FORTY-THREE

The following morning finds me lurking around the parking lot of the Happy Homes Adoption Agency in Stockton, which is a delta town more than sixty miles northeast of Danville. It’s early still and I barely remember the drive out here—the whole trip’s a hazy blur of bad heartburn, brake lights, and gas station coffee. So far, I’ve been passing time by doing jumping jacks to the beat of Ellington’s “Caravan,” and generally looking like a crazy person. A painted mural of brightly colored flowers and brightly colored children adorn the wall behind me, and even though I’ve been freezing my butt off for over an hour in the crisp December air, it was a good call on my part, remembering the cigarettes. This is because when the back door of the agency opens and the woman I’ve been waiting for comes out, she makes a beeline straight for the ashtray I’ve positioned myself next to.

I stop jumping and watch as she approaches. It’s been ten years, but I recognize her immediately, all the way down to the shiny pack of Kools and plastic lighter she’s got gripped in one chubby hand. Her frizzy hair’s cut short now, but she’s still tall and sort of lumpy, and either there’s something off about her makeup or there’s just a whole lot of it.

“Hello, Miss Louise.” I try keeping my voice steady, but breath and words spill together from my mouth in a jumbled rush.

The woman blinks. “How do you know who I am?”

“I recognized you.”

“Well, tell me who you are then or I’ll call the cops. You a relative?”

“A relative? Of who?”

“Of one of my kids.”

I’m confused. “Your kids?”

The look in her eyes isn’t wary so much as weary. She pulls a cigarette out. Lights it. “Not my kids. But mine, you know? The ones I work with.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not a relative.”

“Well, then…”

“I think I am one of your kids.”

Miss Louise takes a step toward me. Minty smoke leaks from her nostrils, lit-grenade style, and her lips start to stretch into a smile. “Yeah? What’s your name, then? Bet I remember you. I remember all my kids and I’ve been doing this job for over ten years.”

“My name’s Jamie. Jamie Henry.”

Miss Louise freezes. Her soft dumpling skin goes white. Then whiter.

“Oh,” she says.

I cock my head. “What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you, Jamie. You … you’re all grown now. But I heard about what happened with your sister. That was sad. Real sad. I’m sorry.”

I nod quickly. My chest is doing its tightening thing again. “Thank you.”

“How’d you find me?” she asks.

“Wasn’t hard. I did a search for all the Louises that worked in adoption services. Found your picture on the Happy Homes website. Stockton’s kind of far from Richmond, though.”

“I didn’t work here when I knew you. I was out in West County then. Social services.”

“Oh.”

“Is everything okay, Jamie?”

“I guess.”

“Your parents treating you well? What was their name again?”

“The Henrys. Malcolm and Angie.”

“Of course. The Henrys. Terrible what happened to their kids.”

I lift my chin. “You mean their ‘real kids,’ right? That’s what people call them, you know. Like Cate and I are imaginary.”

“That’s not what I meant at all. But what happened to them was terrible. You do understand that, right?”

My shrug is noncommittal. I mean, of course, I understand, but I don’t totally agree with the terrible part, which is one of those nasty truths that can fill me with the most sinister sense of badness. But maybe it’s the way any child born or adopted after the death of a sibling feels, this queasy lurch from gratitude to shame; if Madison and Graham hadn’t died, where the hell would I be? “Miss Louise, do you think I could ask you some questions? About when I was younger? And about my mom? My real mom.”

She scratches the bottom of her chin with her thumb. “‘Real’ mom, huh? Yeah, sure. Shoot.”

My mouth goes dry.

“Sorry,” she says. “That was tactless.”

I manage to clear my throat. “Do you know what my mom looked like?”

“Nope. Never saw her.”

“Well, after she died, did you ever go back to the house we lived in and get some of her things?”

She frowns and puffs harder. “Yeah, I did. Wasn’t much to get, though.”

“What was there?”

“Don’t remember. Nothing valuable. Good thing, too. That neighborhood was not optimal and that’s putting it lightly.”

“Were there statues? Animal statues? Is that what you picked up?”

“I don’t know. There might’ve been. Why’re you asking these questions, Jamie?”

“I’m trying to learn more about where I came from. My past, you know? I don’t remember anything from before I went to live with the Henrys. Sometimes it feels like nobody wants me to remember.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Not really. All I know is what I’ve been told. That my mom was shot. That we were wards of the state until we got adopted. That they never found out who it was that killed her.”

“I see.” Miss Louise presses her lips together so hard a stream of ash breaks off, vanishing into the valley wind in an instant. “Well, here’s what I know: You were miserable in that group home with your sister. Always sick and crying. You got nits and your hair fell out.”

My cheeks burn. “I remember that.”

“If you remember that, then maybe you shouldn’t be worrying about before. Maybe it’s now that matters. Your life with the Henrys.”

“But I want to know where I came from! That’s important, isn’t it?”

“Your parents now love you. Isn’t that more important?”

“I guess,” I say, but I don’t know. Maybe that’s the unspoken truth of parents whose living children have come after ones who were lost—it’s not that they don’t love us, it’s that they wish they never had to.

Miss Louise tips her head at me. Soft curls dance across pale cheeks. “Do you know how rare it is for older children to be adopted? Much less stay with a sibling? It was practically a miracle, what happened to you and your sister. And you don’t question miracles.”

“You don’t?”

“Oh, no. There’s no truth that can change who you are. But looking into the past, at things that happened a long time ago, that can hurt you. Your sister’s proof of that. So stop. All right?”

But I can’t stop, is what I want to say but my teeth chatter too hard in the chilled Stockton air. I look away.

Miss Louise reaches out. Takes my hand. Squeezes it hard enough to hurt.

“Be a good boy,” she says.