From the Heart Read online

  A vein pulsated in her swanish neck, her lips trembled, and it was clear from the pain in her eyes that whatever she was thinking, it broke her heart. I’d been with troubled people but she was a poster girl for desperation. Besides, whatever she was about to say could not be that bad. Come on. This was America.

  I’d been a preacher for six years and before that taught at a university. If there was anything appalling or ghastly bad in life that I had not heard, it would have been news to me. “Go on,” I said, because if I went on, the Lord only knew where the conversation would head, most likely to a place called Dead Wrong.

  “I think you know these people, awful organization they come from but look good. Las Vegas thinks they’re a good company.”

  “Who are they? What does this have to do with you? Tell me why you said you were sold.”

  Once more, she squished her lips into a thin line. Her cookie sat there untouched until she unfolded the corners of the napkin and nibbled one tiny chocolate chip in the time I would have gobbled the entire thing plus a half dozen more. “When the government doctor said I would always be sick, and the orphanage closed, I went to another institution. In English, it is called Child’s Play Baby Home. I do not know why I lived. Now is the bad part. I have some bad things to say about Americans.”

  I can only claim that the coffee and sugar finally kicked in because my vow of not jumping to any more conclusions worked. “What does this have to do with Las Vegas?”

  “In America, everything can be bought for a price.”

  “Yes?”

  “Here in America, here in Las Vegas, is the company that buys and sells babies and children.”

  “Buying and selling children?” I pushed my backside against the back of the chair, lest I fall off with whatever the explanation was to be.

  “Yes, they buy children and sell them. It is not adoption. This is a business. Like selling cattle. Or here in America, like fancy show dog or even furniture. You see, Child’s Play Baby Home does not have doctors or nurses to care for infants. The company buys the babies and brings them to the United States of America. This is good, right? No, this is not good. It is bad.” When she said “bad,” it looked like she was going to spit, and I ducked to the side.

  Okay, I was lost. It was sorrowful that the Child’s Play Baby Home didn’t have care for special-needs children, but around the world in developing nations and those with limited medical care, these things happened. From what I’d just heard, the Child’s Play Baby Home creating adoption arrangements with couples here in the United States seemed to be a good thing. “How can this be bad if there are shortages of qualified medical people?”

  “Child’s Play Baby Home sells babies to a company. These are sick babies. Hopeless babies, some without arms and legs, too. This company sells them to mothers and fathers who think they are paying for perfect, fat babies with fat cheeks and blond hair.”

  “It’s unfair, Petra, but it’s true. Most adoptive parents want perfect babies.” I thought of how Gramps had told me that when he found my father, an emaciated ten-year-old, he grilled everyone connected with the Army barracks, but no one would take claim to the child. Until the US soldiers came to Vietnam, bi-racial kids like Dad survived by feeding with the neighborhood dogs, running drugs, or prostitution.

  “That I do understand, but from Child’s Play Baby Home they pay for perfect and get sick ones. Most babies cannot sit up, or move, or crawl, or speak. They break the hearts of mommies and daddies and those of the babies, too.”

  “What happens? Surely something can be done about this company?” I felt a bitter taste in my mouth now, and my stomach squeezed a queasy feeling into my throat. It definitely was not from the coffee; I don’t have any problem with multiple cups of Starbucks.

  “You have not heard the whole bad story. This buyer and seller of babies is smart, Jane. They tell people that God is on their side. They say God is directing them to give special babies to the people who pay money. All lies. When the parents don’t want a child who will only live shortly, they pay to have the company take the baby back. All the time the company knows this will happen since the babies are severely handicapped.”

  “It’s a conditional adoption?” I wouldn’t have left my chair for anything. How in the world could this company do that with human lives, knowing the babies were unsuitable for adoption?

  “Then they sell the same baby again. Sometimes again and again, all the time the baby is getting sicker. Some die.” She looked down into her lap and as if on cue, a solitary tear dropped from her eye and straight into the middle of the cookie.

  Petra Stanislaw had been one of these babies, sold time and again.

  “What happens if the baby, who may now be a toddler or young child, never finds adoptive parents willing to take on a special needs child?”

  “Deserted. The frail die. Some starve on the streets. Others do terrible things to survive. Most learn quickly to steal food.”

  I didn’t expect her to cry. I knew the Polish determination well, and from my endearing buscia, who was soft on the outside and solid steel inside. I had an inkling of what Petra was made of, so when she did, I blubbered myself. She even made crying look like fine art.

  She dabbed the single tear spot, dotted her eyes, touched her nose with a tissue, and said, “I was left alone when I couldn’t be sold again, watching the car drive off. I sat on a park bench. I was too frightened to cry. I was returned five times. Each time, the adoptive parents would take me on a conditional lease, but the new parents always thought I was too difficult to handle. The company dumped me one summer evening. I got a new pair of shoes and a few American dollars. It was on Ellis Island. So you know the place? Many Polish immigrants know it. I was eight. No adoptive parents would ever want me. That I was told.”

  We sat in silence. My perfect plan to have Petra lend a hand and her feet with the dance and fundraiser, once I got her into a twelve-step recovery program, evaporated. I’ve been accused more than once of finding silver linings where none exist, but this time, I couldn’t even see where a silver-plated one might be.

  “A police officer came toward me. I cowered. I thought he’d hit me. I must have said something in my language because he spoke to me in Polish.” She exhaled and continued, “They sent me to a children’s jail at first, then a home for runaways. Finally Immigration and Naturalization sent me back to Poland, to an orphanage.”

  Years ago, I’d been on a mission to Warsaw. It was one of those college trips; a group of us were going to help rebuild a church. On the off days, two others and I went to visit orphanages. Think of a scene from a Dickens novel. Orphans were warehoused, huddled around bowls of oatmeal. That’s what we saw. That’s what still haunted me. That’s why I couldn’t let this lie. Here was Petra, alive and educated, somehow having managed to survive the dismal terrors that still troubled my heart.

  She dusted a nonexistent crumb from her lip. “I was lucky. The orphanage where I grew up was sponsored by a foreign lady. She made sure I learned and had physical therapy. She gave money for many of to get university degrees. I never found my birth family; records were destroyed. I believe the company wanted to hide all the evidence. I am learning international law at UNLV. But I cannot forget.” She straightened her spine. “I will not.”

  “You shouldn’t, Petra. This is abominable, um, awful. Tell me this company was brought to justice. This makes my skin crawl. Drat, if I don’t stop the slang, those worry lines on your forehead will need Botox. Skin doesn’t crawl, like babies crawl—oh, never mind. We must do something.” Um, notice the ‘we’?

  “I am doing things and I am not afraid. I will revenge the evil that has been done.”

  The knuckles on her fists were white. I was certain she was up to whatever retribution would stop the horror. While I’m not big on taking over God’s duty when he said, “Revenge is mine,” I
could see her point. Payoff is so bloomin’ tempting, even for pastors. “Have you contacted the authorities? The police or the Center for Missing and Exploited Children? The Polish Consulate?”

  I thought she’d found a rotten chocolate chip in the nibble of cookie her mouth was so pinched. “They do nothing.” She placed her delicate fingers in her lap and locked her jaw.

  “Tell me. Who are these criminals?”

  “They work for the Philemon Society of America, and the worst is Mrs. Cheney.”

  “The Philemon Society of America? PSA? As in Delta Cheney?”

  “They are wicked, Jane. You are shocked because I say cruel things about Americans. These are bad Americans. They hurt children. I will stop them from hurting more.”

  The ability to delude one’s self might be a survival tool, but the view from my mind’s eye pointed to something very rotten with the PSA.

  • • •

  The morning coffee crowd was replaced by the lunch bunch and then replaced by the after-lunch-grabba-club clan. Near one o’clock we hugged good-bye, and yes, I’d given my word to help. I’m horrified to tell you that I don’t remember the drive back to church, but I got there. I didn’t realize how shaken I was until I went to the refrigerator in the church kitchen, pulled out a bottle of water and stood there with the door wide open. I thought of Petra’s words as she revealed even more details, the starvation, the deprivation and, oh, non-existent sanitation. It was done in a whisper, and the truths poured out of illegal adoptions and human trafficking.

  Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of what I learned between my first struggle-for-breath revelation that I’d been small taking with the ring leader all the way to the Eastern European kiss on each cheek when Petra and I parted.

  Petra was a sickly child. The reason for her delayed growth was never identified but she did have dyslexia. She graduated with honors from Uniwersytet Warszawski, the University of Warsaw. She attempted to stop the PSA in Poland, and when that became impossible, she applied for a master’s program in Las Vegas.

  “I am here to crumple PSA,” she whispered in my ear, and there was no doubt that meant hunting down and stopping Delta Cheney in whatever way it took. If you’d seen her eyes, you’d know it didn’t matter whether this was within or outside of the law.

  What could I do? Two hours later, in front of an open refrigerator, which was constantly running and no longer cooling, I was clueless. Petra needed a champion. I couldn’t even muster closing that heavy white refrigerator door.

  So what if the Philemon Society of America was behind immoral orphanages and adoption? But if PSA disposed of kids who weren’t adoptable like last year’s must-have jeans, that was wrong. A few survived, I had to believe that, but the others? What happened to the ones left to fend for themselves and forced into things I couldn’t even mouth the words for? Were the children brought here by PSA and tossed out any better off than those scuttled from the system in Poland when they reached sixteen and no longer thought necessary to protect? Any way I looked at this, it was illegal and immoral. Throw in sinful, too. Visions of starving, half-frozen urchins limped through my mind, pleading for a morsel of food. This stayed in my brain for a nanosecond, and then I imagined the PSA discards found dead with no ID, buried in an unmarked grave, in a city where they’d been deserted.

  If the authorities wouldn’t listen to Petra, I could ask some questions and maybe get attention for the orphans who were here in the States. I had a contact with the local press, in the cute body of one Carl Lipca, who I’d been in firm and cozy contact with as I’d sat squarely on his middle just hours earlier.

  Agreed, I am no stranger to stirring things up, some of them things that hit the front page of the newspaper. But the big pothole of this solution was just down the hall from me, in the senior pastor’s office, sitting at the walnut desk, and drinking out of the coffee mug with I’m the Man’s man emblazoned on it. He and Delta had been chummy and clingy. Now, I’m not one to jump to overly nasty conclusions, just regular ones, but there was that look in her eyes telling me to keep my mitts off Pastor Bob if I knew what was good for me. She never had to worry about that. Talk about ick.

  Now the ick was about Ab Normal and the implication of human trafficking, even through association.

  What was I to do about Pastor Bob’s adoration for the leader of PSA, Delta Cheney, if in fact Cheney was as evil as I was led to believe? Wasn’t the Cheney woman Pastor Bob’s goose that laid the golden egg, his high hope to make money to build our much-needed youth center? If I went to the newspaper, that goose would be cooked, even if Petra’s allegations weren’t true.

  I wouldn’t turn my back on Petra and those unspoken cries of help for babies and children I might never know. Would Pastor Bob even give me the time of day if I presented what I’d learned to him confidentially? From what I’d seen of him these last weeks, Pastor Bob wouldn’t even listen to Petra’s version of the PSA when he had his “cheerleader” Delta Cheney puffing up his ego. He was already counting on the sizable cash donation from PSA.

  I spent the next few minutes chilling. I couldn’t move from the open refrigerator. I stared at the oversized mayonnaise, gallons of orange juice, refrigerator cookies to bake for VBS the next day, and the bright white interior.

  What if I took what I had learned to the police or the district attorney? They’d bust a gut. It was hearsay. I had nothing to back it up but the eyes of a young woman and a letter in Polish, which could have been a grocery list for all I knew. I would have called Cowboy Henry, aka my grandfather, but he was out of touch with reality and probably doing the tango with the kitchen mop. I could call Vera, but a tiny voice inside asked what her loyalties were. Sometimes people who seem to be great listeners are the biggest gossipmongers, and she seemed to know a lot of tidbits about the congregation. Could I call the District Council with a half-baked crime saga? They’d say Pastor Jane Angieski was being the certified buttinski they already knew I was. Would it add fuel to the fire come Friday and my special appointment with their representative?

  I prayed. Do you ever have those times when you’re praying when you suddenly realize that perhaps God has even more important things on His plate than what you’re dishing, like keeping the solar system in place and making sure gravity keeps things stuck? When I got no immediate response from my Boss, I tossed back a cola and jumped when my cell rang. Since He doesn’t ever call, I knew He’d put one of His servants on the line for me.

  The big, squawky laugh that greeted me was none other than my pal Geraldine. The woman never did small talk, but jumped straight in as if we were in the middle of the conversation.

  “You been fried yet? That heat’s bad for the skin, girl. Can’t you get the District Council to transfer you to Washington, D.C., so we could pal around together? Or have you ruffled so many feathers that you’ve been exiled like some ol’ Bible prophet? You getting punished? There’s nothing wrong in the world with Las Vegas—some of my favorite quarters have stayed there in their slot machines—but it’s hot as you-know-what. Maybe that’s the District Council’s way of telling you to shape up or you’ll have even more heat from them?”

  “Do you ever just breathe? Did you call to talk at me or with me?”

  “You, girl, you. Just had a feeling I needed to call you.”

  I’d never ever been so happy to hear the blasting, foghorn voice of the senior senator from California in my entire life. I loved Gerry, even though when she gushed about Gramps it got a bit too personal. She was gaga for him and he hardly knew she existed, or so it seemed.

  “What’s up? But first, how’s that rascal of a grandfather, my dearest snuggle face?”

  I am not a pint-sized person, which I know you know. But compared to Gerry, I’m petite. She was a plus-size model in the days when it wasn’t acceptable to be a woman of size. She made it okay to be big and beautiful with a li
ne of clothing for generous women, a company where she’d been the CEO. Now she used her ample measurements to influence fellow lawmakers in D.C.—at least that’s what she’d told me time and again.

  “I’m between a stone wall and San Quentin.” I sighed.

  “You’re going to prison?”

  “Might as well. And don’t you dare put me on hold, even if the president is calling.”

  “I’m sitting on my balcony, overlooking Georgetown, sipping some bubbly water with a slice of lime. I’m not alone. Come on, guess who’s here.”

  I’m not keen on games, unless it’s something like kiss and not tell. Wait, that’s another story. I bit. “Donald Trump? Brad Pitt?”

  “How did you know? This is frightening,” she shrieked. Okay, it was more than a shriek. A shriek is when you see a mouse charging at you with twenty of its chums. It was a scream like you might heard or make when you’re sipping a cola and munching peanuts as your plane plunges a thousand feet and the oxygen bag bounces off your forehead.

  Chapter 5

  I screeched back.

  Gerry was glued to the inner circles of Manhattan, Boston, D.C., and the West Coast with the high, mighty, and well-connected, but was she entertaining the Brad Pitt or Mr. Trump of “You’re Fired” fame?

  “Got ya.” She gagged with laughter. I could imagine the drama queen’s head was thrown back and big brown eyes were watering. “I got you, I got you. I have my new best friend with me. Meet Miss Louella Antoinette English.” The phone went quiet, and I swear there was a sniffing sound. “Louella, I’d like you to meet Jane. Say arf arf, or do they say bark? Hers sounds like buff, buff, buff. Besides, I never know with Yorkies. Except when they growl.”

  “I do not believe this. You bought a canine accessory? You’re the normal one in our friendship. What’s happened to you?” I was nauseated thinking of how she’d drag a pooch of minimal poundage around with her, probably on a rhinestone leash and wearing matching outfits. I shivered.