Six months ago her mother had called in the middle of the night crying hysterically that he was gone. Her parents had been to a gala at the Beinecke that evening, and Semele could hear the champagne-slur in her mother’s voice.
They screamed over each other, Semele yelling that she needed to call an ambulance and her mother trying to explain that she already had.
“He’s gone. He’s gone” was all she could say.
Semele had launched out of bed and driven straight to New Haven with a coat over her pajamas. When she arrived the police were there. Her mother couldn’t stop sobbing until Semele finally got something to calm her down.
The coroners had already taken her father away.
Semele had missed him—missed his last breath, his last moments. She had just talked to him the day before, having no idea it would be their last exchange. She barely managed to get through that first week, to make the funeral arrangements, to medicate her mother and put her to bed. No one, not even his internist, had seen her father’s stroke coming. He was gone without warning, and her mother was comatose, barely able to attend the service.
Semele found the adoption papers three days later. She had been working all day in her father’s home office, going through his bills and bank accounts, and looking at insurance policies. Her father had always taken care of those things, and now Semele had to help her mother manage life without him.
The papers were in his bottom drawer.
At first she didn’t understand what she was looking at. She saw her name alongside her parents’ names on a certificate issued the year she was born. Then she realized. It wasn’t a birth certificate. Her parents were not her real parents.
The words on that page shattered her. She had grown up as Daddy’s little girl, his faithful shadow, and knowing he died carrying this secret felt like losing him not once, but twice. Now, in some ways, she didn’t feel like she had a mother either. She didn’t have anyone.
That night Semele had wanted to march into her parents’ bedroom, wake her mother up, and scream until she told her the adoption was a lie. But her mother was asleep, thanks to the Ambien.
The discovery was too much. She was already in a fragile state. So she set the adoption papers in the center of her father’s desk, next to the checkbook and credit cards, the safe-deposit-box key and all the other important papers. Then she went to her bedroom and packed.
Her mother’s younger sister was staying with them for the month. Semele assured herself that her aunt could take care of her mother without her. When she was certain her aunt was asleep, Semele left. The eighty-mile drive to Manhattan passed in a blur of anger and tears. Looking back now, she realized she was lucky she hadn’t gotten into an accident.
The subsequent phone calls from her mother were both maddening and heartbreaking—the sobs, the begging, the long voice mails asking Semele to come home so that she could explain. Semele told her she would come when she was ready. She was too raw from the loss of her father and really didn’t want to know. Whatever her mother had to say would only make the pain worse.
So they went months without speaking at all. Occasionally her mother would break down and call, begging her to come home so they could finally talk. Usually she would phone on a Friday after dinner and drinks with girlfriends. Semele always used work as an excuse to ignore the calls. Her first assignment after the funeral was in Amsterdam, the trip where she met Sebastian.
In Amsterdam she was a recluse. She threw herself into her work to mask her hurt. Sebastian managed to drag her away every once in a while to show her the sights. One of those trips was to an exhibit of playing cards at a local museum. Inside the minimalist space, rows of glass boxes showcased eighteenth-century playing cards under pin lights. She would never forget their story.
At that time, women who were too poor to care for their children would leave the baby on the doorsteps of churches, or at the houses of good townsmen, where they knew the child would be cared for. Often the mothers couldn’t afford stationery, so they would tuck a playing card into the baby’s swaddling with a message, usually with the child’s name and their reason for leaving the baby. The mother always begged the stranger to save the baby’s life.
Semele read each card in the exhibit:
Please, I cannot afford to feed him. He has not eaten in three days.
My son must live. His name is Jan.
Save her.
Feed him.
Help him live.
Please open your hearts.
The messages were all similar.
Halfway through the exhibit Semele gave up on hiding her tears. What broke her heart the most was the story behind the cards that were cut in half. A halved card meant the mother had kept the other half as a way of telling the caretakers she would try to come back for her child one day.
The exhibit had hit Semele hard. Her real mother had abandoned her at birth. Would her card have been cut in half or left whole?
The question haunted her for months afterward. She thought of all the children who faced the world without their mother or father, and now she was one of them. Suddenly her whole childhood, her whole life, didn’t make sense. Who was she really? Now she was ready to find out.
She decided to send her mother a text instead of calling her; it was cowardly but easier:
Hi Mom, decided to come home. Have a few days off from work. Will see you tonight.
Within two minutes her mother texted back with an upbeat reply:
Wonderful news. Usual time?
Semele could feel her emotions churning. She used to take the train to New Haven once a month to visit her parents, always the 5:22 with the 7:07 arrival. Her dad would pick her up and her mother would have dinner ready. Joseph would uncork his favorite wine and they would talk for hours.
She texted back: Yes.
Why she didn’t tell her mom she was already in town, only ten minutes away, was because ten minutes felt too soon.