In case you were wondering, I’m not applying for a new passport or anything. I’m looking for my birth mother.
And because it no longer seemed much of a threat to disclose her whereabouts—it was clear no one was going to drag her back—she added: In Pittsburgh.
I figured you might be, he wrote.
That surprised her. Even for someone intuitive, it would’ve been a leap, and Jason was not intuitive.
So you knew I was in Pittsburgh?
He replied, How would I know anything, Maribeth? I just suspected. From your note.
What had she said in her note that had implied that she was coming here? She’d been in an emotional fugue state when she’d written it, and last week when she’d seen the first line, she’d had a sickening déjà vu. It was the same sort of gut-plummet regret she’d experienced all those years ago when she’d opened the college newspaper to her profile of Jason.
My note? she fished.
Jason replied, Yeah. Your note. Which I still can’t get over. It’s not even the whole, out-of-the-blue Dear John part of it, though that wasn’t fun. But your implication that you have some claim on terror because you’re a mother . . . I know what you were getting at but, Jesus, Maribeth, did you really think that? Do you still think that? Even now?
She didn’t know what she thought because she didn’t know what she’d written. But what did she know, what she could feel pulsing through the computer’s monitor, was Jason’s anger. And it was the strangest thing because though it was what she had been imagining, resenting, dreading, since his silent treatment—since she’d left, really—now that it was here, all she felt was relief.
51
Allegheny Children’s Home had a record of a baby girl born March 12, 1970, adopted by a Mr. and Mrs. Seth Klein.
Janice broke the happy news after their fourth swim lesson—kickboard again, to work on her arms—while they were taking a leisurely steam. Upon hearing the news, Maribeth passed out.
SHE WAS FINE. It wasn’t her heart. It was the heat. And the shock.
She was fine. Really.
“I should’ve waited until we got out, but I couldn’t keep it in. I saw the e-mail on my phone when I went to the locker to get my toiletry bag,” Janice said, wringing her hands. “I thought the steam room would be a relaxed place to tell you. I feel just awful about it.”
The club manager was not helping matters. “I’ll need a doctor’s note for you to use the steam room,” he said. “That was very irresponsible.”
“It was my fault,” Janice said. “The steam room was my idea.”
“I’m an adult, Janice. It’s not your fault.” Maribeth turned to the manager “And a doctor’s note, really?”
“It’s for legal purposes,” the medic who was examining her explained.
“In fact, I’d feel more comfortable if you had a note before you returned to the club,” the manager said.
Fine. She was seeing Stephen tomorrow for lunch.
Once Maribeth was deemed in no imminent danger, she was allowed to get dressed. “Let’s get out of here,” she told Janice. “I’ll buy you something frothy and decaffeinated.”
“Only if you let me treat. Seeing as I made you faint.”
They went to a nearby Commonplace Coffee. Janice was still self-flagellating and therefore would only order a tea. “I never should’ve let you go in the steam room,” she said.
“I’m fine. I’m a big girl,” Maribeth said. Though in truth, she felt rather like a little girl, waiting to see what was in that big wrapped box. “So now what happens?”
“Allegheny Children’s Home has the intake file and they just have to redact it and give us a copy.”
“Redact it?”
“Yes, they’ll cross out names and identifying details. And then, if you want, the agency will reach out to your birth mother and see if we can initiate contact.”
“When can I get the file?”
“Maybe in a week. But there’s more.”
“What?”
“Your birth mother spent her confinement at the Beacon Maternity Home.”
“What’s that?”
“It was a home for unwed pregnant girls. A lot of young women spent their pregnancies there. We forget how taboo it was until recently.”
“Isn’t that the Children’s Home what’s-it?”
“No, that’s the adoption agency, where you would’ve gone for several months while the adoption moved through the courts.”
“Months?” Maribeth had always thought it was faster than that. She was born, she was adopted.
“It usually took several months,” Janice explained. “Sometimes up to a year.”
In her childhood home, there used to hang a series of framed photos in the hall—Sears portraits of the early years, replaced by school portraits once Maribeth started kindergarten. But the pictures began when she was a year old, already with a shock of hair, and four baby teeth. Maribeth had always assumed it was because the photos were a yearly event, a marker of milestones. Now she wondered if it was because there were no other pictures before then.
How long had Maribeth’s mother known that Maribeth was to be hers before she was hers? What was that like? To know she was out there but not be able to hold her? Feel her? Comfort her? Was she scared that her birth mother might change her mind? Might take her back? Maribeth remembered being pregnant with the twins and how reassuring it was always to have them with her, inside of her. She felt that she’d been their mother long before they were born.