Page 48 of Home Body
As they drove away, Rose looked out the living room window, watching them go. She lamented to her grandmother, “I dunno if he’s gonna kiss her.”
“Why would he not?”
“She doesn’t have any red lipstick.”
“Huh. Well, maybe he’ll at least hold her hand. How’s that?”
The girl shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” Although, she’d watched enough TV soap operas with her grandma to know better. Holding hands would never do.
CHAPTER 28
Kenyon clicked off the TV and tossed the remote aside on the couch. Bitsy, the dog, who sat on her other side, flinched as if she’d wanted to watch that show.
Murphy Brownwas Kenyon’s favorite show and usually the comedy kept her highly entertained. She loved Candice Bergen’s portrayal of an over-forty former alcoholic who returned to her job as an investigative reporter and anchor for a fictional TV newsmagazine. The crew of quirky characters felt like family to viewers and made the show one of the most popular on television.
Her mom lived that life for real. Kenyon wanted to do the investigative part but not the television part. She had no desire to get up at three-dark-thirty like her mom had done for Kenyon’s entire life. To top it off, Llayne O’Brien had to look good by 6:00 a.m. for the world to see. No way. Newspaper reporting was perfect for Kenyon. She wouldn’t need to get dolled up every day.
The big, comfortable O’Brien house was quiet. The large antique clock above the fireplace proclaimed eight o’clock. The family had gone out for burgers for supper, then her parentswent to a friend’s house for a euchre tournament. They loved playing that card game, which Kenyon had never quite been able to grasp. Her brother was who-knew-where. He’d left early enough that he’d been able to drive his car out of the driveway rather than sneakily push it while in neutral.
She missed Jessa, having become accustomed to her almost constant companionship in Los Cabos. But Jessa had returned to college as planned, ready to dive into her summer job lifeguarding at the college’s pool. Thankfully, she’d promised to come home to visit soon.
Bart the Bartender popped into Kenyon’s thoughts, as he often did. Such a brief encounter and yet so memorable. He’d shown her that a man could be attracted to her no matter what Chad had done that indicated otherwise. Sadly, there wasn’t much chance she’d ever see Bart again.
Her mind turned to the events of her day with Dalia, her thoughts whirring as she stroked Sally, the family cat that napped on her lap. She liked Dalia a lot, but how crazy had that visit to Amberton been? Dalia had possibly been illegally sold, not legally adopted. If that was the case, there might be a woman out there who was her mother, a woman who believed her child had been stillborn. Kenyon couldn’t imagine such a tragic thing.
Although adopted herself, she knew for certain who her biological parents had been. Both were dead. She felt no connection to them whatsoever. Llayne and Mack O’Brien were the only parents she’d ever known, and she loved them beyond measure, annoying as they could be at times.
Having been born out of wedlock in Vietnam and then miraculously landing in this privileged world with the O’Briens had either been sheer dumb luck, fate, or a gift from God. Whatever it might have been, she knew how lucky she’d been and needed to work on being more grateful. Her parents insisted she shouldn’t feel beholding, as if she didn’t belong. They’dalways let her know she was one of them no matter how she got there.
She sometimes wondered if she should feel more attached to her biological family. Yes, she was Vietnamese and American, her American father, Lex, having impregnated her Vietnamese mother, Soon, during the Vietnam War. By all accounts, they’d been in love, but he’d returned to the states without knowing Soon was pregnant. Soon died giving birth and Kenyon was raised by an aunt for a short while then put in a Catholic orphanage until someone managed to find a connection to the man back in the states listed as her father on her birth records. Unfortunately, he’d died by then. But his widow – the woman he’d met and married after returning from war – was found. That widow was Llayne, who readily agreed to adopt her dead husband’s child. It was a bitter-sweet story with a happy ending for Kenyon.
She remembered the photograph her mom had her keep by her bed when she was little, a double frame with Soon on one side and Lex on the other. Her mom had wanted her to know them. But by the time she was in first grade and her mom had remarried to Kenyon’s dad Mack, the photos of Soon and Lex gave way to an Action Barbie Live Action on Stage set. The amazing Barbie, who could twist and turn and had her own microphone, slept in bed with Kenyon.
So, Kenyon felt no connection whatsoever to the people in those old pictures. Her bond was with those who’d raised and loved her for as long as she could remember.
It struck her that there might be other adopted adults out there who felt the same way about the parents who raised them and some of them might have been stolen away, as it seemed happened with Dalia. The adoptees might be assuming their biological parents either couldn’t take care of them or didn’twant them when in fact those parents might think their child was dead. What a disastrous, convoluted mess.
If Mr. Steinburg was right, that had happened many times over. How many women were out there, carrying on with their lives, thinking their child had been stillborn? When in fact those children walked the earth thinking they’d been given up.
The idea had been fomenting in her mind and finally came to full fruition. This was her investigative story to submit toThe Detroit Newsin hopes of getting a job. She and Dalia had alluded to it, but Kenyon suddenly felt possessed to dig deeper for the truth. Unless Dalia gave her permission, which Kenyon doubted, she wouldn’t write about her specifically. That was okay because this was much bigger than a one-person story.
Dalia would benefit from knowing, but she was personally invested so wouldn’t be objective. Kenyon felt certain her own objective point of view would garner more information from other people as well as from research. Having graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in communication with an emphasis on journalism, she certainly did know how to do research.
She looked at the clock again. Ten minutes after eight. The university library stayed open until midnight for all those students doing late-night work on class assignments. If she left right away, she could be there by a quarter to nine, leaving plenty of time to search the microfilm records for… she didn’t know what for sure. She’d have to find out.
“Sorry, Sally.” She pushed the cat off her lap. “Sorry, Bitsy.” She tufted the dog’s ruff. “Gotta go. The couch is all yours.”
Sally mewled her objection. But as soon as Kenyon stood up, the cat curled up in the warm spot where her person had been sitting. Bitsy merely stared at her with big, disappointed eyes that tugged at Kenyon’s heart.
In the library, it only took two hours of pouring over microfiche before she found what she sought.
“Eureka! Holy shit, look at this,” she said louder than intended after reading the shocking article from 1950.
A girl sitting next to her, whirring through photos on another microfiche machine, scoffed. “Please. No swearing.” The poor thing looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, so Kenyon gave her a break and didn’t offer a nasty retort. Her eyes back on the article, she read the whole thing again. Pressing the “print” button, she hurried to the front desk to pay for her copies, collect them, and head home.
She couldn’t wait to see Dalia the next day and show her the revealing article. It would be Saturday, Farmers’ Market Day, so that’s where she’d find her friend.
On the drive home, though, she reconsidered her impulse to disclose what she’d found in a public setting. Share it she would but the information was so sensitive it had to be handled in the right way.
