by Amy Hatvany
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about dogs.”
“That’s what the bible is for. And me.” He looked at me expectantly, but when I didn’t speak, he went on, ignoring my disinterest. “I own a vet practice in town. We train guide dogs as a community service, as well as providing free obedience training for local rescue shelters. Part of this program, after you’ve worked with me here and earn approval for work release, is to come to the clinic and get some basic, hands-on training as a vet tech. You can even start working toward a two-year degree in veterinary sciences, if you want.” He glanced down at a folder in front of him. “I understand you need to get your GED, but as soon as you do, if you want, you can start taking college courses.”
I scowled, wondering what else that file had to say about me. “Is this supposed to be some kind of fucking rehabilitation bullshit?” I wanted to shock him, but my foul language didn’t make a dent in Randy’s jovial demeanor.
“Only if you let it,” he said. “What you get out of this is entirely up to you. If you don’t buy into learning all you can, doing all you can do with the dogs, I’d be happy to tell Mr. Myer that you’re not suited for the program.”
I stood up, pushing my chair away from the table with a loud screech. “You can tell him that now,” I said. I wasn’t interested in being rehabilitated. This man was crazy if he thought working with dogs would fix whatever was wrong with me. My head began to buzz again as I flashed back to the moment in the park, to running through the woods with another woman’s child, thinking that child was mine.
“Jennifer, please,” Randy said, as he stood up as well. He was only a few inches taller than me, and his stomach strained the buttons on his ridiculous pink shirt. He picked up the binder and held it out to me. “Just read through it. If you’re still not interested, fine. I’ll talk with Mr. Myer. But this is a new program here. You’d be the first inmate I’d get to work with. I’d hate to be a total failure right out of the gate.”
I stared at the binder, then back at Randy. “Bella, door,” he said, and the dog, who still hadn’t moved, got to her feet and trotted over to the room’s entrance. She jumped up and, using her front paws, pushed down on the silver handle and slowly walked on her hind legs until the door was fully open. She looked back at us, waiting, it seemed, for someone to come toward her.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, and Randy smiled again.
“Impressive, right?” he said. “And that’s only a basic skill. There’s so much more to it than that.” He shook the binder in the air. “So what do you think? Are you in?” he asked. “Will you give it a chance?”
I glanced over to Bella, who stood on her hind legs, motionless. I reached out and snatched the binder from Randy’s grasp. “I’ll read it,” I said. “But I’m not making any promises.”
“That’s all I ask,” he said, and then I walked out of the room, past Bella, reluctant to admit I just might be holding a tiny scrap of hope.
Natalie
By the time Natalie said good-bye to Gina at her apartment and made it home, it was four o’clock and she only had an hour before Hailey and Henry were due back from their playdates. She considered using the time to get started on the order prep for the party she was catering the next night, but after her conversation with Gina, she couldn’t think of anything else but trying to find her sister. Work would have to wait.
She grabbed her laptop from her desk in the den, opened a search engine, and typed in her sister’s name. The first link that came up was for Facebook, suggesting that Natalie search for Brooke Walker on the social media site. Natalie clicked on it and logged in to her personal Facebook account, which she really only used to post pictures of the things she baked, then typed in her sister’s name again. A list of over three hundred women came up, all living in various cities across the United States. Natalie had no way to know where Brooke might be living. Had she stayed in Seattle, or did she flee the area when she turned eighteen? She scanned the list and then filtered it by adding the modifier “Seattle, WA” to the search field with her sister’s name, and the results came up blank. Similar searches of Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr came back empty, too. If her sister was in the Seattle area, she certainly didn’t spend any significant time online. Of course, she could be married, Natalie thought. She could have been adopted and have an entirely different last name. If that was the case, it was a pointless endeavor to search on social media platforms for the name her sister had had when she was four.
Frustrated, Natalie closed out the web page and opened a fresh tab. She remembered Gina’s words about the various online adoption registries, so she did a search for the largest, most reputable one. Natalie clicked on the link at the top of the list and saw that it was a mutual consent registry, meaning that if her sister—or even her birth mother—was already registered on the site, Natalie could be contacted within a couple of days of when a data match was found. While the site didn’t have access to court records and couldn’t confirm a relationship as authentic, it could at least provide first contact with a possible blood relative. The FAQ page recommended that if necessary, once the two individuals connect, they could petition the court to open their records, or voluntary DNA testing could be done.
This could be it, she thought as she eagerly used her email address to create a log in and filled out her own profile with as much information as she could about herself. She listed her maiden name as Natalie Walker, thinking that would be the name Brooke might search for if she was, in fact, looking for her sister, too. She filled in her date of birth and the dates and details of her infancy as best she could, using the same story her mom had told her and Natalie had passed on to Hailey. She noted her brief stint at Hillcrest before she had been adopted, she described her physical characteristics, and then she went on to fill out the limited information she knew about her older sister. She entered her name, and all the information about how they had both lived in a car with their mother, how she had signed over her parental rights to the state. She entered the fourteen years Brooke had stayed at Hillcrest, as well as Gina’s name and contact information, in case Brooke had included that in her profile.
Natalie was just about to hit submit when there was a knock at the front door. “Mommy, I’m ho-ome!” Hailey called out from the porch. “Let me in!”
Natalie stood up and stared at the screen as she pressed her index finger down on the mouse, and then a box popped up informing her that her profile had been successfully posted to the site. Please, she thought. Let this work.
“Coming!” she said as she jogged toward the foyer and opened the door. Hailey hugged her legs as Natalie waved at Ruby’s mom, who had stayed inside her car in the driveway, waiting until Hailey was safely in the house. Ruby’s mom beeped the horn once before backing out and driving away. Another car pulled up in front of the house then, and Natalie recognized Katie at the wheel.
“Hey!” Katie said as she climbed out of the car and walked around to the other side. She opened the back door and helped Henry release his seat belt, and Natalie watched as her son raced up the walkway and into the house.
“Hi, Mama!” Henry said as he pushed past both her and Hailey, dropping his Buzz Lightyear backpack on the bench next to the door. Buzz was Henry’s latest obsession; he’d watch all three of the Toy Story movies every day if Natalie let him. At night, he slept with a hard plastic, electronic Buzz doll, something she’d found at a consignment store for just a couple of bucks and sometimes regretted buying because of the toy’s irritatingly loud mechanical voice. In the morning, Natalie knew Henry was awake and pushing buttons when she heard “To infinity . . . and beyond!” coming from his bedroom.
“Thanks for bringing him home,” Natalie called out to Katie, who stood next to her car. “I’m happy to return the favor when Logan plays over here.”
“Sounds good,” Katie said, smiling. She gave Natalie a short wave and then climbed back in the driver’s seat and drove awa
y.
Natalie ushered Hailey inside and shut the door behind them. Henry was already lying on his stomach on the couch, propped up on his elbows and scissoring-kicking the cushions as he played with two small action figures, Buzz Lightyear and Woody. His head was bent down and his shoulders were hunched, intent on whatever story he had them acting out, narrating their conversation under his breath, first in Buzz’s voice, “I’ve set my laser from stun to kill!” and then, in Woody’s slow drawl, “Reach for the sky!”
“Guess what?” her daughter said as she pulled off her bright red jacket and dropped it to the floor. “Ruby has a new kitten! His name is Tux because he’s black and has white fur shaped like a bow tie on his neck!”
“Hang that up, please,” Natalie said. Hailey groaned as though she’d just been asked to carry a load of bricks across a desert, but then hung up her coat on one of the hooks by the door.
“But did you hear me?” Hailey said as they walked together into the kitchen. “The kitten’s name is Tux! Like Tuxedo! Because of the bow tie. Get it?”
“I get it,” Natalie said, waiting for her daughter’s inevitable request.
“He is sooo cute,” Hailey said. “I wish I had a kitten.” She looked at Natalie sidelong and raised her eyebrows. “It’s almost my birthday, you know.” Her birthday was actually in March, five months away, so “almost” was a bit of a stretch.
“I’m sorry, honey, but you know with my baking I can’t have animals in the house,” Natalie said. Her kitchen was licensed commercial, and even though she’d soon be moving her work space out into the more spacious and fully remodeled garage, state regulations still forbade any animals on the premises.
“I know,” Hailey sighed. “It’s not fair.”
Natalie glanced at her laptop, thinking she should shut it down, but then decided against it. What if a data match came back tonight? Unlikely, Natalie knew, but still, she kept her computer on.
“How about you work on your family tree while I work on my dessert order?” Natalie suggested as she opened up the refrigerator, pulled out six pounds of butter, two dozen eggs, and a bag of lemons, and set them on the counter. She’d get the lemon curd going first, and then make the truffle filling for the chocolate lava cakes.
“I already finished it at Ruby’s,” Hailey said.
“Wow,” Natalie said. “Can I see it?”
“Okay!” Hailey pushed her chair back and raced to the foyer, where she’d hung up her backpack along with her coat.
Henry wandered into the kitchen then and attached himself to one of Natalie’s legs, sitting on her foot. His arms held tight around her knee while she unwrapped cubes of butter and plopped them into a pan on the stove.
“I’m back!” Hailey announced when she returned, holding a large piece of white construction paper than had been folded in half, which she opened and delivered to Natalie. “It’s kinda bad,” she said. “The leaves are all crooked.”
“Very bad, that picture!” Henry said, letting go of his mother’s leg.
“Very stupid, my brother!” Hailey shot back.
“Hey. No name-calling,” Natalie said, immediately wondering if she and Brooke would have quarreled like this, if they had been raised together. Would they have been close? Would they have stayed up all night giggling about the boys they liked or gossiping about their friends? Would they have fought over clothes and makeup and whose turn it was to clean the bathroom? Would Brooke have fed her ice cream when Natalie cried over her first broken heart? There was no way she’d ever know the answers to these questions, and the thought of that, being victim of that kind of loss, made Natalie’s heart ache.
Still holding the paper Hailey had delivered, Natalie smoothed it onto the counter. Her daughter had drawn a picture of herself at the base of the tree, under the ground. Her curls were drawn in brown springs shooting out from her head, directly linked to the tree’s squiggly roots, which Natalie thought was a creative touch. There was a branch and leaves right above her for Natalie and Kyle, as well as for Kyle’s older brother, Sean, who lived in Los Angeles with his wife, Isabelle, and their two boys, Carter and Cody. Hailey had given both of her cousins their own leaves, too. Her parents’ branch was above them all, along with a branch and two leaves for Kyle’s parents, who lived in South Carolina and rarely came to visit.
“You did a beautiful job, honey,” Natalie said, and for what felt like the countless time that day, her eyes filled with tears.
“Are you crying?” Hailey asked, incredulous. “It’s so good it made you cry?”
Natalie laughed. “Yes,” she told her daughter, even though that wasn’t the reason for her tears. However much she might like to, she couldn’t tell Hailey that the project wasn’t complete. In order to be an accurate picture, a true account of their family history, the drawing needed another branch and two more leaves.
• • •
Natalie did her best to keep busy the next couple of days, trying not to think too much about Brooke or check her email too often to see if the adoption registry had found a match. Instead, she focused on work, fulfilling her weekly orders for the three local espresso stands who had hired her to provide them the baked goods they offered their customers. Since it was fall, she made a selection of seasonally themed muffins: cranberry-orange cornmeal, pumpkin streusel, and eggnog spiced with a hint of fresh ground nutmeg, as well as tender almond croissants and a variety of bite-size, melt-in-your-mouth scones. She met with three different contractors who gave her bids on the remodel of the garage and hired her first choice, excited that the work would soon begin.
But after a week of trying to be patient, Natalie decided she couldn’t take the waiting any longer—she needed to do something more, take some kind of action to try to find her sister. It struck her that she could visit Hillcrest, the state home where she and Brooke had stayed after their mother gave them up—where Brooke had ultimately spent most of her childhood—and see if they had anything in their records that might lead Natalie to where her sister was today. It was a long shot, but Natalie was anxious enough to do it anyway.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Kyle asked when she told him her plan. They were in the kitchen after the kids were asleep.
“I don’t think so,” Natalie said as she wiped down the counter. “But thanks for offering.” She appreciated her husband’s support, but she also felt like this was something she wanted to do alone.
The next morning, after she had dropped off both kids at school, Natalie used the map function on her iPhone to find the address for Hillcrest, then followed the GPS instructions that led her to the facility in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Georgetown. Her heart thumped hard behind her rib cage as she parked in the lot next to the three-story, gray-brick building and climbed out of her car, clutching her purse in a tight grip. It was a little strange, knowing that she had stayed inside these walls for a month when she was a baby; the vision she’d had of her adoption process didn’t include a place that looked as stark as this. She’d imagined something along the lines of a daycare center, a cheerful yellow building with lots of flowers in its yard, rooms filled with chubby babies waiting for their new parents to bring them home. But visiting Hillcrest wasn’t about her, it was about finding out more about Brooke.
It was another drizzly day, typical of Seattle in early October, so Natalie held her coat over her head as she made her way up the front steps and pushed open the glass door to where a heavyset man with broad shoulders and a shaved head sat at a desk to her right. He wore a black uniform, which she assumed meant he was a security guard. Two metal detectors stood in front of her, similar to those found at airport checkpoints, as well as a machine with a black conveyor belt that looked like the ones travelers had to put their carry-on luggage through.
“Can I help you?” the man asked. In contrast to his substantial build, his voice was high pitched and nasal. He sported a closely shorn, black goatee.
“I hope so,” Natalie replied, rea
djusting her jacket so it hung correctly. “My sister and I stayed here when we were kids. We were separated thirty years ago, and I’m trying to find her.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Um . . . no, actually. I wasn’t sure if I’d need one. I was just hoping to talk to an administrator.”
The man looked her over, as though trying to decide something. “Let me see if anyone’s available.” Natalie thanked him, and he grabbed for the phone on his desk. “Hey, Lizzie. I’ve got a woman here needing to talk to someone about the time she and her sister stayed here.” He paused, listening for a moment. “Yeah. Okay, thanks. I’ll let her know.” He hung up and looked back at Natalie. “You’re in luck. One of our case managers is free. She’ll be down in a minute.”
“Thanks so much,” Natalie said, relieved.
“No problem. Can you sign in here, please?” He pointed to a clipboard on his desk, and Natalie took a couple of steps over so she could comply. After she had, he nodded in the direction of the metal detector. “Go ahead and walk through now, and put your purse on the conveyor belt.”
Natalie did as he asked, feeling a bit like she was entering a prison. She wondered if the kids who stayed here felt the same way, having to be checked for weapons every time they entered the building, being treated like criminals in a place they were supposed to call home. After picking up her purse, she waited for the case manager, taking in her surroundings. The floor was dingy white linoleum with several cracks and missing chunks along its surface, and the air had a stale, locker-room quality. The walls were gray cinder block, which Natalie thought only added to the jail-like feel of the building. There was nothing soft or inviting about the space; she could only imagine what spending the majority of her childhood here might have done to Brooke. What kind of person it might have turned her into.
“Hello,” a voice said, interrupting Natalie’s thoughts. She turned to see a blond woman coming toward her. The woman looked to be in her mid- to late twenties and wore jeans, a blue-and-white–striped sweater, and black Converse sneakers. Her long hair was pulled into a simple, sleek ponytail at the base of her neck. “I’m Melissa Locke.” She held out her hand, and Natalie shook it.