“But wouldn’t he have a new birth certificate on file, listing his adoptive parents on it?” Ava had discovered this bit of information while calling every adoption agency in Maine, searching for the one that had handled Peter’s records.
“Yes, of course.”
“So how would I know what name to ask for, since I don’t have any way of finding out who adopted him?”
“Was the father’s name listed on the original birth certificate?”
“No.” Ava felt herself wincing on her father’s behalf. “Only my mother’s.”
“Then I suggest going to the town clerk and asking for the birth certificate that way. You’ll have to pray for a bit of luck, of course,” the woman added, “but, in my experience, most small towns don’t typically have enough staff to thoroughly clean out their files. The old birth certificate may still be on file even if a clerk filed a new one with the adoptive parents’ names on it. If you can get the original, it’ll at least tell you exactly what day your brother was born and where. You’ll even find the name of the doctor who delivered him on that certificate. Then you can try to find him to ask if he had anything to do with the placement.”
Ava doubted this, since Peter had gone to Aunt Finley first; on the other hand, the doctor may have had a hand in helping unwed mothers put their children up for adoption and could have acted as a family resource. The doctor might also remember whether Peter had any other disabilities beyond being born blind.
“But how will finding the birth date help if I still don’t know my brother’s new last name?” she asked.
“Even with just a birth date, a place of birth, and a first name, you can find a lot on Google,” the woman said. “Do a death records search. Try high school yearbooks, too. Don’t rely only on the birth date, though; even if your brother did enter his information into our registry, if his parents gave him an incorrect birth date, it wouldn’t match up with what you gave us.”
Ava bit her lip, thinking hard. This was all so confusing. “Why would his parents record the wrong birthday?”
“Oh, who knows why people do what they do?” The woman said this as dismissively as if she were talking about toddler misbehavior in a sandbox. “Maybe they wanted him to remember the day they adopted him as his special day. Maybe they wanted to ensure he’d never find his birth family. Or they could have done it just because.” The woman sputtered to a stop.
“Just because what?” Ava asked, mystified.
“Many parents keep adoptions secret for social reasons. More so back then, of course, but even now, some people are ashamed not to be able to produce their own biological children. Or they’re afraid the adopted child will feel bad about himself if he finds out his ‘real’ family gave him up. This doesn’t make them bad people,” the woman added hastily. “Just misguided.”
“So Peter might not even know he’s adopted?” This possibility made Ava feel better. Maybe her brother hadn’t tried to find them, but perhaps he wasn’t deliberately trying to avoid being found, either.
“That’s right.” Ava could hear the smile in the woman’s voice. “Now let’s see what else we have to work with here. On your form you said your brother has disabilities. What sort?”
“He was blind. My aunt thought maybe there were other things wrong with him, too, but I don’t know what.”
“All right, then. Now we’re getting someplace.” The woman’s voice was brisk now. “How many blind babies are born in a year? Can’t be many. That narrows your search right there. And your brother’s adoptive family probably put him in school or a training program. That could have been stipulated as part of the surrender process with social services, for a family to provide that sort of thing.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Ava cradled the phone against her shoulder and went to her laptop, still open on the kitchen counter, where she’d been scrolling through news headlines at breakfast. After hastily wiping her hands on her overalls, she started a Google search. “The American Printing House for the Blind estimates just under sixty thousand visually impaired children in the U.S., with schools for the blind enrolling about five thousand students,” she read aloud to the caller. Her knees were trembling; she had to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs. There couldn’t be many schools for the blind. This was an avenue she hadn’t yet considered.
The woman’s excitement matched hers. “Easy as A-B-C! If you find your brother’s actual birth date, you’ll have a good chance of tracking him down through one of those institutions.”
“But would the schools give me any information? Wouldn’t that be illegal?” Ava’s hand had started to ache; she forced herself to relax her fingers. She’d been clutching the phone like a lifeline.
“There’s always somebody who’ll leave a file on a counter and walk away, pretending to be busy.” The woman chuckled, but it was laughter without mirth. “Remember: more of us have given up babies than you’d think. Be patient and don’t give up. Okay. Gotta go. My break’s over.” She hung up before Ava could thank her.
Ava sat for a few minutes, trying to slow down her frantic breathing as she imagined herself getting into the car one more time and driving north to Maine.
• • •
The flicker of memory had come to Gigi in the middle of the night: her father had a cousin.
Cousin Mildred was the only relative on Dad’s side that she knew of. His parents and brother were already dead by the time Gigi was born; truthfully, she’d never given Dad’s extended family any thought before he died.
Gigi sat up in bed, thinking how odd it was that, her whole life, she’d been the center of her own universe. Learning about Peter was forcing her to see Dad as a person apart from her for the first time, as a man who’d been a teenager, fallen in love, and made mistakes like anyone else.
Mom, too. Her mother had always seemed so perfect, blond and pretty and well dressed, plenty of money. But now Gigi could see Mom’s glaring mistake, the one she’d made by getting involved with Dad, a married man with a damaged wife and two daughters. Mom had pulled the ultimate skanky move. Yet Gigi knew she was a good person, too.
The adults in her life were diminishing before her eyes. No, that was wrong. They weren’t disappearing. It was more like these tall, sheltering adults around her suddenly appeared to have cracks in them, as if they, too, could shatter into a million pieces, their hearts and bodies and minds gone, just like that.
Terrified by her own tunneling thoughts, Gigi forced herself to think about Dad’s cousin, Mildred. She lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a small city half an hour north of Newburyport. Gigi had gone on a school field trip there in sixth grade, to some kind of boring living history museum. They’d toured a bunch of old houses and watched people dressed up in Colonial clothes do things like make candles and cook in blackened pots hanging over open fires.
Portsmouth would be easy to get to from Newburyport by bus. She could go on her own, ride her bike to the bus station, if Ava wouldn’t take her. All she needed was Mildred’s address.
Gigi snapped on her yellow table lamp, the one with the cutout stars in the shade she’d had all her life, and sat up against the pillow. Mildred was older than Dad, so she must know about the baby. What if she was the one who adopted him after Finley gave him up?
She climbed out of bed. It was still dark outside, not even four o’clock in the morning. But she couldn’t wait. Gigi had to find that last birthday card. Mildred sent them every year, inappropriately flowery cards on lavender or yellow paper, always with the name of some charity stamped on the back.
Gigi had no actual memory of Mildred, other than a squinty vision of a white-haired woman as tall and rawboned as Dad. She hadn’t visited since the summer Gigi turned ten. Gigi remembered because that year she had found a crisp ten-dollar bill in her birthday card—Mildred always sent a dollar amount corresponding to Gigi’s age—and that summer they’d t
aken a vacation to California while Mildred stayed at the house and watered Mom’s garden.
She slid open her closet door and started pulling out the big plastic boxes stored on the shelves along the back wall, shelves that had probably been meant for shoes or sweaters. Since Gigi always wore the same T-shirts and jeans, her mother kept all of Gigi’s school papers, artwork, and birthday cards in here, sorted into these plastic containers by year.
She found last year’s box and pried open the plastic lid with such force that she tore a fingernail. She ignored the burning sensation and began flipping through the papers, laying out the cards, still in their envelopes, in a neat grid until she spotted Mildred’s purple envelope with the tight blue letters. Her address in Portsmouth was printed in the corner.
Now she just had to wait until morning.
Gigi couldn’t go back to sleep. She drew in her sketch pad and read a graphic novel about zombies without absorbing the words. Finally, at seven o’clock, she dressed and went downstairs, the envelope folded in half and tucked into the back pocket of her cutoffs. Mom was already in the kitchen, her hair pulled into a ponytail, and wearing her gardening clothes, those black Lycra shorts that showed off what Dad called her Dancing with the Stars legs.
From the back, standing at the stove and jouncing her toned butt to some Kiss 108 FM song, Mom looked like a teenager. Gigi hoped like hell her mother wasn’t really listening to it; the lyrics were so sexed up.
“Hey. How did you sleep, honey?” Mom asked when she noticed Gigi in the doorway. Without waiting for an answer, she wrinkled her nose and said, “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to wash those shorts. Look at the stains!”
“No point. I’m just going to the studio.” There, Gigi thought: she’d managed to lie without flinching. She felt bad about that, but Mom would flip if she knew Gigi’s actual plan. “What smells like heaven in here?” A quick diversionary move.
Mom laughed. This was such an unusual sound that it stopped both of them for a second. Mom’s eyes were a faded denim blue in the bright light, wide and surprised. “Pancakes and bacon,” she said. “I thought you might want to eat before you leave for a change.”
Gigi didn’t have the heart to admit that Ava left breakfast on the counter for her the same way she did for Evan and Sam: a stack of bowls, a row of glasses, a plate of muffins and boxes of cereal. Or, sometimes, a plate of pancakes or waffles for them to microwave.
She sat down at the counter. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you, Mom.”
Her mother folded her arms, the spatula still in one hand. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Panicked, Gigi deliberately rolled her eyes. “I mean it! It’s really cool that you’re cooking me breakfast.”
“For a change, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that! God! Don’t be so freakin’ annoying!” Gigi bounced up from the stool and went to the fridge, holding the door wide open to hide her expression as she took out the juice. “Will you eat with me?”
Her mother hesitated, probably still trying to figure things out, but Gigi was damned if she’d tell her some other mother had been cooking for her all summer. Especially when that other mother was Dad’s daughter. It hadn’t been an issue before, when Mom was taking those pills and sleeping all the time, but who knew? It might matter now.
She needed to distract her mother before she asked any more nosy questions or offered to drive her to Ava’s. “Come on, Mom. I poured you some juice. Let’s sit outside. Your flowers look really sick.”
They did, too, a mega-riot of blooms in neon colors and supernatural sizes nodding their heavy heads over the stone walls. The grass was so green it looked enameled, and hummingbirds darted around the feeder of sugar water Mom always dyed pink. It was like being in a Disney cartoon; any minute now, the birds would start talking or the yard would fill with dancing bunnies.
Her mother, Gigi noticed, ate only a single pancake. Gigi wolfed down four to make up for it. Mom even poured her half a cup of coffee, though it was so diluted with milk, it was practically like drinking that sour-smelling shitty blue milk in little cartons they served at school. Nothing like the double-shot espressos Gigi bought for herself at Starbucks whenever she was with Gramma Dawn, who pretty much never said no to anything.
They talked about the pottery studio. Then Mom told her about sailing around Boston Harbor last week in Uncle Simon’s boat, and said he wanted to take Gigi out on the boat, too, and maybe even invite Ava, Evan, and Sam.
“Would that be too weird for you?” Mom asked.
Gigi put her fork down. “I think it might be weirder for you,” she said carefully.
Mom shrugged. “It would be fine. I like Ava.”
“What about Elaine?”
“She doesn’t bother me. Anyway, I doubt she’d come.” Mom turned her head away, fiddled with the elastic of her ponytail. “Elaine has her reasons to dislike us, you know.” Mom always said vague things like that, as if Gigi didn’t know that Mom was a home wrecker.
“Mom, she can’t hold that past stuff against us forever,” Gigi said. “She needs to stop being such a total bitch.”
“Honey, please don’t swear.”
“Seriously, Mom? I was being nice. Think how horrible Elaine was at Dad’s service. She treats Ava and me like crap, too.”
“And please don’t use that word, either,” Mom said. “Honestly, being in a band with those boys isn’t doing your manners any good at all.”
“Maybe not. But it’s doing me good.”
Startled, Mom gave Gigi a long look. “I’m glad,” she said. “I know how much your music means to you.”
And being in a family with Ava, Evan, and Sam, Gigi nearly said, but didn’t. No need to rub that in. “You should come hear us play.”
“I might sometime.” Her mother smiled.
That smile gave Gigi the courage she needed to get going, knowing today was going to be a decent day for Mom. She cleared the table, trying not to rush or do anything to arouse her mother’s suspicions. “We should have breakfast more often,” she said. “I’ll try to save you more pancakes next time. Unless, of course, you make the mistake of putting chocolate chips in them. Then I can’t hold myself accountable for the consequences.”
This made Mom giggle, and after that, Gigi went into the house, where she hastily loaded the dishwasher before grabbing her backpack. She stuck her head back out the patio door just before leaving, relieved to find her mother pulling on gardening gloves and frowning at some insane-looking bush with flowers like yellow bells. Mom could be out here for hours.
“See you tonight, usual time,” Gigi called, then quickly let the door slam behind her and wheeled her bike out of the garage.
When she’d made it a safe distance from the house, she stopped to call Ava on her cell phone. “Pick up, pick up,” she muttered, but Ava’s voice mail kicked in. Shit. She’d hoped to do this with Ava.
On the other hand, she didn’t want to wait. Plus it would be cool to do something on her own, proving to Elaine that Gigi was just as much a part of Dad’s family as they were. She dropped her cell into her backpack and started biking to the bus station.
• • •
Elaine hadn’t been able to avoid confessing the whole tiresome debacle of her nightclub outing and mugging to Tony. They were sitting on a shady bench in the courtyard of the building next to their own, avoiding everyone else from their office while they shared a take-out salad gritty with unwashed lettuce.
After hearing about her teen muggers, Tony made her swear on the spot to stay sober “like for the next two hundred years,” he pleaded. “I’m worried about you. Promise you won’t turn into your mother.”
Elaine glanced around to make sure they were alone before she slapped him. Not across the face or anything, just a single stinging whack of her hand on the top of his knee. “That was a rotten thing
to say! Take that back!”
“Ow! Why? You know I’m right.” Tony rubbed his knee.
“Oh my God.” Elaine allowed herself to sag on the bench. “Of course I know. I’m not in a coma.”
“Then act like you’re awake! I mean, it’s not like you have to start going to AA meetings in one of those dreadful moldy church basements. But think about a little detox program in the country, maybe. Or, I don’t know, at least start mixing water with your booze.”
“Okay. I’ll do something. I don’t know what. But something.”
Tony patted her hand. “That’s my girl. Meanwhile, how are you going to thank that nice guy who rescued you?”
Elaine snorted. “I rescued myself, remember? I’m the one who got those little thugs to give back my phone. Anyway, why do you care whether I call Gabe or not?”
Tony’s face grew serious. “You owe that guy. Not a blow job or anything, but at least lunch. And truthfully I’d say dinner. Ask yourself this: who didn’t take advantage of you when you were swimming in vodka?”
“For the record, my nice Irish dance puppy didn’t. And it was wine, not vodka,” Elaine reminded him.
“Fine, whatever. But if you won’t thank him, honey, give me his number and I’ll do it. I owe that guy at least a Trader Joe’s certificate for keeping my best friend alive.”
“Oh, please! I wouldn’t have died. You keep forgetting that the muggers had already taken what they wanted by the time Gabe rode in on his white charger. Or, to be more accurate, in his battered yellow taxi.”
Tony’s dark eyes darkened even more. “You’ve had too many close calls lately. Remember the conference last year in San Francisco?”
“I remember.” Elaine had tried hard to forget that blurry episode entirely, but couldn’t completely erase the image of herself falling off a cable car after they’d been dancing at one of the clubs in the Marina. Mostly she blamed her ridiculous shoes for that, but she also had to admit that martinis were involved. Like, buckets of martinis.
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