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“Deep down, I’ve always been afraid that you’d find her and,” she shakes her head, “this sounds so juvenile, but I’ve always been afraid you’d like her better, that you’d love her more than me.”
“Mom.”
“I realize how pathetic that sounds, believe me, but it’s the truth.”
“I’ll never—”
She puts her hand up to stop me. “You don’t have to say that. I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past forty-eight hours, Sarah. And it’s not like I’ve had some epiphany or anything. You have us, and you’llalwayshave me and Dad, but you also have the mother and the father who gave you life and gave youtous. This is the reality of adoption. It’s what I knew and accepted going into this, but somewhere along the way,” she sighs, “it jut became easier to…keep it simple.” She shrugs and lowers her gaze. “And if you never found out, I asked myself, would that be so terrible? The fantasy I’ve held on to is that you’d always be ours. You’d always be mine.”
I’ve looked at this from her side, tried my best to walk in her shoes, so what she’s saying doesn’t make me angry. I get it. “I understand, kind of. At least I think I do.”
“I don’t even know ifIunderstand how I could have walked away the way I did that day, like your father and I were victorious or something. I watched,” she confesses,” hidden off to the side as that girl held you in the hospital. And after it was all said and done, I pretended I left something behind, but I really just wanted one last look. Sarah,” my mother croaks, “the girl was turned to the wall but I could tell she was weeping.”
The admission makes me sick and desperately sad at the same time. I want to hold Grace as she was in that moment, be the friend she needed. My mother takes my hand. “A better person would have asked her if she was sure, or in the very least, if she needed help.”
We’re both quiet for a moment before she says, “There were times when I’d feel like a terrible person in those first few weeks, but that was offset by the crazy amount of joy I felt every time I held you in my arms.
“I hope you never know that kind of pain, Sarah. I’ve actually laid awake in bed at night, praying to God that you never know what it’s like to ache for a baby only to be crushed by disappointment month after month.” She sags back against the couch. “Do you think…you’ll be able to forgive me someday?”
I nod, not looking at her, but from the corner of my eye I can see this gives her a glimmer of hope. I’m back and forth the same way I was with Grace. It’s not just the adoption lie that’s been between the two of us these past few years. It’s way more complicated than that.
“I can’t believe you saw me as a happy person.” I meet the surprise in her eyes with my own disappointment. “Didn’t you notice that I wasn’t like everyone else?” She doesn’t answer. “Maybe I didn’t know for a long time, but I’ve alwaysfeltdifferent. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve just always felt like I’m on the outside looking in.”
My mother looks crushed by this. “You’re perfect. I hope you know that you’re perfect in my eyes.” A cheerless laugh escapes before she says, “And your father worships the ground you walk on. I don’t have to reassure you in that department.”
My smile is weak. I do know my father and my mother love me, but I don’t want to fall back into what we were. I won’t.
“Mom, I don’t need to be reassured or anything, I know you love me…I just wish you would have been truthful with me. I think it would have spared us both a lot of grief.”
“In what way?” Now it’s me who doesn’t answer. She looks like she’s unsure of what to say or do, but makes a decision to take a breather and I’m on board for that. “Want that coffee now?” I nod, and she leaves me to go back into the kitchen.
I’m praying so hard that she uses this moment to take stock, instead of strategizing the way she normally does. I get up and join her in the kitchen, hoping for the best but expecting the usual. I don’t want her to make this better, I just want her to be honest.
“Thanks.” I take a sip the second she hands me the mug, noting that she went the extra mile and put cinnamon in my coffee. It conjures up a memory of her calling me her cinnamon girl while doing a god-awful rendition of that old song paired with some groovyLook at me, I’m at Woodstockdance. It was playful and cute in her mind, but I was cringing and on the verge of blowing a brain vessel as she performed in front of Parker.
“Why did you do that cinnamon girl thing in front of Parker? Do you remember that?”
For a nanosecond she looks lost, and I feel a seething mix of defeat and anger rising when I sense she’s reverting back to clueless Audrey, fun-mom mode. But instead she locks eyes with me and nods slowly. “I remember.”
“That was beyond embarrassing, it was…creepy.” She visibly shrinks, but I don’t care. I’m feeling mean, and she needs to hear this. “You always butt in and act like you’re a part of it when my friends are over. It’s like you’re trying to relive your youth or something.” It’s hard not to scowl as I imitate her dance moves, flower-girl arms blowing in the breeze and hips swaying, when I add, “Do you realize,Audrey, how mortifying it is?”
She absorbs the blow and then lobs one right back at me. “Doyouknow what it’s been like beingyourmother for the past couple of years? I cannot do one damn thing right in your eyes.” I take a stool at the kitchen island quietly, feeling just the slightest twinge of guilt. “You shoot daggers at me every damn time Idareto open my mouth and speak. Doyouremember sitting at the dinner table last week and asking Dad if he’d read the article about that rapper?”
I shake my head, to which she shoots back a look that tells me she thinks I’m full of it. “Youaskedhim if he’d read that article in the business section of the Times about the company’s IPO.”
“So what?”
“So I was sitting right there, but you excluded me from the conversation, which, by the way, you doallthe time.” When I don’t respond, she says, “I was the communications department head at the investment bank where Dad and I met.” Her voice gets louder. “I know just as much, if notmore, about the marketing of IPOs, but you treat me as if I’m incapable of adult conversation.” I sit still, absorbing what is sickeningly making sense to me as I see myself through her eyes. “You sit there,soclever andsocondescending. Do you think before you came into the picture that I was some pretty thing fetching coffee for the boss, or sitting home knitting booties for the children I couldn’t have? I had alife, a big, importantlife.”
“You never talk about your life.”
She takes a seat across from me, tears pooling, looking pale and weak. “Because I gave up everything for you.” All her anger is gone as her eyes search mine. “And I was glad to give it all up. When the idea of you finally seemed like it might actually become a reality, we were both over the moon. The day we got the call,” she pauses, “that a college student was eight months pregnant and adamant she was going to put her child up for adoption, I handed in my resignation on the spot.”
My mother lowers her head for a moment and then lifts her head from her hands, breathing out. “How did we even get here? I didn’t mean for this to turn into a fight.”
“We’re not fighting. I mean, this is hard but maybe it’s good, you know?”
“I haven’t even given you a chance to tell me what happened down there.”
