by Chris Fabry
“I don’t understand why I can’t be over all this. I don’t see why it’s taking so long. It’s been more than twenty years.”
“Twenty years ago. Let’s start there. When you first came to the school, you were scared. Scarred. A little wounded.”
“A lot wounded.”
“Okay, a lot. We had good talks. You blossomed. You’ve come a long way and I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
“But . . . ?”
When she chuckled, the folds of skin on her neck jiggled, then contracted as she swallowed. “You like staying hidden, Paige. Your essays, early on, were always about someone else. Your parents. The tribe you lived with. I had to prod you to dig into your own heart, and it was like a shovel on rock. It still is, isn’t it?”
“Either that or concrete.” A thought streaked across my brain like a meteor and I spoke it after the trail flamed out. “You’ve talked with Ron, haven’t you?”
She laughed. “Ron Gleason? Now there’s a wonderful man. You should give him more consideration.”
“He’s short.”
“Ron has the heart of a lion and an intact spine, unlike a lot of men. He cares about you, Paige. But he didn’t ask me to intercede. He’s asked questions about you, asked for general advice, and I gave it.”
“What advice?”
“Not to push you. To be patient. Change is something that comes hard for you.”
“Thank you for that.”
“I’m a terrible matchmaker, but in my opinion, this is one you shouldn’t let get away.”
“I know he’s wonderful. I just don’t think I can take on a relationship.”
“You mean now or ever? If the apostle Paul himself asked you out, I doubt you’d be open.”
“I can’t imagine what I’d wear.”
She laughed, then turned serious. “Paige, you’ve been trifling with big themes all your life. Trying to figure out the meaning and purpose of the stories.” She spread her hands across her lap. “No good story is free from death or the specter of it. And perhaps the thing you fear, the thing that’s holding you back, is this possibility.”
“That I’ll die?”
“No. That you’ll be called to really live. Not to analyze or explain or critique or grade. Not to help someone else or mentor. To put away the red pen. To pick up the black ink.”
I looked at her. “The bugs are worse out here than I thought. Can we go inside?”
She gave a smile and led me to her library. She had a lifetime of collected books scattered throughout the house on shelves and stacked by walls, but her treasures, the real “keepers” as she called them, were in this room by the front door. I’d spent hours there as a student, pulling down volumes, reading notes made in the margins. And it was with all those tomes around me, breathing in the smell of the real books, that I felt something loosen.
I pulled Treha’s essay from my purse and handed it to Beverly.
She scanned the page. “Remarkable, isn’t she? Rare candor from someone who’s had a difficult life.”
“Yes.”
“I suggested she take your class—wait, I’ve told you that, haven’t I?”
“You did.” My voice sounded vacant, raspy, and hollow. I glanced behind her at the leather-bound books that lined her shelves and caught sight of The Scarlet Letter.
Beverly leaned forward. “Paige, what is it?”
Without hesitation, without thinking, I blurted out, “I have a child.”
Saying those words was like giving birth again. My breath was short and the room felt like it was closing in. Beverly nodded and moved closer, her face right there, willing me forward, into the abyss.
“Before I came to Bethesda,” I said haltingly, “right before, I got pregnant. It nearly killed my parents. They had such high hopes. I was their life. And when this happened, their world imploded. They didn’t believe in abortion. But they said they were protecting me. Trying to give me a future. So they arranged a closed adoption in the States, worked through backdoor channels, a pastor they had known who knew someone else who knew a family. I went along with it. I had made such a mess of my life.”
“And the problem went away.”
“Right.”
“But it didn’t.”
I shook my head and tried to hold the emotion back but it kept rising like a tide. “I thought it was best for the child. To grow up in a loving home, with people who followed God.”
“But in your heart, you wanted to know your . . . son?”
“Daughter.”
“Your daughter. That’s wonderful, Paige.”
The tears began with her words. I had lived so long thinking everything but wonderful about my life, my child, and to hear her say that sent me over the edge.
“You saved my life,” I said through the sobs. “You know that, don’t you?”
She enveloped me in a motherly hug. “God brought you here at the right time. He knew what you needed. I didn’t.”
“You’re the reason I wanted to become a teacher. To help someone else. To give what you gave me.”
Dr. Beckwith smiled through her own tears. “Your daughter. Do you know where she is?”
I picked up the paper in the woman’s lap and held it out to her.
“Treha?” she said. Her mouth dropped at the revelation. “How . . . ? She must be ecstatic to finally know. How did you tell her?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.
Beverly held me and swallowed hard. “Paige, you have to tell her. Unless there’s part of you that’s unsure.”
“I know she’s my daughter. I haven’t done a DNA test, but there’s a distinct family resemblance. And her name. It was the only thing I gave her except for her life.”
“Then why haven’t you told her?”
“I’m scared of what it might do. I don’t want to bring her more pain.”
She pulled back. “Nonsense. You don’t want to bring yourself more pain.”
My heart fluttered. “Honestly, I’m afraid she’ll—”
“Paige, that girl has been living with a hole in her heart her entire life. Even if she had wonderful adoptive parents, there’s some part of her that wonders where she came from.”
“I just . . . Once that domino falls, once that choice is made, we can’t go back. Ever.”
Silence again. And it became increasingly hard to listen.
“What about her father?” Beverly said. “Do you know where he is?”
I nodded.
She thought a moment, her arm around my shoulder. Then a deep sigh. “I don’t know where this will lead you. I don’t know how people will react. I don’t know how Treha will react. You can’t control any of that. But take this a step at a time. Focus on Treha. You do what’s best for her, and in the end, it will be what’s best for you.”
“What if she rejects me?”
“That’s a risk. But what if she never has the chance to reject you or embrace you? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“No, it’s not.” My vision clouded again and the books behind her blurred. “How do I do it? How do I tell her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not a good answer,” I said.
“But it’s the truth. I can’t tell you how to do it. But I can tell you that you need to. Soon. The enemy wants you to suppress, to hide. God and your daughter are calling you to something deeper than you wanted. This is your wonderful, heartbreaking, engrossing tale.”
“It’s not a story.”
“No. It’s your life. And God is working in it, calling you to something more. So let’s turn the page.”
CHAPTER 9
Treha
On Thursday morning, when she entered the commons, Treha saw the stack of papers in what had been empty bins. Her photo stared back at her above the fold and she felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to grab all the papers and throw them in the Dumpster or cart them to her room and hide them. But the papers were everywhere. In every building. In all
the newspaper bins. And full-time employees were getting them in their mailboxes. Wasn’t it wrong to destroy school property?
Suddenly Treha wanted to go home, go away from this place and not return. Just run.
She sat in the booth where she studied every morning to avoid waking Shelly. There, on page 3, was her face again, bigger this time. No smile. Just looking slightly off camera. And there was her name in bold letters underneath the picture. And there were her answers to the questions Anna had posed, her story for all to see, students and faculty. Treha felt naked, exposed, as if someone had not only ripped off her clothes but pushed her onto a stage in front of everyone and turned on a bright-white spotlight. How could Anna do this? Why had she trusted her?
“Did you see the article?” Anna’s voice was chipper and hopeful. She plopped down in the seat across from Treha and turned the paper to look at it. “I figured you’d be here early. I think it turned out really well, don’t you?”
She handed the paper back, but Treha stared at her. “You lied to me.”
Two hands up in front of her. “Whoa, hold on.”
“You said you wouldn’t print my picture or my name. You said I would be anonymous.”
“See, that’s the thing with making promises. I swear I tried to keep it. I told them at the paper that you didn’t want your picture—”
“You said I could remain anonymous.”
“I know. And that’s what I thought, Treha. But the editor didn’t like the idea, and I didn’t know they had a rule about anonymous interviews or letters to the editor. Everything has to be attributed. And I fought them. I went to bat for you.”
“You shouldn’t have turned it in.”
“I was on deadline. I had to.”
“No, you had a choice. To keep your promise or not. You chose to do this.” She put her finger on her picture.
“Look, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a great interview. You’re going to have people thanking you for being so honest about school. Just wait. You’ll see.”
“You had no right.”
“Treha, don’t be obtuse.”
Treha couldn’t help it. All the letters of the word obtuse went through her mind—six letters, jumbled and rumbling through her cerebral cortex, mixing and matching and forming other words. Best. Bust. Stub. Tube. Sub. Sob.
“There’s nothing in there that’s not true. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“How can you call me obtuse when you told me you wouldn’t do what you did?”
“Let me explain. I can help you understand.”
“I don’t need your help. I understand.” Treha gathered her things and rose from the booth.
“I thought you were my friend, Treha.”
Treha looked back, her brow furrowed, wanting to say something but refraining.
With emotion, Anna said, “I thought you’d see what a bind I was in and you’d forgive me.”
Treha walked outside, clutching her backpack, trying to think the best. Maybe no one would read the article. Maybe they would recycle the paper. But in her first class, three people came up to her. She walked into chapel but couldn’t sit in her normal spot for fear others would approach. She climbed to the balcony and found a seat as far away from everyone as she could, but even there she was spotted and saw a young man she didn’t know point at her picture.
She went back to her room before her next class because she didn’t know what else to do.
Shelly was in bed, wild hair hanging over her face, but she was holding a copy of the paper. “What were you thinking?” she spat. “You don’t think people will know who your roommate is?”
Treha stood frozen. Take away the makeup and perfect hair and put in a retainer and Shelly looked a lot like everyone else.
“I didn’t say those things to hurt you,” Treha said.
“Then why did you say them?”
Treha wanted to explain about Anna, about the promise she’d broken, but what was the point? If Shelly could read an article about Treha and only think of herself, she wouldn’t listen.
“I knew this would never work out,” Shelly said. “I should have stuck to my guns from the start.”
Shelly stood. She wore a T-shirt and gym shorts but Treha stared at her fluffy pink socks. On her way out of the room, she turned back and said, “I swear, Treha, you’re digging a hole with stuff like this. And you’re already six feet down.”
CHAPTER 10
Paige
When there is something you know you must do, something you are called to do that will change your life, the legions of hell will remind you to take out the trash. Things you haven’t dusted in years rise up as incredibly important. Lingering bills call your name.
Finally on Saturday the phone beckoned, guilt drawing me toward what I hadn’t done in weeks. I hadn’t talked to my parents.
When I say I hadn’t talked to them, I mean I hadn’t talked to her. There was no them any longer with my father’s descent into the netherworld of his own mind. The man who had pulled words from the lips of tribal men and women and placed them on pages could no longer form them himself. He listened, Mom said, when she turned on the speakerphone, but it had been several months since he had so much as grunted into the phone.
This was a conversation I knew I had to have, even before I revealed myself to Treha. If I could tell my own mother, I could tell anyone.
I dialed the first ten numbers that led from my home to theirs and hung up. It’s always the eleventh number that’s the hardest.
I cleaned a few more things and organized another bookshelf, but it wasn’t until my mind rested on Treha that I picked up the phone and punched in the numbers, then added the 7, the final number in the sequence. The perfect number, the number of completion.
“Yes—hello?” my mother said. Sentences that are important to her or that she’s anxious about begin with a yes, something she’d done as long as I could remember. It was both endearing and maddening. I knew she had caller ID and that my name had popped up on her display.
“Mom, it’s me. How are you?”
“Oh, Paige, it’s good to hear your voice again. It’s been such a long time.”
There was the guilt. It came in small doses if I called and larger ones if I didn’t. I’d had what I would term a good relationship with my mother until the teenage years, until the emergence of the independent Paige. And when my mother discovered I was pregnant, it forever changed our relationship. Garden doors were barred and locked and I was banished to the east of my mother’s Eden.
“Well, it’s the start of the school year here. Things have been busy.”
“Yes—I’ll bet. How is everything? And the class you’re teaching at Bethesda—how is it being back there?”
“It’s going well, Mom. Is Dad there? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s just finishing his breakfast. I’ll put you on the speaker.”
“No, please don’t. Let him eat. I just want to talk to you.”
“All right. He’s having his usual breakfast today. We went to the doctor yesterday. . . .”
What followed was a rundown of his diet, the physical problems he had experienced recently, and the slight change in dosage in an unending lineup of medications. I listened for a pause or a possibility for steering the conversation toward me, but settled on asking follow-ups about Dad. My mother lived a Row-Row-Row-Your-Boat round that never ended, just kept looping back to the beginning each morning. She loved him—she always had—and never complained, but I could hear in her voice the toll the past few years had taken, and it made my revelation even harder.
When she took a breath, I mustered the courage to interrupt her report. “Listen, Mom, I have something to tell you. Something’s happened.”
Her voice turned grave. “Oh? This sounds serious.”
“Nothing bad. At least I don’t think it is. In fact, I’ve kind of been hoping I could make this call for a long time.”
“Yes—this doesn’t ha
ve anything to do with that professor you’ve been seeing? I’ve heard good things about him.”
“No, Mom, it’s not about Ron. That’s actually kind of fizzling at the moment.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. You know, Paige, you’re not getting any younger.”
The jab stung. My mother had told me for years that I simply needed to jump into the pool of eligible men. If she lived closer, I was sure she would push me in. In fact, she had given my number to friends who had single sons.
“I’ve come in contact with someone from the past. Someone unexpected.”
“Really? From New Guinea? Someone you knew from the mission?”
“No.” I took a deep breath, composed my thoughts.
“That seems like another lifetime, doesn’t it? So long ago.”
“Mom, I’ve found my daughter.”
Silence on the other end. I’ve said that women do better with silence than men, and I still hold to that. But wordlessness is not the same as silence. Other, stronger daughters might have been able to resist filling in the gaps of my mother’s stone-coldness, but not me.
“I actually found out about her some time ago. Through a strange twist, our paths have crossed—”
“Why would you want to hurt us like this?”
The tone of her voice took me back twenty years. The smell of the earthen floor, the thatched roof, the sweat and heat and fecund aroma of untethered goats. The taste of warm milk. The woodsmoke. The cluck of chickens and laughter of children and the unraveling of my life. Whispered words through blankets draped for walls. She hadn’t wept. No wails or keening. Maybe that unnerved me more than if she’d had a breakdown.
“Why on earth would you go looking for her? Why would you intentionally drag us through this muck again?”
“I didn’t go looking for her. And there’s no part of this that I’m doing to hurt you. This is not about you.”
“It’s about all of us, Paige.” She lowered her voice and it sounded like she was moving around in the house. “You can’t separate any of us from it.”