front page, then zipping ahead to the local section, pushing the machine full speed to the gap between editions and starting over. The smell and the movement made her nauseous. Should she have hired someone for this dreary task? But she had never paid anyone to do her own work. Besides, she liked immersing herself in microfiche, which she had used to research parts of her first book. She just wished she could recapture the giddy ignorance of those days, the joy in writing without expectation, the smallness of her daydreams.
She found Calliope lurking at the end of March, which must have gone out like a lion that year. Yes, in fact, the weather was part of the story. February had been full of ice storms. At least, that was the excuse offered by a social worker, Marlee Dupont, charged with checking up on the child: Roads had been impassable, especially in Calliopeâs West Baltimoreneighborhood, always last to be plowed. The social worker had called, but the phone had been shut off. That explained why one month had gone by without a visit; the second month was never really explained. When the social worker finally did arrive at the apartment on Lemmon Street, all she found was Calliope.
âWhereâs your baby?â she asked, according to the article.
âI canât tell you,â Calliope said.
It was, more or less, all she would say for the next seven years.
When had the legal defense, the Fifth Amendment, first been introduced? It was hard to tell because reporters had come to the story from a distance, too, after much had happened. It wasnât even clear why Callie was under the social workerâs supervision. Cassandra jumped ahead to the resolution, finding more detail in the stories about Callieâs release, almost seven years to the day later. She began jotting down a timeline in her Moleskine notebook. March 1988: Social worker discovers Calliopeâs three-month-old baby is missing. So, working backward, December 1987: Calliopeâs son Donntay is born. A previous child, also a boy, had been taken from Callie for neglect, but the department, citing her privacy rights, refused to say anything else, other than that this incident was not the reason a social worker had been assigned to Donntay upon his birth.
A previous child had been taken. That detail had been missing from the television report, and it was given only scant attention here. Calliopeâs parental rights had been terminated seven years earlier. That child would have to beâquick calculationâtwenty-seven. How tantalizing. What had become of that child? Was that part of Callieâs story? Should it be? Cassandra had researched 1980s adoption as part of The Painted Garden and knew that various groups began pushing for greater openness in adoption in the nineties. But that wouldnât affect Callieâs first son. He would be able to find his mother only if they signed up for a mutual registry.
Images on microfiche tend to be grainy, especially when printedout, but Cassandra pressed the button anyway, capturing the 1988 photo of Callie when she was first jailed for contempt. Calliopeâs face was hard, her eyes hollow, and the cords in her neck looked almost painful. Yet, even in a shapeless winter coat, there was the suggestion of a striking figure, a modelâs figure. Drugs? Cassandra had heard somewhere that heroin users have killer bodies, that drug abuse gives them raging metabolisms that never stop, even if they clean up. Callieâs eyes were downcast in the photo, but her lawyer, holding her by the arm, looked straight into the camera. That was the woman who had yet to return Cassandraâs calls, an unanticipated development. These days, everyone returned Cassandraâs calls. True, she hadnât been able to find anyone who would help her contact the retired police detective who had worked the case, but those people had at least had the courtesy and professionalism to pick up the
She found Calliope lurking at the end of March, which must have gone out like a lion that year. Yes, in fact, the weather was part of the story. February had been full of ice storms. At least, that was the excuse offered by a social worker, Marlee Dupont, charged with checking up on the child: Roads had been impassable, especially in Calliopeâs West Baltimoreneighborhood, always last to be plowed. The social worker had called, but the phone had been shut off. That explained why one month had gone by without a visit; the second month was never really explained. When the social worker finally did arrive at the apartment on Lemmon Street, all she found was Calliope.
âWhereâs your baby?â she asked, according to the article.
âI canât tell you,â Calliope said.
It was, more or less, all she would say for the next seven years.
When had the legal defense, the Fifth Amendment, first been introduced? It was hard to tell because reporters had come to the story from a distance, too, after much had happened. It wasnât even clear why Callie was under the social workerâs supervision. Cassandra jumped ahead to the resolution, finding more detail in the stories about Callieâs release, almost seven years to the day later. She began jotting down a timeline in her Moleskine notebook. March 1988: Social worker discovers Calliopeâs three-month-old baby is missing. So, working backward, December 1987: Calliopeâs son Donntay is born. A previous child, also a boy, had been taken from Callie for neglect, but the department, citing her privacy rights, refused to say anything else, other than that this incident was not the reason a social worker had been assigned to Donntay upon his birth.
A previous child had been taken. That detail had been missing from the television report, and it was given only scant attention here. Calliopeâs parental rights had been terminated seven years earlier. That child would have to beâquick calculationâtwenty-seven. How tantalizing. What had become of that child? Was that part of Callieâs story? Should it be? Cassandra had researched 1980s adoption as part of The Painted Garden and knew that various groups began pushing for greater openness in adoption in the nineties. But that wouldnât affect Callieâs first son. He would be able to find his mother only if they signed up for a mutual registry.
Images on microfiche tend to be grainy, especially when printedout, but Cassandra pressed the button anyway, capturing the 1988 photo of Callie when she was first jailed for contempt. Calliopeâs face was hard, her eyes hollow, and the cords in her neck looked almost painful. Yet, even in a shapeless winter coat, there was the suggestion of a striking figure, a modelâs figure. Drugs? Cassandra had heard somewhere that heroin users have killer bodies, that drug abuse gives them raging metabolisms that never stop, even if they clean up. Callieâs eyes were downcast in the photo, but her lawyer, holding her by the arm, looked straight into the camera. That was the woman who had yet to return Cassandraâs calls, an unanticipated development. These days, everyone returned Cassandraâs calls. True, she hadnât been able to find anyone who would help her contact the retired police detective who had worked the case, but those people had at least had the courtesy and professionalism to pick up the
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