The Unfinished Child (32 page)

She gripped the phone tightly in her hand, aware that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve called me out of the blue because of your friend.”

He had seen right through her. “Well,” she said slowly, “I told her that if she didn’t want the baby I’d raise it for her.”

Once again there was silence.

“Why?” he finally asked.

Three little letters that asked so much. One small world that begged a million replies.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Yes, why?”

“Because she’s my best friend and I think she’d regret her decision.”

“You think she’d be making a mistake?”

This wasn’t what she’d imagined when she’d called. She wanted him to help her, not judge her. “I’m not sure . . . she might be. But if I’d raise the child for her . . .”

“Why would you offer to do that?”

She heard a whine creep into her voice that she couldn’t control. “Because I’ve never had children of my own and this would be the next best scenario.”

“The next best scenario?” he echoed. “Do you know what you’re asking? Because I know a lot about the health issues of children with Down syndrome, and they can be numerous.”

“Yes, but you’re also an advocate for these kids. You must have had strong reasons for doing so.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, obviously it must have been rewarding to you. Your practice consisted almost entirely of people with Down syndrome, didn’t it?”

“That’s correct.”

“And me,” she added abruptly. She’d been the only healthy child in his waiting room for her entire childhood.
It makes you feel grateful, doesn’t it?
her mother had always said. But why had she been there at all? Surely there were other doctors to choose from.

“Dr. Maclean, why were you my doctor when I was young? Were you just beginning to specialize with Down syndrome cases and were in the process of changing?”

“No, I started specializing right around the time you were born.”

Elizabeth had the chilling feeling that someone was going through photo albums of her childhood without permission. “You remember when I was born?”

“July 10, 1963.”

That same person was now looking at home movies of her childhood birthday parties.

“Why do you remember my birthday? You must have seen thousands of patients over the years, you can’t know their birthdays.”

“Let’s just say yours was a memorable case,” he said. “And I can’t say anything more.”

“There’s more?” she asked. “How could there possibly be more?”

“Have you talked to your mother about any of this?”

“Any of
what
? I was phoning to ask if you would talk to a friend of mine about Down syndrome. That’s all.”

“I’d be happy to talk to her if she’s willing. Feel free to give her my phone number. What is her name, in case she calls?”

“Marie. Marie MacPherson.”

He repeated the name slowly, as if he was writing it out at the same time.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asked. It was that same tone he’d used many years ago when he’d inquired if everything was good with her family. Even then she’d sensed some hidden meaning that he’d covered quickly when she’d looked perplexed. What did he mean that hers was a memorable case?

“What’s going on here?” she asked. “I’m getting the feeling there’s something that I should know but I don’t.”

“It was nice to hear from you again,” Dr. Maclean said lightly. “Give my regards to your mother.”

“My mother? Why are you so solicitous of my mother?” And which mother? If he remembered the date of her birth, maybe he knew who her real mother was.

“Which mother do you mean? My birth mother or my adoptive mother?”

“Your adoptive mother.”

“But you know who my birth mother is, don’t you?”

“Elizabeth, this conversation should not take place on the phone.”

Why not?
she screamed in her head.

“I would prefer if you spoke to your mother before coming to see me.”

Was she going to see him? She hadn’t planned on that. What the hell was going on? Obviously she’d been far too trusting her whole life. All those times when she’d felt something was amiss her mother had somehow smoothed things over. Like when Elizabeth had wanted to access the government records that would provide information about her birth mother, her adoptive mother had found a way to postpone the investigation. Not maliciously or anything, but deliberately.

“Perhaps when you talk with your mother you’ll understand better your desire to raise your friend’s baby.”

She felt chastised, spoken down to as if she were a child. “I wasn’t calling for a diagnosis, you know.”

“I’m sorry if it sounded that way.”

The silence was deafening. She could hear herself breathing heavily into the phone. Her life was going off the rails, and she wasn’t strong enough to stop it.

“Tell your mother I still have the notebook.”

The notebook? Outside her office door, bells announced a customer’s arrival, followed by the high-pitched wail of a newborn.

“What notebook?”

“She’ll know. I have to go now. Please tell your mother that I wasn’t the one to contact you, although I must admit I’m happy you finally called. I’m seventy-two now. My days are numbered.”

Maybe the doctor had dementia. But that didn’t explain his knowing her birthday.

“Look, I have a very bad feeling that I’ve missed something here. You are referring to a notebook that has something to do with
me
?”

“Yes. It’s basically my medical notes on you from the time you were born. I was the attending physician at your birth.”

Her mother had told her this years ago, but Elizabeth had never put the pieces together or thought to follow up on that trail.

“Then you do know my real mother.”

“I can’t say any more now.”

“I’m not a child,” she said, almost shouting. “As you already know, I’m thirty-nine years old. I don’t need to ask my mother’s permission to find out something that concerns me!”

Neither one of them spoke for a moment. “You are absolutely correct,” the doctor finally said. “I guess I’d always imagined your mother being involved in your discovery. Forgive me.”

“Dr. Maclean, obviously there has been some crucial information withheld from me for too long. You know what it is, and apparently my adoptive parents do too. Don’t you think it’s about time that
I
know it?”

“Yes I do, but I’d rather tell you in person. Would you be able to meet me today sometime? I’ll bring the notebook for you.”

“Why don’t I come to you,” she said. “I can leave right away.”

He gave her his house address and said he’d be expecting her.

It was ten-thirty in the morning and her day had taken a sudden U-turn. Seeing Dr. Maclean wasn’t just about Marie anymore. She’d have to leave the store understaffed for a few hours. At least the young woman working today was friendly and competent. She’d manage okay on her own. Elizabeth pulled on her sweater and left the office. “Julie,” she said when she entered the front, “I’ve got a slight emergency and I have to run out for a little while. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She headed immediately toward the back door.

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” Julie called to her retreating back.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she replied, feeling suddenly stronger by voicing that thought. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back.”

Elizabeth left the shop by the alley door. She climbed into her car and unfolded the piece of paper that she’d scribbled Dr. Maclean’s address on. He lived just across the High Level Bridge in Garneau. She’d be there in ten minutes.

She put the car in gear and headed south, wondering if she should have called her mother. But what would she have said?
Mom, you know that stuff you’ve always wanted to keep from me, that stuff about my mother? Well, I’m on my way to Dr. Maclean’s right now to find out what it is.
What would her mother do? Confess everything in a torrential downpour?

The traffic was light going over the bridge. She reached the top of the hill, passed the Garneau Theatre, and turned right a few blocks down. He’d be in the first block on the left. There it was, a dirt brown stuccoed two-storey house with a sloped roof line. She parked at the curb and turned off the engine. This was it. Her heart accelerated. She was about to learn something that might change her life. Did she really want to know?

Dr. Maclean opened the door almost immediately, as if he’d been watching out the front window for her arrival. He was thinner than he used to be, and his dark hair had gone completely grey and thinned considerably. When he gestured for her to come in, she noticed that his right hand had a pronounced tremor.

“Hello, Elizabeth. It’s good to see you,” he said, smiling. “Please come in. I’ve put the kettle on if you’d like some tea.”

She stepped into the foyer. A wooden banister separated the stairs on the right. The living room was off to the left. It was tastefully decorated with an old matching couch and chair set. Landscape paintings hung on the wall.

“We’ll sit in the kitchen. Follow me.” He lead her toward the back of the house and into a bright kitchen that had been remodelled fairly recently. A grey-muzzled black lab ambled toward her and placed his snout in her palm. “That’s Seamus number three,” the doctor said. “I name all my dogs Seamus. It makes it easy to remember. He’s an old boy now, with not much pep. We’re quite the pair,” he added with affection and scratched behind the dog’s ear.

The dog sniffed her hand for a moment, gave it a quick lick, and then returned to his pillow in the corner.

On the desk by the phone were photos of Dr. Maclean’s wife and children at various ages.

“Will your wife be joining us for tea?” she asked.

“Sadly, no. Joanne died ten years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Me too,” he said. “But I’ve gotten sort of used to it now, and my children all live in the city, so I’m not entirely on my own.”

He carefully poured boiling water into a teapot and placed it on the table along with two cups, some milk, and a pot of sugar. “Please, sit down.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Elizabeth began. “I know this must be highly unusual, to have a former patient track you down so suddenly.”

“I’d expect it from you,” he smiled. “You’ve always been unusual.”

“Well,” she said, smiling, “I guess it’s about time I know what you mean by that.”

He reached behind him for a hard-covered black notebook that sat on the counter. It trembled in his hand before he managed to place it on the table before her.

“These are my notes,” he said formally. “They begin the day I learned of your mother’s pregnancy and end on your last visit, when you were twelve. Then there’s a brief addendum when you came to see me when you were seventeen and wanted birth control. So obviously there was a five-year break. And the notes slowed down as you moved from infancy to toddlerhood and adolescence. It didn’t take long for us, by that I mean myself and another doctor who were observing your case, to determine that you were a healthy child with normal to above normal development.”

She nodded as if she were a journalist taking notes about someone else’s life. “Can I interrupt for a minute?”

He stopped speaking and raised his eyebrows.

“Why wouldn’t I have been a normal child?”

The doctor gazed down at his hand, the one trembling on its own, and didn’t speak for some time. “I’ve thought about this meeting for years,” he finally said. “And now that it’s here I really don’t know the best way to tell you this.” He met her gaze and asked, “Are you certain you want to know? Much of what I have to say might seem hard to believe, and I’m not sure you’ll find it entirely to your liking.”

She nodded mutely.

“Okay. I will try to start from the beginning and I suggest that you don’t interrupt me until I finish.”

Again she nodded, aware that she felt sick to her stomach.

“In 1962, I was fresh out of medical school and looking for employment. My wife and I wanted to stay in Alberta because all of her family lived here and we were just embarking on our own family life together. I sent out inquiries to all the major medical institutions, but the only one to interview me and offer me a position was Poplar Grove Provincial Training Centre, a government-run institution for the mentally retarded.” He paused for a sip of tea. Elizabeth kept her hands wrapped around her own cup, drawing in the warmth.

“Aside from maybe one lecture at medical school, I’d had no training when it came to dealing with severe mental retardation, so I took the position with much trepidation. You must remember that this was over forty years ago, and societal opinions and expectations of the mentally and physically disabled have improved tremendously since then. Some of the patients who were there when I first arrived had been there for decades. Suffice it to say there was much room for improvement in the conditions in which these people lived. A good portion of the patients who lived at Poplar Grove had Down syndrome, or what they then referred to as mongolism. In fact, they even had a mongoloid ward to house them together. Now here is the part that you might find hard to believe.” He paused and ran his hand over his bare scalp before continuing.

“I first met your birth mother on the mongoloid ward. She had been institutionalized in 1947 when she was just two days old. Her parents were encouraged to put her in Poplar Grove because there were no other options offered back then to parents who birthed a baby with Down syndrome. I could go on, but there’s really no need for me to go into the history of institutionalization now.”

Elizabeth’s tongue felt thick and she spoke with difficulty. “Are you saying that my mother had Down syndrome?”

“Yes.”

She attempted to laugh. “I don’t believe you. That’s not possible, is it?”

“That’s exactly what I thought, but she—your mother’s name was Carolyn—was over seven months pregnant before the discovery was made.”

The information was coming too fast now. Her mother’s name was Carolyn. Was? “Is she still alive?”