Crying Softly

It was the first week of summer vacation, and I wandered down the hall toward my parents’ room to ask my mother for a ride to the city pool. I found her lying down on top of the covers of her bed, crying softly. My twelve-year-old self immediately became alarmed at the sight and rushed to my mother’s side to comfort her and ask what was causing her tears.

With a look of uncertainty on her face, she quietly told me the story of the twin babies she had given up for adoption several years ago, in between her marriages to my father and stepfather. She explained the twins had been born too early and had a lot of medical issues; and that she wouldn’t have been able to take care of two healthy babies all by herself. Today was their ninth birthday, and she wondered where they were, how they were; she missed them.

It was late Christmas Eve when my forty-one-year-old self logged onto the computer and began filling out information on adoption search sites. My mother had been dead for several years, and it felt like it was time to try and find my brother and sister. Christmas morning, I woke before everyone else and went online again, never expecting a response from any of the agencies so soon, but there it was — there was a match! By that afternoon, I was on the phone with my baby sister and, in a separate call, my brother; we planned to meet after the new year. Emotionally exhausted, I went to lie down before dinner, reaching out for my mother’s ghostly hand, and we cried, softly, together.