“Edward, Bonnie here is the birth mother,” said Sarah.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, nodding toward her but failing to summon the same energy he had had for me. I wondered if being mistaken twice now for a possible mother portended something not so sparkling for my future.
“Care for some more coffee?” asked Suzanne. She lifted the pot and toasted his cup with it.
“No, thanks,” he said. And then we all chatted some more. Edward was a researcher — no longer associated with a university. He did research on eye cancer.
“How did you get interested in eyes?” asked Roberta brightly.
“Well,” said Edward, seated on the loveseat with Sarah. He gave a look of innocent, empirical glee. “At first I was interested in breasts.”
“How very unusual,” said Roberta.
I let out a small amused hoot — a mistake.
Bonnie simply stared at him.
“But there is a kind of eye cancer in mice that benefits greatly from a chemical that’s in grapes and red wine, actually — it’s called resveratrol — and I got interested in that. Of course no big pharmaceutical company is interested because it’s a natural product and not patentable, and the big companies control the research grants—”
“But you have some outside interest,” said Roberta to the rescue. These birth mothers wanted rich, rich, rich. They wanted to know their babies would have all the things they hadn’t. And the babies would. They were cute; they would be fine. The person who most needed adopting, it seemed to me, was Bonnie.
“Oh, yes. There’s some interest,” he added quickly. He could take a lawyer’s cues as quickly as Sarah. “But it’s not like I’ve invented a killer robot or anything as glamorous as that.” There was silence, so he continued. “Unfortunately, artificial intelligence is very artificial. In my opinion.”
Sarah piped up awkwardly. “Here we are with my professional kitchen and his lab and despite all that chemistry our bodies could never get anything cooked up between us.” There it was again: adopted kid as default kid. In nervous ingratiation Sarah had crossed some line — of privacy and sensitivity, perhaps even of honesty — though I didn’t know it then. Edward gave her a sharp look. Nonetheless, Sarah continued. “Not a green thumb in the house,” she said. “Even invasive species won’t grow in my garden. I have the shyest vinca in the world.”
What did it mean to have the shyest vinca in the world? It seemed sad but perhaps necessary, like the retirement of an aged ballerina.
Bonnie began to shift in her seat and even her expressionlessness began to recede into the distance so that yet greater expressionlessness could take its place.
“Bonnie, do you have any questions?”
Then the sudden attention to her, which she had earlier seemed to want, startled her. Her face went red with heat. Perhaps there was in fact a chemical found in nature that could prevent eye cancer, cancer of the tear ducts, though I doubted it. I could see her eyes start to redden as well, and soon bright water was shining across them like sunlight with no sun. Her hands moved slowly to her hair. The full force of what she was doing was slowly coming to her once again.
“I am only a hospital aide right now.” She did not say the word bedpan, but she didn’t have to. “I would like to go back to school.”
“We can help you with that,” said Sarah.
“Uh, actually, that’s not allowed in this state,” said Roberta. “But certain smaller gifts might be.”
“I mean, we could help — in other ways. Advice and things.” Sarah was both pathetic and game. You had to hand it to her.
“I just want the best for my little girl,” Bonnie said firmly. “Will you raise her Catholic?”
“Of course,” lied Sarah, who leaned in generously to pat Bonnie’s hand. Because I was closer, I threw my arms around Bonnie. I don’t know what came over me. But it seemed we all were a team. A team of rescuers and destroyers both, and I was in on it and had to do my part. Bonnie briefly went to bury her face in my shoulder, then pulled herself together and sat back up. Sarah gave us an astonished look.
“Well, Bonnie,” said Roberta, “shall you and I go back into my office and discuss things?”
“Yes,” said Bonnie. They got up and closed the inner door behind them, leaving the three of us standing with Suzanne, who added, “I’ve seen a lot of heavy stuff in this room,” and then busied herself with file folders.
“If this wallpaper could speak,” said Edward. He studied it quizzically. “Or maybe it already can.”
“This wallpaper wouldn’t speak,” Suzanne said, glancing up at it. “It would bite.”
We sat back down and flipped through magazines. Adoption Choice, The Adopted Child, and Sports Illustrated. One for the dads. I looked at an article in Time about baby boomers and their lonely work habits and aging pets.
In ten minutes Roberta and Bonnie reemerged. “I have some wonderful news!” said Roberta. “Bonnie has decided she would like you to be the parents of her baby.”
This ceremony of approval was a charade — everything had been decided before we got here — and as with all charades it was wanly ebullient, necessary, and thin.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Sarah, and she rushed forward and put her arms around Bonnie. This threw Bonnie off balance a little, and she grabbed the back of the sofa to steady herself. Edward as well stepped forward and gave Bonnie a hug, to which she responded stiffly. But then Bonnie turned to me, and by this time she may have warmed to the idea of hugging, or to the idea of me, because she stepped forward and threw herself upon me again, her silent tears dampening my shoulder. Her back heaved slightly — just once — and then she stood straight.
“Well, we’ll be in touch, I suppose,” said Bonnie hopefully, while her face wore a look of devastation and dashed vanity. Her moment in the spotlight was coming to a close — the spotlight itself was dimming and she was slowly stepping backwards.
“The annual Christmas card,” said Sarah. “I’ll send you one every Christmas with all the news.”
“And pictures,” said Bonnie in a low, stern voice she hadn’t spoken in before. “I want pictures of her.”
Sarah said, “Of course. I’ll send photos.” She gave Bonnie a final hug and murmured loudly enough for us to hear, “Be happy.”
“Yes,” said Bonnie tonelessly. She turned toward me one last time and I then, too, gave her a final hug. Bonnie whispered in my ear, “You be happy.”
And then she seemed to be disappearing like an apparition. Through the darkening afternoon window one could hear the scrape of a plow outside in the street, but inside was where it was snowing. It was snowing in here in this room and it was all piled up around Bonnie, falling on her head, piled up on her shoulders. Of course it was only a bluff, the large, imposing dirigible of her, and now she had just spluttered to nothing. She was something flat and far and stuck to the wall. I wanted to take her with me, to go to her and lead her out with us. Where would she go? What home could she possibly have? Suddenly we were all going our separate ways. We were to meet Roberta tomorrow at the foster home and there meet the child. I waved to Bonnie, a kind of queen’s wave I hoped she’d construe as friendship, but no movement came from her at all.
A kind of stunned trio, Sarah, Edward, and I stepped outside into this town of … what? A tundra of closing mills, pro ball, anxious Catholicism. The late-afternoon air of our exhalations hung in brief clouds before us. The thought balloon of my own breath said, How have I found myself here? It was not a theological question. It was one of transportation and neurology.