Born with Teeth: A Memoir (29 page)

I wanted to be left alone, to think, and to reflect. I wanted to dwell on the past, the birth of my daughter, the years that followed, and what exactly it was that had led me here. I thought of David, of his blue-black hair and his beautiful mouth, of Beth riding with me in the taxi to the hospital, of the very kind young nurse who had let me look at my daughter through the nursery window. My daughter, whose name was Danielle, who lived in Watertown, Massachusetts, and whom I would meet in just a few hours. My mind turned over restlessly, like a colicky child. Then, like the vigilant mother she is, Nature switched off her lamp and put me to sleep.

At five forty-five, defeated and anxious, I rose. I had had very little sleep, but was hyperalert. I steadied myself with a long shower, ordered coffee, and slowly dressed. I had chosen the outfit carefully and hoped that when my daughter first laid
eyes on me she would feel neither threatened nor dismayed by my appearance. So absurd, this business of thinking I needed to look one way or another. I looked like a reasonably attractive, reasonably prosperous, reasonably nice woman in her midforties, I assured myself as I assessed the reflection in the mirror. I wore a white silk blouse with covered buttons over long cream silk pants. My only concession to glamour was the Tiffany pearls and matching earrings that Richard Cushing had given me many years before, which I wore because in the moment that Richard had presented these jewels to me, his own eyes had sparkled like sapphires, and he had said, “Tell me you’ll wear these forever,” and I had promised that I would.

At nine a.m. I was in the lobby of the Charles Hotel on a reconnaissance mission. Where could I situate myself so as to maximize my viewing ability? I decided on a brown leather sofa that sat off to the right as one entered through the revolving doors. The concierge was to my left, and running the length of the far wall was the reception desk. The lobby was long and deep, revolving doors stood in the center, and at the opposite end a staircase rose, leading to the bar and restaurant. I saw that the hotel had laid out coffee and muffins on a sideboard. After I had poured my coffee, I resumed my vigil on the brown leather sofa. It was 9:15 a.m. I knew this was preposterous, three hours before the designated meeting time, that waiting in a state of suspension and acute anticipation for 180 minutes made no sense.

And yet, I waited, and I watched, and I learned something about human nature.

I learned that longing has no reason. The mind switches off, almost willfully, and closets itself in another place, away from the moment of waiting. The focus is absolute, ardent.

A young boy rushed through the doors, carrying a skateboard, which he immediately flipped to the ground and, jumping on top of it, skated off through the lobby. This was my daughter.

An old woman with her Latina aide came through the doors at the other end and made their slow journey to the coffee table. The aide was my daughter.

A handsome middle-aged couple descended the center stairs, and I thought, Oh, she must have gone upstairs to look for me, because the woman was my daughter and the man was her father.

Once, an eight-year-old girl skipped up to me and my heart stopped, because, of course, this was at last my daughter, here she was, so young, but then the little girl leaned forward and snatched an apple from the bowl on the coffee table and, glancing at me mischievously, merrily skipped away.

A young couple, good-looking and laughing, came through the center revolving doors and stood there, as if looking for someone. Something hit my solar plexus when I saw the girl’s dancing brown eyes, and in the moment that I willed myself to rise, the girl suddenly dashed forward and threw her arms around an older woman who was coming down the stairs.

I sat again, carefully. I smoothed my blouse. I fingered my pearls. I waited. Time ticked by with punitive stealth, and I welcomed the punishment.

At twelve o’clock, the Harvard bells rang out. I looked from one set of revolving doors to the other, frantic that I would somehow miss her, that she would sneak a look at me and run out through the side exit, sure that this had been a mistake, disappearing from my life forever.

And then, I saw her, and I knew. A girl in a light brown sundress, carrying a backpack, walking across Harvard Square. Her magnificent long hair tied back with a blue kerchief. I tried to rise, failed. This girl came through the revolving doors and, finding me immediately, smiled. “Kate?” she asked, from a distance away, in that voice new to me, so light, so sweet. She was unmistakably my daughter. Tall and straight she stood, with a
cloud of inky-black curls framing a face that could have been my face, were it not for the deep-brown eyes, her father’s eyes, looking at me with something between curiosity and kindness. I rose to my feet and started toward her, and at the same time she moved toward me, and when we met we simply stood there for a moment and looked at each other, she with a fixed smile on her face, me in open awe, and then we embraced and I whispered into her ear, “I believe I am your biological mother” and she whispered back, “Yes, I believe you are.”

She took my arm and helped me up the stairs, where we found a quiet table in the bar and ordered drinks. She had chamomile tea; I ordered white wine. She told me she had always known she was adopted, but that the documents from Soundex had only just arrived a few weeks before. In fact, she had just arrived home from college and had asked her father if anything had come for her in the mail. Absentmindedly, he had said, “Oh, yes, I think an envelope did come for you—over there, in that pile.” She had found it, filled it out, and her father had offered to put it in the mailbox on his way to work.

“That was good of him,” I said, and Danielle looked down at the drink in her hand. “What about your mother?” I asked.

Danielle shook her head and offered a small, wry smile.

“Mom’s a little shaky about all this. She’s very sensitive to everything, so this, well…” Her voice trailed off, and I finished her thought, saying, “So this, well, it could be extremely unsettling for her. Will she agree to meet me?”

Her face lit up and she answered, “Oh, yes, they’d like to have breakfast with you tomorrow. We’ll come here, there’s a nice brunch buffet in the restaurant.”

Suddenly, I understood that it had been discussed, this meeting, carefully and at length. I imagined the three of them sitting around a kitchen table, a family conclave, negotiating the fine points, alternately spiking into emotion, then dissolving
into tears, and, finally, settling uncomfortably into resolution. Danielle had signed the documents, and so had I, and the International Soundex Reunion Registry said we were a match. The rest was now inevitable.

As I studied her, I marveled at how completely she had bridged the genetic gap. She was a beautiful hybrid, this girl with her wild Sephardic hair, her rich-brown eyes, her chiseled Irish bones and delicate Celtic nose, dusted with freckles. She had a wonderful laugh, genuine and infectious. Periodically, she hooted. This, I suspected, was a trait she had developed growing up. No one in my family hooted. In a moment, she could turn from lively to grave, and this, I knew, she had inherited from her biological father. As the afternoon unfolded, I sensed her strength, her dimension, her courage. I was astounded when she told me that she attended the University of Iowa and had taken her junior year abroad in Ireland.

“My family lives in Iowa, and we go to Ireland all the time!” I cried, but she only nodded and said, a little shyly, “How strange.”

“I know you must be exhausted,” I said, “but there’s something I have to ask you.”

Danielle looked at me with interest. “Yes?”

“I promised your biological father, David Bernstein, that if this day ever came, and if you were so inclined, that we would call him. Do you think that is something you’d like to do?”

Danielle needed no time to consider.

“Yes,” she said decisively, “I would like to do that.”

“Let’s go to my room, then,” I responded. “We’ll have privacy up there.”

David Bernstein was caught off guard, to say the least. He concealed his surprise beneath a veneer of polite wariness, but when I told him where I was, and with whom, his emotional pulse quickened.

“Danielle Gaudette is her name, she is very lovely, and she would like to say hello to you.”

David paused.

“Now?” he asked, incredulous. Twenty years had passed, during which we had never once spoken, and now here it was, that voice that had caused him so much turmoil, so much pain, a voice he was sure he would never hear again, asking if he didn’t want to say hello to his biological daughter.

He measured himself, as he always had, and judged it best to lean into the inevitable. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I would like to speak to her.”

Their conversation was brief, formalities were exchanged, and then, quite unexpectedly, I heard Danielle say, “Well, I could come down to Wilmington sometime and see you, would that be okay?” She laughed softly, then, said good-bye, hung up, and turning to me said, “He sounds nice.”

We sat side by side on the blue-and-white bed, and although I longed to take her hand, I demurred and instead looked into her beautiful, sparkling brown eyes and said, “Yes, he was—he was nice when we were young.” She looked at me expectantly, and looked suddenly so young, that I added, “Tall, dark, and handsome, too.”

The next morning, I watched as their daughter escorted Beverly and Bob Gaudette up the center stairs of the Charles Hotel, where I stood waiting for them on the landing. I went first to Beverly, who pulled me into a fierce embrace and whispered, through tears, “I knew this day would come, I just knew this day would come.” Then we separated, and I greeted Danielle’s father, Bob, who struck me as steady as a rock, and infinitely kind. They were hungry, so we moved into the restaurant. Bob and Danielle excused themselves to go to the buffet, leaving Beverly and me alone. She was Italian, she told me, working-class Italian.

“Manzelli? Is that Italian enough for you?”

I studied her as only an actress would, stealthily, dissecting every word, every glance, every emotional turn. I was surprised to see that she had multiple piercings in her ears, each one filled with a different-colored jewel. Beverly’s green eyes had been carefully and dramatically made up to enhance their beauty, her nose was prominent, and her lips, painted a fuchsia pink, were full and sensual. This was an extremely sensitive woman who wielded great power over her husband and whose children were bound to her by a fierce allegiance. It was very brief, our time alone together, but within those few minutes we were able to get what we needed from each other. I wanted her to approve of my relationship with Danielle and to endorse its future. In turn, she elicited from me the unspoken promise that I would never do anything to take her daughter from her. It is extraordinary what two women, complete strangers to each other, can negotiate over coffee and buttered toast. Within minutes, we had accomplished our respective missions.

Before brunch was over, the Gaudettes had very graciously agreed to my hosting a dinner that evening, to which the entire extended family was invited. We decided on Jimmy’s Harborside, a local seafood restaurant, and it was there, at seven in the evening, that the Manzelli family convened to lay eyes on the woman who had, after twenty years, materialized out of nowhere, claiming to be Danielle’s birth mother. They all knew who I was, of course, but the reality of my actual presence seemed to fill them all with a kind of amorphous horror. Grandmother Manzelli howled like a wounded animal when I was introduced to her, whereupon Danielle immediately went to her and sat in her lap. Beverly wept, cousin Carly wept, Uncle Frankie wept. Only Danielle’s sister Renee and Grandfather Manzelli remained dry eyed and silent. Grandfather Manzelli sat apart, scowling in his seat of honor, regarding the
wine before him with open disdain. It was like the wedding at Cana—no sooner had the wine been consumed, but another bottle appeared, as if by magic. When I reproached the waiter for being a little too easy-handed, he said, “It’s not me, Miss Mulgrew, it’s that guy over there,” he said, and pointed to a table in the corner. That “guy” was a top UPN executive, in town on business, and wanted to impress Captain Janeway with his generosity, as well as showing off to his dinner companion our working camaraderie. I went over, thanked him for his kindness, and when he asked what we were celebrating, I replied, without thinking, “I’ve just met my daughter, after twenty years.” The two network executives looked at me as if I had, in fact, beamed myself in from the Delta Quadrant, but, as businessmen so typically and adroitly do, their expressions betrayed nothing.

That evening, when dinner had come to an end and we had all gathered outside to say our good-byes, I took special care to tell Beverly and Bob that they had raised a magnificent girl, smart and funny and brave.

“And talented!” cried Beverly. “She’s a wonderful writer!”

Danielle lowered her head and said, softly, “Oh, Ma.”

A light rain was falling and there was a fine mist in the air when Danielle and I finally sought each other out to make our farewells. Her parents were already in the car, waiting for her, but they gave me a great gift when they allowed me an opportunity to be alone with my daughter for what might be the last time in a very long time.

I stared into her eyes and said, “I’m afraid I’m shaking. There are so many things I want to tell you, so much I have to say, and so much I want to
hear,
and now there’s no more time.”

Danielle smiled and responded, “Well, I
do
go to school in Iowa City, you know.”

I laughed with her, the sheer coincidence of it, the serendipity.
Then I took her hand and said, “You have two half brothers who would love to meet you, whenever you’re ready. If you feel—”

Danielle interrupted me, nearly shouting, “Oh, yeah, I want to meet those guys! Maybe I’ll come out at the end of the summer.”

Breathless, I asked, “You will come? You will?”

And again, she giggled, uncomfortable, and said, “Sure, if I can bring my boyfriend.”