Meryl arrived with gin and tonic. She surveyed the floor covered in the failed letters as I explained what I was doing. ‘You’re terrified of finding them in case they reject you,’ she said. That night we talked about love and children and enduring all storms. We talked about my two sisters in Spain and their life without their mother. And Meryl was right. I had been nursing a hope of reunion, a fairy tale of return, fraught with risk.
Reunion stories fill our reality television programming and our women’s magazines. I’ve heard adoption reunions described as ‘Oprah moments’. Mothers and daughters falling into each other’s arms are good entertainment.
But those shows serve a purpose beyond tear-jerking spectacle. They help to conceal the real effects of removing babies from their mothers. They tell us we can step out of the closet of adoption without consequences. They assume that in reunion we find completion. As if on meeting a stranger the miracle of kin will wipe away all loss.
Psychologists call it ‘the family romance’. A look-alike mother, a father with the same sense of humour. Their unconditional love filling the holes created by stranger adoption. Such a simple thing, blood connecting with blood, and everything is all right in the world.
But we also crave the stories of failed reunion. These prove the underlying belief that the adopted family is no different from the natural. That adoption is a better option than supporting a mother and her child to stay together.
In 2002, the Children’s Society in the United Kingdom commissioned a study on adoption search and reunion. They looked at the long-term nature of restored relationships of 500 people. They found over 70 per cent of searchers failed to feel an instant bond with their birth parent. One in six new relationships broke down within twelve months. After eight years, 43 per cent abandoned the relationship. Rose Wallace, one of the study authors, spoke to the Guardian at the time. She said a surprising number of reunions stop after one or two letters. Sometimes after a single face-to-face meeting. She attributed that to pressure from the birth parent still grieving the loss of their child.
As an adopted person, my story is public property even when I choose not to tell it. On learning that I am adopted, the first thing people always ask is, ‘Have you met your mother?’ If I answer no, they want to know why. As if there is something wrong with me for not wanting to know. But if I answer yes, the next question is often a version of ‘That must be hard on your parents.’ Or, ‘How do your parents feel about that?’
The sense that it is my responsibility to assuage my adopters’ feelings is paramount. I must at all times honour the selfless care given to me. And I must find ways to justify my desire for reunion. The least offensive response is to say I’m seeking my medical history. The most offensive seems to be that I want an authentic identity. And the same rights that every non-adopted person enjoys.
For all the years of growing up, my mother was a nameless presence that hovered close by. She was the perfect ghost mother, emanating a bright line of pure love. Instinctively I understood the coercion heaped upon her to relinquish her child. As an adult I know how impossible her situation was. But in the weeks following her death, a small part of me relaxed. I would never need to confront that core of dread, the suspicion that she’d not fought hard enough to keep me. That she had let them take me away. Or, as Mavis said, that she had willingly given me away.
Meryl collected up all the copies of my letter to Kim and sorted through them. She selected one and made me sign it. She addressed the envelope and took it away to mail. I stayed home and waited.
Weeks and months went by. I became obsessed, stalking the shelves at the public library. I amassed files of information about the Bonniers, and their publishing company. They led storied lives with legendary family celebrations and public battles. I made meaning from the smallest detail. They were scientists, artists and writers, and they were rich. They were the opposite of us.
And then Catherine Saunders called me to interview for a job. The national contra coordinator on a Telethon. I pretended I knew what a contra organiser did. For the first week, I watched and listened, my senses on high alert, acting as if I was one of them, acting as if I belonged. From my first pay, I bought my first new clothes. A jacket, trousers and shoes. Ruth was in kindy and care, and Bonnie and Rachel were in school and an after-school programme.
I was a solo mother with a house, a good friend, a challenging job and even a car with a warrant of fitness. Mavis and Max were talking to me again. They sent much-needed clothes for the girls and phoned to express their support. They invited us for Christmas. The girls made gifts, we chose our favourite music for the trip and packed the car and drove to Napier.
21
The snob
Christmas in Napier with Mavis and Max. I had somewhere to take the girls.
We arrived in a heat wave. Max had cut down the tree in front of the house to protect the guttering. But there was a swimming pool in the back yard, squeezed between the garage and a corrugated-iron fence. The girls played in the water all day. There was a Christmas tree in the corner of the living room and a scattering of presents.
‘Granddad, you could pretend to be Santa,’ Bonnie said to Max. ‘We could make you a beard with wool.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. On Christmas morning he handed out gifts. Clothes and pool toys for the girls, another nightie for me. His duties over, he returned to watching cricket
