A Southern Girl (10 page)

Open Arms approached Faith on her forty-first birthday, a coincidence she took as a good omen. In the fourteen years she has worked here, she
discovered much about herself. For instance, she realized with some embarrassment but no regret that her ex-husband had just cause to criticize her lack of commitment to his ambition. She also found within herself skills at organization and implementation that exceeded her own assessment of her abilities. My mentor said that on nights when Faith entertained herself with a book and a glass of sherry in front of a fire, she occasionally thought of her former husband and concluded that she stood the better chance of becoming a general.

Faith’s career with Open Arms had been blemished by just two incidents, one minor. That incident, the minor one, caused only temporary embarrassment when a precocious three-year-old improbably escaped from a wristband identifying him as an adoptee who needed to be put on the bus, then the plane, for passage to America. The adopting parents stood expectantly at the airport gate while families around them greeted their new arrivals and the escape artist slept in Seoul. Faith, red-faced, made profuse apologies, offered to pay the child’s travel expenses from her own pocket, and ordered the child put on the next available flight.

The other incident could not be remedied, by Faith or anyone else. Sohn was a bright-eyed toddler adopted by the Saunders, a couple in Nebraska who had no children. Sohn died within a month of her arrival in the home of parents who, in that short span of days, had made her the focus of their universe. When an autopsy disclosed a congenitally deformed heart valve, two doctors in Lincoln opined that the defect was detectable by routine x-ray, and that Open Arms’ failure to diagnose an evident flaw had caused needless grief.

Open Arms anticipated a lawsuit, but the again-childless couple did not believe in compounding their pain by attempting to fill a human void with money. Faith’s investigation revealed that Sohn had, in fact, been x-rayed, but a blur had obscured the valve at the critical point of focus and the doctor had neglected to order another, assuming the best when the history of that luckless child dictated assuming the worst. Faith delicately approached the Saunders about another child, but they declined.

I usually looked forward to these briefings, but I approached this one conscious of a moral dilemma. Soo Yun’s surgery, a mere whisper to the shouts of the scars, had come after her dossier had been forwarded. Open Arms’ policy required in such instances a “Medical Alert” be issued and forwarded without delay to the recipient of the dossier. Such
prompt notifications of altered status preserved the agency’s reputation for integrity in a business plagued by a history of lies, half truths and deceptions.

But in my experience, such Alerts were nearly always fatal to the child’s hopes. The great distance between Korea and America forced prospective parents to rely solely on the information provided by Korean authorities through the agency. The Medical Alert bulletins screamed “trouble,” and despite artful drafting conveying effusive reassurance, the news was always perceived as bad. No matter how detailed, they rarely answered all questions and concerns demanded by those alerted. Now infected by restless apprehensions, those alerted tended to resolve their doubts conservatively, invariably asking, in so many words and with a multiplicity of excuses, “Why take the risk?”

Subtle ailments—a history of colic, poor sleep patterns, delayed development responses—could be, and were, glossed over by the home in its efforts to place as many children as possible. But scars were another matter. My silence could imperil my relationship with Faith and the agency’s reputation in Korea; my disclosure meant a dreaded “Alert,” probably dooming Soo Yun’s chances for early adoption, or any at all. In full knowledge of the poor choices available, I approached Faith Stockdale’s office at the appointed hour.

Faith opened her door at the first knock, smiled in greeting, then motioned me inside. “How are you?” she asked, returning to her desk as I glanced down at her large feet.

“Very well, thank you.”

“And the children on your ward?”

“Very well, also.” I found myself sitting rigidly, formally. My body was telling Faith what I myself had not yet to decided to share. The words “all but one” formed in my mouth, but I pulled them back and instead reported, “Last night one of the children saw a mouse. The boys took up sticks to hunt it down. Some of the girls were afraid of it but wanted me to prevent the boys from killing it.” I laid my elbow on the chair’s armrest to relax.

“What did you do?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I told the boys I would give a prize for the safe capture of the mouse, but no prize for a dead mouse. They put down their sticks and began constructing a trap from a box.”

Faith smiled. “And the girls?”

“They, too, wish for the prize, so they are making a trap also.”

“The mouse lives.”

“We must all find a way,” I said. I wished to steer conversation away from the children but as my relationship with Faith was built entirely on the business of the home, conversation on other subjects did not flow naturally. “What is the news from America?”

“Applications are up,” Faith said, pleased. “I just received profiles on thirty-two families. The economy there is good and more couples are coming to view adoption as acceptable.”

“That is very good news,” I agreed, thinking of the sutures, ugly puncture wounds trailing out over the landscape of Soo Yun’s chest, side and back like the most primitive tractor marring a virgin hillside. In a few months or years, they will all but disappear, but the damage will be done. She will be consigned to the home beyond infancy, and possibly beyond that.

On the desk before Faith rested a pile of folders. She moved them forward. “Take these with you,” she instructed. “I’ve looked through them. They are typical, except we have one family willing to accept a child as old as fifteen, either sex. That is rare, as you know. Also, we have an opportunity to place a boy between five and eight with a handicap of the arms or legs. Does anyone on your ward qualify?”

“Possibly Chang Yong Ho,” I replied, mentally inventorying my ward. “He is six, the oldest in my care. He suffered a slight paralysis on the left side in an accident.”

“Perfect,” Faith said. From a credenza behind her she picked up a slim manila folder. “And these are the children who have been matched to parents’ specifications. We are awaiting the parents’ decisions. Let’s see….” She read seven names, beginning with Suk Non Hee and ending with Soo Yun. “Any problems?”

“Yes, the last one,” I heard myself say.

“Health?”

“Yes, but she has recovered. She is … fine.”

“Good. Then perhaps the prospective parents will decide in time for the next flight.”

I spied a small, framed photograph on the surface of the desk. Faith followed my eyes, and when she spoke her robust voice softened.

“That is Sohn. A most unfortunate child who died shortly after placement. It happened just before you began here, I believe.”

“I remember people discussing it. I have never seen her picture.”

“I keep it here to remind myself of my duties to parents who rely upon me to be their eyes and ears in the home.”

“Perhaps,” I countered, “you should put up pictures of those who are happily living with new families. That would require many frames and a larger desk.”

The women laughed. “There are so many success stories,” Faith conceded. “Still, I can’t help thinking about Earl and Rebecca Saunders, in Nebraska. Those were Sohn’s parents. In just one month … well, no point in reliving that.”

“You were about to say that in a very short time they came to love the child. I understand that feeling.”

“I know you do.”

“I must get back to my ward.” I stood, hoping that the love I expressed for children, all children, somehow compensated for my half-truth, and knowing that it did not.

I had just returned to my ward when the reception desk called. I answered the phone with my right hand, the unlucky one. Into my right ear the receptionist spoke of a woman in the lobby who wished to see me. “She declined to say why.”

I entered the reception area from a stairwell behind the reception desk. I spotted a young woman standing alone. Approaching, I realized at once that I did not know her.

“I am Hana. You wish to speak to me?”

“You are very kind to see me. I have come from outside the city to ask about my daughter.”

“Your daughter is here, at the home?”

“From what I have been told by others, yes. They say she is in your care.”

“I have many in my care. Is there a name?”

“Soo Yun.”

“We have a child by that name, but she was abandoned.” My gaze was steady, and I did not blink.

The woman’s head dropped and her eyes lowered to the level of my belt. “At Jongam. I am very sorry.” Her composure slipped.

I took her arm and led her to a chair in a removed corner of the long room. “Sit down. You look very tired.”

“Thank you.” She sat, then withdrew from the pocket of her coat a small rag, with which she dabbed her eyes. “You must forgive me. The child was my first born. I could not keep her, but neither can I forget her.”

I appraised the peasant before me. “She is a sweet child. Very healthy, and much bigger than when you … last saw her.”

“Mi Cha, who found her, said that she could be put in the care of a good family. To think that she is happy would mean everything.”

“I can say only that this is possible.”

The young woman nodded, then put to me the question I felt sure she had come to ask. “May I see her … just for an instant?”

“The rules are very clear. We have her custody, and we cannot permit what you ask. I am very sorry. But perhaps it is better this way.”

She looked doubtful in her silence, staring at her hands which twisted the rag. I eyed her evenly, fighting against being drawn into the pathos of her disappointment. After a time she said, still focusing on her hands, “But what if she remains here? Can I never see her again?”

“If you chose to come when the public is invited, I cannot prevent it. Open House will next be held in March, on the last Saturday. But I would urge you strongly against coming because it will make your life without her more difficult and because she may by then be gone to her new life.”

She managed a weak smile. “You are correct. I must think not only of myself but of her. I will decide later, when I am less tired. Thank you for your kindness. Now, if you will direct me out of the city, I must go.”

From the window I watched as she crossed the street to the bus stop. Minutes later she was gone.

7

Elizabeth

On the morning after Christmas, we packed the station wagon for the eight hour trip to South Carolina. I tolerated these as a rule, but dreaded this particular one because I knew I would be blamed for the adoption
idea, and Coleman couldn’t have been looking forward to it either because the time had come to tell his parents we were expanding the family and, “no, Elizabeth is not pregnant.” I told Josh and Steven they could each take one new toy and they showed what I thought commendable restraint in limiting to three the number smuggled aboard in overnight bags.

When you marry a southerner, you get a husband, his extended family, a region with all its quirks (and there are many), not to mention historical legacies that brides from the Midwest like me know nothing of until long after they say “I do.” It seemed so simple when Coleman proposed, when naïve me asked myself the question most brides ask: did I want to spend the rest of my life with him? I did not ask whether slavery was as cruel and heartless as is often portrayed (it was), whether the Civil War was justified (it was) or rightly decided (it was), or whether the evening meal is properly called dinner or supper. Who cares?

His parents, to name two, care very much, and that should tell you something about how this adoption news will be received. Adoption is a word in the southern lexicon, but it isn’t used much except to refer to things like the “adoption of Articles of Secession” or “adopting the ways of our forefathers.” To adopt, as in embracing as your own a child not related by blood, and taking over the care and custody of that child? That’s pretty rare, as I am learning. Coleman’s mother, Sarah, once told me she had a friend who adopted twins orphaned by the death of their widowed mother, but was emphatic in pointing out that her friend was a cousin of the deceased, so the bonds of family, while stretched, were not broken, as if a stranger stepping up to adopt those twins would have committed an act of perversion. This conversation took place just after Josh was born and long before I had taken any steps to adopt.