If You Could See Me Now. Michael Mewshaw

      Copyright © 2006 Michael Mewshaw

      All rights reserved.This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

       without permission.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mewshaw, Michael, 1943– If you could see me now : a chronicle of identity and adoption / Michael Mewshaw. p. cm. EISBN: 978-160953-113-3 1. Mewshaw, Michael, 1943 with women. 3. Novelists,American 4. Birthparents PS3563.E87Z46 2006 813'.54 2005033457 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Book design by SH First Printing For Linda, Sean and Marc, and in memory of my mother, Mary Helen Murphy Mewshaw Dunn (1916 "The true terror . . . the true mystery of life was not that we are all going to die, but that we were all born, that we were all once little babies like this, unknowing and slowly reeling in the world, gathering it loop by loop like a ball of string. The true terror was that we once didn't exist, and then, through no fault of our own, we had to." You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon

       book one

      C h a p t e r O n e

      One crystalline spring evening in London a long-distance call interrupted our dinner. My wife, Linda, and younger son, Marc, then sixteen, looked on as I answered the portable phone we kept near the table. Although my end of the conversation consisted mostly of monosyllables, they sensed something was wrong. They must have seen it on my face and heard the tightness in my voice. They both stopped eating and stared at me so strangely that I had to turn away from their inquiring eyes.

      The call came from my sister Karen, who lives in Maryland, not far from where we grew up. My mother, now in her eighties, has a house a few blocks away from Karen, so in recent years, whenever my sister phones, I've found myself bracing for bad news. But what she had to tell me this time didn't fall neatly into the category of bad or good news, and although it caught me off guard, it had about it the sort of inevitability that attaches itself to events that you realize you've been waiting for, half in dread, half in hope, for decades.

      Karen explained that she had just spoken to a woman who had called from California. "She had a very nice manner, so calm and reassuring, I assumed she was a telemarketer. She gave me her name and spelled it out for me. Then she asked me to write down her number in case we got cut off. Probably she was afraid I'd faint. That's what I felt like doing when she said, 'I have reason to believe you're my biological mother. ' "

      Karen's immediate reaction had been that the poor woman had the wrong number. "It was the oddest thing, though," Karen told me. "I almost wanted to say I was her mother. She sounded so sweet and lovely, and she had such a small child-like voice, I wanted to help her. But I told her I had two kids, a girl in college, a boy in high school, and the year she said she was born in Los Angeles, I was a senior in high school right here in Maryland. "

      Calmly the caller had thanked Karen and asked her to hold on to her telephone number "just in case. "

      "After we hung up," Karen said, "I thought of you, Mike. "

      Unnerved to have Linda and Marc looking on—even with my eyes averted I felt the weight of their gaze—I pushed away from the dinner table and retreated to the living room with the portable phone crackling static in my ear. Seen through the front windows of our fourth-floor apartment, the rooftops of Hampstead, all tiled in red, sloped toward downtown London. Amid the horizon's hard-edged geometry, the dome of St. Paul's and the British Telephone Tower were the only landmarks I recognized by name in this latest in the long line of my temporary adopted homes. For the past thirty-five years I have lived for the most part in Europe, yet have never settled down anywhere and have continued to feel connected to people and places halfway around the world.

      "Weren't you in California in 1964?" Karen prompted me. "I remember something about a girl you followed there. "

      My sister and I aren't usually reticent with each other. To the contrary, we have reputations in the family for speaking our minds, sometimes too bluntly. But Karen's obliqueness was meant to spare my feelings. We had never before spoken about the months I had lived in LA.

      "I hope it doesn't upset you," she said," but I called this girl back. Her name's Amy. And I told her maybe she needed to talk to you. I didn't give her your name or number because I don't know what you want to do. But like I said, she sounds like such a sweet person. "

      "How did she get your name?"

      "I have no idea. It must have been a mistake. Maybe this has nothing to do with us. "

      "Well, it certainly doesn't have anything to do with you. "

      "I wish you'd tell her that, Mike, because the terrible thing is, I think she's afraid that I'm her mother and you're her father. "

      I apologized for the distress this had caused her and promised to call Amy and correct any misapprehensions. Then I stayed on the line to Maryland a few minutes longer while Karen and I tried to piece together how Amy's search for her biological parents had led to my sister. Or, to be precise, to my half-sister. Even as kids we hadn't had the same last name, and now that Karen was married for the second time, the path to her should have been triply difficult to follow.

      After I hung up I remained in the living room, looking out at the city. Lights were flickering on across the vast sprawl of London. I left them off in the apartment and sat in the dark, attempting to sort through a chaos of long-buried memories. Before we married, my wife had heard the story and accepted the situation. Now I wondered whether it was time to tell Marc. Or was that an excuse to postpone calling Amy?

      I decided to contact her first, then speak to my son. Although neither conversation figured to be easy, I felt a curious sense of relief. Confession, Catholics believe, is healing. It's a chance to examine your conscience, review the past, and right old wrongs. In my case, it was also an opportunity to try to understand the past and to weigh honestly my responsibility for those rights and wrongs.

      In California, where it was midmorning,Amy answered the phone at work. I had hoped to reach her at a home number. It wasn't just that I preferred to speak to her in privacy. I liked to imagine her as a mother in a domestic setting, fulfilled, secure. Yet even in an office, with colleagues nearby, she sounded friendly and relaxed, and assured me that this was a good time to talk. After a bit of preliminary throat clearing— profuse thanks for my calling, apologies for probing—she got down to her questions.

      "Have you ever lived in LA?" she asked.

      "Yes. A long time ago. "

      "In 1964? I was born on Christmas Eve that year. "

      "Yes, I was in California then. "

      "I know this is awfully sudden and may come as a shock, but I have reason to believe you're my biological father. "

      "An hour ago