What Was Mine (19 page)

I downloaded the conference registration form.

I can explain,
I texted.
Please let me explain.

But I got no reply. The phone in my hand lay silent as a dead fish.

T
he phone rang while I was working on my pottery in the basement. I was in the middle of glazing a vase, which I've left unfinished. I keep it to remind myself of the joy of that day. It's always on a table with silk flowers in it.

It took me a moment to dry off my hands and pull the phone out of the pocket of my apron, but when I pressed the button to answer, no one was there. The call was from a 917 number, which I knew was Mia's. I'd given her my number in a Facebook message and told her to call anytime. I knew enough to leave the calling up to her. She'd need to feel strong enough to do it, but I knew she'd get there eventually. Mia was born in the Year of the Horse, she's good at leaping over obstacles.

I was tempted to redial the number to reestablish connection, but resisted the urge. If my daughter was having a failure of courage, I wanted to give her the chance to recover. I sat down on a stool in front of the kiln, just sat there, staring at the phone on my lap, willing it to light up again. When the kiln isn't on, it stays cool in the basement, but sweat trickled from the backs of my knees. I sat there focusing my energy on it, willing the ringtone to sound again, a ringtone I realized was eerily appropriate, a song Chloe had loaded, and now I was waiting to hear “The Girl Who Fell from a Star
.
” I watched the second hand of a big industrial clock on the wall go
around once, then twice. Again. I could hardly breathe from the pressure I felt in my stomach. Just when I thought I couldn't resist the urge to press redial, I heard the music I was waiting to hear.

“Hi, this is Mia.” It was a full-grown woman's voice, not the little girl's voice I'd heard in my head all those years. My heart flooded. I held back tears.

“Hi, baby,” I managed, as if I'd just spoken to her, which I had—every day for more than two decades. And then we were crying, three thousand miles apart but finally together again.

I
stayed up all night, filling out PDF forms for the conference. Instructions were mainly in Chinese but there was some English. The whole time I was figuring out how to fill in the blanks, I was thinking it was crazy to take off like this. Bolting out of the country. What was I doing? But what choice did I have? I needed to get away, to achieve distance so I could think straight, figure out my options and how to deal with them.

Mostly, of course, I worried about Mia.

For the first time in her life, I had no idea where she was.

Well, that isn't true. She was twenty-one years old, a senior in college. There were plenty of times I didn't know where she was. But I always knew she was safe because we had a code word. I made it up when she was fifteen and going to her first sweet sixteen party. The party was across town, on the East Side. She looked so vulnerable: her smile shiny with braces, teetering out the door on platform heels she didn't know how to walk in yet. Even without them, she was taller than me. And beautiful. So beautiful. I half regretted the looks she'd inherited, half wished she'd looked as ordinary as I did when I was her age. It was terrifying having to send such a gorgeous creature out into New York, having to trust her well-being to the care of a teenager.

“You can call me anytime if you ever feel unsafe or uncomfortable,” I told her. “Just say a code word, so your friends don't have to know, and I'll
come pick you up anytime, no questions asked.
Katcheratchma
.” I made it up on the spot. I have no idea where it came from. It just popped into my head, and for some reason, both of us remembered it. Mia did use it a few times over the years—once I went to get her way out in Brooklyn when she was supposed to be at a party on the Upper East Side—

But now there was no communication.

I assumed she was staying with a friend that night. Or had gotten a ride back to school, though it was still a week before the start of spring classes. I suddenly wished college was like it was in the old days when you could call a pay phone in the dorm and someone would answer and you could check up on someone else who lived there. Mia didn't have a landline, of course. Her only landline number was mine.

She didn't answer my text until the next morning, just before I got into the subway downtown.

Explain what? Kidnapping me?

I heard a train coming into the station, but I stayed where I was on the platform steps, concentrating on controlling my shaking thumbs so they'd hit the right keys.

Call! I can explain.

NO. u CAN'T!!!!

Where are you?

Then—nothing.

I
continued my walk downstairs and reached the platform just as the train was pulling out of the station. I wasn't going to work. I'd called in sick. I was going to the Chinese embassy on Forty-Second Street. I needed a visa.

If I'd signed up earlier, the conference organizers would have arranged one for me, but I was too late for that. The conference was only a few days away.

There was a scanner at the entrance of the Chinese embassy and I half expected to be stopped when I unwrapped myself from my disguising coat, hat, and scarf. But I was waved through, without incident.

Did the authorities have my name on a list? I waited in line, worrying that the bureaucrat behind the glass, sipping from a jelly jar of mud-colored tea might suspect something. My hand shook as I slipped my papers into a little well in the counter between us. I sweated as he examined my regulation photo (full color, front-facing, hatless, no exceptions), then looked up, searching my face. I was afraid he'd call for security. But he accepted my papers without question, a gesture of so little importance to him that he did it with one hand, while with the other he refilled his jar from a thermos.

The next day (I'd paid extra for rush) I spent a trembling half hour in the pickup line. When I got to the window, a stern-looking man pushed a manila envelope to me. He didn't say whether or not it contained a visa. When I asked, he shook his fingers dismissively. I retreated to a dark corner where I pried open the envelope. I slid out my passport and out fluttered a receipt for the visa. But I didn't trust that. I flipped pages in my passport until I saw it. There it was, my ticket to freedom, a stamp taking up an entire page. It was decorative and colorful as a piece of art. I stared for some time at the line drawing: a long, orange winding road atop a pink Great Wall, leading toward a brilliant red, star-spangled sun. I imagined myself balanced on that wall, following in the ancient foot treads of fugitives before me—until my reverie was interrupted by an officious woman in uniform urging me to exit if I was done with my business.

A
fter that, I said my good-byes at the office. I couldn't believe no one was suspicious about my going all the way to Shanghai for a conference on toilet paper. Or that T&A was willing to spring for the
cost, which they let me put on the company card. But everyone was busy, so busy, and I was in middle management, and had convinced them, I guess, that my demonstrated interest in the tissue category might help grow a paper-towel client we already had.

A shoot in Vancouver was coming up which I'd miss. I put one of the writers who worked for me on it, someone good enough to take over for me, if my absence grew prolonged.

I put off the meeting Lance had set up with his agent.

I bought a ticket to PVG with an open return. The conference would last a week. I didn't have plans for what I would do after that, but by then I hoped I would have figured out something. I pictured the hotel in Shanghai as an exotic retreat where I'd spend long days in a room, considering my options. In fact, I had a hard time with room choice, which I'd needed in order to qualify for the visa. I'd e-mailed to ask for a nonsmoking room and the answer came back:
Sure, if you smoke, no one care of it.
I figured I could change rooms once I got there. I didn't plan to go to the conference, of course. I didn't want to risk someone recognizing me, if the story broke.

In the days before I could get on that flight, I fretted about being apprehended. Every time I left the apartment, I steeled myself against a tap on the shoulder, a touch on the arm. When I came home, I'd search the eyes of the doorman for any change in expression or tone of voice, which would alert me to the fact that someone had been there, seeking information about me.

The apartment echoed with the absence of Mia. She'd been gone before, to camp, to college. But this absence was different, making the dark rooms darker, a tomb from which I longed to escape. Part of me wanted to run, to find Mia. Poor Mia. I knew she was hurting. But I couldn't run to her. I had to make myself run in the other direction, far away.

I fled New York on Valentine's Day. Mia and I had a Valentine's ritual. We always exchanged some sort of heart on that day. When
she was little, I'd scramble candy hearts into her eggs. I'd hide a note decorated with hearts in her backpack. After she left home, I always mailed her a card with a gift check enclosed, written in pink pen.

So it's ironic that now that day will always signify for me the dissolution of our togetherness.

I
wanted to fly out to see her right away. I wanted to take my daughter in my arms, I wanted to reconnect to her physically; she'd been part of me, I wanted, I
needed
to be with her, to help her begin the process of healing. And the harmonious outcome was, there was room on a flight to Newark the very next day and the flight was direct and available at a discount.

Of course, I reached out to Tom as soon as I heard from Natalie. It wasn't easy to track him down. I haven't had a phone number for him for quite some time. He moved to Costa Rica about fifteen years ago. But I had his e-mail and hoped he still had the same address. I sent him a message with the subject head shouting in caps:
OUR DAUGHTER FOUND!!!!

He called hours later, while I was making dinner. He said he was happy that Natalie had been discovered. But he couldn't fly out right away to meet her. He thought she should bond with her mother first anyway. I couldn't understand that. I thought we should go see our daughter together. But Tom is a limited person. He is just doing the best he can.

We had a family meeting after dinner that night. Grant and I gathered the three kids in the living room, where our family focuses on important issues. It's a place soft and giving: white fluffy carpets, overstuffed sofa, walls painted a calming shade of green. This is
where we came to discuss whether or not I should go back to work and the boys' decision to stop homeschooling and go to public high school.

As they settled into their places—each of us has a spot where we're most comfortable: Grant likes the cushy chair, I like the sofa, Connor and Thatch like the beanbags, Chloe lies on the flokati, her feet on the hearth—I told them I had an important announcement. We were welcoming someone new into our family. I felt a wholeness in saying the words in that room. It's where we welcomed each of them into this world, their passage gentled by water in the tank we rented each time, the midwife, and Grant floating beside me, murmuring affirmations.

“Are we getting a dog?” Thatch asked.

“A baby?” From Chloe.

When I heard “a baby” my eyes watered a little and I nodded.

Connor, sixteen, gazed at me in horror.

“No way,” he said.

“Well, not an actual baby. She's all grown up now. You know that special angel whose birthday we celebrate?”

All I'd told the kids about Natalie was that our family had a guardian angel we celebrated on April 4 every year.

“That angel was my first baby. I haven't seen her since she was four months old.” My throat closed and I couldn't say any more.

The kids looked at each other. I was glad that Grant was there to step in.

“How come you never told us before?” Connor asked.

“We didn't want to worry you kids, to make you think this could happen to you,” said Grant.

The kids looked at each other, then at me.

“You're not the oldest!” Thatch said to Connor, grinning. It wasn't the generous response I had hoped for. Thatch is a middle child, he has issues to work through.

In a steady voice, Grant told them the story of what happened. He knew every detail. It's a story I'd told him many times before. I watched the kids' faces for how they were taking it. Thatch's hair, as usual fell in front of his face and he sank his chin in his hands, so I couldn't see his expression. He's the one I usually worry about. But, now, I worried about all three. I didn't want any of them to feel the bad energy that had capsized me for so many years.

When Grant was finished, I took a deep breath and told them I was going to New York in the morning. I was going to meet their sister. Their sister. I was excited by the thought of having her with us, having all my family together for the first time. But I worried, too. I had never left the kids for even one night before. I ached to think of how many nights I wasn't there for Natalie.

“Do you love her better than us?” Chloe said.

“Of course not!” I said, briefly considering taking her with me. But I'd need all my energy for Natalie now. “Daddy can take good care of you. Just for a few days.”

“I'll take you to work tomorrow,” he promised, which is something Chloe loved to do. He sometimes took her along on a job, explaining what each heavy tool was for, teaching her to level a pipe or plane a board.

“Is the angel going to move in with us?” Thatch wanted to know. This is something I wondered myself. I didn't know whether or not my daughter would want to come home with me. I needed to leave that choice up to her.