Handle With Care

  Taffy Lloyd set a business card down on the bar in front of me. 'What's best for Willow,' she said, 'is for this lawsuit not to happen.' With a nod, she swung her leopard coat over her shoulder and walked out the door, leaving behind most of her martini.

  I picked up the card and traced my finger over the raised black lettering: Taffy Lloyd, Legal Investigator

  Booker, Hood & Coates I drove. I drove routes I took in my police cruiser, great figure eights that looped closer and closer to the center of Bankton. I watched falling stars and drove where I thought they'd landed. I drove until I could barely keep my eyes open, until it was after midnight.

  I let myself into the house on a whisper and, in the dark, fumbled my way into the laundry room to get the sheets and pillowcase for the couch. Suddenly, I was exhausted, so tired I couldn't even stand. I sank down on the sofa and buried my face in my hands.

  What I couldn't understand was how this had gone so far, so fast. One minute I was storming out of the lawyer's office; the next, Charlotte had set up another appointment. I couldn't forbid her to do that - but to be honest, I had never figured she'd carry through with a lawsuit. Charlotte wasn't the type to take a risk. But that's where I'd messed up: This wasn't about Charlotte, in her mind. This was about you.

  'Daddy?'

  I looked up to find you standing in front of me, your bare feet white as a ghost's. 'What are you doing up?' I said. 'It's the middle of the night.'

  'I got thirsty.'

  I walked into the kitchen, with you padding along behind me. You were favoring your right leg - although another father might simply have wondered if his daughter was still half asleep, I was thinking of microfractures and hip displacements. I poured you a glass of water from the tap and leaned against the counter as you drank it. 'Okay,' I said, hoisting you into my arms, because I couldn't bear to watch you navigate the stairs. 'It's way past your bedtime.'

  Your arms laced around my neck. 'Daddy, how come you don't sleep in your bed anymore?'

  I paused, halfway up the steps. 'I like the couch. It's more comfortable.'

  I crept into your bedroom, careful not to disturb Amelia, who was softly snoring in the bed beside yours. I tucked you under the covers. 'I bet if I wasn't like this,' you said, 'if my bones weren't all messed up - you'd still be sleeping upstairs.'

  In the dark, I could see the shine of your eyes, the apple curve of your cheek. I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. 'Go to sleep,' I said. 'It's too late to talk about this.'

  Suddenly, just like that, as if someone had spliced a future frame into a movie, I could see who you would become when you grew up. That stubborn resolve, the quiet acceptance of someone resigned to fighting an uphill battle - well, the person you resembled most at that moment was your mother.

  Instead of going downstairs, I slipped into the master bedroom. Charlotte was sleeping on her right side, facing the empty side of the bed. I sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress, trying not to move it as I stretched out on top of the covers. I rolled onto my side, so that I was mirroring Charlotte.

  Being here, in my own bed, with my own wife, felt inevitable and uncomfortable at the same time - like getting to the end of a jigsaw puzzle and forcing the last piece into place, even though the edges don't match up the way they ought to. I stared at Charlotte's hand, curled into a fist against the covers, as if she was still ready to come up swinging even when she was unconscious. When I touched the edge of her wrist, her fingers opened like a rose. When I glanced up, I found her staring at me. 'Am I dreaming?' she whispered.

  'Yes,' I said, and her hand closed around mine.

  I watched Charlotte as she drifted back to sleep, trying to pinpoint the divide between when she was here with me and when she was spirited away, but it happened too quickly for me to measure. Gently I slipped my hand from hers. I hoped, for a moment when she woke up, she'd remember that I'd been here. I hoped that it would make up for what I was about to do.

  There was a guy in the department whose wife had had breast cancer a few years ago. In solidarity, a bunch of us had shaved our heads when she went through chemo; we all did what we could to support George through his personal hell. And then his wife recovered, and everyone celebrated, and a week later, she told him she wanted a divorce. At the time, I thought it was the most callous thing a woman could possibly do: ditch the guy who's stood beside you through thick and thin. But now, I was starting to see that what looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

  I didn't like being here - it was like having a bad flashback. Reaching out for a napkin underneath a pitcher in the center of the massive polished table, I mopped at my forehead. What I really wanted to do was admit that this was a mistake and run. Jump out the window, maybe.

  But before I could act on that sane thought, the door opened. In walked a man with prematurely silver hair - had I not noticed that the first time around? - followed by a blond woman wearing stylish glasses and a suit buttoned nearly to the throat. My jaw dropped; Taffy Lloyd cleaned up remarkably well. I nodded silently at her, and then at Guy Booker - the lawyer who'd made a fool out of me in this very office months ago. 'I came to ask you what I can do,' I said.

  Booker looked at his investigator. 'I'm not sure I understand what that means, Lieutenant O'Keefe . . .'

  'It means,' I said, 'I'm on your side now.'

  Marin

  W

  hat do you say to the mother you've never met?

  Since Maisie had contacted me saying she had a valid address for my birth mother, I had drafted hundreds of letters. That was the way it worked: even though Maisie apparently had located my birth mother, I wasn't allowed to contact her directly. Instead, I was supposed to write a letter to my mother and mail it to Maisie, who would play middleman. She'd contact my mother and say she had a very important personal matter to discuss and would leave a phone number. Presumably, when my birth mother heard this, she would know what the personal matter was and would call in. Once Maisie verified that the woman was indeed my birth mother, she'd either read aloud or mail the letter I'd written.

  Maisie had sent me a list of guidelines, which were supposed to help me write the letter: This is your introduction to the birth parent for whom you have been searching. This person is virtually a stranger to you, so your letter will serve as a first impression. In order to not overwhelm your birth parent, it is recommended that your letter be no more than two pages. As long as your handwriting is legible, it is more appreciated to receive a handwritten letter, since that gives a sense of your personality to the recipient.

  You should decide whether you want this first contact to be nonidentifying. If you want to use your name, please understand this makes it possible for the other party to locate you. You may want to wait until you get to know the other party before releasing your address or phone number.

  The letter should contain general information about you - age, education, occupation, talents or hobbies, marital status, and whether or not you have children. Including photographs of yourself and your family is much preferred. You may wish to explain why you are searching for your birth parent at this time.

  If your background includes any difficult information, this is not the time to share it. Negative adoption information - such as having been placed with an abusive family - is not appropriate. It's better to share this information later, once a relationship has developed. Many birth parents report feelings of guilt over the decision to give a child up for adoption and fear that their decision, which was made for your benefit, might not have turned out as well as they'd wished. If negative information is shared at the outset, that information may overshadow all positive aspects of developing a rapport with you in the future.

  If you feel grateful to your birth parent for the decision she made, you may briefly share this. If you desire information about family medical
history, you may mention this. You may want to consider waiting to ask about the birth father. This may be a painful subject at first.

  To reassure the birth parent that you want a mutually beneficial relationship, you may include a statement that you'd like to phone or meet but will respect her need for time to determine her comfort level regarding this.

  I had read Maisie's guidelines so often I could practically recite them verbatim. It seemed to me that the really instructive information was missing. How much do you share to illustrate what you're really like but not to turn someone off? If I told her I was a Democrat, for instance, and she turned out to be a Republican, would she throw my letter in the trash? Should I mention how I'd marched to raise funds for AIDS research and that I advocated same-sex marriage? And this didn't even take into account the decision I had to make when it came to putting my letter down in black and white. I wanted to send a card - it felt like I was trying harder, as opposed to just a scribbled missive on a legal pad. But the cards I had spotlighted images as different as Picasso, Mary Engelbreit, and Mapplethorpe. The Picasso seemed too common; the Engelbreit, too Mary Sunshine; but Mapplethorpe - well, what if she hated him on principle? Get over it, Marin, I told myself. There aren't any naked bodies on the card; it's a damn flower.

  Now all I had to do was come up with the content to go inside.

  Briony pushed open the door to my office, and I hastily stuffed my notes into a folder. Maybe it wasn't entirely PC to use my work time to feed my personal obsession, but the more involved I became with the O'Keefe case, the harder it was to put my birth mother out of my mind. Silly as it sounded, approaching her made me feel like I was saving my soul. If I had to represent a woman who wished she'd gotten rid of her child, then the least I could do was find my own mother and praise her for thinking differently.

  The secretary tossed a manila envelope onto my desk. 'Delivery from the devil,' she said, and I glanced down to see the return address: Booker, Hood & Coates.

  I ripped it open and read the amended list of interrogatories.

  'You've got to be kidding,' I murmured, and stood up to get my coat. It was time to make a house call to Charlotte O'Keefe.

  A girl with blue hair answered the door, and I stared at her for a full five seconds before I recognized Charlotte's older daughter, Amelia. 'Whatever you're selling,' she said, 'we don't need it.'

  'Amelia, right?' I forced a smile. 'I'm Marin Gates. Your mom's lawyer.'

  She scrutinized me. 'Whatever. She's not here right now. She left me to babysit.'

  From inside the house: 'I'm not a baby!'

  Amelia flicked her eyes toward me again. 'What I meant to say is that she left me to invalidsit.'

  Suddenly your face poked around the doorframe. 'Hi,' you said, and you smiled. You were missing a tooth in front.

  I thought: The jury will love you.

  Then I hated myself for thinking that.

  'Did you want to leave a message?' Amelia asked.

  Well, I couldn't very well tell her that her father had become a defense witness. 'I was hoping to talk to your mother in person.'

  Amelia shrugged. 'We're not supposed to let in strangers.'

  'She's not a stranger,' you said, and you reached out and pulled me over the threshold.

  I didn't have a lot of experience with kids, and at the rate I was going, I might never, but there was something about your hand in mine, soft as a rabbit's foot and maybe just as lucky. I let myself be led to the couch in the living room and looked around at the machine-made Oriental rug, the dusty face of the television, the battered cardboard boxes of games stacked high on the fireplace hearth. Monopoly was in full swing from the looks of it; there was a board in play set on the coffee table in front of the couch. 'You can take over for me,' Amelia said, her arms folded. 'I'm more of a communist than a capitalist anyway.'

  She vanished up the stairs, leaving me staring down at the game board. 'Did you know which street gets landed on the most?' you asked.

  'Um.' I sat down. 'Shouldn't they all be equal?'

  'Not when you figure in the Get Out of Jail cards and stuff like that. It's Illinois.'

  I glanced down. You had built three hotels on Illinois Avenue.

  And Amelia had left me with sixty dollars.

  'How did you know that?' I asked.

  'I read. And I like to know things no one else does.'

  I bet there was a great deal you knew that none of us did, or ever would. It was a little disconcerting to be sitting with an almost-six-year-old whose vocabulary probably rivaled mine. 'So tell me something I don't know,' I said.

  'Dr Seuss invented the word nerd.'

  I laughed out loud. 'Really?'

  You nodded. 'In If I Ran the Zoo. Which isn't as good as Green Eggs and Ham. Which is for babies, anyway,' you said. 'I like Harper Lee better.'

  'Harper Lee?' I repeated.

  'Yeah. Haven't you ever read To Kill a Mockingbird ?'

  'Sure. I just can't believe you have.' This was the first conversation I'd really had with the little girl who was the eye in the storm of this lawsuit, and I realized something remarkable: I liked you. I liked you a lot. You were genuine and funny and smart, and maybe your bones broke every now and then. I liked you for dismissing your condition as the least important part of you - nearly as much as I disliked your mother for highlighting it.

  'So, anyway, it was Amelia's turn. Which means you get to roll,' you said.

  I glanced down at the board. 'You know what? I hate Monopoly.' I did, truly. I had bad flashbacks from my childhood of a cousin who embezzled when he was the banker, of games that lasted four nights in a row.

  'You want to play something else?'

  Turning to the hearth again, and its toy detritus, I spied a dollhouse. It was a miniature of your home, with its black shutters and bright red door; there were even flowering shrubs for landscaping and long woven tongues of carpet. 'Wow,' I said, touching the shingles reverently. 'This is amazing.'

  'My dad made it.'

  I lifted the house up on its platform and settled it on top of the Monopoly board. 'I used to have a dollhouse.'

  It had been my favorite toy. I remembered tufted red velvet chairs in the miniature living room, and an old-time piano that played music when I turned its crank. A claw-footed tub, and candy-striped wallpaper. It looked completely Victorian, nothing like the modern house where I had grown up; yet I used to pretend, as I organized the beds and sofas and kitchen furniture, that this was an alternate universe, the home where I might have lived if I hadn't been given away.

  'Look at this,' you said, and you showed me how the little porcelain toilet seat lifted up. I wondered if dollhouse men forgot to put it back down, too.

  In the refrigerator were little wooden steaks and milk bottles, and a tiny carton of eggs lined up like seed pearls. I raised the hinge of a woven basket to find two splinters of knitting needles and a ball of yarn.

  'This is where the sisters live,' you said, and you set mattresses onto the twin brass bed frames in one upstairs room. 'And this is where their mom sleeps.' Next door, on the big bed, you placed two pillows and a crazy quilt the size of my palm. Then you took another blanket and pillow, and made up a bed on the pink satin couch in the parlor. 'And this,' you said, 'is for the daddy.'

  Oh my God, I thought. How they've screwed you up.

  Suddenly the front door opened and Charlotte entered, a winter chill caught in the folds of her coat. She was carrying groceries in recyclable green bags draped over her arms. 'Oh, that's your car,' she said, dumping the food onto the floor. 'Amelia!' she called upstairs. 'I'm home!'

  'Yay,' Amelia's voice drifted down, devoid of enthusiasm.

  Maybe it wasn't just you they were destroying.

  Charlotte leaned down and kissed your forehead. 'How you doing, sweet pea? You're playing with the dollhouse. I haven't seen you take that out in ages . . .'

  'We have to talk,' I said, getting to my feet.

  'Okay.' Char
lotte bent to gather some of the grocery bags; I did the same and followed her into the kitchen. She began to unpack: orange juice, milk, broccoli. Macaroni and cheese, dishwashing detergent, Ziploc bags.

  Bounty. Joy. Life: brands that were a recipe for existence.

  'Guy Booker's added a witness for the defense,' I said. 'Your husband.'

  Charlotte was holding a jar of pickles one moment, and the next, it had shattered all over the floor. 'What did you say?'

  'Sean's testifying against you,' I said flatly.

  'He can't do that, can he?'

  'Well, once he asked to be released from the lawsuit--'

  'He did what ?'

  The smell of vinegar rose; brine pooled on the tile floor. 'Charlotte,' I said, stunned. 'He told me he talked to you first.'

  'He hasn't talked to me in weeks. How could he? How could he do this to us?'

  You came into the kitchen then. 'Did something break?'

  Charlotte got down on her hands and knees and began to gather the pieces of glass. 'Stay out of the kitchen, Willow.' I reached for the new roll of paper toweling just as Charlotte let out a sharp cry; a shard of glass had pierced her finger.

  It was bleeding. Your eyes went wide, and I hustled you toward the living room again. 'Go get your mom a Band-Aid,' I said.

  By the time I got back to the kitchen, Charlotte was clutching her bloody hand against her shirt. 'Marin,' she said, staring up at me. 'What am I supposed to do?'

  It was probably a new experience for you, going to the hospital when you weren't the one who was hurt. But it became clear very quickly that your mother's cut had gone too deep, that a Band-Aid alone wasn't going to be the answer. I drove her to the ER, with you and Amelia sitting in the back of the car, your feet propped up on cardboard boxes full of legal folders. I waited while a doctor sewed two stitches into the tip of Charlotte's ring finger, as you sat beside her and held her good hand tight. I offered to stop at the pharmacy to fill the prescription for Tylenol plus codeine, but Charlotte said they still had plenty of painkillers at home left from your last break.