Beginning the Search

December 1978
24 West Twelfth Street
Odyssey House
New York, NY

It was dark and late, and I was awake. I stared at the light from thestreetlamp coming through the window and glimmering across thewooden, polished floor of the therapeutic community where I lived. Anhour passed and then another hour. I rose and walked through the largebuilding in the dark to my drafting desk, where I worked during the daydelivering packages, creating graphics, and running the old Gestetnerprinting press. I turned on a single overhead light and placed a sheet ofwhite paper in front of me.

If only, I thought, my memory would focus. The blank piece of paperbecame a fuzzy projection screen, like the kind in my earth science classin my high school, from which I had graduated eighteen months earlier.

I remembered getting adopted when I was five. My first time ridinga subway left me dizzy and elated as I had spun myself around on thesilver poles in the middle of the car. We entered a majestic building inBoston, and I cut my knee when I had fallen on an escalator. The judgehad seemed otherworldly as he sat atop a dais, encased in a woodenstand so only his black-robed chest and shoulders showed. He called meall the way up to his dais and asked me to spell my middle name forhim. In the car, on the way back to New Hampshire, I asked Marie, mynew adoptive mother, what being adopted meant. "It means I am yourmother," she said.

And then, confused, I asked, "Does everyone have more than onemommy?" She hadn't answered me, but Al, my new father, said noneof us—me, my sister, or my twin brother—should say the word adoptionever again.

I remembered Sue talked about our rocking chairs from when wewere little kids, but I didn't remember the chairs. My adoptive parentssaid they didn't know anything about rocking chairs. Once, I found Suewandering in the basement, and I asked what she was doing. Hopeless,she had answered, "Looking for our rocking chairs."

I remembered Sue also owned a book she liked a lot. Here mymemory wobbled, and I closed my eyes in an effort to see: a horse onthe cover. I tried to see what Sue was doing with the book, and thememory, sharp and sudden, came. Reading the book, she and I had saton the bed. Al had appeared, wanting to know where we got the book.Sue handed it to him, and he glanced at the inside cover, clenched hisjaw, and took the book away.

I snapped open my eyes—the inside cover. I closed my eyes again,straining to make the image of the inside cover appear, but could seenothing except letters that would not completely form. I could notremember most of my life up to age five; I had thought that was normaluntil some Odyssey House kids told me they remembered events fromwhen they were two. I lit a cigarette. Those letters might be important,and my twin brother, Bill, might know what they were. I could sleepnow and returned upstairs to my bedroom.

The next morning, I went to Sixth Street Odyssey House and foundmy twin, Bill. "Bill, I have to talk to you." I shepherded him inside anempty conference room, shut the door, and locked it. "Listen," I said."Last night, I remembered that book, the one Sue had when we gottaken away from the Powers. It had a picture of a horse on the front,remember?"

"Yeah, it was Mr. Ed, the Talking Horse."

"Remember Dad got mad and took the book away from her?"

Bill looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Dad took it away for a reason, right? He looked at the inside cover,saw something in there, and it made him mad." I paused. "I think itwas a name."

"So what was so special about a name?"

"Bill, what was the name? Do you remember the name?"

"Yeah, course I do. Orstom, or something like that."

"That's it, Bill, that's it."

"What's it?"

"That's our name!"

"No, that's our foster mother's name."

"No, Bill, listen. Mom wrote that sentimental letter to ConfidentialChat (similar to Dear Abby), right? And our foster mother figuredout she was writing about us and wrote to Confidential Chat and hadConfidential Chat contact Mom. Our foster parents' last name was Power,not Orstom or whatever it is."

"My God," he said.

"That's what I'm telling you, Bill. You remembered our real lastname."

"My God," he repeated.

I left him and tramped back to Twelfth Street Odyssey House, whereI lived. Who had written the name inside the book? Could it be mymother's actual handwriting? Did the book still exist?

The next day, I wrote a letter to my adoptive mother and pleadedwith her to break into my adoptive father's filing cabinet and get theadoption records. I told her that although I knew my adoptive fatherwouldn't want her to help me, I had to have this information. As Ilicked the envelope, I prayed she would understand why I needed theinformation; I prayed she would help me.

Meanwhile, Bill persuaded a Massachusetts phone operator to lookthrough every listing in Massachusetts and got the address and telephonenumber of the Powers, our foster parents. I was too afraid to call thePowers after all these years, so I wrote another letter, this time to myfoster mother.

I waited. December slid into January. I incessantly bugged Jack, theguy who manned the front reception desk of Odyssey House. "Is themail here yet? Any mail for me today?"

"Relax!" he growled. "I'll tell ya, ya got any mail!" One day hehanded me a slim manila envelope. "Hope that's what you want,"he said.

I didn't answer him. The package was from my adoptive mother. Iripped it open with shaking hands.

The first page was a letter from Ms. Frost, a social worker Iremembered who had worn Coke-bottle glasses. The letter congratulatedAl and Marie and confirmed the court date for the adoption. I scannedit impatiently and put it down. The second page was a letter from theDepartment of Welfare, stating that Al and Marie's home had beenaccepted "for the placement of an adopted child or children." The thirdpage, a form, stated that according to the Division of Child Guardianship,I had, indeed, been born. Ms. Frost signed it on July 29, 1965, eight daysbefore my fifth birthday.

The fourth page, another letter from Ms. Frost dated July 9, 1965, wasrather chatty, discussing our vaccinations, the status of our education(none), and pictures taken of us with Santa Claus when we lived with ourfoster parents. She said we were of "Portuguese and English ancestry."

I slowly turned over the last page and stared. It was the first time Ihad seen my fake birth certificate. It named me Barbara Malfide, bornAugust 6, 1960. It called Marie my birth mother and Al my birth father.It claimed I was Portuguese and English. Aside from my date of birth,it stated one true fact: I am a twin.

Dated July 22, 1966, nearly six years after I was born, the oathon the bottom read: "I, Tony Bachieri, depose and say that I hold theoffice of Town Clerk of the Town of Wareham, County Plymouth andCommonwealth of Massachusetts; that the records of Births, Marriagesand Deaths...