Leave Me

Mother is Catholic and Protestant by parentage but describes herself as not religious. She has not attended church since the death of her mother.

Family:

Mother’s father is fifty-seven years old and in good health. He is the owner of redacted restaurant in redacted. He is described as tall, fair, muscular, and athletic.

Mother’s mother, whom she described as sharp-witted and sometimes melancholic, is deceased. She collapsed at the age of forty-two, when Mother was sixteen, of a suspected heart attack. Prior to that, she had been in good health.

Siblings: Mother has four siblings, a brother aged twenty-two, brother aged seventeen, and twin brothers aged fourteen. She describes her brothers as energetic, sweet, athletic boys, though lacking intellectual curiosity.

Older brother is currently serving in the army in Vietnam. Seventeen-year-old brother works in the family restaurant. Younger brothers still in school.

Aunt paternal, fifty-one: A spinster aunt lives with the family since the death of the mother. In good health aside from deafness in one ear, a result of childhood meningitis. The aunt’s relationship with the Mother appears to be contentious since the death of Mother’s mother.

Uncle paternal, fifty-four: A dairy farmer who lives in redacted. In good health.

Aunt maternal, forty-seven: In good health, lives in redacted.

Grandparents: Maternal grandmother, seventy-two, is in failing health in a nursing home. Maternal grandfather deceased, cause of death unknown. Paternal grandmother, deceased, lung cancer. Paternal grandfather deceased, automobile accident.

Alleged Father: Alleged Father is a professor at redactedr redacted redacted where Mother attended. Mother is reluctant to divulge any further detail, possibly for fear of it leading to professional and personal repercussions because Alleged Father is married.

EVALUATION:

Although intelligent, Mother appears to be a naive young woman who entered into an extramarital affair about which she expresses little remorse beyond her disappointment at having to leave community college because of the ensuing pregnancy. While she speaks with pride of being the first member of her family to attain higher education, she seems disconnected from how her own actions have likely derailed her educational aspirations and is therefore unwilling or unable to take full responsibility. She believes that after the pregnancy she will be able to return to college, though Mother’s father and aunt say that is unlikely.

Mother makes frequent mention of a desire to escape her household, to escape the family business, and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she viewed the pregnancy as a means of escape. It is clear that in spite of her age, Mother is by no means ready for motherhood, a fact she readily acknowledges, which suggests at least a modicum of insight and maturity.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Mother made a particular request that the child not be adopted into a strongly Catholic household.

BIRTH INFORMATION:

Mother gave birth to a healthy baby girl at Shadyside Hospital on 10:55 a.m. on March 12, 1970, three weeks before term. Child’s birth weight was a healthy 7 pounds, 4 ounces, which suggests a possible incorrect due date. Mother, who had remained unemotional and removed for much of the pregnancy, became atypically emotional and reflective after the baby’s birth. She had previously expressed no desire to name the child but after the birth insisted on giving her a name. Child remained in the hospital for five days before being transferred to nursery at Allegheny Children’s Home to await the termination of Mother’s parental rights and subsequent adoption.

COURT INFORMATION:

Relinquishment hearing took place on May 17, 1970. Mother appeared unaccompanied and seemed in good spirits. Birth mother’s parental rights were terminated on July 8, 1970.

63

Maribeth read the report in the living room of Janice’s tidy brick ranch house. She had to put the paper in her lap. Her hands shook too much to hold it.

“Are you okay, dear?” Janice asked, hovering from a respectful distance.

“I’m fine,” Maribeth heard herself say.

“It’s lucky that she was at the Beacon.” Janice stopped herself. “Maybe lucky is the wrong word. But I can make an appointment to look at the files from the maternity home on Monday. We might be able get more information then. Maybe about that play she put on . . .”

Maribeth wasn’t really paying attention. “Okay.”

“I’ll see to that Monday. I promise.”

“Do you think I might use your computer?” Maribeth asked.

“Help yourself,” Janice said. “It’s in the office.”

Maribeth walked down the hall in a daze. Behind her, Janice called, “Can I get you anything? Tea? Whiskey?”

“I’m fine,” Maribeth repeated.

She held the form in her still-shaking hand. It told her everything—her grandmother, dead of a heart attack at age forty-two—and yet it told her nothing. The report read almost as if her mother were glad to be rid of her. But then it said she had grown emotional after her birth. What did that mean? Had she loved her at all? Had she wanted to keep her at all? Did she regret abandoning her at all?

She opened her e-mail program. She typed in Jason’s address.

I found her, was what she meant to write. Something like that.

But what she wrote was this: Why did you leave me?

She stared at the screen, at the question that had been hidden in her heart all this time. And then she started to cry.

SHE STAYED AT Janice’s all afternoon. They watched reruns of Bewitched on TV. They ate microwaved popcorn. When Maribeth wept over a Dove commercial, Janice handed her a tissue and didn’t say a thing.