One: A Novel

By Rhonda Tremaine and Sandrine Baptiste

With the daily ups and downs of motherhood, and the relentless barrage of money and marriage woes, Christine Bolingbroke searches for her birth parents in rural New York state. After encountering many dead ends, she eventually uncovers a shocking family secret that leads her on a path to self discovery.

In downtown New York City, Stephanie

• Language: English
• Publisher: ENoetic Press
• Release date: Sep 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780985864729

Rhonda Tremaine

Rhonda Tremaine has had a passion for astrology since she was a teenager. With assistance from the birth chart, she coaches individuals to explore their soul's evolution. Rhonda is also a founder and managing partner at ENoetic Press where she draws on her innate writing ability and love of marketing to help grow the business. Her commitment to helping others through promoting self-knowledge comes through in her work on the Everything Noetic blog, her books, and her astrological perspective. Rhonda has always lived in the New York City metropolitan area. She studied sociology at the City University of New York's Brooklyn College.

Book preview

A chance meeting, a quick glance, strangers passing in the corridor, all culminate into the days of our lives that witness unmemorable connections, proceeding swiftly and without attention. As we focus on the people who matter—our friends, our families, our colleagues, our neighbors—we rarely pay attention to the stranger in the waiting room or the coffee shop. We perhaps say a few words, and think of these chance meetings as friendly moments of conversation, not realizing that our webs of connection are so tightly woven into our stories that we miss the truth only the narrator of our lives might understand. But if we could make sense of the small interactions that occur in the present moment, we would understand that we are intimately connected to everyone, and that like a web holding us all together in this world we call reality, we are one.

THE SPRING OF 2012

PART I

One

Christine

Friday May 18, 2012

I am a liar. That’s what my therapist said anyway. You would think she would be more supportive. I mean, I am paying her. Plus, even if I tell a lie once in awhile, she should know better than to label me a liar. She could just say something like I should be more honest. Something more diplomatic rather than call me names, for God’s sake! Of course, she is not wrong. I mean, I tell white lies off the cuff.

I was not always like that. I remember when I was a little girl, I would be taken to church. Literally taken by the arm. I didn’t want to go. Threw temper tantrums, or at least that is what my mom says, my adoptive mom. I always wonder what my real mom was like. Was I born Protestant, or something else? But I never lied when I went to church. I mean, I coulda made something up so I wouldn’t have to go. I coulda said my stomach hurt, or made up some other vague malady they could not prove, but that would disrupt the family. No one would go, and I did not want to cause any trouble, so I never pretended for my own gain.

Manny, this boy down the block who always eyed me in the pews, told me that if I go with him into the way back of the park, he would show me something cool, and I could only see it if I go with him, and he called me lame because I never wanted to go. But one day, I told him, okay, I will go with you, and we started to walk towards the edge of the park. I followed him closely, walking up and down the hilly plains, past the swing sets and the monkey bars until we finally got to a wooded area. After a time, when all was quiet and no one around, he took my hand and bent my finger all the way back. My ring finger. And it hurt. A lot. And it turned purple, a little. And we walked back together and when we walked back to our block, I ran the rest of the way to my house, tears streaming down my face.

Now mind you, I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell my mom where I was going and everyone was worried. So when I got back home, she reprimanded me for my disappearance, and I told her what Manny did, and she quickly put my finger in a lukewarm glass of water, and said I shouldn’t have gone with him.

But he did this to me! I said.

That’s okay, was her remark. The finger will heal. Don’t go places you aren’t supposed to.

I think about these things, everything. Thoughts come into my mind like wildfire. Every thought is fleeting. I am standing at my cash register, talking to a customer, but while I talk to her, thoughts invade. All kinds of thoughts. Thoughts about childhood. Thoughts about my old lover, Javier. Thoughts about having sex with the hot cashier at the next counter. Thoughts about dancing in the aisles instead of ringing up the next item, with music blaring in my head. Just in my head. And when the outside influences jar me, I am annoyed.

I scan a few items for a customer with short blond hair wearing a red sweater, and then one of the items has no tag. I was just thinking about something awesome, but my train of thought is interrupted. Also, I hate waiting, waiting for price checks and everyone on line gets mad. So stupid! I look at her briefly and brush the hair out of my face with my fingers as I hit the button on the side of the checkout counter. I feel the sighs

of the people toward the back of the line, fidgeting with their purchases.

It’s a blouse. Blue. Um…Juniors, I soon say into the telephone, but it sounds more like a question. And I know Darlene sure as shit don’t know what I am talking about.

No, it’s not Juniors. It’s in the Petite section. Over there, the woman tells me as she points. Darlene had already put the phone down to look for the blouse I poorly described, but I pretend I am giving Darlene the correct information, while looking at the customer and forcing a brief smile. In two minutes, I tell the customer that the blouse is eight dollars. She says she’ll take it. I do an override. I’m good like that. I hang up the phone. It will take Darlene at least five additional minutes to come back to the phone. When she discovers I hung up, she will figure the customer got tired of waiting.

Often, I don’t intend to lie, but I am a master manipulator and while it is nothing to be proud of, it is a skill, and it is something I am good at. I often wonder if my real mother or father could tell a crafty story. I mean, neither of them wanted me. Did my mom say something like, I really love this baby, but for the baby’s sake, it is best if she be raised in an intact home? And my father? Was he like a rapist, or an

outlaw? Was he dangerous and disgusting, or smart as a whip but could not muster the grit to apply it to any sort of education so ended up in a life of crime? Did he even know he was a father? I sometimes wonder how my mother could give birth to me and then give me away. What a douche!

And I think of what I might have been. I think about college sometimes, the pivotal point. I dropped out. Yes, after one semester. I didn’t like it. Didn’t think I was smart enough. And then there was Derrick. Derrick Martin was six foot tall, dark hair, and he liked me, and we went cross country, and then when I got back, I started dating my husband Tom Bolingbroke, a football star from high school who hardly noticed me. I was a dork back then. But when I got back from the trip a year after graduation, I had lost fifteen pounds and gained a great deal of confidence. I was working in a grocery that he frequented. He didn’t know it was me. Didn’t know we went to school together.

And one day, he asked me out. I think of how good Tom looked when we first met, and then that customer snaps me back to reality.

The additional price check minutes—albeit brief because of my save—add up. Finally, my fifteen minute break is here and I shut my light, after taking one more customer, ’cause I’m nice like that, and run outside with my cell phone and call Kyle.

Hullo, I say to him after his traditional what’s up greeting, and he quickly tells me that he wants to go over to his friend’s house, and I think it is okay, but I know it is easier for everyone if he stays home. Kyle is special. Different. He is a lot to handle.

No, I say.

Why?

I said no, not today. Because.

Can I watch TV before I do my homework?

Yes.

Can I put in a frozen pizza?

Yes.

Then I rush him off the phone and call my lawyer. I dial and hear a woman’s voice say Southeby Marke and Davidson. After the female voice asks who’s calling, I say, This is Christine Bolingbroke.

Will you hold? she asks, not waiting for a reply.

I put the phone down for a second, and open the can of soda I bought from the break room earlier. I think about how my mother would lock me in my room after supper and not let me come out when she didn’t like what I said or did. It was lonely and scary. I didn’t like that feeling.

And the receptionist is back, jolting me out of my misery, and I say, I am just following up. Michael Davidson is my attorney. I just wanted to know if there is any news.

She asks again who I am.

Christine Bolingbroke. I know he said he’d call if he found out anything but he said I could call if I wanted to. But she tells me there isn’t any news, though she hardly takes the time to check so I am uncertain she is being truthful. We agree that I will try again next month.

It is three years since I began the quest to find my birth parents. All I know is that I was adopted from the Pineview Adoption Agency in Woodstock, New York. The faded paper birth certificate I keep folded in my wallet has the date, time and place of birth. The names that appear on the certificate are my adoptive parents’ names and it was a closed adoption, so the names of my bio parents are not on any of the paperwork. I do have another paper stating the date of the adoption and a few other miscellaneous items, but it leads nowhere. I decide to expand my break a bit. I push the fifteen minutes and head for the breakroom.

Carla is there, and one of the few people I’ve confided in about my search. She’s a work friend. She won’t say anything. So she sits for a few minutes and looks to be thinking, and then she suggests starting a Facebook campaign. She explains that other people have done it and were successful in finding their birth parents.

You know, she says, it’s like six degrees of separation. Here’s how it works: You write down everything you know and write something on Facebook like ‘I was born on blah blah blah date’ in the place you were born. You know, you give as much information as possible. Just write down everything you got and ask your friends to share the information with others. Say you are trying to find your birth parents. You know, it goes viral. People like to share that kind of stuff.

I had already been all over the Internet, combing through websites that purport to help reunite families, but there doesn’t seem to be anything showing information about a girl born at the same time I was nor could I find anything about the Pineview Adoption Agency. But Facebook does have a far reach. I know even Flat Stanley makes his way around and I need to find my birth parents—not because I don’t feel loved or anything like that— but because Kyle has problems. He has congenital heart defects. He had to have surgery as a baby and I have to take him to a cardiologist every year. He is okay now, but I worry about him. So I am doing this for my son, and for myself, because life is difficult right now, and getting answers to the questions about Kyle will be life-changing, I know.

They say Kyle has PDD. That’s the acronym for Pervasive Developmental Disorder. It would have been better if they just said he was autistic. There are groups for that. PDD is less talked about. It is not bad enough that I have a son with heart issues, but he is a discipline problem too. Hate to think this about my own son, but it is problematic. His behavior. It is driving me crazy. So while the heart thing is important, so very important, it is really the PDD that I need to fix. So finding out more maybe can help. Maybe my real parents —his blood grandparents— can help somehow, even if it is just to take him off my hands for a day or so and embrace him in an environment in which he really belongs. My parents are certainly not much help for that. So I talk myself into posting on Facebook. Putting it all out there. It might sound stupid, but it gives me hope.

And posting on Facebook —posting a lie—will be easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times. My Facebook friends certainly think I am someone I am not. How could someone like me with this Wal Mart job and too many bills to pay look so happy in pictures plastered all over my virtual wall?

So I grab Carla’s iPhone and sign into my account, and post this:

My friend is trying to find her birth parents. She heard that

Facebook was a good place to start her search. Please help! She was born in Woodstock, New York in St. Peter’s Hospital and adopted from the Pineview Adoption Agency as an infant on April 17, 1963. If anyone has any information, please let me know and I will relay it to her.

I am careful not to show my own birthday. That would be too risky. But I think that the plea is believable.

Now I wait for a response. I am excited and scared at the same time. What if my bio mother or father had a far worse fate than does Kyle? But I won’t think of that right now. I need to know the truth.

Two

Stephanie

Sunday May 20, 2012

I roll over to my side of the bed, dragging the covers with me. Evan is on the left, near the door, and oblivious to the lack of coverage his body is receiving as I assume the fetal position. I’m cold, so I get out of bed, take a hot shower, turn on the Keurig and pop in a Starbucks’ Pike Place Roast, wait for it to ready and voila, I am on the couch with my hot cup of coffee, listening to Evan snore in the other room.

He has work today. Our schedules are rarely in congruence. Evan is an X-Ray technician and works every Sunday, which is fine by me. I have the day all to myself and will do what I do most Sundays—newspaper, television, the dog curled up on the bed, junk food, pizza for dinner, more junk food, and wine—and I don’t attempt to do anything major. Sometimes, I venture out and browse in the book shop that is two blocks away, or I get a pedicure, or even sit in the park. I give the dog walker a break and take Max—my gray, little, scruffy, seven pound mutt— for a tour of Greenwich Village, where I find solace in my surroundings.

The rhythmic breathing I have been listening to takes on

a less even tone, and I hear footsteps while glimpsing a naked body from the corner of my eye. I sigh and take a big gulp of coffee.

I listen to the water streaming through the pipes in the bathroom. I like when Evan’s here, but I know he has to leave for work soon, so I wish he just would’ve stayed at his place. Now I have to wait till he is done to get dressed and make the bed and such.

Evan is a great dude. He’s smart, warm, and caring, but he is not Mark, and of course, I would not want Mark anyway. Mark is old news and while I so wish it had worked out, it’s okay that it did not. Those things happen once in a lifetime. You don’t get a do over! And I think it can never be replicated because being in love is not real anyway. It is about our emotions, firing synapses. I am a doctor. I don’t fucking believe in true love or supernatural forces. I met Mark and it was good because I was in that perfect emotional place, but it just didn’t work out. And oh, while I loved Mark, and I do love Evan, there might be

someone else, some mystery guy prototype, my perfect match that is out there somewhere. Okay, why I think this is that one time during sex—just one time—I screamed out the name Philippe, which really irritated Evan, and the weird thing is I don’t know a Philippe, but that suggested to him that I at least have someone else, or that I am thinking about someone else, but that is not true. Yes, Mark gets in the way of me