“Wait, please. Just answer that one question,” I say. “Please?”
She huffs. “Which one?”
“Did Rosie want to give my niece up for adoption?”
The woman pauses a moment before answering. “She didn’t. She wanted to keep her baby. But that was impossible. You know that, don’t you?”
“I would have taken her.”
“But you weren’t here. I need to go.”
Before I can say anything else, the line falls dead.
For hours after we hang up, I console myself with the knowledge that at least when Rosie left Petaluma, she seemed happy. Somehow, despite what happened to her, she found contentment.
When I strike out with the county, George offers to consult apartner in his firm who practices family law about getting the court order.
“But it might take time and effort to convince a judge you’re Amaryllis’s aunt with no proof of paternity,” he tells me. “And even if we get the order and are able to learn which receiving home the baby was sent to, the adoption records are most likely sealed. Your being Amaryllis’s biological aunt won’t matter then. The child will be her adoptive family’s legal daughter.”
“I know,” I tell him. And I do know. Yet I yearn for assurance that Amaryllis is safe and loved and cared for. It’s likely that some family in Northern California or south of San Jose or somewhere in the vastness of San Francisco is happily raising Amaryllis. But I want toknowit for fact, not just hope it.
As George and Lila are in no hurry for me to start looking for my own place, I unpack most of my belongings into one of the bedrooms on the third floor and begin using the other room as a little sitting area so that I can have time to myself at the end of the day, and also give my friends some time alone as well. They tell me not to rush to look for a job, and to use this time during the holiday season to conduct my search.
I find that I get along quite well with George and Lila. If I’d stayed in the Bay Area instead of moving to Europe, I might’ve found the man of my dreams here and married him, and my husband and I and George and Lila would have been couples who took their children to the circus together and had dinner parties and celebrated the holidays together just as I was celebrating with them now. I don’t regret the life I’ve led, but I’m acutely aware that if I’d made different choices, my life would have had a far different trajectory, and not only my life but other lives, too. So much would be different at this moment if I had stayed.
On the last day of the year, I summon the courage to give Celine a call to wish her a happy New Year and to apologize for how we ended things on Christmas Eve.
“Why are you really calling?” she says calmly after I’ve done both, rightly guessing I’ve an ulterior motive in phoning her. “Do you honestly think we have more to say to each other?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve and the perfect time to bury the hatchet, don’t you think? I am really sorry that I upset you and then left without saying good-bye.”
“What do you want, Helen?”
I pause before answering, even though there is no point now in beating around the bush.
“I just want you to sign an affidavit that Truman was the father of Rosie’s child. I’ll never mention this again to you, Celine. Or anyone else. Ever. I promise.”
She laughs lightly. “You must be mad. Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because it will allow me to find out what receiving home my niece was sent to.”
“Your niece.”
“Rosie had a little girl.”
She pauses, but only for a moment. “I’m not signing any such paper, and I’ll swear to anyone who asks that I have no idea who fathered that tramp’s child.”
“Please, Celine? I’m begging you.”
“I don’t care if you crawl back here on your hands and knees to get it, Helen. No.”
“All I want is to know my niece is all right, that’s she’s living a happy life.”
Again Celine laughs. A mirthless guffaw. “I don’t give a damn what you want. Do you actually think I’d drag my family’s reputation through the mud for whatyouwant?”
“No one has to know. It’s just for one judge in one courtroom.”
“Don’t call me anymore, Helen.”
