She’s unblinking again. “Are you sure you’re ready for that? Are you sure you want to face that monster?”
I nod, more to myself than anything. “I need to. I have a gut feeling that he’s my only hope of finding my birth parents.”
“Where is he?” she asks hesitantly. She already knows I know or I wouldn’t be here.
“Prison. In Springfield, on drug charges. I’ve been keeping tabs on him. It’s been easy, he’s usually incarcerated.”
“Oh. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I shrug. “Yeah, I wasn’t surprised either. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen.” A few years ago I read the transcripts of the trial that convicted he and his wife of my abuse and neglect. Decent humans don’t do that to a little girl.
“You’ll need to get him to add you to his visitation list and make an appointment to set up a visitation time,” she coaches.
“Done. Tomorrow at ten in the morning.”
Her eyes dart to the side. She’s not looking at anything, she’s thinking. “I’ll drive you. I’ll go with you.”
I was praying she would. I don’t want to do this alone. “You’re sure?”
“This is how I begin to make amends,” she says solemnly.
I want to tear my pages out and run away with them like a thief
present
The building is cold. The concrete, the steel, even the fluorescence of the abundant overhead lighting is stark and house an inherent chill. I’m still wearing my coat, scarf, and gloves, and there are goosebumps covering every inch of my skin under all the layers of clothing.
Claudette is holding my hand with her left and fiddling with the clasp on her purse with her right. The fiddling is a passive attempt to speed this along, silently chiding the sluggishness of the process.
“Faith Hepburn,” a guard’s voice booms through the small holding room we’re seated in. It rattles me like two giant hands clutching my shoulders, a stiff jerk forward and back. I look around the room and feel heat light on my cheeks like a beacon exposing my whereabouts.
Claudette hesitates at my new-to-her legal name, but rises first, and I follow her lead.
We walk wordlessly behind the guard through a maze of secured doors before we’re seated in front of a reinforced window with an old school phone receiver on each side. The chair opposing ours is vacant, but only for a moment.
The orange jumpsuit-clad midsection of a body comes into view. He’s moving slowly, indicating physical ailment, stubbornness, or laziness; I guess when I meet his eyes they’ll tell me which. His wrists are cuffed, his fingers interlaced. His hands are rough, knuckles calloused, gnarled by years of mistreatment or hard use, and covered in poorly executed tattoos.
I don’t have the courage to look up at his face, but our eyes lock when he drops laboriously into the chair. And at once, all three become glaringly apparent: physical ailment, stubbornness, and laziness. He also looks like a first rate asshole.
He’s scowling at me with cold eyes. They’re dark like they died years ago. His head is shaved, and his skin is pale, except his cheeks. They’re ruddy but lined with broken capillaries that weave across each other like roads on a map.
We both pick up our phones.
He doesn’t talk.
I clear my throat.
“What do ya want?” His voice cuts like a file and makes me flinch.
I clear my throat again.
Claudette takes the receiver from me. “Mr. Groves, this is Meg Groves, the child you adopted twenty-two years ago. She’d like to ask you a few questions about her birth mother and her adoption.”
His eyes widen before they narrow back into their scowl. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you.” He glances at me before resting back on Claudette. “That little bitch put me in jail.”
Claudette squeezes my hand. It’s both reassurance for me and anger at his choice of words. “Mr. Groves, the circumstances behind your incarceration were no fault of a child. We don’t care to take up too much of your time. Do you remember any details regarding the adoption?”
He grunts, “Nope.”
“You don’t remember anything? Names? Places? Dates?” she presses.
“Nope.” He smiles at me when he says it. When he agreed to the visitation, he didn’t know who I was, but now that he does he’s enjoying denying me.
“What about your wife? Maybe her memory is better than yours?” Claudette asks. She’s trying to remain calm, but I hear impatience driving her questions.
“Doubtful. She ain’t real talkative these days,” he says.
“Why is that?” she asks.
“She’s dead. Died ten years ago,” he says it with no emotion like he’s talking about what he ate for dinner last night, instead of the death of his spouse.
The news is disturbing and quiets Claudette.
“We done here?” He’s done, that much is clear.
“Is there anyone else we can talk to who may have some information? Another family member, perhaps?” It’s Claudette’s last ditch effort to salvage this trip.