We’re here. Mom and Nyla and I are finally standing in the middle of Twenty-Fourth Street, in Boise, Idaho, looking up at a large brick building with the Salvation Army symbol over the doorway. It’s called the Marion Pritchett School now, and it’s still meant for pregnant girls, but the girls don’t live here anymore. Behind the brick building there’s another long, tan-colored building, and a van that says “Giraffe Laugh Early Learning Center” on the side. School’s not in session, because it’s spring break, so everything’s perfectly quiet.
We’re still standing in the street when a woman comes out the front door. She’s wearing a plaid shirt and glasses and comfortable shoes, and when she sees us she pushes her glasses up on her nose and asks, “Can I help you, ladies?”
I wish she were wearing a name tag, so I could tell if she’s Melly, but then I guess Melly is not Melly’s real name. S said she changed all the names, so Ted and Dawson and Evelyn—the whole cast of the characters that made up her life—are all going about their business in the world being called something else.
Except for Amber. I think S kept Amber’s name, because that’s also the name of the woman on adoptedsearch.org who was looking for her daughter, and that can’t be a coincidence. So maybe she didn’t change Melly’s name, either, or the other people from the school. I mean, why would she need to?
“No, we’re just walking around,” I say to maybe-Melly.
The woman looks both me and Nyla up and down to see if we’re uniquely qualified to go to the school. Neither of us looks pregnant, but maybe we’re not showing yet.
“If you’re interested in becoming students here, I’d be glad to give you a tour,” she says.
“That’d be gr—” begins Nyla.
“No,” I say firmly. There is a part of me that wants to see the room where S slept and the living area where she did her homework and the basement where Brit was hiding on the Fourth of July. But the dorms have all been converted to offices, from what I could tell by using the powers of the internet. I also don’t want to sneak around pretending to be someone I’m not. I only wanted to see the school. To stand on the same sidewalk where S stood, if only for a few minutes. To see what she saw.
But from the outside.
“Okay, well, if you change your mind, here’s my card.” The woman pulls a little piece of cardstock out of her pocket and hands it to me.
“Thanks.”
She smiles and passes us and goes down the street to her car, and then gets in and drives away.
“Do you think that was Melly?” Nyla whispers.
“I don’t know. Melly worked here like nineteen years ago. Did that lady look like she’d been here nineteen years?”
“I’m going to choose to believe that was Melly,” Mom says.
I turn to her and smile. “Me too.”
She takes my hand and squeezes three times. I squeeze back.
I glance at the card. Carmella Lopez, it reads.
“So what do you want to do now?” Mom asks me.
“I want to find S.”
Finally, we’re ready. Mom is stronger. Her body has accepted the new heart. The doctors don’t even seem worried anymore. She’s got pink in her cheeks, a little spring in her step. She’s a beast in her physical therapy. The medical professionals have okayed her for a short trip to Boise. So we’re here.
Mom laughs. “I meant for lunch.”
“Oh. I have no idea.” I meet my mom’s eyes. “But I do want to find her, Mom. Not just take a tour of the letters, but actually find her. That’s really okay with you? You’re not saying that because you know it’s what I want to hear?”
She smiles, and it’s a real smile and not one she’s putting on to make me feel better.
“I want you to find her,” she says. “It’s what I want, too.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure if you’re sure.” She swings my hand between us the way she used to when I was little and she was trying to make even walking down a sidewalk something fun, like a dance.
“I’m sure.”
“Good.”
“Well, come on, then,” Nyla says from up ahead of us. “Let’s go find S.”
We meet Dad for lunch, and then we stop by an office supply store, where Dad buys a big whiteboard like the ones he uses at school, because he’s a nerdy teacher and thinks all of life’s puzzles can be solved by mapping things out in dry erase marker. Then we go over to the BSU library and make copies of the letters for each of us and spend a few hours poring over them, reacquainting ourselves with S’s world. Taking notes. Looking for the little details that might turn out to be clues.
“What a pretty campus,” Dad says as we’re bumming around Boise State.
“Dad.”
“I’m just saying.”
He’s more open to the find-the-birth-mother quest than I expected him to be. Things changed the night he read the letters. He’s officially on board now.
“Okay,” he says when we’re settled into one of the study rooms at BSU. He sticks the whiteboard to the wall with Fun-Tak putty. “Let’s write what we know.”
At the end of the next hour, the board looks like this:
First name starts with S.
Lived at Booth.
Could have come from another city or state, but it’s unlikely, since her father visits her.
S mentions that her old high school was BHS (Boise? Borah? Possibly Bishop Kelly High school, but it would then have a BK).
Mother in Colorado.
Brother a football “star?” at college across the country.
Amber mentions that S’s father is “big politician,” and S talks about his constituents. The NII form says he’s a lawyer.
Check out potential colleges that Dawson could have attended.
I step back, taking it all in. It seems like a lot, what’s written up there. We know so much more now, about S, about her life.
“So what’s the plan?” Dad asks, because if there’s one thing Dad loves, it’s a plan. “What’s next for today?”
“I think we should head over to the Boise Public Library.” I’ve already given this a lot of thought. “Check out the yearbooks again. Maybe look at some microfilm for the local newspaper for the high school football ‘stars’ who were playing at the time S’s brother would have been. Make a list of all the state and US congressmen for the year in question, especially those who were newly elected. We should also look into city council members and any other elected office.”
Dad raises his hand. “I get football.”
“Yearbooks,” Mom laughs. “Maybe I could recognize your chin.”
I’ve already tried that and totally failed, but okay.
I turn to Nyla. “I guess that leaves us with the rotten politicians.”
She cringes. “Yay.”