Almost always. Pretty definitive. “How do we start?”
“Do you know what agency you were adopted from?”
“No.”
“Do you have any memories of going to picnics or parties? A lot of the adoption agencies had those each year.”
“We moved to New York when I was little, once my dad finished dental school here. All I know is that I was born in Pittsburgh.”
Janice flipped through a file. “This says that you’re Jewish.”
Maribeth stiffened. She’d almost left that part blank, wondering if someone was going to challenge her Jewishness, as had Brian Baltzer, a lawyer she’d once dated. After they’d been seeing each other for about a month, he informed her that if they ever got married, Maribeth would have to convert, because though she’d grown up going to Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah, she couldn’t be sure she was Jewish “by blood.” They broke up shortly after that.
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Maribeth said.
“It narrows it down,” Janice replied. “It might mean that your birth mother was Jewish, and if that’s the case your adoption most likely went through the one Jewish adoption agency in town.”
“Oh.”
“But. I’m getting ahead of myself. If you were adopted through any of the currently operating agencies, Jewish or otherwise, it’s much more straightforward. They have all their back files. We ask them to do a search. If there’s a match, they can reach out to the birth family on your behalf.”
“That sounds easy.”
Janice smiled indulgently. “It’s more straightforward. Nothing about this process is easy.”
“What if it wasn’t through any of those agencies, the ones that are still around?”
“That’s a good possibility. Many adoption agencies have shut down. Or your adoption may have been facilitated through a private doctor or lawyer, so we might want to petition a separate search through the Orphans’ Court.”
“The Orphans’ Court?”
“Yes. This drink really is delicious. What was it called?”
“Caramel mocha.”
“Decaf?”
“Yes, decaf,” Maribeth replied. “It’s really called the Orphans’ Court?”
“Yes,” Janice said.
They were silent for a while, Maribeth thinking, Janice noisily savoring her drink.
“Okay, so about this search? What does that entail?”
“You submit a request in writing to the court. A judge reviews it and issues an order and a search is initiated. An authorized search representative goes through the records, attempting to find a match. I’m an authorized search agent so you can designate me as your representative.”
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
“Let’s put a pin in that search. Your adoptive family being Jewish might really shrink the pool.”
Last summer, she and the twins had hunted fireflies in Battery Park. When Oscar had caught one by the wing, he looked terrified, like he didn’t know what he’d done. It was precisely how Maribeth felt now.
“What happens? If we find her?” she asked.
“Contact is made. A kind of general letter, followed up, if she’s willing, by a letter from you. And then you and she take it from there.”
“What if she’s dead?”
“There’s always next of kin.”
“And what if she doesn’t want anything to do with me?”
Janice took a few deep breaths, as if Maribeth’s negativity was off-putting. “That also could happen,” she admitted. “And so you put it out there and have faith. Just because you’ve been dreaming of this for a long time doesn’t mean it’s mutual.”
“I already told you. I haven’t been dreaming of her,” Maribeth said.
Janice frowned, her tiny milk mustache sloping downward.
“I only mean, it’s been a sudden decision, precipitated by health issues. I’m really just looking for a genetic history, that kind of thing.”
“But why then did you come all this way to find her? You could’ve done that from New York.”
Maribeth sighed. “That part is complicated.”
Janice smiled kindly. “It usually is.”
IT WAS AFTER six by the time she and Janice finished, but the night was mild so Maribeth decided to walk back to her apartment. Her birth mother had always been a shadowy, abstract figure. Maybe she was out there, maybe she wasn’t, but there was no way of knowing so why bother obsessing about it. It was not unlike how Maribeth felt about God. She supposed this made her a birth-mother agnostic.
But now, there might be actual proof of her existence. How old would she be? Sixty-five? Seventy? Did she think about Maribeth? Did she wonder if they had the same eyes? (Maribeth’s were gray.) Or hair? (Maribeth’s was brown and curly and starting to gray at the temples.) Did her knee do that clicking thing when she first woke up in the morning? Did she have a funny laugh? Did anyone ever call it a “sexy seal bark”? which was how Jason used to describe hers. Did she have a Jason? Had she been married? Divorced? Did she have other children?
And what of Maribeth? Why had she given her up? What would make a mother do that?
You might ask yourself the same thing, she thought.
27
She continued writing letters to the twins, the stack of pages on her nightstand growing. One afternoon, she stopped into a stationery store in Shadyside and dropped forty dollars on a package of Crane’s paper and another twenty dollars on a fountain pen. It was her most decadent purchase since she’d left home.