come back to Hindsville to see my social worker, Twana Stevens, and how long she would search for my father or members of his family.
Before the judge mentioned my father, it had never occurred to me that was what biological relative meant. What if they found him, whoever he was, and he wanted to take me away from James and Karen? What if I had to go away with someone who was like Uncle Bobby? The thought made my head spin. Suddenly the room seemed impossibly hot, and a black tunnel narrowed around my eyes. James caught me and kept me on my feet. “Hang in there, kiddo,” he said. “Just a few minutes more and we’ll be done.” My legs were tired. It felt like we were standing on Jell-O. The air from the vent smelled like the underneath of Granny’s house, where a stray cat had just hidden a new litt
er of kittens.
If we went back by Granny’s house to get the rest of my stuff, I would crawl underneath and get those kittens out. They’d need someone to take care of them. For weeks, I’d been sneaking food under there for the mama, so she’d stay and care for her babies. If she got hungry, she’d wander off, and the kittens would starve. If they crawled out from under the house, my dog, Rowdy, would get them. But by now, Rowdy was probably at Grandma Rose’s farm. He liked it better there, anyway…
“Can I help you?”
My mind snapped back to the present as a girl in her twenties came in from the hallway and slipped around behind the counter, carrying a stack of foam food containers. She was blond and heavyset, possibly Shasta’s cousin.
I paused a moment to get my thoughts together. “I’m here about requesting a birth certificate.”
She set the containers on the desk, then glanced up and smiled. “Oh, hey, you must be Shasta’s friend. She called and said you were coming.”
I nodded. “She told me she had a cousin working here.” Thank goodness for Shasta. Was there anyplace in the county she didn’t know people?
“Well, we’re stepcousins really.” Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she frowned apologetically. “I told her to call you and tell you we don’t give official birth certificates here. You have to write off to the state capital for those. I guess she didn’t have your cell phone number to get ahold of you before you drove all the way over here.”
I must have looked as shattered as I felt, because she bit her lip again, then went on talking. “I’m really sorry. This happens all the time. We do have a new test program where we can access the records online and print them for you, but it’s not the official state-issued long form with the seal on it. Some places will accept a copy, and some won’t.”
Relief spiraled through me. “That would be great. A copy is all I need.”
“All righty, then.” She grabbed a pen from the desktop and began searching under the counter. “Where in the world are those forms? Hey,” she hollered toward the back room, “where are those forms for the new computer thingy?”
No one answered.
“I think she went across the hall,” I said.
“She’s always across the hall. That’s where the mirror is.” Shasta’s cousin snorted irritably, glaring toward the door. “Nothing like doing all of your boss’s work. Ever since she started here, it’s Jamie do this, Jamie do that.” Searching the countertop, she came up with a pad of sticky notes. “I’ve lost ten pounds, though, so I guess stress does have its upside. Go ahead and write your information on here—full name, exact date of birth, place of origin, parents’ full names. That’ll be enough. The computer brings it up in, like, two and a half seconds. This thing is lightning fast. It’s a test link with the Department of Vital Statistics, but I hope they let us keep it. As soon as my boss gets back, she can get you the official authorization form to fill out. She probably has them locked away somewhere.”
After printing my information carefully on the pad, I slid it over to Jamie. “Thank you so much,” I said.
She turned the pad around and read the words, then tore off the top sheet and she stuck it to her finger. “Hey, I’m just glad we can help. Shasta says you’re here looking for your family—like on TV. That’s so awesome.” Waving the sticky note like a tiny flag, she headed toward the back room. “I feel like that private investigator guy on Unsolved Mysteries. This is too exciting.”
She disappeared behind the file cabinets, and I stood wondering what she would find, if this would be the moment that changed my life. It bothered me that Shasta had told someone, here in this official place, about my background. The more people who knew, the more likely it was that Karen and James would somehow find out what I was doing.
The vent clicked on overhead again, and the combination of food smell from the foam containers and moldy air made my stomach gurgle into my throat.
High heels crossed the hallway in a rapid taptaptap, probably Jamie’s boss coming back. Hinges squealed, then something crashed in the back room. “Sor-ry,” Jamie called. “Go around, all right? I had to move some of those boxes to get to the computer. We need to make some space for this thing.”
The footsteps changed direction, and Jamie’s boss entered through the doorway behind me. “May I help you with something?” Clearly, she was irritated to find me still standing there, waiting for service. “Jamie, you’ve got a customer out—” Rounding the counter, she stopped in midsentence as I looked up, and both of us experienced an instant of recognition.
Something heavy formed in my chest and sank downward, pressing on my lungs and stomach. When I saw Shasta, I’d be able to tell her where Lana was working now. She’d changed clothes since leaving the campground—put on a tight-fitting red suit and pumps, pulled her hair back into a bun, and added a thick stroke of eyeliner around her eyes. Her gaze swept down to my feet, then raked coolly upward, her full lips curving into a smile that fluttered like a butterfly about to be eaten.
“She needs one of those request forms for birth records,” Jamie hollered from the back room.
I had a sudden urge to turn and run. Lana was the last person I wanted knowing my secrets.
Moving to the counter across from me, Lana blinked in malicious fascination, inclining her head to one side. “Well, sure. Of course. Anything we can do to help.” Her long, slim fingers stroked the edges of the counter, slid to the pad of sticky notes between us, moved them aside and tucked them under a stapler. “I knew you weren’t from around here. You don’t have the accent.” Her voice was smooth, red silk wrapping around me. “But we don’t issue birth certificates here, sweetie. You have to write to the Department of Vital Statistics for that. I’m sorry. I guess you came all this way for nothing.” Her gaze locked onto mine, silently delivering the rest of the message. Now go home.
“She just needs a copy.” Jamie poked her head through the backroom doorway, stretching to see over the file cabinets. “I told her we can do that here. I’ve got the database link running, but I couldn’t find the form for her to fill out.”
Lana cut an irritated glare over her shoulder before she turned back to me. “It’s five dollars per copy for the service. Of course birth records are confidential.” Her tone made me think of my second-grade teacher, when everyone else was zipping through storybooks and I was still sounding out letters, too stupid to get it. “I assume you’ve got ID…and five dollars.”
“Yes,” I bit out, determined not to let her know she’d gotten to me.
“Good.” Finishing the word on a falsely congenial high note, she pulled a form from under the counter and slid it across. “Then let’s get this done and get you out of here. Fill in the top of the paper, and I’ll need two forms of ID.” She held out her hand, and I fished through my purse, wishing I hadn’t left my passport at home. I settled for a driver’s license and an ID card from the orchestra in Europe.
Her long red fingernails wrapped around my plastic proof of identity. “I’ll go make copies.” It occurred to me that, for better or worse, Lana now knew where I was from. After I left, it probably wouldn’t matter anymore. I’d just be someone who came for the Labor Day festival and then departed, of little importance in her quest to snag Jace Reid.
I turned my attention to the form while she went to the back room. I could hear her talking to Jamie. Apparently something was wrong with the copy machine.
Overhead, the air conditioner, mercifully, clicked off as I filled out the form—my name, my address, my phone number, all the usual information.
Another customer came in with a little boy trailing behind her. They walked to the counter window beside mine. As she tucked her sunglasses into her purse, she rang the bell marked FOR SERVICE.
Lana appeared from the back room, dusting off her hands. “Well hi, April, how are things over at the school?” Suddenly, Lana was sticky-sweet. “Everybody settling into the new year okay?” Leaning over the counter, she smil
ed at the boy. “Well, how are you, little guy?”
He moved bashfully behind his mother and tried to wrap himself in her skirt. His mother pulled the fabric back into place and continued with the conversation. “I’m only at the school half-time this year. I decided to stay home with the baby, but Micah here needs a birth certificate, and they told me I can get a copy over here now. We can’t figure out where we put the one we had.”
“Sure.” Lana rested comfortably against the counter, taking time to talk about the new school year, and how she surely did miss being with the kids, but she loved working at the courthouse, and the benefits were so much more comprehensive than anything the school could offer. “I’ll tell you, April, you ought to look into it. It’s a much better deal than working half-time at the school,” she finished.
“It sounds great,” April said with a distinct lack of interest. “I’d love to find out more sometime, but right now Micah and I are on the way to a dentist appointment.”
Lana finally got back to business. “I’ll have that birth certificate for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” she promised. As an afterthought, she grabbed a form and slid it across the counter before heading for the back room. “Go ahead and fill that out, April.”
“Okay.” Whispering something to her son, April pointed to the chairs by the wall. He went over and sat down, curling his legs into the seat, looking around the room, and then at me. I raised a hand and waved. He smiled, then waved back and giggled. Glancing over her shoulder, his mother put a finger to her lips, and he threaded his arms through his legs, tying himself up like a pretzel. He waited for me to notice.
I made a silent “Oh!” and he grinned again, his eyes twinkling. Angelo might have looked like that at four or five years old—blue eyes, curly blond hair, big smile with just a little mischief.