Thrown Away/Twisted Roots

Chapter 4

Chapter 4





Casey rubbed her eyes after sitting in front of her computer for hours. She’d searched as many missing children sites as she could find. She’d started in Oregon then moved to Texas. After no girl babies were missing in either state in the days before or after her birth date she widened the search to the entire United States. She'd been at it for four days.


The light went on in the alcove adjacent to her bedroom suite. The glare caused her eyes to close and she rubbed them, blinking until they adjusted to the brightness.


“Come away from the computer.” The voice broke the silence.


“Abby. I’m working.” Casey turned to glare at her housekeeper, babysitter, taxi driver and nanny.


The older woman waved her hand in front of her face. “I’ve had enough. Get up and go take a shower and change your clothes. I’ll have soup and a sandwich waiting when you’re done.” She swept the air with her hands at the young woman, shooing her toward the bathroom.


Casey stood in the middle of the room, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. A hot shower and clean clothes sounded good to her.


When Casey returned to the room, Abby stood by her desk looking at the notebook where she’d recorded what she found. “This doesn’t look promising. I’m sorry.” She walked to the table and sat facing Casey as she ate.


“I know. There are no missing baby news anywhere during the weeks before my birth date or after. I expanded the search to include the whole month just in case Mo-Diane, lied about that too.” She took a bite of the tuna sandwich and gave a small moan of delight.


“It's bizarre. I’m not listed in any Missing child database. I’m not in any newspaper as missing. How did Diane acquire me?” She stopped talking a took another bite of the sandwich. “Tuna, my favorite.”


“Casey, we could hypothesize for weeks about what might have happened. Let’s take a moment and think about your future.” She rested her elbow on the table than her chin on her hand. “When you find or don’t find as the case may be who you really are, what will it change in your life? Will you suddenly become a different person? Will your job change? Will, you leave your friends and take off to be with your new family? Then on the other hand, what if you don’t find any connection to anyone? Are you going to curl up in a ball and give up on your life?”


Casey too a drink from her glass and shook her head. “No, I won’t change. I mean, I’m sure if I find my new family, I’ll work at connecting with them, if they want me.” For a moment she stared at the computer. “That’s the giant monster in the room. What if they don’t want me?”


“I don’t believe that. You know all the situations that could have led to this happening.” Abby patted her arm then squeezed it.


“I know. I’ve gone over and over many of them in my mind. I’ve decided that if the last of the sites I have to search doesn’t reveal anything. I'kk just give up.” She finished the soup and pushed the bowl and plate across the table.


“Hold on. think about this. I get what you want. Finding a connection is paramount to dealing with the grief you’re feeling right now. The grief of losing the woman you called mother soon after losing your aunt. The grief of feeling she rejected you by telling you that you aren’t her real daughter and building up a lie all these years. By her telling you after she died is a blow on top of a blow and you’re trying to find your way out of the hole.”


Casey felt the tears build and gather in her eyes. A stone the size of an orange now lodged in her chest and she had a hard time swallowing.


“All of this needs to be dealt with. Let’s put you on the side of your real mother and maybe your father. Whatever circumstances drove her to give you up may still be in play. If she’s one of the less fortunate of society, she didn’t want you or felt you were better off without her. This instance will be the hardest to locate since you don’t know who she is. On the other hand, what if she isn’t from that society and maybe had you and couldn’t tell her family. The stigma and all.” She leaned toward Casey.


Casey slumped in her chair. “This isn’t going well. I’m stuck. I have the path to the answer and I can’t take it.” After a moment she jumped to her feet and shouted. “How am I going to find my real family?”


“Hold on right there young lady.” Abby’s voice turned stern. “Let’s stop a minute. Whether you find your biological family doesn’t change who your “real family” are. The woman who raised you and loved you is your REAL mother. That isn’t going to change. What you do with the new information is how you change in the future. What will you do if you never find this family? Are you going to curl up in a ball and become depressed, never to live your life to its fullest?” Casey shook her head. “Good. I think you need to retrace your mother’s journey from her job in Texas to when she arrived here in Portland. Tammy told me Diane wouldn’t talk about how she came to have you. She tried numerous times to get the story from Diane even threatening to tell you, but she wouldn’t give it up. Something happened in who the woman was or in how she took you in that kept her quiet. I have no idea if Diane ever knew what happened to the woman. Maybe her family was in Organized Crime or a drug Cartel.”


Abby laughed and Abby frowned. “What’s so funny?”


“You’re being melodramatic.”


“I am not.” Abby protested.


Casey leaned over and hugged the woman who taught her to cook and helped with science projects when Diane and Tammy couldn’t. Abby even taught Casey to drive after she and Diane came in the house in a fit over Diane’s teaching methods. Casey and Diane hadn’t talked for a week. Then laughed at the incident.


“Look at me. Do I look Italian or Latino?” Casey posed like a model and fluffed her tangled red hair around her pale face.


Abby cocked her head and rubbed her finger across her lips, “No I don’t think so. Maybe the Irish or Scottish mafia?”


“I’ve never heard of them. I’m pretty safe in being of plain Irish or Scottish descent.”


“You’re right. That at least is a start. I remember Tammy saying there is only about one percent of the world with natural red hair. Especially the red color you have. Some have auburn, or copper or even strawberry blond. Your hair is an unusual color of red that can’t be reproduced from a bottle.”


Casey sat on the couch and ran her fingers through her curly hair. They got tangled in the damp mass, then began the methodic task of detangling it.


I’m still surprised you don’t just straighten it.” Abby shook her head.


“It takes just as much time to work a flat iron through this it does just finger curling it.”


“Back to what your plans are.” Abby prompted.


Casey gave a huge sigh. “I think you’re right. I need to go to Austin, Texas, and question anyone she knew there during her time there. I’ll get her yearbook and address book. Maybe some of the names will sound familiar. She probably had them sign her yearbook.”


Abby reached for the empty plate and cup. “It’s a good start.” She paused and looked down at Casey. “Honey, we're going to need to talk about the future. Yours and mine and this gigantic house.”


“Later.” Casey had once again curled into a ball under the blanket she'd wrapped around her while working.


“Sweetie, before you go on this trip. That way while you’re gone I can make some headway. Maybe think about Tammy’s room first?”


“Yes, Tammy’s room. That’s a good idea. We’ll talk later.”


“Casey, before you go on this trip.” Abby’s voice sounded firm and final in the silence. She left the room closing the door behind her.


Casey mulled over the conversation. Tammy’s room would be a good place to clean. She hadn’t gone in there since her aunt died. She’d have Abby donate her aunt's clothes to a outreach for women who needed clothes for job interviews or a business clothes for that important job they just got. She nodded her head to no one in particular, but it seemed to settle it in her mind.


Later she paged through her mother’s yearbook looking at the names signed on the front and back pages. She googled them on the computer looking for their names listed in a hospital or private practice records. When she’d compiled a list she began calling them.


Two days later Casey entered the kitchen to see Abby placing a tray of hot cinnamon rolls on the counter. “Looks like I came down at the right time.” She slid onto the bar stool next to the steaming tray.


“Get a cup of coffee while I put these on a plate.”


“Abby, I’ve made a list. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”


“So you found people to talk to.” Abby forked a bit of roll into her mouth.


Casey nodded. “I spoke to two women who remembered Diane. They were a little evasive at first. I tried to keep the real reason for my call private and told them Diane had passed away and I was reaching out to any of her friends encouraging them to get checked. I laughed a little and joked that the ones who know and do for others, often forget themselves. They were kind and told me stories about her. I asked if she had any boyfriends or lovers while she was there. All of them paused. Abby, there had to be something. Each said she was dedicated to her work and dated very little. She was good friends with many of the doctors. Then I dropped a bomb. Did they think she’s ever had an abortion? The eruption of NOT DIANE! was the same with them all. Diane not only didn’t believe in abortions, but she also went out of her way to talk to girls about using protection, abstaining and adoption as alternatives. I guess mom was a pro life-r.”


Abby smiled. “Your mom wasn’t a card-carrying pro-life advocate. She went around in her quiet but forceful way and got girls to have the child and give it up for adoption. She had many couples and families ready to take on these children. She worked with local lawyers and the State to see it was handled legally.”


“I wonder why she didn’t do it with me.


“It could be she saw the system would have taken you away from her? She’d come to care for you on the drive home? She couldn’t give you up.”


“That’s one way of looking at it. About Aunt Tammys’ rooms. Why don’t you go ahead and start emptying out her closets and drawers? Any personal toiletries, toss out. If you think I should see it, put it aside. Do the same with anything else you find. Box it up and I’ll go through it later.” Casey frowned. “By any chance did my mother go through Aunt Tammy’s room after she died?”


Abby made a thoughtful expression. “I did see her in the room once. She had gone through the shelves and the nightstand. She also had pulled boxes from the closet shelves. After hours went by she left the room and shut the door. I asked her if she wanted me to take care of anything in there. She waved at me and said just put the boxes back on the shelves and leave it for you to figure out what to do with it.”


“She told me that Aunt Tammy’s room was off limits for now. She’d have to deal with it later after she’d come to terms with her death. I wonder if she knew then she had cancer?” Casey forked the last of the roll into her mouth and sipped her coffee. She rolled her eyes at Abby. “You aren’t going anywhere.” She wagged her finger at Abby. "I would die if I didn't get these at least once a month."


“She could have. It seems she didn’t want you digging around in there while she was alive.”


Casey agreed and went to her room to pack for the trip.