Chapter 20
I sat down in the swivel chair that my Mom recently reupholstered in a blue and yellow velvet print.
As I double-clicked the AOL icon and the modem started screeching to connect, my Mom walked into the living room, adjacent to the office, and sat on the arm of the chair by the window.
She never sat down, and she never sat there, so it caught me off guard.
Trying to ignore her, I kept looking at the computer, watching the modem connection progress, but I could tell out of the corner of my eye that she was just staring at me, so I looked up.
“Come sit down with me, I want to talk to you.”
“I’m already sitting down. What is it? Did Grandma die?”
“What? No, just come sit over here with me, I want to talk to you, please, this is important.” She said again, with gravity to her voice.
“Okay, I’m coming,” I said, slightly annoyed, as I rolled the chair back away from the desk, got up, plopped down on the couch, and brought my knees to my chest. “What is it?”
She sat there staring at me for a moment before she began.
”What I’m about to tell you is incredibly difficult to say, but it’s something I’ve been keeping from you for a long time, so I’m just going to come out and say it.
You were born on September 2, 1983, at Henrico Doctors Hospital, but I am not your birth mother,” she said, and then she just looked at me, waiting for me to reply.
Her words hit me like a ton of bricks, my brain raced, and my eyes went blurry as I tried to process her words, then I turned to look at her.
“Is this a joke?”
“What! No! It’s not a joke, it’s true, and I’m sorry that we kept this from you for so long,” she replied with what looked like a tear in her eye. I had never seen my Mom cry.
“You’re joking, right? Why have you kept this from me for so long? That’s really messed up, Mom,” I replied, still too shaken up to cry, and completely unsure of what I felt at all. I was emotionally paralyzed.
My Mom quickly arose from the chair and came to sit next to me on the arm of the couch. She put her arm around me before speaking again.
“I know, and I’m sorry. I want to tell you everything. Your father threatened the entire family not to tell you. He didn’t think it was important for you to know.”
“Wait, wait, wait, so you’re saying everyone knows but me?
The family, the neighbors, everyone? You all kept this giant secret from me my whole life?
How is that supposed to make me feel, because that is super fucked up,” I said, as the news began to sink in.
For once, she didn’t scold me for cussing.
“I always wanted to tell you, but your father forbade it. I wrote to your father recently and told him that it was time to tell you, and now that you are 18 and he is gone from our lives, it felt safe to do so. He continued to insist it was a really bad idea and that you had no reason to know. He always worried that you would stop loving us if you knew the truth. I would be happy to help you find your biological mother, or anything else that you want to do. I will help you. I am so sorry. I thought it was really important for you to know now, before you found out on your own, which would be even worse than it already is. Please forgive me, and know that I love you so much,” she said with an unfamiliar tone of sensitivity.
I couldn’t say anything, I just stared at the fireplace and then at the TV and back. I felt empty. I felt nothing. Finally, I spoke.
“So, is that why you want to take me to dinner? As some consolation prize for being told I’m adopted? Or are we celebrating that you finally had the nerve to tell me a secret that was never yours to keep?” I knew those words stung, but she didn’t flinch.
“We are going to celebrate our family. I love you and am so sorry. Go get dressed, we need to leave soon,” she said, effortlessly, as if she hadn’t just dropped an atomic bomb on my life. Then she rose from the arm of the couch and headed upstairs to get ready.
As I made my way upstairs, I could hear my sister getting ready in the bathroom. I had so many questions, but my first one was the most obvious. When I turned the corner to the bathroom, she just looked at me, appearing to be at an awkward loss for words.
“How could you not tell me?” I asked as soon as I stepped into the bathroom.
“So, mom told you? I wondered why it got so quiet downstairs,” she said with a blank stare in her eyes.
“Yeah. She told me,” I said, “But why didn’t you ever tell me? I’m surprised you never blurted it out in anger to me at some point over the past 18 years.”
“I just never thought of you as anything other than my sister. Until recently. Now that you know the truth, I don’t have to hide the way I feel anymore,” she said with hurt and anger in her eyes, then she turned back to the mirror and continued applying mascara.
Surely she didn’t mean that, but maybe she did.
When I thought back on my childhood, it was still surprising that the secret had never been spilled by my friends, cousins, or family.
I had plenty of friends whose siblings joked about them being adopted, but Amy never once got so angry at me that she revealed the truth.
I looked at her emotionlessly and walked right back out of the bathroom. Dinner was going to be weird.
When we arrived at Richmond Country Club, the chatter throughout the dining room was like a loud hum, drowning every word coming out of my mom’s mouth. I was numb to my core and emotionally deflecting anything asked of me.
“What do you think, Allie?” Mom repeated, clearly aware that I was looking at her but not hearing a word she said.
“Huh? About what?” I replied flatly.
“About singing at your cousin, Kirstin’s wedding this December?” she repeated cautiously, fully aware of my current fragility and known capacity to erupt into a momentary fit of rage.
“Who gave Kirstin that idea, you? Why would she want me to do that? Just to make me feel like an extra special part of this family?” I could tell that my even tone and lack of emotion were making her nervous.
“You are an extra special part of this family. Remember that we chose you, we wanted you, and we cherish the privilege of raising you,” she said in a loud whisper, but before she could continue, I snapped back to reality and cut her off in a low growl.
“You cherish the privilege of raising me, and yet you don’t support a single thing I do, you don’t come to any of my field hockey games, you don’t celebrate my huge accomplishment of being offered a full-ride scholarship to Wake Forest, which I accepted by the way.
Oh, and you lied to me my entire life. No wonder I’ve never felt comfortable confiding in you.
I knew there was a disconnect between us that you don’t seem to share with Amy, and yet I never understood why.
Now it all makes sense.” Mom picked her stage well, knowing that a public setting would keep me from causing a scene.
“Whether or not you were trying to protect me, it feels like you’ve hit an artery and I’m bleeding out.
I may forgive you one day, but for right now, I feel nothing. ” I finally sucked in a sharp breath.
My Mom looked at me in a way that made me feel like I was the ungrateful one for everything I’d been given in my life.
I wasn’t going to be suddenly guilted in this moment.
I lightly moved the Caesar salad around my plate and turned to stare out the window onto the golf course.
The satisfaction of making eye contact with either of them was not something I was willing to award.
Just then, the waiter came to the table and asked if he could bring us anything else.
“The dessert menu,” my mom replied. She had never once asked for the dessert menu, which made me continue to question everything about my life. It also meant I was captive here for at least another half hour.
The waiter returned and hovered over me closely. ”Anything for you, Allie?” he asked with a familiarity that showed we came here more than we should.
“Justice,” I replied, only quietly enough for him to hear, as I looked up and stared him deep in his eyes without seeing him at all.
“I’m sorry, what was that, miss?” he asked blankly.
“Creme br?lée,” I replied quickly before he could ask me to repeat myself a second time.
When the desserts arrived, I tapped aggressively on the torched sugar crust of the creme br?lée, and I ate every bite without saying a single word, my mind reeling about all the moments and the years that now felt like a collective lie.
All my friends who knew and never told me.
All the family vacations and holidays, where surely someone would have gotten drunk enough and spilled the news.
But never. Nothing. None of it made sense.
As I licked the spoon clean, my mother signed the check, and it was finally time to get up and leave, but before I even pushed in my chair, I heard a familiar voice. One that I would usually be glad to hear, but not right now.
“Allison, it’s so nice to see you! James, you remember Amy and Allie, don’t you?” Mrs. Barr said.
“Uh, yeah, Mom, obviously, they live right next door,” he said with an enormous eye roll. “Hi Allie, ignore my mom, she’s insane. How’ve you been?” James asked.
“I’m fine,” I lied. James was a good-looking guy, tall with tan skin, dirty blonde untamed hair, and blue eyes.
Even though we lived next door to each other since before we could walk, and we played together when we were younger, we had lost touch because he attended St. Mark’s, the local boarding school.
He had always been so nice to me, but right now I’d give anything to be left alone.
“Why are you home?” I asked, barely caring but trying to make polite conversation.
“Fall break,” he replied, then he glanced over at Amy and smiled. “What’d you get to eat? I’m starving,” he asked, perhaps trying to return the politeness, or maybe he was actually looking for a recommendation.
“I always get the Caesar salad, she-crab soup, and the filet,” I told him, but I really just wanted to get out of this place. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. Just then, the valet walked through the door. That meant that I was free.
“Mrs. Wyatt, I have your car waiting outside,” he said, leaning into our conversation.
“Thank you, Jeremy,” Mom replied, as she smiled goodbye to our neighbors and headed for the door.
I told James it was nice to see him and made my way to the door behind my mom.
I caught a smile from him before he turned to whisper something in Amy’s ear, and then he turned around to sit back down.
My mom handed the valet a tip, and we climbed into the open doors of the Jeep that were shut for us as soon as we were inside.
As I slid across the back seat of Mom’s Jeep, it still felt warm from being parked in the early Fall sun.
“When’s the wedding?” I asked out of nowhere. My cordiality caught my mom off guard, and she eagerly replied.
“Mid-December,” she said, but she knew better than to speak another word, or ask if I’d actually sing.