So sorry, Joshua! I was hoping that I’d have time to call you—but—there’s been a family emergency—I must be away for a while, unavoidably.
3.
Her personal identity has always been simple enough—adopted.
Blank slate. Washed clean. No memory.
Very young, not yet three, when she’d been adopted by a (childless, older) couple in St. Paul named Seidel.
That was all she’d needed to know about that phase of her life: she’d been adopted at a young age. All she’d wished to know.
A tabula rasa, it is. Adoption.
Her (adoptive) parents did tell her that her birth name was Clare—that is, her name was Clare Ellen when she’d come into their lives, and this was a “very charming” name that they saw no reason to change, as (of course, officially) they would be changing her last name now that she was their little girl.
A matter of property, possession. A child is delivered to an adult or adults—delivered by birth, sometimes delivered by an agency.
Maybe she’d seen that name—Donegal—on her birth certificate. So long ago, it made no impression on her and (in fact) she has forgotten.
Every adoption is a mystery—Why?
Why was I given up, given away? Why was I not wanted?
By whom was I not wanted?
But Clare Seidel was/is the perfect (adopted) daughter. Clare did not/does not ask.
A grateful child does not ask why.
The Seidels were older parents. Might’ve been their adopted child’s grandparents. Both were teachers with a mission—educators. Over the course of seventeen years of marriage they had not had children, though (Clare has gathered) they’d tried. Not long before Clare was adopted, a beloved dog belonging to the Seidels had died. Clare has seen pictures of this pert, brush-haired Airedale flanked by its adoring master and mistress and has felt a stab of jealousy, fear. (If the Airedale hadn’t passed away at the age of twelve, at precisely the time he did, would the person identified as Clare Seidel exist?) The Seidels did not wish to think that life had cheated them. They had combined incomes, two cars, a house with a reasonable mortgage. For two weeks each August they rented a cottage on Lake Superior. They were grateful for the orphaned child Clare, as Clare would come to be grateful for them.
Don’t hurt Dad’s feelings! Don’t ever make him think he isn’t your Dad, because he is.
Because there is no other Dad, or Mom, for you. There is—just us.
Instinctively Clare knew. She understood. She was their (adopted) little girl who would never ask why.
For instance, an (adopted) child never asks, Why did you want me?
Couldn’t you have children of your own, was that why you’d adopted me?
Of course, never ask! Unthinkable.
An (adopted) child never asks, But where did I come from? To whom did I belong before I was given to you?
Later, in school, Clare felt a swell of pride when the smiling teacher pronounced the very special name that meant her: Sei-del.
Such pleasure it gave her, when at last she could write, to write
Clare Seidel
Clare Seidel
Clare Seidel
in her notebook.
But all that, that part of her life, her very early life, hardly seems hers any longer.
4.
Next day the UPS delivery from Lucius Fischer arrives. Clare discovers that she has inherited twelve acres, a house, and outbuildings at 2558 Post Road, Ashford County, Maine.
Property! Better than mere money, which has no historic value, property is something Clare can possess.
Several times she scans the lawyer’s accompanying letter but discovers no new information. No warmly scribbled personal postscript—Congratulations, Ms. Seidel!
Indeed, a properly formal letter on stiff stationery with the letterhead
ABRAMS, FISCHER, MITTELMAN, & TROTTER.
Fischer’s signature is all but unreadable. She’d felt such a curious rapport with him the previous day . . .
And that was how we met. Over the phone.
Over the matter of my grandmother’s will.
Smiling to think of how it might be narrated from a future perspective. How (random) lives intersect with other lives, changing these lives forever.
. . . it was purest chance! The phone rang, I picked it up, and there was Lucius on the other end, saying, Hello? Am I speaking with Clare Seidel?
Totally uprooting my life. And his.
Clare imagines a summer place on the Atlantic coast. Plateglass windows facing the ocean. Tall hemlocks, a curving country road. Boulder-strewn beach. Crashing waves of the grayish-blue Atlantic Ocean, too cold to swim even in midsummer. Ceaseless wind.
Sees herself in white clothing, a figure in a Winslow Homer watercolor of dreamlike beauty. Descending stone steps to the beach. Behind her a mysterious figure . . .
Almost, Clare can see the man’s face. But as she stares, it begins to disintegrate. Blurs, as if with tears.
But no: She will sell the property. If she can.
Never will she live in rural Ashford County, Maine. Her professional work necessitates her living in large urban areas, near research institutions.
Fischer has informed Clare that she has thirty days to file her claim in the Ashford County probate court. She wonders—how much is the property worth? Is it worth her effort?
Clare could use the money. She is thirty years old, has never had any but temporary jobs, academic appointments. A very small savings account. She has liked to think of herself as a person immune to material things. Though she has a weakness for beauty, she doesn’t need to own it.
Landscapes, art. Music. You can take pleasure in these without owning them.
As you can take pleasure in people, lovers—without being owned by them.
She has never wanted to marry, still less have children. Crying babies fill her with dismay. Shrieking children fill her with panic. A (former) lover objected that Clare tended to “drift” when they were together: he never knew where the hell her mind was, but he could sense that it wasn’t with him.
Clare winces, recalling. She regrets having hurt another person.
In your web. In your cocoon. Beware whom you allow in.
In each place Clare has lived since leaving her parents’ home, she has accumulated a small number of friends, none of whom knows the others. This is crucial to Clare—that her friends don’t know one another. And each time she moves to a new city, she is negligent about keeping in contact with these friends.