Empty Arms: A Novel (23 page)

The last bit of hope evaporates with his words. “Thanks anyway.”

“Ms. White? With all due respect, are you sure you want to find her?”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, God may have blessed her with lovely adoptive parents and a family of her own. Entering her life now could turn her whole world upside down.”

I chew my bottom lip. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Or, God forbid, you might not like what you find.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, feelings of abandonment can manifest in all sorts of detrimental ways: drug abuse, alcohol addiction, prostitution, even suicide.”

I shake my head. “Please, stop!” His words are a possibility I can’t bear to consider.

“I don’t mean to scare you. I just think you ought to be prepared before you eat from the tree of knowledge.”

“Thank you again for your time, Dr. Sullivan.”

“Good luck, Ms. White. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

I hang up the phone and stare at the receiver. His warning replays in my mind, and I realize there’s an air of truth to it. I’ve only ever pictured Emily as a happy, healthy, well-adjusted young woman. I’ve never stopped to consider that she could be addicted to drugs or serving time behind bars, or worst of all: dead. Suicide, car crashes, murder, accidents—a million scenarios flood my mind, but rather than scaring me away from her, I feel even more desperate to find her. If my daughter needs saving, I want to be there to save her.

T
HE FADED BLACK AWNING
of Walsh Investigative Agency taunts me when I pass by it Monday morning on my way to work. All I need is one measly piece of information but I can’t even find that.

“Morning,” I mutter when I pass Delaney.

“Cheer up. It’s going to be a good day.”

“Why are you in such a good mood?”

“Just a little blast from the past,” she smiles, adjusting her scrub cap. “One of my very first patients is here and she’s at eight centimeters.”

“Wait. What?”

“A woman whose baby I delivered twelve years ago is back having another.”

“After twelve years?”

“Yep. You might call it a little surprise.”

“How old is she?”

Delaney shrugs. “About your age.”

My mood worsens. “And you still remember her after all these years?”

“Of course. I remember every patient. You can’t be part of the most special day of someone’s life and just forget them.”

Her words make me think of Nurse Unger. The burly woman who’d made my delivery as humiliating as possible. I think of Melody’s advice: act like a detective and follow every possible lead. Dr. Sullivan didn’t remember me, but Nurse Unger might.

During my lunch break, I duck into Delaney’s office and pluck the telephone book from her desk. There are four Ungers listed. I don’t know Nurse Unger’s first name, and if she got married or divorced, I certainly don’t know her new last name. I glance down the hallway, but Delaney is tied up with her blast from the past. I reach for her phone and dial the first listing.

A woman with a thick German accent answers. I try to explain who I am but she keeps yelling, “Ich verstehe nicht. Ich verstehe nicht.” I hang up on her and dial the next one. I reach an older gentleman. It turns out he’s a widower whose wife was a school teacher. On my third attempt, a teenage girl answers. Her parents are at work, but her mother was never a nurse at Lowville General, nor does she have any female relatives who were either. The last number is no longer in service. I tap my fingers on the desk. This could either mean one of two things: Nurse Unger moved away or she’s dead.

I glance down the hall again to make sure no one’s coming and slide open Delaney’s desk drawer. A row of files peer up at me. My fingers hopscotch from tab to tab. Employee handbooks, hospital policies, W-4s. I open the drawer beneath it. Personnel files. I spot my name among the others. Curious, I pull it out and open it. Job description, contact information, and next of kin. Among the papers, I find my employment application from 1982. I was 26 years old and dying to get out of my parents’ house and return to Emily. The handwriting on the paper is small and desperate. Under Special Skills and Training I wrote
Associate of Child Care degree
and
babysitting
. Apparently, they liked what they saw because I was called to Lowville for an interview. That was the first time I met Delaney. When she asked where my interest in child care came from, I told her about Tommy and Maddie Rae and how they had inspired me to pursue an education that would allow me to work with children. When she asked what I thought of Lowville and if I could picture myself living here, I told her that it seemed like a lovely town and that it reminded me of home. I didn’t tell her that, for a brief period, Lowville was my home. I never mentioned Emily, my time at The Home for Fallen Women, or my stay at the hospital. I left out the fact that being in Lowville General’s nursery, where my daughter once slept, would allow me to hold on to her memory and give me a reason to live. Delaney called with a job offer the following week, and I accepted on the spot. Mom was horrified when I told her. She begged me not to return to Lowville and threatened never to visit, but that only sweetened the deal in my mind. The next morning I packed my things and left.

Beneath my application are my annual performance reviews; fourteen years of praise, sixteen Employee of the Month nominations, and a perfect attendance record, marred only by the day I arrived late after meeting with Detective Walsh and a note about last-minute vacation time to handle “personal issues.” I tuck the file back in Delaney’s drawer and search for older personnel files, but there aren’t any.

I sneak out of her office before anyone notices me and return to the nursery where little Charlie Alexander Carter is beginning to fuss. I change his diaper, swaddle him in a fresh blanket, and rock him in the chair, but my mind is not on Charlie at all, it’s on Nurse Unger. If they keep files for every baby that was adopted from Lowville General, they must keep them for former employees too.

D
ELANEY’S FRIEND DELIVERS
her baby girl, Matilda, just after lunch. The nurses clean her up and pass her to me for the first feeding. Sometimes I feel a little jealousy toward the mothers whose babies I care for, but I am downright resentful of Matilda’s mom. An accidental baby at 39? Give me a break. For years this job has eased the part of me that’s longed for Emily, but lately it’s becoming a painful reminder of all my shortcomings.

Before I leave for the day, I stop by Human Resources. The walls are stark white and it smells like stale coffee and toner. The sound of a printer churns in the background. The receptionist is about Emily’s age but her pale, freckly skin and cranberry hair are from an entirely different gene pool. She’s definitely not my daughter. The telephone is pinned between her ear and shoulder as she scribbles something on a notepad. “Uh huh,” she says into the phone. “Uh huh.” She smiles when I approach and signals for me to wait. The wall next to her is filled with pamphlets about health benefits, cafeteria plans, 401k contributions, short term disability, family medical leave of absence, and substance abuse help. There is help available for people with every kind of problem. Every kind but mine.

A moment later she hangs up the phone. “Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Cate. I work down in the newborn nursery.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, so you’re one of the lucky ones?” She notices my confusion and adds, “We have a waiting list a mile long for your job.” She glances over her shoulder and leans forward. “Don’t tell my boss, but my name’s on it.”

“Oh.” I smile but the information is unsettling. “Well, the reason I’m here is because I’m looking for a telephone number or address of a former employee.”

“Oooh. I can’t give out employees’ personal information.”

“Damn. I was hoping you could make an exception. I recently learned that she’s very ill. We lost touch years ago, and I don’t know how to reach her.”

“I would love to help you, but I could lose my job for something like that.”

“I understand. I was just hoping to see her one last time. You know, before it’s too late.”

The girl frowns and shifts in her chair. She wants to help me; I can see it in her eyes.

“I could put in a good word for you down in the newborn nursery.”

“All right,” she whispers. “What’s her name?”

“Her last name is Unger. She was a nurse here.”

She turns to the filing cabinets behind her and opens the bottom drawer. She rifles through the folders. “Janice Unger?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, hoping that’s the right person.

She writes Janice Unger’s address on a piece of paper and passes it to me, but before she lets it go she says, “My name’s Bridget O’Brien.”

“Thanks, Bridget.”

“No, thank you for putting in a good word for me.” She lets the paper go with a smile. “And hey, I hope you get in touch with your friend before it’s too late.”

Janice Unger lives in Buffalo, which is four hours from Lowville by car. Now that I know Delaney keeps impeccable attendance records and that the waiting list for my job is a mile long, I rethink calling out sick and decide that my detective work will have to wait until the weekend.

When Saturday arrives, I get up early and make the long drive to see Nurse Unger. After the hell she put me through, she’s got to remember me. I certainly remember her tall, burly frame, wiry black hair, and beady eyes. At first, I thought she seemed nice. She wheeled me into the triage room and helped me into the bed. But then she threw a hospital gown at me and ordered me to get changed. When I waited for her to turn around to give me some privacy, she didn’t budge. “This is hardly the time or place for shyness,” she said.

As it turned out, undressing in front of Nurse Unger was hardly the most mortifying part of that day. Once I was changed, she told me to get in the hospital bed and put my feet in the stirrups. She reached for a disposable shaver and a can of shaving cream and sat between my legs.

“What are you doing?” I asked, closing my knees.

“Lie back,” she said, growing irritated. Her hands were cold on my knees as she forced my legs apart. I squirmed when I felt the creamy glob of shaving cream hit my skin followed by the blade. My cheeks were hot with humiliation as she scraped away my pubic hair.

When she was done, she hooked me up to an IV and attached heart rate monitors to my chest and stomach. Then she left. When I wasn’t shivering from fear or cold, I was bent in the clutches of a contraction.
Focus on something,
I told myself.
Anything
. I tuned into the sounds around me, picking up beeping monitors and voices of fathers-to-be. That was when I realized that beyond the curtains every woman in that room had someone, every woman but me.

When Nurse Unger returned, she wheeled me out of the room.

“Are we going to the delivery room already?” I asked.

“No. We have to move you. We need the space for the married women.” She parked me in the hallway while she searched for an empty room. Another nurse passed by pushing a laboring woman into the room I’d just left. The woman’s face was twisted in pain, and her hands were clenching the bed rails. As she rolled by, a gold band gleamed from her left ring finger.

Nurse Unger returned and wheeled me to a storage closet at the far end of the hall.

She told me she’d be back to check on me, but hours came and went without a word. The contractions increased to a frequency and intensity that felt like torture. And for the first time in nine months, I was truly sorry that I had ever lied to my parents and sneaked off with James. Under the violent wrath of labor pains, I would’ve given anything to get out of my particular situation. But there was no getting out of it, and the pain continued until my hospital gown was drenched with sweat and tears, and my voice was paper thin from screaming.

Eventually, I became convinced that Nurse Unger had forgotten about me and that I would die there. My consciousness was slipping away when she finally reappeared and checked my progress.

“Can’t you give me anything for the pain?”