MARISSA
When you’re adopted and you looked in the mirror the first question to come to mind was "who did I look like?" It was superficial and yet was very much a part of who you were.
I always wondered when I caught a glimpse of myself in a window or a mirror. I had always wanted to know from where I came.
And now I was about to find out.
The envelope, tall, white and quite thin, laid in my hands. Who knew such a simple thing could hold all the answers I had been carrying with me since I was a pre-teen? With the years, that need for answers only grew, and with it a fear consuming me regarding my conception. Had my birth mother been raped? Had she been in an abusive relationship? All kinds of scenario haunted me and sometimes when I looked at myself I had trouble breathing.
It was strange because the worst-case scenarios appeared more plausible than the possibility of being simply an unwanted baby.
It should be easy to tear this envelope open then. I shouldn’t second guess my decision to know who my birth mother was.
There were a lot of things I should probably do, but I still sat on the bed in my childhood bedroom at my parents’, surrounded by the teen I used to be only a couple of years ago. At that moment, I felt a lot younger than my twenty years, as if I was back to being the shy kid only my big brother could get out of her shell.
I swallowed and looked away from the big poster of Kurt Cobain tacked on the wall next to the closed door and stared again at the envelope in my hands. I brought my fingers to behind my ear and rubbed at my black tattoo of three birds taking flight. I always touched that tatt when I was nervous or upset.
I took a deep breath and finally stopped that agonizing waiting game. I slipped my pinkie finger in the flap of the envelope and tore it open. I pushed through the trembling of my hands, through the buzz in my ears and the throb in my temples. My eyes homed in on the papers piled inside and the first thing greeting me upon grabbing the papers was a bad photocopy of my birth mother’s ID.
My heart clenched in my chest until I gasped, the poor sound nowhere near as strong as what I felt at the moment upon seeing my birth mother for the first time.
The picture on the ID was graining, and I couldn’t make out a lot of her face, but I didn’t have any doubt. She’s the one. For the first time in my life, I saw someone I physically related to.
My face with high cheekbones looked a lot like hers. My mouth, wide and with thick and well-defined lips matched hers almost to perfection. The small dimples in my cheeks… They’re the same as hers. I didn’t know if her eyes resembled the unusual violet-blue color of mine, or if her dark hair were the same almost black shade as my own, but the shape of her eyes did look like mine.
I looked so much like her.
An intense pain took hold of me, digging inside me as if it tried to poison me and taint my life up until now with ‘what ifs’ that had nothing to do here. I shook my head and pushed everything away, my frown deepening as my grip on the papers turned my knuckles white.
I would not let this ruin me.
I was a well-balanced twenty-year-old woman, happy and graced with a wonderful, tight-knit family. I built myself as an adopted kid, as a child loved by her parents and her big brother. I wouldn’t let this make me feel lost.
I had never been lost.
I only needed answers.
***
MARISSA
“How do you feel? And don’t bullshit me, little sis,’’ Jameson, my older brother, asked me as we settled on the couch in his two-bedroom house.
Jamie had always been very protective of me and my confident whenever something troubled me deeply. He was also adopted and, yet he never showed any need to know where he came from. He told me once that he was happy the way his life was, and he didn’t want or need to shake things up with a mess that wasn’t exactly his. Sometimes, I envied how laid back he was.
I shrugged at his question. “Where’s Aimee?’’
“She’s with her mother. They’re currently on their way to cleaning off our bank account. They’re always shopping these days,’’ he replied with a bright smile. His dark brown eyes, soulful, had a warmth in them that calmed me down.
Growing up, all my friends had told me how hot Jamie was. With his Latino heritage, his bronze skin had a perpetual glow I remembered envying when I was a teen. His thick, dark hair always seemed to fall back in his eyes, but even though he sometimes complained, he would never cut it. He wasn’t extremely tall, but his broad shoulders and strong arms gave him a bulk I knew attracted more than one women.
But Aimee had captured his heart two years ago when he met her during a call for a fire in the building she used to live. From then on, he stopped playing the field and devoted all his big heart to her. They married last year and were now expecting their first baby. And still, he didn’t need to know where he came from.
“As if you’re not the same. I remember you three days ago when you asked me to go with you to get a car seat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with such a buying fever before.’’
He chuckled, blushed slightly and rubbed his neck. “Don’t remind me. Aimee laughed at me for half an hour straight when I came back with all those shit.’’ Instead of just a car seat, we came back also with a bassinet, a stroller, and three different stuffed animals. “Now, little sis, stop deflecting. How do you feel?’’
“I don’t know.’’ I looked away and focused on the pile of books on the coffee table, all pregnancy books. I barely saw the colors on the covers or the titles. Stuck in my head, I went over and over the papers, I read through a few hours ago. “It’s like when you’re in a car and it’s raining. You look through the window, but the world outside is distorted from all the rain. It's the same here. Everything is distorted, and a part of me doesn’t know which way is up.’’
“Marissa.’’ He shook his head and stood from the armchair to sit next to me on the couch. I let him wrap myself in his arm. I closed my eyes and let my big brother comfort me. “See that? That’s exactly why I would never want to get to know who my birth mother is. You were fine until now.’’
“Not really. I’ve always had so many questions. You know that.’’
He nodded and kissed the top of my head before he released me. “Where is she then?’’
“My birth mother?’’ I smiled softly, but it’s not natural. Everything in me seemed as if stretched to its limits as if I would burst at the seams at any moment. I expected feeling something and being unsettled, but I never thought I’d feel out of place as if not much made any sense anymore. “Believe it or not, but she’s still in Atlanta.’’
“Really?’’ He ran a hand through his hair when strands fell into his eyes before he eyed me again. “You’ve been living in the same city for two years. It’s…’’
“Wild. I know.’’ I shook my head. For all I knew, I crossed paths with her once without knowing it. My stomach tightened again. I brought a hand to it as if it’d settle it. “She has two kids, one of which is adopted. I don’t know how old he is.’’
“Adopted,’’ Jamie noted, covertly cringing.
It’s nothing like my reaction when I read the PI’s report regarding Lydia Burton, my birth mother. When it stated that she married a man named Danny Burton, had a biological daughter named Ava and an adoptive son named Wyatt, I couldn’t breathe. I knew she would have a family, but knowing that she adopted a kid when she abandoned me hurt me unexpectedly. I had to stop reading then and put everything back into the envelope and grabbed my car keys to go and visit my brother. I knew it had worried my parents when I left their house without a word, but I needed out.
“I won’t lie, it’s a hard pill to swallow.’’ I glanced down at my left wrist and fixed the flock of birds tattooed on the inside. “It shouldn’t affect me.’’
“Are you kidding?’’ He put a hand on my shoulder, bringing my attention back to him with a tight squeeze. “It’s huge, Marissa. All of this, it was bound to shake you up. I’d be worried if you took it lightly.’’
“I look so much like her, Jamie. It’s crazy.’’
His eyes softened some more, and he placed a few strands of my hair behind my ear. “Same eyes?’’
“I don’t know. The shape looks the same, but the copy of her ID is too bad to know the color.’’
“What are you going to do now?’’
I nibbled on my lip and shrugged. “I have her address. I don’t know if I should use it or not. She has her own family. What if they don’t know about me and I ruin everything? It could hurt the kids.’’
“Oh come on. You went through all of this. You’re not going to drop it now. I know you need answers and you shouldn’t let them eat away at you. They’re her kids, her family. Let her worry about them and worry about yourself and what you need. If you need to meet her, then do it.’’ He sighed and the way he tilted his head to one side I knew he was mulling over his next words, maybe even reconsidering saying them. But if there’s something about Jamie, it’s that he would never back down from telling something he thought needed to be said, even if it was hard to hear it. “You must be prepared for her to reject you, sis. It wouldn’t have anything to do with you but—.''
“I know. Honestly, I think I went through every possible outcome in my head. I’m tired of it all.’’
“You’re ready then.’’
Ready? No, I was nowhere near ready to face my birth mother, but I didn’t see ever being ready for a moment like this. I was ready to hurt, ready to cry and maybe be angry. I was willing to feel, but facing the woman who gave me life and abandoned me as soon as I took my first breath? No, I wasn’t.
I had never been angry at her for abandoning me. I was happy with my adoptive family, but today, for the first time I felt a hint of resentment. I hated that feeling. It was dark, weighing down on me over everything else, scaring me of my feelings and emotions, showing me a side of myself I had ignored until now. It only enforced the lost sensation I experienced.
“I didn’t tell the parents, but I plan on going tomorrow on my way back home. She lives in Brookhaven.’’
“Do you want me to come with you?’’
“Nah. I’ll be okay. I mean, that’s what I’ve always wanted.’’
“It’s one thing wanting it, but another one getting it, sis. If you don’t feel it just yet, take your time. There’s no rush, you know me and the parents are here for you. Aimee too, even if she’s so emotional these days. I’m not sure she’d be of much help.’’
I laughed at the dig to his wife and punched his shoulder, making a face when my knuckles took the brunt of it. “Be careful, or I’m going to tell Aimee.’’
“I knew it wasn’t a good thing when you two became friends.’’
Even through the tempest that I brought on myself I had my brother and parents there to center me and remind me of who I was.
I was a daughter, a sister, a young woman. I was happy and healthy. I was so damn lucky that I shouldn’t even think about letting fear and resentment win over who I truly was.