First in the suitcase went the framed photograph of David that I kept on my desk. In February he’d finally given into my pleading and agreed to sit for a studio photograph, and together we’d pored over the proofs. David favored a serious pose – what I called his “Leopold” look - while I preferred one that showed him with just the hint of a smile on his face – the way he often looked at me when I got carried away with an idea. I prevailed, and the black and white portrait stood upright on my desk when I was in the room alone and face down, under a box of tissues, at all other times. Most of all, I didn’t want Rosemary to see it. Only once was I caught by surprise; I was studying after dinner when a Blaine Hall monitor – one of the girls who came around at the beginning of the quarter to ask every resident’s grade point average – knocked on my door. I forgot to hide the photograph, and when she had finished recording my data in her notebook, she stared with interest at David’s picture.
“Is that your dad? He sure is good looking!”
David was greatly amused when I told him the story.
I picked up the music box David had given me for my twentieth birthday a month before; knowing my aversion to accepting gifts, he said it wasn’t a present, but a commemoration of his being 27 years older than I was, instead of 28, a situation that would last until his forty-eighth birthday in July. I turned the winder, the cylinder started to rotate past the comb, and a song began tinkling from the box. “When I fall in love, it will be forever…” I switched it off and put the music box in the suitcase beside David’s picture.
My closet was full of dresses, each one evoking a memory of that last year at the university – the black linen sheath and lace top I’d worn to the Andres Segovia concert; the blue chiffon dress with blue velvet ribbons across the waist that I was wearing when I’d cajoled David into taking me to the Colony Club to hear Martin Denny; the sunset pink and white two-piece sleeveless dress I’d worn with a long string of white beads and matching pink shoes the day Maldonado and I had sung an impromptu duet of the folk song "Eres alta y delgada" in front of the Spanish 304 class. Maldonado had asked if anyone knew the words, and I’d raised my hand. So many memories, so many clothes, and in a few months I wouldn’t be able to wear any of them. I shut the closet door.
The next 24 hours are a blur. David and I ate a subdued breakfast at Manning’s the following morning and then stopped by Norma’s office to say goodbye and give her the key to my room. Norma knew, of course; she was the first person to whom I’d confided my fears.
Somehow, I managed to control my tears at the airport. I was wrung out; there was no more emotion left in me. When the loudspeaker announced my flight, we kissed goodbye and I walked toward the plane. Just before climbing the ramp, I turned to look at David. He was standing where I’d left him, with a grief-stricken expression on his face. For an instant I wanted to run back to him, to hug him and tell him we’d be all right; instead, I turned around and boarded the plane. I didn’t go back to Seattle.
Epilogue
Pioneer Square Hotel
Seattle, Washington
August 17, 1984
Dear Mother,
The SHARE conference ended this morning after five intense days of
committee meetings, planning sessions, and technical seminars.
My talk - on Applications Systems - was a success, and it was great
getting together with I.T. colleagues that I see only once a year.
Tomorrow I have a noon flight out of Sea-Tac and Carlos is picking me
up in Oakland.
Do you remember that I used to work for a biochemist named
David Rosenau when I was a junior at the university? He’s retired
now but, as a professor emeritus, continues to teach a few classes.
I phoned him on a whim and he remembered me, even after 27 years.
He invited me to have dinner with him this evening…
Twenty-seven years. As he’d promised, David flew to Oakland when our baby was due and was by my side at the hospital during his birth. The morning after the delivery when we walked to the nursery and asked to see our son, the woman at the desk told us the head nurse didn’t allow unwed mothers to view their babies; hand-in-hand we stood gazing through the glass window, trying to identify the child who was ours. We grieved together for a day and then David went back to Seattle, leaving me to complete the adoption alone.
Within a week I found a job with an insurance company and started saving my money to finish college. I knew I wouldn’t be returning to Washington; asking my parents to pay out-of-state tuition and living expenses in Seattle was unthinkable after what had happened and, much as I loved David, I couldn’t face a repeat of the depression and the fear of pregnancy that had haunted me the last months at the university. In September 1959 I enrolled in a pre-medical program at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in biology; two years later I married Carlos Cisneros, a foreign student I met while working part-time in a department store, and left school, once more without a degree. My letters to David were infrequent; I wrote to tell him of my engagement and he replied, wishing me happiness. We didn’t write again.
In 1967, one husband, and two children later, I returned to Berkeley and finally graduated, with a B.A in anthropology. Despite having only a high school education, Carlos advanced from sticking telegrams in cubbyholes at Central Pacific, a railroad company in San Francisco, to rate clerk, to computer operator, and by the time I got my degree, he was working as a computer programmer. After I graduated, Carlos encouraged me to apply at C.P. for the same position – a suggestion I resisted strongly – but in the end, lured by the prospect of a higher salary than I could earn in any other line of work, I did apply, they hired me, and I found my niche.
Thirteen years later, when I read in a U.W. alumni magazine about Professor L.D. Rosenau’s retirement from the Department of Biochemistry following his wife’s death, I wrote David a brief note of condolence. Returning home from work a few days after sending the letter, I picked up a stack of correspondence from the floor where the postman had shoved it through a slot in the front door, and carried it into the kitchen. I set my purse on the table and, still standing, leafed through the mail, tossing out a flyer for venetian blinds and a solicitation for a credit card, and there it was – a letter from David. When I recognized his handwriting, I broke into a cold sweat. David had addressed his letter to Mrs. Carlos Cisneros, even though I’d written Kate Collins-Cisneros on mine, and it struck me that he’d remembered my husband’s first name. My heart thumping, I tore the envelope open; I hadn’t heard from him in 19 years.
Department of Biochemistry
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
July 26, 1980
Dear Kate,
Thank you for your heartfelt letter of sympathy. Your expression of
concern has given me hope and encouragement during this difficult
time.
Sincerely, David
I must have sat at the table for the better part of an hour, reading and rereading his note, trying to decipher in it some meaning beyond the patently obvious, some kind of hidden message buried in the impersonal words, some expression of … love. David’s response disappointed me. The truth is I was hoping for an opening, an indication he wanted to see me again or at least keep in touch, and when I read his formulaic answer – probably the same thing he replied to everyone who wrote him – I couldn’t help wondering if our time together in Seattle meant so little to David that he’d simply forgotten me.
In the late summer of 1984 Central Pacific asked me to attend a computer conference in Seattle and I seized the opportunity, knowing it might be my last chance to get in touch with David; he was 75 and there were so many things I wanted to tell him. Because David wasn’t listed in the telephone book and I didn’t know his home address, I wrote to him care of the Biochemistry Department, with “please forward” written on the envelope.
2700 Sonoma
Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94708
August 1, 1984
Dear David,
I hope I'm not being presumptuous in thinking you might remember
me after all these years. I’m going to be in Seattle from Aug. 13
through the 17th attending a computer conference and I’d like so
much to see you. Is there any possibility we can get together? I’ll be
flying back to the Bay Area late Saturday morning, the 18th.
Yours truly, Kate
Yours truly. I wondered if David would notice this phrase. Would he ask himself if I’d meant my closure literally? Probably not.
David replied with a short note saying he still had an office at the university; he gave me his telephone number, invited me to dinner, and asked me to call when I reached Seattle. He didn’t say anything about remembering me, but I assumed he wouldn’t have extended a dinner invitation if he couldn’t recall who I was.
When I phoned him, my heartbeat was pounding so insistently in my ears that I could barely hear the ringing on the other end of the line. I counted eight rings and David answered the phone. "This is David Rosenau. I'm currently unable to take your call. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I will contact you as soon as possible. Thank you." I hadn’t heard David’s voice in 26 years, and when I recognized his familiar Argentine accent, I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t utter a word. I phoned again and somehow managed to say I was free on Friday after five and would he please confirm the time he’d pick me up. Later in the evening, when I returned from dinner, the receptionist at the hotel desk handed me a message saying a Dr. Rosenau had called while I was out and he would come by my room on Friday at six. Once again we’d missed each other, a paradigm of our entire relationship.
The conference ended at eleven on Friday morning; too agitated to attend the farewell luncheon, I took a sandwich to my room and spent the afternoon trying to read a novel, but David’s words of so many years before kept running through my head: “on Fridays, when I know you’re coming at three, from one o’clock on I start to feel happy.” David was coming at six, but I wasn’t happy; I was apprehensive, worried he’d changed too much, I’d changed too much, and that getting in touch with him was a terrible mistake. I took a shower, turned on the television set, watched the news, and returned, unsuccessfully, to the book.
At exactly six o’clock a soft knock on the door set my pulse racing. I looked through the peephole and saw David, an older version than I remembered, slightly stooped, eyebrows bushier than ever, with completely gray hair and more lines on his face, but he was recognizably David and my heart leaped. He glanced at the peephole; did he realize I was watching him? For a moment I wondered what we’d do when I opened the door. Would we shake hands? Would we just stand on the threshold staring at one another like a couple of strangers? Would I say “please come in” or something else equally awkward?
I opened the door, our eyes met, and David raised his right hand as if to touch me. “Kate…”And then we were in each other’s arms, kissing, hugging, laughing, and crying. It was 1956 all over again and nothing had changed. David pushed the door shut with his foot.
Still embracing, we crossed the room and fell across the bed.
“I was afraid you’d forgotten me.”
“How could you possibly have thought that?”
“The letter I had from you – after your wife died – it was so remote; I wanted to keep writing to you, I longed to see you, but the way you answered me – it was the sort of letter you would send to just anyone.”
“Kate, I was only trying to forget how happy I’d been. Remembering the time we spent together was so painful, knowing it would never come again. If I didn’t suggest we stay in touch it’s not because I didn’t want you in my life. So many years had passed…your letters … the few you sent me … they were distant, too. I thought you’d probably forgotten about me as well, and if you hadn’t … you’re a married woman now, a mother. I don’t have the right to jeopardize your happiness a second time.”
I started to unbutton his shirt and he withdrew my hand, gently. “No, Kate.”
“Yes. This is my happiness, here with you. I was desperate to see you again because I was afraid … I’d never get another chance to tell you this – David, I love you, I’ve loved you since the day we met. Please. Hold me the way you used to.”
David removed his shoes and hung his jacket on the back of a chair. He lay down beside me on the bed again, and for a long time we talked in the gathering twilight, mingling our words with kisses and caresses.
“Do you remember when we swam to Boone Island and made love on the beach?”
“Do you remember the time at the zoo when you picked me up and swung me round and round like a rag doll?”
“Do you remember …?”
It was bliss being with David again.
The telephone rang. I let it ring three times, switched on the lamp, and lifted the receiver with a sigh. “I’d better answer the phone. It might be Carlos.”
It was the shift supervisor of C.P’s computer room; he was sorry to bother me, but a tape had broken and they couldn’t find a backup for the missing data. I opened my suitcase, pulled out a heavy three-ring binder of system flowcharts and sat cross-legged on the bed as I thumbed through the pages.
“Matt? Do you have the accounting system flowcharts available?” I waited while he got the computer room’s copy and came back on the line. “Take a look at page 113. Do you see the disk data set which is output from program FWBX1100?” I walked him through the procedure for restoring the data and began to jot down notes on the flowchart. “This situation will probably never come up again, but I just thought of a better way of handling it; I’ll work on it when I get back.” Matt thanked me and said he’d call if there were further problems.
“Very impressive.”
“Not really. This is what I do for a living. When I joined the accounting project in 1969, the programs took up all of 13 flowchart pages and now they number more than 300. I designed and wrote a third of them myself and I’ve patched most of the others, so it would be surprising if I didn’t know the system.”
“I hope you’re well paid for your expertise.”
“Very.”
David tilted his watch toward the light and read the time. “Do you realize it’s almost eight o’clock? If we don’t get out of bed pretty soon, we’ll miss the dinner I promised you. I’d take you to Sam’s, but Sam retired years ago and the place isn’t what it used to be.”
I was relieved; I didn’t want to revisit the past. “This hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, but there’s a good one just outside.” We put on our shoes, straightened our clothes, and took the elevator to the first floor.
After the maître d’ had seated us, I glanced around the dining room. “Do you realize no one’s staring at us the way they used to?”
“Naturally. When we met, I wasn’t – to use that dreadful cliché – twice your age, but two and a half times your age. Now I’m only 1.6 times as old as you are. You’re catching up to me.”
“At this rate, when I’m 110 we’ll be the same age.”
“That sounds like a variation on Zeno’s Paradox.”
We smiled at each other, happy to be sharing esoteric trivia that few people would understand. I opened the menu, read the list of entrees, and ordered a crab salad. After the waiter wrote down our order and left the table, I took from my purse a plastic bag containing about 40 photographs and set it in front of David.
“These are for you.”
David removed the pictures, placed the stack in front of him, and started going through them one by one. They were arranged chronologically, from the photo of a young, blonde woman holding a baby, to a beautiful boy of about six posed as a ring-bearer in various weddings, the same boy participating in a race, vacation photos and finally, snapshots of the boy – now grown – in his early twenties. He examined the pictures in stunn
ed silence, and when he had finished, looked up at me. “Can this be … our son?”
“Yes, David, that’s our son.”
“How did you find him? What’s his name? How did you get the photographs?”
Out of habit, I glanced around the dining room to make sure no one was listening. “It’s a long story. One afternoon I was riding a bus in the East Bay and a teenage boy got on in Kensington. A few of his friends were already aboard the bus and they addressed him as ‘Roger’. He resembled you so much that my heart nearly stopped. It was just a coincidence, but seeing him gave me the idea of trying to find our son. When I surrendered him for adoption, the Children’s Home Society told me three things – the father had a graduate degree, the mother was a beautiful blonde, and she had only a high school education.”
“Not much to go on.”
“No, it wasn’t. Have you heard of ALMA?”
“No.”
“ALMA’s an organization dedicated to putting adopted children and their natural parents in contact. I went to an ALMA meeting in San Francisco and learned I was entitled to more information than the CHS had given me, so I wrote to them and asked for additional details. They responded with three priceless facts – our son’s adoptive father was a medical doctor, he was of English-Dutch descent and our son was the first of two children he and his wife adopted.”
The waiter brought our order and I paused until he’d left the table before continuing my story.
“I went to the Public Health Library at the university and consulted every medical directory they had for the San Francisco Bay Area in 1958 and I made a list of all the possibilities, eliminating those whose last names weren’t English or Dutch, and making a guess about age based on our son’s being their first child. I consulted as many biographical sources as I could find, computerized the information, and came up with a list of 200 doctors. Searching for our son was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack; it was like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack. I realized the odds that one of these men had adopted our son were remote, but the list was my only hope.
Letters To My Mother Page 28