The weeks following the letter to my biological grandfather were spent cornered in my own mind. I was not only going over every possible scenario as to how the letter might be received but also, how we might sidestep awkwardness based on what Aunt Doll had shared with us. What do we say to a man who allegedly tried to drown my mother? The story was trying to play itself out in my head but got stuck in an echoed groove. Every time I tried to jump it I just came up with more questions. I was midair when the phone rang.
It was my mom, her breath seemed eager. “Are you sitting down?” she said.
“Yesss,” I drawled apprehensively, feeling behind me for an actual chair.
“I received an interesting phone call tonight, from a woman named Sarah, who apparently is, or was, my father’s girlfriend.” “He got the letter, Jen– he got the letter the day he died. He never read it!”
My midair leap had heavily landed but I was now stripped for words. “WHAT?” was all I could manage to say as my thoughts bounced the dice of probabilities.
“Yes, and there’s more,” she continued.“Sarah asked if I knew I had a sister.”“Her name is Susan, and she lives in Savannah, Georgia!”
Before I knew it my voice promptly went on autopilot. I shelved all tips Terri (from People Search) had so thoughtfully laid out for us. “I’m going to find her email address and see if she knows about you!” Mom laughed but gladly consented. “I will be out in just two days for the holidays, we’ll start then.”
After Christmas, my mom and I sat in my study on December 27th and carefully drafted a message to a woman who may or may not know of our existence. “Lost Family,” I write in the subject line and then proceed to introduce myself and tell her about the new knowledge we have been given. Short, succinct, and hopefully well written. I send the message and wait. On December 30th, a reply from Susan comes through. It basically says: who are you and what do you want? I cringe. Maybe I had leapt too soon? We don’t know anything about her, and maybe I assumed too much. I reach out again and apologize for coming out of left field.
She responds…more warmly this time. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she wrote. “I was adopted too. I found Bill back in 1986. He told me he didn’t have any other children ‘that he knew of’.”
My mom and I are dumbfounded by that statement. Bill was married to my grandmother. The adoption paperwork states they surrendered her together. Too many jumbled questions swirl in this space, but we push it aside while we correspond with Susan a few more times via email. The next night Susan calls us, she sounds like Annie Potts from Designing Women… I am half paying attention and half thinking about how far we’ve come. She is “ready to meet us tomorrow,” she says. A smile spreads across my face. My mom and I instantly feel more whole, somehow, but I also can’t help but feel that this is just the beginning.
Byrds in my Belfry 