June 20, 2017

In the morning, I waken early with the list of things I have to do. I begin with emailing my lawyer. I have forgotten to tell her I want to reclaim my previous name. Perhaps I should ask the judge to set me all the way back to the beginning, to my birth name. I consider this, briefly. I lift my phone. There’s another lawyer I want to be done with as well.

I’ve given Maeve more than a fair chance: I’ve called, emailed, written. I’ve waited. Maeve has refused to reply. I told Mary I should let it go. “No,” she said. “You’re his daughter.” She wrote to the solicitor herself, got no reply. I’m not sure what I’ll get either, but it seems important to be recognized in some way. I lift the phone, dial the number Mary gave me.

“Magnuson,” he says, his surname, this solicitor, his voice deep, yet prim, a clipped Scottish accent.

“I’m calling in regard to James MacInnes.”

“Yes.”

“I’m his daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“Yes.”

“His daughter?”

“His daughter.”

“I wasn’t aware he had a daughter.”

“That’s why I’m calling. I think you got a letter from my mother.”

Silence.

“Mary Kerr, now Burton.”

“I’m very surprised to hear that there’s a daughter; I wasn’t aware there was a marriage.”

I nearly laugh, pause to gather myself. “There wasn’t a marriage.”

A pause.

“He’s on your birth certificate, then?”

“No.” The old shard of shame slithers in. Bastard. And then the tightening of the jaw. I clutch the phone, as though hanging onto it more tightly will hold me up. A hurtful question. This is a solicitor, who must surely know that the father’s name wouldn’t have been on the birth certificate in the case of an illegitimate birth.

“He is named as father in the social worker’s notes.”

“Social worker’s notes?” The splutter of coffee or tea carries over the line.

“Yes. The social worker’s notes.” That’s right, Ivy MacInnes’ son is named in social worker’s notes.

More silence. I wait. Just a few beats. And then explain about the adoption and about finding Jimmy and his acknowledgement of our relationship. A father and a daughter. Found.

“You have no entitlement to the estate.”

“I don’t want his estate.”

“That’s my only provenance,” he says. “Why else would you contact me?”

Because I want it to be acknowledged—legitimized, at last—that I was his daughter. Because I want a last look, not furtive, but out in the open. I don’t want to take any of it, only to touch, to step into his shoes, to breathe a last breath in his space, to place my hands where his hands have lain, to look out the window and see again. I want to be let in.

“I thought,” I say, then pause. Vic’s long-ago words return—the law isn’t for people like us. “Nothing. Thanks for your time.”

As I hang up the phone, crows, like huge dollops of darkness, descend to the branches of the birch in the back garden, smooth white trunk exposed, vulnerable. I shiver. The sun is low in the sky. The air conditioner whirs. June, and the familiar heat and humidity. The year almost at its peak of light. In five more weeks, Tori will leave for college.

I watch the crows. I’ve always feared them. Funny, for someone who loves hawks. Perhaps it’s the introvert in me, finding kindred in the lone hawk, fearing being drowned in the middle of the murder. Something feels different, though. Today, the group calls. I wish to stand amid these creatures who pick clean the bones of the dead. I lift the bread from the bread bin. Papa used to do this, albeit in a less wasteful manner. Crumbs from the toaster and breadboard sprinkled on the windowsill. He’d stand in silence, steam rising from his tea, name the birds as they came: robin, sparrow, lark.

Crumble and toss, crumble and toss, until the bag is empty.

Flutter of wing, descent, landing, a murder on the lawn, me at the center. I feel myself closing in, falling into the space that opened when I saw my birth certificate for the first time, the tunnel of my childhood nightmares reopening like a long, dark well.

“Mum. Mum.” Tori stands at the back door. “What are you doing?”

I lift the empty bag. “Feeding the birds.” As though I always have.

I turn towards her, pulling away from the darkness, to this girl, this daughter, this mother-self, this respectable, legitimate role. I know the lines to this part. “What would you like for breakfast?”

Another spring has arrived at last, clear and cold like the beginning of the month of your birth. Most of this is buried too deeply within Mary for her to recall. But I remember, sometimes so clearly I think I may not be able to bear it:

April awakened the whole country with frost, Dunnet Head to Lizard Point. No sun to give a little sparkle. A low-hanging gray held the sky close. Refusing to fully open, the day inched forward. Morning wasn’t yet finished when Iceland sent a deep depression south. In the east, a spitting rain. In the west, drenched Glaswegians sloshed home. All through the night and the next day, the rain continued above Hadrian’s Wall. Gale-force winds swept the water horizontal in the air. England sat, settled and sunny, while the ships docked at the Port of Leith, near Edinburgh, creaked and rolled. Eiders, drawn by delicious mussels, instead sought shelter near the mouth of the Water of Leith, tucked into themselves; even these heaviest and fastest of the country’s ducks were no match for the weather.

I stood out in it, watching the mainland as though that would somehow connect me to Mary, tucked into a mothering home near the docks on the opposite side of the country. They said this was best, to send her far away, to keep the secret. They made the girls knit. I imagined her there, yarn around fingers and knitting pins: through, around, over, out, again and again to make the layette. The thrash of the winds outside. Rivulets running down the window, conjoining and separating again and again. The sob of the other girls. The knitted stitches becoming one little arm and then another. The matron’s staccato, “This is best. This is best. This is best.” You, within. Later, Mary would tell me you spent those days bashing at her from the inside. She felt you knew, were angry with her already. Perhaps you were just matching the weather, or hitting back at the matron.

And then, suddenly, on the thirteenth, a lazy ridge of high pressure ambled down from further north. Dry and warm and sunny, a relief. The next evening, I stepped out into the night sky to watch the Aurora. It felt like a blessing. I thought of those girls in the home with Mary, hoped they were allowed to press their swollen feet into their shoes, to step outside, to receive this small blessing. Surely, they deserved a wee glimpse at the lights, the Fir Chlis, the Merry Dancers. That spring, the Aurora was a one-night stand. Later, Mary would tell me they weren’t allowed out. They’d missed the dance.

They’re due again tonight, the Fir Chlis. Mary has moved too far south to see them. I’ll be outside, though, under the black sky, watching, hoping that wherever you are, you, too are under the kind of sky that offers dancers, that seems to bring blessings.