As I look at the life my mother has gone on to have without me, I tell myself this story:
She had a decent life with family who loved her. That’s good. I’m happy for her.
Deep in me, though, pushed low and flat, another story rises. I finally feel what Catherine worried I would feel—a seething rage that turns the contents of my stomach to toxic waste.
She made a life without me. She made a life as if I didn’t exist. She kept me a secret for forty-four years. She has even told me she would have never searched. Never!
To cope with the pain I have been feeling for most of my life and have been denying and redirecting, I drink way too much wine late at night. Or, I get my bike out of the garage, pedal hard, and sweat myself blind as if in training for the Iron Man competition. Or, I press Spencer and Jo to my sides and read silly books like
Captain Underpants
and
Bad Kitty
. The latter is the only way to actually still the fury. Warm bodies, sweet breath, steady hearts, and the familiar sound of their laughter. They are whole and loved and kept children. Their proximity makes me whole and loved too—for a while.
BEIGE CORDS AND a black cardigan. I pull myself together in these clothes because they are everyday attire. Comfortable. After I am dressed and ready, I make a top-down survey in the full-length mirror.
There I am—Jennifer Lauck. I have long dark hair, deep dark eyes, a narrow face, and a slim form. My sweater is pilled and has a hole under the arm. My pants have a ripped pocket. I don’t care.
I don’t need to impress Catherine. Meeting her isn’t a contest or a job interview.
IN THE MAIN terminal of Portland International Airport, I am surrounded by a stream of travelers—arriving and departing.
I hold a bundle of roses cut from my back yard. They are the best of the year, buds the size of extra-large eggs. I’ve added sprigs of rosemary and lavender. The arrangement is wrapped in a white silk scarf.
This is a perfect demonstration of the kaleidoscope of conflicting emotion within. I hate the mother who gave me away. I love her enough to bring her the best from my garden. Hate and love work inside my skin—a tug of war between primal survival habits and the call of a higher consciousness. It’s a miracle I am functioning at all.
At the inbound waiting area, I sit.
I check the time on my cell phone and then I check the time on my watch. There is a five-minute difference between the watch and the phone. I readjust the time on the watch.
Inbound travelers fill the corridor, people with busy expressions and quick strides. A businesswoman pulls a wheelie travel bag and talks on the telephone. Another woman, with a baby in a stroller, goes by. Next is a teenager listening to his iPod—jeans around his hips.
I shift to the edge of my seat.
Did she change her mind? Was her flight delayed?
I check my phone. No message.
A tall woman in high heels walks my way. She’s wavy in my field of vision, like a mirage in the desert.
I stand up.
The woman wears open-toed strappy heels and slim-fitting jeans. She has narrow hips, a lean body, and wide shoulders she rolls back with the stance of a trained dancer. She has high, round cheekbones and her hair is a lovely shade of auburn.
“Jennifer?” she asks.
I nod. I think I nod.
We embrace but it’s not like a hug, it’s more like a magnetic slap against her body and on pure instinct, my arms go around her back, my chin digs into her collarbone, and I inhale the smell of her almond perfume. A flood of primitive relief moves through me. This is my mother. She is the one.
Catherine is more restrained. Her side of the embrace is brief and stiff. I’ve heard it is that way when the first mother has been found—they feel exposed and embarrassed. She has lived all my life, and most of hers, in shame and secrecy.
She is the first to break away.
While I make a mental note to give her room, an arms length is all I can allow. I keep my hand on her shoulder and feel the shape of her bones and even the texture of her muscles and skin through the fabric of her silky blouse. My mother is utterly familiar—like a dream I’ve been having all my life.
I regress as if I am one of my own children when they are in proximity to my body. I assume ownership of this stranger, my mother.
“My God, you are amazing,” I hear myself say. “Look at you.”
I take her in from the top of short auburn curls down to her toes painted a shining red. I touch her arms, to her elbows and wind my fingers into hers. “Do you play music? ” I ask.
“No, no,” she laughs.
I touch her hips. I turn her right to left and then left to right. I go around her, full circle—one way and then the other. “Look at your fucking legs,” I say. “They are so incredibly long.”
She laughs out loud.
“Look at your fucking legs,” she says. She does this flashy gesture, opening her hands like a game show hostess.
I look at my own hands, which are just like hers and I see them in a new way. I have my mother’s hands.
“How tall are you?” she asks.
“Five nine.”
“I’m five ten,” she says.
She holds out her foot. “What size are your feet?” she asks.
“I’m a nine,” I say, kicking my foot out of my sandal.
“Me too,” she says.
We laugh as if our shoe size is hilarious.
I TAKE CATHERINE to breakfast. A pancake and coffee place called Zells. We order the same thing, eggs on toast. While we eat, we talk
fast. My words spill over hers and her words spill over mine. We are the same that way. We are talkers.
We drink cup after cup of coffee, reaching for the cream at the same time and then crack up when our hands collide.
We use our hands when we talk. We make windmill-sized gestures to get our points across. Our voices rise and then fall in the same vocal range.
Catherine and I are so alike—after a while, I cannot track the similarities.
WHEN WE HAVE wiped our mouths with our napkins and our plates are cleared, Catherine reaches into her purse and takes out a photo. She places it on the table between us—as if relieved to unburden herself. “It’s the only photo I have of him,” she says. “It’s not very good.”
The photo of my father is on a large sheet of color copy paper and he wears a military uniform. He poses next to a cannon six times larger than he is. He looks like a child playing dress-up in a grown man’s clothes.
“I don’t know a lot. We were just kids. I know his mother was divorced. She moved around a lot. I didn’t really know her. She was called, what? A barfly? I don’t think they were close.”
Catherine searches over my head, as if more memories live there. “Um, he came back to Reno not long after you were born—we kind of fell back in together. Eloped when I got out of high school. I got pregnant on our honeymoon. After that, he was stationed in Germany. I had our son. It was a bad marriage. I
missed my family. I left him in Germany and came back to Reno with the baby. I never saw him again. I wish I could tell you more. You know he’s dead now? ”
“Yes,” I say, “I heard.”
Catherine shrugs her pretty shoulders. She seems uncomfortable, even embarrassed as she delves into the past.
I study the photo of my father with more intensity but also find myself taking sides with Catherine. I feel embarrassed too, as if it’s wrong to want to know him.
Catherine reaches to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“I can’t get over being here, together,” she says. Her voice is different, soft and a little sad. “I’ve missed your whole life.”
She drops her hand into her lap. Questions I may have about my father vanish and there is just the touch of mother. It was so fast, I wonder if it even happened. Did I make it all up?
Sometimes, when I stroke Spencer in a casual way—running my hand over the shape of his head or rubbing his back—and then stop, he’ll take my hand and put it back on his body. It’s his way of saying, “Keep touching me, Mom.”
I want to take Catherine’s hand and have her touch me again but I don’t. I am too shy.
WE LEAVE THE restaurant and go to a house that has been offered by a friend. The kitchen has been stocked with cheese, fruit, bread, chocolate, wine, and teas.
Catherine and I spend our day on the back deck, surrounded by
vines and passionflowers. We drink pots of tea and eat dark chocolate in the September sun. She likes dark chocolate as much as I do.
We perform an awkward dance of togetherness with steps we don’t know how to execute. If I were a baby, I’d be naked in her arms and she’d touch me everywhere. She’d count my toes and press her face into my belly. But I’m a grown woman and neither of us knows how this is supposed to be. The threat of intimacy between us is overwhelming and intoxicating. She holds my hand for a long time and then, without warning, pulls back and crosses her arms over herself. I lean into her, closing my eyes to take in the sound of her voice and then scoot away, a twist of queasiness in my stomach.
“DO YOU WANT to see my photos?” I ask. A thick manila file holds images that go back to infancy.
“I want to see everything,” she says.
I move through my life story with a casual swiftness, using each photo as a marker on the timeline. I can’t linger on the losses or the pain or the loneliness. I want my mother to see the good things, the accomplishments and the success. I sit close to her while she looks at younger and still younger versions of me.
“This is me in high school,” I say. “Can you believe the size of my nose?”
“You have your father’s nose,” she says.
“Really?”
“It suits you,” she says. “I like it.”
I am down to two photos, baby pictures. Both are of Janet holding me.
In the first, she poses in front of our little ranch house on Mary Street in Carson City. I’m swaddled in blue and yellow and have a bonnet on my head. Janet wears a matching outfit with a big yellow hat tilted at a jaunty angle.
Catherine removes her glasses and looks at the picture as if trying to find a way to pass through and go back in time.
“She’s not holding you close enough,” Catherine finally says. “What’s wrong with her? I thought she was a mother already? ”
I don’t answer.
During my work with Nancy, I learned that Janet’s attempts at closeness were rejected by me—as a part of my biological code. Janet didn’t pass the sensory tests of sound, smell, and touch. In the photo, I’m being what is called a “stiff-armed baby.” She’s not pushing me away. I’m pushing her away.
How can I tell this to Catherine and not hurt her?
Catherine looks up and I silently pass her the next photo.
She makes another sound of disgust. “Why isn’t she holding you closer?”
A stab of anger flashes, a bolt of lightening on a dry, hot night. I want to say, “Where were you? Why didn’t you come? ”
But I can’t form the words. I don’t want to be angry.
THE SUN ARCS over the house and a squirrel leaps from branch to branch on an old maple tree.
My photos are fanned out on the patio table. She holds the ones of me as a baby and studies each one for such a long time.
When Catherine finally speaks again, her voice is so low I have to lean closer still.
“I don’t remember going into labor at all. I don’t even remember that much about being pregnant with you, but I do remember being in the hospital. I was lying down. There was a doctor with a mask on his face. He just came in, took you out, and that was it.
“I think I looked up,” she continues. “I wanted to see you but someone pushed me down again.” She presses against her own shoulder, as if to remind herself of that moment and what happened. Her hand drops to her lap. “Then you were gone and I was taken to another part of the hospital where there were no babies. I was put into a room with an older woman who had been recovering from some surgery. She asked, ‘What are you in for, Honey?’ like I was in prison.
“I told her I didn’t feel well,” she says. “That’s when the lies began.”
She looks at me as if I could or should understand and I suppose I do. I want to understand.
“I went home and the birth was never mentioned again,” she said. “I was so depressed. I kept getting lower and lower. My family was watching me all the time. Maybe they thought I would kill myself?”
She looks at me with the question, as if I have the answer.
I can only shrug and shake my head.
“When they finally left me alone in the house, I kicked the screen
out of my window and walked to a mental hospital. A nice Indian doctor took me into a room and I talked about being depressed.”
“Did you tell him you had a baby?” I interrupt.
She shakes her head. “I just told him I was depressed and he gave me some lithium. I threw away the pills and went home. I never got caught for sneaking out and I never told my mother.”
She lays the photo of my infant self on the table and leans back. Her face is sallow. Her lips are curved down. The beautiful and confident woman at the airport and at breakfast has slipped away and the true Catherine is here—tormented, confused, and angry.
“If I ever asked about you and how you were, my mother would tell me to forget the whole thing. She told me no good could come from thinking about you. When I thought I might search for you, my mother told me I would just mess up your life and to let it go.”
The sun is bright in her hair now, making it shine all different shades of reddish-brown. She looks so tired and so sad.
“I think about that,” she says. “Why didn’t I just search for you anyway? Why didn’t I defy her? I went against her wishes other times. I married Bill right out of high school. I got pregnant and went to Germany with him after he was drafted. All of that was pure defiance. Why didn’t I defy her when it came to you?”