She nestles the receiver in her chest. “The adoption registry,” she stage-whispers.
Vivian motions her over and takes the phone. She clears her throat. “This is Vivian Daly.”
Molly and Terry lean in closer.
“Yes, I did. Uh-huh. Yes. Oh—really?” She covers the receiver with her hand. “Someone matching the details I submitted had already filled out a form.” Molly can hear the voice of the woman on the other end of the line, a tinny melody. “What’s that you say?” Vivian puts the phone to her ear again and cocks her head, listening to the answer. “Fourteen years ago,” she tells Molly and Terry.
“Fourteen years ago!” Terry exclaims.
A mere ten days ago, after rooting around on the Internet for a little while, Molly located a cache of adoption registry services, narrowing her search to the one rated highest among users. The site, described as a system for matching people who want to establish contact with their “next-of-kin by birth,” seemed reputable and aboveboard—nonprofit, no fee required. Molly e-mailed the link for the application form to herself at school, where she printed it off for Vivian to fill in, a scant two pages, with the names of the town, the hospital, the adoption agency. At the post office Molly made a photocopy of the birth certificate, which Vivian has kept in a small box under her bed for all these years, with the original name—May—she gave her daughter. Then she put the forms and the photocopy in a manila envelope addressed to the agency and mailed them off, fully expecting to hear nothing for weeks or months, or possibly ever.
“Do I have a pen?” Vivian mutters, looking around. “Do I have a pen?”
Molly hurries into the kitchen and rummages through the junk drawer, pulling out a handful of writing implements, then scribbling on the closest paper at hand, the Mount Desert Islander, to find one that actually has ink. She brings a blue ballpoint and the newspaper back to Vivian.
“Yes, yes. All right. Yes, that’s fine,” Vivian is saying. “Now how do you spell that? D-u-n-n . . .” Setting the newspaper on the round table next to her chair, she writes a name, phone number, and e-mail address above the headline, laboring over the “@.” “Thank you. Yes, thank you.” Squinting at the receiver, she clicks the off button.
Terry goes to the tall windows and pulls back the drapes, fastening the loops on each side. The light that floods in is hard and bright.
“For heaven’s sake, now I can’t see a thing,” Vivian scolds, shading her screen with her hand.
“Oh, sorry! Do you want me to close them?”
“It’s all right.” Vivian shuts her laptop. She peers at the newspaper as if the digits she printed on it are some kind of code.
“So what did you find out?” Molly asks.
“Her name is Sarah Dunnell.” Vivian looks up. “She lives in Fargo, North Dakota.”
“North Dakota? Are they sure you’re related?”
“They say they’re sure. They’ve checked and cross-checked birth records. She was born on the same day, in the same hospital.” Vivian’s voice quavers. “Her original name was May.”
“Oh my God.” Molly touches Vivian’s knee. “It is her.”
Vivian clasps her hands in her lap. “It’s her.”
“This is really exciting!”
“It’s terrifying,” Vivian says.
“So what happens next?”
“Well, a phone call, I suppose. Or an e-mail. I have her e-mail address.” She holds up the newspaper.
Molly leans forward. “Which do you want to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“A call would be more immediate.”
“It might startle her.”
“She’s been waiting for this for a long time.”
“That’s true.” Vivian seems to hesitate. “I don’t know. Everything is moving so fast.”
“After seventy years.” Molly smiles. “I have an idea. Let’s google her first and see what we find.”
Vivian makes an “abracadabra” motion with her hand over the silver laptop. “Fast.”
SARAH DUNNELL, IT TURNS OUT, IS A MUSICIAN. SHE PLAYED VIOLIN with the Fargo Symphony Orchestra and taught at North Dakota State University until her retirement several years ago. She’s a member of the Rotary Club and has been married twice—for many years to a lawyer, and now to a dentist who is on the symphony board. She has a son and a daughter who appear to be in their early forties, and at least three grandchildren.
In the dozen or so photos in Google images, mostly head shots of Sarah with her violin and Rotary award ceremony groupings, she is slim, like Vivian, with an alert, guarded expression. And blond hair.