CHAPTER 15
The day after my date with Gavin, I was still on a high when I left the Maple house during lunch and headed down to the local courthouse to see if they had any birth records for Elsie’s baby. I had searched on my computer earlier that morning, and found the blog of someone searching for a child given up for adoption. I quickly read a few entries and learned that the author had gone to the local courthouse to pull records for her child’s birth certificate. I had a starting point, a beginning of the breadcrumb trail.
It might have been midweek, but the town was still nearly as crowded as the weekends since the summer season was in full steam. When I’d first arrived at the house that morning, I had to kick out a visitor who tried to park in the driveway. Street spaces were scarce, leaving tourists to circle around the neighborhoods, but the weather was perfect—blue skies, bright sun—so not many people were leaving the beach.
I turned down Broad Street, heading toward the county clerk’s office, when my eye was caught by a redbrick building with the words Lake Geneva Historical Society. I had planned to go there at some point during the renovations to see if they had any information on the Maple house. I hesitated at the stoplight. I could see an employee, with her back to me, sitting at a desk. Meanwhile, up ahead, toward the clerk’s office, a sea of people walked down the sidewalk.
Once inside the historical society, I was greeted by a familiar face.
“Alex! Alex Proctor, it’s so good to see you!” Shannon Stone, an old classmate from high school, beamed at me. Her bangs were short and straw-like, just as she wore them in high school. She bragged about cutting her own hair, although it really wasn’t something to boast about. She also seemed to know everything about everyone, as though she was cataloguing everyone’s secrets and storing them up for winter like a gossip chipmunk. “It’s been what? Twenty years?” She looked me up and down slowly.
I nodded. “Something like that.” I hadn’t attended any of my high school reunions. It wasn’t as though I was making a statement by not attending. It just felt like the people whom I wanted to still see, I did, and the people whom I didn’t . . . well, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to force the interactions.
“That’s just too long for old classmates to go without seeing each other!” she exclaimed, her bangs floating upward, then settling back down on her forehead.
“I suppose.” I hooked a thumb into my jean shorts and swayed a little in my beat-up running shoes.
“Well, you look the exact same,” she said. The corners of her mouth turned down at the lie.
“Thanks. So do you. Listen, I was—”
She kept talking, cutting me off with a smile. “And Matt? How’s he doing? Gosh, he was just so handsome back in high school. I’m sure he looks the same, too.”
My hand fell to my side. “Oh. He’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’m just—”
“Any kids?” she said.
I sighed. “One. She’s five.”
“Ah, a little girl. Matt must be beside himself with love for her, I’m sure. I haven’t seen him in forever, either. How’s he doing?” she asked.
“We’re divorced, Shannon,” I finally said.
She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard.” She frowned and wrinkled her nose, yet her eyes twinkled and I could tell that she very much had heard. Of course she had.
“Well, it happens. Anyway, I’m here to look up some information about a house I recently purchased over on Maple Street. The address is 4723 Maple,” I said quickly. I glanced down at the nameplate on the desk and saw that Shannon was the director of the historical society. No way to get around her, so I figured I might as well steam right through her.
“Sure,” she said with a smile as the delight left her eyes. “That house doesn’t have historical status, does it? It doesn’t sound familiar.”
I shook my head. The house was too far in disrepair to have ever been considered a historical icon, and from what I had heard, one had to go through a lengthy process to prove the house was significant enough to be preserved. My affection for it and the claw-foot tub upstairs wouldn’t exactly pass for “significant.”
Shannon turned and bent down to her computer, typing in the address. “Oh, I think I remember that house. It was practically falling over last time I saw it.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
She squinted at the computer. “Ah. Yes. We actually have two documents on file.”
She walked over to a row of filing cabinets, and selected one that read 1947 and another from 1901. “We just started electronically cataloguing all of our materials, and it’s been a pain, but it makes things so much easier.” She brought the files to me.
The first, from 1901, was the original plat of survey from the house. The footprint of the house looked the same, which I had figured, since it didn’t seem to have had an addition over the years like most of the other older homes in the neighborhood. Yet the property was much larger in the original survey, encompassing a structure behind it.
“What’s that?” I pointed to a small rectangle behind the house.
“Let me see.” Shannon leaned forward and studied the drawing. “I think that was the original carriage house, for probably horses and then automobiles later on. It isn’t there anymore?”
I shook my head. “No. The backyard is much smaller now.” I pointed to the rectangle. “I think that’s the house behind it, actually. The owners must have sold it off at some point.”
She nodded. “That’s likely what happened.”
She handed me the other file on the house. Inside was a newspaper article dated December 15, 1947, and titled “Christmas Season Is Here” with a black-and-white photo of the Maple house.
“Oh, wow,” I whispered as a tingle ran down my spine. Here it was, in front of me, a photograph of the house just as Elsie had described it. I lightly traced the outside of the house, my finger swooping across the evergreen garlands and red velvet bows adorning the front porch. It was before the time of disrepair for the house, and even though the picture was in black and white, I could tell that the paint on the porch was fresh, the concrete steps were newly poured, and the stucco carefully maintained.
I stared at it, blinking rapidly, as I thought of making it look that way again. It felt like a sign, like a hand had reached out across time to pat me on the back and tell me I was on the right path.
“You know, 1947 was another cicada year,” I said, my voice just above a whisper.
“Oh, yes. Of course,” she said quickly.
She waited for me to say more, but I just glanced down at the photograph again. “Could I get a copy of this?”
She shrugged and took it from me. “Sure.” She brought the photo to the copier and tapped her fingernails against it as it whirred to life. “So, what happened between you guys? You were such a great couple.”
I stared at her, waiting to see if she was joking, but she just kept tapping her fingers. “Honestly, it’s none of your business,” I finally said.
Her eyebrows fell, and she twisted her mouth to the side in annoyance. “You know, I think I heard he had a new girlfriend. Someone young, pretty.”
“He does,” I said with a nod.
When I didn’t say more, or react, she frowned again and slid the photograph’s copy toward me on the countertop. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’ve had troubles in relationships, too.” She wiggled a bare left ring finger at me. “Twice.”
I ignored her invitation to commiserate and glanced down at the photo before picking it up. “Thanks.”
“You really think you can make that hunk of junk look good again? It doesn’t look anything like that photo anymore,” she said.
I shook my head. “No. But it will.”
I bid Shannon good-bye and headed down to the Walworth County clerk’s office. I glanced at my watch as I waited in line. Twelve thirty. I shifted my weight and sighed heavily, swaying back and forth impatiently. I had only a half hour left of my
lunch break before I had to meet Eddie back at the house to go over the condition of the flooring.
We were hoping to patch the upstairs flooring and save most of the original wood, but we wouldn’t know how much until we started pulling up boards. If the subflooring was damaged beneath the warped wood, it would all have to come out and we’d have to start from scratch. I could use an engineered hardwood to replace it, but, of course, it wouldn’t look the same. Ideally, I would find some salvaged wood to patch in, but I didn’t have the weeks required to search for that kind of material.
After ten long minutes, I reached the front of the line. A woman with shoulder-length gray hair motioned me forward.
“How can I help you?” she said. Her name tag read Karen, and her eyes had a weary look that I guessed was from dealing with paperwork and cranky customers all day, every day.
“Yes, hi.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my back pocket, my hands shaking. I was surprised that I was nervous, like I was prying into something that I shouldn’t, or that she would turn me away for being some kind of inappropriate snoop.
I pointed to my house’s address. “I just bought a house on Maple Street, and I’m doing some research on some of the old occupants. I was wondering if you had any information on death records, or marriage records . . . or birth records.” The words tumbled out quickly, running together like melted ice cream and chocolate syrup.
Karen gave me a suspicious look. “For whom?”
“For a child who was born in the 1940s who might have lived in the house.” A lie, but a small one.
She glanced down at the names and then looked back up. She folded her arms over her chest. “Is it a relative?”
My face flushed. “Well, not exactly. I—I was asked to possibly find a baby who was put up for adoption.”
“And they were born here, in this county?” she said, her gray hair at a standstill around her shoulders.
I nodded. “Yes, the baby was. I read that you could check for any records on them, so I could find out what happened to the baby.”
She gave me one more measured look, seemingly certain that I was a serial killer stalking my next victim, as she slid a form across the counter. “Fill this out, and I’ll see what I can do.” She went to turn and then stopped. “And there’s a fee.” She waited to see if that would stop my murderous intentions, but I just nodded.
When I was done filling it out with the baby’s birthday and county of origin, she came back. She put reading glasses on the tip of her nose and read the form. “I’ll go check and see what we have for you,” she finally said, turning with the form in her hand.
I exhaled when she disappeared behind the door marked Archival Files, rubbing my forehead. I had a long date with the wallpaper ahead of me, and I’d hoped that I could make easy headway on Elsie’s project before starting.
Karen reappeared, with handwritten notes on a Post-it. “Okay,” she said. “So, those records are sealed due to Wisconsin law. If you had a Social Security number, I could give you more information.”
I sighed. “No, I don’t have anything like that.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think so. Social Security numbers weren’t issued in that time until a person was a teenager, usually around age fourteen. Sorry.” She frowned and shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, thank you for looking,” I said.
She leaned forward and put her forearms on the ledge. “You know, you might try to find the name of the adoption agency and start there.”
I nodded. I didn’t think Elsie knew that information, but I would see what I could find out. “Thanks,” I said as I left, my shoulders slumped in disappointment.
* * *
That evening, I went home and searched online for any adoption agencies that had been around in the 1940s in the area. As I scanned the Google search results, I rubbed my neck. The wallpaper upstairs was finally all scraped off, but I suspected that I might have permanently damaged my upper body in pulling down all that hideous print. I silently cursed—again—at whoever had decided to take the easy route with the house and glue layers upon layers of wallpaper to the walls.
Of course, I had seen the result of a few other questionable decisions in houses, like the time someone had used industrial staples and roofing nails to hang their family photos, just ripping them clean off the walls when they moved out, leaving huge gashes in almost every room. Or, in the bungalow, the former owners had flushed kitty litter down the toilet before they left, which solidified in the pipes when it hit the water and clogged up the entire sewer line.
I popped a few ibuprofen as I clicked around on the Internet, but I was soon distracted by the buzz of my phone. When I saw it was Matt, my stomach dropped slightly.
“What’s wrong? Is Abby okay?” I said immediately.
“She’s fine,” he said. “She just has a cough and can’t sleep. She lay down in bed over an hour ago, but can’t get settled. I was sitting with her, but she asked to talk to you before she falls asleep.”
“Put her on,” I said quickly. There was rustling as he handed her the phone.
“Hi, Mom.” Abby’s voice was hoarse and scratchy with a tinge of sadness, and my heart nearly broke.
I stood up, ready to grab my keys and run out the door to go pick her up. “What’s wrong, Ab? Your dad said your throat hurts. How does it feel?”
“Bad. My throat feels fuzzy, and it hurts to drink,” she said.
I started to slip my feet into my moccasins and tucked my wallet into my pocket. “Do you know if you have a fever? Did your dad take your temperature?”
“Uh-huh. Dad said it’s . . .” I heard her ask Matt. “A hundred,” she finished.
“Okay, honey. That’s not too bad. I bet you’ll feel better by tomorrow. Just rest right now. Let me talk to your dad, and I’ll come and get you and bring you home, okay?” I said quickly.
There was rustling, and then Matt got on the phone. “I just gave her some Children’s Motrin, so her fever should come down. I can take her to urgent care if it gets any worse.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m coming to get her now.” I walked outside and reached for the garage door to pull it open.
He paused. “Alex, she’s fine. I’m on top of it.” His tone was even, level. Calm.
“She needs me,” I said as my hand dropped to my side. My voice shook, even though I had willed it not to.
“Look, I’ll keep a close eye on her. I think it’s just a virus. If she’s not better in the morning, I will call you,” he said.
“But . . .” I couldn’t insist that I come and get her. It was his—court-enforced—time with her. I knew he would take care of her, and I knew he would stay on top of it, as much as it killed me to admit it. I would have to stand by and let him handle it.
“Alex, she’ll be fine by tomorrow. I just wanted her to talk to you and let you know what’s going on. Don’t worry.”
I swallowed hard and forced the words out. “Thanks for that. I really appreciate it. Let me talk to her one more time.”
“Mom, I’m going to sleep with Daddy tonight. He’ll protect me,” she said when she got back on the phone.
I smiled, my eyes closing. “Of course.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m going to go rest now, Mom.”
I hung up, went back inside, and sank back down on my couch, slipping off my shoes again. I had never felt more extraneous in Abby’s life than in that moment. She had been sick when she was with Matt before, but her sickness had started with me and I knew she was on the mend. I had never sent her there healthy and gotten a call from him that she was suddenly ill.
Of course, I should have expected there would be many more things like that—maybe middle-of-the-night calls if she had a bad dream. I swallowed hard as I realized that was better than the alternative: What if I never got a call? What if there came a time when she was perfectly content with being consoled by Matt?
He was a good dad, no question. I couldn’t fault him o
n that for a moment. And he had been a good husband, before. As much as I tried to push it away, a small part of me whispered that I had chosen to file for divorce. Of course, it wasn’t that simple, nor did the blame rest completely on my shoulders. It was all the result of a million tiny choices. He chose someone else. It was also a glaring reality that neither of us would have chosen where we were.
As I fell asleep, I dreamed of a time when Abby was small, and all our problems were, too.
CHAPTER 16
For the first six weeks of her life, I was sure that Abby wouldn’t sleep anywhere except snuggled underneath my chin with my arm resting on her back. She would fall asleep while nursing, and I would hold my breath and slowly inch her up my body, until we found the sweet spot between my chest and neck, with her bookended by my breasts. A few times, I made the mistake of trying to gently place her in the crib, but she would wake before her body even hit the mattress and start screaming like she was being electrocuted. Since I was averaging about five hours of sleep on a good day, it didn’t seem worth it, and I sacrificed physical comfort for a few guaranteed moments of rest. Oftentimes, it felt like that—one decision over another. Showering or napping or eating. There was never any option to request All of the Above. Things that I had considered basic necessities to function were suddenly stripped away, and I didn’t have any road map to figure out how to get them back.
My mother and Matt’s mother helped periodically, but after about a month they visited less and less, as did other friends who had offered to cook a meal or watch her while I napped. The newness and excitement of an infant had expired, just at the time when I most needed help.
When I looked back at that time when she turned a year old, I often thought about how each phase seemed so hard, so never-ending. But end, they always did. Yet when I was in the middle of some transition—teething, colic, a sleep regression—it felt interminable. It felt like that was the new way my life would be forever, and things would never be any easier.
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