By four o’clock that afternoon, and after crossing the new Golden Gate Bridge—a glistening marvel that looks like a castle just begun—I am sipping eggnog with my friends in a lovely Victorian house in San Francisco’s Laurel Heights. George and Lila’s three sons were young boys the last time I saw them, and nowthey are all married and have given George and Lila seven grandchildren. The Petrakis house on Christmas Day is full of merriment and happy voices and laughter, the exact opposite of the home I was in the day before.
I offer to help in the kitchen with the last preparations for dinner, and Lila agrees so that we can talk and so that her daughters-in-law can enjoy visiting with one another.
“I can’t thank you enough for inviting me to come today,” I say as I grate a carrot. “And for allowing me to stay with you for a little while so I can figure things out.”
Lila looks up from draining a can of pineapple bits. “It’s our pleasure, Helen. Truly. You can stay with us as long as you want. We never use the third floor anymore now that the kids are grown and gone. There are two rooms up there, and a toilet. You’ll be quite comfortable. It will be a treat for us to have you.”
“That is awfully kind.”
We are quiet for a moment.
“I take it things didn’t go well with your sister-in-law?” Lila finally asks.
“You could say that.” I pick up another carrot. “Celine prefers to be alone, I think.”
“I’m sorry.” Lila sounds genuinely sad for me. “And I’m sorry again about Truman’s passing. Coming home must have brought it all back. He was so brave to do what he did, reenlisting like that at nearly fifty.”
“Yes,” I say, but there is hesitation in my voice. Lila notices.
“You don’t think it was brave?”
“No, I do. It’s not that. It’s... I’ve learned some things about Truman that I was unaware of before. Things that have made me very sad, and I... Oh my. We don’t need to talk about this today. It’s Christmas.”
Lila reaches out and stills my hand. “The carrots can wait. Tell me what happened.” My old friend has sensed somehow that Ineed to talk with someone about what I now know. And so I do. I tell Lila all that Celine told me and what I now feel compelled to do. When I’m finished, tears are slipping down my face. Lila wraps me in her arms as if I were a child.
“I had forgotten what a good listener you are.” I laugh nervously, and Lila breaks from the embrace.
“I’m so glad you told me.” Lila hands me a handkerchief from inside her apron pocket. “You shouldn’t have to shoulder it alone, Helen. That’s a lot to take in when all you were expecting was a quiet Christmas with your brother’s widow.”
I dab at my eyes. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I am. And if for some reason you end up needing a lawyer to sort all this out, you only have to say the word and George will do whatever he can for you, I know he will.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to need or what obstacles I am going to face. I just know I need to find out what happened to Rosie. And I simply must know what became of her baby. That child is my niece or nephew, and aside from Wilson, whom I barely know, the only other blood relative I have left.”
“George and I will find a way to help you. We will. George knows the law. And he knows how to use the law to get information. Don’t you worry,” Lila says. “Now, let’s finish up here and open the prosecco! Today we have Christmas. Tomorrow we figure out how to help you.”
Lila and George’s children and grandchildren begin packing up for their homes in Berkeley, San Jose, and Napa at eight thirty. By nine o’clock, the last of them have left and the house is quiet. Lila turns on the radio for some Christmas music and pours glasses of port while George builds a fresh fire in the fireplace. When we are settled in comfortable chairs in front of the hearth, Lila and I fill George in on my dilemma.
“I know of that state institution where the girl was sent,” George says when I am done. “It’s true what Celine said about it.It’s my understanding they’ve been sterilizing patients there for years.”
“Foryears?” I can scarcely believe what he’s telling me. “How long?”
“Well, let me think. California has been at it since 1910 or so. Maybe a little earlier. Other states were doing it before California, though. I think Indiana was the first.”
For a second, I can only stare at George. “You’re saying this was happening to people here, in America, long before the Nazis started doing it in Germany?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I am aghast. “I don’t understand this,” I say. “You know that’s how Hitler began, right? He began by sterilizing people he didn’t want having children. I know how he got away with it. But how in the name of heaven can it be happening here?”
“The law makes provision for it. I’m pretty sure many states still have eugenics laws on the books.”
“Eugenics laws?” Lila asks.
“I mean legislation that allows states to decide who among the institutionalized with so-called genetic flaws should be made unable to have children.”
“For what purpose?” Lila says, frowning.
