Sunlight on My Shadow (16 page)

Catherine Cavanaugh was assigned to my case. She picked me up from the home in her red Buick and took me out to lunch at Denny’s. I pictured an older woman for my social worker, matronly and caring, but she was very young, and looked like she wasn’t much older than I was. She had fiery red hair, cut fashionably short. I knew I was doing fine and didn’t need any counseling so what was the point of the visit? What could she say that would help me with this? My situation was hopeless.

As we sat eating our cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate shake, the conversation was strained. What was my favorite subject in school? What sort of things did I like to do? Then she got to the point. “What are you going to do when the baby is born?” she asked.

“I’m giving it up for adoption.”

“Have you thought about other options?”

“Like what?” I asked.

I was insulted. I thought that by this point I should know what I was doing. Anyway there weren’t any other options. After spending many weeks at Helen and Ed’s and telling everyone I was sick, I was sure I wouldn’t be changing my mind. There were no other options but give the baby up and go back home like nothing ever happened.

“Like, keeping the baby,” she said.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. That’s not what my parents want me to do.”

“That might be fine for your parents, but have you thought about what
you
want to do?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter what I want. I screwed up and now I pay the price, besides I agree that adoption is best.”

“Well, Judy, you really do have a choice, you know. Is there a guy in the picture? Did you consider getting married?”

“There’s a guy, obviously—but oh, no, we didn’t think that was a good idea. We’re too young,” I said.

Each of her questions burned like a razor cut. Didn’t she know I had already thought about all this? It was a little late to be bringing up options and alternatives. If we got married and kept the baby, everyone would know the real truth. That was not an option. I couldn’t imagine quitting school and marrying Mick when I was only seventeen. The thought was suffocating. How would we support ourselves? Mick hadn’t worked a day in his life and he was just graduating from high school.

I steamed with anger at being forced to talk about useless things and having to justify my decision to this stranger.

“Well,” she said, “if you’re sure you want to give up your baby, I’ll bring the papers for you to sign the next time I see you. I just want to make sure that adoption is what you want. Once you sign the papers, the baby will be placed. I want you to be sure you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I thought plenty about it. I definitely want to give up the baby. I think it’ll be the best for the baby.”

“It shouldn’t be because your parents want it, Judy. You have a choice too.”

“I know. This is what I want.”

“OK, it seems like you’ve already decided.”

“This lady is swift,” I thought.

I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Catherine Cavanaugh to have to handle this girl: a girl who didn’t want to learn anything new or talk about the heavy decision that she had made. It was an impossible task and I know she meant well, but I guess I needed to have built some trust with her first before I could even hear what she had to say. She was too abrupt and probably new at her job, but had the prescribed points that she had to cover to do her social-service duty. I was ashamed of my condition and defensive. My mind was closed and made up, kind of like Dad’s was before he met Mick. I just wanted the lunch to be over. I was trying to prove to her that I didn’t need this counseling. I was strong and I wanted to show her how tough I was. She was a little late on the scene.

“OK, then we can talk about the adoption,” she said. “Do you have any requests about the adoption process?”

“Not really,” I said as I sipped my milkshake. The straw flung a bit of frozen slush as it pinged out of my mouth.

“What about the adoptive parents? Do you have any desires about who will get your baby?”

“Well, a good person would be nice.” I took another sip of my shake.

“Oh, all the adoptive parents are carefully screened; your baby will go to a good person. What I meant was … well … I see that you’re Catholic. Do you want the baby to go to Catholic parents?”

I pictured the people in the pews next to me when I attended Mass. They seemed like a good bunch.

“Yeah, that’d be good,” I said.

“OK, I’ll get the papers together for Catholic Charities and they will do the placing. Maybe at our next visit, we can go over the papers.”

What was there to go over? I thought I already said I wanted to do this. I scooted my chair away from the table so I was sitting sideways. Catherine asked for the check. I was ready to bug out of this place.

Two weeks later, Catherine arrived in her red Buick again but we stayed at the home and went into the library to talk. Catherine had the papers.

“I’ll tell you what the fine print says and then you can sign,” she said.

“I want you to know that signing here means you’ll be giving up all your rights to the child.”

I put my hand to my chin and leaned over. “Yes, that makes sense,” I said.

“The adoptive parents will have sole custody of the baby.”

“Didn’t she already say that?” I thought.

“Once the baby is placed, you’re not to try to contact the parents. By signing, you agree that you relinquish all rights as the mother of the child.”

She didn’t really have to be telling me all this. What did she think I was going to do? Stalk the new parents? I knew what adoption meant and I knew what I was doing by signing the paper.

“You’ll have a ten day grace period after the birth of the baby to change your mind, but once that time is elapsed, everything is final. Do you understand?”

I was surprised to hear about the grace period. I couldn’t imagine someone changing their mind during that time and snatching the baby away from the new parents. That would be horrific. Anyway, I knew I wouldn’t be changing my mind.

“OK, I understand,” I said. “I’m ready to sign.”

It was a warm day. The window was open and the curtains rustled with a swirl of wind. Thunder clouds were building in the sky.

She pointed to the line on the bottom of the page. I signed, Judith Ann Liautaud, and dated it, June 7, 1967.

“Judy, can you also fill out the info for the birth certificate?” she asked as she handed me another paper.

I filled out the name of the mother, Judith Ann Liautaud, but when it asked for the name of the father I didn’t know what to do. A loud clap of thunder rattled the open window.

“I know the name of the father; should I put it on here?”

“That’s up to you,” she said.

“Will he be contacted by anyone? His parents don’t know a thing about this.” Rain started to fall and blow inside. Catherine got up and closed the window.

“The father wouldn’t be contacted unless there was some sort of medical emergency and the biological parents had to be contacted. But otherwise, these papers are strictly confidential. The adoptive parents will not know the names of the birth parents.”

I worried that somehow Mick would get into trouble and that this would be like ratting on Mick. I decided to leave “name of father” blank. Then it asked for the name of the child.

“Am I supposed to name the baby?” I asked.

“Well, you can if you want.”

“Why didn’t she just tell me what to do?” I thought.

“The adoptive parents usually give the baby their own name, but your baby will have the name you give it until the new parents receive the child.”

I wrote Helen or Edward for the baby’s name.

“Helen is the name of the lady I stayed with before I came here,” I said.

“I’m sure she would be very honored,” Catherine said.

It was easy to sign the papers while the baby was still inside of me. I had no attachment and I was just waiting for all this to be over and done. I knew as sure as the night is black that I wouldn’t change my mind about giving away the baby, and I knew I would have no reason to contact the child after she was gone from my body. I couldn’t know how giving birth would change these feelings, and I couldn’t know how differently I would feel once I saw the baby and heard her cry. I was in for a shock. I was sure I knew it all—and I knew nothing. Such a child I was. Just like the song “Unwed Fathers,” by John Prine; “Someone’s children out havin’ children in a brownstone buildin’ and all alone”

Even though we could go out on Thursdays, it took me a few weeks before I got the courage to leave the safety of our prison. After we walked down the front steps, I felt like I had busted out of jail. I held my arms out and spun around so I could feel the summer air swirling on my skin, wet and dewy with humidity. I loved walking down the tree-lined streets and looking at the homes. Sometimes I could see people moving about through their front windows and I wondered what their life was like, these people who lived free. I imagined them sitting down to dinner and telling each other about their day at school or work. I was sure their lives were carefree episodes of joy.

Our favorite destinations were shopping at the Village of Wauwatosa or eating ice cream at the town park. Of course, going out made us subject to public scrutiny. Everyone in town knew about The Home on Cedar Street. I was sure people were secretly pointing, staring, and laughing at us during these outings. I kept my eyes on the ground, afraid to see them gawking. On these trips, I liked to stock up on the stretch-mark preventer, Mother’s Friend, or buy a magazine or a Butterfinger candy bar. Just one. Just once in a while.

It was warm and humid, near ninety degrees. I was getting hot and tired from the eight blocks we had covered. We walked past a quaint little bookstore with posters in the window advertising the new arrivals:
Games People Play
and
Rosemary’s Baby
. Hmm,
Games People Play
, that sounded like a good book. I asked the girls if we could pop in.

The door chimed as we closed it behind us. Hair blew in my face as a cool blast of air showered us from the vent above the door. It was a welcome reprieve to be out of the hot sun. The air smelled delicious, like newsprint. It reminded me of the first days of school when I had all my new textbooks. I’d rub my hands over the covers and then flip through the pages and sniff. The fruity smell that lingered from the printing press always brought a wave of nostalgia and desire to learn everything that the books held in their pages. At the start of the school year, I was excited to meet new friends and wear my fresh, new school uniform.

There were only a few people in the small store. Our presence was bold, doubling the occupancy. I was self-conscious at being part of this pregnant group. Linda P. walked over to the turnstile and started looking at the greeting cards. The rest of us followed. I picked up a card, read the inside, and giggled. I handed it over to Linda. “Check this out,” I said. Then I looked up. There was a middle-aged, balding man standing stiffly. He had his arms folded. In a voice loud enough for all of us to hear, he said, “We don’t patronize your kind.”

What was he saying? I wasn’t exactly sure of the meaning of patronize. His motive was so far from anything I could imagine that my mind fumbled for meaning. Does he mean they don’t have the sort of things we would be interested in? Was he trying to save us time? No—his demeanor and tone of disgust clarified the meaning. It was a command to leave the store.

Apparently, Linda P. got it. Without saying a word, she put the card back on the rack and turned to walk out. The rest of us followed. As we got near the door, he clarified his intent. “You’re not welcome in this store,” he said, “so go back to the home where you belong.” We didn’t say a word or look back. The spring-loaded arm shut the door behind us. The chimed alert rang good riddance.

After we were outside, Linda said, “Did that really happen?”

“We just got kicked out.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“That guy is such a moron.”

“Let’s head back,” Linda said.

“I hate this town,” I said.

So instead of continuing on, we turned left to return to the home.

The humid summer air warmed the skin on my cheeks, and the sun beat hot, but nothing daunted the chill in my bones. My heart ached with the injustice. Frozen shards of shame pierced my innocence. “That man is an idiot and doesn’t know shit,” I told myself. “Forget about him, he is inconsequential.” These words shouted inside of me as my throat constricted, trying to contain the deep hurt and anger that was boiling upward. We walked back to the home like zombies, in dead silence.

Being raised in an all-white neighborhood, I didn’t have any experience with blatant prejudice. I hadn’t done anything to harm the bookstore man, yet he lashed out at us. It shocked me and felt entirely unjust. I remembered the scowl of disapproval on his face. By the time we got back to the home, the four of us went our separate ways. It felt safe to be back inside these oppressive walls. Everyone here looked like me and the help were used to us. I went up to my room. I was relieved nobody else was there. I lay on my bed and let the boiling inside take over as I sobbed. I hated the know-it-all man. I felt so misunderstood. I wanted to go back to the store and yell at him, “What do you mean, ‘patronize your kind’? What KIND am I? I’m not a whore or a slut; I’m an innocent girl from a good home. My father owns a business. I’m from the suburbs and a good Catholic school.”

As fast as the anger balloon inflated, it hissed to flatness. “Yeah, right,” I thought. I knew I would never give him a piece of my mind. My condition spoke for itself. He was just saying what everyone else wanted to say. I wanted to punch his face in and mash it between my fingers like crunchy goo. I thought about the song we used to sing, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” “What a joke,” I thought. “Dream on, baby-cakes.” I was so naive, such a child. The bookstore owner validated my worst fears. I was so bad that I wasn’t allowed to frequent a public store. The anger sat trapped in me, with no way to express it. I bought into the humiliation and owned it. People did think I was slime. It confirmed what I already knew.

After the bookstore incident, I stayed clear of the Waking Owl and made my town visits quick and to the point. I had been educated. I now knew what it was like to be on the targeted end of prejudice.

I had learned in school that babies in orphanages could die merely from the lack of human touch and love. It was called “failure to thrive.” Belonging and feeling wanted is crucial to our survival. Adults need it too. Being shunned causes a severe psychological pain. And unlike a broken bone, you don’t have the sense that you will heal. It just seems to simmer there in recurring pain, because you have no way to get back at the perpetrator or to set them straight. You are stuck with the humiliation and the rejection. I felt like Hester Prynne, who wore the scarlet letter “A” to mark her disrepute. With the scarlet letter, townspeople could stay clear of the girl who bore a child out of wedlock. That story was written in 1850. Here we were, in the twentieth century, and not much had changed.

How ironic that I was experiencing the same sort of prejudice my family in New Orleans did before they passed for white many years ago. It all boiled down to physical appearance: black or pregnant too young, stay away. I don’t know how this traumatic episode still lives within me today. Perhaps it causes me to be a bit more timid when meeting new people, or maybe that is why my voice wants to shake when I am speaking in front of a group.

But my anger at the bookstore man has eased. When you know better, you do better; maybe today the man has learned compassion and understands the blows his words had on our spirits. I suppose he wanted to keep his store in good repute, or perhaps a former resident from the home had lifted something from the store, or maybe he had a young teenage child and wanted to guard her from our bad example. How could I have known?

But I couldn’t consider his motivation back then: I was too full of anger. I can only assume he acted in ignorance. In his eyes, our appearance screamed whore, for he could not see past our shameful bellies to the sacred little spirits inside, waiting to be born. Our shame was our own. Our babies, I hoped, would be spared in their pure innocence.