SHE STAYED FOR dinner, the two of them quietly cooking in the kitchen. When they finished and Maribeth was helping with the washing up, she looked around Janice’s house. Janice said she’d bought it thirty years ago, but it looked not unlike Maribeth’s anonymous furnished apartment, albeit with many more potted plants.
There were no family pictures. No evidence of a husband, children. No framed diplomas or old chipped photo mugs. The pictures on the walls were the yearly class photos of her students at school. And suddenly Maribeth realized she’d gotten Janice wrong. She’d gotten so many things wrong lately.
“You didn’t start BurghBirthParents because you were adopted, did you?” Maribeth asked.
“No,” Janice said.
“You gave someone up?”
“Little girl, born June 25, 1975.”
“No other children?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“But weren’t you married? I thought you said you and your husband bought this house because of the schools.”
“We did.” She smiled sadly.
“But you didn’t have any?” She corrected herself. “Any others.”
“Sadly, no.”
“What happened?” Maribeth asked.
“Infertility, if you can believe it,” she said. “Not mine. That’s pretty clear, though Richard, my ex-husband, insisted it was. I had to undergo so many dreadful tests because, of course, he didn’t know. Finally, when I couldn’t bear any more tests, or blame, I told him.” She held up her palms, then flipped them over, batting away the memory. “He said it was as if I’d cheated on him. Even though it all happened long before we met. He was not a terribly understanding man.” She sighed heavily. “Still, I suppose I can understand his point. I probably should have been more honest. I’m not always good at discussing unpleasant things.”
“You and me both,” Maribeth said. “And your daughter, does she know you’re looking?”
Janice nodded. “She knows. She agreed to receive my letters. She just hasn’t responded. Yet.”
“Yet . . .” Maribeth repeated.
“Yet,” Janice said, more emphatically. “Some things take more time.”
JANICE PULLED OUT the couch in the office and made up the bed. She put on fresh sheets that smelled of lavender. She left a glass of water on the nightstand, a box of Kleenex, too.
Maribeth tried but could not sleep. The computer stayed on all night, its hum a gentle reproach.
Maribeth had been caught out again. Only really, she shouldn’t have been.
Hadn’t it always been there, this knowledge? Behind the locked door in her mind, where she kept the unpleasant things, where she talked herself into thinking chest pains were gas, hadn’t she known that she and Jason had not really broken up? There was nothing mutual about it. She loved him. And he had left her. Just like her mother had left her. Like Elizabeth had left her. Like everyone, in the end, would leave her.
She cried, she cried until the sheets were wet. Outside the door she heard Janice pacing, but she never crossed the threshold. It was like she was keeping sentry, allowing Maribeth and her grief this wedding night to get acquainted.
JANICE HAD NO coffee so the next morning they drove to a Starbucks drive-through and bought a tall latte for Maribeth and a venti caramel macchiato (decaf) for Janice.
They drank their coffee in the car, in the lot, heater blasting. With the windows fogging up, it was cozy.
“I’m sorry I never asked you,” Maribeth said. “About your daughter.”
“I’m sorry I never told you,” Janice replied.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“I sent the first letter ten years ago. The most recent one two years ago. I keep thinking that if only I say the right thing, she will respond. I’ve been trying to write another letter, but I can’t seem to find the words.”
“I know,” Maribeth replied. “It’s hard.” She thought for a minute. “Maybe I could help you.”
“Aren’t you struggling with your own letter?” Janice licked the foam mustache with the tip of her tongue.
Maribeth smiled. “I’ve always been a much better editor than writer. It’s what I did for a living, in fact.”
“You’re an editor?” Janice asked.
“Well, I was, for more than twenty years.”
“Explains why you’re such a perfectionist.”
“Maybe, but I’m not one anymore.”
“Editor or perfectionist?” Janice asked.
Maribeth shrugged. “Maybe both.”
WHEN IT WAS time for Maribeth to go home, Janice said, “Come swimming tomorrow.” Then she smiled wryly. “In the pool, nobody can see your tears.”
Janice swam/cried? The secrets people kept.
“Do you regret it?” Maribeth asked. “Giving her up?”
“Every single day,” Janice replied. “And yet, I would still do it again.”
“Really?” Maribeth had a hard time believing this. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.
But Janice’s face was firm, resolute, and peaceful. “It was a not a good situation, where I was. Abusive. Keeping her would’ve sentenced both of us to that.” She turned to look out the window. The parking lot was busy, full of holiday shoppers. Any one of them could’ve been Janice’s daughter. Or Maribeth’s mother. “Sometimes leaving someone is the most loving thing you can do.”
“Do you honestly believe that?” Maribeth asked.