Over dinner, they talked about Heidi getting married, which worried Michael a little bit. “Will she have her own kids?” he asked.
“She probably will, eventually. She’ll be a great mom, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” The boy was silent, his head bent over his plate. Finally, in a small voice, he said, “Sometimes I wish she was my mom.”
Mark’s heart contracted. “Well, in a way she is, isn’t she? Except, it’s a little like we’re borrowing her,” he explained. “Like a library book. We know we can’t keep it forever but we can sure enjoy it while we have it.”
Forehead creased, Michael looked up. “You mean, she’ll go away sometime. Like Mommy did.”
“Hey. Come here.”
His son slid off his chair and came to Mark, who lifted him onto his lap.
“Heidi won’t go away like Mommy did. It’s just that she’ll get married, and someday she and Peter will have children of their own. By that time you’ll be such a big boy, you won’t need someone to take care of you after school. And you know what? I bet Heidi will always be a good friend.”
The worried face looked up at him. “She won’t die. Right?”
“I hope Heidi won’t die until she’s an old, old lady.”
The five-year-old pondered that. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “But…is it okay if I pretend sometimes that she’s my mom?”
Damn. Mark should have guessed that any kid Michael’s age would be thinking like this. Remarrying wasn’t something he’d given any thought to; hell, he’d hardly been on a date since Emily died. But clearly Michael would be delighted to have a new mother.
“Yeah,” Mark said softly. “It’s okay to pretend. And you know what? We’ll have to think of something really special to get her for a wedding present.”
“Yeah!” Michael squirmed to get down. “Can I have dessert?”
Mark let him watch a video while he ate his cookies. In the kitchen, the sound of the TV muted, he dialed Dr. Julian St. John’s phone number again. This time, a woman answered. “Hello?”
“Is this Mrs. St. John?”
Sounding wary, she said, “May I ask who is calling?”
“Mark Kincaid. I’m a private investigator, Mrs. St. John. I’m actually trying to find your daughter, Carrie. I know that she was adopted…”
“What business is that of yours?” she asked with unmistakable hostility. “Why are you looking for my daughter?”
“Her sister would like to meet her…”
“Carrie has no sister. Please don’t call again.” The line went dead.
O-kay.
He shook his head and hit End. Her daughter was twenty-six years old, not a small child. Why would she feel so threatened by the mere idea that a member of Carrie’s birth family wanted to contact her?
He understood all too well how adoptive parents felt when the child was younger. It was natural to be scared of losing your child, emotionally if not legally. Maybe blood did call to blood; maybe the child you’d raised would see immediately what a fraud you were, pretending to be a mother or father.
But the St. Johns had had Carrie for twenty-five years now. They’d comforted her when she was a baby, helped her with homework and science projects, met her first date, smiled through their tears when she appeared in her prom dress. Did they really fear they could still lose her?
Yeah, he thought with a sigh. They did. He’d run into this over and over. Adoptive parents rarely felt secure. They did often feel like frauds.
Face it, he often felt like a fraud.
It was as if the original failure—the infertility, the miscarriages, the lazy sperm—poked a sliver of doubt beneath the skin, where it couldn’t be seen or even felt most of the time, unless you turned your hand just so, putting pressure on it, and felt it stab your flesh.
Ironic, wasn’t it, that an adoptive father spent his life helping birth families reunite. Once in awhile, he gave himself nightmares.
Glancing at the clock, he called, “Bath time!”
Tomorrow, Mark decided, he’d call Dr. St. John at the hospital. He might feel differently from his wife. He might at least be willing to hear Suzanne Chauvin’s reasons for wanting to meet her sister.
“I DON’T KNOW who you are,” Dr. St. John said, “but we were promised a closed adoption. Carrie is our daughter. We’re her family. How much plainer can I be?”
“Carrie is an adult now. Surely she feels some curiosity about her birth parents. As you’re aware, they’re dead, but Carrie did have a sister and a brother…”
“She isn’t interested. She never has been. I won’t have you upsetting my wife and daughter this way. If I have to get a restraining order, I will.” His voice hardened. “Stay away from my family, Mr. Kincaid.”
More dead air. The St. Johns did like to hang up on people.
Mark called Suzanne to let her know he’d have to find Carrie another way. “They’re scared,” he said. “You should have heard the panic in the mom’s voice.”
“But I’m not Carrie’s birth mother! I’m no threat.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re a reminder that she had another family. A shadow life, if you will. One that could have been. Your very existence threatens their intense need for her to be their daughter, and their daughter alone. They made her. They hate to think about the other people that had a part in who Carrie is. They want to be like other parents.”
“You understand so well.”
Because she couldn’t see him, he let his mouth curl into an ironic smile. “I’ve talked to plenty of adoptive parents along the way.” He hesitated. “There’s another possibility to explain their panic.”
“What?”
“That your sister doesn’t know she was adopted.”
Silence. Finally, “But… I didn’t think people ever did that anymore!”
“Anymore? They adopted her twenty-five years ago. But yeah, you’re right. It was common in the fifties, say. Not so much by the eighties. No, you’re right. It’s not likely.” Particularly, he thought, since the St. Johns hadn’t moved around, the easiest way to hide gaps in your personal life—like, say, pregnancy. They’d brought home a little girl who was almost a year old. How could they have pretended to neighbors or family that she was theirs?
“Can you find her?” Suzanne asked.
“Now that we have her name, sure I can. I’ll be in touch,” he told her, turning his chair so that he could reach his keyboard.
Ten minutes later, he had an address and phone number.
MAD AT HERSELF because once again she’d failed to give notice, Carrie walked out to her little blue Mazda Miata, a twenty-fifth birthday gift from her parents. It replaced the sporty Nissan she’d driven since her sixteenth birthday.
Unlocking the car, her mood eased. She was so lucky to have them. They had never offered to support her financially one hundred percent, the way her friend Laura’s parents did, because they believed she should find something to do with her life that fulfilled her as a person. At the same time, they were incredibly generous. She’d never had to struggle. And they were amazingly patient with her restlessness, her seeming inability to find a meaningful