"I understand," you say. "But I don't want to meet my mother. She's probably dead. All I want is… I need to know if… The fact. Was I adopted?"
Becky studies you, nods, picks up the phone, and taps three numbers. "Records? Charley? How you doing, kid? Great. Listen, an attorney was down there a while ago, wanted a sealed adoption file. Yeah, you did the right thing. But here's what I want. It won't break the rules if you check to see if there is a sealed file." Becky tells him the date, place, and names that you earlier gave her. "I'll hold." Minutes seem like hours. She keeps listening to the phone, then straightens. "Yeah, Charley, what have you got?" She listens again. "Thanks." She sets down the phone. "Counselor, there's no sealed file. Relax. You're not adopted. Go back to your wife."
"Unless," you say.
"Unless?"
"The adoption wasn't arranged through an agency but instead was a private arrangement between the birth mother and the couple who wanted to adopt. The gray market."
"Yes, but even then, local officials have to sanction the adoption. There has to be a legal record of the transfer. In your case, there isn't." Becky looks uncomfortable. "Let me explain. These days, babies available for adoption are scarce. Because of birth control and legalized abortions. But even today, the babies in demand are WASPs. A Black? An Hispanic? An Oriental? Forget it. Very few parents in those groups want to adopt, and even fewer Anglos want children from those groups. Fifty years ago, the situation was worse. There were so many WASPs who got pregnant by mistake and wanted to surrender their babies… Counselor, this might offend you, but I have to say it."
"I don't offend easily."
"Your last name is Weinberg," Becky says. "Jewish. Back in the thirties, the same as now, the majority of parents wanting to adopt were Protestants, and they wanted a child from a Protestant mother. If you were put up for adoption, even on the gray market, almost every couple looking to adopt would not have wanted a Jewish baby. The prospects would have been so slim that your mother's final option would have been…"
"The black market?" Your cheek muscles twitch.
"Baby selling. It's a violation of the anti-slavery law, paying money for a human being. But it happens, and lawyers and doctors who arrange for it to happen make a fortune from desperate couples who can't get a child any other way."
"But what if my mother was Scot?"
Becky blinks. "You're suggesting…"
"Jewish couples." You frown, remembering the last names of parents you read in the ledgers. "Meyer. Begelman. Markowitz. Weinberg. Jews."
"So desperate for a baby that after looking everywhere for a Jewish mother willing to give up her child, they adopted…"
"WASPs. And arranged it so none of their relatives would know."
All speculation, you strain to remind yourself. There's no way to link Mary Duncan with you, except that you were born in the town where she signed the agreement and the agreement is dated a week before your birthday. Tenuous evidence, to say the least. Your legal training warns you that you'd never allow it to be used in court. Even the uniform presence of Jewish names on the birth certificates from Redwood Point that August so long ago has a possible, benign, and logical explanation: the resort might have catered to a Jewish clientele, providing kosher meals for example. Perhaps there'd been a synagogue.
But logic is no match for your deepening unease. You can't account for the chill in the pit of your stomach, but you feel that something's terribly wrong. Back in your hotel room, you pace, struggling to decide what to do next. Go back to Redwood Point and ask Chief Kitrick more questions? What questions? He'd react the same as Becky Hughes had. Assumptions, Mr. Weinberg. Inconclusive.
Then it strikes you. The name you found in the records. Dr. Jonathan Adams. The physician who certified not only your birth but all the births in Redwood Point. Your excitement abruptly falters. So long ago. The doctor would probably be dead by now. At once your pulse quickens. Dead? Not necessarily.
Simon and Esther were still alive until three weeks ago. Grief squeezing your throat, you concentrate. Dr. Adams might have been as young as Simon and Esther. There's a chance he…
But how to find him? The Redwood Point Clinic went out of business in the forties. Dr. Adams might have gone anywhere. You reach for the phone. A year ago, you were hired to litigate a malpractice suit against a drug-addicted ophthalmologist whose carelessness blinded a patient. You spent many hours talking to the American Medical Association. Opening the phone-number booklet that you always keep in your briefcase, you call the AMA's national headquarters in Chicago. Dr. Jonathan Adams? The deep male voice on the end of the line sounds eager to show his efficiency. Even through the static of a long-distance line, you hear fingers tap a computer keyboard.
"Dr. Jonathan Adams? Sorry. There isn't a… Wait, there is a Jonathan Adams Junior. An obstetrician. In San Francisco. His office number is…"
You hurriedly write it down and with equal speed press the numbers on your phone. Just as lawyers often want their sons and daughters to be lawyers, so doctors encourage their children to be doctors, and on occasion they give a son their first name. This doctor might not be the son of the man who signed your birth certificate, but you have to find out. Obstetricians? Another common denominator. Like father, like…?
A secretary answers.
"Dr. Adams, please," you say.
"The doctor is with a patient at the moment. May he call you back?"
"By all means. This is my number." You give it. "But I think he'll want to talk to me now. Just tell him it's about his father. Tell him it's about the clinic at Redwood Point."
The secretary sounds confused. "But I can't interrupt when the doctor's with a patient."
"Do it," you say. "I guarantee he'll understand the emergency."
"Well, if you're – "
"Certain? Yes. Absolutely."
"Just a moment, please."
Thirty seconds later, a tense male voice says, "Dr. Adams here. What's this all about?"
"I told your secretary. I assumed she told you. It's about your father. It's about nineteen thirty-eight. It's about the Redwood Point Clinic."
"I had nothing to do with… Oh, dear Jesus."
You hear a forceful click, then static. You set down the phone. And nod.
Throughout the stressful afternoon, you investigate your only other lead, trying to discover what happened to June Engle, the nurse whose name appears on the Redwood Point birth certificates. If not dead, she'd certainly have retired by now. Even so, many ex-nurses maintain ties with their former profession, continuing to belong to professional organizations and subscribing to journals devoted to nursing. But no matter how many calls you make to various associations, you can't find a trace of June Engle.
By then, it's evening. Between calls, you've ordered room service, but the poached salmon goes untasted, the bile in your mouth having taken away your appetite. You get the home phone number for Dr. Adams from San Francisco information.
A woman answers, weary. "He's still at… No, just a minute. I think I hear him coming in the door."