A Theory of Relativity

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  In due course, Sofia gave birth to a beautiful baby son, and, just as the soothsayer had promised, the rivers and fields sprang back to life. Sofia, seeing the lord’s joy, begged that her mother be allowed to stay forever with them in the lordly manor. But cruel Vlad refused. He was envious of his flame-haired wife’s love for her old mother, and he banished her, back to her hut with only the clothes on her back. Mad with grief, Sofia stole away one night with her baby son wrapped in warm blankets, away to her mother’s hut, where they ate their crumbs of cheese and drank goat’s milk to give them strength, and then they began their journey down the tributaries that would lead to the great blue Danube River in Buda-Pest, where they would shelter among the many people in the city, and raise the baby away from his cruel father.

  “Of course, the lord Vlad got wind of it,” Alexis urged her on.

  “He did indeed. And he sent for that gypsy soothsayer, who told them only a witch whose dark powers were stronger than the flame-haired girl’s powers could bring his son and his wife back to him. The witch, given a pouch of silver, transformed herself into a great, black bird, a raven, and flew over the land until she spotted the girl, her mother, and the baby boy struggling along in the mud near the riverside.”

  “Did they get away?” Alexis asked. “Did they shoot her?”

  “The witch, assuming her human form, appeared before them—”

  “In a puff of smoke.”

  “Probably,” Lorraine said. “And she cawed, in her witchly voice, for the soothsayer, who was riding nearby on his great black war horse, and who came thundering to the riverside, and scooped up the baby prince and commanded the girl to leave her mother and return at once to the castle.”

  “And she refused,” Alexis said. “I wouldn’t leave my mom.”

  “She refused. She said, in Hungarian, which I can’t speak—in fact, you know, a real scientist once thought the Hungarian language was so different from all the other Eastern European languages that he believed the Hungarian people were descended from Martians! My daughter, Georgia, was also Hungarian, even though we adopted her, and she used to like to think she was from Mars.”

  “What did she say?” Alexis demanded.

  “She said she was from Mars, that she was dropped in the yard by a spaceship, or did she say that about Gordie? I forget—”

  “I mean, the princess Sofia.”

  “Oh, well, the princess said, ‘I will stand rooted to this spot until you return my child. I will not move. I would rather stand on this spot for the rest of eternity, than see my child raised by that evil man.’ And so the witch changed the princess into a tree. Right there. Into a river birch tree, a delicate white tree. And the witch and the soothsayer brought the baby back to the castle. Well, the girl’s mother wept so piteously for so many long days that another witch, a good one, heard her cries. And seeing the mother’s grief, she quickly transformed her into a willow tree, so that she would always be able to stand by her daughter’s side and shelter her. And that’s why you always see the river birch with the willow tree beside it, the weeping willow, alongside the river.”

  “That is the most depressing story I ever heard,” Alexis said. “He got the baby?”

  “Yes, he did. And yes, it’s pretty depressing. Hungarians are only happy when they’re dancing or doing chemistry experiments. There are a lot of Hungarian scientists. But every Hungarian who isn’t a scientist is pretty melancholy. My grandma never told a story that didn’t have a sad ending. You know, Georgia felt the same way about that story. She used to tell me, let’s pretend the baby boy had magic powers and he went back and changed the girl and her little mommy into people.”

  “Her little mommy?”

  “She called me that. Little Mommy.”

  “You are kind of little.”

  “Do you want something to drink, Alexis? Alex, I mean?”

  “I’ll have a Coke.”

  “We don’t have any.”

  “I’ll have a water.”

  They sat side by side listening to the electronic ticking sounds of the kitchen clock, and when Keefer woke, they watched the Munchkin parts of Wizard of Oz, until finally Craig arrived. It was nearly ten.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said. “She’s much better.”

  “Is the baby going—” Alexis began.

  “Everything, everything is okay,” Craig told her, sternly. “And yes, let’s all get going. I’m sorry we kept Keefer up so late. We’re going to have a sleepyhead on our hands in the morning.”

  Lorraine kissed Keefer, who peered over Lorraine’s shoulder muzzily, asking “Dory . . . ?”

  And Alexis said, “Yeah, we heard a really good story, huh. Craig, I have to tell you this really sad story about Dracula . . .”

  Lorraine had closed the door with some difficulty, against the stinging wind, when she again heard knocking. It was Alexis. “My mom said thank you for taking care of me, although I am almost fifteen,” said the girl, whom Lorraine noticed with relief did own a coat and had put it on.

  “That’s okay,” Lorraine said.

  “Maybe I’ll come back and visit you sometime.”

  “That would be nice, Alex,” Lorraine replied, thinking, oh, good Lord, your mom would love that suggestion.

  Instead of going back inside, Lorraine plucked her shawl off the hall tree and stood on the porch, watching as Craig and Alexis got Keefer settled with her sippee cup, Delia slumped in the passenger seat. The car pulled away, its taillights brightening at the stop sign, then dimming, then disappearing. A slight, sandy snow had begun, and the tinted coach light at the end of Lorraine’s walk made a rosy halo, which put Georgia in mind of the O’Keeffe poppy, petals warm and eager as a human face, but its center the chilly blue of an embryonic moon.

  Her son finally asleep, Emily Sayward huddled in the corner of their couch. Jamie set the VCR to play the tape they’d recorded of the Friday night news, which they had meant to watch all weekend, but had not managed, with the back-to-back urgencies of shopping, cooking, and minimite hockey practice. In silence, they watched the governor signing, Lorraine’s brimming eyes, Gordon’s elated smile, the snippet of footage of Ray and Georgia cradling their infant in her baptismal gown. No one—not one of their friends, not the ladies in the soap shop who drew aside whispering into a corner when she walked in to buy a basket of bath goodies for her mother’s birthday, the checkout girl in the Safeway who slapped down the CLOSED sign as she approached, the young man at the public works department who told her tersely he would get to it when he had the time after the whole block’s worth of banked snow was somehow dumped in an impenetrable wall at the end of the Saywards’ driveway—no one had spoken a word of overt criticism about her decision. After glancing at a few of the dozens of letters her clerk had handed her, Emily had asked that the letters be filed. When Jamie told her he would request an unlisted number, after the hang-up calls began, Emily had insisted they wait, and the calls had dwindled, then stopped altogether. She read the newspaper quotes from the McKennas and was relieved that she did not take them personally. Their rage was directed at a symbol, not an individual. Had it not been she, it would have been Aaron Kid or Kendall Crowell. Either of her colleagues would have made the same call.

  Jamie held her close as they watched the closing moments of the report, the reporters’ banter; how astounding it was that a single word could change a family’s whole future, and how they certainly wished that poor family well.

  “So there you have it,” Jamie said. “Are you okay? It doesn’t necessarily mean that the appeals court—”

  “Yes, it does,” Emily told him, “but I’m ready for that. The little girl is where she should be, with the Cadys. And also, it was bad law, and it needed to be changed.”

  CHAPTER seventeen

  They waited.

  An appeal involving a child would be “expedited.”

  Childhood could neither be deferred nor extended.

  The request for an appeal wa
s accepted by the Third District Court of Appeals before Christmas, and Greg Katt told the McKennas that briefs filed late, even by an hour, could result in the entire appeal’s summary dismissal. In short order, then, over the course of the period specified for each, were filed an appeal from Gordon, a rebuttal from the Cadys, and an amicus brief, on the McKennas’ behalf, by representatives of the American Association of Adoption Attorneys. Not until early in May, after the amendment to A.B. 600 had been signed into law, were all of the briefs completed and presented.

  Once all the briefs had been filed, a panel of judges would review them, and it was promised that the forthcoming answer would be “expedited.” But the review of the original decision, and the hearings that preceded it, the appeals and the history of laws governing the status of adopted children, would certainly take many weeks. It could take many months. If one of the panel of three judges was ill or was on vacation, the deliberations would stop and resume only when the full panel was reassembled.

  Keefer was two years and one month old. Then she was two years and three months old.

  They waited.

  At a garage sale they passed on Friday evening in Madison, when Delia’s continuing illness prevented their driving Keefer to Tall Trees, Lindsay spotted a tricycle that sported red and yellow pom-poms extending from each molded rubber handle. It had huge, old-fashioned inflatable tires, and a seat in the shape of a western saddle. At first they were suspicious. It had appeared as one of those garage sales more humiliating to attend than to host, where people sold five of their shirts and a few old bottles of makeup. But the bike was sound, and a stunning bargain at ten bucks. They bought it, Keefer babbling, “Me bikey, me bikey,” all the way home. Once the trike hit ground, she could not be pried from the seat. Even after her bath, she screamed for one more ride, and Lindsay took a photo of her, stark naked except for her bike helmet, furiously pedaling in a circuit from the bedroom, around the couch, back to the foot of the bed. Gordon worried about the photo, even when Lindsay upbraided him for paranoia. The cheapest and fastest photo prints were made by the little Kodak shack, but who among the town’s other thousand souls would see the snapshot Lindsay was calling “naked biker chick?”? They let Keefer ride until ten, gave her disgustingly sugared cereal she ate daintily with a spoon, then nestled her in her dog bed, for which she had grown nearly too leggy. She turned up quizzical eyes, patting the sheepskin lining and asking “Pretty?” Very pretty, they’d assured her, and it was Keefer’s good bed at Dory’s. He’d been about to suggest Lindsay mosey when he caught a view of the two of them, Lindsay stroking Keefer’s hair, like a Mary Cassat in the frame of his closet door. When Lindsay’d begun to gather her things, he’d taken them, taken her in his arms. They woke in the morning when Keefer placed one of her fingers in Gordon’s nostril and said, “Dickens, hi, dickens.”

  The following week, Gordon received a wedding invitation from Carl Jurgen’s parents. The honor of his presence was requested at the marriage of their son to Pearson Corcoran, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Haven Corcoran of Boca Raton. Still under the impression, even as he dialed, that he meant to congratulate Jurgen, Gordon called his old friend, got a machine, then a call back the next night. They spoke of nothing, at first, their parents’ health, Jurgen’s imminent graduation from law school, and then, inevitably, the case. Jurgen had been watching the developments closely, and keeping in touch with Diane and Big Ray both when they were in residence in Madison and when they spent time in Florida. Both elder Nyes were battered by the conflict—family things seemed so simple to them, Jurgen explained.

  “But you knew it wouldn’t be simple,” Gordon had suggested then.

  “I could see it coming, yeah, Bo.”

  “And you told them how it would be. You helped them figure out . . .”

  “Well, I was never their legal advisor, if that’s what you mean. But both Dad and I . . . we could hardly refuse to try to help them find the people they needed. I thought for sure that Alison’s hubby was going to cave in, so that they could have been the ones to step forward. That would have been the best solution all around.”

  “It would have? How do you figure?”

  “Well, kids more or less the same age, a sister instead of a cousin, you know. And Alison and Andy live more of a, well, moderate life socially than Delia and Craig do.”

  “You mean the church thing.”

  “I suppose it’s not a big deal.”

  “Carl, it’s a big deal to me.”

  “I know that, Bo, and it stinks. It’s lousy. But there you have it. You couldn’t have been too surprised. Gordie, you’re not quite the settling-down type. Not from what I know of you. Amazes me that I am. Pearson’s great. Great backhand. Great back end. Smart as hell. You know, I only met her three months ago. Our first date was Easter, ever so pure. Which, speaking of that, how’s the lovely Lindsay? You two still cooking?”

  “I want to finish talking about the other thing . . .”

  “Okay. Fine, fine. But I don’t ever want you to think that we felt anything negative toward you, or your family. It’s just, Gordo, it’s just always been clear . . . Ray was a real close-in family guy, Bo. He would never have been able to rest knowing his baby girl wasn’t going to be raised with all the, oh, the trappings, the ways . . . he was always so out of place, up there. We have a way of life, Gordie, and it’s not like you-all’s way. Might sound strange. But everybody in Jupiter seems to know everybody else in Jupiter—”

  “You know a lot of people in Spanish town?”

  Jurgen stopped. “I mean, in the area where we grew up.”

  “So you don’t know everyone in Jupiter, just the people who hang out at the country club. The Beaumonts, and the . . . the Cabots and the Lowells and the Rockefellers . . .”

  “Gordie,” Jurgen began to laugh. “What the hell are you saying there, Bo?”

  “Can you even admit the possibility that my sister felt the exact same way about her hometown? That Keefer had two parents? That we have our ways, and our trappings, and even if we’re not the kind who slobber all over you and call you ‘honey, sugar, doll’ every five minutes, we feel just as close to one another?”

  “I’m sure you do.” Jurgen made his mellow voice formal, remote.

  “And so you certainly can admit the possibility that even Ray, at least at one time, felt sure that Keefer would be happier and more secure among the people who knew her best?”

  “I know he had a grateful heart for all you did for Georgia,” Jurgen answered evenly. “Now, Gordie, maybe we better just get this conversation on an alternate track. Because you and I—”

  “And he was my friend.”

  “He was your friend.”

  “And you were my friend. You were my friend. You were closer to me even than Ray was. I thought you might demonstrate some loyalty. I thought if you couldn’t demonstrate some loyalty, you might at least demonstrate some neutrality.”

  “Gordie, I don’t want to have this conversation.”

  “Carl, I don’t want to have this conversation, either. Or any other one. Ever.”

  “I don’t think you’re always going to feel that way. We go way back, Bo. I expect you there to help me hoist the—”

  “We go way back, Carl. But we don’t go way forward.” And Gordon put down the telephone receiver, juggling it and bobbling it as if it were something scalding, his hands in a brain-stem tremor like his grandpa McKenna’s. Maybe he’d got Parkinson’s, he thought. No, he and Pop McKenna were not blood relatives.

  They waited.

  Nora had never noticed how little work there really was to do on the farm. Even in planting, it had begun to function, not without her, but without the constant, watchful attention she had grown accustomed to giving. Certainly, some of that was due to the fact that the land in asparagus was mature now. The asparagus did everything but jump up into the boxes by itself. Marty had quit his day job to work with his dad full-time, and they spent evenings huddled over Extension pa
mphlets on free-range chickens and sustainable agriculture. The appeal seemed to be taking forever. How long did it take intelligent people to do what was right? she asked Hayes one night. “I’d sure hate to be somebody on Death Row,” she’d murmured.

  “We don’t have a Death Row in Wisconsin,” Hayes grunted.

  “I know that, you old crab,” Nora retorted stoutly. “It was a for-instance.” But kindly though he had been about the case since the night of their argument, Hayes was still not all that keen on discussing it.

  Half at loose ends, Nora volunteered to take over the presidency of the altar guild from Helen Wilton and spent hours in the jeweled, dusty silence of the nave, planning elaborate themes for the Sunday services that would incorporate the wild flowers and even the lacy weeds with cultivated blooms. She scoured garage sales for vases, urns, old milk bottles, dried silver sage and statice, grape vines and cattails. Only when Father Barry commented that he was afraid he might trip over a planter during communion did Nora scale back her ministry. Still, she drew out her afternoons at church. So few people came into Our Lady of the Lake during the day that Nora had no reason to feel self-conscious about her overalls or her perm growing out like duckweed. She sometimes lost herself in a prayer that took her like a sleep. She prayed to Saint Jude, the patron of lost causes, not because she feared their cause was lost, but because insurance never hurt. She prayed to Saint Anne, the benevolent grandmother, Saint Therese, the Little Flower, for her well-known interest in children, to Saint Catherine of Sienna, because she believed in taking action and was criticized as obsessive, to Saint Anthony, the patron of adoption, Saint Nicholas the Martyr, because of that awful story about the little boys he brought back to life after some psychotic butcher tried to pickle them, to Saint Thomas the Doubter, and to Saint Fidelis because he was local.

  In her reveries, she asked God for assurances of his continued interest in the appeal, though she could not be sure that whether the fullness of grace she felt replenish her was God’s answer or the echo of her own supplication. During those times in her life when she’d tended toward complacency, Nora had turned to the shorter, more humble forms of prayer, her favorite, “Not my will, but thine,” but she could not quite abandon herself to that now. God needed specifics, as there were undoubtedly millions storming heaven at any given time, and only the one divine judge.