Chapter 7
Rena
On Sundays, I went to my mom’s place. I hadn’t felt like going during the week, but now that the weekend had arrived, I wanted to go home and see her. She didn’t live very far from me, only a short distance outside Chicago. My dad was away on a business trip, and it was just me and my mom.
When I arrived, my mom came out waving her hands and asking for hugs before I was out of the car. She was eccentric and loud and expressive. Her hair was flaming red, and she wore exotic tunics and dresses that made her look like a kind of fortune teller. She wore bright lipsticks, and she hadn’t ever carried a handbag. Instead, she folded her money away in tissues and tucked it into her bra. I had gotten used to her strange ways and her absolute disregard for what other people thought of her years ago.
“How are you, my honey?” Mom asked when she finally got to hug me. “Look how thin you are! Aren’t you eating?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You know this is what I look like now, Mom.” I had been chubby as a teenager, but I’d lost my baby fat growing up and I liked it.
“No harm in trying to fatten you up,” Mom said and dragged me inside for lunch. She’d prepared cold meats and salad with homemade rolls that were still warm. When I spread butter on one, it melted immediately, and when I bit into the roll, it was the taste of my childhood.
“How are you?” Mom asked. “How are things going?”
I nodded. “I’m doing well. I’m just working, focusing on moving on and up as you always say.”
Mom tutted, shaking her head. “You can’t move on and up when you work as a secretary. When are you going to use that degree of yours?”
I sighed. This was why I hadn’t wanted to come at first.
“I’m happy where I am, Mom.”
She shook her head but dropped the subject. I was relieved. I was tired of hearing about the same thing over and over again. But my mom cared about me, and she didn’t have much else to do with her time. She was a stay-at-home mom, except with me having moved out, she didn’t have to parent anymore. She spent her time thinking about everything she could tell me to do and not to do with my life. I let it slide because I knew she meant well.
“What about you?” I asked. “How are you doing with Daddy gone?”
My mom shrugged. “You know me. I get by.” She looked worried about something, and I waited for her to add to her conversation, but she didn’t say anything.
After lunch, we headed into the garden together. My mom loved gardening, and even though I didn’t care for it, it was a way of bonding. We sat on the grass, weeding one of the flower beds.
“And your love life?” she asked. “Any man you have your sights set on yet?”
“No, I’m just doing my own thing for now,” I said. When my mom snorted and mumbled something about needing love, I smiled secretly. My love life—or at least my sex life—was perfect right now after Brent had had his way with me. Just thinking about yesterday in his office made my stomach clench and my toes curl. I wasn’t going to tell my mom any of that. I could only imagine how she would lecture me about sleeping with my boss and the virtues of waiting until marriage before giving it away. This was my secret, something sweet and delicious that I could put in my mouth and suck on like candy.
When I glanced at my mom, she looked worried again. I frowned.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Why do you ask, honey?”
“Because you look worried. Is something wrong?”
My mom hesitated before shaking her head.
“What is it?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t nothing. My mom averted her eyes, and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“Tell me, Mom. I’m sure whatever it is we can figure it out.”
“I’m not so sure.” She stood up and walked inside, putting her gardening gloves on the shelves by the kitchen door. I followed her and did the same.
“This came in the mail a few days ago,” she said, offering me an envelope.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Just read it. But don’t be too shocked.”
I shook my head. I was getting nervous about how she was going on. I took the envelope and opened it, reading the contents. As my eyes flitted over the words, my stomach twisted and my blood ran cold.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Is this real?”
“Apparently, yes. I tried to follow up with a social worker, but they still have to get back to me.”
I read the contents of the letter again. The letter was from a private investigator named Morgan Taylor. It contained information about my siblings. Apparently, I had a sister.
When I looked up at my mom, she had tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “The adoption was closed, and no one told me. If I knew you had siblings, I wouldn’t have taken you alone. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded and hugged her, and she shuddered against me. I was shocked that I had a sibling. I had grown up as an only child, and I had dreamed of having siblings my whole life. Now it turned out I had one.
“I’m so sorry,” my mom said.
I shook my head again. “Don’t be, Mom. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you for anything. But what do we do now?”
The private investigator stated in the letter that my sister wanted to make contact with me. It seemed crazy that someone out there was related to me and I’d had no idea about it. And now she wanted to make contact. It left me reeling.
“You can make contact if you want to. Answer the letter. But that’s entirely up to you. I’m not going to make that choice for you.”
My mom was the sweetest woman I knew. Not only because she was my mother but because she had a big heart. She’d been open with me about being adopted from the start, so I never doubted who I was. There were so many stories about adopted children only finding out about it years down the line, and it affected them in negative ways. My mom had made sure that never happened to me, and I had grown up with a balanced, healthy childhood.
“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.