In the first couple weeks after her father died, Deb couldn’t bring herself to go to the house, the same house they’d lived in since she was a child. She wanted to wallow in the denial stage of grief. This wasn’t usually her style—wallowing. She prided herself on being a take-the-bull-by-the-horns sort of person, but the loss of her parents hit her harder than she’d expected. She didn’t have any other immediate family, no siblings. Her one aunt, her mother’s sister, had died some years ago. She felt suddenly and acutely alone. Grieving, she realized, was meant to be done in a group, with people sharing memories and tears and embraces.
Deb had never made much time for friends. She was a marketing director for a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company and was always traveling for work. If she got seriously sick, she couldn’t think of anyone who would come visit her in the hospital. Except for Marco. But when they’d talked a few years ago, she swore—to herself and to him—that it was the last time.
When she finally went to the house, she came armed with cleaning supplies and trash bags, determined to sort through everything as quickly as possible. She’d already contacted a realtor about selling the place. The realtor was young and eager; he would keep her focused on the task at hand.
She started with the kitchen because she thought it’d feel good to throw away everything in the fridge and pantry. She wasn’t prepared to encounter her father’s wall calendar, full of his scribbles, plans marked on days weeks away. She packaged up some dishware to drop off at the Salvation Army then moved on to the office. She figured she’d go through the filing cabinet, pull as many relevant documents as she could find.
The cabinet was stuffed with papers—old utility bills, receipts for purchases made two decades ago, handwritten notes that no longer made sense. There was a whole drawer dedicated to recipes. Deb’s parents had owned a deli—Alter’s, named after her father. Her mother created the menu and instructed the cooks on all the preparations. Her corned beef was named the Best Corned Beef in Los Angeles by an obscure food magazine. Deb put several of the folders in her oversize purse, telling herself she would learn the recipes, after so many years telling her parents she wanted nothing to do with the deli business. She could almost hear her father chuckling.
When she looked outside, the sun was starting to set. Somehow, three hours had passed, and she hadn’t made any real progress. She sighed at the thought of the work ahead and decided to give up for the day. This wasn’t usually her style either—giving up.
She went home to the Brentwood condo that she shared with her cat. This existence of hers always saddened her mother. She wanted nothing more than for Deb to “settle down.” It was less about Deb finding true love than it was about grandchildren, though. Her mother always said things like, “Women these days are waiting far too long to have children. You don’t want to miss out.” But the thing was, Deb did want to miss out. She’d never wanted kids, had always seen herself as more of a “career woman.” When her friends started having kids, Deb stopped having friends. She just couldn’t bring herself to fake interest in the monotonous details of these tiny, needy humans. That said, she didn’t have anything against having a husband. It was just that, as Marco had told her once, the timing was never right.
After she fed the cat, she headed to the wine bar down the street and ordered a bottle of zinfandel that the bartender described as “liquefied jam.” He was her favorite bartender, quite obviously gay, with perfectly plucked eyebrows and hair gelled into a trendy mohawk. She sipped while her phone buzzed with messages from work. She had a big presentation the next day, the details of which escaped her after her second glass.
She took one of the recipe folders out of her purse, started flipping through the pages, mostly to see her mother’s notes about cook times and tweaks. Behind the matzo ball recipe was a page torn from an old newspaper, folded into a perfect square. Deb unfolded it carefully; the paper was yellowed and delicate, like it might disintegrate in her hands. It was a Los Angeles Times article, dated December 15, 1962.
Deli Baby Finds a Home
By Rosemary Witten
LOS ANGELES—After months of waiting, the baby girl known as the Deli Baby has a home. Mary Simpson, spokesperson for the Children and Family Services Division (CFSD) of the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), confirmed that the baby girl has been adopted by the couple who found her at the back door of their deli one year ago.
“It was three weeks before Hanukkah. We thought she was a gift to us,” said Karen Weintraub, the baby’s adoptive mother. “The finalization of the adoption is this year’s gift.”
The newborn girl was abandoned on December 5 of last year. The Weintraubs found her in the early morning hours when they were opening Alter’s Deli for the day.
“We’d wanted a baby for a long time. It was just the strangest thing,” Alter Weintraub said. “I never thought I believed in fate, but maybe I do.”
The baby girl was found wrapped in a sweatshirt, wearing only a diaper. A note was found with the baby: “I wish I could take care of her. I know you will. Thank you.”
After months of investigation and many false leads, police were unable to locate the baby’s mother. The baby was placed in foster care while the state determined the best course of action.
“We had been on a list with an adoption agency for a year at that point,” Mrs. Weintraub said. “We decided we wanted to adopt the baby who was literally placed at our feet.”
“It’s an unprecedented thing,” Simpson said. “We’ve had abandoned babies before, of course. But we’ve never had them adopted by the people who found them.”
The Weintraubs named their daughter Deborah Lynn. With the adoption final, even if Deborah’s mother returns, she will be denied custody.
“There’s a waiting period for a reason,” Simpson said. “That time has passed. It’s our hope at the CDSS that Deborah has a wonderful life with her new family.”
“I pray that this is the most drama and pain she will ever endure,” Mrs. Weintraub said. “It relieves me that she will not remember any of it.”
Deb read the article a second time, then a third, then a fourth. She sat still, heavy, unable to move, as if the blood in her veins had turned to cement.
“You doing okay?” the bartender asked.
She heard him, but it sounded as if he were very far away. Her head felt too heavy to lift.
“What?”
“You doing okay?”
“Yes.”
He left her alone. Her head spun, with wine or shock. How could they have kept this from her? She felt an intense anger toward them then guilt for the anger. They were dead, after all. They had nothing to say for themselves.
Maybe they were trying to protect her from knowing she’d been left—discarded, really—at the back door of their deli. Maybe they thought it would have been too painful for her to know such a thing. Maybe it would have been too painful. Maybe she would have been screwed up. Maybe she never would have made anything of her life. Maybe her parents did her a favor.
Still, though, they’d cheated her of the opportunity to know who she truly was.
The bartender refilled Deb’s glass.