By the time Michael was three, he could name more than twenty birds in the field guide, and by age four, another twenty, including “flingoes.” His goal was to see a roadrunner “because they’re so funny-looking.” He knew kingfishers were “Mommy’s favourite bird” and “Daddy’s name is the same as the robins.” He often asked to listen to tapes of bird songs we bought to help him get to sleep at night. And best of all, he loved to play “baby robin” with me, an activity I invented while watching a mother robin feed worms to her fledglings. As mother robin, I dangled a lifelike multicoloured gelatinous gummy worm candy from my mouth to baby robin, Michael. Baby robin Michael would then open wide so Mommy could feed baby. It was a real hit.
Michael’s ability to identify and name birds from such a young age was astonishing. After one of our walks I said to Robin, “Maybe we should be teaching him how to pick stocks instead of guessing bird calls. You know, something useful.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Only a little. Maybe it’s possible to make a kid interested in whatever it is you want. If so, maybe we should work on practical stuff. People program their kids all the time with stuff they think will make them smart, talented or rich.”
Robin was incredulous. He gave me the look I have learned means “Are you talking about someone else’s kid or Michael?”
“We’ve been lucky with birds,” he said. “Don’t push it. For whatever reason, Michael is interested in birds. That’s why it worked. You know we can’t get him to pay attention to anything else we talk about. He loves being outside and he loves birds. Enjoy it.”
What made these birding moments so special was that Michael lived in his own dimension most of the time. Though it didn’t usually allow Robin, Sarah or me in, I took comfort thinking it was a pleasant place for him to be. When really young, he was always busy, banging away on something, building something, climbing into wastebaskets, drawers or cubby holes in blanket folds or piles of clothes — places where he obviously felt safe and cosy, just like when he was a baby. As he got older, he would retreat into his own (small) bedroom with the door closed, another cocoon of sorts.
Michael usually flitted from one activity to another, but sporadically struck upon something that absorbed him — so much so that you couldn’t get his attention without a serious squabble. It was usually when he was building with his hands, oftentimes with blocks or Lego or making origami frogs. Because of his otherwise general frenzy, several people suggested Michael might have ADD, attention deficit disorder. But his keen ability to focus from time to time with such vengeance made us all think that wasn’t the case.
Sarah was different. Even when she was small, she was curious, especially about people, knowing how to charm them and make “contact” with them.
At home, she’d contentedly play with her toys, books and stuffed animals. I would check in with little chats, smiles and caresses, but she just seemed happy knowing I was orbiting in her sphere. Little Buddha Girl we called her because of her general sunny, peaceful glow. As she got older, we also called her Sarah Bernhardt, after the great actress. Sarah was all of that too.
Michael wasn’t impressed with her theatrics, though. One day just when Sarah began to crawl, she headed straight for our front door. It looked like she was on her way out. Seeing this, Michael responded with great glee: “Look Ma, it’s leaving.” Not “her,” “it.”
By the time Sarah was four, she was already figuring out how to ingratiate herself into people’s hearts. That was the year she publicly affirmed there was something special about her. It happened while we were going to Detroit to visit my sister and family during the Christmas holidays. An immigration officer on the U.S. side of the border between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan stopped us.
“Everyone’s ID, please,” the officer said.
I passed him two adult passports and the children’s birth certificates. The officer looked at our passports without comment, then took one look at Sarah’s papers and burst out laughing. The next thing we knew his head was inside Robin’s open window, straining to see into the back seat. He wanted a better look at Sarah.
“You gotta be kidding,” he said. “Your name is Sarah Christmas and you were born on Christmas? Well, you’ve just made my day. What were the chances of that?” He was shaking his head in bemused amazement.
Sarah knew he was talking about her, and was clearly enjoying the attention, yet we weren’t sure she understood exactly what the fuss was about. Then she suddenly chimed in, unprompted, sounding like a wound-up Chatty Cathy doll, and said to the officer, “Yes, my name is Sarah Christmas and I was born on Christmas Day.” She delivered her one-liner with such confidence and timing, we all broke into laughter.
The next few years were filled with similar scenarios, especially at Christmastime. By the age of six, she had figured out that she could get even better reactions by adding one more detail when answering questions about herself. She called these details “my coincidences.” For example, one day we were in a downtown bank opening up a savings account for Sarah. When the manager scanned the application form I had just filled out, she looked at Sarah with a huge grin on her face and said, “Really, your name is Sarah Christmas and you were born on Christmas Day?”
I waited to hear Sarah’s usual pat response, but instead she said, “Yes, I’m Sarah Christmas, I was born on Christmas Day … and I’m Jewish.”
8.
The Secrets and Lies of Adopted Realities
Toronto Island, 1990
I WAS STANDING in front of the bathroom mirror doing a last minute run-through of my after-dinner speech, already dressed in my bridesmaid’s gown. “Six years ago to the day,” I began, “my husband Robin and I took vows to love one another in good times and bad, just as Lynn and Don did today…” I stopped, as I had on two previous takes.
I yelled for Robin to come upstairs.
“I’m a mess,” I said. “I can’t avoid talking to her. We’re both giving speeches. I’m right after her. And besides, it wouldn’t be right to avoid her. She’s Don’s daughter.”
After living together for six years, our friend Lynn was tying the knot with her partner Don at St. Andrew-on-the Lake Anglican Church on the Island. I was truly happy for them. I just wasn’t happy for myself. Because guess who was coming for dinner — or should I say wedding? Michael’s birth mother.
I had done reasonably well avoiding her up until this day. My scorecard wasn’t perfect, though. I had dodged Kira several times during Michael’s first two years when she had come to visit her dad on the Island, but recently ran into her as I was getting on the ferry with Michael. Fortunately, only minutes earlier, my friend Barbara had taken him from me because I was having trouble wrangling a crying Michael, six-month-old Sarah and bags of groceries. Preoccupied with my logistical mayhem, I hadn’t noticed Kira. But she noticed me.
“Hi, you’re Linda, aren’t you?” she said, walking up to me. She was small and thin, with short reddish hair. She had a few freckles dotting her face and a very perky, childlike demeanour. “I’m Kira, Don’s daughter. We met a few years ago at my dad’s.”
Barbara, having figured out whom I was talking to, made a hasty beeline with Michael to the other side of the boat.
I was tongue-tied mortified. Mustering hidden thespian skills, I smiled and said. “Sure, I remember you, Kira. Your dad often talks about you. Coming for a visit?”
“Yeah. The Island’s a good place to take it easy,” she said, bubbly and cheerful. “Did they tell you I’m pregnant?”
A brick just landed on my forehead. Pregnant? Another baby? Number four? You already have three you’re not raising. What are you thinking? Oh, right, you’re not.
“Congratulations,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Great, thanks, everything’s good.”
“Well, good luck. I’m sure we’ll see each other again before the baby’s born.”
Again was in two hours, at Lynn and Don’s weddi
ng. I was sick about it. It meant more phony-baloney yakkety-yak. Kira was so charming and friendly, it was disarming. I’ll be making sweet talk to someone who doesn’t know I’M RAISING HER BABY, now three years old. I’ll be keeping a huge, monumental secret while staring right at the person to whom I’m lying, and all the while thinking bad thoughts, wondering why she’s having another baby.
Who is this person I’d become? I didn’t like this me and wasn’t looking forward to hearing each insincere word I was about to sputter within a few hours.
The wedding was beautiful, and so was Lynn, wearing my wedding gown, a nice parallel since we both married on September 14. Hers 1990, mine six years before.
Kira gave a delightful tribute to Lynn and her dad, emphasizing how happy she was that he had found someone special to love. I then gave my speech. After the speeches, Kira came over to my table and tapped me on my shoulder.
“I loved your speech, Linda. You spoke so well. I was really nervous and forgot to say half of the things I planned,” she added, giggling nervously. I reassured her that she had done beautifully. She honestly had. There was something so seemingly innocent and charming about Kira, I could almost imagine her sprinkling pixie dust around the room and onto the newlyweds.
“I’m sure your dad was very proud to see you up there,” I added. We both stood there, silent, until Kira spoke again.
“I’m really glad you’re such a good friend of Lynn’s,” she said. “She’s very special. I guess this means you’re now part of my extended family.”
Robin, sitting across the table from me, had been watching our interchange with hawk eyes. Hearing Kira’s last words, he sprang up and came to the rescue.
He put out his hand out to Kira and said, “We haven’t met. I’m Linda’s husband, Robin.”
With a lovely, warm smile, Kira shook Robin’s hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you. I guess that means you’re extended family as well.”
I don’t know why it happens, but in moments of great emotion, the most descriptive word I often find to explain how I feel is in Yiddish. Go figure. I don’t really speak the language. But in this case, the word that came to mind was plotz, the definition being “to be aggravated beyond bearing; to collapse or faint.” The word was perfect. I thought I was going to plotz.
In my head, I was thinking, “Kira, we’re already extended family. We’re raising your child. And the new baby you’re going to deliver will make us even more extended. He or she will have a half-brother, our son, the other son you gave birth to, three years ago. Is this extended family enough for you?”
“That’s a lovely thing to say, Kira. Yes, extended family.”
Three months after Lynn and Don’s wedding, Kira gave birth. She was twenty-six. She and her partner decided to raise the child they named Andrew, now the third blood-related half-sibling my son had floating around in the world.
A few months later, Lynn received a late-night phone call. “We’ve been told you’re Kira’s next of kin,” the voice said at the other end. “She was wandering around inebriated in a mall, with her son in a stroller. We’ve picked her up. Come get them.” It was the police.
Within a few months, the police called again. Same story. Then another call. Eventually, Children’s Aid was brought in to keep tabs on Kira, her drinking and Andrew’s well-being. Upgrading Kira and Eddie’s parenting skills was high on their agenda. Maybe Kira would have been better able to look after Andrew if he was an easy child, but he wasn’t. He was difficult.
Kira and Eddie held tight in their desire to raise Andrew, so by necessity, Lynn and Don were continuously looking out for Andrew’s welfare and supporting Kira and Eddie in some form or other. They kept Andrew for days at a time; took him to doctor’s appointments, gave financial assistance; acted as role models and were forever troubleshooting.
A little over one year later, and still in the midst of this steady maelstrom, Kira announced that she was pregnant again. Baby #5, same father. I was so sickened, I harboured fantasies of asking the police to pick her up and put her in a cell until the baby was born, to keep her out of trouble. Thoughts of politically incorrect forced sterilization also crossed my mind.
The pregnancy didn’t change Kira. She was still running loose with Andrew in tow. Another call came in from Children’s Aid. Kira was wandering the streets again with Andrew, drunk — what Lynn referred to as Wandering Under the Influence (WUI).
Children’s Aid issued an ultimatum to Don and Lynn: “Come pick Andrew up,” they said. “He either lives with you permanently, or we’re putting him directly into foster care.” By this time, Andrew was sixteen months old.
It was not exactly what the professional working couple had in mind for their future. As far as Don was concerned, he was finished with childrearing. In his sixties, and having problems with his health, he felt he deserved to have another life at this late stage. But for Lynn, no question. Planned or not, Andrew was family. He was coming to live with them. Full stop.
One month before the next baby was due, Kira’s partner left. Because she had now lost custody of Andrew, and with no father to help her raise the next child, she decided to give up Baby Boy #5. As she had given up Michael.
After Kira gave birth, the medical staff at the hospital checked Baby #5 for possible problems and found him “harm free.” The adopting parents picked up their new son. I said to Robin, “I have an idea for a documentary you could make in a few years. It’s a little sick, but bear with me. We rent a hall, plan a Thanksgiving meal, invite Kira and her babies’ fathers, all of her kids, their respective parents, grandparents, partners and siblings. You just put a camera on a tripod and roll film.” I, of course, didn’t want to be within five hundred miles of the place.
Andrew’s birth didn’t initially pose major problems for the Rosenbaum-Christmas household. Kira came to the Island for the odd visit to the grandparents and, as before, we kept our distance. But with Lynn and Don taking custody of Andrew, he was now living just blocks away. Kira was coming often to visit, sometimes planned, sometimes not. Things were starting to get messy.
I knew that most families had secrets in their family histories, some inconsequential, some life-shattering, but do they all have people they hide as well as hide from?
Maybe keeping secrets and telling lies was inevitable in certain families. I was no longer seeing things like the ten-year-old child I once was, saying, “No Secrets. No Lies” after learning about my grandmother. Perhaps Kira should know we were raising Michael? But if we told her, how could we keep the boys separated? What would we tell Michael? And do we then tell Michael and Andrew that they’re brothers?
Maybe secrets and lies do serve a purpose. At least for a while.
When Andrew moved to the Island, we realized immediately it was impossible to keep him apart from Michael and Sarah. Lynn and I were visiting back and forth at each other’s houses with the kids. They were at Yolanda’s together. Lynn and I took the kids to the beach. Lynn and Andrew would be coming to our next Chanukah party. We’d be invited to their house to decorate their Christmas tree. Immediately upon Andrew’s arrival, Lynn was at our door, Andrew in tow, seeking hand-me-downs, company, solace, comfort and parental advice.
On the surface this was fine. Nice for the boys, nice for Sarah. But what were we going to do about the nature of the boys’ relationship with one another? It wouldn’t be an issue for a while because they were so young when Andrew first arrived, but they were now growing up together. If Andrew knew Michael was his half-brother, wouldn’t he start talking to Kira about him as he grew older? Yes, he would. And this would not be a good thing.
None of this was part of the deal we made with Kira. And we wanted to keep that deal. We also didn’t want Kira to become part of Michael’s life, and certainly not ours. But we hadn’t counted on a little boy named Andrew living down the street from us, being part of the deal either.
After much thought and discussion, Lynn and Don and Robin and I decided we shou
ldn’t tell the boys they were brothers. For now.
Soon after Andrew’s arrival on their doorstep, Lynn took him to Michael’s pediatrician for a full examination. After the physical, the doctor asked Lynn to come into his office.
“Mum drank?” he asked.
“Yes. From what we see now, she seems to be a binge drinker.”
“I’m going to refer you to SickKids. I suspect fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).”
Lynn looked at him blankly. She didn’t have a clue what that meant.
9.
Special Needs Son, Special Needs Family
Toronto Island, 1993
ROBIN WAS HOME FROM WORK one morning when the phone rang. “Can you get it?” he asked, “I’m making coffee.”
“No,” I said, “it might be the school. You talk this time. I’m sick of handling everything myself.”
It was like every other morning I was home from work. I’d lie in wait, as if a bomb were about to detonate. When it did, in the form of a phone call from Michael’s public school principal, my shoulders tightened and I’d feel as if I was about to explode. I dreaded hearing the sound of her voice once again telling me Michael had done something “bad.”
When he was six, Michael entered Grade One in the public school system after successfully completing two years of preschool and one year of kindergarten at the Island’s Montessori School. Each morning after Robin dropped Sarah off at Yolanda’s on his way to work, I embroiled myself in the usual struggle getting Michael up, washed, dressed and fed. Mission accomplished, I’d get him out the door and we’d walk hand-in-hand to the path at the bottom of the Algonquin bridge, where I’d lie in wait until the school bus picked him up for the one-mile ride to the Island Public School. I’d come home, get back into bed, stuff my head under a pillow and wait for the phone to ring. More often than not, it did. The complaints went like this:
Not Exactly As Planned Page 13