Chapter 6 - The Twenty-Seven Letters
Glen left.
Not dramatically.
He simply said, "I need to go home before I say something I cannot take back."
I let him.
Clara stayed long enough to give me a cardboard box from the trunk of her car.
Twenty-seven letters.
Every one addressed to St. Agnes, the diocesan adoption office, the state registry, or an attorney.
Every one asking for information about Baby Mayfield.
Some came back unopened.
Some contained polite refusals.
One from 1998 said:
NO RECORD OF LIVE BIRTH MATCHING REQUEST.
Clara had been told her baby died.
Then told no baby existed.
Then told she had surrendered him.
Three incompatible stories.
All from institutions that expected a seventeen-year-old without money to stop asking.
"Why did you marry my father?" I asked.
Clara looked at the box.
"Because fifteen years ago I found Elaine's name in an old St. Agnes staff directory. She had died. Martin answered when I wrote to your family address."
"He told you what happened?"
"Partly."
Dad had admitted Elaine suspected the adoption was wrong.
He claimed the child's location was unknown.
He helped Clara request records.
They became friends.
Then something more.
"Did you marry him to get information?"
Clara looked directly at me.
"No."
I believed her.
That almost made it worse.
"Then why were you so awful to me?"
She closed her eyes.
"Because you had a mother who died loving you, and I had a son living somewhere who had been taught I did not want him."
"That's not my fault."
"No."
"And when I married Glen?"
Clara cried.
"I hated how happy you looked."
There it was.
Not noble grief.
Jealousy.
Misdirected and cruel.
"You punished me because I had him."
"Yes."
"And Ariel?"
"Never."
"You barely touched her."
Clara flinched.
"I was afraid if I loved her too openly, someone would ask why."
I looked toward the backyard through the window.
Ariel's birthday decorations were still tied to our fence.
Pink balloons losing air.
Children had gone home without understanding the day they had attended.
I opened the last letter.
It was different.
Addressed directly to Glen Cole.
Postmarked two years earlier.
RETURN TO SENDER.
I frowned.
"This address is correct."
Glen and I had lived there then.
Clara nodded.
"I mailed it myself."
The envelope had been opened.
Then resealed.
Across the back was a small handwritten mark.
M.C.
My father used those initials when he handled family mail at his office.
Clara whispered, "That letter reached your father's desk before it was returned to me."
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