Shadows at the Spring Show (6 page)

“That’s a beautiful idea,” said Maggie. “I wish my grandmother had written down the stories of her world, so I’d have them now.”

The ringing telephone interrupted her.

“You go and answer your phone, Ms. Summer. And thank you, again. You’ve given me a new reason to keep going a few more years: to keep the stories alive.”

Mrs. Thurston walked down the front steps decisively.

Maggie watched her for a moment, and then went to answer her telephone.

Chapter 7

Colored illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith for
A Child’s Garden of Verses
by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1905. Smiling young woman in long pink robe holds three toddlers in her lap while five more surround her. One is putting a rose in her hair; one holds a cat. Smith, who lived in and just outside Philadelphia, is known as an illustrator of children’s books. She and several of her fellow women artists were called The Red Rose Group. 7 x 9.25 inches. Price: $65.

“Maggie? This is Ann Shepard.”

Ann was the other single prospective parent involved in the OWOC show, the one in charge of food for the café and bake sale. Of all the show committees that was the one Maggie worried least about. She knew Ann had been baking muffins and cookies for months.

“I’m going slightly crazy and wondered if you’d like to have dinner tonight? I need to get away from my house and my office, and I thought of you. After all, we’re both prospective single parents.”

“You picked a good night to call. I’d love to get out of my house.”

“Nothing formal,” said Ann. “What about Thompson’s, down on Bridge Street?”

Thompson’s was a family place where you could order a glass of wine but you could also have a cheeseburger and fries.

“Thompson’s sounds fine,” agreed Maggie. She would like to know Ann better, too. She should get to know other people interested in single-parent adoption. It could be the beginning of a support system for them, and then, for their children, after they all had families.
If
I adopt, added Maggie to herself. “About half an hour?”

“See you there.”

Ann was already sitting in a booth when Maggie walked in. “You got here quickly! I thought I’d be early.” Maggie slid onto the other red plastic seat.

“I cheated a bit,” Ann said. “I was calling from my office at the bank. I went in to clean up a pile of papers and just couldn’t face going home to an empty house.”

Maggie nodded. “I have times like that, too.” Usually she went home anyway. I’ve been acting like an old married woman, she thought. Why not be like Ann and call a single woman friend to have dinner? It was better than having frozen pizza and watching the news alone with a cat. “But you won’t have too many more quiet evenings, will you? I heard a rumor your home study was finished.”

“Yes. I’m approved.” Ann did not seem enthusiastic. She turned to the waitress who had materialized next to their table. “Dewar’s on the rocks, please.”

“A glass of the house chardonnay,” said Maggie.

“I’m having second thoughts. Maybe thirty-second thoughts,” continued Ann.

“Adoption’s a big step. I’m so uncertain I haven’t even applied to have my home study done yet.”

“I really do want a child. And I’m definitely tired of trying to get pregnant.”

Maggie tried not to react. She hadn’t realized Ann had been trying to conceive.

“I’ve been inseminated four times. It hasn’t taken. I don’t want to waste all my savings on sperm and then have nothing left to cover adoption costs.”

Maggie didn’t feel comfortable hearing the details. She knew one couple who were going through fertility treatments while they were trying to adopt. She also knew agencies frowned on the practice. They wanted to work with people who had put any fertility problems in the past and were ready to adopt with a whole heart. An adopted child shouldn’t be expected to replace a child someone had dreamed of giving birth to. That wouldn’t be fair to the child.

Of course, there was always the classic stereotype of the adoptive mother who, like Josie Thomas, adopted and then got pregnant. But applying to adopt was definitely not a way to increase your chances of conceiving. “I didn’t know you wanted a baby. I thought you wanted to adopt a toddler.”

“If I can’t get pregnant,” Ann agreed. “My first choice would be to adopt an infant, but that’s hard to do if you’re not married. And now the agency is hassling me about wanting to adopt a child as young as a toddler.”

“But they must be ready to work with you. Your home study’s been approved.”

“To get it approved I had to agree I’d adopt a child up to the age of six. And I couldn’t specify a white child. Or a girl.” Ann took a good drink of her Scotch. “I’m not sure I’m ready to adopt a child of another race. And I really want a little girl. A little blonde girl with pigtails and big blue eyes.”

“That’s pretty specific.”

“Oh, I know enough not to tell that to my social worker! I might be able to cope with adopting a boy; and at first I thought I might be able to adopt a child of another race. I know lots of people do, and some of the kids are really cute. But the more I think about the future, and about what it would mean to bring up a child of another race or color, the more I’m not sure it’s something I’m ready for.”

“OWOC only makes placements across racial lines when a family is sure,” said Maggie. But they expect you to be honest about your feelings, she added to herself.

“I told them I didn’t think my parents would accept a grandchild who wasn’t white. But they said there were very few Caucasian children available for adoption, except older children who’d have emotional problems of some sort, or children who were physically disabled. And that when young, healthy white children were available, couples were preferred over single parents. Carole told me, gently but firmly, that I’d have a much better chance of getting a placement if I’d accept a child from Latin America or Asia.”

Maggie nodded. “They can place infants and toddlers from China with single women.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think I should be emotionally coerced into adopting a child from abroad because it’s my only option. Adoption applications from single parents should be treated the same as applications from couples. I could give a child as good—or better!—a home than a couple. I wouldn’t have to divide my attention between my husband and my child. I could devote myself totally to my child.” Ann took another drink. “It isn’t fair that the Hansons would get a healthy baby before I would, even though they already had a son.”

The Hansons? The couple who’d died when their home had burned down last winter. Their son, Hal, escaped because his bedroom was on the first floor. She hadn’t remembered until now, but, yes, she’d heard they’d been applying to adopt another child. She focused back on Ann. “A single parent can absolutely be the right parent for a child,” Maggie agreed. “But if there’s a qualified couple waiting, too, it’s not as simple. I think if I were the agency, I’d place the child with a couple. After all, two great parents would be better than one.”

“But they’re discriminating against us, just because we’re not married!” said Ann.

Maggie hesitated. “I don’t think it’s discrimination. I think
the agency really wants to find the best family for each child. If there were a three-parent family, I suspect they would be considered the best.”

Ann gave her a dark look. “What’s so good about having more than one parent? Lots of couples get divorced. Mine did. At least a single parent will always be there.”

Unless there’s a death, Maggie thought. A child with only one parent could be orphaned again more easily than a child with two parents. That’s why single prospective parents had to name someone else to back them up in case of illness or death. That requirement was an issue for Maggie. Her parents were dead, and she hadn’t been in touch with her older brother in years. She had no obvious family or extended family backup. She sipped her wine. Ann was still talking.

“Even supposedly perfect parents, like Holly and Rob Sloane, aren’t perfect couples.”

“They’re pretty impressive. Adopting eleven hard-to-place kids, in addition to the three biological ones they started with.” Maggie was much less comfortable now than when she’d walked into the restaurant.

“But I’ve heard their marriage is rocky. That they spend so much time with their kids they have no time for each other. And if they’re such great parents, then why did one of their kids shoot Holly?” Ann sputtered.

“We don’t know that’s what happened,” Maggie said quietly.

“But it seems obvious. Otherwise Jackson would be at home, or at least in touch with the rest of his family. At last year’s agency Christmas party I overheard one of Holly’s kids say her mom spent more time talking about adoption with other parents than she spent with her own children. I don’t want my daughter ever to say that about me.”

“No,” Maggie agreed. “But children always complain about their parents. Most of Holly’s and Rob’s children seem to be doing well. And they all started with the odds against them. Let’s just hope Holly heals quickly and can get home.”
Maggie picked up her menu. “Have you decided what you want?”

Ann chose poached chicken breast in white wine sauce with rice; Maggie ordered a rare hamburger with sautéed mushrooms and onions. They were both quiet for a few minutes before Ann began again.

“Have you thought about what adoption will mean to your social life? About what kind of a man would be interested in dating a woman who adopted a child of a different race?” Ann said. “I’d like to get married someday and I think I’d have more of a chance of finding the right guy if my child were white.”

Maggie swallowed deeply. “I’d like to think any man who loved me would love my children, whatever they looked like. After all, some men like children, and some don’t. So, yes, some men will be turned off by our adopting. But they won’t be the men we’re looking for.” Will didn’t want children. Of any color. Other than that, he might be the man Maggie had been waiting for. She took a breath. This conversation was moving uncomfortably close to some of her own private concerns. “We can’t plan our lives around what some man someday might expect of us.”

That was the “right” answer. But what if Will was the one for her? Did she have to choose between having a man in her life and being a mother? Was that the reason she hadn’t agreed to begin her own home study? Was she really hoping Will would change his mind? She wanted to be a parent. But adopting was an enormous gamble.

“You can say that. You’ve been married, and you have another man in your life already.” Ann’s face was flushed, from the Scotch or from emotion. Maybe both. “I don’t want to wake up and be fifty or sixty and alone, without a husband or a child. You don’t know what it’s like to be forty-two and know you probably can’t give birth, and then be told you can only adopt a second-class child. I make more money than a lot of couples, and I would be a wonderful mother. It’s not fair that I can’t be one!”

A second-class child? No child was second-class! What if Carole knew Ann was thinking that way? Or did she know already? Agency personnel were experts in analyzing and questioning motives for adopting. “But OWOC has said they’d place a child with you.”

“Not the child I want to parent. Even though I’ve spent months working on this damn antiques show, smiling and making enough blueberry muffins to feed Calcutta. I had to buy a freezer just to hold all the pies and cookies I’ve baked!”

Maggie took a bite of her hamburger and another sip of wine. She tried to keep her voice calm. “The way I understand it, OWOC is looking for families for children; not children for families. There are very few healthy white babies in need of homes.”

Ann looked at her with disappointment in her eyes. “You’re on their side. I thought since you were single, you’d feel the way I do.”

“I want to be a parent, Ann. But if I adopt, then I’ll apply for a child who needs a parent. Probably a school-age child. I want to adopt a child who needs a family.” Maggie hesitated. “I guess I need a family, too. That’s why this decision means so much to me.”

Ann shook her head. “It means a lot to me, too. And I’m getting older. I don’t have time to put my name on long waiting lists.” She waited a moment. “An older child would have more emotional baggage and issues than an infant or toddler. Those are the children who need the most help. If there is a preference, I’d think an agency would want to place them with a two-parent family that had more time and energy to help them.”

Maggie nodded slightly. That had occurred to her, too.

“But there are so many children on waiting lists. They’re getting older every day, too, and less adoptable. Have you told Carole and your social worker how you really feel?”

“I’ve told them I want a young white girl without handicaps.” Ann put down her glass of Scotch. “I’ve even talked with my lawyer about it.”

“Your lawyer? You mean the one who’ll handle the adoption?”

“I haven’t taken formal action yet. But OWOC is treating me, a single woman, differently than they treat couples who apply to adopt. That’s one reason I thought we should talk, Maggie. You might like to talk with my lawyer, too. She thinks we’d have a good chance of proving discrimination against prospective single parents. If we got enough people involved, it might even be a class-action suit.”