Reunion: Hearts on the Line, Page 3
Sharing a History During that part of our courtship where everything was new and we were shocking each other with getting-to-know-you stories, I announced to him, "I have a son. He is three years old." To which he responded, "I have a daughter. She's five." The way he told me, I thought she was a real part of his life; I was surprised to find out that she was not. And he told me the story. And he told me how bad he felt that a fifteen-year-old boy had made the decisions of a man and now had to live with a missing child in his heart.
***
When we married a short time later, his life became my life and his loss became my loss. During our twenty years together, we frequently wondered about her and considered searching for her. We had imagined a face, a soul, and a life for her. Always confident that he had made the right decision to give her up for adoption when he was only a child himself, we decided that it was she who should find us instead. We had no knowledge of her whereabouts, didn't know whether she knew she had been adopted or if she cared to find her birth parents, and felt that we should respect the privacy of the child and her adoptive parents. And, David had absolutely no desire to see Kathy again. If the child wanted to find him, she would. We were sure of that.
***
The next evening, just having returned from marketing and with our coats still on, I gasped as David hurdled a kitchenful of bulging grocery bags to answer the phone. It was she.
"David?"
"Yes."
A nervous woman's voice said: "Hi. My name is Kerri."
Over the next hour and a half, a deluge of questions was gladly answered, some others reluctantly. As I listened to David's side of the conversation, I was unexpectedly unnerved. We had never needed to discuss the circumstances surrounding the conception of our children, even between ourselves, and now this stranger was inquiring about my husband's intimacy with another woman. He talked with her and then I talked with her. He talked with her adoptive mother and then I talked with her adoptive mother. At David's request, she described herself and, quite in contrast with him, she relayed that she is a tiny young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. He said that he was sorry he could not remember what her mother looked like; it was so long ago. He thought he remembered long dark hair.
My heart pounded in my chest as he continued his conversation. Who was this young woman who was coming into the life of my husband and asking such personal questions? I was unprepared for how this made me feel. Scared? Jealous? Angry? Happy? We had waited for this day. We had hoped for this day. We had prayed for this day. I thought I would be elated.
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Comments
What a sad story of a "reunion." I feel for Kerri that she will never know her father. I ache for this man who had for twenty five years carried around the guilt of giving a child up for adoption and then finding out that he had not fathered a child at all. What an emotional upheaval this must have caused for Kerri, her adoptive parents, and this couple who thought she was going to become part of their lives. This story should show readers that even though we think we have the story about our birth, that sometimes it may not be true and we should be careful in our search.
Posted by: culinary at 12/01/2005 03:59 PM
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