Somebody's Daughter--a moving journey of discovery, recovery and adoption

by Zara. H Phillips

  I look again, checking the feeling inside myself. By the end of the day I have ordered more certificates for my birth mother, including her youngest child.

  I’m in a daze most of the time now, present but not really; the search is consuming me. I’m beginning to dream more, aware that the shadow of my birth mother that I always felt beside me is now slowly coming into view.

  I visit my mum and dad and avoid all questions. I’m faltering between a feeling of such terrible betrayal towards them, and a newfound strength. It has nothing to do with them, however strange that may sound considering they adopted me and probably know information about my birth mother: they sent her all those letters, letters I’ve seen. But this is about my need now. How am I supposed to explain that to them? I’ve hated myself for so long, but more so now that I’m sober I see how important it is to stop those negative voices in my head.

  I dream vividly each night. I’m always looking for something, searching desperately. I go into our house, the house I grew up in and that my parents still live in, but in my dreams it’s been abandoned, every room full of cobwebs; dust covers the furniture, sheets cover the sofas. Into each room I walk purposefully, opening every door, steady in my search. Often I find myself walking into my parents’ bedroom, where I stand on a chair to reach the highest cupboard in the room and take down the many cardboard boxes stacked there. There are endless boxes stacked on top of each other. Finally, right at the back of the cupboard, is a tiny shoebox. I stretch to reach it, stepping down from the chair as I carefully remove the lid. I jump back: inside is a tiny, crying baby so ugly it almost looks like a monster. I take the child out, holding it tightly until it is soothed, and then I wake up.

  * * *

  I have my birth mother’s address from her youngest child’s birth certificate. It’s not far from where I’m living. But I can’t bring myself to call, scared somehow my voice will be recognised, however mad that sounds, so I get my friend to call the neighbours to check my information is up-to-date. A girl answers and says that she knew them and that they’d been neighbours for years. She says on the phone that she knows Pat (my mother) and her son and daughter – that’s how I found out I had a sister as when I was searching at Catherine House, I didn’t find her, only my brother. My friend tells her that her mother was an old friend of her mother’s. She says they moved out of London. She doesn’t know where, but if my friend were to call back on Saturday night, her mother would be at her house as they’re having a party and she would know where they went.

  My friend is going away and can’t help me so she urges me to do it instead.

  ‘Zara, they won’t recognise your voice. Just call. We have a story, remember? Say she’s a friend of your mother’s. I doubt they’ll even ask.’

  My palms are sweating as Saturday comes around. As I dial the number my heart beats rapidly. I can hear music in the background as the girl answers.

  ‘Er, hello? I’m the girl that called the other day about the Giocondis. Is your mother there?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she says brightly, ‘hang on a mo.’

  Their house must be full of people, I think, as I hear passing conversations. I wait for what feels like an eternity and then the phone clicks.

  ‘Me mum says they moved to Weybridge.’

  And that’s it. A quick goodbye from the stranger and my search is over: I have found her.

  5

  North London, 1988

  My mum – my adoptive mum, that is – is ill a lot. I don’t ever remember a time when she wasn’t struggling with some illness. She had open-heart surgery not long ago, when she was just fifty. I worry about her health and she knows that I do, but I find her as hard to be around as she finds me: we irritate one another. There is no acceptance from either side; I try, but always seem to fail within minutes. Every word that comes from my mouth she takes the wrong way, and every word that she says to me I take as a criticism. As time has gone by, I feel that we are on a constant treadmill and I wonder when or if we’ll ever get off.

  In spite of it all, I still go and visit. Pulling the car into the driveway, I think about a particularly terrible fight where my anger was just pouring out of me, my pain raw with no control, and she faked a heart attack right in front of my eyes. She fell to the floor, clutching her chest. I stood glued to the spot, unable to move. The rage that I felt turned to a panic at the thought of losing her.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ she had said. ‘You’re killing me.’ For once, my brother came to my aid. He walked into the room to see her lying on my bedroom floor and me screaming hysterically that she was dead. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman, get up,’ he told her in a booming voice – and she did. She got up, straightened her Margaret Thatcher-style dress, wiped her make-up and went down to open the front door to the builder, who had apparently been knocking this whole time, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Today, I unlock the front door, calling out to her that I’m here. My father is watching television and my mother is in the kitchen. She seems happy to see me. She hugs me warmly, her huge bosoms comforting against me, in spite of everything. I need her still to love me: she is my anchor and she knows it.

  I listen to my mother talk and I wish I could tell her what I’m doing, that I have found the woman who gave birth to me. I want to tell her that without this woman she could never have had me. But I protect her, because I know her pain about not being able to have children. It has been revealed in certain moments and I don’t want to inflict more.

  If I could have told my mother the truth as a little girl, when she was frustrated with my silence, if she were truly able to listen, I would have said just three simple words:

  ‘I want my mother.’

  But she was my mother, so she wouldn’t have understood what I meant and what good would it have done? As far as she has always been concerned I had her, I had my mother. I can’t hate her for that. But now that I’m so close to finding my biological mother, I realise that it’s always been a fantasy: there is no real mother for me anymore, I don’t fully belong to either of them.

  I’m trying to be a better, less selfish daughter. I tell my mum that I’m going to meetings. She has little to say about it, but I sense she approves.

  My brother is back living at home and we’re civil to each other. I’m less scared of him now, but I don’t go out of my way to talk to him. No longer sober, he has relapsed. I’m saddened, as he did so well for a while but I know that I can’t save him anymore. When I visit, I try to be kind and I leave as soon as I feel irritated again.

  ‘I managed to stay a whole half an hour without losing it,’ I tell James proudly when we meet up later that day. He laughs heartily. ‘Well done, girl, well done!’

  * * *

  I’m in my car, driving with my friend Kate to spy on my birth mother. The windows are down; the sky looks like honey today. I have her address. Once I knew the area where they had moved to from the old neighbour I called Directory Enquiries and got her number and address. I called the number to make sure that it worked, my hands trembling. My girlfriend was watching me.

  A woman’s voice answers. ‘Hello, hello?” she says into the silence. After a lingering moment I put the phone down. I know that she owns an Italian restaurant with her husband, that they have two children, and that she lives in a normal house in a normal neighbourhood. I feel relieved.

  I realise her husband is unlikely to be my birth father.

  ‘So obviously she has a thing for Italians.’ I’m laughing with my friend. ‘And I can’t say I blame her – I just hope my father isn’t some fat ugly one wearing a medallion. Now that would be depressing.’

  We find the street and start counting the numbers. I can feel the fear invade my insides.

  ‘It’s this one.’

  I slow down. It’s a nice detached house with a sports car in the driveway. I park on the kerb opposite, half-hidden by some trees, and get my lunch out of my bag.

  ‘You brought lunch?’ Kate is
stunned. ‘How can you possibly eat?’

  ‘Er, because I’m hungry.’

  We wait in silence, looking at the house, but I’m not really sure what I’m waiting for. I take another bite of my sandwich.

  ‘Do you want to see her?’ Kate asks.

  ‘No, I don’t think I do. I want to leave.’ I stuff the sandwich back in the bag.

  ‘Just wait a few more moments,’ she whispers.

  Their front door opens and instinctively I sink down in my seat. A man walks to the end of the driveway and calls out a name. For a moment he looks directly at our car.

  I start the engine and drive away.

  * * *

  I decide I can’t just land on my mother like that, I have to write to her first – but what am I supposed to say? So I visit my social worker, Ms Cameron, who offers to help. I agonise over every word of my letter.

  ‘What if her husband has no idea about me and she opens it in front of him? What if she forgets that she had a baby…?’ My voice trails off.

  ‘No woman,’ she says gently, ‘ever forgets she had a baby.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, dear, I’m sure.’

  Dear Mrs Giocondi,

  I am trying on behalf of my client to trace members of a family to whom she believes she may be connected.

  The name of the family she wishes to trace is Sampson and they lived in the Ealing area around 1964.

  If you feel you can help and would like to discuss this further then contact me either by letter, or by telephone at the above number.

  In all cases where one is trying to trace members of families who have lost touch, it is common to write to people who have no connection with the people involved and if this is so, I am sorry to have troubled you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ms Cameron

  As much as it hasn’t come from me, I still decide that I want to be the one to post the letter, in my own time. Sick to my stomach, I walk absentmindedly in the near darkness back from her office to my little one-room bedsit. I’m clutching the letter too tightly, my hand aching from the pressure.

  Do I post it now and get it over with?

  I feel panicky, intense butterflies that I have never felt before fill my stomach, almost jumping out of my throat. The wave of nausea passes.

  I could hold onto the letter another day and give myself more time, I think for a moment, but even though I wish I could, I know that Pandora’s Box has already been cracked open. In life some people can turn a blind eye, pretend they don’t want the things they want because it’s safer. But I was never that type of person. The voice in my head speaks loudly, interrupting the endless thoughts.

  Zara, it’s time.

  I can see the red gleam of the post box in the distance. I’m afraid, but what am I afraid of? Rejection. That she won’t want to know me. Of hurting my adopted mother. Of knowing the truth of how I came into existence.

  I place the envelope at the mouth of the post box and let myself linger. I pull it away for one second, an inch from the opening. Then I inhale and let go. And with that, I have no idea what else to do with myself, so I decide to head for a meeting to see if anyone I know is there. My mind is racing and I need a bit of grounding to keep me focused. I’m drawn to the passing faces as my car comes to a standstill.

  I’m almost hoping I might see the face of my most recent ex, Simon – he often walks this way. I try to avert my mind from him but it keeps pulling me back. My ex-lover, a man who really doesn’t care much about who I am or what I need: he likes my body, he likes the way we have sex. I need a distraction but I know that seeing him one more time for sex would never be enough. One night where I could forget myself would be nice, though – I miss being touched.

  Since I’ve started going to the meetings I’ve had offers from newly sober guys there, but I’ve enough self-awareness to know that I’m not ready for anything serious. However risky it is, it still feels safer to go back to what I’m familiar with.

  I don’t see him on the street, no matter how much I will it. Instead I’m soon walking into a grey cement building. I sit halfway back in the crowded room, ready to listen to the speaker share his experience.

  As usual I check out who’s in the room – it’s as much a social place as a time to remind myself why I need to stay away from all substances. A few people share but I’m not really listening. I’m thinking about my letter, lying at the bottom of the post box, wondering if I might be able to get it back.

  A well-spoken young woman a few rows ahead of me starts to share. I can’t see her face, but what she says grabs my attention.

  ‘I met some new family a few months ago,’ she says. ‘I have all these sisters – my birth parents, they had got married, I found out. I’m struggling with adapting to it all.’

  I crane my neck to see her face: she’s a pretty blonde with delicate features. As the meeting ends, I make a direct move towards her.

  ‘Are you adopted?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, it’s my birth family that I just met.’

  ‘I was supposed to be at this meeting to hear you,’ I tell her. ‘I posted a letter to my birth mother this evening. I’m a wreck, I don’t know what to do with myself.’

  She is so sweet and encouraging. We exchange phone numbers and as I drive away, I realise I’m noticing signs that I never had before. The threads of hope and trust feel fragile, but in this moment I see that the universe or God, or whatever you want to call it, is supporting me. I, Zara, have let go of self-will for a while and it feels so good.

  * * *

  It takes three days to get a response, three endless days of trying to distract my mind from going to all the negative places. Three days of staring at walls, unable to have a full conversation as my mind tries to adapt to its new filing system.

  I can hear my phone ringing as I unlock the door. Diving onto the bed, I grab it.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Zara, it’s Ms Cameron. I have some very exciting news. Your mother wants to meet you, but she’s going on holiday soon and she also needs to tell her children. She wants to wait to meet you until she gets back in three weeks. She asked if she could write a letter to you first and send photos.’

  I’m struggling to absorb her words. I think back to a bizarre memory, how strange it was when I found out that my adoptive parents had not changed their holiday plans when they learned that they could adopt me so as not to disrupt my brother. Instead they paid for my two weeks in foster care. And now my birth mother was also going on a vacation.

  ‘Okay,’ I hear myself say a little cautiously. ‘You can give her my address. How did she sound? What was her voice like?’

  ‘Oh,’ Ms Cameron was gushing again. ‘She seems like a lovely warm person. And when she comes back, she wants to meet you – we can set that up. She asked if you would write to her as well.’

  ‘What do I write?’

  ‘Just tell her a little something about yourself, you don’t need to tell her your whole life story straight away.’

  My heart is literally pounding out of my chest as I put the phone down. In a daze that my birth mother has actually made contact, I start to write on some new pretty pink stationery that my mum gave me, but I feel immediate guilt. It’s like I’ve been stung when I realise the implications and the piece of paper drops from my hand. I choose instead a plain white piece of paper and begin to write. I crumple it up, dissatisfied with the first words my mother will read from me, but a few pages later it feels okay, it feels right. I tell her about a concert I went to and then I spend the rest of the evening trying to decide which photo to send. I even ring James for advice and he mentally runs through the photos he’s seen of me over the short time we’ve been friends. I settle on one of me where I’m wearing a white dress, looking extremely tanned – I look happy and relaxed.

  I put it all in an envelope, drop it into the post box with as much strength as I can muster and then go to meet James and Terry for dinner. They can cle
arly sense my anxiety and I’m glad not to be alone.

  ‘Which photo did you end up sending?’ James wants to know.

  ‘The one of me on tour in Australia, where I look sexy.’ I sip my hot chocolate.

  ‘Sexy?’ Terry laughs out loud. ‘You sent a sexy photo to your birth mother?’

  I’m laughing now.

  ‘Yes. I have to look good, it’s the first time she will have seen me since I was a baby.’

  ‘Zara,’ James replies, ‘she will love you no matter what you look like. You don’t have to worry.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that – I can’t think straight most of the time, I can’t seem to focus. Is that normal?’

  ‘You’re not normal anyway, so yes, it is.’ Terry leans in towards me. ‘Zara, this is a huge deal: you’re going to meet your mother. You’re being so brave, stay close to all of us.’ I feel so much warmth as I look at these two men, their handsome faces so loving. I’m feeling luckier by the day.

  * * *

  The letter arrives a few days later, in a small white envelope. I take it to my room and lay it on my bed. Her handwriting looks familiar and I realise it’s quite similar to mine. I hold the letter up to the light, still sealed, and slowly open it.

  18th July 1988

  Dear Zara,

  Thank you for your letter and photograph. You’re a beautiful girl but I knew you would be. You were such a beautiful baby.

  I’ve always hoped that one day you would contact me, but now that it’s happened I can’t quite believe it. Ever since I spoke to Ms Cameron I can’t seem to stop crying.

  I felt apprehensive at the thought of meeting this stranger who happens to be my daughter, but on seeing your photograph I can see that you’re not a stranger but someone who is very familiar to me.

  There is a photo tucked in between the pages. As I hold it up to the light, I’m looking into a young woman’s face. She’s smiling a little awkwardly and I notice the fullness of her mouth, her straight teeth, her olive skin… My skin. Her hair is as dark as mine. I turn the photo around, looking at it from all angles. I still don’t know if I look like her, but she looks as familiar to me as she said that I do to her.