Moving Forward in Reverse (29 page)

So who else?

I stared at the screen and let my arms fall to the desk on either
side of the keyboard.
Who else can I reach out to?

The only other contact I had at hand was Igor, who had given me
his home number (
‘just for case’
) but he was our link to the orphanage,
not the courts. I needed someone involved in the entire adoption process in
Romania. I needed a court official.

My thumbs started punching keys, tapping out a frantic tap-tap-tap
on the keyboard. Nearly eight years with prosthetics had made me a very
proficient thumb-typist, but even my exceptional speed wasn’t good enough. I
felt as if I were in a race against the clock; every second counted. My kids’
lives were at stake here. I had to get them out of that despondent orphanage; I
had to get them home where I could protect them and love them as they deserved
to be protected and loved.

By the time mid-morning had faded into mid-afternoon, my
enthusiasm waned with my hunger. Five hours in and I was running on pure
willpower. My brain felt like mush and a familiar fuzziness kept encroaching on
my thoughts, casting a dour light over everything I read and saw. I had to
repeatedly beat back the sinister little voice that told me I didn’t stand a
chance; the voice that laughed at the myoelectric thumbs typing so furiously;
the voice that reminded me despair and self-doubt had been my most steadfast
companions, always lurking just below the surface; the voice I had vowed never
to listen to when thoughts of Nadia and Danny could take its place.

I forged on, sloughing through court transcript after court
transcript; staring into the weathered, falsely-smiling faces of judge after
judge; reading bland biography after bland biography and useless article after
useless article, all telling me what Barb already had:
parents must be
patient.
None of it seemed to be leading anywhere. What good was a judge
when we didn’t even have a court date yet?

I had been patient for almost a year and had nothing to show for
it. Sure, there were the happily-ever-after stories of parents who had waited
it out and were now kissing their Romanian children good-night every eve, but
their success did little to diminish my distress. I wasn’t looking for
reassurances that it would all work out in the end, I was looking for someone
to take action. I was looking for a connection between the agencies,
orphanages, and courts.

Then there was something: a tickle like the brush of a blade of
grass across my consciousness, easily brushed away and quickly forgotten.
Something from the Getting Started packets Barb had sent us. I focused on the
inkling of promise, drawing it out into a full-fledged memory. A description of
the people and agencies involved in the adoption process came into my mind’s
eye: Parents go through the agency, the agency contacts the council, the
council contacts the orphanage, the orphanage returns to the council, and the
council contacts the courts.

I need to get at that council!
I thought with sudden clarity. If our case was
stranded between the orphanage and the court, they had to be the clog in the
drain.

I started punching out possible combinations with the words
‘council’ and ‘adoption’ in them until a link surfaced: The Romanian Adoption
Council.

Yes!

I clicked the link and was directed to the English version of a
clearly Romanian-written website. Even with certain things lost in translation,
I was able to comprehend enough to know I had found a gem among the stones.

‘The Romanian Council for Adoption is a non-profit organization
which seeks to aid in the adoption process. Its members include agencies and
lawyers,’ it said.
Bingo!
I thought at the word lawyers.
Finally
someone whose purpose it was to wrangle the legal system into doing what they
wanted.

I read on: ‘Strongly involved in the adoption of legislation, may
strive for the members of the Council to improve the process of adoption in
Romania, both internally and internationally.’

Yes!
I slid to the edge of my chair like a racehorse dancing into the
starting gate.
Now we’re getting somewhere.

Rejuvenated by my find, I quickly scanned the page of
Romanian-infused English for contact information and found myself staring at a
list of names and numbers. Some had recognizable titles after them, but others
were simply followed by a jumble of Romanglish.

I picked up the phone and began dialing the first number I saw,
the country code followed by an eight digit number for one Petru Moldoveanu
located in Bucharest. It rang: once, twice, three times, and I lowered the
handset back to the receiver.

Ten hours ahead,
I thought miserably.
They’re ten hours ahead.

It was five p.m. here. Chances were Mr. Moldoveanu wasn’t going to
be found at his office at three in the morning.

I sighed and looked over the list of names without reading any of
them. So close – I had been so close to making a break-through.
Ah, well,
I
sighed and forced myself to swivel the chair away from the computer screen to
stretch.
It’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.

Or … I could call
at ten tonight. That’d be –
I did some hasty mental
calculations –
eight a.m. their time. Would Romanian officials be at their
office by eight o’clock?
I wondered. Being early risers hardly coincided
with the clear dilatoriness of the system.

If not, I’ll just call back again at eleven.

32

‘Please, Miss… uh,’ I hovered, waiting for her to fill in the
blank. When all I got in response was more patient silence, I shook myself and
pressed on. ‘I really need to speak with Mr. Moldoveanu. It’s urgent. It’s
regarding my children in a Romanian orphanage.’

‘I am very sorry, Mr. Marrteen,’ she said in the same placating
and heavily-accented tone she’d been using with me since the start of our phone
call, ‘but Mr. Moldoveanu is verry beessy at moment. I weel take message for
you to him.’

I shook my head and tried not to groan. How long was I going to be
talking in circles with this woman? I had waited six hours to make this call;
to finally connect with someone who might be able to help, and she wanted me to
leave my children’s fate up to a Post-it note?

‘I understand he’s busy,’ I said calmly, enunciating each syllable
with extraneous care, ‘but this will only take a moment of his time. I promise.
I just need a question answered. Two minutes. Please, they’re
my children
.’

She paused and I held my breath, listening to the background hum
of the phone line. ‘Okay. Two meenutes.’

Yes!

‘Hold, please,’ she said in a perfect television-secretary voice.

I held, scarcely daring to move lest the line drop forcing me to
go through this all over again.

When the symphony music clicked to silence and a man’s guttural
voice barked into my ear, I had to bite my lip to keep from stumbling over my
words in my haste to be heard.

‘Mr. Moldoveanu, my name is Scott Martin. My wife and I have begun
the process of adopting a brother and sister from Romania – we actually began
the process a year ago, but our case hasn’t even been scheduled a court date
yet. Is there anything you or I can do to speed things along?’

I could hear him breathing like a bull in a chute, deep laborious
breaths that carried images of too many brandies and long nights spent behind a
cigar. I thought I could hear him scratching stubble on his cheek or chin and
began wracking my brain for what else I could say to plead our case.

 ‘I can’t help you, Mr. Martin,’ Mr. Moldoveanu said in a
deep-chested grumble. ‘It’s a matter for the courts.’

‘Can’t –’ I started, but it was too late. The line was dead.

‘Damn it!’
I swore as I put the phone back in its cradle.
Rage, discouragement, and frustration clawed their way through my morale. I had
been so sure this was the key to freeing the hold-up. Wasn’t ushering legal
adoptions through the system exactly what The Romanian Adoption Council was
for?

‘Damn useless bureaucrats,’ I huffed and looked at the computer
screen.

Now what?

~~~

April showers turned into May gloom and with still no word from
Barb that things in Romania had changed, I gave her another of my monthly phone
calls.
Just in case.

My kids were still nearly six thousand miles away and delayed for
no reason I could see other than the laziness or ineptitude of others. I
couldn’t stop trying.

‘Hi, Laura,’ I said when the familiar, collected voice of Barb’s
secretary cut the peal of the second ring short. My voice carried all the
hopefulness of a leaf in autumn. I could already sense the fall was coming, and
there was not a thing I could do about it.

Despite my misgivings, I asked to be connected to Barb and waited
as the line clicked and buzzed, finally opening to a woman’s resigned inhale.

‘Scott,’ Barb greeted me, her voice conveying the enthusiasm of a
child who just found socks inside his present.

‘How are you? How’s Ellen?’ she asked, likely trying to delay the
inevitable disappointment we both knew we faced.

‘Fine. Good. Has there been any news?’

I heard her fill her lungs with a long and deep inhale. By the
sound of it, disappointment was definitely around the corner. I stole myself
for whatever news – or lack thereof she may bring.

‘Scott,’ she sighed on a woebegone exhale. ‘I’m so sorry to tell
you this. I really wish it weren’t true…’

I closed my eyes.
Here we go again.
As I waited for her to
continue, I mouthed the words I loathed most:
Please be patient.

‘The Romanian courts have just begun a one month vacation.’

My eyes snapped open. I started to speak, thousands of denials and
proclamations of impossibility on my lips, but all that formed was a strangled
gasp. Muscles clenched across my chest and my lungs heaved on air they no
longer seemed capable of breathing.

‘I’m so, so sorry, Scott. Truly I am. It’s horribly unfair, I
know. But–’

I jerked the receiver away from my ear. I didn’t want to hear it.
Whatever ‘but’ she had to share, it wasn’t going to change a thing.

A month?! My kids are trapped in a decrepit, desolate orphanage
and those lazy …
I couldn’t think words foul enough for the heartless officials who
were more concerned with their vacation hours than the neglected children
abandoned in decaying orphanages all across their country.

‘Scott?’ Barb’s distraught voice chirped from the handset. ‘Scott?
Are you still there?’ Hearing the clear concern and anguish in her voice, I
gritted my teeth against the indignant fury blistering my consciousness and
brought the speaker to my ear.

‘Yes. I’m here,’ I reassured her in a monotonous tone. Before she
could say anything more, I continued, ‘Thanks for letting me know, Barb. I’ll
stay in touch. Take care,’ and hung up.

I pushed waveringly to my feet. I couldn’t be in that office any
longer. Clomping down the short flight of steps, my feet finding each step from
memory alone, I shuffled out of the master bedroom and across the hall. I
pushed open the door with a hand that, were it made of flesh, would have been
just as numb as the metal and plastic one I wore, and gazed into the room
beyond. My eyes traveled lovingly over the two small, twin beds; traced the
outline of the names carved from wood on each of the shelves; stroked the fur
of the stuffed animals clustered around the pillows; and followed the path of
the frogs to the framed rainbow I had nailed to the wall so long ago now.

I subconsciously flexed the fingers of the right myo, remembering.
I can’t give up.
My eyes strayed back to the beds, still neatly made,
and I saw Ellen, leaning over each bed as she so lovingly tucked in the corners
of the blankets and tenderly arranged each of the stuffed animals.
I
won’t
give up. Until the day Nadia and Danny are tucked into these beds, I will
pull every string, jostle every boat, and harass every person I can think of.

I turned towards the master bedroom and straightened my shoulders.
For Nadia.
As I retraced my steps to the loft office, I held in my mind
the memory of Danny’s warm head resting against my chest.
For Danny.

~~~

I wrote to Oprah.
Why not?
She had clout. Perhaps she could
apply a little pressure or knew of someone who could. There had to be someone,
somewhere who I could reach out to and have them in turn reach out to someone
else and so on and so forth until we reached one person who could get the ball
rolling. I had tried everything else I could think of, so why not Oprah?

I opened a blank Word document and set the thumbs of the myos on
the keyboard.

Dear Ms. Winfrey,

I realize this will first be read by your assistants and not you,
but I must try…

When a week and a half had passed with no word or whisper from
Oprah or any of her many assistants, I picked another number off the list of
The Romanian Adoption Council members and dialed. I was greeted by a dainty
male voice, full of late-Spring cheer.

‘Buna ziua!’ he called, making me want to scowl at his probably
well-rested, post-vacation gaiety.

‘Hello, is Mr. Popescu available, please?’ I asked, unenthused.

‘Uhmm, yees, yees, I believe he ees. May you hold, please, sir?’

‘Yes, I’ll hold.’

I waited patiently, feeling a twinge of optimism at being able to
reach this Council member so easily.
Maybe my luck is changing after all.

‘Hullo?’ a man blurted into the phone. ‘Dees ees Erik Popescu.’

‘Mr. Popescu, my name is Scott Martin. My wife and I have been
trying to adopt a brother and sister from an orphanage in Giurgiu for nearly a
year now, but our case has yet to be placed on the court schedule.’ I took a
breath, steadying my voice which had inched up an octave as I crammed the same
blurb I’d used too many times before into one breath. ‘Is there any amount of
American dollars which I can offer that will move this forward?’

Silence distended between us, swelling to fill every cavity and
canal of my ear. Seconds trickled past as I waited. Just when I thought I might
have made it through to someone’s inner greed, there was a definitive
click!
and the line went dead.

I listened to the dial tone blaring into my ear with unfair
finality, the timbre of a flat-lined cardiogram.
The end,
it seemed to
be saying.
Game over.

Eventually I lowered the handset back into its cradle, unable to
grasp it any longer. It was the thirtieth of May and after two months of
digging and pleading and fighting, I was irrevocably exhausted and utterly
devastated.

~~~

May became June and I was no closer to bringing Nadia and Danny
home than I had been back at Easter. Every avenue I’d pursued thus far had
rammed me straight into a brick wall.
I’m not quitting,
I told myself as
Ellen and I sprawled on the sofa, lazily eyeing
60 Minutes
’
correspondent Steve Kroft as he interviewed a very contrite Mayor –
former
Mayor
Milton Milan on his recent conviction of corruption.

I’m like a child’s windup toy,
I coached myself.
The kind which hits a wall
and simply changes directions; the kind that never lets up. Maybe we should get
some of those for Nadia and Danny. They might like them. I wonder if they’ve
ever seen a windup toy…

I shook myself, forcing my focus back to the issue at hand. No
matter how many toys I bought, it wasn’t going to bring Nadia and Danny home
any faster. I needed to stay strong and keep digging.

Martins don’t quit,
I reminded myself, clenching my jaw and letting my chin jut out
with family pride.

I had tried people on both sides of the ocean now, and no one
seemed to be capable of or interested in helping. Oprah may have been a long
shot, but the council members in Romania and our own agency representative
should have been a shoe-in. What was I missing?
Who
was I missing?

The camera panned away from Kroft and flashed to the stern
countenance of Christiane Amanpour, promoting one of her special contributor’s
in-depth international reports to follow. This episode’s topic of interest:
organized crime’s use of poor women from former Soviet republics to supply
their prostitution operations.

Another broken system,
I thought with disgust as the broadcast cut to commercials, then
my mouth quirked as I half-mockingly considered
reaching out to
Christiane Amanpour about our adoption.
She at least seems willing to stand
up to unjust bureaucracies.

‘You should contact Senator Murray.’

I glanced at Ellen, sitting on the opposite end of the sofa.

As had become our custom, she had spouted the comment seemingly
out of nowhere, leaving me to try to unscramble her thought process and discern
the underlying intention.
Washington State Senator Patty Murray?
I mused
and tried to decipher what she had to do with me.
What could Senator Murray
have to do with –
Of course! Should have known Ellen would be on the
same page I am. Even watching
60 Minutes
we’re in each other’s heads.

Senator Murray, the woman who was told she couldn’t make a
difference because she was just a “mom in tennis shoes,” then climbed her way
into the State Senate anyway. A mom, a do-gooder, and someone with clout.
Just
who we need,
I thought with an appreciative smile for my clever wife.

‘Great idea!’