Year of Mistaken Discoveries (9 page)

Hello Baby Girl,

I’m afraid of screwing this letter up. It feels like it should be really important, meaningful. I’m not good at this type of stuff. Having a baby is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Way scarier than the first time I did a high dive and I thought I would die. Scarier than any monster or slasher movie. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more scared than I have been the last nine months. And the weird thing is that I’m still terrified. I thought once you were born it would be a relief, that it would be over. Now I realize it isn’t over at all, it’s the start of something new. You’re not something that happened to me—you’re a person. That kinda freaks me out, and it’s also amazing.

The social worker told me to write down what I
want for you, so here it goes. I hope your life is full of good things. I wish that you could be safe from stuff like lies and broken hearts, but I guess that’s part of living. I want you to know that the reason I’m giving you up for adoption is so that you have the best chance at having a great life.

Right after you were born they let me hold you. I looked at you and I swear to God you looked back. It was like you could see into my soul. I know it’s pretty much impossible, but I sort of hope you can remember it. I hope you turn into a cool person. I am giving you up so you can have a good life and so I can move on with mine. I won’t be in your life, but I’ll never forget you.

Love,

Lisa

My birth mom was sixteen, almost seventeen, when I was born. No wonder she’d been unsure of what to say. Her letter was nice, but it didn’t really tell me the things I wanted to know, like what did she think of my birth dad? Did she ever even consider keeping me? Was she sorry she gave me up? I didn’t need a letter from her; I needed something like a twelve-volume encyclopedia set of information.

The scrapbook had copies of the letters my mom had sent to my birth mom. My adoption had been open, which meant they had exchanged information, although they never
met face-to-face. My birth mom had picked my parents out of a binder of potential parents, like a catalog of families. The letters my mom sent her after the birth sounded fake and overly cheerful, like those cheesy notes people put in their Christmas cards.
Avery is walking already! She’s such a busy little girl who loves her stuffed bunny and music. If the radio is left on, she bops up and down like she’s dancing!
There were entirely too many exclamation points. The letters almost sounded like one of those infomercials you see on late night TV. Check out the new and improved Avery! She slices! She dices! She makes egg salad with no mess! Buy one now, and we’ll throw in a Chia Pet at no extra cost!!!

I pulled Nora’s notebook over and flipped to the back, where there were blank pages. I started to list the things I knew based on the scrapbook, even if I wasn’t sure it would be helpful. My birth date, the lawyer who did the adoption, that my birth mom’s first name was Lisa.

“What are you doing?”

My head shot up, and my first instinct was to shove the scrapbook under my duvet cover. My mom was standing in the doorway, her suit jacket unbuttoned and her shoes already off and in her hand.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, stating the obvious. “I was looking through my baby scrapbook.”

“What made you pull that old thing out after all this time?” She was trying to act casual, but I could see her hands twisting the ring around her finger.

“Just curious, I guess.” I laid my hand on top of the book as if I were swearing a vow. “Why did my birth mom stop writing? She wrote back and forth with you for a couple of years and then nothing.” I flipped to the back of the book. By the end my mom hadn’t made color-coordinated pages with stickers and captions. Instead a few things were stuffed in the back, including a letter from the adoption organization saying that Lisa no longer wished to do regular updates.

Mom took a deep breath and then came to sit next to me on the bed. “I don’t really know for sure. I spoke to our adoption coordinator. She said it isn’t uncommon. It can be hard for the birth parent. When Lisa stopped communication, she would have been in college. That can be a difficult time.”

“So, she got too busy to bother with me.”

“What? No. That’s not what I’m saying. I just mean she might have felt that she needed to focus on what was ahead of her instead of the past. By that time she knew how much we loved you. Maybe she could rest a bit easier knowing you had a family. She might have felt that she didn’t need to stay involved.”

I wondered if she’d made the decision to cut off contact with me because she found it too painful, or because keeping in touch was one more thing on her to-do list and it wasn’t worth the hassle.

“What’s gotten you interested in all this? Is it what happened with Nora?”

“Sort of.” I bit my lower lip. I’d wanted more time to figure out how I was going to tell my parents about my plan. I wanted to have it organized so they’d be impressed, but I ended up spitting it out. “I’m going to make looking for my birth mom my senior project. I’ll talk about how I’m doing it to honor what Nora started.”

I hadn’t expected my mom to leap into the air and declare me a genius, but I also hadn’t thought she’d say what she did.

“Absolutely not.”

chapter twelve

Tip #2: No matter how much people around you will tell you that adoption is a gift and how the whole process is full of rainbows and unicorns, the truth is it makes people uncomfortable. As soon as you tell people you’re looking for your birth mom they’ll start telling you why it’s a bad idea. What they really mean is they think it’s a bad idea. What you think doesn’t matter so much to them.

—Field Guide to Finding Your Family

M
y adoption had never been a secret. It wasn’t like my parents sprang the news on me when I was thirteen. I always knew. It wasn’t something we talked about very often, but there was a big photo in the hall of me as a baby with them with the saying “Family Is Made, Not Born” on the frame. When some kid teased me about being adopted in second
grade, there was a moment when I was pretty sure my dad was going to go all Chuck Norris on his ass.

Along the side of my right hand was a raised scar. I was about seven when I got it. My mom had made her famous lasagna. She took it out of the oven and placed the red ceramic baking dish on a rack on the counter to cool. “Don’t touch,” she told me. “It’s hot!” When she turned away to answer the phone, I reached out and touched the pan. I knew better, but it was somehow irresistible. I can’t remember if I thought I would steal a bit of the crusty cheese at the side, or if I just wanted to see how hot it really was, but it was explosively hot. My skin had seared to the side of the dish. I yanked it away, but it was already blistered. Instead of telling my mom, I’d run off to my room and hid. I’d been convinced that if she knew what I had done, they would take me back. I would be in an orphanage with a giant stamp on my file that read
TOUCHED HOT DISH AFTER BEING TOLD NOT TO.
Who would want a kid who couldn’t follow simple directions? If you can’t get the hot-dish thing right, it’s just a matter of time until you start stealing from the liquor cabinet and taking up recreational drug use. I made myself a vow that I would never give my parents another reason to wish they could give me back. I would be exactly the kid that they had always wanted. I hadn’t been perfect, but I’d been as close as I could be. However, my decision to look for my birth mom clearly didn’t fit with my mom’s idea of her ideal child.

“You can’t stop me,” I said. We were having a forced family meeting. As soon as my dad had walked in the house, my mom told him about my “scheme” and made us all sit around the kitchen table.

“We certainly can,” my mom insisted.

“I’m almost eighteen.”

“Almost is not the same as being eighteen.” Mom crossed her arms as if that was the end of the argument.

“Are you kidding me?” Our voices were getting louder. My dad’s eyes were going back and forth between us like he was watching a tennis game.

Dad held up his hands in surrender. “Can someone tell me why this has come up now? Is there some reason you want to find her?”

“I want to make it my senior project.”

Dad cocked his head to the side. “Interesting. The admissions team would like something like that.” He winced. Mom had kicked him under the table.

“This isn’t about Duke. This is about what’s best for Avery. I think dredging all of this up when she’s feeling emotionally vulnerable for some silly
school project
isn’t a good plan.”

Dad nodded. “True.”

“This is what I want to do. Both of you are always saying that there’s nothing wrong with me being adopted, so why does it matter if I find Lisa?”

“It seems to me that she doesn’t want to be found. It was an
open adoption. It was her decision to terminate contact.” Mom wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“But you said yourself that she most likely did that because she was in college. She might want to be in touch now.” My frustration levels were growing. I wanted to pound on the table. They’d spent hours helping me brainstorm how to take my application to the next level, and now that I’d found the perfect idea, they weren’t going to let me do it.

Mom sighed. “There are a million things you could do your project on. Why don’t you pick a women’s rights issue? I can help you with all kinds of research.”

“Because I want to do this.” We stared across the table at each other. “The only reason you don’t want me to do this is because you’re afraid I’m going to replace you.”

She sucked in her breath as if I’d slapped her. I wanted to grab the words out of the air and shove them back into my mouth, but it was too late. She pushed away from the table. “Fine. If that’s your decision, by all means look for your birth mom. I wouldn’t want to be accused of standing in your way.”

“Mom—” I started to say, but she’d already left the room. My dad sat in his chair with an unreadable expression on his face. Ah, just what was missing in my life: more guilt.

“Your mother cares deeply about you. She didn’t deserve that.”

“I know.” I wanted to explain what I was feeling, but I didn’t know how.

He got up. “I still haven’t had any dinner and it’s been a long day. If I were you, I’d make a point to apologize to her.” He paused on his way out of the room. “We’re not going to stand in your way, but we’re also not going to help you with this. It’s your project. I hope you know what you’re looking for.”

“I need to do this, Dad. It’s not about you and Mom. It’s about me.”

“Kiddo, what you don’t understand is that if it’s about you, it’s about all of us.”

• • •

I slumped against the locker, shocked. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Brody slammed his locker shut. “No way. Pick something else. I still think the Aquaman idea rocks, but I’d do education reform before I’d do this.”

“My idea rocks. It’s not just a topic—it’s personal. I’m not saying that Aquaman isn’t meaningful, but I’m talking about finding my mom. You have to do this.”

Brody shook his head. “No I don’t.”

The finality in his words annoyed me. How come he’d been willing to do whatever Nora wanted, but didn’t even pretend to give my idea any thought?

“Why?” I whined. “It’s a good idea, and you’ve already started doing pictures on the idea of family and finding family, so it’s not like you have to repeat anything. It’s saving you time.”

“Why?”
Brody’s voice went louder. “Oh, I have no idea. Last time I agreed to do a project with someone to search for her birth mom it went so well. I have no freaking idea why I wouldn’t want to do it again.” He spun around and marched down the hall.

I trailed after him. “I’m not going to kill myself over this. You don’t have to freak out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not.” I grabbed his sweater, making him stop and turn around. It was time to pull out the big guns. “Look, it’s not just about finding my mom. I owe this to Nora. She wanted this for me. This was something she couldn’t do, so I need to finish it. Does that make sense?” I made puppy eyes at him.

He closed his eyes. “Yes, but it doesn’t change the fact I still think it’s a bad idea.”

“You and my parents both.” Kids streamed past us in the hall, rushing to make their first class. Brody stood there. “It’s really important to me. If it wasn’t so important, I’d back off,” I said.

“Nora told me you didn’t care about finding your birth mom,” Brody said.

I shifted uncomfortably. Growing up I’d wanted to find my birth mom, but I always knew that my parents wouldn’t like the idea. Even though nothing was ever said, I could tell they would be hurt. It felt like saying I didn’t think they were doing a good enough job, and there was no way anyone would say
they weren’t doing a great job in the parenting department. If there was anyone who wasn’t up to snuff in our family, it was me. Freshman year I’d mentioned to Shannon and Lydia that I sometimes thought about looking for my birth mom, and they were both confused. Why would I? My parents were perfect. It was the last time I’d mentioned it to anyone until now.

“I’m not sure I can explain it. I realize now that this is something I have to do.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. As long as he thought this was about helping me, instead of getting into Duke, he might do it. “I’m not sure I can do it alone. I’m asking for you to help me.”

Brody sighed. I could tell my appeal to his desire to be a hero was working.

“So, you’ll do it?” I pushed him.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to do it even if you don’t help, but I’m asking you to do this with me.”

He sighed. “I’ll do it.”

I squealed and threw myself into his arms, hugging him tightly. He stood there stiff for a moment and then hugged me back. I noticed up close he smelled fresh, like clean air and cedar trees. We both took a step back. I felt awkward and couldn’t meet his eyes. “Thank you so much. This means everything,” I said.