virginia
august 2005
Vivian’s hands shook as she filled the sink basin with water and swirled the dishrag across the surface of the last plate. She set it in the drying rack and turned toward the backyard. It had been Jonathan’s idea to host Daphne and Greg for lunch, and he’d spent the better part of the meal touting the unreliability of DNA testing and denouncing Rachel’s childish decision to breach the privacy of her own genetic information. He was so steadfast, so believable. There were moments when Vivian wanted to wrap his words around her like a comforter. A part of her wanted to wrap Rachel in them too.
But then, after her in-laws had gone home and Jonathan had left for the VFW, Rachel had called with the results of her DNA test.
Seventy-three, Rachel had said. That was the relationship index between Rachel and the boy.
Vivian hadn’t been able to get the number out of her head since she hung up the phone.
Seventy-three. It wasn’t enough to prove that they were full siblings, but it confirmed a high statistical likelihood that they were biologically related.
“The doctor thinks we share the same mother,” Rachel explained. “And that we may have different fathers.”
There was a long silence before Vivian let out a quivering breath.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“They want to confirm our results by testing against a sample of Mat’s father’s DNA at the National Genetics Bank in Argentina. And a sample from his grandmother—my grandmother, maybe, since she’s Lorena’s mother.” Rachel’s words came out slowly and with enormity, like the deep, low groan of a starting engine that would accelerate to a colossal speed and force. “So I’m going to Buenos Aires.”
Vivian touched her stomach with her fingertips. “That seems impulsive.”
“I know. But I want to go.”
“You just got the test results. People should wait to make decisions after they get big news, honey.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t you think you should talk to someone first?” Vivian’s heart was racing, but she’d already heard it in Rachel’s voice: a slow immovability, like the calm face in the photo of Lorena Ledesma.
“I will, Mom.”
“It could be dangerous, traveling on your own.”
“I’ll be okay.”
Vivian relaxed the focus of her eyes. Through the kitchen window, a few wispy clouds draped across the open sky. Something stirred within her—courage, relief.
She dried her hands on the dishtowel and walked to the front door. She peeked out the glass pane for Jonathan’s truck, but the road was empty. She straightened up the living room, arranged the throw pillows, and placed the TV remote on the end table near Jonathan’s recliner. For once, she would stop looking away.
On top of the folded newspaper were two little keys—the cheap metal keys she’d seen on his desk blotter. She picked them up and held them for a moment. Her skin tingled. She moved quickly down the hall into his den.
Without hesitation, Vivian crossed the tufted carpet to his gun safe. She entered the combination, Rachel’s ascribed birthday—061077—and when she spun the handle, the heavy door glided open. Small shelves above his bracketed rifles held boxes of bullets, his shoulder holster. She removed a small metal cashbox, her heart quickening a bit, and tried unsuccessfully to pop it open. The first of the two little keys unlocked the box.
Inside, a manila envelope was folded in half and sealed with a string fastener. Vivian glanced at the clock; she had no idea when Jonathan would be home. She worked nimbly to unlace the string. From the envelope, she slid a substantial packet of carbon-copy pages pinched together with a warped paper clip. A dog-eared business card fell out from between them. On it, the name Coronel Mayor Ricardo Preita was printed next to a blue-and-white coat of arms. She let her eyes graze the shadowy words that filled the pages in Jonathan’s cramped handwriting: his full name, Vivian’s name, their wedding date, religion, residence, income, an old bank account, their church, and their medical history. Here it was. It had always been right here. All she’d ever had to do was look.
Short of breath, she skimmed to a section populated in a different hand, a different language, and made out what she could: Baby’s sex: female. An entire section titled registros hospitalarios had been slashed by the tip of a pen, another had been scribbled over entirely with the words Estados Unidos. The red ink of a rubber stamp stained several pages: Ejército Argentino.
There was a power in these adoption papers, something she’d never held in her own hands before. This was the secret over which she’d been an unwitting guardian. She dropped her eyes again to the papers and ran her thumb along the printed letters.
Parents’ names: NN.
She thought of that vivid summer day when Daphne called, the garden in full swing, the sun illuminating a shock of premature autumnal foliage in the yard. It was summer, but the leaves started to change early . . .
“She was left right outside, the poor thing,” Daphne’s voice had broken through the receiver. “She’s teeny-tiny, but she seems healthy—and just beautiful, Viv.”
Yellow leaves had speckled the trees as Vivian pulled up to the Joy & Light Family Center that morning. There wasn’t a house for half a mile in either direction, but the day Rachel was found, there’d been social workers, people from the Department of Health and Human Services, a county commissioner, local cops. Even an ambulance out front. It wasn’t every day that a newborn baby was abandoned in Howell County.
Vivian thought about what it would be like for Jonathan to have left Rachel on that porch. She closed her eyes, remembering the first time she’d seen Rachel open hers. Vivian had wept, a rush of urgency overwhelming her to bring the baby inside her home, to claim her, to make her belong. There, Vivian remembered thinking, once the baby was in her arms, looking up at her as though there had never been anything in the history of the world that required forgiveness. There, there.
All this time, Rachel had been part of a continuance. Vivian understood the magnitude of this connection, the connectivity of mothers and children, the links of a generational chain. Remnants of it had lingered with Rachel as an infant that morning, and when Vivian tried, she still felt it toward her own lost babies.
How fortuitous for Jonathan that Rachel’s mother had been from Argentina. If it had been Vietnam, there would have been far more questions raised, but Rachel, with her beautiful brown hair and fawn-colored skin, might belong to any nation in the western world. And perhaps she carried something of Jonathan in her already, even before he had made her purely, unquestionably theirs.
Vivian fell to her knees. She wrapped a hand over her mouth to mute her sob and stared down at the papers until the words blurred with tears.
She had been a part of it—the perfect accomplice. She’d spent twenty-eight years asking no questions and making no waves. She passed the time with her flowers and her homemaking and the gift of her daughter, pretending she didn’t need to grieve, pretending she wasn’t terrified. She’d ignored her suspicions. All she had ever done was raise someone else’s child.
She sniffed, wiped her eyes. A small steel seed took root in her heart.
Because she still had that one thing.
She was still Rachel’s mom.
It was the only worthwhile thing she’d ever been, and it was all she could be now. It meant something: the fact that she’d tended to Rachel—held her, fed her, taught her, made her a home. Vivian did it well. She’d played the part, created a world that was safe and happy for Rachel. Now her daughter was grown, and the lens had panned out far beyond the picture Vivian had once painted. The view was as big and complex as the world itself, and it included all of Vivian’s failings, but there was still time. Rachel still needed a mother.
It was Vivian’s job to be there for Rachel when she went to Argentina to try to make sense of her past. Vivian had lost her own babies once, and there was no one on the planet who could tell her where their tiny souls had gone or how or why. She couldn’t keep those same answers from Rachel.
“What are you doing?”
Vivian gasped. Jonathan stood in the doorway, one hand on his hip, the small top button of his Henley shirt undone. The papers seemed to sear her hand.
“I—” As she spoke, a bubble of fury rose in her throat, scorching and unfamiliar.
“Vivian.” He walked toward her slowly, one hand outstretched as though she were holding a loaded gun instead of a ream of papers. He smelled faintly of beer. Vivian was blazing with rage, although she wasn’t sure if it was toward Jonathan or herself. The closer he got, the clearer her vision became.
Jonathan reached for the papers. “Give those to me, please.”
Vivian retracted her hand, her skin fiery. “She needs to know. You’re not going to lie to her.”
“All parents lie to their children,” he said evenly. “Hand those to me.”
“She needs to see this. I had no idea you did this.”
He locked eyes with her, a challenge. “Now is not the time to act righteous, Vivian.”
“I didn’t know you took her.”
“You were never interested in the details.”
“Then why would you keep this hidden from me? Why would you keep lying?”
“I never hid anything. It’s all right here. I didn’t lie to you.” He lowered his voice. “I was just trying to protect Rachel.”
Vivian shook her head in an attempt to break free of his influence. “We have to tell her. She’s going to Argentina alone. Aren’t you worried for her?”
His expression revealed a fear, but it wasn’t for Rachel. “Yes.”
Vivian looked down at the papers again, at her name, Vivian Sprague, written right next to his. Hot tears filled her eyes. Jonathan stood close enough to embrace her.
“We need to be with her.” Vivian’s words sounded like a plea.
Jonathan slid the papers from her hands and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head. “It’s going to be all right.”
She hated the comfort she felt when she wilted against his chest. She looked up into his face. If Jonathan was Rachel’s biological father, he might have more entitlement to her than Vivian did. Vivian had everything to lose.
“If you don’t tell her about this,” she said finally, “then I will.”
“Vivian,” he said. “I did this for you. Don’t you understand that? Everything I did was for you. It was for all of us.”