Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Kure Beach, North Carolina
Clarissa felt like she was losing her mind. The closer the day came that the DNA results were expected, the worse the feeling got. Walking the length of the beach, up and down, up and down (where were the goddamned dolphins?), day after day—by herself, since Kate had taken to going on her own—she could not stop thinking about it.
Because Lana had found, in some article online, the address of the McNaughton Children’s Home. In Wilmington! Just thirty minutes away! And Clarissa and Kate had driven over there, and Clarissa had parked her Civic at the curb in front of the big old Victorian, now a private home. That’s where you were born, Mom, Kate had said, in a tone of awe, but Clarissa couldn’t fully believe it. The article (published in 1990 in North Carolina Yesterdays) seemed such scant evidence. What if it was wrong? Was the publication even reputable?
But she had to admit: adopted. Yes, almost certainly. But—purchased—by Jack and Lola? From—whom?
Clarissa could not imagine having given up her children for anything in the world. Any price. (And, yes, Clarissa had made Kate give up her baby, but this was different, surely—wasn’t it?) Who had her biological parents—her mother—been? Greedy? Desperate? Selfish? Just plain too young to know any better? (Or to have any say in the matter?)
The possibilities seemed endless, whirling. Clarissa walked and walked, wondering what it all meant about who she was. Could it explain the course her life had run?
“Clare? Hey, Clare!”
She focused. A clear blue day, the sun shining; a tall, trim silver-haired man in a pink polo and white shorts standing in front of her, smiling. She recognized Monty, the piano player in her band. “Oh, hey, Monty!” She shifted her sunglasses to the top of her head; she didn’t feel it was polite to talk with them on, though their absence left her squinting.
“We’ve been missing you at practice,” he said. “You doing all right?”
“Oh, yes! Fine. You know, it’s just that my daughter is staying with me.”
There was some small talk; she was surprised she could manage it. Then, he astonished her: “Hey, you free for dinner tonight? Sounds like you could use a break, and I’d like to take you to McGillicuddy’s. Can your daughter fend for herself one night?” He grinned.
Oh, God, no, she thought. She was seventy-eight years old; had thought “dating”—not that she’d done much of it, in the whole of her life—was entirely in the rearview. And she’d been glad to think so; had been turning down every offer for years. She could turn to ice in an instant, if she sensed some man getting his hopes up. “It’s not really a good time,” she said. “Not at all—with my daughter, you know.”
“Well, that’s fine.” He was still smiling. “Maybe I’ll text you and ask again.”
She felt the familiar old discomfort brewing, and yet—she knew Monty. Liked him, from what she’d seen of him at their practices this past year. What would be the harm in having dinner? They were too old, weren’t they, for disaster to result? There simply wasn’t enough time for it to brew.
He had her phone number from the band info sheet, she knew, just as she had his, though they’d never used them to connect outside of practice.
“Well, you can ask,” she said, with a little laugh. She lowered her sunglasses and started walking again, and, for an instant, hearing him laugh behind her and promise I will, she felt young again, and pretty—as if the things that had happened to her had never happened at all.
But, oh, this was foolish. Especially because, as her footsteps sank in the sand, she began to see it all unfolding again: the young lawyer Clayburn asking her father, Jack Duncan, for permission to call, when she was home for the summer after her freshman year at Sweet Briar; the front-page announcement in the Leader; the wasp-waist white dress and long veil; the mute loss of her virginity on her wedding night and Clayburn’s seeming relief (We made it, babe, he’d said, rolling off her); the modern brick house in the suburbs with the electric refrigerator, the washing machine, the tree swing; baby Kate on a handmaid quilt.
In the early days, he’d said she looked like Elizabeth Taylor, only her sapphire eyes were more beautiful than Liz’s violet ones, and—Clarissa was ashamed of this now—she had fallen for it, had actually believed it.
He hadn’t hit her until after the first miscarriage; hadn’t even given any sign that he might. (It had greatly surprised her, the first time. After that, she’d gotten good with makeup, with rearranging her hair, with creating fictional tales of how accident-prone she was.)
He said, if only she’d give him a son, he would be satisfied with her.
And what joy there’d been in the Montgomery household, in those weeks leading up to Lana’s birth—once they’d been confident this baby was going to make it—little Kate thrilled to help with the layette, to anticipate a little sister or brother; a dozen red roses every Friday night. “Finally, you’re giving me a son!” Clayburn said, again and again.
Then, Clarissa had given birth to a daughter who was three shades too dark.
She could still hear his voice that last day, the day he’d refused to pick her up at the hospital and she had to take a taxi home: Slut. Thought you could fool me, huh?
She could still feel his fist, slamming her tender middle. Could see him standing over where she was doubled on the floor, saying he’d give her the old Ford Ranch Wagon, but, as for money, that wasn’t his problem.
And she could see her hands, clenched on the steering wheel as she drove out to her parents’—baby Lana on a blanket on the bench seat between Clarissa and little Kate—for what she’d imagined would be refuge. But when she got there, Lola had sent her straight to her father’s office. Jack Duncan had been behind his desk, counting out a thousand dollars in cash, and he’d told Clarissa that she had brought shame upon him and upon her mother and she ought never darken his doorstep again.
And Lola, standing in the great hall under the portraits of the Duncan ancestors, her mouth thin, had said, “You may want to get some of your childhood things.”
Even now, Clarissa’s heart galloped in fury at the memory, and she walked faster through the sand, forgetting to fear tripping, forgetting everything but that she’d been a good girl all her life, done everything she was supposed to, day in and day out, the large things and the small, and that was her reward?
She remembered running up the sweeping staircase (God, how she’d hurt!), her vision blurring as she yanked things out of the drawers and closet of the room where she’d spent so many hours of her childhood, gazing out toward the horses in the rolling green pasture, dreaming of riding away. (Then, in reality, trudging downstairs for another lesson in comportment under Lola, another lecture on the importance of marrying well.)
She didn’t have much space in the car—no, she couldn’t bring her equestrian trophies (how ridiculous that thought was); she couldn’t bring her old dolls—
She’d looked up to see Lola, standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette, eyes darting nervously until they locked with Clarissa’s. “We were never going to tell you this.” Her voice was odd, croaking. “But you were adopted, anyway.”
The floor fell out from underneath Clarissa; the sky started to spin.
“They told us your real mother was Sicilian, so maybe that explains why your baby came out so dark.” Lola arched an eyebrow. “Unless you did go to bed with some gardener?”
“—Mother! God! No!”
Lola nodded, took one step into the room. Wobbled slightly back on her heels. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’d choose you if I could, but I have to stay with him.” She stepped back, took one last drag on her cigarette, eyeing Clarissa up and down as if taking the measure of her, then turned away. And was gone forever.
Fifty-two years later, Clarissa was left with this stretch of white sand before her, wondering what on earth it all added up to. Her life. She’d thought she’d left the past behind, she’d thought she’d made her peace with it, but now it was all so vivid in her memory, and she was not at peace with it. No, she was not at peace at all.
She had realized almost immediately—even as she was driving Kate and baby Lana back down the tunnel of her father’s trees and out to the highway that 1963 day—that what Lola had said about her being adopted might be true. Because it had not made sense to Clarissa when, right before her wedding, the first time she’d seen her birth certificate—she’d needed it for the marriage license—Lola had explained that it was from the state of North Carolina because Clarissa had arrived earlier than expected, while Lola and Jack were on vacation down there. Even at the time, distracted as she’d been with her wedding, Clarissa had thought, Vacation? Jack Duncan did not take vacations. He simply was not a believer. Any man who owned thirty thoroughbreds couldn’t be, he said.
Anyway, what nine-months-pregnant woman heads off heedlessly on vacation? Not even Lola would be so foolish, Clarissa’d had to think. And Lola had, many times, told Clarissa that she’d been born right there, upstairs in the Lexington house!
Now, fifty-two years later, Clarissa walked and walked, not knowing who her parents were; who she was, after all this time. Nor did she feel consoled by the idea that, within days, the DNA test would likely tell her.
What if she learned the truth of where she came from—and it only made everything worse?