Grace graduated from high school the week after her last session with Carolyn. She filled the suitcase Carolyn had given her as a graduation gift with a few carefully chosen items and snapped it closed. Then she boarded a plane to Los Angeles without looking back. She had earned her wings at last.
She stared out the window of the airplane as it sat on the runway at New York’s JFK airport and remembered her last session with Carolyn, when she realized that June Crandall was her mother. It was what her dreams had all been leading her to, of that she was certain.
“But June Crandall has been many things to you in your dreams,” Carolyn had said. “What makes you so sure that she is your mother?”
“Because she was always taking care of me, the way a mother does. And besides, I don’t think they were dreams. I think they were…memories.”
Carolyn arched an eyebrow. “Memories? Are you saying that you think you lived in a concentration camp in Germany with your mother during World War II, and that you were actually a prostitute in a Japanese bordello?”
“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. What do you think?”
Carolyn tapped her pen against the pad of paper on her lap. “I think anything is possible. In most countries around the world, reincarnation is a given. We are a younger country and are starting to come around to the idea of it, but it’s not as widespread a belief as it is in most other parts of the world. However, from what I understand from those who believe in reincarnation, a person doesn’t carry the same name and face from life to life.”
Grace pondered that fact. “Well…maybe that was the only way she could reach me. Maybe she kept her name and her face the same in the dreams so I’d recognize her.” Yes, that was it. She was sure of it now. As sure as she’d ever been about anything in her life.
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up about this,” Carolyn said. “It’s also very possible that these are in fact just…well, fugue states technically, but call them dreams That you heard the name June Crandall somewhere before your first dream, and that you attached an importance to the name that kept repeating in subsequent dreams.”
Carolyn had been absolutely right to warn her against making such a bold assumption, but Grace knew she was right. She could feel it in her soul.
When her plane landed in Los Angeles, she gathered her suitcase and took a shuttle to the convent in Pasadena. After paying the driver, she stood in the circular drive, taking in the welcome sight of the first place she’d ever called home. The six thousand square foot Mediterranean-style estate had been donated to the Catholic Church in the 1960s with the stipulation that it be used to care for orphaned children.
Once the St. Francis of Assisi orphanage closed its doors, however, it was converted into a small convent, which also housed a soup kitchen to feed the poor and homeless of the greater San Gabriel Valley. Grace planned to spend the summer working in the kitchen, hoping to give back a small part of the love she’d received during the eight years she’d lived here.
She made her way up the brick-lined path and before she even reached the front door, Mother Peter rushed out to greet her.
“Oh, my dear, look at you!” She took a small step back and gazed at the young woman in front of her. “You’re all grown up, and, oh my, aren’t you a pretty one! It’s wonderful to see you, my dear. How are you?” She pulled Grace into her arms.
Tears stung her eyes as she held the Mother Superior, smaller and frailer after so many years. As they stepped inside the old house, a wave of memories flooded back. Grace closed her eyes and took them in. How many times had she run through that front door and tossed her book bag aside, only to be reprimanded by one of the Sisters to close the door and put her backpack where it belonged? How many nights had she curled up on the oversized crusty brown turn-of-the-century sofa with Sister Maggie to watch a movie with the other children? A warm rush of emotion filled her, and when she opened her eyes, Mother Peter was smiling at her.
“Welcome home, dear.”
“It’s good to be back, Mother.”
One of the nuns showed her to her room and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she had been given Maggie’s old room. She smiled inside, knowing that this was no coincidence. She’d finally written Maggie to tell her of her trip to California, and to apologize for not having written sooner. She shared only her excitement about this trip and her future. There was no looking back now. Only forward.
She looked about the room and noticed the same sparse furnishings, but the drab beige bedspread had been replaced by a brightly colored comforter, and there was a large vase with fresh cut flowers on the dresser. There were even a few pieces of artwork on the crisp, white walls.
She felt happy and safe here, and wished she could stay forever. She could, she knew, but becoming a nun was not in the cards. God hadn’t treated her very well in her life, and she couldn’t imagine marrying him. But being here for the summer would be good for her, like a bit of salve to her wounded soul. And if all went as planned, she would be reunited with her mother by the end of the summer.
After settling into her room, Grace went to Mother Peter’s office to catch up. They shared the highlights of the past ten years, and Grace told her she was going to see a lawyer later that week, and that she was hoping to find her birth mother. She asked Mother Peter whether she had ever heard the name June Crandall.
After a short pause, Mother shook her head. “Why do you ask?”
Grace didn’t think the reincarnation theory would go over very well, so she stepped around it. “I have reason to believe that my mother’s name was June Crandall. Do you know how I came to live here?”
“You came to us from one of our sister orphanages in Los Angeles, but it too has closed its doors since then.”
Grace nodded and thanked her. She hadn’t expected her to know who June Crandall was, but it was worth asking.
Three days after she arrived, Grace borrowed a car and drove to Los Angeles to meet with the lawyer at Legal Aid that Carolyn had arranged for her. She’d learned to drive in high school, had obtained a New York driver’s license, but she hadn’t driven since she was sixteen, so one of the nuns—Sister Veronica—went with her.
The lawyer’s name was Betty Lewis, and Grace liked her right away. Carolyn had told her that she and Betty had been best friends since they were eight years old. They grew up in a housing project called Cabrini Green on Chicago’s near-north side, and had somehow managed to survive the gang violence and drugs that had all but taken over the housing development. Both had received scholarships from Wellesley, and while Carolyn went on to receive her master’s degree in social work, Betty studied the law.
Grace guessed correctly that Betty was not good at taking no for an answer. “I’ve spoken to Carolyn about you, Grace, but I’d like to hear from you what it would mean to find out who your birth parents are.”
“Well, the short answer is that it would mean everything. I’ve spent my whole life wondering who my mother is, why she gave me away, and if she loves me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering. I’ve had dreams, visions of her, and she’s always very loving and protective. I believe she does love me, and that she never wanted to give me away. But right or wrong, I need to know in order to move forward with my life.”
Betty explained that it would take a court order to unseal her original birth certificate, and that there must be a medical necessity for obtaining such information.
Grace’s heart plummeted. “But…I’m not sick.”
“Oh, I don’t know, you look a little pale to me. Are you sure you’re not feeling a little ill, honey?”
“Betty, please don’t do anything that could get you into trouble.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, my dear. You just leave it to Aunt Betty. I’ll file the petition with the court, and will call you as soon as I have some news.”
A smile tugged at her lips and she felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Hope. She didn’t know what Betty was planning, but Grace trusted that she had her best interest at heart.
“How much will all this cost?” she asked the lawyer.
Betty smiled and reached for Grace’s hand. “This one’s on me.”
Grace tried to protest but Betty put up her hand. “I would like to do this for you, Grace. And for Carolyn. I owe her a lot. Please, will you let me help you?”
Grace thought about her former counselor and a tender feeling washed over her. She’d promised herself, now that she was on her own, she’d never take charity from anyone, but she also understood the desire to help those who have helped you in the past. Slowly, she nodded. “Okay, thank you.”
As she drove back to Pasadena, her heart was full and she was certain that, by the time she started school that fall, she would finally have met the woman of her dreams.
Her mother.
June Crandall.
Waiting was practically impossible. To keep from going completely mad, Grace volunteered for extra shifts in the kitchen. She spent hours journaling, and decided to put all of her June Crandall dreams into one book. She called it, The Many Faces of June Crandall. She would finish it with a chapter or two of how she found the mother who had never wanted to give her away, and whose love for her was so strong, that in the end, it reunited them.
She thought again about Carolyn’s warning about getting her hopes up. Not just about actually finding her mother, but that—even if she did find her—it might not be the reunion Grace hoped for. She understood all that, but she believed down to her very essence that she was close to finding her mother, and that her mother would be thrilled to meet her.
The call came seven weeks after her first meeting with Betty. By then she had not only chewed her nails down to the quick, she had lost so much weight that she had to buy a belt to hold her shorts up.
“We have a court date on August first,” Betty sang into the phone. “Why don’t you come to my office and we’ll go to court together.”