It took Bobbie over three hours to get back to New Orleans and down to the docks. By the time she got there, the sun had almost set completely. She was nervous about going into the warehouse after dark, but she was more nervous about getting caught going in during the daytime. She knew it was silly. It was an old warehouse that obviously no one cared about, so she doubted that it would be patrolled by security or even have video surveillance. Just in case, though, she made a few slow walking laps around it, checking for cameras and making sure no one else was around. It was completely dark by the time she finished, and the only activity on the dock was over near the water where a ship was being loaded. There were shipping containers and storage buildings between the warehouse and the men working that would block their view of the front door of the warehouse and her going inside.
With a nervous sigh and a little prayer that if she got caught and arrested, Cade would bail her out of jail, she finally approached the door. She had to use the flashlight on her phone to see where to put the key in the lock. The padlock was rusty and even after she unlocked it, she had to use all of her strength to pull it open. Most of the time she was self-conscious about being such a tall, fit woman. But in cases like this, she was glad. She pulled open the door and shined the light inside. The warehouse was dirty and filled with cobwebs, but she didn’t see signs of life. She’d lived in the mountains forever, so she wasn’t afraid of small, furry critters that might be scampering around. It was the two-legged animals she worried about. With one last glance over her shoulder to make sure she was still not being watched, she slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Once again, she shined the light around. There was a row of bookcases and when the light hit them she could see that most of the books on one shelf were medical themed. When her light fell on the books below that shelf, she felt a surge of anger rush through her. Those books were all about adoption. One of them was even titled, “Adoption Law in Louisiana.”
It took her a few seconds to shake off her anger and when she did, she moved toward the filing cabinet to the right of the bookshelf. It was a metal cabinet and stood about five feet tall. It had four drawers and when she got close enough, she saw that there was a lock at the top of it. Hoping she’d get lucky, she pulled on the top drawer. It didn’t open.
“Shit.” She looked at the front door key. It was obviously not going to work on the cabinet as well. She used her light to look around the rest of the warehouse. There was nothing else inside of it besides the bookshelves and filing cabinet. Once again, cashing in on her freakish strength for a woman, she grabbed the cabinet with both hands and shoved it backwards. It fell to the cement floor with a thud. She reached down and tried the door again…it was still locked. With another curse and a grunt, she squatted down and lifted the cabinet back upright, only to toss it forward with all her might. As soon as it hit the floor, she turned it over and let out a little cry of glee when the top drawer fell open.
Bobbie realized when she saw all the files in the drawer that she should have thought far enough ahead to bring something with her to carry them back to the hotel. She’d have to take another cab back to her room, and it was going to look funny if she was trying to balance a stack of files. She knelt down and shined the light into the drawer. There were names written on the sleeve of the files and they were in alphabetical order. They started with Allen and ended with Collins. Behind the files there was a thick bundle of papers and she pulled that one out. The title across the front of it said, “Dissertation by Dr. Gregory Marshall.” Underneath that it said, “Experimental analysis of the young, single mother.”
Bobbie wasn’t sure what to think of that. Was she part of some weird experiment? Had these horrible people taken it upon themselves to judge single mothers and decide who was worthy and who wasn’t?
She took that file out and then had to stand up and use her foot to close that drawer. It took her two more times of lifting up and dropping the cabinet before she jarred the other drawers open. Bobbie ignored the second and third drawers and turned her attention to the fourth. It was the “S” through “Z” files. Bobbie pulled out the “T” files and rifled through them. There, in the center of the stack, was the one she’d been hoping for. It said Treager and she was suddenly almost giddy with excitement. She took all six of the “T” files, and the manuscript, and leaving the cabinet where it lay in the floor, she slipped out the warehouse door and locked the padlock on it once again. Making herself wait until she got back to her room to look at the file was hard, but she wanted time and space to devour every word of what was in it so that she didn’t miss anything important.
An hour after finding her file, Bobbie was safe in her room at the Residence Inn. She kicked off her shoes and sat down on the bed, dropping all of the files down in front of her except for the one with her last name on it. She opened up the manila sleeve and pulled out the papers inside. They were held together with a brass fastener along one side. She switched on the lamp next to the bed and began to read.
The first page was a summary of her situation. It began with, “Twenty-eight year old single woman, lives with parents, no job and no employable skills.” She felt a pain in her chest as she read that. People didn’t understand her family. She wasn’t living off her parents. She had her own vegetable and flower gardens that she did all the work on herself. When the vegetables were ripe, she took them down to the farmer’s market in town and sold them, using the money to help support her family. The flowers she sold to a woman at the local florist shop and they brought in quite a bit of money every year. Bobbie worked, just not in the conventional sense of the word. All of her sisters did. Becky knit things to sell at a store for children in town. Two of her other sisters were mechanically inclined and they worked on cars for their neighbors. Molly was the only one of them that worked outside of the house and that was only part-time, picking up shifts sometimes at the bar, or helping Wanda at the bed and breakfast during tourist season. Her family could be judged for a lot of things, but they were all hard workers, from her father and mother on down.
Bobbie forced herself to shake off the anger she was feeling and push on. The next line said, “Referred by midwife out of Bandera Texas, Lily Rogue.” Bobbie knew Lily Rogue. She was an old woman that her mother spoke to often at the market in town. The old woman was from the south and she had a booth with things like incense and prayer rocks that she made herself. Bobbie didn’t know she was a midwife, but then again, she didn’t know a lot of things, it seemed.
The next page was titled, “Psychological Summary.”
There was a list of questions that Bobbie vaguely remembered Adele asking her when she first arrived at the plantation. As she read through her answers to some of them, she felt her face go hot. She had certainly matured quite a bit over the past four years. Her embarrassment changed to full-fledged shame as she read the note at the bottom of the page written by Dr. Marshall.
“This is a 28-year-old, well-nourished, and well-developed woman, physically. However, she appears to be operating with decreased mental capacities. Her level of maturity is less like that of a grown woman and more that of a teenager. She has been sheltered from society and her social skills seem to be lacking because of it. If this woman were to be left on her own to care for herself, it would be very difficult. If she were to be left alone to raise and care for a child it could be disastrous. It is my opinion as a medical doctor that without help she would be unable to give a child what they would need to be a healthy, happy, and well-adjusted human being.”
Her eyes were filled with tears as she tossed the papers aside and stood up. She felt like ripping them up. The idea of Cade reading that about her made the shame she was feeling consume her. Bobbie always knew that she wasn’t like other people her age. She knew that Cade was a lot smarter and worldlier than her, but she’d never thought of herself as incapable. She paced for a while and stewed over it, letting the tears she’d held back in front of Cade for so long finally come. She was suddenly filled with self-degrading thoughts, remembering how she’d had very little idea what to expect when she gave birth and how she had told herself on more than one occasion almost the same thing Greg Marshall had written in his notes—that she wasn’t going to be capable of taking care of a baby on her own.
She dropped down to the bed and lay there on top of the papers, curled into a ball and feeling sorry for herself. Maybe her boy was better off with the people who “adopted” him. Maybe they were “mature and capable” adults and they were giving him everything he needed. Maybe she was only being selfish by trying to get him back. There had been many times over the years when she’d been discouraged, but she’d never been as ready to give up the fight as she was at that moment. She closed her eyes and a picture of Cade’s handsome face came to mind. He was capable. He’d make a wonderful father and any child would be lucky to have him. She remembered the day she laid in the bed after eighteen hours of labor and looked down into her baby’s eyes…Cade’s eyes. She’d felt love instantly and she’d felt a bond…and she’d wanted nothing more than to be his mother.
When Adele came in later that night to help her get cleaned up, she’d been so kind and sweet. Bobbie told her then that she wanted to be the baby’s mother. She’d even thought of a name for him…Caleb. She knew that she had everything to learn, but she felt like she was ready and nothing made her want to do that more than picturing her baby’s beautiful face, or the way he smelled, or the warm feel of his soft skin when she held him. Adele had told her that she knew a place where the baby could stay just for a little while with people that could give him what he needed until Bobbie was ready. She told her that there were classes people could take to learn about things like changing diapers and feeding a baby, and what to do if they got sick. Bobbie wanted to be a good mother, but the idea of letting him go at that point overwhelmed her and she had started crying uncontrollably. Adele had held her and let her cry and then she’d told her that she still had time…no decision had to be made just yet.
It was the next day when Bobbie was fumbling with a cloth diaper and diaper pins as Caleb screamed at the top of his lungs that she began to worry again. After she finally got the diaper on him, she’d tried to feed him, but he kept suckling at her breast like he wasn’t getting any milk, and then he would scream again. Bobbie had laid him down on the bed to try and express milk, to make sure he was getting something, but nothing came out. She was in tears and half naked, and the baby was still screaming when Adele came back to check on them.
“You can’t leave a baby on a bed like that, he’ll fall off and crack his little head,” was the first thing Adele had said. Bobbie, still in tears herself, had reached for the screaming baby. The diaper she’d worked so hard to put on was twisted sideways on his little body and the cover underneath him was wet. That made her cry harder. She held Caleb up to her chest and tearfully looked up at Adele.
“I don’t think he’s getting enough to eat. I tried using the breast pump and nothing is coming out.”
Adele had shushed her and taken Caleb. She put another diaper on him quickly and with an expert touch, and then she’d swaddled him in a blanket. “I’ll make him a bottle. It’s okay.” She took the baby and left Bobbie there feeling useless and ashamed. When Adele came back, the baby was sleeping peacefully. She laid him down in his crib and that was when she asked Bobbie again, “Do you think you can do this alone?”
Bobbie had just stopped crying, but when she shook her head, the tears came again and it was in a blur of them that she’d signed the papers Adele had brought in with her. She hadn’t read through them, but she was sure the top said, “Temporary Custody Arrangement” and at the bottom it said she could have the baby back in six months. Even as Bobbie signed them, Adele assured her that she was only leaving him temporarily…until she could learn how to be a mother. A few days later, Caleb was taken from the plantation. Scared and on the verge of hysterics once more, Bobbie was put into a car and taken to the bus station where she was given a ticket back to Blossom Hill.