At the Center. Dorothy Van Soest

I walked away from the administrative office suite and down the hall. Was Betsy really putting children first or was she, perhaps inadvertently due to her cautiousness, aligned with Brion in making the agency’s image the priority? Maybe I was overreacting. I knew I was prone to bouts of self-righteousness at times—it was a character defect I’d worked hard to change—but right now I didn’t care. What was worse, I didn’t care that I didn’t care. Something bigger than me, something I didn’t understand, had consumed me. I ducked into the women’s restroom and locked the door behind me.

      THREE

      May 1972

      Jamie’s sinewy arms and lanky legs sliced through the air. He bounced across the deck and skidded to halt, and his best friend Tommy slammed into his back.

      “Mom, guess what?” Jamie said.

      Mary Williams had just finished washing down the picnic table. She put the bucket of soapy water and the wet sponge down. “What, sweetie?” She folded her son in her arms, taking in the smell of him.

      “If you cut a worm in half you have two worms and you can cut it in threes or fours or even more. A man at camp showed us how to dissect them and Melissa almost fainted but I didn’t.”

      “Wow, that’s really something. How about you go wash your hands now. There’s a treat for you in the kitchen. Soon it’ll be time to get ready for the parade.” Mary puckered her lips and Jamie giggled, gave her a little kiss.

      “Race you to the door,” Jamie said as he and Tommy took off like lightning.

      Mary picked up her bucket and followed the boys into the house. Memorial Day, for most people in the small town of Basko, signified the end of another long midwestern winter and the beginning of summer, when the air would once again be filled with the smells of charcoal grills and freshly cut grass. But for Mary, today marked the nearing of Jamie’s seventh year as her son. It was a celebration of the emergence of a life as flawlessly designed as the backyard tapestry of regal pines and brilliant white birch, a life with hopes and dreams as bright as the daffodils and tulips blooming next to the garage.

      Jamie and Tommy, their hands still wet, sat in their usual places at the kitchen table, where Mary had placed pastry crisps, still warm from the oven, and two glasses of milk.

      “I wish my mom knew how to make these.” Tommy took a noisy gulp of milk from his favorite glass.

      “I know how, don’t I, Mom?” Jamie puffed up his little chest, as proud of himself for sprinkling sugar and cinnamon on top of the pastries as if he had landed a rocket on the moon.

      “You sure do, sweetie.”

      The cinnamon crisps, made with leftover dough from the meat pies that were still in the oven, were Jamie’s favorite snack—just as they had been Mary’s when she was a child. That made her think about her own mother, how having only one child had been, at times, too heavy a burden for her, although she’d tried hard to be a good mother in between the dark spells. Whenever Mary found herself wishing she’d been able to bring her mother the same kind of joy Jamie brought her, she’d tell herself it was best not to think too much about some things. Then she’d redouble her efforts to create the childhood for Jamie that her own mother had been unable to create for her.

      Just then the door leading to the garage opened and Wayne walked into the kitchen, wiping his dirty hands on his jeans. “Hey, boys,” he said. He grabbed one of the pastries and shoved it into his mouth. He glanced at Mary with a sheepish smile and reached for another one.

      “Get your greasy mitts off,” she said, slapping at his hand. “It’s about time you stopped tinkering with that old truck of yours and got cleaned up. Your folks will be here any minute.”

      Wayne curled his lips into a pout. She laughed, handed him another cinnamon crisp. At times like this, she nearly forgot what it had been like before Jamie. Before Jamie, when shame ruled her life, like an unrelenting dictator in a desert of barrenness. All the medical procedures she and Wayne had undergone back then, all their attempts to find the right moment and the right way to conceive, had led to the truth that she would never feel a baby, a new life, growing inside her, and that it was her fault.

      —

      Mary’s descent into a state of sadness and hopelessness back then was subtle at first. She couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read the newspaper. She began to wonder if she was incapable of doing anything right. Sunny days seemed cloudy and dreary. She was often irritated with Wayne, suffocated by his attempts to help. Their marriage lost its meaning for her, now that they would never realize the dream they’d shared since junior high school of creating a home filled with children.

      She questioned whether she loved Wayne anymore. She’d burst into tears over nothing. Some days she found it hard to get out of bed.

      She thought more and more about what a welcome relief it must have been for her mother when she committed suicide ten years ago.

      One morning when she lay in bed, once more unable to face the day, Wayne brought her breakfast.

      “I talked to a social worker.” He put the tray down and placed his hand on hers. “About taking in a foster child.”

      She didn’t say anything.

      “Just to see how it goes. Maybe later we can think about adopting. Please, Mary. We can’t go on like this.”

      The love in Wayne’s eyes reached Mary’s heart and cut through her pain. “Okay, I’ll talk to a social worker,” she’d said, “but that’s all, just talk.”

      In the end, she agreed to give foster parenting a try. There was no way she could have known then how that decision would change everything. The moment Jamie was placed in her arms and she saw his scrunched-up three-day-old face peeking out from the fluffy blue blanket, she fell utterly, hopelessly, in love with him. She wondered if this was what other mothers felt, if it was possible that she might be experiencing the same kind of joy, the same kind of pure love they reported feeling after giving birth. Maybe the price she had paid for this gift of life had simply been a different kind of pain than the physical pain they experienced. With Jamie’s arrival, life became a carnival of laughter and discovery and love. How wrong it seemed now to consider that it had been born in such desperation.

      —

      “Knock, knock!”

      The cheery voice of Wayne’s mother came through the back door. Rose Williams, a petite woman with a stoop to her back and the perpetual smell of roses about her, stood on her tiptoes and hugged her son.

      “And you, my dear,” she said, planting a kiss on Mary’s cheek, “are as gorgeous as ever.”

      Mary smiled indulgently. Her mother-in-law had a propensity to be fast and loose with the compliments. Like the time she told the pastor’s wife her new hairstyle looked ravishing when any fool could see what a botched job it was. But she meant well, and Mary loved her.

      “Where’s Dad?” Wayne asked.

      “Checking his new Cadillac for scratches before he comes in,” Rose said. “You know how he is.”

      A few minutes later Harold Williams roared into the kitchen and slammed a six-pack of Coke down on the counter. He patted Mary on the back and with an exaggerated sniff tipped his head toward the oven.

      “Now those meat pies are something even I couldn’t make,” he said. “Course, I’ve never tried.” He chuckled.

      Mary ignored him. Wayne’s father could be a challenge sometimes, but he was devoted to his family—unlike her own father, who’d moved to Florida after her mother died and dropped off the face of the earth.

      “Hi, Grandpa Harold.” Jamie’s brown eyes lit up with excitement.

      “Uncle Harold.” Wayne’s father tousled Jamie’s hair.

      Mary gritted her teeth. No matter how many excuses Wayne