Out of the Box(24)

“Do you want to search here?” Frank asks. “After the lesson, I mean. I’ve got a computer.”

For a moment I don’t know what he’s talking about, and then I remember that we’d been talking about Facundo García, the guy who had no idea who his real parents were. I nod, and Frank smiles.

“You’re a good person, Ellie,” he says. Then he fishes out some sheet music from a pile on the floor, and we begin the lesson.

Later, we search the Internet but find only Facebook pages and personal websites of people who were born much earlier or much later than 1976.





SIXTEEN


Jeanette’s basement still has mounds and mounds of stuff that we haven’t sorted through yet. At least the “sell” and “throw away” piles are getting bigger though.

“Looks like we’ve almost got enough for another load,” Jeanette says, surveying a heap of broken stuff by the stairs. She’s found an artist who turns old junk into sculptures, and once a week, we’ve been pedaling things across the city to his place. “I don’t suppose one of the broken lawn mowers would fit in our bike trailers, eh?”

I laugh. “No way. I draw the line at lawn mowers.”

“Okay, okay.” She sighs and pulls over a box of vinyl records. “I guess there are some things I’ll have to fire up the car for.”

“Yup.” I scan the stack of boxes nearest me. One is labeled Costumes (Sound of Music) and another Doilies. I smirk, shake my head and open a plastic grocery bag full of something soft. “Whose toys?” I ask, pulling out a teddy bear.

“So that’s where those are,” says Jeanette. “We got those for any kids who came to visit, but then we lost track of them somehow. Put them on the stairs. We’ll have a toy box in the corner of the living room for visitors.”

I’m about to reply when I hear a knock on the tiny window over by the hockey net.

“Are you guys down there?” Sarah calls.

I pop open the window latch, and she sticks her eye close to peer in. “Do you want to go to the drive-in for ice cream later?” she asks. The drive-in is about three blocks away, and going there is a summer tradition in Victoria. I look at Jeanette, and she nods.

“Michael and Steve are going to meet us there,” Sarah adds, and I change my mind. I never know what to say around them, and since Sarah asked them first, she’d probably rather go with them.

“I think I should probably pass,” I tell her. “We’ve got quite a bit to do here still.”

Jeanette gives me a quizzical look and opens her mouth to say something, but I cut her off. “Maybe another time?”

“Sure,” Sarah says, “of course, and, uh, let me know if you need any help down there. I don’t mind pitching in.”

I feel suddenly guilty, as though I’m the one that’s snubbed her, and I ask if she wants to join us now. She’s around the house and down the steps in record time.

In the next hour, we discover an entire box full of wine corks, a basket of cat toys (in case Jeanette and Alison ever decided to get a cat), and a rock collection. We tease Jeanette mercilessly and laugh so much that by the time Sarah gets up to go, I wish I was going with her, boys or no boys. I can’t go back on my decision now though. That would just seem weird.

“See you tomorrow,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks for coming.”





SEVENTEEN


On my fourth Monday in Victoria, I go to the soup kitchen alone. Jeanette has an appointment with her financial advisor.

Things at the soup kitchen are much the same as the first time I went there. The guys are hanging out on the church steps (except for Ned, whom I haven’t seen for a while). People are laughing and talking in the courtyard. Someone inside is shouting about poison in the coffee, and when I head upstairs, several people are asleep at their tables.

The other volunteers smile at me when I arrive, and we spend the next hour making polite conversation. Louise tells me that Frank raves about what a great kid I am, and I grin as I slap bologna on slices of bread.

I take my time getting home, looking at all the shop windows that I usually hurry past when I’m with Jeanette. I hesitate when I pass the library. She won’t be home from her appointment right away. I could keep researching.

At a library computer, I log in for a half-hour session and google children of desaparecidos Argentina. I’m hoping to find more about Facundo García, but I find other people’s stories instead, some even more incredible than his. In one, the child didn’t want to meet his biological grandparents because he was raised to think they were evil. In another, the biological grandparents didn’t want to meet the child because “she had been raised by the enemy.” In a third, the child’s adoptive family abused him, and by the time he found out the truth about his birth, he hated his adoptive parents so much that he changed his last name and never spoke to them again. I think about that for a few seconds. Then I try something I hadn’t thought of before. Instead of googling Facundo García, I try the last name he would have had if he hadn’t been stolen from his parents: Facundo Moreno.