Journey (19 page)

T
HE NEXT DAY, WHILE MADDY WAS
working on some research on a story about the Senate Ethics Committee with Brad, the phone rang, and someone listened for a long time and said nothing when Maddy answered. For a moment, she was frightened. She wondered if it was another stalker, or a crank call of some kind, but then they hung up, and when she went back to work again, Maddy forgot about it.

The same thing happened that night at home, and this time she told Jack, and he shrugged it off, and told her it was probably just a wrong number. He teased her about being afraid of her own shadow, just because one nutcase had stalked her. Given her high visibility on the air, it wasn't surprising that she'd had a stalker as far as he was concerned. Most celebrities had them. “It goes with the territory, Mad,” he said calmly. “You read the news. You should know that.” Things had calmed down again between them, but she was still annoyed that he hadn't warned her about the stalker. He said that she
had better things to think about, and security issues involving talent on the air were his problem. But she continued to believe he should have told her.

She was talking to the First Lady's private secretary on the phone Monday about changing the date of the next commission meeting. The First Lady had to join the President for a state dinner at Buckingham Palace. And she was trying to mesh schedules with Maddy and the other eleven people on the commission, and Maddy was frowning distractedly as she went over dates, when a young woman walked into her office. She had long straight black hair, and she was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked neat and clean, but inexpensively dressed, and very nervous, as Maddy glanced up and wondered what she wanted and who she was. She had never seen her before, and thought she'd been sent by another department at the network, or maybe she just wanted an autograph. Maddy noticed that she didn't have a badge, and was carrying a bag of doughnuts. And suddenly, she wondered if that was how the girl had gotten into the building.

“No thanks.” Maddy smiled at her and waved her out, but the girl didn't move, she just stared at her, and for an instant, Maddy panicked. What if this was yet another stalker? Maybe she had a gun, or a knife, or was mentally ill. She realized now that anything was possible, and she thought about hitting the panic button under her desk, but didn't. “What is it?” She put her hand over the phone and asked her.

“I need to talk to you,” the girl said, and Maddy eyed her with suspicion. There was something about her that made Maddy extremely nervous.

“Would you mind waiting outside?” Maddy asked
firmly, and the girl reluctantly left her office, carrying the bag of doughnuts.

Maddy gave Phyllis Armstrongs secretary three possible dates and the secretary promised to get back to her, and as soon as she'd hung up, Maddy picked up her intercom and spoke to a receptionist at a desk in the hallway.

“There's someone waiting for me outside. I don't know what she wants. Would you talk to her and find out, and then call me?” Maybe she was a celebrity hound or an autograph seeker, or wanted a job. But Maddy was annoyed that she had walked in on her with such ease. Given what had happened recently, it was unnerving.

The intercom rang a few minutes later, and Maddy picked it up quickly. “She says she needs to speak to you. It's a personal matter.”

“Like what? She wants to kill me? She has to tell you what it is, or I'm not seeing her.” But as she said the words, she looked up, and the girl was standing in her office doorway with a look of determination. “Look, this isn't how we do things here. I don't know what you want, but you have to talk to someone before you can talk to me.” She said it firmly and calmly, with her fingers resting lightly on the panic button, and her heart pounding. “What do you want from me?”

“I just want to talk to you for a few minutes,” she said, and Maddy realized the girl was about to cry, and the doughnuts had vanished.

“I don't know if I can help you,” Maddy said hesitantly, and then suddenly wondered if this had to do with her being on the commission about violence against women, or one of her stories. Maybe this girl
knew she'd be sympathetic. “What's this about?” Maddy asked, mellowing a little.

“It's about you,” she said in a trembling voice, and when Maddy looked at her more closely she saw that the girl's hands were shaking.

“What about me?” Maddy asked cautiously. What had this girl come to tell her? But as she looked at her, she had a very odd feeling.

“I think you're my mother,” she said in a whisper, so no one else could hear them if they were walking by, and Maddy looked as though she'd slapped her as she recoiled in her chair.

“Your
what?
What are you talking about?” Maddy s face had gone white, and now her hands were shaking, as they continued to rest on the panic button. She had an instant concern that this girl was some kind of nutcase. “I don't have any children.”

“Did you ever?” The girl's lips were trembling and her eyes were already beginning to fill with disappointment. For her, this had been a three-year search for her mother, and she sensed that she was about to hit a dead end again. She had already had several. “Did you ever have a baby? My name is Elizabeth Turner, I'm nineteen years old, my birthday is May fifteenth, and I was born in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains. I think my mother was from Chattanooga. I've talked to everyone I can, and all I know is that she was fifteen when I was born. I think her name was Madeleine Beaumont, but I'm not sure of that. And one person I talked to said I look a lot like her.” Maddy was staring at her in disbelief, as her hand moved slowly off the panic button and onto her desk.

“What makes you think I'm that person?” Her tone gave away nothing.

“I don't know, I know you're from Tennessee. I read that in an interview one time, and your name is Maddy and … I don't know … I sort of think I look like you a little bit, and … I know this sounds crazy.” There were tears running down her cheeks now from the sheer stress of approaching her, and the fear of yet another disappointment. “Maybe I just wanted you to be the right person. I've watched you a lot on TV, and I really like you.” There was a long, deafening silence in the room, while Maddy weighed the situation, and tried to figure out what to do about it. Her eyes never left the girl's, and as she looked at her, she slowly felt walls dissolving within her, surrounding places she hadn't touched in years, and thought she would never allow herself to feel again. She didn't want this to be happening, but it was, and there was nothing she could do now to change it. She could end it easily. She could tell her that she wasn't the same Madeleine Beaumont, that Tennessee was full of them, even though Beaumont was her maiden name. She could say she had never been to Gatlinburg, and that she was sorry, and wish her luck. She could say everything she needed to, to get rid of her, and never see her again, but as she looked at her, she knew she couldn't do that to this girl.

Without a word, she got up and closed the door to her office, and then stood looking at the girl, who claimed to be the baby she had given up at fifteen, and thought she'd never see again. The baby she had cried for and mourned for years, and whom she no longer allowed herself to think of. The child she had never told Jack about. All he knew about were the abortions.

“How do I know that's who you are?” Maddy asked in a voice that was rough with grief and fear and the
remembered pain of giving up her baby. She had never seen her after the delivery, and only held her once. But this girl could have been anyone, the child of a nurse who'd been there, a neighbor's child who wanted to blackmail her and make some money. There were damn few people who knew, and Maddy had been grateful that none of them had ever surfaced. She had worried about it for years.

“I have my birth certificate,” the girl said awkwardly, pulling a folded piece of paper from her purse. It was dog-eared and folded into a tiny wad, as she handed it to Maddy. And she handed her a tiny baby picture with it, as Maddy stared at it in silent agony. It was the same one they had given her, taken at the hospital, red-faced and brand new, wrapped in a pink blanket. Maddy had kept it in her wallet for years, and finally threw it away, for fear that Jack would find it. Bobby Joe knew, but he had never cared much about it. Lots of girls they knew got pregnant and gave up babies for adoption. Some girls had them a lot younger than she had. But in the years since, it had become her darkest secret.

“This could be any baby,” Maddy said coldly, “or you could have gotten this picture from someone else, from the hospital even. It doesn't prove anything.”

“We could have blood tests, if you thought maybe I could be your daughter,” the girl said sensibly, and Maddy's heart went out to her. She had done a brave thing, and Maddy wasn't making it easy for her. But what this girl was volunteering to do was destroy her life, and make her face something that she had finally put away, and didn't dare touch now. And how could she tell Jack?

“Why don't you sit down for a minute,” Maddy said,
sitting down slowly in the chair next to her, and staring at her. She wanted to reach out and touch her. The girl's father had been a high school senior in Maddy's school, they didn't even know each other well, but she liked him, and she went out with him a couple of times, during one of the spells when she and Bobby Joe broke up. He was killed in a car accident three weeks after the baby was born and she'd already given her up. She never told Bobby Joe who the father was, and he didn't care much, although he'd beaten her up over it once or twice, but it was just another excuse to abuse her, once they were married. “How did you come here, Elizabeth?” She said her name carefully, as though even saying that much would commit her to a fate she was not yet prepared to face. “Where do you live?”

“In Memphis. I came here by bus. I've been working since I was twelve to save up enough money to do this. I always wanted to find my real mother. I tried to find my father too, but I couldn't find out anything about him.” She still didn't know what Maddy's answer to her was, and she looked extremely nervous.

“Your father died,” Maddy said quietly, “three weeks after you were born. He was a nice boy, and you look a little like him.” But she looked a great deal more like her mother, their coloring and features were the same, even Maddy could see it. It would have been hard to deny her, even if she wanted to. And Maddy couldn't help wondering how the story was going to look in the tabloids.

“How do you know about him?” Elizabeth looked confused as she stared at her, not sure what it meant now. She was a bright girl, but she was overwhelmed by the impact of what she was doing, as was Maddy, and neither of them was thinking clearly.

Maddy looked at her for a long time, her most secret wish having just come true, and not sure yet if that wish would become a nightmare, if she would be betrayed, or if this girl would turn out to be an impostor, but it seemed unlikely. Maddy opened her mouth to speak, and a sob came before the words, as she reached out and put her arms around the girl in the chair next to hers. It was a long time before she could say the words she had thought would never be hers, in an entire lifetime. “I'm your mother.” Elizabeth gave a sharp gasp, and her hand flew to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears and she looked up at Maddy, and then pulled her closer. And they just sat there for a long time, holding each other and crying.

“Oh my God … oh my God … I didn't really think it was you … I just wanted to ask you … oh my God….” They sat there for a long time, rocking back and forth and holding each other, and then they held hands, and just looked at each other. Elizabeth was smiling through her tears, and Maddy was still too shaken to know what she thought. The only thing she knew was that beyond the miracle of time and circumstance, they had found each other. And Maddy had no idea what to do about it. This was just the beginning after so many years.

“Where are your adoptive parents?” Maddy asked finally All she had been allowed to know was that they lived in Tennessee, had no other children, and were gainfully employed. She knew nothing else about them. In those days, all the records were sealed, and the information given to either side was so minimal you could never find each other. It was done for that purpose. And over the years, as things changed legally, regarding old sealed adoptions, Maddy had never wanted to make any
effort to find her. She figured it was too late, and it was something she had to let go of, rather than cling to. But now here she was.

“I never knew them,” Elizabeth explained, still wiping the tears from her eyes, as she clung to her mother's hand. “They died when I was a year old, in a train wreck, and I was state-raised till I was five, in an orphanage in Knoxville.” It turned Maddy's stomach to realize that she was living in Knoxville at the same time and was married to Bobby Joe, and could have taken her back if she had to. But she had no way of knowing where the child was. “I grew up in foster homes after that. Some of them were okay, some of them were pretty awful. I moved around the state a lot, I never stayed in any of them more than six months, I didn't really want to. I always felt like an outsider, and some of them were mean to me, so I was happy to move on to the next one.”

“And no one ever adopted you again?” Maddy looked horrified as Elizabeth shook her head.

“I guess that's why I wanted to find you. I almost got adopted once or twice, but my foster parents always decided it was too expensive. They had kids of their own, and they couldn't afford another one. I stay in touch with some of them, particularly the last ones. They have five kids, and they were nice to me. They were all boys, and I almost married my oldest brother, but I figured it'd be too weird, so I didn't. I'm living on my own in Memphis now, I'm going to City College and working as a waitress. When I finish school, I'm going to move to Nashville, and try to get a job singing in a nightclub.” She had the same spirit of survival as her mother.

“Can you sing?” Maddy asked with surprise,
suddenly wanting to know everything about her. Her heart ached as she thought of her in orphanages and foster homes, and never having real parents. But remarkably she seemed to have survived it, from what Maddy could see superficially at least. She was a lovely-looking girl, and as she glanced at her, she realized that they had both crossed their legs at the same time, in exactly the same way.