Looking for Jane (107)

Each of the women is lost in her own thoughts. Angela comes back first.

“Seems a bit macabre for you to still have the obituary,” she says.

“I have the real Evelyn’s, too.”

“Wow.”

“I suppose a part of me was mourning the loss of Maggie Roberts, too. I had to become Evelyn Taylor so quickly, I never really had a chance to say goodbye to Maggie.” Evelyn gives Angela a watery smile. “It’s all a complicated soup of emotions.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine.”

Evelyn reaches out and runs a thumb down the younger woman’s cheek. “I’m so glad you don’t have to, my dear.”

Angela sighs. “We have more options now, that’s for sure. Thank you for that.”

“Ha! Well, you’re welcome. We did it for our daughters, our granddaughters, and their granddaughters. We did it for all of us. All of you.”

The sun is glowing orange outside the window. It’s late afternoon now.

Angela runs a finger around the rim of her coffee mug. “Did you ever look for Jane? Your note—I’m sorry, I read it. It feels like an invasion of your privacy now, but I had to. And it said you would never stop searching for her.”

Evelyn nods. “Yes. I searched as best I could. It was difficult; they didn’t have the networks back then like they do now. Or the internet. Some search agencies started to pop up in the eighties, but both the parent and child had to register for the matching system to work. I placed ads in the classifieds for years and years, but I couldn’t use my real name, you see. And that’s the only name Jane would have known, if she ever read my note, which, frankly, I assumed she hadn’t. I figured the adoptive parents would have thrown it away. Tom says he got a call once from a young woman who hesitated on the phone, then said she had the wrong number and hung up. That was decades ago now. I tried to hope, but it was probably just the wrong number.”

She closes her eyes, crosses her arms over her chest and leans into them. “I can still feel her. I didn’t want her at first, because of how she came to be. But it was when I felt her move. Everything changed right from that moment. She became mine.”

Angela swallows hard and strokes Evelyn’s shoulder.

“What’s her adopted name?” Evelyn asks Angela.

“Nancy Mitchell. But she goes by Birch online. That’s why I—”

“Nancy Mitchell?”

“Yes, I’ve spoken with her, Evelyn.” She sits forward in her seat, as though she’s been itching to say this. “She’s very eager for me to set up a meeting. Would you like to meet your daughter?”

Evelyn repeats the name. “Nancy Mitchell?”

Angela nods. “Yes.”

The memories rush forward, tripping over one another in Evelyn’s mind.

Nancy Mitchell, on her exam table.

Nancy Mitchell, holding the door for her on her way out of St. Agnes’s after she said goodbye to Chester Braithwaite, hugging her on the street in the setting sun.

Nancy Mitchell, who joined the Janes and became part of the movement alongside Evelyn.

Nancy Mitchell, whose bravery sparked like lightning when a traitor pointed a gun at the back of her head.

Nancy.

Jane.

Her daughter.

“Would you like to meet her?” Angela asks again.

“Angela,” Evelyn begins, overcome by the reality of what she’s about to say. “I think I already have.”





CHAPTER 31 Evelyn




SPRING 2017




12:35 p.m.

It’s nearly time.

Evelyn is in a state of high agitation, and she’s been doing her best to keep herself busy this morning. She’s washed and folded three loads of laundry since she woke up at four o’clock after an almost sleepless night. The third load was a set of towels she’d put through the laundry two days ago and didn’t need washing again. She made herself one cup of strong coffee around five, and has since switched to decaf; she doesn’t need addictive stimulants putting her any more on edge than she already is today.

Nancy is arriving at one o’clock. With Angela acting as her proxy, Evelyn invited Nancy to meet for tea at her apartment, and in the intervening two days since Nancy accepted her offer, Evelyn has thought a great deal about the ridiculousness of the invitation. One “meets for tea” with an old friend to catch up after a few months apart, discuss the politics of a wedding guest list, or plan a weekend getaway in the country. You don’t “meet for tea” to reunite with your long-lost daughter.

But in a situation this absurd and remarkable, how else are you supposed to officially reunite? What are the expectations? There is no normal way to do this. No handbook. What could Evelyn have offered Nancy, except to meet for tea?

Angela spoke with Nancy and confirmed that she was indeed the Nancy Mitchell who worked with the Jane Network, then she explained who Evelyn really was. Angela says it took Nancy a while to absorb it, believe it. They talked for over an hour. But now she knows, and she still wants to meet with Evelyn.

After changing her outfit four times, Evelyn finally decided on a pair of neat jeans and a blouse in the same shade of yellow as the booties she knitted for Jane all those years ago. She wonders whether Nancy ever saw them. She makes a mental note to ask.