virginia
july 2005
Rachel swiveled her head nostalgically as she drove past St. Vincent’s church in Howell Grove. As a child, she’d envisioned the dead lined up like busts of classical musicians along the rafters of the chancel—a heaven of sorts, a storage place for ghosts. For as long as she could remember, she had understood God. God existed in the strangest of places—in the scent of her mother’s hydrangeas; under the delicate toes of the Virgin Mary crushing a concrete serpent outside the rectory; in the warm light of other people’s windows. On the face of a saxophone player at a subway stop on the six train once. Most of all, in the scent of her sacred blanket, where she could bury her face and breathe in pure holiness whenever she needed it. Her religion—those angelic parents from her childhood bedtime stories—were always there, elusive and loving. She feared they might disappear if she found out who they really were.
She parked the rental car in the gravel driveway of the ranch house where she’d grown up. Here, on the two-acre plot of land abutting the woods at the bottom of a small hill, the presence of her rival twin—the blond ghost—was stronger than ever.
Rachel turned the engine off and stared through the windshield at the blackness of her backyard. In the distance, early fireworks popped like luminescent dandelions gone to seed. How easy it would be to take the envelope Mari had given her and throw it away like it had all been a mistake.
She gathered her bags, the slam of the car door piercing the spacious dark.
Inside the three-bedroom house, a nostalgic waft of graham cracker pie crust and Murphy’s oil soap enveloped her. By the light of a table lamp, faded prints on worn fabric softened the wood-paneled living room. The floral upholstery of the couch, the eyelet valances. A fifty-five-gallon freshwater fish tank against the living room wall was the only change since Rachel had moved out.
“You made it,” her mom whispered from the hallway in her robe. Rachel hugged her tall, bony frame against her own curves. “How was your trip?”
“It’s good to get out of the city for the Fourth,” said Rachel, but the real reason for her visit felt heavy in her bag.
Her mom’s eyes followed Rachel’s to the fish tank.
“The doc at the VA says it’s good for him. Relaxes him, I guess. He’s got too much time to think lately.”
“He’s the only retiree in the house now.” Rachel set her bag on the armchair. She glanced over her mother’s shoulder at the kitchen table, where a small birdcage was half-filled with peonies and a row of single calla lilies stood in test tubes. “Are you still doing arrangements for the church?”
Her mom shrugged. “I’m experimenting. I did the high school prom last month.”
“That’s great,” said Rachel. She needed the encouragement.
“But your dad’s still doing a few security jobs here and there, so we both keep busy.” She adjusted the sash to her robe. “All right. I’ll let you get settled in.”
Rachel tiptoed to her childhood bedroom, struck by a sudden pang of guilt. The envelope seemed like a betrayal. She shut the pinstriped curtains, tossed her bag on the bed, and unzipped it. She took the envelope out and buried it under the eyelet runner on the dresser, then moved away, as though its tragedy were contagious.
All around were relics of her youth—photos in frames, a bronzed baby shoe, stuffed animals on her quilted bedspread. Her mom had placed a scented candle and a single hydrangea in a bud vase on the end table. Rachel shut the bedroom door and flicked the lock on the knob. She gathered up her long hair with both hands and twisted it on top of her head. The past was nearly visible here, as though the place itself had been scarred by time. She’d been right here with the blond ghost on a sunny afternoon years ago when her future was still a blank canvas, when she called out her plans to her parents, vulnerable and defensive about how they might echo back to her. She would move to a big city, she told them, and study something important: economics or art or political science. She was going to change the world.
She could still see the landscape of her teenage room—the black-and-white perfume ads, the canister of wide-toothed combs with spray nozzle handles, purple bottles of hair mousse, a tin of strawberry candies. Her bookshelf, where a half-dozen handheld American flags were propped in a mason jar—a residual collection from when she’d mobilized her soccer team at school. They’d made God Bless Our Troops banners for every game and launched a yellow ribbon campaign that infiltrated her entire middle school while her dad was in Kuwait. Her mom was taking courses at the community college then, and she perpetually left a book lying around the house with a highlighter stuffed between its pages: You Can Start Your Own Business.
“You’ll need to decide how to make a living,” her father said. The skepticism in his voice stung. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.” She’d looked up at them. “I could start my own business.”
“Doing what?”
“How am I supposed to know?” she’d flustered. “I don’t even know where I came from.”
Her parents had glanced at each other.
“I want to find my birth parents before I graduate from high school.”
Her dad tilted his head.
“If that’s what you want,” he said without hesitation, “we’ll help you.”
When she wrapped her arms around his neck, he smelled of Irish Spring soap.
Rachel reached over to the end table now and touched the hydrangea her mom had left for her. She turned her face into the pillow and caught notes of detergent and a slight mustiness from the cellar laundry.
First thing when she woke up, she would tell them everything Mari had said. They were her parents. They always knew what to do.
* * *
In the morning, the corner of the envelope peeked at her. She slid it out from under the runner, stuffed it in the pocket of her robe, and headed to the living room, where her dad was reading the newspaper in an easy chair. Thin cotton curtains bounced against the wire screen of the kitchen windows. Sunlight and the aroma of warm pancakes filled the room.
“Morning, kiddo,” he said. “Good to have you home.”
Her mom stood in front of the griddle, where batter was bubbling in neat pools. Rachel glanced through the cellophane at the homemade cake covered in whipped cream and berries on the counter. The spiral-bound church calendar on the wall showcased the Smoky Mountains above empty white boxes of days.
Rachel reached for the coffeepot, pecking her mother’s cheek. “This house is like a time warp.”
Her dad chuckled. His newspaper crinkled loudly as he set aside the business section.
“What’s happening in the world?” her mother asked.
“London bombings,” he said. “They still don’t know who did it.”
She flipped a pancake. “Can we have breakfast before we talk about terrorism?” She cleared her throat. “Who wants pancakes? Do you want pancakes, Jon?”
“No.”
She shifted her gaze out the window to the back porch and clenched her jaw. Rachel pushed the screen door open and escaped into one of the Adirondack chairs with her coffee mug. As she pulled her knees to her chest, the weight of the envelope in her robe pocket caused it to fall open, exposing her upper thigh.
Her mom flung the door open with her hip, balancing a plate of syrup-drizzled pancakes in each hand. A fork tottered on the one she presented to Rachel. Her father filled the doorway, and he meandered outside in his slippers, settled into a chair across from them, and unfolded his paper again. As Rachel bit into a warm pancake, a squirrel darted across the ryegrass lawn. Her dad looked up from his paper, then at Rachel.
“You been using that chain lock on your apartment door?”
“Sometimes.” She sounded like a child.
“You should use it, honey,” said her mother.
Rachel suppressed a rising petulance. She would do what she came to do. She would broach the topic, however inelegantly.
“Dad?” she asked. “What do you know about Argentina?”
Her mother stopped chewing and looked up. Her fork clinked against her plate.
He tittered. “What kind of question is that?”
“I’m just curious. Do you know anything about it?”
“I know a lot of things about a lot of things. Like how many people would be happy to take advantage of a foolish young woman who leaves her door unlocked.”
“I don’t leave it unlocked.” Rachel sat up straighter, baited. “Have you ever been to Argentina?”
He lifted his paper and sat back, then turned a single crackling page, face hidden. “I was based there once.”
“Twice,” said her mother.
He peered at her from behind the paper with a mix of curiosity and disgust.
“What?” her mom said, stabbing a piece of pancake and plowing it through the syrup on her plate. “You did two tours in one year. How could I forget that? You were off protecting the Free World while I was here alone.”
They glared at each other.
“It wasn’t an easy time for me,” she said.
“Was it during the war?” asked Rachel.
“No, after Vietnam,” he said. “But still ancient history now.”
“Not Vietnam. I meant the war in Argentina. The Dirty War.” The breeze stilled. “The one where people disappeared.”
“I’m aware of what the Dirty War was,” he said with mild condescension.
“Well, was that when you were there?” Rachel perched on the edge of the chair, her back erect.
He bent a corner of his newspaper down with one finger to meet her eyes. “I was stationed there, yes.”
“Where did you live?”
“At the embassy. Both tours.”
“Why were you there?”
“I was advising on a mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
“A mission. It was called Operation Condor. Why are you asking about this?”
“I just wondered if you knew what happened there. What they did, I mean.”
Her dad lowered the newspaper to his lap, then folded it up and removed his glasses. His eyes locked with Rachel’s. “What who did?”
“The military.” She suddenly felt nervous. “The government.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh. “You’re really interested in this all of a sudden.”
“I just want to know.”
“Listen, kiddo, I don’t expect you to understand, but it was a complicated time. You’ve never seen what chaos looks like up close.” He forced a chuckle. “You want to tell me why you’re asking about this?”
Rachel set her plate on the side table between her and her mom, reached into the pocket of her robe, and pulled out the envelope. She handed the entire thing to him and watched as pale creases formed at the corners of his eyes. He opened it, took out one of the fliers and examined it, then turned it over to its blank side.
Her mom placed her fork on the empty plate in her lap and leaned forward. “What is it?”
“Where did you get this?” he said. He waved the flier of the hand between his thumb and forefinger, the card stock warbling in the summer air. Rachel pulled her arms inside the sleeves of her robe and crossed them, hands locked between her knees. The syrup had a bitter aftertaste.
Her mother glared at him. “What is it, Jon?”
He rose from his chair to hand the flier to his wife. As he did, the newspaper slid from his lap. He jerked to catch it, still holding the envelope in his other hand. He slapped the paper against his thigh to keep it from falling. Two photos slipped out of the envelope and swung in the air like falling leaves. Rachel lunged to rescue the picture of Lorena from the dewy deck floor, but the other photo landed face up on the teak boards. The three of them stared down at Mat and Mari, smiling up from a backdrop of palm fronds.
Her mother picked the photo up and gently placed it on her knee.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“Her name is Mari—Dr. Marisol Rey. And the boy’s name is Mat. He’s from Argentina.” Rachel glanced up at her dad, but he’d turned his back to them and was gazing out across the backyard. “He’s looking for his sister.”
Her mom set her plate at her feet and scrutinized the photo.
“She’s a professor. She works for”—Rachel nodded toward the flyer still in her father’s hand—“that group. The Abuelas. She reached out to me last week about my adoption.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” her mother asked.
“I’m telling you now. That’s why I’m here.”
Her dad strode the few steps toward her mom and dropped the flier in her lap, then paced away again. He rolled up the newspaper and twisted its thickness.
“What does it say?” her mom asked, pointing to the words on the flier.
“It’s like, ‘Identity doesn’t impose itself,’” said Rachel.
Her dad dragged one hand down his face and turned back around to face them. His neck was flushed and blotchy, the way it looked after he’d spent an afternoon chopping logs for the woodpile.
“They think I’m one of the children who disappeared.”
He pointed the rolled-up newspaper at the flyer in his wife’s lap.
“That’s propaganda,” he said.
“They don’t know for sure that I’m the right person.” Rachel’s voice hovered evenly. “It could be a mistake. Someone told her that an American officer took a baby to the United States.”
He laughed and shook his head.
Rachel handed her mom the photo of Lorena. She examined it for a moment, then drew in a sharp breath. Her fingertips rose to her lips.
“That’s Mat’s mother,” said Rachel. “Her name was Lorena.”
“Helena?” she asked.
“Viv,” said her father. “For Christ’s sake.”
“Lorena,” repeated Rachel. “Lorena Ledesma.”
Her mom’s eyes were wide, still fixed on the photo. “She looks like you,” she whispered, flipping it over to inspect the back. A blue jay shrieked in the distance.
“It could be altered,” said her dad.
“No, no. It’s too old.” Her mom held the picture toward him, but he didn’t move.
“Dad, are you mad at me?”
“What?” He scooted the deck chair closer to Rachel and sat, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared at the teak deck boards as he spoke. “No, kiddo. No, of course not. I get why you would ask me this; I do. It’s only natural. Listen, I’m talking to you as an adult now, okay?”
“Okay.” Rachel hugged her knees, undermined by her pajamas, by the plate of pancakes, by the teenage angst that she still allowed to seep into her interactions with her parents.
He raised an eyebrow. “You were found on a porch in Howell County. I have no idea who in their right mind would’ve left an innocent baby like that, but your aunt Daphne would swear on a stack of bibles that you couldn’t have come from Argentina any more than you could’ve come from the moon. We don’t know who left you there, but it’s not for lack of trying to find out. And you’re a smart girl. Think about it.” He gestured toward the picture of Mat. “I’m sure whatever story this woman is telling you about this young man is a tragedy, but what went on in his life doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s understandable that they’re chasing down any scrap of hope they can find—and it happened to lead them to you. Apparently I put you in this situation by being in the wrong place at the wrong time—by doing my job. Protecting my country and theirs, for God’s sake.” He lowered his voice. “Your mother and I took all the right steps. I’ve never broken the law in my life.”
“No one’s talking about the law,” said her mom. “Let’s just stay calm, Jon.” She examined her husband with familiar concern. Rachel felt the blond ghost’s disdain seep in. Don’t startle your dad, honey, her mom would warn after Rachel made the mistake of sneaking up behind his recliner and covering his eyes with her tiny hands during an episode of M*A*S*H. Rachel had seen his pain up close. A career’s worth of pulling a trigger had traumatized him, and he dulled the ache with whiskey and silence and categorical presumptions about the people his bullets had pierced: they were enemies, criminals, terrorists—not people like us. Even Rachel indulged his words, these mercies that helped him erase whatever it was he’d done.
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up thinking this might be something it’s not,” he said. “You’ve always been a little naive that way. You believe things too easily. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”
He was trying to protect her, but she was queasy with the urge to soothe him instead. She rubbed her bad knee, recalled the day she’d looked up at him in pain from where she lay injured on the soccer field. His face had searched hers then, as it did now, with concern and something else: an eagerness, a desire for kinship—It hurts, doesn’t it? A hot current of indignation ran through her body.
“Do you think this woman Mari is lying? Or that it’s just a coincidence?”
“I think it’s a mistake.” His tone was low. “I don’t see why she would lie.”
Rachel felt a sudden stab of regret for bringing Mari into what seemed a very private family matter—but then she wasn’t entirely sure why it felt so private. It was her adoption.
“Think it through, Rach. These people think you’re the child of a political prisoner.” His eyes were sad but sincere. “It’s impossible.”
It was comforting, this certainty, the force of his authority that coalesced around his words. But when the sunlight fell over him, something shifted, subtle as a thin layer of dust or a change in the texture of his skin. There had been a rift growing between them since the Twin Towers fell, since his irritating enthusiasm for the Iraq War began to grow in direct proportion to the protests against it. Faint questions had begun to enter her mind each time he spoke. Doubts. Tiny little doubts.
But this was the first time in her life that she truly didn’t believe her father.
The photo in her mother’s hand had its own center of gravity. It was a magnetic force distorting Rachel’s sense of certainty even further.
“Your mom and I raised you in the best way we knew how.” He kneaded his jaw with one hand. “We’ve always wanted the best for you. We have nothing to hide.”
There was an unspoken accusation from the blond ghost: ingrate.
“I know,” Rachel said. “I just wanted to ask.”
In the silence that followed, the air thickened. She could stay safe here, within the walls erected by her father, decorated by her mother. These walls protected her—they always had. But there was a hairline crack in them now. The truth was slippery, potentially irreconcilable. Taking a DNA test could mean trading her angel-ghost parents for real people made of flesh and bones—but it could also mean forsaking her trust in the only real parents she’d ever known.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I was in Fort Bragg the morning Daphne found you. I wasn’t even home from assignment yet.”
“That’s true,” said her mom. She peeled her focus from the photo of Lorena and looked at Rachel. Her eyes were imploring. Please stop doing this. Rachel felt crushed.
Her dad stood up abruptly. “They’ve just got the wrong person, that’s all.” He directed his words toward her mother. “It’s just like you said. There’s no need to get all worked up about it.” He took the photos and the flier back from his wife and pushed them into the envelope, then turned to Rachel. “This lady who’s been harassing you—you have her information?”
“Her card’s in there,” said Rachel. “But she wasn’t harassing me.” She glanced at her mom for support, but she just stood up, collected the breakfast plates, and brought them into the kitchen. Through the screen, Rachel heard them clatter in the sink as she turned on the water. He followed her into the house, the matter resolved.
* * *
Rachel watched through the screen as her dad sat down in the easy chair and stared silently at the fish tank. After several minutes, he got up and disappeared down the hall toward his den. Moments later, a car door slammed out front.
In the kitchen, her mom rinsed out the coffeepot.
“Where’d Dad go?”
“To the VFW.” She gestured to the kitchen table, where she’d thrust a clump of wildflowers down the throat of an empty wine jug. A folder lay open. “He left those out for you.”
Rachel’s adoption forms—the abandonment notices, the statutory postings with no responses, the default termination of parental rights—spread out before her. She skimmed them: . . . constituted by the failure to provide food, clothing, medical care . . . There was a Department of Health and Human Services record, intake papers completed by Daphne on the day of Rachel’s abandonment, and an inconclusive investigative report printed on security firm letterhead—Secure World—from 1993. She’d seen all of it before.
He’d left Mari’s envelope next to the folder. Only the business card was missing. Rachel picked it up and brought it to her bedroom. She zipped it up in her overnight bag.
When she returned to the kitchen, her mother glanced up from the sink, then dried her hands on a dish towel.
“You want to come out to the greenhouse with me?”
Rachel nodded. She followed her mom down the porch steps and across patches of sun-dried dirt to the greenhouse, which stretched nearly thirty feet in length and was fogged with condensation. Her mother’s T-shirt draped across her bony shoulder blades, and her white pedal pushers clung to her calves as she approached one of the long rows of wooden planting boxes inside.
Inside, the smell of wet soil was reminiscent of childhood harvests—fresh peas, string beans, carrots, watermelon, squash. Pumpkins scattered on the ground. Rachel wanted her mom to know she remembered these things now. She leaned back against the cabinet her dad built years ago and breathed in the dewy air, waiting for her mom to say whatever she came out here to say.
“The young man in that photo,” her mom said at last, moving to the tomato plants. “What happened to his father?”
“I don’t know.” Rachel pressed her palms to the top of the cupboard and hoisted her body up onto it to sit. The pulpy base of her thumb pinched between two panels of wood and she winced, inspecting the white line of raised flesh left behind.
Her mother looked pained. “I know your dad and I aren’t perfect, but we’ve always tried to be good parents to you.”
“You are good parents, Mom. It has nothing to do with being bad parents.” Rachel rubbed her sore palm with intensity. “I just want to know where I came from.”
Her mother flicked aside a clump of soil to reveal a whitish-green shoot protruding from a faint trench in the dirt.
“I’m going to take a DNA test,” Rachel confessed.
Her mom lifted her chin. She pulled gardening gloves over her delicate hands and began pruning the tomato plant, the steel blades cutting the flesh of its stalk.
“You’re a lot like your father.” She removed a glove and thumbed the plant’s wet wound, then looked up at Rachel. “I’ve always thought so, at least.” She leaned one hand on the edge of the potting table and put the other on her hip, turning to face Rachel directly. “Do you remember when you used to bring me things from the Easton’s barn for my flower arrangements? Old bicycle wheels, tin cans, mason jars, things like that?”
Rachel shrugged. “Sort of.”
“You did. You always had a way of finding something beautiful.”
Emotion fizzled across the bridge of Rachel’s nose into her sinuses.
Her mom looked up at the roof of the greenhouse, one hand moving to her neck. “We’ll help you find out whatever you want to know, sweetheart. You deserve answers. I just—” Her bare hand jumped to her face, covering her nose and mouth as her brow crumpled. She looked about to burst into a sob, but the gesture was instantaneous, and with one quick sniff her hand was back on her hip, her face fully recovered.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Mom?”
She shook her head.
“Mom.” Rachel’s voice was pleading now. “Please. I need to know.”
She let out a long, shaky sigh. “Scoot.” She approached Rachel and motioned for her to get down off the cabinet. “I have something I want to give you.” She reached under the planting box and picked up a false rock—a key hider—and removed its bottom. Rachel’s heart leaped. Her mom stuck the little key in the small padlock on the door to the tool cabinet Rachel had been sitting on. Inside, her mother reached past a stack of terracotta pots and took out a small book with no cover, its navy blue spine worn and frayed. There was a rubber band wrapped around it.
“I want you to have this. It was my mother’s.” She held the book in both hands, chest-height, and moved a hand across its cover. It was a book of poetry verses by Sara Teasdale called Rivers to the Sea.
“Why do you keep it out here?”
She looked confused. “This is my place, I suppose.” She removed the rubber band, opened the book, and flipped to a marked page. “They’re lovely poems.”
“Poems.” Rachel’s shoulders fell. She had expected something more significant, less sentimental.
“Listen to this: For I shall learn from flower and leaf / That color every drop they hold, / To change the lifeless wine of grief / To living gold.” She closed her eyes and smiled sadly. “I just love that one.” She shut the book, held in a high breath, then released the air from her lungs. Then she placed it in Rachel’s hands like a birthright.