I found it a ‘young’ letter; it reminded me of myself at that age – the age I was when I gave birth to her, in fact. It was formal and sort of frozen, perfectly polite and controlled, showing no emotion. She was the adult ministering to me, assuring me there was nothing to forgive, expressing solicitude over my wellbeing. She described her perfect and complete life and declared her total loyalty to her adoptive mother and family. I did not doubt the truth of that happiness and love, but I still sensed something behind the façade of mature efficiency: the naivety and insecurity of a child. My heart went out to her.
So then, of course, I had to write back to her, assuring her of the acceptability of her letter, the validity of her loyalty to her adoptive mother, and my unconditional, albeit background, love for her as the child I birthed. No strings attached.
I wrote back:
17 December 1989
Dear Susannah
Thank you for replying to my letter. I very much appreciate your sharing the broad details of your life with me. I am so glad that you are well, happy and loved.
Don’t think that I had the slightest thought of taking any of your mother’s place. I know very well that it’s the daily working, caring and loving that makes a mother or father. I am very grateful that your mother was there for you.
Thank you for saying that you don’t hold the past against me.
Of course I won’t initiate any further contact with you but I repeat that you and your family would always be welcome should you decide to contact me in the future.
There are no abnormalities in the family history – quite healthy on both sides – so you can be reassured on that score.
Also be at peace as far as I am concerned. I am happy and secure and you certainly need feel no responsibility or anxiety on my behalf. Just accept me as someone else who really cares about you in the background. It never hurts to have a bit more love, does it?
God bless you, Susannah.
With love,
Robin
And that was that. I was sad when I learned that only a very small percentage of adoptees don’t want contact with their birth mother. Susannah and I were in that percentage.
I was also sad telling Anna, Matilda and Marian that there was no big sister on the horizon just yet. However, they didn’t forget her, and I’m sure they each thought about her and imagined what it would be like if they ever did actually get to meet her. Although we had no information about her physical appearance, Matilda in particular confessed to being often on the lookout – in the city, on trams, at the Victoria Market – for a dark-haired young woman with an uncanny resemblance to herself.
So, Susannah became a sort of phantom member of our family: always there in the background of our consciousness like a will-o-the-wisp, not entirely relinquished, still wistfully hoped for and sought.
Closing the door
Susannah
I remember thinking it was a nice letter from Robin, especially the bit about ‘someone who really cares about you in the background’, but I don’t remember thinking much about it again. It was just a footnote to the dinner-party topic, a rounding-off of the story of why I didn’t look like my mum and dad.
And, over time, I even forgot Robin’s name.
Yet every now and then I would wonder – and wander. I did remember the street the letter was written from – Dryburgh Street, North Melbourne – and every now and then I would drive down it, sunglasses on. I’m not sure what I was expecting – perhaps three younger girls who looked like me walking down the street?
But I never saw anyone, let alone anyone who looked like me. And in later years when I would drive down again, those three girls wouldn’t even have been living there anymore.
She was ‘happy and secure’ and so was I. We had all moved on.
III
OPENING LINES
Something stirs
Susannah
Life had been very good to my family and me for a long time. Oskar, the very handsome Swedish boy, and I went on to marry in 1993, and in 1996 we moved to London, where we lived for seven years. I had a dream job in publishing and we had had our two kids, Edvard and Emma, there. We enjoyed idyllic summers with family in Sweden and regular trips home to Australia. By 2002, though, we wanted to settle somewhere, to put down roots: I wanted to be closer to Mum and Dad as they aged, Oskar wanted to plant trees he would see grow, and we wanted our move to house number thirteen to be the last, at least for a while. So, in October, we came back to Melbourne. I started a publishing partnership, the kids started school, Oskar found a job and we all found a new home and a dog, Bill, to go with it. Life was good, very good. We felt blessed.
But then in 2008, things soured: Duncan’s wife, my sister-in-law, Miffy, died suddenly and I had to leave a business I had co-founded. Then, in 2009, Mum was diagnosed with a rare and untreatable cancer, and my daughter became very unwell. So many things that had been solid were shaken and the whole family struggled to cope. Ultimately my enforced break from publishing was a blessing, though: I was able to travel to the UK to help my brother, and, then later, spend time with my daughter and with Mum as she first negotiated and then conceded to her illness.
I still remember the moment, in a cafe in Hawthorn where we met regularly, when Mum told me that there was no cure for the cancer and that it would move quickly. I had gone to meet her planning to tell her about some problem I was having, wanting her to help sort me out as she so often did, but, hearing her awful news, I didn’t raise it. Indeed, in that moment I realised, decided, that after her nearly fifty years of love and care for me, it was my turn to care for Mum, to put her first, just as she had done for me countless times.
It was both excruciatingly sad and a wonderful privilege to be able, with Dad and Sophie, to help care for Mum as she prepared to die. In the shadow of the tragic death of my sister-in-law, Mum was determined to take away the fear, to show the family a ‘good death’, after a long life, well lived and loved. We all tried our best to embrace her plan but, of course, the certain knowledge of the impending loss hung heavy.
In her final weeks in October 2011, we each managed to have a special moment with Mum as she lapsed in and out of consciousness. Mine was on a beautiful sun-drenched spring morning. I had arrived at the hospice early – around 7am – to miss the morning cross-town traffic and to steal some time alone with Mum. We all knew the end was coming and, while we weren’t ready, Mum was – almost too ready at times. I came into her room, kissed her and sat by her bed, taking her hand.
‘Morning, Mum.’
‘Hello, darling, am I dead yet?’
‘No, Mum, not yet.’
‘Oh. Soon?’
‘Yes, Mum, soon.’
‘And, Suse, do you think it will be okay?’
‘Yes, it will be okay, Mum, it will be completely okay.’
‘That’s good. And …’
‘Yes, Mum?’
‘Did I do a good job as your mother?’
This question broke me.
‘Yes, Mum, you did a wonderful job. I’ve been so lucky to have you. I love you, Mum.’
‘That’s good, darling. Take your best kiss now.’
And I did. It was the last fully conscious time I had with my mum, who died on the nineteenth of October.
Over the next three years, the family slowly recalibrated without its lynchpin. I worked out that it took perhaps seven friends to do the same job Mum had done for me, and with the illnesses of both my kids at times threatening to pull me under, I missed her terribly. Mum would have known what to do and I often didn’t. It was all getting a bit much.
Early 2014
Robin
I had an interesting talk with Marian and her partner, Felix, this evening. Not sure how it began but we started talking about Susannah and whether I should make another attempt at contact.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but I’m still unsure and don’t want to impose. Both Marian and Felix are enthusiastically
positive – they definitely think I should. Things are very different now – Susannah would be much older (forty-nine!), and very possibly with children of her own, giving her a new perspective.
But then, she could contact me if she wanted to, so presumably she doesn’t. Maybe she’s not alive? What an awful thought.
Is there anything to lose by trying, though? She can only refuse again. But it’s her life and not my right to harass or upset her or cause distress. However, I suspect from the feeling of excitement beginning to stir inside me that these thoughts of moderating caution are perfunctory, tokenistic.
Because in my heart I know already – I’m going to make the move!
I contact the Department of Community Services and ask them to send me the relevant forms to apply for contact with my daughter.
Susannah
Exhausted and in need of a break after a particularly difficult time juggling writing deadlines and family issues, I take myself off for five days at Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in Queensland. One of the programs on offer is called The Journey, a guided visualisation of self-discovery. I would normally run from this sort of thing; I am against ‘journeys’ because so many people (would-be TV chefs and DIY-ers particularly) are having them – and so often – that they are becoming meaningless. But this time I put aside my scepticism: I am here to recover and recharge after a gruelling twelve months. I am up for anything.
And so, I give myself over to the process, and at one point I find myself talking to Mum, telling her what has been happening and telling her that I love her. I cry a lot. Then, all of a sudden, I am in my own delivery ward telling my birth mother I love her. I cry even more.
What the? Where did that come from? And what did it mean?
I have no idea, but I leave the session, have a bath, go to bed exhausted and sleep for twelve hours. Then I go on with the rest of the retreat and return to Melbourne a few days later, rested and relaxed.
I don’t remember specifically reflecting on my ‘conversations’ with my two mothers, but then, a few weeks later, I have the thought that I want to write a better, kinder letter to my birth mother. If she is still alive, I want her to know that – having now had children myself – I feel for her and her decision and I want to apologise for what was perhaps an uncaring letter of rejection in 1989. That is the message of my ‘journey’, I reckon: to resolve things, to make things right.
Robin
Well, praise God, I’m still alive. Two weeks ago, I had just dropped my two grandchildren, Ada and Aziza, off at school and was driving home with their pug dog, Archie, sitting beside me in the front passenger seat. I was turning right at an intersection close to home when I literally didn’t know what hit me. There was a huge crashing sound and I found myself falling forward and to the side before everything stopped moving. The driver of the other vehicle, hidden by cars stopped at the lights, had sped through the red light, hitting me as I completed my right turn.
Finding myself all in one piece, I undid my seatbelt and looked to see where Archie was. Amazingly, he was exactly as he had been: peacefully perched on the seat looking ahead, not a hair out of place, and yet he was on the side that received the full impact.
At the time, I had no feelings of being hurt except for soreness in my chest. Now, two weeks later, all my left side has turned black with bruising. It is more painful, but not excessively, and X-rays and ultrasounds have revealed only temporary soft-tissue damage.
How Archie spent that moment of collision remains a mystery. Was he flung against me and then bounced back again? I certainly have no recollection of such a thing and it seems unlikely, given his air of serenity. Did angels lift him out of harm’s way for that brief moment and then return him to his seat? I find this a more plausible scenario. My car is a write-off, but I (and Archie) survived: God has future plans for me.
Closing and opening
Robin
I’m sitting in front of my computer, staring at the image of a mature woman with blonde curly hair, trying to compute the fact that this woman is, in fact, my child, my baby; I’m struggling to close the reality gap.
It is thanks to my niece, Florence (named, almost incredibly, without reference to either my mother or to the fact that this was the name that was put on Susannah’s original birth certificate), that I have gained access to the considerable amount of online information about Susannah. On hearing of my intention to try to re-contact her, Florence, with all the zeal and technical skill of her generation, went into full sleuth/research mode and unearthed her quarry. This was the text she sent her mother, my sister, Susan:
Would Robin think I was snooping if I was looking for Susannah on Google? I don’t want to whip something up for her that I shouldn’t but there is a chance I have found her, Susannah McFarlane, a children’s author.
She has indeed found her – and we are all excited!
Her task was made easier by the fact that Susannah has quite a public profile, because she is a successful author of children’s books! I am impressed. I am proud. I am happy for her.
I continue to stare at the photo, recognising with (perhaps illogical) wonderment the genetic connections. I see her paternal grandmother, Janet; my older sister, Pam; myself.
There is another picture of her sitting around a table with other writers, as part of a panel interview. There is something vulnerable about her in the photo, a little insecure? The way she holds her arm in particular reminds me of a child. I latch on to this thought because it seems to offer a way back, past the competent, successful adult to the never-seen baby that was mine. It touches my heart, and that’s what I’m looking for – a heart connection.
Then I discover the transcript of another interview with Susannah in which she is asked biographical questions. Her answer to one of these stops me in my tracks. That little new shoot of hopeful anticipation I had felt deep within me tentatively reaching towards the surface is suddenly squashed back down. Quenched.
The interviewer asks her where she got her gift and love of writing, and Susannah replies, ‘My father’s an English teacher and writer, and my mum was a librarian and a poet. I guess it’s in the blood.’
That’s not her blood – but it seems she wants it to be. She doesn’t want to know about her birth parentage. It’s as I feared: she is still where she was when I wrote to her twenty-five years ago: she has a wonderful family and mother and she doesn’t need another one, thank you very much.
How dare I disturb her chosen reality? It’s not my right. She owes me nothing. I gave her away.
Is that it then, Lord? I thought you were doing something.
I feel disappointment, like a tangible substance, seeping through my bloodstream, sparing no crack or crevice where hope might still be hiding.
Defeated, I take the application forms I received from the Department of Community Services and put them in a drawer.
I close the drawer.
Susannah, 16 June
I open my email and write to FIND, the Family Information Networks and Discovery, Department of Human Services.
As we discussed, my birth mother made contact with me in the late 1980s. After an exchange of letters, there was no further contact, as I felt unable to proceed beyond those letters. I would now, if possible, like to make contact again. As requested, I have attached a PDF of my driver’s licence. Do let me know what I need to do next.
23 June
I’ve been assigned a caseworker named Maddy. So, now I’m a case? Excellent. I fill out the application form to obtain my adoption records. Maddy tells me it could take six to eight weeks for the records to arrive. I determine to forget about it until she contacts me again. And, on the whole, I do. I tell Oskar and the kids but no-one else in my family – there’s no need. I have plenty of other things going on: there is a book deadline to meet, Oskar is starting a new business and my son is now halfway through VCE. It’s a crazy year.
19 August
Maddy calls. The records have arrived but to get them
I need to attend a Section 87 interview. Really? Can’t they just confirm if she is alive and I can send the letter? Apparently not. An email from FIND elaborates.
Depending on what you’d like to discuss we will go over the records located but also use it as an opportunity to talk about your thoughts and ideas for contact again with Robin.
People find the interviews useful in preparation for contact and fleshing out their expectations around relationship building.
Robin. Yes, that was her name. I remember now. But I don’t have any expectations around relationship building. I am not planning to build a relationship. I just want to write a better letter.
25 August
I open the blue ring-binder folder.
I’m sitting with Maddy in a meeting room at FIND, a typically nondescript government office room. The blue folder contains all the held files and documents relating to the birth and adoption of Florence Leuba.
That’s me. Was me. Is me?
My mind both races and freezes at the same time. I look at the birth certificate. My first one, the one that was sealed when I was adopted, the one that everyone was assured would never be released.
Baby – Florence Leuba
Mother – Robin Leuba
Father – [blank]
I can’t really take it in. Maddy asks if I want to look through the folder with her. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll just take it home and maybe look then.’ But Maddy is persistent. (Looking back I realise she’d probably seen this reaction before.) She says she needs to sign a form saying that I have read the contents of the folder. I don’t want to get her into trouble on my account, so I concede – more out of politeness than interest.
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