In Search of Eden (18 page)

She knew they had left West Virginia and gone to Nashville and had nothing to do with their people after that. They didn't speak of them, either. Whenever she brought it up, Aunt Bobbie just gave her a weary look, and Mama's tight lips became even tighter. Miranda looked down at the envelope again, then out the window. Mama had thought of her home when she had dispatched her grandchild. But whether that was an act of love or revenge remained to be seen.

She sighed again. All her life she had imagined her child living somewhere exotic like New York City or Los Angeles. Taking violin lessons and ballet dancing and going to concerts and vacations on Martha's Vineyard. She consoled herself with the fact that maybe her baby's family had moved to somewhere a little more exotic. But then she remembered that this address was the only link she had to her baby. If they had moved, she would probably never find them. For crying out loud, she would probably never find them anyhow, but here she was, driving up and down streets, craning her neck out the window, as if she had good sense.

She tried to think of what to do next. She would see an attorney. She didn't really think Virginia law would be much different from Tennessee's, but she would find out at least. After that she had no idea. Maybe she could just stand outside the school and see if anyone looked familiar. Maybe she could ask around about who had adopted children. She shook her head in frustration. They would think she was a kidnapper or worse. She heaved a
great sigh and knew it was ridiculous, her coming here. It would serve no purpose, but actually, now that she thought about it, it would. When she followed this lead to its bitter end and found out nothing more than she'd known at the beginning, at least then she would be done. She would be finished looking for this child once and for all, and she would go on with her life.

She fished the picture out of the envelope and brought it up to eye level. She stared at it again. What a beautiful child. It was a girl, she was sure. She was almost certain. She brought her finger to her lips, kissed it, then gently touched the tiny cheek on the photograph, and she knew the truth of the matter. She would never forget. She might go on with her life, but she would never forget.

She drove a little longer and found herself at the entrance to the highway leading out of town. She stopped at the intersection, idling her engine. She felt sad and hungry and tired. She didn't know what she'd been thinking to come here. It was hopeless. She would never find that child. It was a human impossibility. She very nearly turned Mr. Cooper's car toward 81 South and Tennessee.

But oddly enough, she remembered two things that kept her from doing so. The first were Mr. Cooper's parting words to her yesterday.
“With God, all things are possible,”
he'd said, giving her a gentle smile good-bye. And the other came to her suddenly with the detail and emotion of having happened just this afternoon rather than eleven years ago. She was fifteen again, frightened and in pain, and feeling as though some vital part of her had been ripped away and she was left bleeding. And then the door to her room had opened, and there was the kind nurse handing her that sweet bundle. She closed her eyes now and smelled the baby's skin, felt the tender cheek against hers, and heard the funny little squeaks that babies make. She remembered drinking them in, then feeling a hand on her head and hearing the tired, kind nurse pray for God to bring her and her baby back together again someday. She felt a shiver, a chill, as if she'd brushed up against
something that was not of this world.

A car honked tentatively behind her, bringing her back to the present quickly. Miranda opened her eyes. She went on through the intersection and pulled to the shoulder, hunted around in her purse, and finally found a McDonald's napkin, which she used to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. She nodded decisively, made a U-turn, still looking over her shoulder for Wyatt Earp, then drove back toward town, to where this winding two-lane road with pastures and fields on either side became the bustling streets of Abingdon. She checked into the Super 8.

Across the street was a Shoney's. She bought a burger and fries and coffee and, after eating, felt a little calmer, although still not very hopeful. She went back to the hotel room, took the Abingdon telephone directory, the
Welcome to Abingdon
binder the hotel provided, and her notebook, then went outside and sat down in the grass at the crest of a hill and watched the bluish purple evening creep up from the valley while she wrote down anything that seemed helpful. Finally, when she had gooseflesh on her arms and her rear end was damp, she went into her room, took a hot shower, put on her pajamas, and looked at her list.

It was pitiful.

“How to Find an Eleven-Year-Old Child,” she'd titled it.

“Without knowing their name, sex, address, interests, or history,” she muttered to herself. The only thing she knew was the date of birth—December 14, 1995.

She read what she'd written.

Eleven-year-olds:
Go to school
Play on sports teams
Join Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls
Go to the pediatrician
Go to Sunday school
Go to the dentist
Possibilities:
Hire attorney
Hire private investigator

It seemed pretty hopeless now that she looked at it on paper. She had little hope for the last two options. She'd heard people had found success with professional searchers, but they usually had something to go on. A name, a parent's name, an address. Something. She knew nothing. Not even the sex. All she knew was the date of birth. She set the notebook on top of her open suitcase, got into bed, turned out the light, and lay staring at the ceiling.

“Dear God,” she said out loud. Her voice sounded lonely, like an echo over a deep, dark canyon. “If you're there, would you help me find my baby?” Nothing happened for a minute or two. She was listening hard, and she realized she really expected to hear something. And it was the oddest thing, but after a minute the feeling sort of came over her that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. It wasn't anything scary or sensational, just a quiet sort of peace. She didn't know any more than she had a few minutes ago, but the dark hotel room now felt like a holy place. She had done right to come here, she realized, and it may have been the first time in her life she'd had that assurance about one of her decisions. It was definitely the first time she felt one of her prayers had been answered. She let out her breath in a long, relieved sigh and rolled over to sleep. She didn't know how, and she didn't know when or who, but she knew that if she stayed here, somehow she would find what she was seeking.

chapter
18

T
he next morning Miranda rose, showered, dressed in a businesslike but uninspired pair of blue pants and a white blouse, and walked to Shoney's again. After a muffin and a cup of coffee, she returned to her room and began phoning the attorneys in town. She found, to her chagrin, that no one could see her before the next afternoon. She told herself another day wouldn't matter and booked another night at the Super 8.

There was no sense getting herself completely worked up about the quest to find her child, she told herself. What she should do was lower her expectations. She would look for her child, but she wouldn't lose her mind over it. Anyway, that baby had been lost to her for eleven years now. She didn't suppose what she did in the next month or two was of the utmost importance. She would take things a day at a time. Meanwhile, she would treat Abingdon, Virginia, as just another stop in the milk run that was her life. She would behave here as she had in Washington, D.C., New York City, Bozeman, Santa Fe, Minneapolis, and Seattle. So, first of all, she needed to get a job.

She got into Mr. Cooper's Cadillac and headed toward town, keeping a wary eye out for law enforcement. The day was fine,
the sun already gently shining. Abingdon seemed bustling with pent-up springtime energy. Her mood picked up in response, and she felt a sense of optimism. She passed a nursery and garden center, a huge lot filled with trees and flowering bushes and pots of colorful blossoms. They were doing a booming business, as was the feed and grain store and the John Deere outlet nearby, if the cars in the lots were any indication. She stopped and asked both places if they were hiring and took applications, though neither one had openings at the moment.

She bought a newspaper at the first Stop and Go, then quickly scanned the want ads. There was a job opening at a retirement home and another one at a grocery store. But first she would follow her heart. She headed toward the elementary school.

It looked different with the children present. Something about it seemed alive and vital today, instead of quiet and dead, as it had the day before. An American flag was flapping in the breeze, the metal clip clanging cheerfully against the flagpole like a tinny bell. The school was new and low slung with lots of windows. As she came closer, she could see inside some of the classrooms. A group of upper elementary-age students were staring toward the front of the room looking bored. One boy sitting near the window watched her, and she smiled at him. She passed a first-or second-grade class that had the children's artwork taped to the windows. They were vibrant scenes in primary colors with neckless people and strange perspectives. She grinned. She liked kids. She had missed being around them. However, she was disappointed when she made her inquiries.

“I'm sorry, we're not doing any more hiring this year,” the principal told her. “We just filled our last position in the lunchroom, and unless you're a certified teacher who can substitute, I don't have anything else available. And even in that case, there wouldn't be time left in the school year to process your security clearance.”

Miranda thanked her and left. She didn't bother to leave her
résumé. She wouldn't be here in the fall.

She went to the high school and middle school, but there was only one opening between them, again for a certified position. The same problems with the security clearance and fingerprints existed there. She'd come too late to work at any of the schools. Having access to student records could have been invaluable. Frustrated, she sighed.

She stopped by the nursing home next. A tall, thin woman with curly gray hair and an awkward manner looked over Miranda's application and said they were looking for someone with training and experience to work as a physical therapy aide.

“I'm a fast learner,” Miranda said hopefully.

“Sorry,” the woman said, shaking her head.

Disheartened, Miranda went to the grocery store, where she filled out another application but was told she would be called.

By then it was dinnertime. She stopped at a Hardee's and had a hamburger—she was really going to have to start eating something besides hamburgers—then took her coffee back outside and sat under a tree while she drank it. Would she have been discouraged if this were Kankakee or Pittsburgh? No, this was just the first day. She almost never got a job on the first day, but she almost always had one by the end of the first week.

She watched television in her hotel room, then spent the next morning filling out applications everywhere else she could think of: two banks, a gas station, the Barter Theatre—a local historic attraction—a pet store, an art gallery, the Dixie pottery store, a hairdresser, three boutiques, two restaurants. She stopped in plenty of time to find the attorney's office, which was near the downtown area.

She passed bookstores, art galleries, antique shops, a few fancy clothing boutiques and jewelry stores, a wine shop, a quilt shop, and a sporting goods store that advertised guided hikes on the Virginia Creeper trail, part of the Appalachian Trail, which apparently passed near here. After a few more minutes of looking, she found the attorney's office, parked the car behind the building
where it wouldn't attract unwanted attention in the form of a hot-dog-small-town policeman who had too much time on his hands, and went inside. She filled out a few generic forms and, after fifteen minutes or so, was ushered into the inner sanctum.

C. Dwight Judson looked every bit the part of the gentrified country lawyer. He was portly and well dressed with a florid complexion and dark hair dramatically streaked with gray. His office consisted of wall-to-wall mahogany bookshelves, a huge mahogany desk, and oriental carpets on the hardwood floors. Miranda didn't feel an instinctive affinity, but she suspended judgment. She didn't need to be his new best friend; she just needed some advice.

“Please, sit down,” he invited, rising from his chair with courtly graciousness.

She sat.

“May I offer you coffee or tea?”

“No thank you,” she said.

“Well, then, how may I help you today?” he asked in his genteel accent.

She plunged off the high dive without a preliminary toe dip. “I had a baby eleven years ago and gave it up for adoption. I want to find it,” she said.

To his credit, C. Dwight didn't bat an eye. “Don't know the sex?”

She shook her head. “I was a child and drugged. They were quick.”

“What state?”

“Tennessee.”

“Know anything at all about the adoptive parents?”

She reached into her purse and brought out the envelope. He took it from her, looked carefully at the postmark, then took the photograph out and held it up to the light. “Not much to go on,” he said, handing it back. His expression was sober.

“No.” She felt hope sag.

“Well, let's see what we know,” he said briskly, taking a yellow legal tablet out of his top drawer.

Hope bobbed up again.

He asked her a series of rapid-fire questions, and she answered them the best she could. Who was the father? Who had been her legal guardian at the time of birth? What hospital? What date? Who was the physician?

“Were you given any non-identifying information about the adoptive family?”