West 4

"Can I help you, ma'am?" the lady behind the glass aimed the question at my robe and slippers. I told myself then that I should get another outfit after I'm done.
"Hi," I awkwardly began. "I, uhm, I was wondering if you could, possibly, uh, track down someone?" She watched me with the same piercing, intimidating stare of a hawk. The heavy eyeliner she wore added to the bird-of-prey-look as well.
"Ma'am, I think you have the wrong office." She leaned forward and cupped her hands together, camouflaging her annoyance under a patronizing tone.
"No, no this is the right place," I stammered. I could feel sweat under the soft fabric I wore. "I, uh, oh just allow me to explain. Thirteen years ago I left my son here, my husband and I, we put him up for adoption." Her irritable aura wore off, but underneath it was a cloak of indifference that I found myself having trouble penetrating. "I was wondering if, if it's not too much to ask, if you could....tell me where he is?" I hadn't noticed while I was fumbling around with my words that I had tied my hands into finger knots. I slipped my trembling knuckles into my pockets and waited for the lady dressed in boredom to answer me. Finally she swiveled in her custom-made desk chair towards the computer before her.
"What's your name?" she breathed more than asked.
"Jewelia," I squeaked. She tapped along on the keyboard as I spelled my name aloud. "J-E-W-E-L-I-A, Morse, M-O-R-"
"I can spell Morse, ma'am," she said dryly, tersely. A few more echoing taps and some clicks. "Was his name....Maximus, Maximus Morse?" My heart's wings faltered for a moment, and my surreal flight almost became a plunge down to reality just at hearing his name again.
"Yes!" I said. "That's him, Max, that's my son!" We had named him Maximus and not simply Max because thirteen years ago my husband and I were different people, he a history professor and me an English teacher. "Maximus" was the most kingly, revered, solid, strong and dignified name we could come together to think of when he was born. It was also Latin for, roughly, "all of".
"Well," she interrupted my awakening dream to inform me of something else that had slipped under my consciousness, apparently. "I'm sorry to tell you now, but this says that he's no longer in the system." This time when my chest hiccuped, I did fall; I plummeted straight into my gut and landed there like a brick, a brick torn away from my home in the clouds.
"What do you mean, 'not in the system'?" I asked slowly, quietly, only to the lady's eyes and nothing else.
"If he had been adopted, then his name would be with the family who took him. But unfortunately the only contact attached to his file is your own and that of Erexville General." The regional hospital?
"What in God's name is he doing at the hospital?" My voice was growing more and more desperate with every breath I drew, and so was I.
"When his condition worsened, he was transferred," she said, her voice getting higher in pitch and lower in volume.
"You sent my son to a hospital, and they never sent him back?!" I barked the last word. Something angry was beginning to pull cloth over my judgement.
"Ma'am, I have no explanation-"
"No explanation? My son is lost with no clue where to be found and you have no explanation?!" The lady sank into her mascara. I leaned over the counter, and my breath fogged the glass separating the two of us. "How he hell is this place still running?" She attempted to compose herself, smoothing her dull platinum slacks with quaking hands. Her voice was quieted and manufactured by the practice and effort of someone who has tried not to scream their entire life.
"If you have a complaint, I'd suggest you contact our main office located at-"
"Oh, f**k you," I said before turning on my slippers and marching out of the room. I didn't hear a single sound from the woman, although my ears were probably stuffed with the sound of my frantic heart.