I nodded, searching my brain for some sort of memory, for some inkling that Lovey had told me about another box, had told me to look somewhere besides the usual place. I started to tell Melissa it was okay. I started to tell her not to worry about it. But, before I even had a chance, she had inserted Lovey’s key, was fitting her key inside too, and the small silver door swung open.
“Thanks, Melissa,” I said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Take your time, shug.”
I lifted the thin metal handle and slid the drawer out of its cubby slowly, putting one hand underneath to support its weight. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I reminded myself. I was simply going to look quickly for the bracelet, put the things back and leave. Plus, it wasn’t like I cared about rummaging through Lovey and D-daddy’s stock certificates and bearer bonds.
I set the drawer on the floor, opened the lid and was surprised and delighted to find that, perched right on top, was the prize I was hunting. I started to put the box away and leave when I realized that, far from boring paperwork, the drawer was filled with memorabilia from Lovey and D-daddy’s life together. Old passports, wedding pictures, train tickets, snapshots of my mom and my aunts. I pulled out each memento, so happy that I was able to see all of these beautiful things. I put my hand to my stomach and took a deep breath. No matter what I decided about Ben, it was all going to be okay. Because I had this amazing, close-knit family that would stand by me and support me and help me raise this child. It was a moment of total comfort.
In the bottom of the box, in a neat stack, were five, perfect birth certificates, in age order. Sally, Martha, Lauren, Louise, Jean. Underneath was a nondescript-looking white envelope, the edges yellowed with age. I opened it carefully to find another birth certificate withmy mother’s name on it. I unfolded it, and, as I opened it, it seemed that another paper was stuck to it, almost glued. I rubbed the pages between my fingers, the way I would have a pair of fresh dollar bills. What I peeled from the back of the birth certificate was a carefully completed—in Lovey’s neat print—“Application for a Copy of a North Carolina Birth Certificate.” It was stamped “Copy.” I didn’t think much of it, figuring that Mom had gotten an extra birth certificate when she was married or traveling, and put it back in the box. As I folded the form, a checked box caught my eye. I didn’t even mean to read it; I didn’t mean to look.
But, there it was, unavoidable, on this form in Lovey’s own handwriting. Under “Your Relationship to the Person Whose Certificate Is Requested” the box was checked “Parent.” And under the column marked “Record Changes,” “Adoption” was checked.
I felt my breath catch in my throat, slammed the lid to the box, slid it back into its spot and ran out of the vault. “Thanks, Melissa,” I called, trying to rationalize in my mind what I had just seen.
“See you later, shug. Tell your momma and them I said hey.”
“Sure will.”
I walked out of the bank, my head lowered to avoid talking to anyone I passed on the way out. I felt like the bank was being held up at gunpoint and I was just standing there, watching a robber hold innocent people ransom, and not doing a thing about it.
I must have read it wrong,I kept reminding myself. I didn’t see what I thought I saw. Or maybe I just didn’t understand it. All of those questions I had had at the hospital flooded back to my mind, all at once.
With every step, I reasoned it out yet again.Mom’s blood type means she can’t be Lovey and D-daddy’s child. But she looks exactly like her sisters. There’s no way she’s adopted.
But there it was. In the box. Lovey had filled out a form. She had checked that she was the parent. And she was requesting that a change be made due to her daughter’s adoption.Her daughter’s adoption. I gasped and stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot. And then I started walking again. D-daddy wasn’t my mother’s father at all. But there was no doubt that my mother and her sisters were the thickest blood you could imagine. So there was only one explanation. Lovey had cheated on him with another man and he, in his infinite mercy, had forgiven Lovey. He had taken her back and taken her love child as his own.
My phone rang, and I saw “Mom” flash across the screen. How could I be normal now, knowing full well that I was the bearer of a secret so massive? I wished so hard that I’d never opened that lockbox, that I’d never seen that birth certificate. But that’s the thing about a secret that haunts your dreams and fills those empty spaces in your mind. Once you know a thing so huge, you can never un-know it again.
Lovey
Uprooted
In her old age, my momma always used to say that the nursing home was practically like the country club. She was lying. I know now that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or what you say when you’re with your friends. When you get old, you do not think that the nursing home is practically the country club, and you most certainly do not want to have to live there no matter how short term your stay might be.
If you had ever told me that I would be pining for my tiny assisted living apartment, I wouldn’t have imagined it. But there I was, flipping through my datebook as if any of my plans were still relevant, confined to a double bed with itchy sheets, hoping that they could fit me in for two physical therapy sessions that day. I may have been in the kind of pain that one never forgets, but that didn’t matter. I had seen the other patients in their beds, the ones who had come here for therapy and never gotten out. That wouldn’t be me. I’d rather be dead than dependent.
I looked over at Dan, the snoring, open mouth, wishing that I could reach the cord to turn off the fluorescent box light shining on his sleeping face. And I remembered that what we want and what actually happens are often two different things. I rolled my eyes at the pair of pleather-covered avocado green chairs flanking a rather nice high-definition television. The cinder-block walls, while cold, had a fresh coat of white paint on them, whose smell did an adequate job of blocking out the nursing home stench, that of death, decay, old age and any number of bodily fluids.
Luella, whom you could just tell by her confidence and regal air was the backbone of her household and a pillar in her community, rushed in, her white nurse’s shoes squeaking on the faux-hardwood floor, which, I must admit, did an above-average job of imitating the real thing. “Miss Lynn,” she said, “you got to pick out you and Mr. Dan’s meals for the next few days so we can bring you what you like.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Luella.”
“Mmm hmm.” She pulled the chain over Dan’s head and turned to fluff the pillows behind my back. I watched her, in awe of the grace, agility and speed in such a stout package.
“Miss Lynn, you want me to take you to the bathroom before I get on down the hall?”
This was perhaps the greatest indignity. But I could feel in my bones that I was mere days away from transferring my own body weight to my walker and shuffling to the bathroom right beside me on my own.
I nodded. “Unfortunately.”
Luella laughed like we were old friends swapping stories about cute things our grandkids had done. “Miss Lynn, it ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. We all got to go, and we all do it the same way.”
I nodded, supposing that was true. “Luella, when I get back to assisted living, will you come be one of Dan’s nurses on your off hours? I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of.”
Luella smiled, her shiny teeth, all in a straight row like so many soldiers, making me wonder if she had good genes or even better dentures. “I sure would, Miss Lynn. My grandbaby’s trying to get through college, and I could use the extra money to help him out.”
I placed my good leg on the floor and groaned a bit as the bad one woke and hollered at me for disturbing its peace. It wasn’t that still pain that I was used to feeling in my old age, not a dull ache or a heartbeat throbbing. It was a rushing, circular pain, like runners around a track, active and ever changing so that getting used to it was an impossibility.
