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towards the grille.
    “A dog with dignity,” I commented. No wants, no needs, no expiration date?
    “He’s got a bit of Akita in him,” the officer explained. “You can see it in the massive head.”
    “Akita?” Some fancy breed that nobody I knew owned.
    “Poor fellow, he’s also got some dachshund or poodle. Look at those matchstick legs.”
    “Why the sign?” I asked.
    “He hasn’t had all his shots yet. First we have to gauge if he has what it takes to be adopted.”
    “I’d consider it.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Poor mutt. It was bred like me, with crossed signals and conflicting impulses.
    “Wait till the end of the racing season,” the officer advised. “That’s when we get all the pets the summer folks don’t want to take back home with them. You’d be surprised. Beginning of September’s when I get really desperate for homes.”
    When I got back to my apartment, I found a half dozen gladiola stalks, the gift-wrapped box, which turned out to be a Chanel handbag, and a note from “Mr. Francis” on Elastonomics letterhead. The note was brief and word-processed. It said, “ C’est la vie . Thanks for the superb times. I shall have left town on business by the time you get this. The apartment is yours gratis till the end of the month. Good luck and god bless.”

“Why waste your money?” Mama sighed when I called her the next afternoon and told her that I’d just signed on as a client with Finders/Keepers, a family-reuniting service in Albany. “We’re your family. Aren’t we your family, Debby?”
    “I need to know.” I should’ve stopped there. I heard Mama’s dishwasher going. She’d be in pull-on knit pants and a T-shirt, broken-down Wallabees, a bandana tied low over her forehead, cleaning up after making her nectarine relish, which Pappy never dared tell her he hated. Family secrets. “About crossed signals and conflicting impulses. They say there’s a time every adopted kid suddenly has to know.”
    Mama chose innocence. “Didn’t it work out with that nice Oriental man?”
    “I don’t know any nice men. Apart from Pappy, of course.”
    “Pappy’s going fishing this weekend. With Uncle Benny. He needs the break. They both need a break. Benny got hit bad in that malpractice suit. Pappy’s advising bankruptcy. You’d’ve thought chiropractors were safe.”
    “Mama, I need to know what you know.”
    “Hold on a minute. I need to sit, and the cord doesn’t stretch far enough. Let me pull up a stool.”
    “I know what to get you for Christmas,” I joked. “A cordless.” I heard Mama’s heavy tread on the kitchen’s old wooden floor, and Patsy Cline on tape. Then the dragging sound of the stool.
    When she came back on the phone, she asked, “How much will you have to shell out, Debby?”
    In blood or cash, Mama?
    “They might be dead, hon. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”
    “Don’t be sorry, Mama.” For all I knew, Finders/Keepers was a scam, the kind that’s exposed on Dateline or 60 Minutes . “We have a name at least.”
    Mama sobbed. “Why, Debby? What didn’t we do?”
    “It’s not about us.” I loved this woman, but love wasn’t enough in the face of need; it would never be. Need teased out the part of me that the orphanage had whited-out in my best interest. “It’s about me and them.”
    “We don’t have a name, hon, we have a confused kid turned hippie. What kind of a real last name is Iris-Daughter?”
    “I’ll find out soon enough.”
    “There’s not much to find, Deb. The nuns weren’t great at paperwork.”
    “I don’t have a choice, Mama.”
    “Some of the documents were sealed. I’m pretty sure that’s what our lawyer and the orphanage’s lawyers said. Because of the lawsuit.”
    “What lawsuit?”
    “Oh, nothing to do with us, dear. Indians were pressing those charges. The Indian government.”
    “What charges?”
    “I’m not sure what exactly. But serious charges.”
    “That’s a