Excerpt from Family Album

 

Prologue

Tampa, Florida, June 4, 1979

 

"Push, Hannah, push!"

Hannah groaned.

"You can do it."

Gripping the side rails, Hannah pushed as hard as she could.

"Almost . . . almost . . . keep pushing . . . "

Sweat rolled down Hannah’s face.  She clenched her teeth and grunted.

"Keep pushing, sweetie, come on, come on . . . "

Oh, God.  She couldn’t push anymore.

"That’s it.  That’s it.  Push, Hannah!"

From somewhere came the strength to give another hard push.  Suddenly, Hannah felt something give way.

"Here he comes," one of the nurses said.

"Just one more push, honey," another nurse said. "Okay, okay. That’s it."

"It’s a boy," someone else said. The doctor?

Exhausted and depleted, Hannah collapsed back against the pillows.  A boy.  She’d had a boy.

The room had exploded into organized chaos as everyone did his or her job.

Then she heard the baby—a mewling that crescendoed into a squall.  Her chest tightened at the sound.  My baby.  The words thundered in her heart.

"Nice set of lungs on him," Dr. Jennings said.

"Nice set of everything on him," someone else said with a chuckle.

"Good work, Hannah," the sweet-faced nurse they called Molly said.

Awhile later, after the doctor had tended to the afterbirth and they’d cleaned her up, Molly took her hand.  "Do you want to hold him?" she asked gently, her eyes sympathetic.

Hannah had told the other nurse, the one who’d done her admission work up, that she didn’t want to see the baby after it was born.  That decision was made because the adoption agency’s case worker had told her it would be easier on her and better for everyone if she didn’t see him at all.  She had agreed.  But she hadn’t known how she would feel once the baby was actually here.  Everything was different now.  Now she couldn’t bear the thought of giving him away without at least seeing him.

Today was her eighteenth birthday.  Her baby, due over a week ago, had been born on her birthday.  It was almost as if he’d waited so he could come today.

Surely that was a sign.  Surely their sharing a birthday meant they had an even more special connection.  I have to see him.

Hannah’s eyes filled with tears.  "Yes," she whispered.  "Yes, I want to hold him."

A few seconds later, a tiny bundle was placed in her waiting arms.  Hannah gazed down into that perfect little face.  Seeing those two dark eyes, that precious nose and mouth, feeling the warmth of his little body, caused such a welter of emotions that Hannah trembled with the force of them.

Nicholas.

The name came from some secret recess in her brain.  She hadn’t even known she’d chosen a name, yet there it was.  Nicholas.  It had been her mother’s maiden name.

Cradling the baby closer, Hannah drank him in.  And then, in a moment that would haunt her for years to come, he turned his head toward her breast, his little mouth searching.  Hannah’s breasts ached in response, and the tears that had been hovering unshed rolled down her cheeks.  She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

"I’d better take him now," Molly said softly.

"Yes," Hannah managed.  Goodbye, my dearest boy.  I love you.

Yet even as she was handing him to Molly, she wanted to snatch him back.  Hold him fiercely to her.  Say, "No, no, I’ve changed my mind, I’m keeping him."

But how could she?

She was barely eighteen.  Unmarried.  Uneducated except for a high school diploma.  What kind of life could she give him?  Especially since she had no support, not from his father, not from her family.  Only Aunt Marcy.  And Aunt Marcy, although loving and kind, had gently explained she wasn’t able to take on this kind of responsibility.  She had her own family to think of, her own problems. She had encouraged Hannah to give her baby up for adoption.

You made the right decision. He’ll have a much better life without you.  He’ll have two parents who will be able to give him all kinds of opportunities you can’t give him. He’ll be happy. This is best for him. Don’t compound your mistakes by making another one. Wanting to keep him is selfish, and you know it.

So Hannah handed her baby to the nurse.

She was mature enough to know that over time, the pain she felt today would lessen.  But it would never completely go away.  Because the image of her son was engraved on her heart, and there it would stay until the day she died.

 

Chapter One

Los Angeles, late May, 1999

The young man in the faded crew-neck sweater and baggy jeans swiped a strand of long hair from his face as he stared at the imposing electric gate, the six foot high stone wall, and the winding driveway leading to the large Spanish style home beyond.

Money.  The place stank of it, he decided as his hungry brown eyes took it all in.

The house was partially obscured by a canopy of leafy trees and dense, flowering oleander bushes, but he could still tell it was built of a creamy stucco and had a gleaming, red tile roof.  From his vantage point across the street from the entrance, he saw several gardeners working—one was pruning a privet hedge, another was planting some kind of flowers, still another was using a leaf blower whose high-pitched whine grated on David’s nerves.  And just a few minutes ago, he’d seen a pool cleaning truck leaving the premises.

Yeah, they had the bucks all right, the kind most people only dreamed of having, although from what he’d seen of this section of BelAir, there seemed to be a shit load of people here who did.

He knew the family living in that house would wear designer clothes, eat at the best restaurants, drive the latest model cars, and could buy just about anything they wanted.  Thinking about the way they lived, a terrible ache compressed his chest.

He thought about all the years he’d been shunted from one foster home to another.  He thought about the loneliness, the beatings, the worn out, castoff clothes, the taunting and bullying at all the schools.

He could still hear the voices: Hey, snot nose, you gonna eat those boogers for lunch?  Watsa matter, dorkface?  Your mama put your grandpa’s pants on you today?  And then the raucous laughter, the poking and pushing.

It was only because David was so stubborn and so determined not to let anyone, anyone, keep him from his objective, that he’d survived.  He learned to tune out the insults, to ignore the bullies, to withdraw into himself the way a turtle does.  Mostly he’d been successful, but there were times when he couldn’t keep the pain and anger from seeping in, and on those days he usually went home with a bloody nose or worse.

He hadn’t fit in anywhere.  Not with the preppies or jocks, not with the nerds or Goths, not even with the druggies and gangs.

He’d been a lonely, scared kid that nobody liked.

Standing there on that shaded, tranquil street, watching the sprinklers feed the thick, beautiful lawns, knowing that inside those cool, elegant homes were maids and cooks and housekeepers and pantries filled with expensive and exotic foods, he thought about all the days he’d gone to bed hungry and all the nights he’d lain sweating in bed in the suffocating heat of south Florida as he listened to yet another drunken fight between his latest set of foster parents.

There might be foster families somewhere who really loved the kids they took in, who worried about them and protected them, who made sure their bellies were full and their clothes were clean, who never abused them or made them feel worthless, but you couldn’t prove it by him.

Why? David asked himself for at least the hundredth time since he’d known where she was.  Who she was.  Why had she given him away?  Why hadn’t she wanted him?

He’d been four when Claudia Conway, the woman he’d believed to be his mother, had told him he was adopted.  He’d been too young to understand exactly what that meant, even though she’d explained it to him gently and told him how much she and his adoptive father loved him.  At the time, David had felt so special, especially when he thought about how his mom and dad had chosen him to be theirs.  He’d been happy—really happy—a normal little kid in an ordinary neighborhood in Homestead, Florida, with a dad who was an electrician and a mother who worked in a day care center.

Just two years later, everything changed.  His adoptive father, Herman, was killed in a freak accident.  Never very strong emotionally, Claudia fell apart afterward.  Sinking into a deep depression, she gradually lost all touch with reality, and ended in a mental hospital.  With Claudia gone, there was no one to care for David.

Herman’s only brother, who lived in Indiana and had never even seen David, was in his sixties and in poor health, so he couldn’t take him.  And Herman’s parents were dead.

So at seven and a half, David ended a ward of the courts.  Later he’d learned that a child that old is considered past the prime adoption age.  Most couples looking to adopt want an infant, but in a pinch they’ll take a toddler.  A boy David’s age has already formed his personality, already has a value system in place, and is not going to unlearn his bad habits nor be able to banish his memories—good or bad.  Added to those general negatives, David had spent eighteen months with a mother who could hardly lift her head in the morning, let alone pay any attention to him.  Out of his fear and pain was born the habit of acting out so that she would notice him.

So though technically becoming eligible for adoption when he was placed under the guidance of the Florida courts, realistically there was very little chance anyone would want him.  He wasn’t even cute, as he’d overheard one of the case workers say carelessly when he was in earshot.

No, he thought bitterly, he hadn’t been cute.  He’d been neglected for too long.  He was scrawny, had severe allergies, and his dark, lusterless eyes were used to hiding what he was really feeling.

Thus began the long succession of foster homes.  He would stay in a place until his behavior, which became progressively worse, was deemed intolerable, or the family in question would, for one reason or another, stop keeping foster children.

Twice he ran away.  Twice he was caught and returned to the system.  No one noticed that the system had failed him utterly.

Yet despite all of the trauma, despite his rage and loneliness and fear, David had one thing no one could take away from him.

He was smart.  And somewhere, buried deep in his unhappy psyche was the knowledge that no matter how unbearable his life became, no matter how tempted he might be to quit, he must stay in school, at least long enough to get his high school diploma.  For the one thing David knew without question was that he would never become what so many disadvantaged kids did become—a  drug addict or a criminal.

At eighteen he finished high school with solid grades.  If he’d wanted to, he could have graduated in the top percentile of his class, but he hadn’t cared enough to work that hard.

The day after graduation, he’d packed his meager belongings, unearthed his hidden stash of money saved from his part-time jobs as a life guard and working at Burger King, and hit the road.

For the past two years he’d worked as a waiter in one of the best restaurants in St. Augustine, saving as much money as he could.  During his time off, he’d haunted the internet with one goal in mind: to find the woman who had given birth to him.  He wasn’t sure why, he just knew it was something he had to do.

Now here he was, mission accomplished.  He knew who his mother was and where she lived.  Her name was Hannah Turner Ferris and she lived right there in that house—the one he’d been watching so carefully for hours.  By now he knew a lot about her.  He knew she had been married for fifteen years to Simon Ferris, the owner and CEO of the Ferris Sporting Goods chain of stores. He knew that after she’d given birth to him in a Tampa hospital, she’d attended the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota.  He knew that shortly after her graduation from the school she’d moved to Los Angeles and gone to work for a big advertising agency.  And he knew he had a sister, that his birth mother and her husband were the parents of a teenaged daughter named Jenny.

A sister.

He stared at the house again.  His sister lived there.  Had lived there all of her life.  Whereas he . . .

His jaw tightened.

Had his mother ever thought about him?  Had she ever wondered where he was and how he was doing?  Or didn’t she care?

He was so lost in his painful thoughts, he didn’t hear the vehicle approaching until it stopped a few feet away.  He instantly stiffened.  HAMILTON SECURITY SERVICES was lettered on the side of the SUV, and as David watched, a tall, brown-uniformed guard emerged.  A gun was holstered at his waist.

David’s heart was beating too fast, but he kept his face expressionless, saying nothing as he watched the guard walk toward him.

"You lost?" the guard said.  He didn’t smile.

"I don’t think so."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"Just sightseeing."

"Sightseeing."

"Yeah, you know . . . "  Smiling innocently, David pulled a map from the back pocket of his jeans.  "Looking at the homes of the stars."  He congratulated himself on his foresight.  "Did you know Charlie Sheen lives there?"  He pointed to a house two doors down.

"No, he doesn’t."

"But . . . "  David showed him the map.  "Look.  It says so right here."

"I don’t care what that map says.  It’s wrong.  And the homeowners here don’t take kindly to people who don’t live here wandering around these streets.  Especially young guys like you.  They’re inclined to think maybe you’re casing their homes.  Trying to find out who’s there and who’s not so you can rob them."

"I’d never do anything like that."  David’s indignation wasn’t faked.

"Maybe not.  However, I’d like to see some I.D.  You got a driver’s license?"

David nodded and pulled out his wallet.  "It’s a Florida license.  I haven’t had a chance to get a California one yet."

The guard studied the license carefully, comparing the picture to David.  Finally he handed it back.  "Okay, maybe you’re legit.  Still, it’s time for you to move along.  You don’t belong here."

No, David thought as he headed toward Sunset Boulevard and the bus stop.  He didn’t belong there.  But that wasn’t his fault.  That wasn’t his fault at all.

* * *

For two days David thought about what to do.  Part of him wanted to take off.  Just take off, put her and her family and everything about her out of his mind, just the way she’d put him out of her mind.

That was the part of him that hurt.  The part that wanted someone to buy him birthday presents.  The part that wanted someone to spend Christmas with.  The part that wanted someone to love him.

The other part of him, the bitter, angry part, seriously considered just walking up to the front door and when she answered, looking her straight in the eyes and saying, "Surprise.  I’m the kid you dumped twenty years ago."

She’d probably shit a brick right there on the doorstep, be totally freaked out.  For a while, he contemplated the pleasure of shocking her.  But as appealing as that scenario was, there were problems with it.

For one thing, he had to get to the door.  Which meant he had to get through the security gate, and that wouldn’t be easy.  From what he’d seen, visitors had to stop and buzz the house and identify themselves.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, he didn’t really want to do that.  What would be the point?  No, he needed to give this whole business some serious thought.  Decide just what it was he ultimately wanted.

Short term, he did know.  He wanted to meet his mother and her family.  See what their lives were really like.  Once he’d accomplished that, he would figure out what to do next.

So he spent a week scoping out everything he could concerning his mother’s life.  He soon realized he wasn’t going to be able to survive in L.A. without a car or, at the very least, a motorcycle.

Although the motorcycle would have been his first choice, he knew he’d be less noticeable in a car.  The question was, could he afford one?  He had a little more than six thousand dollars saved, but unless he found a job right away, that money was going to go fast.  It was already going.

He picked up a copy of the Los Angeles Times and studied the classifieds.  It was obvious his best bet was to visit some used car lots.  Luckily, he knew a bit about cars, because one of the other guys at one of the foster homes he’d lived in was a car buff.  Billy had shown David a few things, some legal, some not, including how to hot wire a car.  Remembering what he’d been taught, David began to make the rounds.

By the end of his first week in L.A., he was the owner of a six-year-old Ford pickup which he’d gotten for twenty-five hundred bucks.  It needed some body work and a new paint job, but David didn’t care about that.  The mileage wasn’t too bad, the truck ran good once it was tuned up, and the tires wouldn’t need replacing for at least a year.

Now that he had wheels, it was easy to follow not only his mother, but her husband and their kid. He was having a hard time thinking of the kid as his sister.  Soon he knew where the husband’s office was located, where he parked his car, where he ate lunch, and where he worked out.

He knew where his mother shopped, where she ate lunch, and where she got her nails done and her hair cut.

He knew where the kid stabled her horse, where she had her music lessons—he wasn’t sure what instrument she played yet, but he thought it might be violin because of the case she carried—and where she hung out.

One of the places the whole family frequented was their country club.  It was so typical of the difference in their lives that the kid not only had a pool at her house but she could swim at that fancy club, too, whereas the only place he could swim was in the ocean.  David hated the ocean, which reminded him of Florida and the life he’d left behind.

But maybe them belonging to that club was a lucky break for him.  Places like that always needed help, didn’t they?  And he had experience both waiting tables and as a lifeguard.  If that club had any openings, it would probably be a piece of cake for him to get a job, because he had great references.  Legitimate references.

So the following day—a Thursday—he drove to the club and asked the guard at the gate where the employment office was.

"You got an appointment?" the guard asked.  He eyed David’s truck suspiciously.

David gave the guy his most polite smile.  "No, but I’m a certified lifeguard, and I’ve got experience as a waiter.   I just thought I’d fill out an application in case any openings come up."

The guard picked up the phone.  David couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he figured he was calling the office.

After hanging up the phone, he poked his head out and waved David on, saying, "Okay.  You can go on up to the office.  Just drive to the top of the hill.  The main building is on the right.  Drive around to the back.  There’ll be a sign on the office door."

Five minutes later, David sat in a small reception area filling out an application.  A half hour later, he had a job.  As he’d figured, there were several openings.  He had his choice of life guarding or working in the dining room.  Although he knew he’d make more money waiting tables, he figured he had a better chance of meeting and possibly getting chummy with the kid—which might mean he could meet the rest of the family—if he took the job at the pool.  If he needed more money, he could always get a part-time job waiting tables at a restaurant at night.

The office manager, an older woman, seemed thrilled he’d come in.  "Would you be willing to help out in the restaurant when we’re shorthanded?" she asked after a few minutes of talking about his experience.

"Sure."

"The thing is, one of our waiters quit yesterday and another called in sick just a few minutes ago.  He’s got the flu and will be out all weekend."  She pushed her hair back from her face in a harried gesture.  "It’s going to be impossible to find someone else so fast, but if you could see your way to helping us out . . . "

"You mean tonight?"

"No.  Tomorrow night and Saturday.  Those are our two busy nights."

Tomorrow was his birthday.  Did he really want to spend it waiting on a bunch of rich people all night?  But what the hell.  He didn’t have anything better to do.  And it would mean extra money he could use.  Plus he’d be making points with this woman.  So he said, "Sure, no problem.  I can help out."

"Oh, that’s wonderful.  I’ll tell Julio—that’s Julio Sanchez, our wait staff manager—to get with you.  He’ll show you the ropes.  Now what about the lifeguarding?  Can you start next week?  The pool’s closed on Monday for servicing, but reopens at eleven Tuesday morning."

"Tuesday’s great.

"Wonderful.  Your shift will be from eleven until seven."  She told him how to find Julio and then the pro shop.  "I’ll call them both and tell them you’re coming.  The pro shop will get you outfitted with a couple of suits and robes."

"Okay.  Thank you, Mrs. Shaver."

"My pleasure, David.  We’re looking forward to having you here as part of our little family."  She stood, and they shook hands.

These rich people were really something, he thought as he walked to the main part of the club.  Our little family.  David almost laughed.  Who the fuck did she think she was kidding?  He was no more a part of their little family than he was part of the Ferris family.

That night he celebrated by buying himself a T.V. set and a six pack of beer.  Then he ordered his favorite pizza with mushrooms and extra cheese.  He didn’t even mind the noise outside.  It was funny, he thought.  When he’d first found out his mother lived in the L.A. area, he’d imagined Hollywood as being some big glitzy place with palm trees on every corner.

In reality it was the armpit of L.A. from what he could see.  Unfortunately, it had turned out to be the only area he could afford.

His apartment was near Vine and Santa Monica Boulevard, and the most distinguishing thing about it was the constant noise—radios and T.V. sets blaring, people fighting, kids crying.

But David didn’t care, because he knew living there was temporary.  Besides, when you’d lived in some of the places he’d lived, you didn’t expect satin sheets and maid service.  It was enough to have a roof over your head.

He slept better that night than he’d slept for a long time.