The Vanishing Year(14)
“I was adopted,” I say, slowly and flatly, twirling the spoon between my fingers. I dance around this, the truth addled somewhere in the middle, stuck in some emotional desert I can no longer access. “My adoptive father died in a car accident when I was a baby. I never knew him. My adoptive mother died of ovarian cancer in 2009, my senior year of college. So, I sympathize with these kids. Some are orphans, some are foster kids whose parents are drug-addled. I haven’t had parents in a while. So, I guess in a way, I get it. I had a birth mother who didn’t want me either.” I’ve never said this to anyone, and it feels dangerous to admit this much of my old life, a life I am no longer entitled to call mine. Lately I find myself belligerently wanting it back and, in small ways, throwing a stake in the ground. Even with the narrow escape of Friday night, the overall pervading fear has waned and in its place is a dried-up seed of resentment. A peaceful five years means that I am reckless with my safety. More than that, admitting my past in parts feels safe, like the vent on a pressure tank.
“Did you ever try to find her?”
“Who?”
“Your birth mother.”
“Not seriously. I don’t know why. I guess for many years Evelyn was all I ever needed. She was my best friend. We never had that silly high school hate thing going. Not that I tried to get away with much anyway, or that she’d let me. I just felt like looking for my birth mother would have been an insult to her. Or something.”
“What about now?”
“Now?”
“Yes, since she’s passed, why haven’t you tried?”
I shifted in my seat, tucking my left leg under me. There were a hundred reasons. Finding Carolyn involved admitting on some level who I was before, either online or with a private investigator. Somehow, I had to use the name Hilary Lawlor to get there. To move on, to continue to live, I had been forced to cleave my life with a giant chasm that held Hilary on one side and Zoe on the other. There was no bridge back, not in my mind. I held a little fear that Mick or Jared and his group were still behind me, pursuing me or waiting for me to traverse that chasm again. It was as though once I crossed, once I became Zoe, Hilary ceased to exist. I didn’t speak of her or think of her. I rarely recalled my past, instead choosing to pretend it hadn’t existed, like I’d been born a full-grown adult named Zoe. Sometimes I fantasized that I’d fall ill and lose the memories altogether. Except for Evelyn. I still wanted her.
There were also the legal ramifications. I ran. I testified for a grand jury, but took off before Jared’s trial. Jared was still convicted, partly because he’d branded all eleven of his girls. But I ran, despite subpoenas. I have no idea if anyone came after me, looked for me. In New York, among the shelters and the streets, I procured a driver’s license and a phony birth certificate. They’re surprisingly easy to come by if you ask the right questions. I looked like a drifter, unassuming and trustworthy. It cost me every cent I had at the time. But my identity wasn’t mine, not legally, anyway. Still, I felt safer than if I’d let Detective Maslow do it for me.
“I guess I can’t explain it. I technically could. I’ve been sort of lost lately.” Lost in my thoughts, the words fell out of my mouth unbidden, and until I said it, I hadn’t known it was true. Sometimes, things don’t seem real until you verbalize them. I had been thinking about my mother, dreaming about her. The idea of looking for her again had seemed daunting and vague.
“I did a feature series once. Adoptive reunions. In Texas, seven, eight years ago,” Cash said, leaning forward across the table. “I can help. Do you want me to help?”
“Are the society pages boring you?” I teased, poking the air in his direction with my spoon.
He sat back, crossing his arms. “Yes, God yes. Sometimes it’s all I can do to stay awake.” He scratched at the back of his neck, realizing his admission. “Not that your, uh, event wasn’t spectacular. And I met you and you’ve been great, but . . .”
I laughed, letting him off the hook. “I get it. So many rich people, so little time?”
“I live in a studio in the East Village. I mean, the lean months can be a special form of torture.”
I have a vision of my mother, Evelyn, dignified in her starched hotel uniform, adorably cinched at the waist, pirouetting in the kitchen, leaving for a night shift, while sixteen-year-old me licked peanut butter off a spoon. Evelyn worked as a housekeeper by day and a hotel maid by night or early morning, depending on her shift. Despite her patchwork jobs, we still struggled to make ends meet.
We’d laughed at our poverty then, called it “creative financing,” collecting dented cans of creamed corn that we’d eat over toast. That changed when she got sick the first time, it no longer felt as adventurous. It felt precarious, dancing on the edge of a razor blade. There were real consequences to poverty, I learned.
I remember lean months.
A waitress appears, her heavy blue-lidded eyes darting back and forth between our single cups of coffee. I can see her calculating the tip and trying not to roll her eyes. Cash pays the tab, over my protest. “So let me help you.” He bites his lip. He seems very into the idea.
“We’ll see, okay? Write the story, see what you come up with. Will you send it to me before you run it?” I am concerned about the pictures. I realize the pictures combined with my admission of being from San Francisco could sink me. I haven’t been this stupid in years. Not at least since that New York magazine feature photo, with me hiding in the corner, but still somehow with a maniacal rictus grin.