by John Warley
“We want you to stay in touch with the agency as your child grows up,” continued the representative. “Send us pictures or notices of special events in your child’s life.”
I looked around at the faces of those who, like us, were about to be matched with a stranger, a “pig in a poke,” as Sarah put it, and I thought about the fact that regardless of who stepped off the plane, the lives of every person present for the briefing, and every orphan currently nearing the airspace over Columbus, Ohio on Northwest Orient Flight 451, would be altered beyond recall in the next two hours, and for a lifetime thereafter. Talk about pressure.
The briefing ended at 5:00, leaving a whole, endless forty-five minutes until arrival. The greeting families gathered in a special reception area set aside by the airline. Clusters of parents, children and grandparents huddled together at the fringes. We mingled in the crowd, finding ourselves at one point standing next to a young couple who gazed about with the uneasiness of two people who wanted to talk but were too shy to introduce themselves. I introduced myself to the man.
“Steve Zarnell,” he said. “This is my wife, Betty.”
“Oh,” I said. “We have a son named Steven. Do you have children?”
“This will be our first,” said Betty Zarnell, a plump brunette with dark eyes and a faintly pug nose.
“Boy or girl?” I wanted to know.
“A boy,” she said. “Three months old. We can hardly wait.”
“A new one, younger than our daughter,” Coleman observed. “Have you picked out a name?”
“Steven, Jr.,” said Steve.
The Zarnells lived in Pennsylvania, near Scranton. They had married knowing that he was sterile and had been on a number of adoption waiting lists for several years. “We couldn’t wait any longer,” said Betty Zarnell, her excitement growing visibly as she rocked on the balls of her feet. “And just think—only twenty more minutes.”
Coleman excused himself and walked to a nearby monitor displaying arrival updates. Northwest Orient Flight 451 “on time,” he reported when he returned.
I saw an older couple with three Korean children, two boys and a girl, talking to the Open Arms representative. All about us families clustered, talking in low voices and repeatedly looking toward the arrival gate. Through the window flanking the gate we saw the jetway, ready to swing out to couple with the aircraft.
Coleman surprised me by a serious question. “Remember when you suggested this? It was what, four years ago?”
“About that.”
“Did you ever think you would be standing here, waiting?”
I didn’t answer right away, but nodded. “My instincts for things like this are pretty good. I thought it would happen one day, although you put me through some anxious moments in the process.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he said, and I knew he meant it. “Resolving my doubts was an essential part of the journey for me.”
“I realize that now. Are they resolved?”
“Ninety percent. That’s close enough.”
My attention shifted to a young Asian girl, maybe six or seven, who appeared to be Korean clinging to her mother’s dress. Would our child grow to look like that? I knew Coleman wanted a daughter, and when he pictured one he no doubt had envisioned someone who looked more like me than that girl. I wasn’t sure I wanted biological competition. Was that catty?
An excited murmur went through the crowd as people began edging closer to the gate. I looked out the window as a giant 747 maneuvered into position beside the jetway, which swung out to meet it when it came to a stop. I grabbed Coleman’s arm and pulled him toward the gate.
A man dressed in a blazer and identified by the Northwest Orient insignia over the breast pocket addressed those pressed around the cordon separating them from the gate. “The regular passengers will deplane first. When they have left the gate area, the children will deplane in order of age, oldest first. This was the procedure requested by the chaperons on board the flight.”
An attendant propped open the door leading to the jetway as the first passengers filed out. We waiting families created a thin corridor just wide enough for them to pass. Several of those leaving flight 451 paused at the back fringe of the crowd to watch. “Cute kids,” I heard a woman carrying a briefcase say as she elbowed her way through the crowd, which contracted gradually as the plane emptied. Finally, the stream of passengers stopped. The gate area beyond the cordon was deserted. The waiting crowd settled into a collective stillness as all eyes focused on the doorway leading to the plane.
A small, slender boy of perhaps fourteen emerged alone, his eyes widening in bewilderment as he took in the crowd. He was dressed in jeans and a navy coat, on which a name tag identifying him as Roy Malone was affixed. As he approached the cordon, a couple I could only guess to be the Malones reached out from the crowd, which parted to absorb the boy. My view of their greeting was obscured.
Then came a girl, her hair in barrettes and dressed in a skirt and sweater. Her name tag read, “Melissa Thompson.”
On they came, one by one, each claimed by a family of at least two when they reached the cordon. We moved steadily toward the front of the crowd as all around us adults presented flowers and embraced the new arrivals. Children stared at new brothers or sisters awkwardly before braving the first contact, a practiced phrase or a reticent touch.
Finally, it was just us and the Zarnells who stood gazing at the doorway. All of the children who had deplaned so far, down to a very overwhelmed two-year-old girl whose hand was held by a chaperon, had come off under their own power. The math was simple; Soo Yun would be next.
The chaperon returned to the plane as I brought my hands up to my face, trying to hold it together manually. Coleman put his arm around me. At the door, the chaperon again emerged, carrying a blanketed bundle. When she reached a point halfway to the cordon, I could not stand it another instant. I broke through, taking the bundle in my arms and retracing my steps to where Coleman stood watching. As the chaperon, following me, handed the plastic travel bag to Coleman, I peeled the blanket back from the child’s face.
And there she was. Tiny, sleepy, in desperate need of a new diaper and fresh clothes, but there, lying in my arms like she belonged. I bent over her as tears came.
“They said not to cry,” Coleman reminded me, but I sensed he was a bit emotional himself. He told me later about seeing the Zarnells receiving their son, but I was too overcome to notice anything but the baby who was now my baby, our baby. When I pulled myself together, I started toward the Zarnells to wish them luck, but they were as focused on their new arrival as I had been, so I settled for a thumbs up which Steve Zarnell acknowledged by one back to us. It was just as well, because at that moment Coleman, glancing at the wall clock, said, “Let’s go. We can’t miss that flight home.”
We hailed a cab and arrived at La Guardia with a modest margin of time. I used it to change Soo Yun. I carried her into the ladies room along with the change of clothes I brought from New Hampton.
“Wait here,” I told Coleman at the door. “This child could use some freshening up.”
It took longer than I thought. The dress I had selected swallowed her. “I had no idea she’d be this small,” I said as we emerged. “Josh and Steven were bigger than this at birth.”
Thirty minutes later, as Coleman looked out his window at the jeweled tableau which is Manhattan from the air at night, Soo Yun, awake but hardly alert, contorted restlessly in my lap as the plane gained altitude and the seat belt sign went off. Coleman ordered drinks. When served, he proposed a toast.
“To the future,” he said, touching the plastic rim against mine. I sipped my wine as Soo Yun stirred.
“It’s going to work out,” I said. “I can feel it.”
“Promise me that before her fifth birthday you’ll let me hold her.”
I smiled and said, “You know what amazes me? Your mother. I never thought I’d hear from her what we heard yesterday. I can honestly say I’m
not sure I would be capable of that kind of grace.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” he agreed. “One of these days she and this little one will be great pals, but it won’t be overnight.”
“They would get closer sooner if we lived in Charleston, don’t you think?” I turned my head away as he absorbed my words.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Sure. The offer from Barron Morris is almost too good to pass up. Besides, I think you want to go home.”
“I never sensed that Charleston held any appeal for you.”
“No, but I’m not sure I’ve given it a fair chance. And it’s your heritage—Josh’s and Steven’s, too.”
It was almost 11:00 when the plane touched down in New Hampton. Forty minutes later, we pulled into our driveway. The house was lit up on both floors, and from the cars parked along the street I knew Ross and Carol Vernon had organized a small welcome party. We parked and started up the walk, Coleman walking in front to open the door and I followed with Soo Yun. When he reached the front door, Coleman paused, then erupted in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, looking over his shoulder as he pointed to the door. Hand-printed on a sign were the words, “Aliens use rear entrance.”
“I’m going to kill Ross Vernon,” I said as we opened the door and entered the living room, where Betsy and husband David, Ross and Carol Vernon, Josh and Steven, and two other couples waited to welcome the new addition to the Carter household. Our boys, extended hours beyond their normal bedtime, were given a quick introduction and sent to bed. As I displayed the baby, our friends offered congratulations. It was well after midnight when Betsy and David, the last guests, yawned and stood to leave.
I carried Soo Yun to her room. When I reached into the bag that had accompanied her from Seoul, my hand fell on the pearl-backed mirror, around which had been attached, by means of a rubber band, a piece of paper. I unrolled it and spread it on the changer.
The two scars under this child’s arm are a result of biopsies performed at the Korean Children’s Hospital. They are not serious. Her medical records are available for your doctor’s review.
/s/ Faith Stockdale
P.S. The mirror belongs to the child.
I removed her dress and inspected the scars. They were indeed large, and alarming. I marveled that I had not seen them at La Guardia. In the morning, I would take her to be examined by a specialist, to have confirmed by American doctors the reassurance contained in the note.
But now it was late. I dressed her in the sleeper set out on the changer. As I laid her in her crib, she seemed to settle in with a sigh of approval, although it was undoubtedly mere fatigue from a trip halfway around the world. I placed the mirror on the night stand, turned out the light, and closed the door gently, to give her peace.
Part 2
RAPIDS
Ever thus the pulse of Time
Ever thus youth sings its song
Ever thus day ends with moaning
Time is fierce, and tides are strong.
ROBERT WOODWARD BARNWELL, SR.
“The Course of Life,” Realities and Imaginations
16
Elizabeth
Those scars? Of course they worried us, but our doctor reviewed the records from Korea and reassured us so promptly that had it not been for seeing them when we changed or bathed her, I would have forgotten they were there. Of far greater concern, to us and to every adopting couple who lacks knowledge about the biological parents, the child’s prenatal care, and genetic predispositions, are signs of impairment, mental or physical. The ones that take some time to manifest themselves. And there is a name for adoptive parents who deny that these were a concern with their particular child. They are called liars.
We named her Allison and called her Allie. The first few mornings revealed something about each of us. The mobile suspended above her crib fascinated her. From the doorway of her bedroom I watched as her eyes went from the monkey to the fish to the giraffe to the squirrel. When she moved, they moved, and this brought the first smiles we saw. I say ‘we’ because Coleman joined me there on several of these first mornings, and sideways glances told me she was not the only one smiling. Aside from occasional squawks from hunger or irritation, she impressed me as content in her new environment, which naturally justified my “it-was-meant-to-be” optimism.
The most remarkable thing about Allie’s early childhood development was how unremarkable it was, as if she had started life over within traditional markers. She ate everything put in front of her (except squash) or left within reach. Her neck, too weak to support her head when she arrived, strengthened. Her legs lengthened until her body took on proportion. Gradually, she thrived, but with developmental differences I noticed and Coleman ticked off to me one day not too long after her first birthday. Josh and Steven had crawled looking up; she kept her head down. The boys, taking their first steps, had fallen backward, on their diapered bottoms; she fell forward. The boys deflected strained vegetables with their right hands; she used her left, and only for squash, which she hated. “Mom” was the first word said by the boys; for her it was “milk.” At least that is what I think she said.
We were in Charleston by then, where Coleman’s father passed away two months after we arrived. He regained only limited speech, and what little he communicated was spent on subjects well wide of adoption. He died without ever meeting Allie. Sarah composed his obituary, and when I realized she had omitted Allie’s name as a surviving grandchild, it was all I could do to attend the funeral and to feel empathy for his widow. Sarah knew I was livid, and I stayed so for weeks afterwards. It was not until that summer, on the beach, when we watched Sarah instruct a toddling Allie on the proper way to build a sandcastle, that I began to sense things would only get better between them. And they did, but it was gradual.
At eighteen months, Coleman took her for her checkup.
“How is our girl?” I asked as he loosened his tie and tossed his coat over the back of a kitchen chair.
“She’s still not on the growth chart, but Rick says she’s healthy. She didn’t like the shot at all. She let the whole clinic know how unhappy she was.”
“Good lungs, eh? If she develops a chest I’m going to be very upset.”
Coleman laughed. “You’re feeling threatened?”
“Asians are supposed to be small breasted. I’m counting on it. She can be as beautiful as she likes, but I refuse to be intimidated by a daughter who won’t wear my dresses because they are ‘snug.’”
“Maybe you can bind her chest. It works for feet.”
On the day President Reagan was shot, Allie tripped on a pull toy in the playroom and struck her mouth on an end table. For a time it looked as if she might lose a tooth that had just emerged on her lower gum. Like Reagan, the tooth survived.
Josh and Steven, adapting to new friends and surroundings, ignored her. They rode their bikes, tested their imaginations against neighbors, adapted to a different school. Occasionally they would use her as a prop in a game, or grow bored enough to torment her by hiding behind doors and jumping out suddenly with a yell. I found a playgroup for her, watchful for any sign of alienation from toddlers her own age, but she mixed well. Parents of other children either hid their curiosity behind a mask of indifference or, at the other extreme, asked so many questions for which I had no answers. “We know very little about her,” I would say, and the more I repeated the phrase the more it came to me that it was true.
I shared those doubts with Coleman one evening over drinks. The kids were all in bed and I mentioned Dot Ellis, whose daughter Catherine was in Allie’s playgroup. “I guess I was a bit defensive with her,” I told him. “She didn’t come out with it to my face, but she implied I was nuts to have taken a child with no background check or history. Looking back, maybe it was a little nuts.”
“Oh?” he said, and I felt a huge I-told-you-so on the way. “My dear, coming from you that is quite an admission.”
> But then, just when I thought he would lecture me on how truly rash it was, or at least how rash it seemed to others, he said, “But you went on your instincts. You usually do. And in this instance I think you were right, so to hell with Dot Ellis.” I could have kissed him for that. In fact, I did kiss him for it.
Still, we both worried, and although we did not talk about it much, I know we both studied her for signs of trouble, particularly in the early days. How bright was she? Would she grow up awkward and ugly? Had her parents bequeathed lethal, time-delayed drug addictions or lymphomas? Like the survivor of an accident who has no time to appreciate the danger until after it has passed, I nervously studied her for any sign that my great experiment had been, in fact, a fanciful whim destined to disappoint. In time, I came to associate these anxieties with the move to Charleston rather than any objective observations of her. To my eyes and ears, she showed every sign of relentless normality.
For Coleman, the adjustment to having a daughter, this daughter, seemed to me to take an opposite course. Before her arrival, he had echoed the prophecies of skeptics. I knew he was waiting for confirmation of retardation, of family-wrecking mental instability, of mortal infant illness, of deformed growth. In Virginia, he had bathed her, changed her, fed her, and rocked her on nights when I craved sleep and Allie didn’t, all the while certain that he held a time bomb of sorts.
But when we reached Charleston he relaxed, and these dreads had been supplanted by feelings I think he was just beginning to understand. When she learned to walk he took her to the Battery, holding her hand as she tottered along the edge of the parapet. She kept her head down, eyes focused directly a step ahead, concentrating. When they reached the end, she turned at once to retrace their path. Sometimes he directed her to the railing, where they could see the harbor and he could teach her words like “wave” and “boat” and “fort” and “ship.” The bond they were forming thrilled me, even if he didn’t recognize its strength right away.