"I don't know," she told them softly. "I don't know. Except that the secrets would be gone."
The word made her father angry. "Secrets? Natalie, your mother and I have kept no secrets from you. We know nothing of your natural parents. That's how it should be. Your adoption was arranged through professionals who never disclosed that information to us. Nor did we ask them to. You became our daughter as much as Nancy did, a year later. And as far as we're concerned, there isn't any difference between the two of you. You were conceived; born; you entered our lives; became our daughters."
"It isn't the same. Nancy was conceived by you, born to you. Don't tell me that's the same. Who was I born to? Why did they give me away?
Her mother touched her hair. "Natalie. Those things don't matter. Really, they don't."
"They do," Natalie insisted. "They do to me."
"Nat," said her father finally, "let your mother and me talk about this together. Right now we're both upset. Give us time, and then we'll all discuss it again."
Natalie nodded reluctantly, and the translucent curtain came down between them. In the two months since their conversation, her parents had not mentioned it again.
3
IT WAS MAY, and she was arguing with Paul.
Being able to argue comfortably with Paul was one of the things that Natalie liked about their relationship. He was like her father, that way; he listened to what she said, took her seriously, and encouraged her to stick to what she believed, even if he didn't agree with her. Most of the time.
But right now, Paul looked at her for a long time, frowned, and said, "Bullshit."
She had just told him, as she had told Becky and Gretchen that afternoon, about her desire to search for her natural parents. The girls had both said, "Why?"
Paul didn't ask why. He shook his head, and said again, "Bullshit."
They were sitting in his battered Volkswagen, in the driveway of the Armstrongs' house. They had been to a horror movie, and had laughed about it all the way home. The monsters had had visible seams and poorly synchronized eyes, and Paul had imitated a malfunctioning dinosaur as he drove. But the good humor had worn off when they began to talk.
"What do you mean by that?" Natalie was angry. She had expected Paul to understand.
"Nat," he said, "you have great parents, and you have no right to do that to them."
"My God, Paul, you're making me sound like some sort of a creep. I'm not doing anything to them. I love my parents. I just have to find out, that's all."
"Why? What difference does it make? None."
"That's easy for you to say. You know your ancestry all the way back to the Mayflower, practically. You have no idea how it feels not to know what your heritage is."
"Who cares? Natalie, I don't know who my ancestors are. It's all written down, and I've never read it. It doesn't matter to me. It only matters to my mother because she likes to go to those damn DAR conventions. Is that what you want, Nat, to put on a flowered hat and sing 'The StarSpangled Banner'?"
"Cut it out, Paul. You know me better than that. Listen to me for a minute. I don't care about the distant past. I want to find my mother. I want to find out what happened, why I was born, why she gave me away. Who she was. Who she is."
He was silent for a minute. Then he said quietly, "And what if you found out she was a cheap whore working the Boston streets?"
Natalie felt as if he had slapped her. "You're rotten," she said.
"No, I'm not. I care about you, Nat. Listen, what a person is has nothing to do with where they come from, not with what body they come from."
"That's not true."
Paul sighed. "Natalie, do you remember Brenda whats-her-name, the girl who dropped out of school in tenth grade?"
Natalie looked at him. "Yes," she said. "She flunked every course, even cooking. But she had that nice smile. I remember her smile, always kind of dumb and puzzled and scared. Lonely. Why?"
"Well, Brenda works down at the fish factory now. She still has that same smile—lonely, dumb. Maybe that's why, the loneliness, the dumbness. Brenda goes to bed with anyone who smiles back and buys her two beers."
"So?"
"So. Suppose I went down to the waterfront after I leave here tonight, bought Brenda a couple of beers, and screwed her."
"Paul."
"I'm not going to, Nat. But I could. Half the guys in the senior class have. Now, suppose I did, and suppose Brenda became pregnant, with my child. She wouldn't even know it was mine. It could be anyone's. Suppose she gave birth to that child, out of her skinny, scared, borderline-retarded body. Do you think that baby would have anything to do with me?"
"Yes," said Natalie. "It might have your eyes. Your intelligence. It would be very much a part of you."
"Well, that's bullshit, Nat," Paul said angrily. "I don't believe that. It would be a baby, that's all. Probably sickly. Born by mistake, because someone was horny and had a couple of bucks to spend on beer. 'Heritage' is a meaningless word."
"Let me ask you something, Paul. Do you think that I could have been born to a prostitute—or, as you put it, a cheap whore working the Boston streets? Or to some vacant-brained person like Brenda?"
He looked away, out of the car window, across the lawn, and didn't answer.
"Do you?" she asked again.
"No," he said, finally.
"Well, I don't either, damn it. I think that somewhere there is a dark-haired woman who, for whatever reasons, gave birth to a baby girl whom she couldn't keep. And that she still thinks about it, and wonders where that baby is. Where I am. And I'm going to find her, Paul. I have a right to."
She kissed him quickly and got out of the car. He started the engine, and called to her. "Nat?"
"What?" She went to the window on his side.
"Don't hurt your parents."
She stood there silently, hugging her arms around her in the spring night breeze. "I already have," she said. "I wish that weren't part of it." Then she turned and ran across the lawn to the porch, as he backed his car from the driveway and headed home.
4
"NATALIE," said her father. "We haven't just forgotten about it. Your mother and I have talked and talked."