June 1985
Hotel Indigo Ballroom
South Dallas, Texas
Difficult beginnings, U.S. Senator Mildred Folsom knew from her experience, often shaped a child’s worldview in ways that remained unrecognized far into adulthood. Ways that were permanently unhealthy, that could stunt a child’s emotional maturity and hinder her from becoming a responsible, God-fearing, conservative adult. It wasn’t much different today, the senator told her audience, than it was twenty-five years ago, when she herself was still in the system. A small lamp on the podium illuminated the senator’s speech, the light reflecting onto her face, her platinum hair.
“Many displaced children, if they age out un-adopted, will forever feel hungry and alone,” the Texas senator said. She was the last speaker for the evening, her speech a voice-over for a slideshow that to this point had only shown images of proud parents with their smiling adopted children.
The tone of the slides changed. The images shifted, became interspersed with pictures of twentieth-century group home despair. Children in dignified poses but with no individuality, at attention at the foot of their beds, lost and frightened, or in foster home kitchens seated stiffly upright, their adult caregivers smiling but the children rigid, with severe faces.
“Many, regardless of their achievements as adults, will feel colder than you in winter, or uncomfortably warmer than you in summer. Many will feel sick their entire lives. And many children…”
Three hundred moneyed Texan benefactors were in attendance at the senator’s fundraiser for the agency. By the end of the slideshow she expected their eyes to be moist, and their noses to be sniffling. Her voice caught in her throat. She tapped the podium lightly and pursed her lips, both meant to pull her out of some maudlin personal memory the audience was expected to conjure up for themselves.
She was good at this. She had them.
“…so many children will feel perpetually unloved, perpetually unlovable. I’m sure our guests of honor have all had similar feelings on some level. But their adoptions, and mine, served to mitigate them, and our adoptive parents rescued us either from well-intentioned shelters, the foster care merry-go-round, or from much more compromising situations, and paved the way for us to realize our potential as productive citizens. Generous folks like you have helped defray the costs of adoption allowing state and county adoption agencies to provide homes for children so deserving of them. Please give with your hearts tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Your honorees and I are proof that your gifts can and do make a difference. Thank you, and may God bless you.”
A round of applause erupted for the four guests of honor, all women: a heart surgeon, a homemaking mother-of-three, a kindergarten teacher, and a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, all assembled for the black-tie event by this popular first-term U.S. senator. After her speech the senator worked the gathering, on the stump as much for her campaign as she was for agency donations. She pulled aside Darlington Beckner, the local county adoption agency’s director, who was also a practicing minister. She had him light her cigarette.
“How do you like your new pen, Pastor Beckner?”
He patted his vest pocket. In it was a diamond-encrusted Montblanc, a gift from the senator’s pro-life campaign contributors, inscribed with his initials and the group’s slogan: Let them live, and we will help them thrive.
“I like it very much, Senator. Thank you.”
She clinked her drink glass with his. “I’ve been told someone wants to thank you personally for all your hard work this year, Pastor.”
“How wonderful. Who?”
“I don’t have any details. The hotel concierge will be along in a minute to fill you in. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Upstairs in one of the hotel’s luxury suites Mitzi, fundraiser honoree number four, the alleged former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, was performing an act that Pastor Darlington Beckner knew broke at least one Commandment and countless other Bible admonishments. Influential religious leader, community organizer and adoption agency head, the forty-two-year-old devoted father of four was going through a tough stretch, his wife estranged, a divorce in the offing. Mitzi, naked from the waist up, was thanking the hell out of him. Seated on the edge of the bed, his tux pants off and out of the way, he had a close-up view of her bobbing head, her hair a soft, ash blonde, just like the hair of his lovely wife. At best, Mitzi had been a Cowboy cheerleader from the early seventies. At worst, she’d been a Cowboy cheerleader never, more likely a high-priced whore who filled out the formal gown nicely. Against his better judgment, a judgment significantly more impaired than it was an hour ago, Darlington had succumbed to the temptation and was along for the ride. Just a few more seconds.
The closet doors burst open; Mitzi didn’t flinch. Two cameras flashed, then the photographers behind the cameras spilled out from their hiding place. Darlington recoiled, Mitzi disengaged herself. She pulled up the top of her gown and stood to leave.
“They want a name, Reverend,” Mitzi said. “An adoptee who came through one of the county’s agencies. She’d be about fifteen now. Someone will be in touch.”