Swimming Across the Hudson (18 page)

“I'd have liked to make you take one of our tests,” another student said.

This semester had been about change, I told them, and this was another change I'd instituted.

I spoke about the history of adoption. Originally, I explained, closed adoption was the rule. Hospital records were sealed, and the privacy of the birth mother was guaranteed. But in some states the laws were changing. Open adoption was becoming more common. Many children knew their birth parents and were establishing relationships with them.

I placed adoption in context:
Roe v. Wade
and the abortion struggle; delayed childbirth, surrogate motherhood, and the impoverished state of foster care; the children's rights and fatherhood movements, including court cases in which children sued their parents for divorce and fathers returned to claim their biological offspring.

My students weren't interested in this discussion. They preferred to hear me talk about myself, even if I didn't mention my sex life.

I gave them a brief personal history, outlining the Jewish laws my family observed. I sketched a replica on the blackboard of the map my father had drawn me of his ancestral homeland in White Russia. I'd known that I was adopted, but I'd believed I'd come from White Russia too. I'd seen myself as a long-lost cousin.

But then, I told my students, I found out I wasn't born Jewish.

“Were you baptized?” one student asked.

“No. My parents converted me and raised me as a Jew.”

“But did your birth mother baptize you before she gave you up?”

“I don't think so.”

“If you were baptized,” the student said, “then you're Christian.”

“Christianity is about belief,” I said. “Judaism is essentialist.”

“What does that mean?” a student asked.

“It means it's about essences. Either you're Jewish or you're not. It doesn't have anything to do with belief.”

“It's a culture,” another student said.

“Right. But it's also a religion.”

“It's a race,” said another.

“Not exactly.”

“For Hitler's purposes,” the last student said, “you were Jewish if any of your grandparents were. They killed you no matter what you believed.”

“That's true,” I said.

“I'm half Jewish,” said a girl whose mother was Irish and whose father was a Hungarian Jew. I wondered if she knew the rabbis wouldn't agree with her. According to them, you were Jewish or you weren't. If fate had reversed itself—if her father had been Irish and her mother a Hungarian Jew—then she would have been welcomed in any synagogue in the world. How could that possibly have made sense to her? It didn't make sense even to me.

Paul, the adopted student, raised his hand. “I don't think your birth mother had the right to find you.”

“Why not?”

“She violated your privacy.”

I disagreed, I told him. It had been up to me whether to meet my birth mother. Besides, I was happy she found me.

“She had no way of knowing that. She gave you up. She has to live with the consequences.”

“She's lived with the consequences and so have I.”

“I think there should be a law,” Paul said, “to prevent birth parents from tracking their kids down.”

The next day, when school let out for the year, I drove across the Bay Bridge to Susan's apartment. She'd invited me for tea, to celebrate the end of the school year. I'd never been in her apartment before, and I felt like someone whose blindfold has been removed.

I was surprised by how well furnished the place was. Susan had come to San Francisco without plans to stay, yet her apartment looked like a real home. In the living room, where we sat, were a paisley sofa, a wicker rocking chair, a coffee table, a leather lounge chair, and a TV set. A rug was spread across the floor. On the wall above the fireplace hung a ceramic mask.

Susan went into the kitchen and brought back cups, saucers, and a pot of tea. The cups were white, with tea stains on the inside that looked like part of the pattern. Had these cups come with her from Indiana?

“How long are you planning to stay here?” I asked.

“I don't have any plans,” she said coolly.

“You must. You said you've rented this apartment month to month, but look at all the furniture you have here. Did it come with the apartment? Is it yours? This doesn't feel like the home of someone only visiting.”

“I may not be only visiting. I just don't know. Once I met you, I bought furniture and other things. I had my husband send some dishes from home.”

“Who is your husband, anyway? You've hardly said anything about him.”

“I told you who he is. He works in a bank. He was Scottie's father. We're having some trouble right now. That's all I feel like saying.”

“Do you want to work things out?”

“If we can. But it's not always that easy.”

“What's his name?”

“Ben—”

“I'm curious.”

“All right. His name is Frank. But I don't see why it matters.”

“It matters because he's your husband. And because you're my birth mother, and I'm curious about you.”

“But you have to respect my privacy.”

“What about
my
privacy? I spoke about you in class yesterday and one student said you didn't have the right to track me down.”

“Did you agree?”

“No. But he has a point. At the very least, it's hypocritical for you to lecture me about privacy.” I fingered the chipped edge of my teacup. “What about my birth father? You've told me next to nothing about him. And here I am in your apartment for the first time, and it looks like you've been living here for ages. You come bursting into my life, demanding that you meet people, but when it comes to you, you say nothing.”

“Look,” she said, “what happened with your birth father took place a long time ago. When I got pregnant, he disappeared. I don't have very good memories of him. Why should I help you find him?”

“Find him?”

“Isn't that why you want to know who he is?”

It wasn't, I told her. She was more than enough for me to handle.
“I just want to know a little bit about him. It's reasonable for me to be curious, don't you think?”

“Maybe it is. And I might tell you more about him sometime. But I don't feel like talking about it right now.” She flipped over a magazine that had been lying facedown on the coffee table. It was a copy of
The American Spectator
.

“Do you read that?” Was Susan a Republican? I thought of my mother, a member of NOW and the ACLU, who used to have nightmares about Barry Goldwater chasing her through alleys in the middle of the night.

“Sometimes. My husband gave me a subscription. He wants me to learn more about politics. But I'm not interested.”

She pointed to a framed photo on the table. “That's Scottie.” He had a wide-set, open face, and green eyes, the color of Susan's, and light brown hair in a crew cut. On his chin was a birthmark. He was standing in front of a gray Oldsmobile, flashing a peace sign at the camera.

“I took that picture,” Susan said. “You can see my thumb in the corner.”

I touched my finger to the glass.

“It was a Sunday,” she said. “We'd gone to church that morning. He died a week later, five days short of his twenty-first birthday. He was driving that car in the picture. The day he died, if I'd held him back for breakfast, if I'd kissed him good-bye, if I'd asked him one simple question—all I needed was a second's delay, and everything would have been different.

“He was on furlough from the Navy at the time. The other driver was killed too. He was the same age as Scottie. I wanted to know whose fault it was, but the wreck was so big the police couldn't be sure. I wanted it to be someone's fault, even if it had to be Scottie's. I can still see the hospital clearly. The other boy's mother was there too. We'd already been told that everything was over. I didn't know
what to do, so I just fed all my change into the candy machine, even though I wasn't hungry.”

Susan was smiling at Scottie's picture, almost as if she expected him to smile back. I thought of parents whose children lay in comas, who spent hours every day talking to them, thinking that if only they tried a little harder they would get a response.

“He's handsome,” I told her.

“He looks a little like you.”

“You're right,” I said, although I didn't think he did.

She led me into her bedroom. Being there made me uncomfortable; I had to resist the urge to look around. On her desk, right in front of me, sat a stray earring. It was silver and shaped like Saturn, each of its rings a shade lighter than the next, moving out from the center.

“Did you do that?” I asked.

Susan nodded.

“When did you start to make earrings?”

“In eleventh grade.”

“The year you got pregnant . . .”

“Right.”

“Did I derail you?”

“You?”

“You know. The pregnancy. I have this idea that you were going places and I came along and screwed things up. Maybe you could have had your own line of jewelry. Then you wouldn't be selling your earrings in just a few stores.”

“I wouldn't have wanted my own line of jewelry. It would have been too much work.”

I asked her whether she was religious. I was trying to distract myself while, from the corner of my eye, I could see her unmade bed, and on it an unfolded pink nightgown.

She told me she was.

“What denomination are you?” I wondered how she'd feel if she knew that Jonathan used to pretend that he was crucified while I hit tennis balls against Riverside Church.

“Catholic.” She reached inside her blouse and pulled out a gold cross so tiny it looked like a sliver of metal.

“Do you wear that all the time?”

“Except for the day I met you. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Did you baptize me?” I asked.

“Of course not. I was giving you up. I couldn't make decisions about how you'd be raised.”

“You could have tried to place me with a Catholic family.”

“It didn't matter to me. I just wanted you to have parents who loved you.”

“You found them,” I said. “I promise you that.”

She looked as if she were going to cry.

The sun was setting on the Mission, dispersing across the rooftops. “I'm glad you sent me a Mother's Day card,” she said. She rested her hand on the window ledge. Her veins caught the light of the sunset.

“It was nothing.”

“You didn't have to do it. It meant a lot to me.”

The phone rang in the kitchen, and Susan went to pick it up. I was alone. I heard the muffled sound of her voice down the hall. I stood quietly, allowing myself to look around the room for the first time. Susan's closet was ajar. I opened it the rest of the way. A gray silk scarf hung from a peg. I raised it to my nose to see if I could smell her, but I couldn't detect any scent. I closed the closet door and stood still awhile. Then, quietly, carefully, I opened drawer after drawer of her bureau, finding T-shirts in piles, blue jeans, slacks, towels, sheets, and a few light sweaters. In the top drawer were underpants and bras. The sight of them shocked me. Did I think she didn't wear any underpants? I shut the drawer firmly. Reflexively, I
opened it again. Different colors. Black, white, red, some stripes and patterns. Cotton, silk, lace. I reached out to touch them. I raised a pair to my face, feeling the fabric against me. I quickly put it back and shut the drawer tight. A sick feeling overcame me.

I sat down on her bed, then got up and went to her desk. Papers were spread across it. An Indiana University mug held pens, pencils, and paper clips. An envelope lay beneath a roll of Scotch tape. I picked it up and read the return address. Indianapolis, Indiana. I took out the card and read it.

Dear Susan,

I'm sending you another check. I hope you're doing all right. We miss you here—everyone does, but especially me.

I saw Kate at the supermarket the other day. She asked about you. Your friends think this is strange, you going all the way across the country to see your “son.” He could visit you here if he wanted. Believe me, he has his own life. I'm the one who needs you. Maybe I've been a bit remote recently, especially since Scottie died. But I'm willing to work on things.

I'm being patient with you, but really, how much longer can you expect me to be patient? I see our friends around town. I try hard to portray this in the best possible light, but it's difficult. Everyone thinks you've flipped. They say you've had some sort of breakdown. I tell them you haven't, but sometimes I'm not sure.