SAY SOMETHING
It took a while for the name to register in his mind.
“Lilith…isn’t that the name of the—”
“Yes. The girl I visit every week. Yes.”
“It’s her? Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
Landon got up from the bed and walked toward the window.
He paced for a bit before turning to me. “She has no clue?”
“No.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’m confused. Explain it to me.”
“Alright.” I stood up from the bed and walked toward him. “You remember how you said you woke up one day and realized the life you were living wasn’t the one you wanted? Well, that sort of happened to me around the age of twenty-one. I had worked really hard to turn my life around somewhat, repair my relationship with my father and grandparents. But the one thing I couldn’t seem to get over was the lingering need for the baby I had given away. It was like I finally woke up and saw what I had done. But it was too late. It just hit me that there was a part of me out there somewhere and that I hadn’t so much as seen her once. My giving her away was never about not loving my unborn child. In a sense, I didn’t even allow myself to feel things long enough at the time of the birth to even realize that I loved her. I was in this perpetually numb state the whole time I was pregnant and after. It had nothing to do with a conscious lack of love. It was about hating myself and not wanting her to hate me like I hated my mother. I didn’t want to be the kind of mother mine was. I wanted better for her, but at fifteen I wasn’t smart enough to realize that as long as I loved her, I could’ve made it work somehow. I may not have had money, but I would’ve given her an abundance of love. My mother never had that in her. But I did. I realized my mistake too late. That didn’t change how I felt, though.”
“How did you end up finding her?”
“It wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t a closed adoption per se. I always had the name and the address of the family. The adoptive parents didn’t think I wanted to be involved, so there wasn’t anything put in place to prevent me from going back to find her. Perhaps they never insisted on anonymity because they suspected I might change my mind someday and would want to know her. I always had their names, address, everything. It seemed ironic and a little fateful that they lived not far from where we grew up. It was the reason I moved back to this part of the state.”
“So…what did you do…go to their house?”
“No. I never wanted to drop any kind of bomb on them. I handled it very carefully. When she was about seven, I called her mother privately and asked if there was any way I could get to know Lilith. Beth is a prominent attorney who works a lot. I assured her that I respected the fact that she’s Lilith’s mother. Like it or not, I gave up my rights—as painful as that is. I understand that.”
“What did she say?”
“For many years, she refused to let me see her. Beth thought it was too soon. But I persisted. When Lilith got to be around nine, her mother finally agreed. We came up with a plan for me to volunteer once a week. Lilith is under the impression that her mother just brought me in to pass the time with her after school. We even set it up through the Big Sister Program of Michigan. She also has a nanny who watches her while her parents work. They both work a lot of hours. So, for the past year, I’ve been getting to know her in the only way that I can—as her Big Sister.”
Landon was still absorbing it. “My God. How are you able to pull that off? It has to be incredibly difficult for you.”
“I know this is going to sound strange. But Lilith makes it easy to forget the pain. We truly have become friends, connecting with each other on a human level, regardless of the roles we play in each other’s lives. She is amazingly smart…witty…and mature beyond her years. I’m extremely grateful to Beth for giving me the opportunity and not shutting me out because she very well could have done that. Perhaps I even deserved that.”
“So, you agreed not to tell Lilith your identity? Are you ever going to tell her?”
“Lilith knows she’s adopted. Her mother was always open with her about that from as early of an age as she could understand it. But Beth has not yet allowed me to tell her who I am. It’s unclear if she ever will let me, but I don’t want to press the issue right now out of fear that they won’t let me see her anymore. I wouldn’t ever try to steal her away. I only want to be in her life, to help look out for her, and to make sure what happened to me never happens to her.” A tear fell. “I love her so much. And I just want her to know that, even if I have to show her, rather than tell her. She’s the reason I can’t ever leave Michigan, Landon. I wasn’t completely honest back in California when I said the reason was that I couldn’t leave my father. It’s Lilith. Only Lilith. If it weren’t for her, I would’ve stayed in L.A. I would’ve never left you, wouldn’t have even come back here at all.”
Landon shook his head in disbelief. “Holy shit, Rana. This is—”
“I know. I know this is a shock.”
“Holy shit,” he repeated.
He was silent for the longest time. I couldn’t blame him. His girlfriend suddenly had a ten-year-old child. Not to mention all of the similarities between Lilith’s situation and his own.
“Say something, Landon.”
He just sat down and placed his head in his hands. I knew then that my revelation wasn’t something he was going to accept very easily, certainly not in the short time he had left in Michigan.
The days that followed Landon’s return to L.A. were the hardest.
At my worst moments, I seriously wondered if I would ever see him again. I was looking for verbal reassurance that everything was going to turn out okay when he hadn’t exactly given that to me. I think the shock of my news was really too much for him.
The one good thing: he told me he started seeing a therapist. Landon assured me that it wasn’t only because of his need to deal with his feelings about my revelation. It was something that he felt was long overdue. He had never really dealt with his abandonment issues, nor had he ever spoken to anyone about the shame he felt over his past profession.
It was simply too much for him to absorb all at once, first the fact that I’d given up a child and then the realization that Lilith was, in fact, my daughter. I knew it just hit way too close to home. It was amazing how parallel situations could impact both of our lives in similar but different ways. We were on opposite sides of essentially the same life circumstance.
My story couldn’t have been more different from his birth mother’s, but the outcome was the same in his eyes; Beverly and I had each relinquished the rights to our children. And I imagined he had a really difficult time separating his own situation from Lilith’s. His mother was no longer around, however, to serve as the recipient of any lingering resentment.
I was.