The Lost Bird (3 page)

“Could you explain?” Vicky had kept her voice steady—a simple request for clarification.

“Well, it’s no secret, Sam’s a lot older.”

“A lot older?” She had jumped on the statement. “And eligible for retirement benefits in a couple of years, isn’t that a fact?”

The man’s eyes went dull with discomfort. There were several rapid blinks, nervous snorts of laughter.

“Isn’t that a fact?”

Looking down, studying his boots, the garage owner had conceded that yes, that was a fact.

It was then she delivered the lethal thrust: “Which is why you fired him. Isn’t that a fact?”

The owner had sputtered and hedged, attempting to recall his own words. But they had been spoken; they existed. Truth had a way of bursting forth, and now it was on the record.

She expected to receive a settlement offer tomorrow. Before she left the office that afternoon, she intended to go over the numbers: what constituted a fair settlement for a twenty-five-year employee, unjustly fired and deprived of retirement benefits?

As she flipped through her notes, she heard a small scuffling noise, like a chair scraping the floor in the outer office. She glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. She’d assumed that Laola White Plume, her secretary, had already left. She should have locked the front door.

Vicky got to her feet as the door to the outer office flung open. Laola slipped inside. Pushing the door behind her, she leaned against the panels. Little beads of perspiration sprinkled her nose, as if she’d just come in from the rain. Her dark eyes were blazing. “You’re not gonna believe who’s out there,” she said in a whisper of excitement.

Ben
, Vicky thought. She could feel her stomach
muscles tighten. There was always excitement in the secretary’s voice when she passed on a message that Vicky’s ex-husband had called. But women always found Ben exciting. He’d called several times last week, and Vicky had managed to put him off: So much work staring at her. A full schedule. Clients to meet. All true. She put in long days at the office. She was grateful for an occasional quiet evening at home. And she didn’t want Ben back in her life.

“Who is it?” she asked matter-of-factly.

Laola started toward the desk. Dressed in a sleeveless blouse and short, too tight skirt that revealed her long, brown legs, she looked like the new high-school graduate she’d been last spring when Vicky hired her. Leaning over the desk, as if to confide a secret to her best friend, she whispered, “Sharon David.”

“Who?” Vicky searched for a face to fill out the name.

“The Sky People. The Cowgirls. Ranger Woman.”
Laola emphasized each syllable. “She got the nomination for an Academy Award for
Ranger Woman.
Should have gotten the Oscar, too.”

Vicky held the secretary’s eyes. “Are you sure it’s Sharon David?”

Laola nodded so hard, her shoulders shook. “Can you believe it? A movie star! Waiting to see you.” She flung one arm toward the closed door.

Silently Vicky ticked off the possible scenarios that might bring a Hollywood star to a one-woman law office in Lander, Wyoming. Purchase some real estate in the area, perhaps a ranch. Scout the location for a movie. Neither explanation made sense. Sharon David would have her own lawyers and a phalanx of other
people to handle such matters. She said, “Ask her to come in.”

Laola swung around and let herself through the door. In an instant she returned, ushering in a tall, striking-looking woman. Vicky realized the billboards and movie screens didn’t do Sharon David justice. She crossed the office with the grace and self-possession of a star moving onto center stage. Pale blue dress flowing about the straps of her high-heeled sandals, suede bag the color of honey draping from one shoulder. Tied around her head was a dark blue scarf that held her black hair back from her face, emphasizing the prominent cheekbones, the dark, almond-shaped eyes, and the golden brown cast of her skin. Her nose was small and came to a perfect point; the lips surprisingly full and a deep red color, like that of her square-tipped nails. She was in her mid-thirties, Vicky decided, only six or seven years younger than herself. She might be Asian or Middle Eastern. Yet there was something about her, some indescribable way of being. Sharon David was Indian.

Vicky reached across the desk and shook the movie star’s hand. Her grip was firm and determined. “What brings you to Lander, Miss David?” She motioned the actress to one of the twin barrel-shaped chairs arranged in front of the desk.

“Will you need me for anything?” Laola sounded hopeful.

“I don’t believe so.” Vicky took her own chair, aware of Sharon David’s eyes watching her, taking her measure. There was a tenseness about the woman.

At the sound of the door closing, the actress seemed to relax. “Call me Sharon,” she said. “I’d like to call you Vicky. I hope we’re going to be friends.” She
paused, then hurried on: “I feel that I’ve come home.” The words were barely a whisper, but so clear, Vicky thought, that patrons in the last row of a theater could have caught the line.

Vicky sat back against the leather cushion of her chair and studied the woman across from her. This was not home. The newspapers and television would never have stopped reminding people that a local Indian girl had made good in Hollywood. There would have been stories about every movie, every appearance on
The Tonight Show
, every scandal. In the quiet that settled over the office, she realized the next line was hers. “How can I help you?”

The actress cleared her throat, a quick, impatient sound, as if the previous lines had been blown and it was necessary to begin again. “I want you to find my parents.” A smile tinged with sadness started at the corners of the red lips. “Does that surprise you? A movie actress searching for her biological parents, trying to find where she belongs, who she really is?”

Vicky said nothing. She was struck by the irony: a woman known to millions, yet unknown to herself.

Suddenly Sharon propelled herself out of the chair and stepped over to the window. She stared outside a long moment then turned back. Every action, Vicky thought, calculated for dramatic effect.

“What about this?” Sharon David might have been pitching a script. “Parents claim child is their own. ‘But why is my hair black?’ child wants to know. ‘Why do I have brown skin?’

“‘You’re just like Great-uncle Al,’ parents explain. ‘Just like Aunt so-and-so or Cousin we-forgot-her-name. They had black hair and dark skin, like you.
You’re our only child, and we love you just as you are. So don’t ask any more questions.’”

Sharon let out a long sigh as she strolled across the room and sank into the chair. “No child could have asked for a better home,” she said. “But at night, before I went to bed, I used to stare at the brown face and dark eyes in the mirror. I knew the home wasn’t mine. My home was somewhere else . . .”

The actress’s voice trailed off, and her gaze shifted to some point beyond Vicky’s shoulder. After a moment she said, “I had decided long ago not to try to find my birth parents as long as my adoptive parents were alive. I didn’t want to hurt them. Besides”—a quick shrug—“I was caught up in my career, which took off like a hot air balloon and surprised everybody, me most of all. So I rode with it. Why not? I told myself it didn’t matter who I really was or where I came from because I had everything—money, fame, more men than I needed.”

She gave a little laugh and raised one hand. The red-tipped fingers smoothed back the blue scarf. “I was kidding myself. There wasn’t enough money or fame, not even enough men, to fill up the emptiness or drive away the sense of abandonment. I knew someday I would have to find the truth.” Drawing in a long breath, she seemed to consider the next line. Then she said, “My father died five years ago. Last spring, when my mother died, I knew the time had come to find my real home, so I sat down and had a long heart-to-heart with my aunt. She was reluctant to tell me the truth at first. But she understood I wasn’t going to give up, and eventually she admitted my parents had been unable to have a child. I was adopted from the Loving Care Adoption Agency.”

Vicky was quiet a moment, allowing the sacred information the woman had just divulged—the most important fact of her life—to settle in the air. Finally she said, “What makes you think you came from here?”

Sharon David lifted the flap on the suede bag and extracted a small, brown envelope, which she handed across the desk. “I found this in my parents’ safety-deposit box.”

Vicky took the envelope and shook out two papers. One was a folded, cream-colored sheet of stationery. The other, a birth certificate for Sharon Marie David. An amended certificate, Vicky realized, issued by the court that had granted the adoption. It constituted a new identity, new parents. Mother: Isabel Mackey David. Father: Robert David. Date of birth: December 24, 1964. Place: San Diego Hospital. Race: Caucasian. An undecipherable signature scrawled over the words
attending physician.
Vicky glanced up.

“It’s not true.” Sharon spoke hurriedly, as if to forestall any objection. “None of it is true. I’m not white. They aren’t my biological parents. And that isn’t my birthday. The real information is there.” She nodded toward the cream-colored sheet.

Vicky pulled the sheet toward her. It felt fragile in her hands, as if it might break along the creases. Carefully she began unfolding it. There was a small line of writing:
91464 WRR Maisie.
Beside it was the figure of a bird, wings poised in flight.

“The numbers could be my birth date, September fourteenth, 1964,” the actress said. “I always believed I was born the day before Christmas. ‘You were our best gift,’ my parents told me. But my aunt told me the truth. My parents had gotten me from the Loving
Care Adoption Agency on Christmas Eve. I was three months old.”

She squared her shoulders and tilted her head thoughtfully. “I’m certain the rest also refers to my birth. WRR stands for Wind River Reservation. Maisie could be my mother’s name. Maybe she had something to do with birds.”

Vicky glanced again at the notation. “WRR could stand for Women Reach for Recovery. Wyoming Research and Reclamation. Probably a dozen other organizations.” She slipped the paper and certificate into the envelope and pushed it across the desk.

The actress shook her head. “When I learned the initials could stand for the reservation, everything fell into place. The little girl with black hair and dark skin finally knew where her home was. Naturally I turned the matter over to my lawyers.”

She set both hands on the armrests, rose out of the chair, and walked again to the window. She stared outside a moment, then turned slowly. The afternoon light blinked in the glass behind her. “Nothing but dead ends everywhere they turned. The San Diego Hospital has been closed for twenty years. And there are no records for a Loving Care Adoption Agency. Not unusual, my lawyers said. Some agencies at the time were nothing more than well-meaning individuals trying to find good homes for unwanted children. They stayed open awhile, then closed. Sometimes they weren’t even licensed.”

The actress drew in a long breath before going on: “They listed me with reunion registries throughout the country. Discreetly, of course. ‘Woman born in Wyoming, September 14, 1964, possibly Native American, seeking biological parents.’ That sort of thing.
They ran ads in magazines and newspapers for searchers looking for their biological families. They tried the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Unfortunately the law that requires states to notify the bureau of any Native American children adopted to outsiders was passed long after I was adopted.”

The woman strolled back to the chair and gripped the top. “Of course my lawyers tried the official channels in Wyoming. Adoption records are sealed here. I could be dying from some genetic disease, and the bureaucrats still couldn’t release what they call ‘identifying information.’ And all the while the same bureaucrats are staring at my records.” A mixture of discouragement and contempt came into her voice. “Complete strangers know the most personal details about me—the names of my parents. But I’m prohibited from knowing.”

Vicky nodded. It was true, but there were reasons for such laws. Not every biological parent or every adopted child wanted to be found. It was a road of minefields that had to be carefully tread. She said, “Wyoming allows confidential intermediaries to search through sealed birth certificates and hospital and adoption-agency records.”

Sharon David nodded. “The court in Cheyenne appointed an intermediary. Another stranger with the right to look into my life.” The red nails tapped an impatient rhythm on top of the chair. “The intermediary couldn’t find any records for an infant girl born September fourteenth, 1964, and placed for adoption. A year of searching, and absolutely nothing.”

The actress moved around the barrel curve of the chair and sat down. Vicky drew in a long breath and
leaned forward. “Sharon, what do you want from me?”

The other woman sat as motionless as a piece of sculpture, her gaze steady and hard. “I told you. I want you to find my parents.”

“Your lawyers have already—”

“You’re Arapaho,” Sharon David said hurriedly. “You can talk to people on the reservation.”

“I’m going to be perfectly frank,” Vicky said. “It’s highly unlikely you were adopted from this reservation. Arapaho people don’t adopt children to outsiders.”

“Some young woman, pregnant and alone . . .” A note of desperation crept into the woman’s voice.

“Her own mother would care for the child,” Vicky said. “Or a sister or aunt or cousin would adopt the child. No one would want to lose the child.” Vicky clasped her hands on the desk. Keeping her voice soft, hoping to allay the woman’s disappointment, she said, “You must understand. There were periods in the Old Time when we lost our children. They died of hunger and disease. They were killed by soldiers attacking the villages. Sometimes they were stolen and taken to white towns. They often died trying to find their way back to the people. When we went on the reservation, our children were taken from us and sent to government schools a thousand miles away. They got sick. Many died. Often those who survived were never able to return home. Their families never saw them again. We have always had to fight for our own children. No Arapaho family would give up a child.”