“What about this?” Lyle said, then he returned to the pew and crossed his legs and met Lydia’s eyes, as if he were greeting her at a church service. The limp gray yarn of his hair dangled against his glasses and a thumbprint blurred his left lens. “Joey’s only family gave him back to the state when he was just a toddler, right? So was Joey researching family law in order to learn about his rights as a kid whose adoption went belly-up?”
“Because he was looking for the Molina family?” she said.
“The Molina family,” Lyle said.
Lydia recalled the story Lyle had told her about Joey’s earliest—and only—family: he’d been taken in as a baby by Mr. and Mrs. Molina, one of a cluster of children they’d adopted, and then, with Mr. Molina’s unexpected death—brain tumor? Aneurism? Gunshot?—Mrs. Molina found herself unable to afford the children they’d adopted, so Joey and his siblings had been turned over to the state: discards of the foster system, victims of broken adoption.
“If Joey was trying to reconnect with Mrs. Molina,” Lydia said, “or maybe even with his siblings, he’d want to know what his rights were. If any.”
“He was so young when he was given back to the state,” Lyle said, “he probably wouldn’t remember any of their names or where they lived. He’d need help if he was going to find them.”
“He’d need his adoption records,” she said. “Probably his foster records too, and maybe even Mr. Molina’s death certificate.”
The realization hit Lydia hard enough to make her sink into the cool curve of the pew: she thought about the Vital Records office, with its labyrinth of documents—and its obnoxious flirting clerk—and realized that at least now she knew what to ask for.
As she gathered her books to leave, Lyle returned to browsing the Religion and Spirituality shelves with widening eyes.
“Maybe there’s something here for me after all,” he said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Raj showed up at Bright Ideas late in the afternoon, just as Lydia was heading out to the Vital Records office. He was wearing jeans and a puffy down coat, rusty orange, and a black knit hat.
“Walk with me?” she said.
“Anywhere.”
“Shut up,” she said, and fake-punched his gut.
They walked up the Sixteenth Street pedestrian mall and hopped the shuttle bus through downtown. They stood close to each other in the crowded bus, comfortably quiet, their jackets brushing, their hands holding overhead rails, staring out the big windows at the souvenir shops and fast food, the theaters and clothing stores, the schoolkids and the kooks. Dusk was coming, and the tall, three-legged globe lights that lined the mall began to blink awake like pulp UFOs.
She couldn’t help but wonder whether Mrs. Molina had known that Joey was searching for her, fishing in the wells of his past, and whether she’d want to know that the boy she’d adopted years ago had hanged himself.
What mother would, and what mother wouldn’t?
Her thoughts wandered to her father. The librarian, not the prison guard.
By the time she and Raj hopped off the shuttle near the capitol, the sun was close to setting and the winter sky was bruised and black. Soon they could see the columned white scoop of the City and County Building, and the blankety mounds of the homeless gathering on its benches and walls. She filled Raj in on the basics of Joey’s messages as they walked. When Raj heard about the broken adoption, he scratched at his head.
“Broken?” he said. “Meaning the people who adopted him gave him back to the state? Can you really do that?”
“So I hear.”
“What, did they keep the receipt or something? No wonder the kid was a wreck.”
No wonder, she thought.
In the Vital Records office, the mustached clerk who’d asked her out for a drink on her last visit recognized Lydia the moment she walked in. He’d added a rubber octopus and a pink Power Ranger to the collection of small toys lining the top of his monitor, but otherwise he appeared the same, down to the coagulated tray of mac ’n’ cheese sitting next to his keyboard like a prop. He sized up Raj, who sat, legs crossed, thumbing through a cooking magazine.
“I know what I want this time,” Lydia said as she approached him.
“I know what I want, too,” the clerk said.
“Joseph Molina. His birth records and anything you have on his foster care. Once I have those details, I’m hoping to get his foster father’s death certificate, if possible—is that possible?”
“Okay, let’s back up,” he said, rattling his head. “You did say foster care, but I think you mean his adoption certificate?”
“Both, I guess.”
The clerk rubbed his mustache.
“Foster care records are kept with Human Services. Unless the foster family formally adopted him, in which case we should have a record of that. Should. Should.”
“He kept his foster parents’ last name,” she said. “Molina.”
“So it’s worth a shot,” he said, and rested his fingers on the counter in front of her. “But I have to tell you, the adoption stuff gets complicated. Both requests require applications and documentation, and I can tell you now, they are highly unlikely to waive any of the paperwork. Not when adoption records are involved. Sensitive stuff, you know.”
“I’d still like to try.”
The clerk leaned down next to his desk and began to pull out the catalog of forms she’d need to fill out to get the request started.
“Just one date,” he said as he handed the pile over. “Let me take you to my high school reunion. All you have to do is that, whatever you’re doing right now. Just show up and stand next to me and do that.”
“What, feel uncomfortable?” she said. “I’m flattered, but no. Unless my boyfriend can come, too.”
The clerk smiled. “Just promise me you won’t hold it against me if none of this works out,” he said. “We have to be really careful with the mutual consent laws.”
“The what-whats?”
“Oh boy,” he said. “Let me see if our adoption liaison is free. Irene. She can explain all of it and lull you to sleep in the meantime.”
And explain she did. Lydia sat in her office down a tiled hallway, next to a crusty old drinking fountain, and listened as Irene—a big, compassionate woman in a loose flower blouse and polyester pants—explained in exhausting detail the state’s adoption laws, the required documentation, the court filings that are part of the final steps. When it was Lydia’s turn to speak, she told Irene all about Joey’s suicide, and Joey’s bequeathal, and her desire to trace his foster family, and—making her case here—that she wanted access to his records largely so that she could let Mrs. Molina know that her child had killed himself. Irene nodded along and seemed moved by Lydia’s story, even somewhat alarmed.
“You don’t have much of a chance,” she said, “legally speaking. But I can help you fill out the application and see if there’s anything we can do on this end to get you closer. If your application is approved, we’ll pass you up the chain.”
“There’s a chain?” Lydia said. “You mean this isn’t the end?”
“You’ll have to file an affidavit with the court and a judge will determine whether Joseph’s records can be unsealed. And it has to be by mutual consent.”