Elle and Dusty and Roland fish from the dock at Pelican Beach. Dusty drops his line into shallow water and catches a small suckerfish, which Elle makes him throw back. First, though, he stoops down and pets the fish. “Good-bye, sucker,” he says. The words come out perfectly.
Elle and Roland look at each other and laugh. Elle can’t remember when they last laughed at the same time for the same reason.
In the summer there are wildfires in the desert. The sky rains ashes.
The heat in the grocery store parking lot is brutal, but inside, the store is an oasis — cool and clean as a hospital, with wide aisles and fluorescent lights and waxy green-and-white checkered floors. Elle lets Dusty push the cart. He reads the grocery list aloud and she picks items off the shelves. This is good practice for him. He can pronounce all the words, but he still has trouble controlling his volume and sometimes sounds like a broadcaster.
“PANCAKE MIX!” “APPLESAUCE!”
“That’s good, honey,” Elle says, ignoring the people who stare.
In the frozen food section, Dusty sneaks a box of ice cream sandwiches into the cart. Elle pretends not to notice. This is a game they play every week.
They find the shortest checkout line and Dusty arranges their groceries on the conveyor while Elle sorts her coupons. The cashier calls out the total, Elle writes a check, and the cashier feeds it into her computer. After a few seconds, a message appears on the screen. The cashier calls for her manager, a man so young he still has pimples.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says to Elle. “We’ll need another form of payment.”
Elle pulls out a card.
“Not an ATM card,” he says. “Cash or credit.”
Elle fishes through her purse. She takes out her credit card and tries swiping it. The card is declined.
“What would you like to do?” the manager asks. “Is there someone you can call?” His voice sounds like it might break if he’s forced to keep talking.
Glorified bag boy, Elle thinks. “I’d like to talk to your supervisor,” she says.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m the only manager on duty. We can hold your items for a few minutes if you like.”
People are lining up. The conveyor is already loaded with the next person’s groceries.
Dusty is at the end of the counter, rattling through the bags in their cart. He digs out his box of ice cream sandwiches. “I’ll put these back,” he offers.
“It’s okay, honey,” Elle says. “It’s not your fault. Put your ice cream down and let’s go.” She grabs his hand and marches him out of the store, leaving their groceries behind.
Outside, the air feels like fire. Ashes have coated the car.
Elle wasn’t allowed to see her parents after they burned. She had to imagine their bodies. The image, stronger than a memory, still sickens and fascinates her. She wonders what her own death will look like. If it’s taking shape in her even now.
She puts her key in the ignition, turns on the windshield wipers, pushes the washer button, and the ashes on the glass turn to mud.
III. Missing
Other Mothers’ Sons
Addie is paying the cashier, not paying attention to her groceries, and the bagger hands them to a young boy who’s loitering at the end of the checkout aisle. “He isn’t mine,” Addie says, though looking at the boy, she realizes he could be. Dark haired, dark eyed. He even dresses like Roland used to, in a collared shirt and corduroy pants. He’s clumsy like Roland, too, and spills one of her bags when he sets it down.
“Uh-oh,” Addie says in the singsong voice she uses with children.
The boy blushes and runs to his mother, who is in line behind Addie. Addie tries smiling at him, her most reassuring smile, but the boy doesn’t smile back. He burrows under his mother’s arm, hiding.
“Do you need a hand with these?” The bagger has repacked her spilled groceries.
“Thanks,” Addie says, still smiling uselessly. “I think I can manage.”
She can’t help talking to them, all the boys who could be Byrd; she can’t help wanting to know them. What do they like to read, what are their favorite subjects in school? Do they play sports? How old are they? When’s their birthday? They give clipped, offhand answers. Sometimes their mothers are gracious and encourage them to talk. Some mothers tilt their heads, sorry for Addie. Some are nervous and possessive, moving closer to their sons, owning them.
Addie takes nothing personally. They’re just acting on instinct, like her.
Dear Byrd,
Say I looked for you. Say I found you. What then? You belong to someone else.
The Internet lists a local group with an acronym that, if you saw it on a license plate, you would read as “trouble.” Or “turble,” the way some people say “terrible.” You wouldn’t think Triangle Region Birthparents Liaison. She calls the number, and a woman picks up on the first ring. Dotty Waters, her voice chirpy and hopeful.
Dotty’s organization—“Tribble,” she pronounces it, like something you’d wipe off a baby’s chin — has had “phenomenal success” connecting parents with their children, “which as you know,” Dotty says, “is not an easy thing to do in this backwards state. In North Carolina, two grown people who want to meet each other can’t.” Dotty started by finding her own daughter, then helped a friend find her child, then decided to open her own voluntary registry.
In the background Addie can hear a television. Every now and then Dotty stops talking to make clucking noises — at a dog or a cat maybe, or a caged bird.
“If you’re ready,” Dotty says, “we’ll get you registered and start to work on your reunion. Let’s start with your son’s date of birth.”
“The fourteenth of September, nineteen eighty-nine,” Addie says. “But I’m not interested in a reunion. I just want to locate him.” She uses that word, “locate,” because it sounds unintrusive, like something one does from a safe distance.
“Oh, sweetie,” Dotty says, deflating. “I’m so sorry. He’s only ten. There’s nothing we can do yet.”
“I’m not trying to meet him. That’s what I’m telling you. I just want to know where he is. I want to know he’s okay.”
“This is only a registry, sweetie. We don’t do investigations.”
“I need an investigator?”
“No. Not yet. There’s nothing an investigator can do until your son turns eighteen. Which is not to say there aren’t people out there willing to take your money. All those guys listed in the yellow pages? Retired cops. Oh, sure, they know a few tricks, but they don’t know a thing about adoption. They’ll be just as lost as you are.” She clucks again and says sharply, “Down!”
Addie checks the yellow pages anyway, out of curiosity, and calls the first investigator listed. He admits that this particular kind of search is outside the scope of his experience, but says he’d like an opportunity to try.
“So how would you go about it?” Addie asks. “Specifically? I mean, you can’t unseal the records.”
“No, ma’am. I would generate a list of candidates using all available information. Then I would use investigative techniques developed over my career to narrow the list. I have a national network of retired law enforcement investigators. I have contacts in every state. If we need to look in Texas, for example, I have contacts.”