Blessings (21 page)

“I think I’ll telephone right now,” Jill said. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I didn’t.”

“Okay, good girl! Call us back. Let us know what happens.”

How to begin? “Hello, my name is Jill Miller. I read about you, and are you a relative of mine”? No, that was stupid. He wouldn’t know Jill Miller from a hole in the wall. Just tell him the truth.

She was weak in the knees, but she obtained the number from Information and dialed it. A brisk voice answered. When she had given her name and identified herself as a student at Barnard, she began:

“I have a strange request. I was adopted at birth, and I’m looking for my parents. Somehow, by accident, I came across your name, and I wondered whether you know anything about … about who I am.”

There was a pause before a reply came. “Where was it that you found my name? In what state?”

“In Nebraska. That’s where I was born, in a home for unwed mothers. But I’m speaking from New York now. Are you perhaps a relative of my mother’s?”

“Tell me”—and now the man’s voice was no longer brisk—”tell me how old you are.”

“Nineteen.”

There was a long, long pause. Jill thought he had left the telephone.

“Mr. Mendes? Are you still there?”

“Oh, God, yes, I’m here.”

“Mr. Mendes? Do you know my mother?”

“I knew her.”

She thought the man might be crying, and she was suddenly afraid. There was a beating, a wild throb in her head. Her voice came in a whisper.

“Her name? What was her name?”

And the man’s voice trembled back. “Janine. She was called Jennie …”

Jennie. Dark curly hair. That’s all I know. But this man, at the other end of the wire, knows the rest.

She gripped the phone. “You do understand that you have to tell me everything, don’t you? It’s not right to let people suffer—”

“She was Jennie Rakowsky. We were at college together. She’s a year younger than I, and we—” He stopped.

Jill had to lean against the wall. “Then you—you must be—are you?”

“Yes. Oh, yes! My God, I don’t believe this. Out of nowhere. I want to see you. Can I see you? When can I?”

“Oh, you can … you can. But where is my mother?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since, nor heard.”

Jill wept. “It’s so terrible! And still … I looked so long. I tried. How can I find her?”

“I’ll give you the address where she lived in Baltimore. And my address. I want to see you. Jill, what do you look like?”

“I’m tall; I have red hair. Long red hair.”

“I have red hair. Jill, give me your address and your telephone number. Let me call you back, this is an expensive call.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How did you find me?”

“I’ll write and tell you. My father saw your name. He reads about Indians, we live in New Mexico—”

“Out of nowhere. My God, out of nowhere you came.”

She hardly slept. She called home with her astonishing news and on Saturday took the train to Baltimore, where she went to the address that Peter Mendes had given. It was a row house on a poor street. A black woman answered the door. No, she had never heard the name. The people behind her, they were named Danieli, they had been here for years, and maybe they knew. Oh, yes, they remembered the Rakowskys, but they had moved away years ago, after the father died. Jennie Rakowsky had been a sweet girl, pretty, and so smart. No, they had no idea where to look for her.

On Sunday she telephoned Peter Mendes to report.

“I thought of something yesterday, Jill.” He was excited. “I phoned you but you had already left. It’s this. Jennie always wanted to be a lawyer. There’s a national directory of lawyers. I was stupid not to have thought of it before. It’s Sunday, so I can’t search, but tomorrow I will, and I’ll let you know.”

Again she hardly slept. “Sweet, pretty, and so smart,” they’d said. He was tall and had red hair. Even over the telephone you could tell he was sensitive and good. Peter and Jennie. Jennie and Peter. All day she walked around with the awareness of their existence overlying every thought.

Late in the afternoon, Peter telephoned. “Jill, imagine, she’s in New York! She’s an attorney; she got her wish. I have the address for you.”

Jennie in New York. And all last year we were both here and didn’t know it. When I tell Dad and Mom— I’ve got to tell them tonight.

“Jill, I think you should go easy. She wanted, insisted, on secrecy. You mustn’t call her the way you called me. It’s too much of a shock.”

“I wouldn’t have done it to you the way I did if I had known who you were.”

“It didn’t harm me. But it might harm her. She may have a family, probably does. Be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I will be. Oh, I will be! I’ve been working with an adoption organization, and I’ll ask them what to do.”

“Good idea. And I’ll keep in touch with you. I can’t wait to see you. Send me a picture in the meantime, and I’ll send one to you. Jill, is this real? I keep asking myself …”

Emma Dunn brought Mr. Riley to hear Jill’s story, which she poured out in a rush, her words tumbling and falling, her face flushed and her hands waving in emphasis. She saw that they were both moved.

“I have to see them! I’m going to Chicago to see Peter, but first Jennie. Imagine! So close. I could probably walk to where she is.”

“Well, don’t do that, Jill. Let us do it for you. We’ve seen too many of these meetings end in great pain. That’s not to say that this one will,” Emma Dunn said quickly. “Let’s do it right so that it won’t end that way.”

But the suspense and the joy were overwhelming. Things had gone so well after the long year of failed attempts that now Jill felt free to assume there would be no more obstacles. So it was that her light, exultant heart fell all the more heavily when Mr. Riley called to tell her that Jennie Rakowsky wanted only to be left alone.

“She says what was done nineteen years ago can’t be undone now.”

“She said that?” Jill asked.

“Yes, but it doesn’t mean she won’t change her mind. Let’s give her some time to think it over.”

“Is it because she has other children, do you think?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”

“How will you?”

“We have ways. I’ll let you know. And, Jill, I wasn’t surprised, so don’t you be. It happens all the time, as I warned you.”

When she told them at home, Dad said the same thing, and Mom added, “We were afraid this might happen. I hope it all works out for you, but, Jill, if it doesn’t, you have to accept it. You can’t let it crush you. Be satisfied with Peter in Chicago.”

When Peter called, he gave comfort. “It will all straighten out,” he said cheerfully. “Just be patient.” She saw him at the other end of the wire, youthful, perhaps too cheerful in the face of her distress, not fatherly like Dad, but still so welcoming. And she was grateful.

Days went by, and a week, then more weeks. The next time it was Emma Dunn who called to say that she had made another unsuccessful try to talk to Jennie.

“Don’t give up. It’s only two times, Jill. I’ll call again. She has neither husband nor children. I have a feeling she’ll finally say yes.”

Now, though, Jill was beset with a sense of urgency. It was as if she had done all but half a mile of a marathon; the goal was there, but her legs were so tired and her breath was so short; yet she must make that great, final push; she mustn’t lose now. Never mind all the cautionary advice. Never mind her parents or Peter, or the Rileys and the Dunns. Just go for it.

So one night after dinner she went to her room, showered, and changed her clothes, to present herself at her best. She called a taxi. I will be calm, she told herself, and in the telling, she believed she felt her heart slow down. She entered a house and climbed some stairs and rang a bell.

A woman’s voice answered: “Who is it?”

“It’s Jill,” she said. “Will you let me in?”

W
ith arms and legs gone rubbery, bracing herself with her left hand on the wall, Jennie unlatched the door. Light from the living room’s lamps fanned out upon a tall young girl. Hair, Jennie saw first. Masses of splendid, undulating, russet, shining hair. Copper. Red. Red hair.

She slumped against the wall. Stared. Put her hand flat on her chest where her heart knocked, and knocked, and might suddenly stop altogether.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said softly. “I’m sorry… . Are you going to faint?”

Jennie straightened up. For a fraction of an instant, outside of herself, she saw herself having a dream, a nightmare from which she would awaken in gratitude for daylight and reality. And then in the next instant, wrenched back into herself, she saw that this was reality:

that the girl was alive and real and poised to come through the doorway. She moved aside, her rubbery legs hardly holding her up.

“Come in,” she whispered.

They stood in the center of the room facing each other, six or seven feet apart. There was no feeling in Jennie, suddenly no feeling except a frightful awareness that she was numb. Shreds of thought blew like leaves across vacant ground: What am I supposed to do, to feel? I’m numb, I’m not able to do or feel, don’t you see? And, anyway, this may be a mistake. Yes, of course it’s a mistake. Yes.

But then there’s the hair. How many people have hair like that? Now look into her face. Look into the stranger’s face.

“You’re thinking you’re not sure who I am. But I’m in the right place. I’m Jill. Victoria Jill. They’ve told you about me.”

“Yes,” Jennie said, her voice making no sound, so that she had to repeat, “Yes, they have.”

They were still standing apart, at almost half the distance of the little room.

“You need to sit down,” the girl said. “You’re shaking.”

They moved to the chairs that flanked the sofa. Now they were only four feet apart.

She stares at me, Jennie thought. Her gaze moves from my stocking feet to my face and stops there. She wants to meet my eyes, but I have seen a glisten start in hers, and I cannot cope with, I am not ready for, tears, and I have to turn away.

Still, we have not touched each other, not even grazed hands. If this were a movie, we would be hugging and crying, but I am still empty. She looks away toward the window, which is black except for a slender oblong of light where a curtain across the street has fallen open. She looks toward the light. Her white silk shirt is low at the neck, so that I see the muscles of her throat contract as she swallows hard. Her face is narrow, thin, and lightly, delicately freckled over the nose, which is small but beaky, not like mine, nor like his. Her eyes are dark with heavy lashes, and the whites are so clear as to be almost blue. Piece by piece, still only half believing, I pick her apart.

The girl turned suddenly around. “This is terrible for you. I’m sorry.”

And Jennie, the strong one, who so proudly coped with crises, was unable to answer.

“Do you need anything? Water? Brandy?”

“No. Thank you, no. I’ll be all right.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m all right. Really.”

Jennie listened to the silence, and to the clamor of her thoughts. A fire engine shrieked alarm in the street below; when it went, the silence was deeper. Without sound she was speaking to herself: My head has begun to hurt; hammers smash it from forehead to nape. I put my hand to my forehead, as if a hand could halt pain. I have just realized that if Jay weren’t sick, he would have been here a minute ago when the doorbell rang and would be here with us now. The scene is absolutely unimaginable… . And I look again at the girl—daughter—in my chair. Now she is concerned, as if afraid I may be sick, and she won’t know what to do with me. She doesn’t understand—how could she?—that she is a bomb tossed into the middle of my life.

The girl spoke. “Aren’t you going to say anything? You’re not just going to sit there looking at me, are you?”

The faint rebuke was tempered by a small, coaxing, rather rueful smile, along with an anxious puckering of the forehead, or what could be seen of the forehead under the bangs.

Jennie’s answer slipped out of itself. “Do you mind my looking?”

“No, of course not.” Jill leaned toward her with chin in hand. “Well, what do you think of me?”

Jennie’s eyes stung, stretched wide to let no tears form. She answered, “You’re pretty. …”

“You’re pretty too… . Oh, do you have a feeling that this can’t be happening? Can you believe we were in this same city all last year and didn’t know it? I had no idea. I always thought you must be someplace in the Midwest, since I was born in Nebraska.”

How calmly she speaks! Such poise! One would think we were a pair of acquaintances who, after many years, had just met somewhere by accident. She must be quivering inside just as I am, but she is handling her tremors and this astounding situation so much better than I am. My hands are still shaking while hers lie still on the arms of the chair.

“I was born and grew up in Baltimore.”

Be prepared now for hundreds of questions. Answers are what she came for. Her mind, going back and back, must be a tangle of questions.

And now Jennie began to feel the girl’s pain along with her own. Imagine what it must be not to know who made you! All my life I shall remember Pop: his mustache; his kind, hairy hands; his voice, so gravelly even when he laughed. And Mom, round, cheerful, warning, talking, eternally talking.

“We live in Albuquerque.”

“I knew you were somewhere in the West. I wondered where.”

“It’s beautiful, but New York is marvelous for me. I’ve been to the opera and the Museum of Modern Art, everywhere. It’s marvelous.”

The poise was waning. Not quite ready yet for knife-sharp truth, she wants to touch neutral things first, to chatter, to come very gradually to the heart of the matter. For me, too, Jennie thought, it is the only possible way.

“So college gave you your chance to see New York.”

“I’d been here once before. My grandmother took me to Europe for my high-school graduation present, and we stayed here for a few days.”

“That was a wonderful present.” How banal, how ordinary my remark, while my heart still races!