The Mothers: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

if he’d spent his first twenty summers on the bow of a boat in topsiders and Bermuda shorts, one knee bent as he looked out to sea, his blond hair feathering in the wind. The darker one raised his hand as we watched slides of orphanages flip by.
    “I know that some countries don’t allow gay couples to adopt.” He cleared his throat. “What are the criteria for Russia?”
    I want to say the social worker looked uncomfortable, that she shifted her papers and cleared her throat, but she did neither of those things. “I’m sorry no one told you this before tonight,” she said. “But we don’t take on homosexual couples for international adoption. Most countries will not consider it.” She smiled; her one concession seemed to be that she did so without showing her teeth.
    The couple looked at each other, stunned. Then, as if on cue, they stood up and tried to leave the row with dignity, but they had to step over Ramon and me, who had not had time to stand and make room for them to pass. We tried to, believe me, but it was badly timed, and so we blocked them rather than cleared a path. When they finally exited our row, knocking several chairs imperfect, I began to cry. I sat down and put my head in my hands as I heard more rustling, the sounds of more same-sex couples exiting the room.
    After they left, a single woman, also banned from parenthood, filed out, and then it was Ramon’s and my turn. No cancer, we were told. No matter how long it’s been in remission. Not for Asian countries. There was a ringing in my ears so loud, but I could not answer it. Ramon went to stand, but I jerked him back into his seat. I would not leave the room.
    _______
    Perhaps, we thought, someone with experience could explain this process to us. A colleague gave me the name of an acquaintance—their kids were in school together—a lawyer facilitating adoptions who had adopted two Russian children, simultaneously, five years previously.
    The lawyer was kind enough to meet me for coffee uptown. It was just after she’d had a hair appointment and as she approached my table, I could see her hair was rather purple, like an elderly person’s, and, because it was combed back and sprayed high, away from her face, it revealed two slits at each ear, where her skin had been pulled too tightly and then resewn.
    “This is how you get the best ones,” she said, meaning the children, after we’d said hello and ordered. “You send flowers to the people helping you.” She blew into her tea. “You just do it. They say it’s a queue but it’s not really a queue. Send flowers, and you can get better ones than the ones you’re supposed to get.”
    I had no idea what this woman was talking about. It felt similar to the beginnings of my peregrinations through the underworld of infertility treatments—needles filled with Follistim and Menopur, hot stone massages, progesterone, acupuncture, wheatgrass shots, estrogen patches, potassium IVs. Once I did not know the meaning of some of those words. Here, I began to write everything down in my adoption notebook, a red leather-bound book I’d had for years. I did not yet understand that what the lawyer meant was: try not to get the Russian kid who has never been touched, she will have bonding issues.
    “Bonding issues can ruin your life,” she told me. “If you’re at all unsure about the condition of the child, that’s where Felicia Hirschfeld comes in. She’s famous for looking at videos and measuring the heads of Russian children—actually she measures heads from all the Stans: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan—any Stan she’ll do. She did it for Angelina Jolie, and,” she said, “for a well-worth-it fee, she will also do it for you.”
    “Did Angelina Jolie adopt from a Stan?” I asked, after writing down the name of the woman who measured heads. In addition to securing my memory, writing these facts came with the bonus of removing myself entirely from what, I was finding, was a one-way