A Theory of Relativity (30 page)

“And we will, with all due respect, appeal, and our appeal will clearly state that the Cadys knew since they met Gordon McKenna and his sister that they were adopted . . .”

“That’s not true,” Wentworth pointed out. “I only became aware of it days ago.”

“But it was clearly stated, in the report you have from Dr. Bogert!” Theory[113-221] 6/5/01 11:59 AM Page 196

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Katt cried. “It’s all over the place in that document, about my client’s belief that as an adopted child, he would be uniquely qualified to teach Keefer about the meaning and importance of adoption. Your Honor, filing this motion at the eleventh hour was a maneuver.”

“I’ve heard you and acknowledge your concerns,” Emily Sayward said, gently, “but I’m not granting a stay. This child needs to be home. If you do appeal, and if the Wisconsin Court of Appeals finds me in error, we’ll be back here with the petition again. But that could take too long a time. A very long time. We will proceed with the other matter now, the petition for guardianship by the Cadys.”

“Will he be here?” asked Mary Ellen Wentworth, “I mean, will Mr.

McKenna be present during this action. He’s not a party to it. He has no petition before the court. He’s like any of the other relatives out there in the hallway. It seems, therefore, that he has no reason to be present with counsel.”

“Are you suggesting that there is some statute that says this man should not be present? Are you suggesting that?” Gordon, catching her tone, sought her eyes and saw the pity there. “It . . . and I’m looking at the forty-eight-two-ninety-nine, the court may allow any person at the proceeding who has a proper interest in the case. He has indeed a proper interest.” She looked down at Gordon. “He is her uncle. Though not by blood. Our family code provides no legal weight for love. It’s not prosecutable. It’s not quantifiable. It’s not concrete. And yet, it is real interest. Now, let us proceed.”

When the doors with their brass half-moons opened, and the Cadys rushed into the arms of Diane and Big Ray, Gordon reached out and drew his mother by the hand until she stood in front of him; and his father, Church, and the lawyers followed, a circle, a huddle, the natural formation of a herd.

“It’s not over,” Katt told them, “I want you to know . . .” He removed his wire rims, and scrubbed at his eyes.

“Gordon, what did she say?” Lorraine laid her cool hand on Gordon’s forehead. “You’re burning. Honey, what did they say?” Should he let Katt explain? Let Kane finish? Would the facts speak for themselves, as he had believed his whole adult life? Facts, pressing Theory[113-221] 6/5/01 11:59 AM Page 197

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forward, the uncontrolled variable, obliterating the truth, regardless of harm. He had not counted on the uncontrolled variable.

Georgia, he thought, his voice and her voice merging, growing faint.

“They said I’m not Georgia’s brother,” he told his parents. “They said I’m not your son.”

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Nora truly believed sometimes she did have eyes in the back of her head. When Rob was tiny, he’d come creeping into their room to peek under the pink foam rollers she used to sleep in. Nora had first dreamed bugs were crawling on her and then awakened with a jolt.

“Did I poke you in the eye?” Rob whispered. He’d been all of four.

Still, at this minute, Nora could all but see, without turning away from the sink where she was rinsing the supper dishes, that Hayes was only pretending to read the
Bountiful Farmer.
Their son Marty had him interested in this idea of starting an organic co-op. People would buy shares in the spring, and each week throughout the growing season, someone (her, if she knew how these things went) would bring around fresh produce and jams to the members. They’d have to be certified organic, though, that was what the richies wanted, but organic wasn’t going to be a problem. Hayes all but powdered his land’s butt every day—as had her father and his father before that.

It wasn’t that Hayes was reading, jiggering his chair the way he liked it, so he could prop up his big feet in their monkey socks. It was that he was awake at all. That meant something was on his mind. As the days got shorter, Hayes got sleepier and sleepier, just like a bird. By seven o’clock, he’d be snoring at the dinner table. Nora would crack open the farm’s account books across from him and carry on whole conversations with her sleeping spouse. “So what do you think of Bar-198

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bara Quintero running for governor, Hayes? Think a woman has a chance? You think Robin Yount’s going to take the job as coach?

Remember the Brewers back in eighty-two? Or was it eighty-three?” Nora washed her hands and wiped them on the back end of her jeans. Bigger every month. She couldn’t get the fourteens zipped anymore. She turned to Hayes. “Want some coffee, honey? I could drink a cup.”

“I do, Nory,” he said, carefully pleating the page, closing the magazine, setting it to one side. “I’d like a cup.” Definitely strange.

Hayes was not only awake at 8:00 P.M. but agreeing to stimulants and using the name he hadn’t called her since their courtship. Could be feeling frisky. Not that she would mind. She’d never had a child that wasn’t conceived in winter, the only time, it seemed, they ever did more than pass each other on the stairs. Lately, though, she’d been in town more than here. The days since the funeral bled into one another until you lost track entirely.

November, the short, dark month, was nearly over. Those people would come to take Keefer for good early in December, unless the lawyers figured out a way to stop it.

She went to Cleveland Avenue now every day, to mind Keefer and to hit the phones like the marines landing at Normandy. It hadn’t taken Mark any time at all to see they needed another phone line. Gordie had taught Nora how to use the e-mail. Wasn’t anything to it, for a woman who’d disked fields and put together bicycles from kits. Gordie and Lorraine got on the computer or the phones as soon as the school day ended, and Lindsay came after the store closed. Even Mike and Debbie were there when the reporter from
Newsweek
came. The fellow spent three hours, drinking five cups of coffee, asking them every possible question imaginable.

The Cadys wouldn’t even talk to him, though Ray’s sisters did. Greg Katt was so excited about the story in
Newsweek,
he’d told Nora, that he’d subscribed.

Why should those Cadys talk, Nora thought, as she measured coffee? They had what they wanted.

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She sometimes thought that all the calling and e-mailing might be wasted, and then they’d be sorry they hadn’t spent more time just cuddling Keefer and singing to her.

“Nory,” Hayes said then, interrupting her thoughts about the letter they were planning, with a color photo of Gordie and Keefer with Pearl’s newborn kittens, the heading on it “Do You Believe Adopted Children Have Equal Status with Biological Children?”

“Come and sit down, Nory, I want to talk to you.” He had prostate. She knew it. He’d been to see their doctor the previous week, the new doctor, Eve Holly, Hayes griping about having a woman put her finger in his rump. Well. Prostate was curable.

“Nory, I want to talk to you about this business with Mark and Lorraine.”

Thank you, God. Nora let herself slump against the ladder back of her chair. “Hayes, you scared me to death. I thought you were going to say you had prostate cancer.”

“Prostate cancer? I just had the Eve Holly special, the big checkup.” He twirled one thick finger in the approximation of a spiral staircase.

“Well, I thought you were trying to keep it from me, with . . . the trouble and all.”

Hayes stood up from his chair like an old penknife opening. He was only ten years older than Nora, but he acted like ninety some days.

Still, he did the work of a man of thirty. She leaned over and kissed his lower lip. Hayes blinked.

“Nory, I don’t know quite how to say this, because I don’t want to hurt your feelings in any way. I mean that, Nora.” He measured four sugars into his coffee. “Now, Mark is a good man. I’ve always liked Mark. And Georgia was the sweetest thing on earth, God rest her soul.

But what’s done is done now. That judge is not a judge for no reason, Nora. She understands what’s best for that child.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nora, I can’t say that I disagree with her. Gordie is a good boy, a fine boy. But he’s a single man. He has no more business raising a baby girl than our Rob or our Marty. Can you imagine Marty raising a baby girl?”

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“Hayes, he’s wonderful with Keefer. And, anyhow, what would you have done with our boys if I’d died?”

“Why, I’d have married Phyllis Cladley the first chance I got.”

“Well good for you, Hayes. Are you suggesting that the judge made that awful ruling because she thought the baby would be better off with those people from Madison, those cousins?”

“I’m not saying that’s all there is to it.”

“Well, what are you suggesting?”

“The bottom line of it is, I don’t want you involved.”

“With the appeal? With the law change? Why? This is our family, Hayes.”

“That’s just what I’m saying, Nory. I care about those kids same as you do, but the law is the law. Think if it were your own child. Your own farm, say. Would you want some kid no one knows where he came from to inherit our land? Would you want it to pass out of our family forever?” He gestured, as if to encompass the horizon. “Things should stay in the family they came from.”

“That’s ridiculous. What if all our boys were gone, God forbid.

What if Georgia was the only one left, what if Georgia hadn’t died?

Would you be upset if that land went to Georgia?”

“Yes,” Hayes told her firmly, “yes I would.” His eyes watered briefly, and then he said, “No. I wouldn’t.” He rose from the table slowly and blew his nose on one of the dish towels. “It was dirty anyway,” he said sheepishly, when she glared. “See, I’m putting it right in the hamper.”

“Well, you can take it right out of the hamper and wash it yourself, too.”

“Georgia was one of a kind, Nora. But those people in Madison are that baby’s kin. They’re her kin the same as Mark is kin to our boys.

They’ll know things . . . about her. That we’d never know. They can give her a way of seeing where she came from.”

“She came from Tall Trees, Hayes. Just like you did and I did.”

“And there’s no way you’re going to convince any of those guys in Madison that they have to admit they’re wrong!”

“I think we will.”

“You can’t fight city hall, Nora.”

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“I think you can, Hayes. If you couldn’t, there wouldn’t be a family farm left in Wisconsin.”

“Don’t mix apples and oranges, Nora.”

“Hayes, you saw them that day. It was like Georgia’d died all over again. That baby’s all they’re living for, the baby and Gordie.”

“But this is not about them, Nora. It’s about us. People are talking.

Not everyone in this town appreciates being slapped all over the front page of the
Milwaukee Journal. Newsweek.
The Blood Relative Case. The Blood Relative Case. It’s all you see. Lorraine crying and saying, ‘They are my blood, they are my flesh and blood. The blood in my brain gave me the emotions to love them . . .’ I know she means well, but there are those who don’t think that kind of attention is . . . appropriate.”

“Who?”

“Lots of people.”

“Name one.”

“Well, the principal for one. The high school principal. You know he’s got a big mouth, Lorraine. He always has. Heard at Hubble’s the other day he’s considering writing a letter to the editor.”

“Have you seen the letters to the editor, Hayes? In the
Messenger.

They’re all in favor of us. They all say it was horrible, what Judge Sayward did. We got seventy e-mails, Hayes, on Mark’s laptop he brought home from the plant. Even parents who had their own children with no problem at all think this is awful. They’re all for Gordie.” Hayes just stared at her, impassively. “Well, it’s going to ruin us, Nora. It’s going to ruin us, and you have your own family to think of.”

“Ruin us?”

“You out all hours of the night in town. Lorraine running up street and down alley. Gordon—Gordon’s a schoolteacher, Nora! Do you think people want their kids being taught by some guy in the middle of this ugly thing?”

“Stick to the point, Hayes. You said it would ruin us.”

“Well, you’re never here anymore. I’m likely to die from Bradie’s cooking.”

“You don’t look like you’re losing any flesh.”

“And the worst of it is—”

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“Go on. Say all of it.”

“Well, this idea Marty has. And the farm going as good as it is. People are going to be pointing fingers, Nora. Saying, those are the ones stirring up all that stuff over that baby. And that young couple? The ones with the fancy sign?” She’d seen it,
THE JOHNSTON-ENGLISH FARM
.

“They’re going to start a vegetable store and they’re going to have coffee there, too, and antiques, and who knows what all else.”

“So you’re worried they’re going to take away our business.”

“Selling to restaurants pretty soon. My clients.”

“You grow beautiful things, Hayes,” she said soothingly. “No one would want Sungolds or Yellow Pear tomatoes from anyone else.

They’re just not like ours. Or Moons and Stars melons. Or the white asparagus—”

“I’m not the only one who thinks so. Your own son thinks the same way, Nora.”

“Marty?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Hayes, the day I start letting Marty Nordstrom run my life you can get out a shovel and—”