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“How will that make you feel?” I asked.
My mom shook her head. “That doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter. My sister, the person my mom never had the chance to raise by my side, wanted to see me. That had to affect my mom in some way. And what if my birth parents were next? I didn’t know how I would feel meeting my birth mother when my mom was the only mother I had ever known. It was so much to take in, it made me feel dizzy.
“I’m going to take some time and think about it,” I said to my mom. “Can I take this with me?” I held up the envelope.
“Of course,” she said and hugged me as if she was going to lose me. I tucked the letter into my handbag. My mom put on the kettle for coffee, and when we each had a cup, we walked into the living room.
“You were the tiniest thing when I got you,” my mom said. Her eyes were glazed as she looked back into the past. “A pink little bundle. And you were so quiet, too. You didn’t cry a lot or fuss or anything. You just lay there, looking at me with those big brown eyes of yours. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were mine. I might not have given birth to you, but you were my baby from the start.”
My mom was emotional, and her nostalgia was rubbing off on me. My parents hadn’t been able to have children, trying for years with no success. Finally, they decided to turn to adoption. Mom had told me time and time again how she hadn’t been sure she could take in a child that had come from another home, if she could raise the baby as her own without thinking the child belonged somewhere else. She had told me that the moment she had seen me, though, the connection had been there as if she had birthed me herself.
As I grew up, I had seen the differences between us. I didn’t look like my parents at all. They were both short and stocky, and I was tall and willowy. My mom was a natural redhead, which would have made me one if I’d been biologically related to her.
But at the same time, I also saw the similarities. Our mannerisms were the same because I’d grown up in this house. We believed the same things and valued the same things and made the same jokes. Family had never been about genetics, about who was related to whom.
Until today. I hadn’t grown up with this woman who was trying to contact me, but the fact she was my sister got to me. I wanted to know everything about her. At the same time, it scared me, and I wanted to know nothing about who she was.
“What did Dad say?” I asked.
“It arrived after your dad left. He doesn’t know, and I couldn’t tell him over the phone. It was just too much.”
I nodded, understanding. It was a lot to handle.
After we had finished our cups of coffee and started talking about happier things, I got up to leave.
“Let me know what you decide, my honey,” Mom said, hugging me.
“I will,” I promised. I climbed into the car, waved at my mom, and pulled onto the road.
The envelope in my handbag bugged me all night. I knew it was there, and the information burned me. To think I had a sibling was mind-blowing. I had lived my life as an only child, and the only family I had spent time with was my parents and grandparents when they were still alive. It was strange thinking that I belonged to a larger picture.
Which didn’t make sense, because I hadn’t ever thought that I belonged to a bigger picture involving my birth family. So why did I think about my sister that way? Maybe it was because I hadn’t known about it. I had digested the story of me being adopted a long time ago. This was completely new.
I took the envelope out of my handbag and unfolded the letter again, reading through the contents one more time. If I wanted to follow up on it, I had to contact Morgan Taylor, the private investigator. I didn’t know if I was ready for that yet. I wanted to sleep on it first. I wanted to get used to the information before I did something. But when I was ready, I would contact him. Maybe I would meet my sister.
There was no rush. So much was suddenly happening at the same time. First Brent finally caved and gave me the sexual roller coaster of a lifetime, and now it appeared I had a sister who wanted to meet me. After I had a full year of nothing much going on. It was ironic how things worked out.
