Chapter 16
After her talk with her mother, Gemma hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her birth mother.
She’d thought more about her in the past twenty-four hours than she ever had before.
What did she look like? What was her job?
Did she have any hobbies? Did she have other children?
The more Gemma thought, the more the hole widened and the scope of possibilities about who her birth mother was and what had happened to her became impossible to imagine.
If the discussion with her mother had felt anti-climactic because of the lack of information she had to share, conversely it left Gemma feeling exhilarated and free.
As if for the first time since Adam left, she had regained a sense of control over a part of her life and a new sense of purpose.
She may not know what was going to happen in her future, but she could find out about her past. She would become like the Thames tides, uncovering little by little, layer by layer, the fragments of her history and, hopefully, one day she’ll be able to piece it all together and make herself feel whole again.
It was Sunday night and Gemma had decided to ask Google the most significant question she’d ever posed: how to find your birth mother in the UK?
From the window behind Gemma’s desk, the late evening sun cast a brassy light over the garden.
She’d poured a glass of wine and clicked the ‘return’ button.
Her heart raced. She felt giddy with expectation.
Then, in an instant, a whole new world opened up to her.
Gemma took a deep breath and dived in. She bookmarked an adoption finder agency, a government services website, the Adoption Contact Register, a family history website that used DNA to find familial matches and a couple of informative blogs.
She read them all and took notes. It seemed that the best way to begin the search was to apply for her original birth certificate.
All she needed was her date of birth, date of adoption, adopted name and her pre-adoption name. That is, if she had one.
Gemma sat back in her chair. She’d never contemplated having a pre-adoption name. A pre-Gemma name, a name given to her by someone else. But why not? Names were easy to give. Yet the idea of it was disconcerting. As if she might have two lives.
Still, having another name, another persona wasn’t going to stop her applying for her birth certificate.
She found the application form on the General Register Office website and filled it in.
It didn’t take long because there was so little that she knew of names and dates and places.
She checked it over a couple of times, feeling nervous with excitement, then pressed ‘submit’.
Except as soon as she’d done so, she felt panicky because who would she find? What would she learn? What if she didn’t like something she uncovered and would want to throw it all back to where it came from? But there was no turning back.