Robert's proposal weighed heavily on Ramona's mind all morning. Finally she took the phone book and leafed through it until she found the number for the clerk of the Howard County Court. She waited until lunch, when the bank was closed and almost everyone was either at lunch or out of earshot, and dialed the number.
She got transferred to three different people before a woman came on the line who said she took care of adoption records. Ramona posed as a family member of someone who had been adopted and wanted to know who her parents were.
"I know this isn't what you're going to want to hear," said the woman on the phone. "But those records are sealed, and only with a court order can they be opened."
"What would it take to get a court order?" asked Ramona, her heart in her throat.
"There are very few things that the judge will accept," said the woman. "In my experience, about the only thing that will usually work is if there is some medical reason. By that I mean that the adopted child has some kind of medical need to know who the parents were so that doctors will be able to understand how to treat something. Even that's pretty rare these days, because medical science has progressed so far," she said apologetically.
"No, there's nothing medical. She just wants to know who her parents were," said Ramona.
"I'm afraid that's not going to cut any mustard with the system," said the woman.
"So there's really no way to do this," said Ramona, hope surging in her.
"Well, there are a few special circumstances. When was the adoption?" asked the woman.
Ramona's hope faded just as quickly as it had arisen. "It was back in the thirties," she said.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said the woman, her voice taking on a note of sorrow. "I didn't realize it was that far back. I can tell you right now that there's nothing we can do. There was a fire in the basement of the courthouse back in the early 1950s, and the adoption records from before that were destroyed."
"There's nothing left?" asked Ramona, shocked.
"Nothing from before 1951 or so," said the woman. "I'm really sorry."
Ramona hung up the phone and stared at nothing. Even if someone suspected something, there was nothing to prove who she really was, or at least who she had been. Excitement ripped through her and she sat back in her chair, out of breath. She'd been holding her breath unconsciously and now panted.
For the rest of the day she was like a school girl, who imagines taking on the name of a boy, and practices writing it out that way, as if she were already married. Now she couldn’t wait for Robert to contact her.
But he didn't.
When she went home that night she thought about stopping at the mansion to see him, to scream that she would, indeed marry him.
But she didn't.
Instead she went into the house, bursting with the joy of her decision, and wanting to share it with her children.
But they weren't home.
There were two notes on the fridge, one from Debbie that said she had gone over to Crystal's house, and would be eating dinner there, returning home not later than nine that night. The other was from Robby, saying he'd gone to the pool, would eat out with his friends and come home "sometime tonight."
She was so full of energy she couldn't sit still, and trying to do things around the house didn't satisfy her either. She had made a habit of jogging in college, and had kept it up off and on when she got married, but hadn't run for years, ever since giving birth. She tied her hair back into a pony tail and went looking for something to jog in. In the end she had to go to Robby's room, where she found his gym shorts hanging off his desk chair. She pulled them on, surprised that the elastic in the waistband was tight enough that it clung to her abdomen snugly. She was acutely aware that his stiff penis had been covered by them when she last felt them against her own pussy, and shivered at the thought. On a wild impulse she took them off, removed her panties, and pulled them back on so the cloth would be right next to her pussy. Then she put on a tank top over her bra and left at almost a sprint.
She lasted two blocks before she had to stop, bent over and gasping for air. She hadn't known she was that badly out of shape. After resting she started again at a much slower pace, and alternated between jogging slowly and walking to catch her breath. It was just what she needed to work off her excess energy.
Ramona stayed out for over an hour, waving at people she knew as she jogged or walked along the streets of Nettleton. She reveled in the thought that, to these people, she was just the widow Franklin, a mother of two nice children, a teller at the bank.
TBC