Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (12 page)

When Bea felt angry about the omission, a word she preferred over
lie
in this case, she tried to remember that, that
her parents had gotten themselves into a sticky situation they couldn’t easily remedy.

Fortified by the coffee and the hot shower, she was ready to head over to Coastal General Hospital, where she’d been born. Or where she thought she had been born. Her original birth certificate listed place of birth as HHL, but it was signed by a doctor at Coastal General Hospital and issued from there. Perhaps HHL were the initials for which the labor and delivery ward or wing had been named. Bea grabbed her bag and headed out, and once again the brilliant blue sunshine, cotton-ball clouds, and breezy midseventies lifted her spirits. She’d found herself liking that she’d been born in this beautiful place, this beautiful state with its water and trees and fresh, clean air. Just two days in Boothbay Harbor, from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, and it was already beginning to feel more familiar. But Veronica Russo loomed as strange in her mind as she had on Saturday when she’d gone to the diner. Her birth mother was a total stranger, connected to Bea in the most fundamental of ways. Bea couldn’t wrap her mind around that one.

Coastal General Hospital was on the outskirts of Boothbay Harbor, a fifteen-minute drive along a stretch of rural highway. Bea had a love-hate relationship with hospitals. She’d said good-bye to her father in a hospital, though he’d been gone by the time he’d reached the ER. A heart attack—unknown heart condition—at forty-one. Bea shook her head at the thought, the memory of the look on her mother’s face when Cora had gotten the call. “My husband is dead?” she’d said into the phone, her face full of such confusion, nine-year-old Bea standing just feet
away, washing an apple in the sink. That had been her first experience with hospitals, and for a long time afterward, she couldn’t pass a hospital without feeling sick to her stomach.

She’d said her final good-bye to her mother in a hospital, Cora barely able to move her hand in Bea’s on that last day. Her mother’s medical team had been top-notch and kind, and for a while the hospital had turned into a place of hope for Bea. Until there was no hope.

Bea walked up the stone path to the stately old brick building, pushed through the revolving door, and asked the guy at the information desk for the labor and delivery ward. On the third floor, the elevator opened to a sign on the wall:
THE MARTHA L. JOHNSON MATERNITY WING
. No HHL there. Bea walked down a short hall, looking for the nurses’ station, but stopped when she noticed the nursery. Beyond the glass wall were several babies wrapped in blankets with tiny caps on their heads. A nurse was picking up one red-faced angry baby who settled down along the nurse’s arm.

She tried to imagine herself here, as one of these babies, her birth mother standing twenty-two years ago where Bea was now. Maybe Veronica Russo hadn’t stood here. Maybe when you gave up your baby for adoption, you didn’t stand staring at him or her in the bassinet. Had Cora and Keith Crane stood here? Or had the adoption agency arranged the transfer internally? Did it matter, anyway? Bea’s chest felt tight, and she turned to leave, grateful for the nurse walking down the hall.

“Excuse me,” Bea said to her, taking her birth certificate out of her bag and holding it up for the nurse. “Could you tell me what this HHL means?”

The nurse glanced at Bea’s birth certificate, the original stamped with “Not For Legal Purposes” across the top. “Well, I
know that HH stands for Hope Home, but the L is throwing me. Let me go ask another nurse at the station.”

“Hope Home?” Bea repeated, following her.

The woman turned to Bea. “It’s a home not too far from here for pregnant teenagers.”

Oh, Bea thought. Veronica had gone to a home? She wondered why she hadn’t stayed at her parents’ house, since they’d lived right in Boothbay Harbor. Had Veronica been sent away?

“The L stands for lot,” another nurse explained, handing back Bea’s birth certificate. “Every now and then, a Hope Home girl will go into labor and have her baby either in the home or en route to the hospital. HHL means the baby was born in Hope Home’s parking lot.”

“I was born in a parking lot?” Bea said. Of a home for teenage mothers. Just what is your story, Veronica Russo? she wondered.

“You were likely born in an ambulance dispatched to bring your birth mother here. But you started coming before it was safe to transport.”

“I was born in a parking lot,” Bea said again, but she was thinking less about herself and more about Veronica Russo, who must have been scared out of her mind.

Hope Home was twenty minutes in the opposite direction, on the other side of the peninsula and down a long, winding road that stretched for miles. A right turn down another long road led to nothing but trees. Finally, Bea found the marker, a white post that read 14
HILL CIRCLE.
Another long dirt drive later, the house came into view. Bea was surprised; she’d expected an institutional-looking building. But a sign proclaiming
HOPE HOME
hung
off the porch of a very pretty, sprawling white farmhouse with several padded rocking chairs and flower boxes everywhere. Big trees shaded the front yard. There was a group of empty chaise lounges in a semicircle under one shady tree. Under another was an enormously pregnant girl who looked all of thirteen, lying on a chaise and flipping through a magazine. Another very pregnant girl with beautiful long red hair was walking around the perimeter of the yard, earphones in her ears.

A few cars were parked alongside the house, stones marking spaces. Bea pulled in and wondered if she’d been born right here, in this spot.

As Bea walked around the front of the farmhouse, the pregnant girl who’d been reading
People
magazine pushed herself off the chaise and walked toward Bea. “Hi, are you pregnant?”

Now that the girl was closer, Bea could see she was a bit older than she’d first thought. Sixteen, seventeen maybe. Her long, light brown hair was in a French braid. “No. I was born here, actually.”

“Oh. So what do you want?”

“I just wanted to look around. Maybe talk to a director or something?”

“Ask for Pauline.” The girl glanced at her watch. “She’s probably right at the desk when you walk in.”

“Thanks.” Bea smiled at the girl and headed up the steps. She pulled open the screen door. Padded benches lined the entry. Farther in, a woman sat at a white wooden desk with a bouquet of blue hydrangeas.

The woman looked up from the binder she’d been writing in. “Welcome, can I help you?”

Bea suddenly had marbles in her mouth. “I was born here
twenty-two years ago. In the parking lot, apparently. I just thought I could look around. Maybe speak to someone about the place? Get some history.”

The woman smiled. “Sure. I’m Leslie, assistant to Pauline Lee, the director of Hope Home. Pauline’s in a meeting right now, but I’m happy to answer your questions if I can.” She closed the binder and gestured at the chair facing the desk. Bea sat. “Parking lot, huh. Sometimes our residents go into labor so fast that we can’t get them to the hospital in time. You were either born on a blanket right out on the grass or perhaps in an ambulance, depending on the timing.”

Bea couldn’t imagine anyone—the girl reading
People,
for instance—delivering her baby on the grass. Or in an ambulance, for that matter.

“Could you give me some information about Hope Home? I don’t know a thing about it.”

“Well, we open our doors to pregnant teenagers and young women through age twenty-one. Right now we have seven girls in residence. Last month we had two more. We provide a comfortable room, meals, education—whether keeping up with classes at school or GED preparation—and counseling in all regards: emotional well-being, decision making regarding the pregnancy, whatever that may be, and help with adoption services.”

“That’s wonderful,” Bea said. “Everything under one roof.” And the place did look homey, with its cottage decor and the flower boxes lining the windows.

Leslie nodded. “We’re nonprofit and cover the costs of everything I mentioned. Medical care is not covered and handled via arrangements made with Coastal General. All prenatal
care is handled there, but we do have a nurse on staff twenty-four seven.”

“Were you working here twenty-two years ago?” Bea asked.

“No, I joined Hope Home two years ago. Pauline’s been the director for almost ten years. We do have very strict privacy policies in place, so it’s unlikely anyone who was here then would be able to answer certain questions.”

Bea glanced out the window at the two pregnant girls, who were now sitting on the porch swing. Her birth mother had been one of them twenty-two years ago. There was so much Bea wanted to ask this woman, but it was really only Veronica who could answer her questions.

“I could give you a brief tour, if you’d like,” Leslie said. “It won’t be exactly as it was twenty-two years ago, but the basics are the same.”

Of course Bea wanted a tour, so she followed Leslie down the short hall to the dining room. “Three meals a day are served here. The dining room always has healthy snacks available for cravings too.”

Next was the breathing room, then the counseling room, a classroom, the exercise room, a small library, then an empty resident room, which looked quite nice. The room wasn’t big but had a white wooden bed with a stitched quilt and ruffly pillows, and a big braided blue and yellow rug was on the spotless wood floor. On the wall next to the white bureau was a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
.

She wondered which room had been Veronica’s. She imagined her sitting on the rocker, reading one of the books on
pregnancy from the library. Or staring at the Eleanor Roosevelt quote. She was dying to know what Veronica’s time here had been like.

She glanced down the hall out the window at the two pregnant girls. They were on the porch now; the girl who’d greeted her was now French braiding the hair of the redhead. “Leslie, I hope it’s not rude to ask this, but I’m wondering something. Do most girls come here because of the stigma of being pregnant teenagers?”

Leslie glanced out at the girls. “Yes. Sometimes it’s to protect them from gossip and stress at home. Sometimes it’s because we can provide round-the-clock care and education and a social factor. And sometimes, well, it’s a matter of their having nowhere to go.”

Meaning that they were kicked out of their homes?

Bea pictured Veronica’s parents dropping her off here and driving away, dust flying up in their wake. She wondered what the story was.

“Well, I appreciated your time,” Bea said. “I guess I just really wanted to see the place, and I have.”

Leslie shook her hand. “I wish you luck in finding your answers, Bea.” She smiled and sat back down at her desk, opening the binder.

When Bea stepped outside onto the porch, the redhead put down her
People
magazine, and the other girl took a bite of the turkey sandwich from a plate on her lap.

“So Kim said you were born here?” the redhead said. She wore square copper earrings with the name Jen imprinted on them.

“I was. In the parking lot apparently.”

Her mouth dropped open. “In the parking lot?”

Maybe Bea shouldn’t have said that. Damn it.

“In an ambulance, I mean. Parked here.” At least that was what Bea assumed.

“Oh. Yesterday in prep class, the leader said that can happen, that you can go into labor fast and not make it to the hospital, but that between the resident nurse and the paramedics, everything would be fine.”

Kim took a bite of her sandwich. “And by looking at her,” she said, “clearly it was.” She stared at Bea. “So you’re, what—seeing where you were born?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking about connecting with my birth mother.”

“Thinking?” Kim repeated, her face falling. “So you’re not sure if you want to?”

“I didn’t even know I was adopted until a few weeks ago,” Bea rushed to explain for fear that she’d upset the girl. “It’s all been kind of a shock. So I’m just trying to figure out how I feel.”