by John Warley
Elizabeth appeared at the bottom of the stairs, hands on her hips, posed. “What’s going on up there?” she demanded, knowing full well. When no answer came, she shook her head, smiling.
After their baths, I read a story. I often changed the names of characters to “Josh” or “Steven” to bring them fully into the night’s fiction. Warm bath water had calmed them, and the baritone of my voice acted as a sedative in damping down the frenzy of the stairs. They leaned against me, one on either side, their moist hair matted against their foreheads and sleep approaching. I smelled their newness, the aroma of virginal masculinity.
“Goodnight, Josh.”
“Goodnight, Steven.”
“Goodnight, Daddy.”
Social Services filled a four-story building in the heart of New Hampton’s inner city and, in the past year, overflowed onto two floors of an annex near City Hall. From 8 A.M. to 6 P.M., it was a labyrinth of pandemonium dominated by young mothers toting infants and trailed by small children struggling to keep pace. In offices off the main corridor, phones jangled incessantly. I was a few minutes late. By the time I arrived, Elizabeth and Monique Hunter were in conference.
Monique Hunter, a diminutive woman of perhaps twenty-five, had medium black skin and short hair. She sat behind her desk, bare but for one manila file folder, while Elizabeth sat opposite. I introduced myself and took the plain metal chair beside Elizabeth, feeling like I had walked in on a conspiracy.
Monique smiled pleasantly. “I think what you are doing is wonderful. I see from your file you have two biological sons. How do they feel about this?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I’d like to believe they’re wildly excited, but in fact I don’t think they understand much about it.”
“Seven and five is a little young to grasp this,” agreed Monique. “Perhaps as the big day gets closer …”
“Exactly. We’ve been talking about this baby sister for so long they probably think it’s some kind of family joke. Sometimes I feel that way myself.”
“This is my first experience with an international adoption. How do you go about selecting a child?”
“Our agency, Open Arms, will send us a dossier on a child who meets the profile we gave them.”
“And what was that?”
“As young as possible—”
“For bonding.”
“Yes. A girl, full Korean. That’s it.”
Monique opened her file. “Today, I’ll ask a series of questions about your backgrounds, your families, your children. Routine stuff that will let me write a report that will assure your agency they’re not sending this child into a den of Satan worshipers.” She laughed lightly at a joke I felt had been rehearsed. “Then I’ll need to visit your home, which I’m sure is lovely but I have to see it. It would be best if your two boys were there when I came. Shall we get started?”
From the folder she withdrew a packet of papers stapled at the corner. “I’ll begin with family histories. You first, Mr. Carter.” I shrugged agreeably.
“Your parents full names?”
“Coleman Edwin Carter and Sarah Robbins Carter.”
“Both living?”
“Yes. In Charleston, South Carolina.”
“Dates and places of birth?”
“My father was born June 15, 1908 in Charleston. Mother was born August 12, 1910 in Darlington. That’s also in South Carolina.”
Monique Hunter pushed her ballpoint in a flowing script, tilting her head as she wrote. When finished, she looked up at me. “The plantations along the James River are full of Carters. No connection, I guess.”
“A direct one, actually. I grew up in the southern branch of the family.”
Monique Hunter’s eyebrows arched faintly as she made a note. “Parents’ health?”
“Mother is healthy. Father is not. Some recent heart problems.”
Monique Hunter inquired about siblings: “None.” When she had filled in her blanks, she turned to Elizabeth, who crossed her legs and fingered the fringe of her jacket.
“And your parents, Mrs. Carter?”
“Victor Hetzel and Ruth Altenhofen Hetzel.”
“Your mother is … ?”
“German.”
“And can you spell ‘Altenhofen’ for me.”
“A-l-t-e-n-h-o … I can never remember if it’s one ‘f’ or two … one, I think … e-n.”
“And their places and dates of birth?”
Elizabeth studied her lap, where she had worked a thread loose in the hem of her jacket. “Both born in Cincinnati. I don’t know my dad’s date of birth. Mom’s is March something. She’s fifty-eight, so that would make the year 1920 or ’21. Around in there.”
Monique continued writing. In the hall, a passing child stopped in the doorway and stared into the room. Monique rose and closed the door.
“I suppose I should know this stuff,” Elizabeth said.
Monique looked up, her pen poised above the paper. “Don’t worry. Many people don’t know these things. We can nail it down later. Siblings?”
“Two brothers, both living, both married.”
“Catholic?”
“Lutheran.”
The interview continued. Monique Hunter proved thorough and professional. After she finished the backgrounds, she moved on to habits, interests, hobbies, church affiliation, and professional endeavors. She devoted time to our philosophy of parenting, relationship to our sons, and preferred methods of discipline.
“We’re almost done,” Monique announced, shaking the cramped fingers of her writing hand and glancing up at the clock mounted above the door. 5:00. “Each of you take a minute to tell me how you feel about this adoption. Mrs. Carter, you go first.”
Elizabeth inhaled, clasped her hands together in her lap, and said, “We have been blessed with two healthy, beautiful boys. They have a loving, stable home. I want to give that same chance to a child who has little hope of ever having a family as we know it. I think this child, whoever she turns out to be, will be a wonderful addition to our home and give us a chance to share our good fortune.”
Monique nodded. “As I told you earlier, I think it’s super of you to take this on. Not everyone would. How about you, Mr. Carter? What are your thoughts?”
“The same as Elizabeth’s.”
My wife was not pleased with this dodge. “Don’t gush so much.”
“So what’s left to say?” I demanded. “It’s great. I’m all for it.”
“That’s not what you said last night. Be honest about it.”
I did not look at her, instead holding the expectant gaze which Monique Hunter focused on me. “I simply expressed some reservations as to whether we had thought through all the angles.”
Monique Hunter opened her mouth to speak. Elizabeth cut her off.
“Tell her about your theory. The trauma an Asian child will experience in an American family.”
“Won’t she?” asked Monique.
Elizabeth’s tone softened. “Of course. But benefits outweigh liabilities.”
“Why don’t we hear your husband’s thoughts on it.”
“He’s going to say he’s thinking of her; that he doesn’t want her to be the victim of the kind of prejudice that exists in this town.”
Monique dropped her eyes toward the desk and smiled faintly. “Well, that’s a subject I know something about, but why don’t we hear it from him.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll be quiet.”
I glanced at Elizabeth before turning back to Monique. “I’m trying to be realistic. I worry about her acceptance. Our sons can go anywhere. No limits. But I think she’ll encounter some and those will hurt her and hurt us for her.”
Monique nodded. “Have you told your families; parents, brothers, sisters?”
Elizabeth said, “I’ve told mine. Well, some of them.”
I felt both women staring me down. “I wanted to wait until we finalized things.”
“How do you think they will react?”
“M
y parents will have … reservations.”
“About adoption or the international part?”
“Both. They’re old school.”
We scheduled the home visit for the following Thursday. Monique Hunter walked us to the reception area. “Just imagine,” she said as we exchanged good-byes, “on the other side of the world, there may be a child with your name attached to her.” Elizabeth clasped Monique’s hand, buoyed by the thought. I checked my watch.
“I’m playing golf,” I said to Elizabeth as Monique returned to her office. “Tee-off was at 5:15 and I’m late. See you at home.” In the parking lot we left in separate cars.
I inched my late-model BMW into traffic, always heavy at this hour. The New Hampton Shipyard, the largest private employer in the state with a workforce exceeding twenty-five thousand, ended its first shift at 5:00. Within minutes thereafter, weary, muscled men emerged from the colossal enterprise, trudging down the broken sidewalks leading from the yard and dodging cars, vans, and pick-ups with the mechanical indifference of arcade targets. They shuffled across Tyler Avenue with their heads down, their lunch pails emptied, and the stubble of their beards scented with the acrid sweat of a full day’s work in the hull of some submarine.
Behind these men until the next morning lay the shipyard, a riverside sprawl of machine shops, gangways, dry docks, piers, and warehouses spread out before the watchful eyes of big-boomed cranes, which stood like mammoth egrets facing into the wind. The yard boasted a long tradition of building large ships, “large” being a relative term expanding with the decades, so that Hull No. 1, an ocean-going tug called Dorchester commissioned in 1896, matched in scale and displacement the lifeboats on modern liners now being built for the Miami cruise trade.
Dominating the north yard were two drydocks, so cavernous that their simultaneous flooding appeared to lower the water table on the river bank. Into these floated tankers and warships scheduled for overhaul while newly commissioned aircraft carriers and submarines glided out of their watery incubators with the ease of an expert skier over fresh powder. Giant cranes of enormous strength straddled the drydocks, moving up and back on rails laid on either side of the pits. On certain afternoons, crowds of hard-hatted men, some with welding goggles hung about their necks and steel-toed shoes on their feet, would tilt a collective head skyward to witness the cranes hoist an assembled conning tower from the staging area, swing it high over the heads of the men who made it, and place it precisely onto the deck of a nuclear powered city. From a distance, silhouetted against a western sky, the cranes resembled some enlarged gym apparatus, like vaulting horses built for giants.
For as long as New Hampton had been a city, the ear-splitting shrill of the 7 A.M. whistle had been its alarm clock. Mounted on the top of the steel fabrication building, it summoned the first shift to work as the rest of New Hampton opened one eye. From the parking lots, cafes, diners, and newsstands along Tyler Avenue the workers hustled to punch the clock before the late whistle cost them pay. During fall and winter, a morning fog off the river sometimes veiled the yard, amplifying sound and dampening spirits. Those days must have dragged interminably inside the gates. 5:00 seemed unreachable. When the shift change whistle finally sounded, the craggy old jailer unbolted its gates and paroled its occupants, who dispersed onto the streets with thoughts of warm whiskey or a seat near the heater for the ride home.
The Riverside Country Club, my destination, lay seven miles upriver from the shipyard. Known simply as “the club” to its members, it took a parental pride in its golf course. I played occasionally; usually, like today, at the invitation of Dr. Ross Vernon, a general surgeon with an eight handicap and a past chairman of the Greens Committee. He was also my best friend and my client. Ross’s wife, Carol, saw Elizabeth often, and except for Carol’s efforts to recruit her into Mary Kay, Elizabeth liked her. We usually socialized with the Vernons at our home or theirs, but occasionally at the club, where we were not members.
I parked, extracted my clubs from the trunk, and after leaning against the car to change my shoes, I headed across the fairway in the direction of the fourth tee, where instinct told me Ross Vernon would be by now. On a bench near the blue tee I watched Vernon and another man putt out on number three. They replaced the flag and walked toward me.
“You’re late,” called Vernon, a rotund, friendly man with contact lenses and hands surprisingly meaty for his delicate work.
“You’re right,” I returned, rising to meet him.
“Coleman, do you know Ed Polling of Armstrong Securities?”
“Don’t think I do,” I said, shaking hands with Polling who affably assured me it was indeed nice to meet me as well. Polling impressed me as a serious golfer. His bag and clubs showed wear and his golf glove dangled from his back pocket with the insouciance I had come to associate with those who took three-putting personally.
My first impression firmed when Polling, with honors on the third hole, stepped to the tee and drove his ball two hundred and ninety yards at the dead center of the fairway. I caught Ross Vernon’s eye as Polling watched his ball come to rest.
“Not bad,” I said. “Pressure is my middle name.”
Vernon smirked. “There’s beer in my bag. Help yourself.”
I topped my first drive—I usually do—sending it bounding down the rough on the left. Ugly, but the distance wasn’t bad. Vernon then hit a very respectable drive thirty yards behind and to the right of where Polling’s ball lay. I wondered why I played this game. I do not enjoy golf, and I enjoy golfers as a group even less, although Ross Vernon is an exception.
We shouldered our bags and ambled down the fairway, lined on either side by the dead leaves of winter. “Looks like a ten ball afternoon,” I joked. For me, winter golf means lots of time looking for my ball in the woods. I glanced toward Polling to see if my comment provoked a smile, the kind of response that would leave me free to take the game as lightly as I pleased. But Polling’s eyes were fixed on his ball, his mind focused on his club selection, his pace quickening into a martial gait, and he appeared not to have heard. I turned to Ross.
“So, how goes the cut and cure business?”
“About the same,” he answered. “Couple of gall bladders in the morning, golf in the afternoon. The usual.”
“Remind me,” I said, “when I need surgery to inquire about handicaps. I want to die at the hands of someone who doesn’t know a birdie from a bugle.”
Ross Vernon laughed. “You can’t equate golfing ability with surgical skill. The best surgeon in town wins the member-guest every year.”
“Who is that?” I asked. As a club non-member, I know little of these intramural honors.
“Bill Hartsock. The joke around the scrub basins is that Doctor Bill can do brain surgery with a putter.”
“I’m old fashioned. I like the ones who use scalpels and aren’t in a hurry to get to the first tee.”
“Not many of those left,” Vernon said as we arrived at my ball. I checked my distance, took out a five iron, and dropped my bag behind me.
“Ross, you want to run up there and tend the flag for me. I hate it when I get off a two hundred yard chip and the flag deflects it at the last second.”
Vernon grinned. “About twelve shots from now, when you hit the green, I’ll take care of the pin.”
Polling remained silent, as though playing alone. As I limbered up with my five iron, I felt the intimidation of Polling’s stare. I approached the ball, whacked downward, and felt a surge of relief as the ball erupted toward the pin, landing just off the green.
“Nice shot,” allowed Polling.
“Thanks,” I acknowledged. “If I had any sense, I would call it a day now.”
The light was fading. Shadows of the bare oaks and maples lengthened across our path. Vernon took a sweater from his bag and pulled it over his head. When we putted out, Polling had parred, Vernon had a bogey five, and I had shot six, which pleased me. At the next tee, Vernon popped a beer. Polling declined.<
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On the fifth hole, a par five, Polling and Vernon each bogeyed while I took a ten. “Could have been worse,” I noted. At number six, I made a par three. “Now that’s the Coleman Carter we’ve come to know and fear,” I mocked. Polling actually smiled. As we followed our shots off the next tee, Polling walked ahead and I said to Vernon, “Where did you find this Polling? Is he one of your patients who suffered oxygen deprivation while you stitched him up?”
“He’s my broker. Scratch golfer, as you can see. Not much at stand-up comedy, but good with the market.” We watched Polling stride purposely toward his ball. “You’re only going to get in four or five holes. How come you’re late?”
“You’re not going to believe it when I tell you.” I had resolved on the way to the club to say nothing about the adoption, but I liked Ross Vernon. “Elizabeth and I had a meeting with Social Services.” Vernon eyed me expectantly. “We’re adopting a kid.”