Marcus and then Ray were keen for all the details. They rebuked me for allowing such sin into my life. They believed that we must each take responsibility for the hell that happens to us. I’d strayed from God’s path and into the clutches of evil. I was a rich seam of transgression that only prayer could fix. Even as I confessed my sins, it seemed strange that it was up to God to bring the perpetrators to justice. But then, it was 1976 and the end times were upon us.
‘Are you ready to die for Jesus?’ Ray Comfort asked. I said I was, but not in a sacrificial way. No one thought to ask what I meant. To them, I was a new convert and that was enough.
But at that very point I was ready to die. It never once occurred to me that wanting this might be related to adoption. An article published by the American Adoption Congress says it best: ‘Adoption is created through loss; without loss, there would be no adoption.’4 The authors describe how young people struggle to grieve for their losses. And how adults can block or divert expressions of pain. Delayed grief, they say, may lead to depression, substance abuse or aggressive behaviours. If you strung adoption loss on a washing line it would cover the hills and valleys of your life. It is no wonder adopted people are four times more likely to attempt suicide.5
Now I know. Now it makes sense. I was an adolescent, too young and too old for my age. Those teen years are the time when you test the beliefs and goals acquired from your parents. An organic process. A natural progression. But somehow I’d missed each step. I had no idea what my adopting parents believed. They’d shared so little of themselves. The few stories that escaped the silence felt unreal. Someone else’s stories. And you did not ask questions. Most of all you did not talk about adoption. The few times I tried, the answer was always the same. We know nothing. They did not tell us your name or her name. They struggled to articulate the idea that I had come from another woman’s body. A phantom child from a phantom mother. Your mother’s name. The void created by their secrecy was big enough to hide a body.
Six months after the spinal surgery I left home. They let me go without fuss or question. A small boat untethered on a high tide. No wonder I followed those arrogant men with their vocal passions and beliefs. Later I understood their preaching was more dangerous than the streets.
And then Bruce came along. He was on the run from his Baptist parents. From a father who berated tardy parishioners in the street and a mother who gave up dancing to meet her husband’s needs.
Bruce bought an old bus and we drove away from Christchurch. The red scar that ran fresh down my spine and across my hip fascinated him. He did not care that my identity was so fragmented or that I had no history beyond the last few months. Neither of us had a coherent sense of self or any idea of a future.
We decided to drive to Kaitāia in the far north, using only the back roads. We were quiet with each other. Incurious and unquestioning. Safe. On the way we stopped in Napier. We parked on Marine Parade and I could hear the dolphins calling.
When I was a child, Mavis and Max took me to Marineland. I wore a yellow sunhat and watched the dolphins swim in circles. They jumped through flaming hoops and sang on command. They flapped their tails and ‘walked’ on water. When the show was over, they sank beneath the surface and returned to swimming in circles. Their trainers laughed and bowed. We clapped and cheered their ability to make the animals perform. The more unnatural the better.
I would lie awake at night and think of ways to rescue the dolphins. A helicopter with a net, a truck with a tank. The helplessness of their situation flooded into my dreams. Did I make the connection between their truncated lives and my own? The loss of their natural habitat, behaviours, families and culture? Not in any conscious way. And yet every night I swam in those same circles, the cement walls closing in.
The girls were impatient. We were lost and I had to drive around looking for our motel.
‘Are we going to see our new grandmother today?’ Bonnie asked.
I checked the time. My mother would be on her way. Every part of me longed to call her Mummy. I had never called Mavis that. A therapist would call it a trigger word.
‘Not today, my love. Two more sleeps.’ I tried not to cry. ‘Two more sleeps and my mummy will be here.’
‘My mummy,’ Bonnie and Rachel chimed together. Ruth started to whine. ‘Her nappy is wet,’ Rachel said.
We parked outside the motel. I carried Ruth on my hip and the older girls acted as if they travelled and stayed in motels all the time. The place looked nothing like the brochure I’d picked up at the library. Instead of tall pines, over-pruned shrubs surrounded the dried-out lawn. The pool was a misshapen dent. I had built up an image of staying somewhere flash. A movie motel with palm trees and cocktails around the pool. I had enough money from our savings for three nights in a dump.
A thin woman with a shaved head answered the buzzer. I wondered if she was the shrub pruner. She glanced at the girls with distaste.
‘It’ll be extra for the children,’ she said. I was about to argue, but the plastic plant and
