“Wow. Sometimes I want to quit for like, four, maybe two months, just so I can start up again. Nothing like that first-time high.”
Chloe stands by her desk, flipping the message slips in her hand with her thumb.
“Oh!” Casey gets up. “I thought we could cruise the boards together up here for the morning report. You want couch or chair? You take couch, it’s your office.” Chloe sits in the warm indentation Casey left, dusting the floral twill for crumbs.
“Okay, we’ve got no mention on Portland AP, and nothing on International. Mmm, OregonMoms, nothing…” Casey clicks another link. “Oh wait, we’ve got a Francesca97201 on Oregon Open Adoption! This should be classic. Where’s my popcorn?”
Chloe waits while Casey scans the thick block of print.
“Holy shit!”
“What?” Chloe asks, only to be polite. It’s Valentine’s Day; at the very least Dan would send her an e-mail, right? She doesn’t care about flowers, she just wants contact.
“She says her husband left her for a teenage whore in Singapore!”
Chloe is thinking of Paul Nova, in his van outside her house, driving around looking for his lost son, and Dan, on the beach at Ho’okipa, perfecting his forward loop.
“What?” she asks. She can actually smell Casey, a mix of powdered parmesan and patchouli, from across the room. The coffee from earlier swirls in Chloe’s uneasy stomach.
“Whoa. So Francie and John split? Do the birth parents know? Didn’t you do their follow-up home study?”
“Yeah.” Chloe pushes at her cuticles. By phone, she thinks but doesn’t say. Chloe had gotten sloppy these last few weeks, hadn’t gone out to their house, had literally phoned it in and made up a report based on her original home study. The adoptive parents are adjusting well to parenthood and have all the appropriate safety features installed. None of it matters.
“Judith’s going to shit when she finds out.”
She will, Chloe realizes, and finds she doesn’t care as much as she should.
“Huh.” Casey closes the browser window and stands up. “Crazy. I’m starving, you want any Doritos or anything?” Casey stands in her doorway. Chloe shakes her head, exhales when Casey finally leaves. She pounces on her computer, hands shaking to open her AOL, and it’s from Dan!
To the other lost soul swimming in the fishbowl…You know the rest. I’m nothing without you.
Wish you were here. Pink Floyd postcard sentiment. Her intercom beeps, and Beverly announces Heather on line two with enough annoyance in her voice to indicate that Chloe should have called her back before she had to call again. Chloe hits the line without answering Beverly.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” Heather’s voice is small and flat.
“Heather! How are you?”
“I don’t even know why I’m calling. I don’t need anything. Things are fine. We’re fine. Michael’s fine.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”
“I really don’t even know why I’m calling. I just got used to talking to you all the time, and then, it’s like nothing. I’m just calling to say hey, I guess.”
“I’m really glad to hear from you.”
“So do you ever do, like, a follow-up visit?”
With the adoptive parents, Chloe thinks, but says, “Sure, I can come out.”
“Really? That would be great. Michael totally misses you.”
“Sure. I can come out today, if you want.”
“Okay. I don’t work till five, so we’re just, you know, here.”
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay, great. Thanks, that would be great.”
There are feet on the stairs, and Chloe hangs up as Casey barges through the doorway. “Hey! I forgot to tell you my great idea for the domestic program.”
“What?”
“Chosen Child restructure. No more mom-and-pop rinky-dink agency. I’m thinking revamping the domestic program so we have one caseworker for families and another one for birth moms, like Catholic Charities does. Ken said they’re thinking about hiring someone else for China, so I’d come up and do the birth moms, and you could do the families, or either way, whatever. I don’t care.”
Chloe feels like she has been punched.
“We’d be in totally regular communication, but I could put my desk over here.” She points to a space by the window. “I was just talking to Judith, and she thinks it’s brilliant. Won’t it be great? I can move my stuff up today.” With that, Casey leaves.
Chloe rereads Dan’s e-mail. He wants her there, he’s “nothing without her.” She rereads the e-mail again. It’s enough. She grabs her purse and her day planner and phone, stops in the doorway, and looks around. She picks up her album, the one she bought last summer, filled with photos