I need a place to stay. I need to figure out what I’m going to do. I trudged back toward the bus stop and checked the schedule when I got there, deciding that I should head back downtown, where I knew of a few cheap motels, places I’d stayed with my daughters.
An hour and a half later, I found myself in a small, dingy room with a full bed and a television that the manager told me only had three channels. The walls were covered in dark wood paneling, and the well-worn bedspread was a print of large orange and brown flowers. I’d used a few dollars to buy a ham sandwich and a Snickers bar at the corner gas station, so I sat on the bed and wolfed them down, then drank metallic-tasting water using a smudged glass next to the sink. The room smelled of body odor and mildewed, sour towels, but I was too exhausted to care. All I wanted to do was sleep.
I lay down on top of the covers and stared up at the ceiling, counting the muddy brown spots that stained the white tiles, replaying the events of the day, sorting out everything I’d have to do in the morning. I’d need to call my probation officer and let him know where I was. I’d need to find Gina’s phone number and call her, too. I needed her to tell me that even without my mother’s help, I could get my daughters back.
Natalie
Holding the tattered white box in her hands, Natalie left her mother’s house in a daze and climbed into her car. She had a sister. The sentence felt foreign, so apart from her normal lexicon that she had to keep repeating it in her mind to try to absorb it as the truth. She reached over to the box and pulled out the manila folder that held all the paperwork from her adoption. Flipping through it, she found the page indicating that her unnamed birth mother had relinquished all of her parental rights, both to six-month-old Natalie and to her four-year-old sister, Brooke. Their father was listed as unknown.
“We thought it would be easier for you this way,” her mom had said, just moments ago, when Natalie was still inside. “Your dad and I only wanted what was best for you. The social worker said it was up to us, how much information we gave you. You were only six months old. It wasn’t like you’d remember her.”
“Did you meet her?” Natalie asked, still clutching her lavender blanket. “Did you even think about adopting her, too?”
Her mom stared at Natalie for a moment, then shook her head. “We really only wanted a baby, and were advised that older children tended to have behavioral problems. I didn’t think I could handle something like that. Your father and I thought it would be better for her if she was adopted by someone more experienced. Someone better equipped than us.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Natalie leaned against the kitchen wall, thinking about her mother’s distaste for anything messy, shocked to hear that this predilection had extended to the possible emotional issues of a four-year-old girl. She could have grown up with a sister. She had a sister. Her muscles buzzed; her skin felt too tight for her body. Her mom was silent, her fingers laced together in front of her, waiting for Natalie to continue. When she did, it was with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I can be here right now.”
“Sweetie, please,” her mother said, reaching out and touching Natalie’s hand.
Natalie jerked away. “I need some time to think. I’ll call you.” She grabbed her purse and headed out the door. She knew what her mother had told her was the truth—her parents had only done what they always did—what seemed best for her at the time. In her mother’s mind, Natalie could see how the decision made sense. Chaos upset her, so choosing not to tell Natalie about Brooke likely seemed the right thing to do. Her father tended to go along with whatever kept the peace, whatever kept his wife happy, so he wouldn’t have argued the point.
But then Natalie thought about Brooke, her sister, who was left alone, separated from the only family she had, and Natalie’s heart squeezed inside her chest. She remembered Hailey at that age, only a few years before, Henry just last year. How vulnerable her children were then, with their delicate feelings and fragile, birdlike bones—how they still needed Natalie so much. What had happened to Brooke? Was she adopted, too? Did she wish she could find Natalie? Did she wonder why Natalie never tried to find her?
As she sat in her car in front of her parents’ house after having left her mother inside, Natalie’s stomach ached and her thoughts zipped through her brain so quickly she felt dizzy. She wanted to talk with Kyle, to process everything she’d just learned, but she knew he was still in court and a brief recess wouldn’t be enough time for the kind of detailed conversation she needed to have. This wasn’t the sort of news to break to her husband via text. Instead, she decided the best thing she could do was head home and sort out her next steps.