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18
THE LUCKY ONE
Dear Miss Walsh,
We looked into your inquiry for the records you requested concerning your intake and subsequent adoption through our system. We regret to inform you there is no documentation to support either event.
There are no records of a baby being found at The Assembly of God Church you noted, nor any other church in a fifty-mile radius within the last forty years. There are also no records to indicate Joseph and Barbara Walsh ever adopted a child in the state of Georgia.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.
Sincerely,
Alana Johnson- Records Specialist
Department of Family Services
I’m completely numb as I read the email a second time. My mind feels foggy, unable to comprehend the meaning of it all. No records? Of any of it?
My hand falls to my lap as Jesse gently pulls the phone from my tight grip so he can read the letter. My vision blurs as memories from my childhood dance through my mind.
“Time for bed, little one.”
“Tell me the story again, Mommy.”
She smiles. “You’ve heard it a thousand times, Eden. You know it by heart.”
“Please?”
And every time I asked, she’d give the exact same details. The preacher who found me on the steps of his church. The firemen who came to make sure I didn’t need medical attention. My placement in a foster home for a week while my parents’ caseworker worked double-time to get Mom and Dad at the top of the list to adopt me after so many disappointments due to their advanced age.
“You’re our little miracle, Eden. The daughter we waited so long for. The answer to our prayers, and the love of our lives.”
Jesse’s hand touches my back lightly, rubbing small circles in an attempt to comfort me. I turn my head to meet his eyes, and I see concern and empathy in their dark depths.
“How is this possible?” I breathe.
“Maybe the records are sealed and inaccessible. Maybe they were lost. Accidentally deleted or skipped over when the department moved from paper records to digital.”
I nod, desperate to accept any of his theories even though my gut is telling me they’re all wrong. That something else is going on here. Something darker and more ominous.
My gaze skips around the room before coming to rest on the drawer where the necklace I found in Terremagie still hides. I swallow past the lump in my throat.
“Maybe I should put on the necklace again,” I say softly before looking back at Jesse. “Maybe it will show me what really happened after I was born.”
I struggle to remember the details of the vision I had of my own birth. The room, the people in it. And while small details that indicated the time period––the mention of a hospital, the digital clock, my father’s t-shirt––everything else is a blur…including the faces of the people present.
How did I not realize this before?
“I couldn’t see their faces.”
“What?” Jesse asks, his hand still rubbing my back even though he’d stiffened at the suggestion that I try to invoke another vision with the necklace.
“In my vision,” I say, my tongue darting out to wet my dry lips. “I just realized it, but I couldn’t see the faces of my parents or those of the two other women in the room. If I can go back there, see the whole scene again, maybe I’ll be able to see their faces and figure out who they are.”
“Eden,” he says, his voice soft and pleading, “it’s too dangerous. And even if it wasn’t, what would seeing their faces accomplish? It’s not like you’d recognize them.”
“I have to try, Jesse,” I say, the desperation in my voice palpable.
