Page 19 of Wounded Dance
It’s empty.
My shoes are silent on the wood floor as I cross the office. The muffled sound of the organ assures me that the service is underway. This should go just fine.
I head straight for the closet at the back of the room where I know the private forms are kept. When I tug on the handle, it doesn’t budge. Of course. It’s locked. I knew that.
I hurry to Irma’s desk and open the drawer where she keeps the keys. They are there, as always. The ring jingles as I lift it out and hurry back to the door.
I’m familiar with the keys and pull out the correct one on the first try. The closet swings open. There is a tall file cabinet and I try to remember which drawer has the adoption files. It was low, not high. I remember that.
I try the second from the bottom. It’s filled with tax forms and payment slips for the employees of the church for the past couple of decades. No adoption records.
I slam it closed and open the bottom one. Here are dozens of individual folders. This is it. I finger through them. They are arranged by year. I choose 2012 and tug it out.
The file is thin but there are still unrelated papers in it. Some funeral records. A couple wills that bequeath things to the church.
Then I see it. Gabriella’s adoption contract.
I sit on the floor and tug out my phone. I snap a shot of the top page and open it to the second. There are many pages to this document, and I’m on page four when I hear a quiet “Livia?”
My heart slams as I look up.
It’s Irma, the church secretary.
She’s holding a little device and I recognize it as one that lets her know when someone comes in the side door. I’ve forgotten it exists.
“Hey,” I say. I don’t try to cover up the papers or hide my phone. She’s already seen it.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I decide the best thing to do is just keep working, get as far as I can. I flip to the back page, the birth certificate, and snap a shot. “This is my paperwork,” I say, working backwards now, snapping the next-to-last page. “I need to be able to read it.”
“You can’t do that,” Irma says, bending down for the papers. “These are private church documents.”
I get one more shot done before she picks them up. I want to snatch them from her, but I don’t. She looks so shocked, her face red beneath her chestnut hair, piled on her head with bits sticking out.
“I need those,” I say. “They are about my daughter. And I have a legal situation.”
Irma glances down at the pages. “This is about an adoption. It can’t be yours…” Her voice falters, probably as she reads the name on the front page. Her hand presses against the front of her pale blue paisley dress. “Oh my word.”
“It was my baby,” I say. “I was forced to give her up for adoption and this church was part of it, before my parents let me attend services. Before you and I met.” I hold out my hand. “Please give me those back.”
“You’re so young,” she says, but she passes me the pages. “I had no idea.”
“I was very young then,” I say. “And so was her father.”
I drop the packet on the desk and find a page I haven’t photographed. I’ve done two more pages, when I hear Irma gasp and a large man’s hand covers the words.
I know that hand. I look up.
It’s my father.
“It won’t do you any good to fight this,” he says. “Your baby is a long way from here now.”
I jerk the packet from beneath his hand and flip to another page. “I have a lawyer who will advise me on that.”
“Is it that rich man? That dancer?” he asks, his voice harsh. “Did you spread your legs for him too?
“Mr. Mason!” Irma gasps. “We are in the house of the Lord!”
