Fertile Ground (6 page)

“Absolutely,” Fisk was saying. “I have no problem with that. Tomorrow is fine.” He replaced the receiver and faced Lisa. “That was a reporter from Minute by Minute. I’ve had calls at my other office all morning from the media.” He paused, as if to let that sink in. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

Feeling as though she’d been called into the principal’s office, she told him what had happened, what she’d done to control the situation. He was tapping a Mont Blanc ballpoint pen on his black leather desk mat while he listened. When she was done, he nodded and carefully set the pen on the mat.

“Sounds like you did everything right. Lisa. I’m impressed, and grateful.” A half smile softened his face. He clasped his hands and leaned forward. “Still, the situation is extremely damaging. According to media sources—unnamed, of course”—he grunted dismissively—“we’re switching embryos, taking eggs from women and giving them, without knowledge or consent, to other patients. Et cetera, etcetera.”

“But the charges are unfounded, Mr. Fisk.”

“Edmond. Please.” This time the smile was wider. “You know that. Lisa, and / know that. But the public doesn’t. Neither do our patients. And following on the heels of the Irvine scandal…” He pursed his lips. “The D.A.“s office called. The state medical board advised me that they’re going to investigate the clinic’s procedures.”

Slipping on bifocals, he bent his head and read from a lined pad. ” “Pursuant to our investigation, the licenses of all the clinic doctors may be suspended indefinitely.” ” He removed his glasses and looked up at Lisa.

Her license suspended. She stared at Fisk, openmouthed. Her palms were clammy.

Fisk walked around his desk and sat in the gray tweed chair next to Lisa. “Where’s Matthew?” he asked quietly.

“I have no idea. He phoned his secretary to tell her he’d be late, but didn’t tell her why.”

Fisk shook his head. “Lisa, you know that doesn’t make sense. Matthew must have heard what’s happened. He must know that the media have stormed the citadel. Why the hell isn’t he here? Why the hell hasn’t he called?”

“I don’t know.” Edmond was right. Matthew had left her a message, but that had been early in the morning. Again she asked herself where he was now. For the first time, she felt a stab of fear.

“He’s been preoccupied lately, have you noticed?” Fisk said. “Something’s been bothering him. Do you know what?”

She heard concern in his voice and considered telling him. But Matthew hadn’t confided in Fisk. He’d said not to tell anyone. Not even Sam. “No. I’m sorry.” She met his eyes but flushed under his intense gaze. Her cheeks were warm.

“You’re keeping something from me. Lisa. Why? You know how much I care about Matthew. He’s like a son to me, and to Georgia.”

She believed him. “Edmond, I wish I could help you.” That much was true.

He reached over and clasped her hand in both of his. “They’re saying Matthew knew that the charges against the clinic were about to be exposed. That he’s responsible for the wrongdoings and fled to escape arrest.”

“That’s insane!” She tried yanking her hand away, but he held on tightly. “You don’t believe that, do you, Edmond?”

“I don’t want to believe it. Lisa. But where is he?”

“I don’t know" His eyes were like drills, she thought, boring into her.

Finally he nodded. “Matthew may be unable to come forward because something terrible has happened to him. Or else he’s run away, leaving us to deal with a disaster he’s created.” Fisk paused. “First and foremost, I pray to God he’s safe. I think you believe that.”

“Yes, of course.”

“If he’s done something wrong, if he’s acted out of desperation, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be disappointed, even angry. I’d feel betrayed. But I’d try to understand, Lisa,” he said gently. “I’d try to help him. I can’t help him if he’s run away.”

She almost told him, he sounded so forlorn. But she’d promised. “Matthew hasn’t done anything wrong, Edmond. And he hasn’t run away. I’d stake my life on that.” Which meant something terrible had happened to him. Her chest felt hollow; her eyes smarted. She blinked back tears.

“I hope you’re right.” Pisk sighed and released her hand. His gait seemed heavier as he returned to his desk and resumed his seat. “Tomorrow a reporter from Minute by Minute is coming. If Matthew hasn’t appeared by then—and I pray that isn’t so—I want you to take her around. Show her that we have nothing to hide, that what these ‘unnamed sources’ suggest is impossible.”

The last thing Lisa wanted was to deal with the media. “What about Sam Davidson? Or Ted Cantrell? They’ve been with the clinic far longer than I have.”

“If I’d wanted Davidson or Cantrell, I would have asked them.” Fisk sighed again. “I know that sounded testy, but to tell you the truth, I’m disappointed in you, Lisa, and hurt. I thought you could trust me.”

“Believe me, Edmond—”

He held up his hand. “Don’t make it worse.” He swiveled back and forth, then stopped the chair. “You have patients waiting, don’t you?”

She had never been a good liar. She would be married to Asher if she’d been willing to live a lie, as her mother

and father had urged her, begged her. The same lie they’d lived with for twenty years. The lie her mother had confessed to her, in tears, two weeks before the wedding.

Lisa—she was Aliza then—knew something was wrong. She overheard her parents, who never raised their voices to her or to each other, arguing behind the door to their bedroom. She saw them sneaking glances at her when they thought she wasn’t looking. “Tell her!” she overheard her father say one night. “Tell her, or I will!”

And that night her mother told her.

“This is so hard,” Esther Brockman began when she was seated next to Lisa on the white-canopied bed. Her face was pallid, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

“Is it money, Ima?” Lisa asked softly. “Because if the wedding is too expensive, if you can’t afford it…”

Her mother placed her hands on Lisa’s head and began to weep so bitterly that Lisa knew this wasn’t about money, that her father was gravely ill. Her heart felt pinched, and she tried to banish the thought from her mind, because it was bad luck to contemplate misfortune. “Don’t put words in the mouth of Satan,” her father had often warned her.

“Don’t cry, ma,” Lisa whispered, “please don’t cry.” And that was when her mother told her she was adopted.

At first she was sure she hadn’t heard right, but her mother was saying something about “only three days old… the happiest day of our life, after so many years of trying.” So she sat on the white eyelet comforter and stared at her mother, who was looking down at her hands.

They had searched for a child for years, her mother said. And when the lawyer phoned them and told them about Aliza, they rushed to the hospital and picked her up that same day.

“You were the most beautiful baby,” her mother said, glancing up. “Like an angel, with wisps of blond hair for a halo.” She reached her hand toward Lisa and touched her hair. “We named you Aliza for your father’s grandmother.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lisa asked, feeling as

though this were happening to someone else, as though this were a dream.

“Your father said it was wrong not to tell you. But I wanted you to feel secure, loved. I didn’t want you to think. Why didn’t my birth mother love me enough to keep me? How can those thoughts be good for a child?”

A lie. Lisa thought. My entire life has been a lie. “I worried that if you knew, one day you would search for her and love me less.” Esther wiped her eyes “I worried that if people knew, your chances of making a good marriage would be limited. I’ve seen it happen,” she said softly. “It’s not right, but it happens. So I convinced your father.”

They had been living in Detroit at the time. But Esther had worried even then about keeping the adoption a secret, and she’d persuaded her husband, Nathan, to move to New York and open a new retail clothing store. Not even the family had known the truth. Esther later explained that after trying for so many years to conceive, she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about the pregnancy until after the baby was born. She’d worried about an ayin ham, she’d told them—the evil eye. And they’d believed her. Only Esther’s parents had known, and they had gone to the grave with the secret.

“But all those pictures you showed me.” Her mother in a denim skirt and a royal blue-and-black plaid shirt ballooning over her huge midriff, her father’s arm around her. Her mother in a gray flannel jumper and a white blouse. Lisa at five had crayoned a red “Me!” in the center of the jumper.

“I used a pillow.” Her eyes were focused over Lisa’s head.

“Very clever,” Lisa said and saw her mother flush. She felt a thrill of satisfaction, then went hot with stinging shame. “Why are you telling me now?” she asked, surprised by her calm.

Her mother twisted the simple gold band on her wedding finger. “Your father gave me no choice. He’s angry I waited till now.” She sighed. “You’re getting married in two weeks. Under the chuppah, a rabbi will perform

the ceremony, and another rabbi will read the ketubah, the marriage contract with your Hebrew name and Daddy’s. But he won’t be reading the complete truth.”

“I don’t understand,” Lisa said, but suddenly she knew. “My birth mother isn’t Jewish, is she?” she asked and saw from her mother’s face that she was right.

“It’s not a problem,” Esther said quickly. “When you were six weeks old, we took you to the mikvah, and three rabbis witnessed your immersion. You had a kosher conversion.”

She was converted. How odd that she had no memory of such a momentous event, of being dipped in the rainwaters of the ritual bath, the same kind of ritual bath she would be going to on the night before her wedding.

Had she cried? Had the water been cold? Hot? Had her mother cradled her against her chest and soothed her? Who was her birth mother? Who had fathered her? Why had they given her up?

“The thing is—” Esther cleared her throat. “Since you were a child when you were converted, you were supposed to affirm when you became bat mitzvah that you wanted to be Jewish.” Again her mother studied her hands. “We should have told you then.”

Lisa stared at her. “So if Aba hadn’t forced you, you would have let me go through with a sham wedding?”

“It’s not a sham! In my eyes you’re Jewish! In God’s eyes you’re Jewish! I believe that with all my heart!”

It wasn’t a big deal, her mother said. Aliza didn’t even have to go to the mikvah again. All she had to do was affirm her acceptance of Judaism by continuing to keep all the Torah laws. “And no one has to know.” She grabbed Lisa’s hands. “Your children will be one hundred percent Jewish, and their children, and their children.”

“I have to tell Asher. He has a right to know.”

Her mother looked stricken. “What difference would it make to him if you were born Jewish or became Jewish? Does it change your face? Your heart? Your soul? You’re Jewish, Aliza.”

“It’s unethical not to tell him!”

“Don’t be stupid! Don’t throw your life away for nothing! I’m begging you, Aliza!”

Her father begged her, too.

In the end, she decided to tell Asher. He listened quietly and told her it didn’t matter who her parents were. “You’re the one I love,” he said. “Nothing changes that.”

“You see?” she told her parents, her voice ringing with triumphant vindication. “You were wrong.”

Two days later Asher’s father called Aliza’s father. She picked up the extension in her room when she learned her future father-in-law was on the line and heard him talk about “misrepresentations” and “deceit” and “dishonor.”

“We would never have allowed the match if we’d known,” Jacob Rossner said just before she hung up the phone, unwilling to hear more.

Asher phoned her and told her not to worry. His parents were understandably upset—more shocked than upset, really—but they would come around. It was just a question of time.

And Aliza had been hopeful.

But the next morning a messenger returned the gold Ebel watch and the twenty-volume, gilt-edged set of the Talmud that Aliza’s father had given Asher as an engagement gift. And Aliza returned the one-and a-half carat, pear-shaped diamond ring Asher’s parents had bought her, along with the gold bracelet and two sterling silver Sabbath candlesticks.

Within the year Asher was married. By then Aliza had moved out of her parents’ home into an apartment she shared with two other young women she’d met at Brooklyn College. She’d distanced herself from the close friends she’d known since her childhood—she never knew for certain how the Rossners had explained the broken engagement, but she’d sensed stares, imagined whispers. “Did you know … ?” And she’d changed her name to Lisa.

She stopped keeping kosher and honoring the Sabbath out of bitterness and anger—at her parents for keeping

the truth from her; at Asher and the Rossners for rejecting her so cruelly; at a community she decided was filled with others like them, others who would always regard her as second best; at a religion that condoned their behavior.

She quickly forgave her parents, who had acted with the best of intentions, and she made her kitchen kosher so that they could eat in her home. Later she began to understand the pain of their childlessness, the pain of their choice to keep her adoption a secret; ultimately, she chose a career that would allow her to help couples like them conceive children, to help only children have the siblings for whom she had always yearned.

She found it harder to forgive the Rossners. But at some point she began to wonder whether she was being fair in condemning an entire community because of the actions of one family. Pride and cowardice kept her from trying to find out, just as confusion kept her from returning to the ritual and traditions she missed, traditions that had shaped and colored her life. (They weren’t, after all, her traditions, were they? she’d argued with herself; why should she follow a religion she hadn’t voluntarily chosen, particularly such a demanding one?)

Somewhere along the way, confusion was cemented by convenience, so when she met Matthew, she told herself there was no reason not to date him, no reason not to allow herself to fall in love with him.