by Nicole Chung
Even if it was hard to know what to think or do about my birth parents, it was easy and wonderful to write to Cindy. As I updated her on the life and times of her niece at a few months old, I found myself wondering what she had been like as a little girl. Did she look like me (or, as the youngest, had I looked like her)? Would we have played well together, liked each other as children? We joked that we couldn’t possibly keep writing at this rate, but it became clear that neither of us wanted to slow down. We had nearly three decades’ worth of stories and confidences to cram into our correspondence, after all; it felt like there was no time to waste.
When you are growing up adopted, people like to tell you how lucky you are. Having learned the truth about my birth family, I couldn’t disagree. But it wasn’t so simple: there are many different kinds of luck; many different ways to be blessed or cursed. And if I had been lucky in the parents who raised me, maybe now I could be lucky again—I felt so happy that, for the rest of my life, these early days of motherhood would be inextricably linked with my first memories of Cindy.
I don’t know how you would have been treated if you’d stayed with us, Nikki, but I know your sisters would have loved you and tried to protect you. We would have shared things we could not share with our parents. We would have shared funny stories in those awful times. We would have promised each other that no one would get between us.
I often read her emails, sent from three hours behind, in the middle of the night while Abby nursed. If I wrote back to her in those hours, I knew I’d probably receive an answer before noon my time, sent before she left for work in the morning. While our letters couldn’t close the gap of geography and lost memory, the miles and the years between us, in snippets and snapshots I was getting to know her. She described herself as “shy,” but in writing, she wasn’t—and there was something in her directness and her curiosity that I found comforting and oddly familiar.
Early on, we both hinted at the possibility of a visit, but then never formed a solid plan—in part because I gave birth, in part because Cindy had to schedule her vacation from the medical clinic months in advance. When Abby was four or five months old, I realized I had yet to actually invite my sister and her husband to our house. I’d said things like We’d love to meet you and You’re always more than welcome to visit to both her and Jessica, and they weren’t just polite words; I meant them. But I had never offered specific dates or told Cindy when would be a good time for us. I had never asked her to look at her calendar and let me know what would work for her and Rick. I had never asked them to come, and she hadn’t asked if they could.
In the back of my mind, I’d begun to worry that perhaps she hadn’t asked because she didn’t want to meet me after all. My fear was not that Cindy would actively dislike me, but that she would decide she could do just as well without me—as, indeed, she had for most of her life. She hadn’t grown up, as I had, wishing or imagining that she had a sister. Her childhood had been about endurance, finding the strength to get through another day; and that, she’d explained, had made her into a survivor: someone who could, like and also unlike her parents, compartmentalize and leave people behind when needed. We can cut people off, she had once written, and not look back. We do what we have to do.
I wasn’t going to be content with emails and calls forever. But what if that was really all she wanted? Or what if we met in person and I disappointed her? She didn’t owe me anything; bonds that might have held us together over a lifetime had been broken, and we could rebuild them only through choice and mutual effort. Eventually the initial thrill of discovering her long-lost sister would fade, and then she would have to decide on a relationship with me based on me alone. I was sure I was not as good as she was, as strong as she was.
When I confessed my worry to Dan, though, he pointed at the dozens of emails in my growing “Cindy” folder. “She wouldn’t be writing to you every single day if she didn’t want to know you.”
Maybe, I thought then, my sister was waiting for me. Waiting for a sign, or at least an invitation. I thought of something Rick had written in an email, days after Cindy first contacted me. I have always felt that Cindy has never been given the love that she deserves. She was never given anything. Just like me, Cindy might be managing her expectations; Rick had said she was used to being let down. But I didn’t want her to fear that I would let her down, too.
We should plan that visit, I ventured one day. Do you want to fly out and stay with us?
Her reply landed in my inbox in a matter of hours. When can we come?
A month before her planned visit, and two days after my daughter’s first birthday, Cindy called to tell me she was pregnant. I don’t remember what I said after “Congratulations!” but I remember that my happiness—and her eagerness to share the news with me, the very day she learned she was pregnant—felt like a harbinger of the kind of relationship I hoped we’d have. “I’m going to be an aunt!” I told Dan, and then everyone else I knew.
Early in our correspondence, Cindy had told me she wasn’t sure she ever wanted children. I get pressure from my dad and stepmom to have a child, and sometimes it drives me crazy. She never genuinely believed she would end up like her mother, but it was hard to imagine having her own family after everything she had been through. Recalling my late-night call to my mother, the reassurance I’d pulled from her regarding my own capacity to love and care for my child, I could understand why Cindy was anxious.
In the months that followed our new connection, however—months during which the bulk of my correspondence included some news about Abby, and who she was becoming in her first year of life—Cindy admitted to feeling less certain. She had gone off the Pill. Every day, she said, I tell myself I am not our mom. I tell myself I will not make the same mistakes. Maybe I’ll give myself a chance if we do become pregnant. I couldn’t imagine her being anything but a wonderful parent, and—thinking of what my mother’s words had meant to me—I told her so.
Three days after she told me she was pregnant, Cindy went to the doctor and found out that her HCG levels were dropping. Probably a miscarriage, she was told.
But an ultrasound revealed something more alarming: an ectopic pregnancy. The doctor gave her a choice: she could take injections of methotrexate to end the pregnancy, or undergo laparoscopic surgery to remove the embryo from her fallopian tube. Cindy decided to try the former. After their loss, she told me, she and Rick knew they really did want to have a child, and the injections were the least invasive option.
I asked how she was, feeling helpless. Sad, she wrote, but I will be okay. I wished I could be there to help, or just be with her. It had been a wretched few days, Cindy said, but she and Rick had plenty of support. They were grieving, and they would get through this together.
She needed to have frequent lab draws to test her HCG levels and make sure they continued to fall, including one just before their trip out to see us. I promised I would understand if she and Rick decided to postpone their trip. I’ll be okay to travel, she insisted. We were two weeks out from her visit. I’ve been looking forward to this for too long.
The day before they were to leave, Rick called me early in the morning. It was five a.m. in Portland, I realized. I answered with dread that I tried to keep out of my voice.
The previous afternoon, Cindy had gone back to her ob-gyn and learned that the injections of methotrexate had failed to resolve the ectopic pregnancy. Her doctor insisted she couldn’t travel as she was; she needed to be closely monitored until they were certain the pregnancy had ended and she was in no danger. Cindy asked if she could go on the trip if she had the surgery instead.
Theoretically, she was told with raised eyebrows, though it would be better to postpone and give the injections a chance to work. They’d been treating Cindy for weeks; this was the first they’d heard about travel plans. Yes, the pregnancy needed to end, but this seemed rash. “Can’t you just postpone your vacation?” the nurse asked.
Cindy f
elt angry now, but she didn’t want to argue with the nurse. She directed her plea to the doctor, who had always struck her as capable and kind. “Listen,” she said, “this isn’t just any vacation. This is really important.”
The doctor asked for the room. When they were alone, she said, “Tell me more.”
So Cindy told her about the sister who had been adopted, the one she had long believed dead. They had been planning this visit for months. Cindy might not be able to take another full week off until the following year. “I just feel like this might be my one shot,” she said. “I have to go.”
That meant she had to have surgery tonight.
The ob-gyn couldn’t pretend she was pleased by the prospect of her patient leaving on a cross-country trip immediately after surgery, but she agreed to scrub up. It was midnight by the time the ectopic pregnancy was removed, via the laparoscopic surgery Cindy had so hoped to avoid. Afterward, the nurse tried again: “You know you shouldn’t go on this trip. We can’t monitor you from across the country.”
But the doctor could see that Cindy was committed to going, even if they could not guarantee her safety. Rick was to bring Cindy’s painkillers, watch her closely, take her to urgent care if necessary. They were to call and get help immediately if any one of half a dozen symptoms occurred.
“Of course we want to see you both, but Cindy just had surgery!” I said after Rick told me what had happened. “You know we’d understand if you wanted to wait.”
“She says we can’t. It’d be too hard for her to get more time off.” This was only the second or third time we’d ever spoken, but he sounded so weary.
“What did the doctor say?”
Rick laughed a little. “Oh, the doctor’s not happy.” He still sounded worried, but another note had crept into his voice—one of resignation, determined calm. He wanted to reassure me, I realized. He had already accepted his wife’s decision. “Cin made it really clear that she’s going. I will be her walking pharmacy.”
As much as I wanted to see them, see her, I tried one more time. “You don’t have to do this. Cindy shouldn’t put her health at risk. Maybe we can come and see you instead, once she’s—”
“Nikki. Do you have any idea how stubborn your sister is? Oh, I guess you don’t.” My brother-in-law laughed again, this time sounding more like the jovial man I’d spoken with before—the one who had emailed me days into my long-distance acquaintance with Cindy, to relay history and friendly jokes and what I only later recognized as a thinly veiled warning. He had wanted me to understand how special Cindy was—and that she was no longer alone, in case it turned out I wanted something she shouldn’t have to give. He wanted me to know that he was looking out for her.
“I’ll make sure she gets to you in one piece,” Rick promised. “We will see you soon.”
The discussion, I understood, was over. Not because of Rick, or because of me, but because the iron will of my still-sleeping sister had imposed itself. None of us were looking back now. See, that’s one thing you have in common already, Dan would say later, when I told him the visit was still on. She’s as stubborn as you are.
Confined to our porch by a steady spring shower, I gazed out from under the eaves and watched a car go by. Another car that wasn’t theirs. I considered going back inside, waiting patiently with my husband and daughter, but allowing Cindy to walk up to the door and ring our bell like a stranger would require an unthinkable level of calm.
Rick had texted me briefly, letting me know they had arrived, but he hadn’t mentioned how the flights had gone or how Cindy was faring after the long day of travel. Given that she had been in the operating room only the day before yesterday, I couldn’t help but worry that the trip had been too much for her, too soon. Still, worry couldn’t compete with my nerves or excitement—any moment now, their rental car would be pulling up to our house, and I would finally see my sister.
A car appeared around the bend in the road, driving slowly, headlights on, windshield wipers swishing. When it turned into our driveway, I bounded from the porch and ran out to meet them without a raincoat or umbrella. I caught my first glimpse of Cindy’s face through the passenger window, her features blurred on the other side of the rain-streaked glass, and for an instant I could almost imagine that I was gazing at my own reflection in a strange, enchanted mirror.
Then her door swung open and our arms were around each other.
Remembering her stitches, I tried not to grip too tightly—but I couldn’t seem to let go of her. Fat raindrops dotted my red sweater, mingled with the moisture on my face. I didn’t care that I was getting wet. All I could think was that I was just weeks away from turning twenty-eight, and I was hugging my big sister for the first time.
I don’t know how long we held on before I pulled back to look at her, trying to read pain or exhaustion in her face. The trip must have been awful for her, but she wasn’t complaining; she seemed glad to be here. I saw no regret on her face, but there was, perhaps, just a hint of the same trepidation I felt. Like me, Cindy was dressed in long sleeves and jeans, her zip-up jacket a deep purple that I knew by now was one of her favorite colors. She kept it on when we went into the house, though even with the rain it was a warm spring day; eventually she would admit to me that she was always cold.
Our eyes, I saw up close, looked to be about the same hue. Her hair was perhaps a shade closer to true black than mine, fewer dark browns mixed in, but from a distance it would appear the same color. When she smiled, especially, she was more beautiful than I had ever believed myself to be.
Rick and I hugged, too, and once inside we had another round of hugs with Dan and Abby. My daughter, usually so shy among strangers, basked in the attention. Dan was quietly happy for us, grinning in his usual way; Rick appeared to be almost quivering with excitement, holding back to give Cindy and me a chance to fill the initial silence ourselves.
But someone else couldn’t pick up on the cues in the room, and didn’t realize what this moment meant. As soon as Cindy sat down on the light blue sofa, Abby began bringing her toys to admire and well-chewed board books to read aloud. Usually it took our daughter several hours if not days to warm up to new people, to refrain from fussing if they tried to pick her up. Yet she hesitated only seconds before plopping down next to Cindy, smiling shyly while her aunt read to her. I could tell my sister was charmed.
“She likes you, Cin,” Rick told her. “Maybe it’s because you look exactly like her mom.”
Not exactly. I could not help but correct him, though I only did so silently. Still, it was true that Abby had never seen anyone who resembled me as much as Cindy. As I watched her read, I suddenly found myself thinking, somewhat nonsensically, My sister has freckles.
They were a surprise. Why were they a surprise? I suppose I hadn’t spotted the pale brown freckles in any of the photos. All I’d ever had were scattered birthmarks: tiny chocolate-brown dots on my cheeks, a larger one on my chin, a few more up and down my arms. My sister had those, too, plenty of them, but she also had a dusting of real freckles on her face. They’re adorable, I thought.
I wondered if Abby might end up having freckles, too.
The differences didn’t end there. From pictures, I already knew that Cindy’s face was slightly rounder than mine, her cheekbones more prominent, her nose a tad narrower, her eyes not so wide-set. Many of her features were just close enough to mine to clearly point to our connection, but not so close that we would ever be mistaken for each other. She was thinner, and I was taller, though we’d already ascertained that we wore the same size. Cindy’s less-hurried movements made me feel rushed and overlarge and awkward next to her.
It was the difference in our voices that struck me most. We had spoken on the phone before, so perhaps I should have been prepared for it, but in person—maybe because she was tired, or because she was still recovering from her surgery—Cindy was even more soft-spoken; I imagined I’d had thoughts louder than some of her words. She did
n’t strike me as meek or passive, just quiet—and, like Dan, more accustomed to watching and listening than speaking without thought, as I did far too often. When she did interject a word here or there, her voice was far less direct or excitable than her husband’s or mine.
I must seem so loud and brash to her, I thought, falling silent.
Was I too much for her? I doubted that Cindy was expecting to find a calm or demure person after the year we’d spent corresponding. Still, I wondered if I would annoy her; if she would even like me by the time the week was out.
For my part, I liked her natural reserve—it was part of who she was. But that made it difficult to tell how she was feeling, whereas I felt sure my emotions had to be obvious, raw as they were and close to surface. Should I say something about it, openly acknowledge the tension in the room instead of reaching for small talk? Or would that just overwhelm her?
Much as I had looked forward to meeting my sister, I still didn’t know what to expect now that she had arrived. I couldn’t pretend there was anything typical about this. When I decided to try to reunite with my birth family, I was given no guide for what to do or say the first time we saw each other. What if, for all our shared genes, we had nothing in common? What if my adoption and all the years of separation proved too great a distance for curiosity and good intentions to bridge?
I’m so sorry they never told you about me. It must have come as the biggest shock.
You don’t have to apologize to me, Nikki. I was upset when I found out, because I think they should have told us. But I’m so thankful to know that you’re alive.
“He can sound like a clock. He can tick, he can tock . . .”
Cindy had been at our house for half an hour and was still mostly focused on Abby. They were on their second board book. From across the room, Dan caught my eye and gave me a small smile. When Cindy finished reading, Abby slid to the floor and then pulled herself up on the bed across the room, the one Dan and I had wrestled downstairs from the guest room to the living room so that my sister would not have to go up and down the stairs.