“Well, my mom said Midnight’s moving to Louisiana.” Sebastian put his mug of cocoa to his lips and blew into it hard enough for bubbles to overflow the rim, like a small volcano erupting.
A raw feeling tugged at Midnight’s gut, a scab ripped off a sore that hadn’t even started to heal. Granny hadn’t said where he might have to move. Or he just hadn’t been able to hear over little Nicky’s cries.
“Your mom’s lying then.” Midnight wanted to scream or maybe disappear into the mounds of snow.
Sebastian spoke softly, muttering under his breath. “Well, if my mom’s lying, then your grandmother must have been lying, too. She told my mom at the post office.”
Louisiana. Hearing Sebastian talk about Granny’s plan made it real, and it turned his stomach. With a stick, Midnight made lines in the snow, saying nothing. What could he say? Leland Ford moved to Indiana from Louisiana in the middle of fourth grade. He talked funny and told stories about his daddy teaching him how to kill things there—deer, ducks, and wild alligators—anything that moved. But that wasn’t the bad part. Daddy had taken Midnight hunting before and that didn’t scare him. The stories Leland told, though, were about all the things down there that hunted you, like deadly spiders and rattlesnakes.
In social studies class, they called Louisiana part of the Bible Belt, maybe because people there read the Bible a lot even on days other than Sunday. Granny kept a Bible on her nightstand, but he rarely saw her open it. She kept it next to her whiskey, or cough syrup as she called it. The few times he tried to read it, he got stuck when people with weird names begot other people with even weirder names.
The front door to Corey’s house opened and Mrs. Cunningham beckoned them inside for lunch. Following behind Sebastian, Midnight kicked a dusting of snow onto the boy’s jeans as they marched up the porch steps. This house reminded him of ones he’d seen on TV. It always smelled good, too, like whatever Mrs. Cunningham was cooking. This time, she served beef stew. The boys ate quickly, and she refilled their bowls with extra helpings of carrots and potatoes. While everyone looked at Mr. Cunningham as he told another corny joke, Midnight buried his face in the bowl and licked it.
A few times, for no reason at all, Mrs. Cunningham gave Corey sloppy kisses on his cheek and he giggled, then scrunched up his face and wiped it off with the back of his hand.
“Stop, Mom,” Corey said.
Sometimes his friend didn’t get how lucky he was to still have a mother who embarrassed him. After lunch, the boys played in the snow until the sun scooted behind the clouds and a red line of dusk streaked the sky. Sebastian and Pancho headed home before the streetlights came on so they wouldn’t get in trouble, and the Cunninghams called Corey in to do some reading before supper. It didn’t matter what time Midnight got home. The pills Granny took made her fall asleep too early to notice much, and Auntie Glo was probably deep in a pot haze by now.
Walking along the railroad tracks back to Pratt, Midnight turned his face up to the dimming sky, opening his mouth to catch the snowflakes. He cursed each streetlight that popped on. Maybe if he slowed down, they would, too.
Fifteen
Ruth
Municipal buildings often smelled of old paper and bad plumbing. The county clerk’s office emanated the same musk, Ruth discovered the minute she walked in. Signs and arrows in this building pointed to where a couple could apply for a marriage license and file for divorce. Happy, hopeful beginnings and sad, bitter endings right there, side by side.
She and Xavier had been so excited to receive their license to marry. Tess’s and Penelope’s signatures appeared as witnesses, even though they themselves couldn’t marry in the eyes of the law or even God, as some believed. While she and Xavier remained at an impasse regarding her son, she put her faith in that license, proof of their legal obligation to each other as husband and wife. A contract he couldn’t easily break.
The morning she’d left Xavier to come to Ganton, he zapped a frozen waffle in the microwave and she ate a premade yogurt parfait from the supermarket. Each of them chose quick, easy breakfasts. Somehow, the silence that day cut deeper than angry words. Her eyes burned with tears thinking that the institution of marriage might have meant more to her than to him. In the three days she’d been away, they hadn’t spoken or texted.
The weatherman on the radio had warned about the temperature dropping just below freezing, but it felt like a sauna in this building. Ruth unwound her wool scarf from around her neck and fanned herself with a flyer she picked up on county ordinances.
Under her coat she wore a conservative navy pantsuit, remembering that Xavier always chose the color blue for ad campaigns when he needed to convey trust and stability. Even though she had just come for information about her son and his adoptive parents, some part of her felt the need to prove to the government that she could be entrusted with the care of a child.
As she surveyed the room for the right clerk window, she sensed someone watching her. A thumping buzzed in her chest like an alarm. She pulled her twists to her cheeks to obscure her face. She felt a light tap on her arm and, letting her hair fall from her fingertips, she slowly turned around.
A woman with piercing green eyes and wiry brown hair stared back at her. She jerked the safety harness strapped to a little girl’s chest. The contraption reminded Ruth of a dog leash and she swore she’d never use one with her own child. A chunky girl in a Colts jacket who had to be no older than fourteen stood with the woman and little girl, but slightly off to the side, as if she didn’t want to acknowledge the association.
“Homeroom,” the woman said, snapping her fingers.
“What did you say?” Ruth asked.
“Homeroom. We were in the same homeroom class freshman year. I’m Kaylee. Remember me?” The woman grinned as if she’d achieved a personal victory, having solved the puzzle of how they knew each other. Her leathery, weather-worn skin resembled that of a woman twice Ruth’s age. The old cliché about aging that Black don’t crack proved true once again.
Putting this woman in a time machine and imagining her much younger, Ruth had a vague memory of Kaylee playing in the marching band. “Yes, I remember now.”
Ruth also recalled that Kaylee was one of several girls who had gotten pregnant freshman year. This wasn’t an unusual phenomenon at Pratt High, the public school where Ruth ended up going. By this time, Papa was long gone and so was the money to continue her private school education.
Kaylee raked one hand through her hair, absently pulling at a tangle. “Haven’t seen you around here since high school. You must’ve moved away. I would’ve loved to get out of here, maybe go to Ohio where my dad’s side of the family lives, but then my high school boyfriend and I had a kid sophomore year, so you know . . . You remember Bobby Chesniak from school, right?”
The name sounded familiar but Ruth couldn’t place him. She nodded anyway.
“Anyhow, this is Olivia.” The teenager’s face contorted in disdain and she rolled her eyes heavenward, obviously wishing she could be anywhere other than here in the clerk’s office with her mother and baby sister.
“And this here is Mandy. She’s in her terrible twos now and gets into everything if I’m not watching.” Kaylee gestured to the leash as if to justify its use. Mandy was sucking on a lollipop that had turned her lips bright orange.
Ruth had stopped about three feet from the adoption records window but didn’t want to move any closer until Kaylee walked away. “Well, looks like you have a beautiful family. Good seeing you again.”
Kaylee put one hand under her chin like she was thinking. “Your little one’s probably not all that much younger than Olivia, huh?”
Dread grabbed Ruth by the throat and almost strangled her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know a lot of girls had babies in high school. For some reason, I just thought you had, too. I didn’t mean anything bad by it.”
Ruth shut down her speculation. “No, you must have me confused with someone else.
”
Even saying those words sent Ruth into a spiral of guilt as she once again denied her son’s existence. In obscure moments like these, Mama’s Sunday school lessons came to mind, and Ruth thought of Peter, who denied Jesus before the rooster crowed three times. She had told this lie many times before, but always to people who just casually asked if she had children. But this was different. Kaylee had known her back in the day, and Ruth couldn’t be sure whether she was fishing for confirmation of something she believed to be true.
Kaylee looked confused but not uncomfortable enough to stop talking. “Sorry, guess I was wrong. Good you didn’t get mixed up with anybody from high school. I’m married to a great guy now, someone from a couple towns over. Bobby walked out on us, the bastard. That’s why I’m out here in this cold trying to collect child support from his sorry ass. You can’t just make babies and then walk away from your responsibility. That’s not right. You know what I mean?” Kaylee waited for affirmation.
Pain seized Ruth’s heart and her knees buckled under Kaylee’s proclamation. She couldn’t meet her eyes. This woman she barely knew had exposed Ruth’s own abject failure as a mother. Responsibility. Whether it was walking away from her child or staying silent while her grandmother walked away with him, it all added up to Ruth shirking her duty as a mother. She was no better than Olivia’s deadbeat dad.
Mama had predicted Natasha would be the one to get pregnant in high school. Mark my words. She’ll be next. But it was Ruth who got caught, not her best friend. Looking at Kaylee now, stuck in this town with a kid by a man who had walked out on them, she saw clearly for the first time the life Mama had been trying to save her from.
Inching away from her old classmate, Ruth said, “Yeah, you’re doing the right thing making him pay. Good luck. Nice seeing you again.”
When Kaylee and her daughters left the building, Ruth considered following behind them. Maybe coming here had been a bad idea. Local government operated like a massive machine, churning out reams of paper with little humanity involved. It seemed too officious and dulled by routine to bend to her pleading for information. Still, she had to try.
On her drive to the center of town, she had practiced what she’d say to whatever paper-pushing bureaucrat she encountered, as well as how she’d say it.
I’m here to obtain copies of adoption records for my files, please. Deferential, yet firm and confident. While she continued to rehearse in her head, a woman’s voice emerged, so high and tinny it sounded as if it might break, like a thin thread pulled too tightly. “Next. May I help you?”
The clerk behind the partition had loose reddish curls framing her round face. Some would call her attractive, in that matronly way that comes with the natural rounding of age.
By now three more customers had lined up behind Ruth. She ran her fingers along the braided leather strap of her purse. “Yes, please. I’m trying to find my son.”
That’s not what she’d practiced saying, but now that she’d said it, the woman on the other side of the Plexiglas window almost let her perfunctory smile slip. “Your son? This isn’t the police station and we don’t take missing-person reports here. What is it you need, ma’am?”
That extra title of respect rarely used on a woman Ruth’s age only meant that the clerk had grown impatient. On the woman’s desk was a framed picture of a little girl with bangs and two long red braids. Her granddaughter, perhaps. Ruth thought of asking about the child as a way to build rapport with this woman, but she could tell it would be futile.
Ruth leaned closer to the opening in the window and whispered, “My baby was given up for adoption in 1997. And now I need a copy of the adoption records.”
The woman sighed. “All adoption records in the state of Indiana are confidential.”
Ruth swallowed the panic rising in her throat. “There has to be some way to find and contact my son.”
The woman shoved a piece of paper at Ruth through the partition. “Here. This is the Adoption Matching Registry Consent Form. Fill this out front and back and mail it to the Indiana State Department of Health. The address is on the bottom of the form.”
She had obviously repeated the steps to this process a thousand times. Glancing at the form, Ruth scanned the list of requirements:
Full name of the adoptee’s father
Adoptee’s name after adoption
Full name of adoptive parent 1
Full name of adoptive parent 2
There was no way Ruth could fill this out, since Ronald had no idea that she’d ever been pregnant with his child. But she couldn’t admit that to this clerk. She could predict the assumptions this woman would make: There goes another Black girl having babies out of wedlock.
Regret poked at Ruth. Even if Ronald hadn’t wanted a relationship with her, he had a right to know he’d fathered a child. Maybe she’d been selfish in withholding this information from him. What if he had stepped up and assumed his responsibility as a father? She sighed. Too many years had passed and she couldn’t undo the decision she’d made.
Ignoring the hard foot-tapping of the man in line behind her, Ruth squeezed the paper and waved it in front of the sliding glass window that the clerk had now shut a few more inches.
“I don’t know my son’s name or the names of the people who adopted him. I can’t complete this form because I just don’t know.”
Without looking up from the papers on her desk, the clerk returned to her memorized script. “This is the form. The adoptive parents would have to also be signed up with the registry for you to be matched and for you to contact each other. If the adoptive parents haven’t signed the child up for the registry, you can’t get any information. And don’t expect to hear anything from the state anytime soon. They’re real backed up over there. It could take more than twenty weeks to process your request.”
Twenty weeks. She couldn’t wait five months. Her spirit flagged like the sputtering motor of an old beater car. Glancing over her shoulder at the people in line behind her, Ruth wondered if their quests were as impossible as her own. The clerk scribbled notes and stamped documents. Ruth didn’t move, silently begging the clerk to have mercy on her and help her figure out what to do next.
Finally, the woman looked up and smiled too hard, showing too many teeth. “That’s the form. Fill it out as best you can. Next!”
When Ruth backed away, she bumped into the man behind her in line. Her eyes lingered on the registry consent form. She wanted to spit on this official piece of paper and its absurd requirements. Government had so many gatekeepers to keep you from the truth. To keep her from her son.
Inside the cocoon of her car, with the windows rolled up, Ruth let out a primal scream, releasing some of the tightly coiled tension inside her. When she powered her phone up again, it beeped. Maybe Xavier had texted or left her a voicemail message. She wished he were there to hold her hand, massage her shoulders, and whisper reassurances in her ear.
The missed call had been from Tess, though, not Xavier. She dialed her friend’s number and she answered on the first ring. Tess sounded almost breathless, as if she’d bounded across the room to pick up her cell.
“It’s about time you called me back. Okay, girl. I got the hookup on tickets to one of the Obama inauguration parties in D.C. But we need to order now. Are you in? Please say yes.”
The fervor over Obama’s election seemed so long ago. As proud and hopeful as she was, Ruth had already crashed after the high of that night. All she could think about now was her baby, finding him and then . . . She didn’t know what then.
“Ruth? Are you there? Did you hear me? Hellooo?”
“Yeah, I’m here, back home in Ganton.”
After a brief pause, Tess stammered, “Oh. Okay. What’s going on? Are things all right?”
Ruth felt an overwhelming need to unburden herself and tell someone the truth for once. And who better than Tess, who had kept her own secrets, having waited until after graduating from law school and joining a top firm to
come out to her family. By then, she was self-sufficient and could handle their rebuff financially, if not emotionally.
“I’ve been keeping something from you, from everyone. I only just told Xavier a few weeks ago.” Ruth exhaled loudly. “The summer after my senior year in high school I had a baby and I left him behind. I have no idea what happened to him. I’m back home now to find him.”
Tess let out a low whistle. “Okay, wow. Okay, what do you need? You know Penelope and I have your back. How can we help?”
There was no judgment in her friend’s voice. None. Ruth’s throat tightened, a bottleneck of tears trapped there. Tess understood.
“I just need to find him. I need to make things right.” She paused. “And I need to make things right with Xavier. He’s upset that I didn’t tell him the truth a long time ago.”
She waited for Tess’s reaction and possibly any indication of Xavier’s mood lately.
“He’ll be all right. Give him time. He loves you,” Tess said.
“Yeah, I know he does,” Ruth said, not fully convinced of that anymore.
“How can I help?” Tess said.
“I never signed any papers, and Mama and Eli are not talking. They won’t share the adoption papers or give me any names. I’m sitting outside the county clerk’s office and they gave me this form to fill out and it’s asking me all the questions I need answers to.” Everything came out in a rush of breath. Ruth pulled at her twists.
Immediately, Tess went into attorney mode. Her job primarily involved going after companies for monopoly leverage and price fixing. Adoption law was not her specialty, but she was a lawyer and, more important, a good friend. “What year was it that you had the baby?”
“1997. In August.”
Ruth heard Tess typing furiously on her laptop. After a minute, Tess said, “Okay, 1997 is the year the Indiana Putative Father Registry law went into effect.”
“Did you say punitive, like punishment?”
“No, p-u-t . . . putative. From what I’m seeing here, from 1997 on, any unmarried father has the right to register that he may have a child out there born around a certain time. If he registered and the lawyer didn’t give him a chance to weigh in at the time the adoption took place, the whole adoption could be upended.”
The Kindest Lie Page 14