The following Monday I went back to the gas station.
The district manager had left a note about attendance.
It was folded under the cash drawer.
I signed that I'd received it.
My manager, Luis, looked embarrassed.
“I tried,” he said.
“I know.”
He offered me the early shift for the rest of the week so I could leave by noon.
I took it.
I needed the hours.
I also needed time to ask questions.
Ellen called me on my lunch break.
She had contacted a Louisiana attorney who handled adoption record requests.
“Her name is Denise Carter,” she said. “She's not promising she can open every file.”
“Good,” I said. “I don't trust promises today.”
Ellen laughed softly.
It was the first time I'd heard her laugh.
It sounded nothing like mine.
I was surprised by how pleased I felt about that.
A daughter didn't have to be a copy of her mother.
We arranged a video call with Denise for the following afternoon.
I had never used one for business.
Ellen came over with her laptop and a small plastic stand.
She set it on my kitchen table.
I wiped the screen twice with a dish towel before she gently told me it was clean.
Denise appeared in a small square, with law books behind her.
She explained that our options depended on the county, the type of adoption order, and whether the original birth certificate had been sealed.
Ellen already had her amended certificate and a copy of the adoption decree given to her by her parents.
The decree listed Walter and Miriam Rountree as her adoptive parents.
It did not identify her birth mother.
“Do you have any paperwork from the birth hospital?” Denise asked me.
“Only what Mama said.”
“Do you know the facility name?”
“Aunt Lydia called it St. Anne's.”
Denise typed something.
“The original hospital closed years ago. Some records may have been transferred, but retention rules vary. We should not assume those records still exist.”
I had wanted a file that could tell me what happened in black ink.
Instead there were missing records and requests that might take months.
“What about the signature?” I asked.
“We can examine what's available,” Denise said. “But a finding about an old consent form is not something I can make from a family letter.”
Ellen squeezed my hand under the table.
Denise gave us a list of steps.
Ellen could ask the court about accessing her original birth records through the proper process.
We could collect my hospital information and request any surviving records.
We could also use an accredited DNA test for direct comparison if we wanted stronger confirmation of our biological relationship.
“Do we need that?” I asked after the call.
Ellen looked at me carefully.
“I would like to know beyond any question.”
“So would I.”
We made appointments at a testing center that could arrange identity-verified samples.
It wasn't free.
Ellen offered to pay her part.
I paid mine from the little savings account I kept for car repairs.
She didn't argue.
I was grateful.
There was something important about making my own decision this time.
While we waited for the test, I went through Mama's closet.
Ellen asked whether I wanted help.
“Not yet,” I said.
I kept the dresses I knew I'd never wear folded on the bed.
In a shoebox under the nightstand I found birthday cards with no addresses.
There were fifty-three.
Some were tiny cards meant for children.
Others had flowers or birds on them.
A few were plain stationery.
Mama had written a name inside each one.
Ellen Rose.
I sat on the floor and counted again.
The earliest card said, You're one today. God watch over you.
The last said, I hope your family is well.
None was stamped.
None was mailed.
Mama had known my child was alive every birthday I stood in the memorial garden.
I put the cards in order across the bed.
I couldn't decide whether they showed love or cowardice.
Maybe both.
Then I found a folded paper clipped to the oldest card.
It was a note in Aunt Lydia's handwriting.
Evelyn, this cannot go on. Ona keeps asking for the grave certificate. You promised to tell her when she was older.
The paper was dated four years after the birth.
Mama had crossed out one sentence so fiercely the pen tore through the page.
I held it toward the window.
I couldn't read the words beneath.
I didn't try to invent them.
Instead I called June.
She had been close to Aunt Lydia in her later years.
“Did Lydia ever talk to you about the baby?” I asked.
June was quiet.
“I heard whispers,” she said. “I thought they meant you had a child placed for adoption. Nobody said you'd been told she died.”
My throat tightened.
“Why didn't you ask me?”
“Doll, I was a child then. By the time I grew up, your mother made it clear the subject was closed.”
I wanted to accuse her.
But June hadn't been the grown woman beside my hospital bed.
“Do you have any of Lydia's papers?”
“Maybe. Her church bulletins and receipts are in a box in my garage. I'll look.”
The following afternoon June brought a cardboard carton smelling of dust.
We sorted envelopes on the living-room floor.
There were old grocery lists, church programs, utility statements, and letters from relatives I barely remembered.
At the bottom was a small address book.
Aunt Lydia had written St. Anne's next to a telephone number.
Under it was another name.
Mr. Franklin, family services.
Ellen photographed the page for Denise.
I stared at the letters.
There had been a real person arranging whatever happened to my daughter.
Not only Mama.
Not only Aunt Lydia.
A man with an office and a telephone number.
I was angry with him even though I didn't know whether he had followed the rules of his time or broken them.
That night Ellen called from her home near San Antonio.
She'd told her husband everything.
Paul wanted to come meet me.
I listened while she described him.
He repaired commercial heating systems before retiring.
He made excellent biscuits but forgot to close every cabinet door.
They had been married thirty-one years.
She sounded proud of him.
I said I would like to meet him, but not yet.
Then Ellen asked if she could read me one of the cards she'd kept from Miriam.
It was about her fifth birthday.
Miriam had written that Ellen made every ordinary day seem like a holiday.
I closed my eyes and imagined a little girl in paper party hats.
“Were you happy?” I asked again.
“I had good years and hard ones,” she said. “But I was loved.”
I went to bed with that answer.
Two days later Denise called with an update.
The court had acknowledged Ellen's inquiry.
No records had been released.
There were steps still to complete.
I thanked her for not turning the paperwork into a miracle.
When I hung up, I moved the unopened birthday cards into a clean box.
I wrote ELLEN across the lid.
I wasn't ready to show her every card.
But I would not bury them in another closet.
Before June brought the box from Lydia's garage, I had gone through my own old address book.
The cover was cracked blue vinyl.
Roy used to tease me that it held the telephone number of every person in East Texas.
Some numbers were disconnected now.
Some belonged to people who had died.
I found the name of a woman who had worked as a nurse near Aunt Lydia's town in the seventies.
Her name was Betty Caldwell.
I hadn't spoken to her in forty years.
I gave Denise the information rather than calling Betty and demanding memories from half a century ago.
Denise said she'd check whether the woman was still alive and whether contacting her would be appropriate.
A few days later she reported that Betty had moved to be near her children.
She had not worked in the maternity ward at the time of Ellen's birth.
She remembered the hospital building but nothing about my case.
I thanked her for trying.
The disappointment felt almost silly.
I'd allowed myself to hope an old acquaintance would remember something that explained everything.
But why would she?
The day Ellen was born had shaped my entire life.
To most people at the hospital, it was simply another day at work.
That evening I spoke with June about what we both remembered of our mothers.
June recalled Aunt Lydia's strict rules for visitors.
She said Lydia had always been worried about what neighbors would think.
I remembered the curtains staying closed during my pregnancy.
I remembered the old sewing machine by the back door.
I remembered asking to write to Danny and being told it would cause trouble.
June said she was sorry.
“Don't apologize for being little then,” I told her.
“I was older than you when Lydia died,” she replied. “I still didn't ask enough.”
“That makes two of us.”
We laughed weakly.
June brought over photographs of Aunt Lydia's house.
One showed a white porch swing.
I remembered sitting there with a bowl of peaches balanced on my belly.
I had been so hungry that summer.
Aunt Lydia would cut up peaches and sprinkle them with sugar.
I told Ellen about it the next day.
She wanted to know whether I still liked peaches.
“Very much.”
“Me too. Especially fresh ones.”
Then she told me she hated the texture of cooked peaches.
I laughed.
“You can have fresh ones, and I'll have pie.”
It was such a small discovery.
We had different tastes.
We had different lives.
Nobody was asking us to pretend otherwise.
I also showed her the list of questions I'd written down.
She read it carefully.
Then she added one question of her own.
What did Ona want for her child before she was born?
I stared at the words.
I had always imagined a little bed near the kitchen window.
I wanted to teach her songs and give her a blue ribbon for her hair.
I had thought about names and birthday cakes.
I'd never imagined a perfect life.
Only a life where I could try.
Ellen touched my arm.
“You don't have to answer now.”
I took the pencil from her.
I wrote under the question: I wanted to be there.
She read it without speaking.
Then she put her hand over mine.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: A LETTER FROM THE ROUNTREES MADE ME QUESTION WHO HAD KNOWN THE TRUTH AND WHO HAD BEEN AFRAID
THE WOMAN IN THE BACK PEW WALKED TOWARD ME WHILE MY MOTHER WAITED TO BE BURIED
Part 4 of 12
