Somewhere Out There (13 page)

But then again, what if she didn’t?

•  •  •

Natalie’s cell phone buzzed just as she pulled into the parking lot of the Shady Palms apartment complex in Des Moines, where Gina Ortiz lived. It was an older collection of buildings, likely built in the seventies, with cedar roofing and painted like a cake—chocolate siding with chocolate trim. “Hey, babe,” she said when she answered the call, after seeing Kyle’s name and picture pop up on her screen.

“Hey,” her husband said. “I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to check in. Are you and your mom okay?”

Even though Natalie would have preferred to have this conversation in person, she gave her husband an abbreviated account of the morning’s revelations along with her current whereabouts.

“Holy shit,” he said when she’d finished. “You have a sister.”

“I know,” Natalie said, feeling like she might cry. “I can’t believe they kept it from me.”

“I can.”

“Kyle,” Natalie said, feeling another flash of irritation. His negative thoughts about her parents’ behavior were the last thing she needed right now; she was having enough difficulty dealing with her own.

“Sorry,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem right that they waited so long to tell you.”

“I know,” Natalie repeated. “But we can talk about that later? I want to find out what I can from the social worker.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe you should take more than a minute to digest all of this.”

“I’m not sure about anything,” Natalie said. “But I do know I’ll drive myself crazy if I wait. Hailey’s going to Ruby’s house for a playdate and Henry’s going to Logan’s. I’ve got until five o’clock.” Natalie’s plan to spend the afternoon working had evaporated; par-baking mini–chocolate lava cakes and making fresh lemon curd to fill bite-size tarts didn’t seem important. She’d stay up all night finishing the order if she had to.

“The woman might not even be here,” Natalie told Kyle. She had thought of this possibility on the drive over, but banked on the likelihood that since the social worker was retired, she’d be home.

“Okay,” Kyle said. “I have to get back to work. Text me and let me know what happens, okay? I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Natalie said. They hung up, and Natalie’s belly twisted. She wondered what she would do if Gina didn’t remember anything about the situation. It had been thirty-five years, after all.

“Only one way to find out,” Natalie muttered as she yanked the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. She locked the car, glancing at the letters on the buildings, eventually landing on the large letter
D
painted on a sign. She strode across the lot, entered the building, and even though there was an elevator, used the stairs to reach the third floor. Standing in front of the unit labeled D-302, Natalie hesitated, then raised her hand and knocked.

“Coming!” a woman’s voice called out. A second later, the door swung open and Gina Ortiz stood before Natalie. She was a heavy woman, and had wavy, shoulder-length hair that looked as though it had once been black but was now a peppery shade of gray. Her caramel skin was etched with a map of deep-cut lines, and she wore a colorful, bold-print caftan that skimmed the round shape of her upper body. “Can I help you?” she asked, appraising Natalie with a skeptical look.

“Are you Gina Ortiz?” Natalie said, in a rush.

The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she said, in a manner that made it clear she was wary. “You’re not trying to sell me something, are you? There’s a ‘no soliciting’ sign downstairs.”

“No, no,” Natalie said. “Not at all.” She gave the woman what she hoped was a friendly smile. “I’m so sorry to bother you at home, and I’m not even sure where to start, exactly, but I literally just discovered that you were the social worker on my adoption. I also found out I have a sister I didn’t know existed. I’m here to see if you can help me find some answers.”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Ortiz said, drawing out the words.

“Please,” Natalie said, and her eyes filled with tears. She hoped the woman wouldn’t turn her away—that it would be obvious how much Natalie needed her help.

Ms. Ortiz’s expression relaxed. She stood to the side, pulled the door farther open, and gestured for Natalie to enter.

“Thank you,” Natalie said, and then introduced herself. Stepping inside the apartment, she was instantly reminded of Christmas—the air was scented with cinnamon and the living room decorated in bold shades of red and green. The walls were covered with ornate gold picture frames, filled with images of laughing children and family gatherings. It made Natalie feel better, somehow, that Gina had had children of her own. That she might fully understand what it was Natalie’s birth mother had chosen to give away.

“Have a seat,” Ms. Ortiz said. She settled her body into a large, worn-in leather recliner, and Natalie sat on the red velour couch on the other side of the coffee table, perching on its edge, keeping her posture ramrod straight.

“I really appreciate this,” she said. “I’m still in shock over the whole thing, to tell you the truth.” Her hands shook, so she clutched her fingers together in her lap.

“Please, call me Gina,” she said. “And you’re in shock over being adopted or finding out you have a sister?” Natalie quickly clarified. “I see. Why don’t you tell me a little about what you do know, and I’ll see if I can help.”

Natalie nodded, wondering where, exactly, she should begin. “I know I was adopted when I was six months old, in November of 1980, after my birth mother surrendered her parental rights to the state. I know we lived in her car before she gave me—I mean,
us
—up. My sister was four.”

A shadow passed over Gina’s face. “What did you say your name was?”

“Natalie.” This was it. She was talking to the right person. Gina would tell her what she needed to know.

“Do you know your sister’s name?”

Natalie’s heart fluttered in her chest. “It’s Brooke. Or at least it was. I suppose her adoptive parents could have changed it.”

“She was never adopted,” Gina said. Her voice was quiet. “Poor girl.”

“You remember us?” Natalie’s pulse quickened and a few tears escaped her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. She felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to dive off.

“I do,” Gina said. “Your sister ended up staying at Hillcrest more often than in foster homes.” She shook her head. “I just couldn’t find her the right fit.”

“Hillcrest?” Natalie asked.

“It’s a state-run facility in South Seattle,” Gina explained. “Temporary for some kids, a permanent home for others. You were there almost a month before your parents adopted you.” She folded her hands over the expanse of her belly. “But Brooke was there for the better part of fourteen years. I was her case manager.”

“Oh my god.” Natalie’s jaw dropped as she tried to imagine what that kind of existence would be like—what damage it could have done to a child. “Was she . . . what happened?”

“Well, she got into a bit of trouble when she was younger. She had a hard time accepting her circumstances. For a few years, she was certain her mother would come back to get her, and that, along with her behavioral issues, made it difficult to find her an adoptive family or even a foster home that would keep her very long.”

“How awful,” Natalie said, feeling as though
awful
was too weak a word to describe what her sister had gone through. Again, her mind flew to Hailey and Henry, how they might have reacted if they lost the only family they knew—if Hailey had spent four years living in a car and then was sent to live with strangers, wondering where her mother had gone. The idea of her daughter being a victim of a situation like that—picturing her curled up in a narrow bed of a group home with no one there to comfort her—made Natalie feel as though she might be ill.

All of those years Natalie thought she was an only child. All of those times she wished she had someone to talk to, someone to play with, and Brooke was somewhere out there, alone, like Natalie. Having read every child development book she could get her hands on when she was pregnant with Hailey, Natalie knew that infants under six months old can recognize their mother’s smell and their family members’ voices and faces. It was a significantly different kind of memory than recalling specific events or conversations—something that happened in the deep, primal part of a person’s brain—but Natalie couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps her psyche had been imprinted with her sister’s shadow. Maybe her subconscious knew the feeling of her sister well enough to miss her after she was gone.

“She had a tough time of it for a while,” Gina said, interrupting the thoughts crowding Natalie’s mind. “But as she got a little older and learned how the system worked, she did her best to follow the rules. I think she believed if she did everything right, she’d find a family, too. Unfortunately, most foster parents who are looking to adopt prefer babies or younger children.” She frowned. “It broke her heart when you two were separated, but she refused to talk about it with anyone. Even me. She internalized everything, and mostly tended to keep to herself.”

Natalie thought about how shy she’d been as a child, wondering briefly if she and Brooke shared this trait because of their genes, or the way each of them was raised. “Do you know what happened to her?” Natalie asked. “After she left Hillcrest?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Gina said. “But her last name was Walker.”

“The same as my birth mother’s?” Natalie asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” Gina said. “The records are sealed, so disclosing any part of your birth mother’s name would require a court order. The same restriction doesn’t apply in the case of siblings.”

Natalie took a moment to digest this bit of information. She’d visited Gina in order to gather the kinds of details that might help her find her birth mother, but now it was clear that Brooke was the one Natalie should try to locate first. “What about our father?” she asked. “The paperwork listed him as unknown, but can you tell me anything about him?”

Gina looked at her a moment before responding. “You and Brooke had different fathers,” she finally said.

“Oh.” Natalie felt a little disappointed.
We’re half sisters, then,
she thought.
But sisters, nonetheless.
“Do you know anything about mine?”

“Only that your mother didn’t know his name,” Gina said, not unkindly, but the words still stung. Natalie’s father was some random stranger, a person she’d never know anything about. She wasn’t planned, she wasn’t wanted. No wonder her birth mother gave her up. Natalie swallowed hard and tried to focus.

“Do you have any suggestions of where I should look for my sister?” she asked, after she’d had a moment to compose her thoughts.

“Online adoption registries are your best bet. Social media, too. Facebook and the like. You could petition the court to open the files to your case, but that could take years and would be very expensive.”

Natalie thought back to when she was eighteen, when she let her father talk her out of putting her name on an adoption registry list in case her birth mother came looking for her. If she had defied him and done it anyway, maybe she could have found her sister almost twenty years ago. They could have found their birth mother together after that. The frustration she’d felt toward her mother earlier that morning melted into something harder, something with teeth, gnawing at Natalie’s insides. She knew her mother had been traumatized by the ectopic pregnancy and subsequent hysterectomy, but keeping a secret as significant as Natalie having a sister seemed extreme. Natalie wondered if there was more behind her parents’ decision than they’d said.

“Did you know our birth mother very well?” Natalie asked, unable to keep the tremor from her voice. Integrating this new information about her past into the person she’d always believed herself to be felt as though she were trying to knit a ball of yarn into an already perfectly stitched blanket. There were suddenly gaping holes in the fabric of who she was. The world she was living in now was not the one she had woken up to that morning.

Gina stared at her a moment, then nodded.

“Is there anything you can tell me about her? Anything at all?” A few more tears escaped Natalie’s eyes.

“She loved you,” Gina said, softly. “Both of you.”

“Then why didn’t she keep us?” Natalie asked, unable to keep the aching desperation from her words.

“I’m sorry,” Gina said, and Natalie knew there was nothing more the older woman could tell her. The only thing left to do was find Brooke, and see if her sister could fill in the blanks.

“No! I won’t go!” Brooke insisted as Gina took her hand and attempted to pull her from the car. It was 1984 and Brooke was eight years old. This was the fourth foster home Gina had taken her to in as many years.

“Come on now,” Gina said, wrapping her arm around Brooke’s shoulders. “The Martins are expecting you. They already have a daughter about your age. Her name is Lily. I promise, you’re going to like it here.”

“No!” Brooke yelled, literally digging her heels into the grassy parking strip. “Take me back! I need to be where my mom can find me!”

“Sweetie, we’ve talked about this . . .”

“She’s coming to get me!” Brooke said, trying to keep from crying. Since she’d been brought to live at Hillcrest, her head had been filled with all sorts of stories about what kept her mother away—a long illness. A car accident that had put her in a coma. Maybe she had amnesia. Maybe she didn’t remember who she was. Brooke felt as though she were trapped inside a bubble, holding her breath, waiting for her mother to return. Each time she was called to the front office, Brooke would rush down the hall, positive that this time, her mother would be there. When she wasn’t, it was as though Brooke had lost her all over again.

Now, undeterred by Brooke’s resistance, Gina managed to get her and the black plastic bag filled with the few changes of clothes she owned inside the Martins’ house, where she introduced Brooke to a blond woman with bangs that stood straight like a wall from her forehead. The rest of her hair was crimped, and she wore a pair of acid-wash jeans and a light pink polo shirt with the collar turned up around her neck. Her lipstick matched her shirt.