Strangers at Birth

My mother wasn’t much of one. If you put aside the fact that she abandoned me, in the winter, less than twenty-four hours after I entered the world, then the note she left propped on my thin yellow cotton blanket said it all:

Take her. I can’t do this.

I was discovered by Lieutenant Duggan, a handsome raven-haired firefighter with ice-blue eyes. He’d innocently snuck out of his warm fire station for a quick smoke break that January night thirty years ago when he tripped over the chipped white plastic laundry basket sitting on the top step at the back door of the station house. The local newspaper article that I’d reread a thousand times described that night as “black as ink and cold as ice”. Duggan explained to the reporter how he had found me sound asleep in the frost-covered basket. That he thought I might be an abandoned kitten, “Never a baby in a disposable diaper and a pink onesie. No bigger than a bunny rabbit and twice as cute!” He noticed my skin was cool to the touch, suggesting he may have just missed my mother. The article ended with the Lieutenant sheepishly expressing thanks for the nicotine addiction that forced him outside and led to my discovery.

Who knew my pack-a-day habit would save a little life? Maybe the wife will cut me some slack now, eh?

….

I was “Baby Doe” for a few days, the talk of sleepy Warrington, Nova Scotia population 16 003. The nuns who took me into the orphanage renamed me Chrissy in honor of Saint Christopher; he was the patron saint of travelers and good luck, although luck is debatable in my case. I loved those women and the safety of the orphanage’s formidable stone walls, the grand arches, and towering marble statues that were my first home. The whispers of the sisters’ slippered feet scurrying along the cobbled hallways curbed my loneliness as I outgrew the other children who found new families on the outside. For the nuns, I was the child they’d never have. Tall gruff Sister Pauline graciously accommodated my frequent requests to describe the night I was found; petite Sister Jean slipped me, sweeties, from the secret pockets hidden within her habit; and gregarious, chatty Sister Pat brought me jigsaw puzzles of famous works of art that we would hunch over each night after school. “Start with the corners Chrissy, the foundation, then let the pieces come together. You can’t force things to be as you wish, be patient my love.” I was just shy of 6 years old when I realized that most of what the sisters said to me was actually a life lesson in itself. No words were frivolous or spoken without intent.

….

My early efforts to find the woman who had left me out in the cold proved fruitless, despite my repeated interrogations of the sisters, and Lieutenant Duggan (just Lieu to me) during his annual birthday and holiday visits. I gave up my quest for a time and, as I grew older, allowed myself to become quite close with the family of Nicola Love, my best friend at school. We’d been inseparable since the sassy redhead quoted my favorite book, Anne of Green Gables, at recess one day in Grade 2. Nicola’s hair became entangled in the chain of the rusted old swing set and she shrieked in dramatic Nicola fashion, “Red hair is my lifelong sorrow!” Nicola identified with Anne the redhead, while I was blonde and identified with abandoned Anne.

Nicola’s parents, Lee and Jillian Love, teachers, high school sweethearts, and dead ringers for Justin and Sophie Trudeau, took me in as their own when I turned 8 years old and became Mom and Dad. My adoption the following year made me an official “Love”. The local media had a field day with my new surname Love wins-literally! but for me, it was just icing on the cake to the affection I was given by my petite ginger sister-friend and my generous, salt-of-the-earth parents. That security quelled the anxiety, and anger, and burning questions that had been bubbling just beneath the surface since I’d learned of my unusual origin story. All was calm, at least for a year or two.

….

Adolescence can be a tornado of angst, hormones, breakouts, and flare-ups, and my teen years were no exception. In hindsight, I see that I put the Loves through Hell as I grappled with my roots or lack thereof. Every stuffy nose or flu sent me into a spiral of fear that I would die from some imaginary genetic illness I had no idea I’d inherited. My fear of being abandoned a second time left me shaking with terror and tears if Nicola, Mom, or Dad were even minutes late. Mom tried her best to text if there was traffic or if work ran long, but sometimes it was just unavoidable. Her adamant apologies and reassurances that it wouldn’t happen again did nothing. I couldn’t control the fear. Logic and reason didn’t even come into play.

And then there were the boys…

My local fame shone an unearned and unwanted spotlight on me, and the date requests. the offers to walk me home and sexts started as soon as I hit high school. Not willing to disappoint, I rarely turned down an offer. I flitted from one guy to the next convinced if I became attached they would quickly tire and leave; self-sabotage that would make perfect sense after countless hours in the therapist’s office as an adult. “All a by-product of your lack of self-esteem, Chrissy. Your fear of commitment and abandonment. You want them to leave you before you can get hurt again.”

Even sweet Nicola’s efforts to lead me back to the straight and narrow proved fruitless. To her credit she did run interference with our parents, keeping up the ruse that I was studying or at the gym when in reality I was wedged in the back of some fogged up beater car behind the local A & W. While there was no enjoyment in giving myself away or being passed around, and I knew it would disappoint the sisters and my parents if they knew, I just couldn’t help myself. The frequent piercings (8) and tattoos (6 if you include the self-inflicted letter C on the side of my neck) also provided moments of pain that I sought out and felt were much deserved.

….

The Baby Doe case remained unsolved for decades, so easy access to ancestry searches and DNA matching came none too soon for me. The Warrington Public Library became my weekend home away from home as I scoured databases and the dark abyss of missing persons’ chat rooms, secretly searching for a clue as to my biological parents’ identity and location. Some skewed sense of loyalty kept me from enlisting the Loves’ help, or from confiding in Lieu. It was in the library on my 18th birthday (while searching for the cheapest mail-order DNA matching provider) that I met Barry Singh. I was in line in front of him at the Books and Brews library cafe when he tapped me gently on the shoulder and complimented me on my Doc Martens. “Cool treads,” Barry whispered as he stuck out his left foot to reveal the same black vintage 8 Eye Combat Boots. Barry was different from the other boys: soft spoken but made of steel, funny and generous, level-headed and comfortable in his own skin. Most importantly, having only moved to town the year before, Barry knew nothing of Baby Doe, the poor baby left for dead, the lost teenager who generated whispers of, “So sad,” when she walked down the street.

I knew from our first date (an evening of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the retro theatre one town over followed by a shared bowl of ramen) that Barry might be worth the effort; that forcing myself to trust him, to not assume he would leave when he got to know angsty messed up Baby Doe, might actually be good for me. It wasn’t just the fact that he opened doors for me or was willing to try ramen (my favorite) for the first time. It wasn’t just the fact that he paid for everything and would not allow me to contribute, or that he unabashedly sang along during the movie and pulled two pieces of toast from his pocket so we could both take part. It was all of that combined with the way he listened to me. Barry wasn’t just waiting till I was done so he could speak. He wasn’t listening for an opening for his turn. He was actually listening and thinking about what I said. I felt heard. I felt worthy. A feeling I hadn’t experienced since my years in the convent. Barry was my unicorn, with him I had a clean slate to be me, the me that didn’t come with newspaper articles, or gossip, or unanswered questions. We fell hard and fast for each other, bonding over our jigsaw puzzle obsession, caffeine addictions, and love of classic horror movies. Barry was a rock, my Labatt beer-loving, master chef rock. The fact that he was training to be a firefighter when we met was a definite tick in the plus box. Had Lieu not succumbed to lung cancer two years before at the age of 50 he would have loved my Barry. The universe had screwed me once again by not allowing my Barry to meet my Lieu.

The Loves approved of Barry and I could tell they were secretly thrilled that I was coming out the other side of my dark period when they commented on how he brought back my “smiles and giggles”. Three years to the day that Barry and I had met, on the eve of our wedding at Warrington Town Hall, I felt safe enough to lay myself bare and show Barry the worn, yellowed newspaper article I kept folded in the pages of my locked journal. He barely gave it a glance. “Yeah, my friends told me that you were Baby Doe. Old news: not important,” he confessed in true matter of fact, end-of-story Barry style. My relief at his response resulted in an unstoppable fit of silent tears; my blood-shot raccoon eyes immortalized in our wedding photos the next day.

My sister Nicola married June, a colleague from her dental school and another feisty, whip-smart ginger. They moved west to open a joint dental practice in Calgary, and Trevor and Christopher, their beautiful, perfect (blonde!) surrogate twins, arrived soon after. Barry and I were the typical doting auntie and uncle from afar, sending a steady stream of toy fire trucks and books in the mail. I struggled with pride and unconditional love coupled with jealousy and resentment for their highly anticipated birth and the daily smothering of love and attention those babies received. Whereas the twins wanted for nothing, I had cut my first teeth on cold rosary beads and slept with threadbare deflated teddies donated by local children after they had loved all the stuffing out of them.

—-

My weekdays were spent working in the same library where I had spent so many hours searching for myself. Part-time work as a clerk shelving books for spending money led to a temporary gig as a library assistant, then 2 years in library technician school, and ultimately a secure full-time spot. I no longer visited the online chat rooms or searched news headlines for any hints as to who my parents were and why I was dumped out in the cold. I was good at my job, punctual, efficient, and patient with the large contingent of seniors who needed tech help. So good that some regulars only came to the library on the days when I was working. Barry and I had a comfortable bungalow within walking distance of both the library and the firehouse that allowed us to meet at home for lunch each day, except on Fridays when I met my mom at the local Smittys for breakfast. Semi-retired doting grandparents, Lee and Jillian split their time between home and Florida. Except for the hiccup of Lee’s brief battle with colon cancer, life was good for all of the Loves.

Barry and I had put no effort into having children. A few months into our marriage, while walking to our corner cafe, Barry had commented on our neighbor’s new baby boy as she passed us with her stroller on the other side of our street. I had waved but not made any effort to walk across and see the child. I avoided babies (outside the twins) whenever possible; I was unable to control the sudden surge of jealousy and anxiety that invariably rose in my chest when I was around babies that were wanted and loved and well cared for.

“I wonder what kind of Dad I would be?” Barry asked cautiously as the neighbor disappeared from view.

“I’m guessing the very best kind of dad, hon. Dad of the year. Every year. In perpetuity.” I teased, squeezing his bicep, a coal-sized lump in my throat as I silently wished the conversation over.

“A puppy, then?” he asked, turning his megawatt smile on me, the smile he knew I couldn’t resist. I sensed that he knew I was not yet ready to even consider the idea of ever becoming a mother and dealing with the buried trauma that would no doubt resurface. Hell, I didn’t know if I would ever be ready. And Barry was a smart guy; he probably figured it was safer to happily coast along, to avoid the unknown effects of my past on our future whenever possible. There would always be ripples on the surface but, without ever acknowledging it, we both chose not to delve into what was lurking beneath. To keep a lid on Pandora’s box. Which we did. Until the day Pandora’s box blew wide open.

….

All Warrington Public Library staff must work one Saturday shift each month and mine typically fell on the last Saturday of the month, the same day that the library ran a teen drop-in gaming day. The seniors tended to keep their distance on that day, the noise and drama of the younguns too much to take. I didn’t mind working Saturday shifts, and the last Saturday in March always zoomed by, jam-packed with kids on the tail end of their school break. My main responsibility was as the gatekeeper of the game controllers, signing them in and out and harassing the kids who went over their allotted time slot.

March 28th was a very busy one, complete with a two-page waiting list for controllers and game consoles. March 28th would also become the day I requested a transfer from the Warrington Public Library branch. Teenagers were sprawled over all of the reading chairs and computer stations waiting for a turn with the games, phones in hand, earbuds secure, and a graveyard of empty Starbucks cups piled on the side tables. My colleagues were frazzled. Three incident reports had been filled in before 11 am, a new record, so I wasn’t particularly shocked when a tall, thin girl approached the circulation desk after my lunch break. Her tears dripped off her chin onto my sign-up sheet, long platinum blonde bangs covered her eyes as she hunched over cradling her right hand, the hand that was dripping blood onto the black and white checkerboard carpet.

“Do you have a bandaid, ma’am? Someone smashed the mirror in the washroom and I cut my hand on it.”

While I had an idea that her someone was standing right in front of me, and being ma’am-ed didn’t help my first opinion of the wounded teen, I could see that the bleeding was not slowing.

“I texted my mom. She’s here somewhere,” she added, stifling a sob.

I had no sooner ducked under the desk and retrieved the first aid kit than a petite blonde dynamo ran towards the poor girl, enveloping her in a hug as she shrieked, “My God Sandra, are you okay? Let me see, my sweet baby! Momma’s here.” As I rose to my full height and tucked my long platinum side bangs behind one ear I locked eyes with Sandra’s mother. It was as though I were looking in a mirror, a time machine mirror that was aging me about 18 years. My hair, my grey eyes, my long nose, my freckles. I fumbled with the flimsy plastic latch of the kit, my fingers searching the interior by touch for the Bandaids, never losing eye contact with the mother. “I can’t let this one out of my sight. Always getting hurt or lost. Might as well keep her in a bubble!” she joked, visibly shaking with worry for her child.

I waited for it to dawn on the woman. Desperate for that moment I’d been waiting for my whole life; the moment when she would see me and realize what she had lost, that she had made a huge mistake. The moment when she would apologize and beg my forgiveness for leaving me for dead in the cold, an innocent helpless newborn, for putting me through Hell. The moment when she would tell me she loved me and that she too had been searching for me for thirty years. But that moment never came. There was no widening of the eyes on her part, no sudden recognition. There was no acknowledgment from the woman that she was looking at her own likeness. I could only see fear and concern for Sandra, the child she had kept. The child she loved.

I pushed a handful of Bandaids into her left hand noting the yellow gold wedding band as she started to turn and usher Sandra away from the desk. “Take these,” I exhaled, the words tripping on my tongue. “And get to the hospital, Sandra. You might need stitches.” Sandra turned back to face me, her voice gaining strength as the initial panic subsided. “I will. Mom will make me. Won’t you Mom? She’s a little overprotective, but my mom is awesome.”

The pair did not see the single tear roll down my face as they scurried towards the library door, Sandra’s mother’s arms wrapped protectively around her baby’s shoulder. I closed my eyes and placed both hands on the cold laminate desktop to quell the shaking. I pushed down the rage, and regret, and sadness threatening to rise and explode from my mouth in a scream.

“You’re very lucky,” I whispered to no one. “Not everyone is born to a mom like that.”

 

 

Photo by miguel ugalde from FreeImages