Family Secrets

by Zina Abbott

  “I do understand what it’s like to believe something to be real all your life only to find out later that things are not what they seem. I know what it is like to have your life turned upside down, and then, whether you want to or not, you need to sort through your feelings in order to decide what you are going to think and do about what is real.”

  Chapter 9 – Christy

  I was awarded a music scholarship for Sacramento State College, or Sac State, as it was known to the locals. I wish I could say I was excited about it, but I wasn’t. I really wanted to go to a big university back east. I wanted to see another part of the country other than the boring central valley of California. I even would have settled for San Francisco. But, my parents said going to a big school out-of-state would have to wait because of the extra housing and tuition expenses the scholarship did not cover. I knew that what they really wanted was for me to spend my first two years still living at home. Not only was it cheaper for them, I really don’t think they thought I was ready to make it on my own out in the world. I can’t tell you how much I fought my feelings of resentment.

  In the end, money was the deciding factor. Even I could see that. Although the state college was a bargain compared to out-of-state universities, the tuition was climbing steeply as California struggled to overcome the 1980’s recession. So, I reconciled myself to the idea of living at home by telling myself that at least I was starting at a four-year college instead of a junior college.

  My parents paid for my books and bought a car for me to use. I started a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant near the house the summer after high school to pay for my gas and insurance, my own clothes and personal items. I was also saving toward the extra costs of going away to college starting in my junior year. Away, as in, someplace other than California.

  I never made it past my sophomore year. Nor did I make it out of the state.

  Once I started my classes, I found work as a waitress at a coffee shop close to the Arden Mall. It was a much nicer atmosphere to work in than fast food. The area was surrounded by professional offices and frequented by well-dressed people who ate lunch out often. The tips were good and that allowed me enough extra pay to afford to shop regularly at the nearby mall.

  It was at the restaurant that I met Rob. His hazel eyes, his dark hair in the style of a professional man and his light complexion appealed to me. He was not overly tall. His manner was quietly pleasant, not that overbearing life-of-the-party personality that tended to turn me off. His dress shirt and slacks, complete with a stylish color-coordinated tie, branded him as someone who worked in the area. He and two or sometimes three similarly-dressed men came to the restaurant at least once a week.

  The first time I waited on the group was in the spring, during my second semester. That semester, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I had one class, first thing in the morning, and another late in the afternoon. That left me free to work the lunch shift at the restaurant.

  Rob and his co-workers all gently flirted with me in the way I had quickly learned was a tactic many men used to get the attention of a pretty woman. In one respect, I felt flattered. In another, I made a point to not encourage it. The ringleader, I noticed, was the one wearing the wedding band. I smiled and responded in a non-offensive way. I stuck to the business of taking orders and serving food. Then I moved away from the table as quickly as I could. I had no personal interest in them. Serving them was part of my job. Good tips depended on giving good and prompt service to all my customers.

  Besides, they were not my future. My future was in music and what I was learning to do with my voice at the college.

  It was a few weeks later that I realized that each time that bunch came to the restaurant, Rob made a point to steer the group to my area so I would be the one to wait on them. I didn’t mind. Even though putting up with their banter was part of the job, for the lunch crowd, they tipped well.

  This went on for several weeks until the day came that Rob left the restaurant, then returned alone a few moments later. I remember that I was at the cash register ringing up another customer’s order. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and worried I had made a mistake on their bill. When I was finished at the register, I held my breath and turned toward him. I was floored when he introduced himself and asked if he could take me out on a date sometime.

  I was caught completely off-guard. He didn’t wear a wedding band, but I remember I blurting out something like, “I don’t think so. I don’t know you.” Even though I was between boyfriends, I was still getting over being angry at the way the last one had been seeing someone else behind my back. I didn’t know anything about this man who ate at the restaurant. The last thing I wanted to do was to get involved with a customer from work, even though he seemed nice enough.

  “I understand,” he countered. “See you around.”

  That Friday, he came by himself during the dinner shift. He made a point to see what tables I was working and he asked the hostess to seat him where I would wait on him. He was very pleasant and, without detaining me, he tried to carry on as much of a conversation as possible with me each time I stopped by his table. He made a point of letting me know he was single.

  When it came time for me to bring him his check, he asked, “So, how are we going to do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “How are we going to get to know one another better so that maybe you might consider going on a date with me sometime? Do you know someone who can introduce us?”

  I shrugged, not sure how to answer. I guess since I didn’t immediately say no, he felt encouraged. He quickly continued.

  “Can I meet you after work?”

  “I close tonight. It would be too late.”

  I had no intention of meeting up with a complete stranger late on a Friday night. Well, he was not a complete stranger. He was polite and pleasant enough, but I still had no idea what kind of a person he really was. I wasn’t about to set myself up for a predator or someone looking for a one night stand.

  I did agree to meet him in the food court at the mall the following afternoon after the lunch shift.

  At the mall, we ended up talking for hours as we walked through the department stores. I was surprised how much I learned about him just by what he had to say about the different kinds of merchandise. He bought me an early dinner there at the food court. I was home before dark.

  My first real date with him, the one where Rob first picked me up at the house, met my parents and endured Dad’s scrutiny, was the time he first took me to Old Sacramento. That was already one of my favorite places in Sacramento to visit. However, after I went there the first time with Rob, going there took on an even greater significance in my life.

  Nothing spectacular happened, but I think I will always remember that date. We strolled through the little gift shops. I especially liked showing him through the post office car in the railroad museum, dwelling on the details of how the mail was moved in an earlier time period. I was always fascinated by this rail car because of my father. Dad worked for the Post Office. From the time I was little, this was always his favorite rail car. He would tell me how they used to sort the mail in the olden days and in what ways the work on the mail car was the same or different than his job. Of course, that was when he was a letter carrier. By the time I met Rob, Dad was a postmaster.

  Afterward, Rob and I grabbed a hamburger. Then we went to the show. It was, to me, the perfect date.

  He knew how to get in good with my Dad, too. Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I had argued the curfew issue with my parents. I pointed out to them that, although I was still living at home, I should no longer be required to hold to the high school curfew time. Dad still held to the opinion that being out past midnight led to nothing but trouble. Without me saying anything, Rob had me home before midnight that first night. I knew by that one act alone, he had favorably impressed my father.

  From that point on I was hopelessly in love. I never dated anyone else. On Christmas Eve, Ro
b asked me to marry him. I didn’t even hesitate. Instead of saying yes, I asked him, “When?”

  Mom was thrilled when I showed her and Dad my engagement ring. Dad was more reserved, but I knew he approved. Even Kenny, then an awkward high school freshman, approved him with a “thumbs up” and a “Right on, Dude!” Mom confided to me later that she was so happy I had found someone local. One of her fears about me going away to college was that I might meet and marry someone who would move me clear to the other side of the country.

  Rob and I planned for a June wedding, mostly because Mom insisted it would take that long to get everything ready. It was so important to her that it be a perfect day for me and Rob. I also suspected that part of the reason was my parents’ concern that I finish my spring semester of college.

  That was a legitimate concern that I did not appreciate until later in life. I’m not sure when it happened, but gradually my focus did change. At one point early in the spring semester, I realized that music was no longer the driving force in my life. I planned to continue at Sac State up until the time I missed the deadline for paying tuition. I became more interested in bridal magazines and the advertisers featuring color pictures of apartments for rent. By early May, it was all I could do to finish my lower division classes with decent grades since I was so engrossed with planning for my future with Rob.

  For the first time in my life, I became interested in my own parents’ wedding. My mother put on an act like she was willing to talk about it, but sometimes I got the impression that she was choosing her words carefully.

  “We didn’t have a big wedding and reception like you are planning,” Mom told me. “We went to Reno to get married.”

  “Did you elope?”

  “No, but we kept it small. Once we decided to get married, we made arrangements at a little wedding chapel up there and invited family members and a few close friends. Those who could make it came.”

  “What about a reception, Mom? Did you have one up there or did you wait and have one when you came back home?”

  “After the wedding we all went to the Silver Nugget and had dinner together. That was our reception, I guess. Afterward, I don’t know where the rest of the wedding party went, but we spent our wedding night at the hotel. We came home the next day. We really had a wonderful time.”

  “That sounds romantic,” I remember saying politely, secretly happy that my own wedding and reception were going to be different. “What about a honeymoon?”

  “We really didn’t have a honeymoon. All we had was Saturday night which we spent up in Reno. I had to be back to work the following Monday.”

  I remember thinking how sad it was that my parents did not even get a few days away for a honeymoon. Rob and I planned on a full week of honeymoon traveling along the coast.

  “Do you at least have wedding pictures?” asked hopefully, realizing I had no recollection of ever seeing a wedding album.

  “Of course,” Mom replied. “Not many, though. We did have a portrait taken at the wedding chapel but most of the pictures we have were taken by your Aunt Pat. She gave us copies.”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing your wedding pictures, Mom. May I see them?”

  “Sure,” Mom replied. “They’re put away, but I’ll look for them.”

  It took three more reminders over two weeks before she told me she had found them. It was on a weekday and Dad was still at work, so it was just her and me. She brought them out from her bedroom and we sat at the table in the kitchen nook to look at them.

  The first picture was an eight by ten portrait. My father wore a suit and wide tie with a carnation boutonniere. Mom wore a cream-colored suit with a matching hat and veil. In her hand she held a bouquet of blue and white carnations.

  “Oh, I remember that picture,” I exclaimed. “It was hanging on the living room wall in that big walnut frame that we now use for the family portrait. You didn’t have an actual wedding dress, did you? And it was not really white, was it?”

  “It was off-white, and Shantung silk. I was too practical-minded, I guess. I didn’t have a lot of money, and I wanted something I could wear for more than just my wedding. As it turns out, we didn’t have the money to go very many places where I could wear it, so it probably didn’t matter that I was trying to be practical,” laughed Mom. “I think I wore it only once or twice afterward.”

  “Let me see the other pictures,” I begged as I held out my hand.

  Instead of handing the stack to me, Mom held the photographs in her hand and described each one just before she handed them to me, one at a time. We laughed and exclaimed over the older clothing and hair styles and the younger faces of family members I recognized.

  I remember noticing that occasionally Mom would glance at a picture before moving it to the back of the pile without showing it to me. At first I wondered if they were duds. The bad thing about film pictures is that you can’t delete them from the camera like you can the digital ones. The duds got developed along with the good ones.

  But, it turned out that was not the case with these pictures.

  When the pile in Mom’s hand was down to the last few pictures, she tapped the edge of the pictures on the palm of her free hand. I remember she looked away, as if debating about something. After what seemed like an eternity to me, Mom spoke.

  “Christy, honey, you do know, don’t you, that I’m not your biological mother, right?”

  I felt like I had been hit with a power ram. No, I didn’t know. I stared at her, speechless.

  Mom continued, obviously nervous as she chattered, “As far as I’m concerned, you are my daughter, and you are the only daughter I have ever wanted. I mean, even without all that zero population growth business that was so popular back then, once I had you, and then later your brother was born, I knew my family was complete. I love both of you children very much.”

  I felt numb. My thoughts were racing. I was not able to put everything together at that point, but I began to sense that this revelation may contain the answers to the small incongruities in my life that at times had puzzled me.

  An even more horrifying thought popped into my brain.

  “Does that mean Dad isn’t my biological father either? Was I adopted?”

  “No,” Mom shook her head. “Your father is your biological father. This is what I want to show you. You have been with your father and me from the beginning of our marriage.”

  Mom handed me one of the pictures she had held aside. It showed my parents in their wedding clothes in the same chapel as in some of the other snapshots. In this picture they were holding a little girl about two years old. She was wearing a long baby blue dress. I studied the little girl, moving the snapshot to catch the full light of the sun coming in the breakfast nook window. Her long blonde hair was in loose ringlets.

  The little girl was me. She was the same age and looked like the same child that was in the toddler portrait that used to hang on the living room wall until it was replaced with a portrait of me as a five year-old holding baby Kenny.

  “This is you, Christy,” Mom confirmed my suspicions. “You were at our wedding. And here is another picture of you closer up.” She continued quickly.

  I saw that my eyes were definitely blue. The dress, no doubt, had been selected to bring out the color of my eyes. I briefly wondered if it was just a coincidence, or if that was the reason Mom had chosen blue as her wedding color.

  As Mom showed me the last three pictures of me with my family at the wedding, I noticed that her hands trembled. My own insides churned and tumbled as I struggled to absorb this new information about my young life. I took each picture in turn, feeling like I was moving in perpetual slow motion.

  “What happened to my real mother?” I finally asked after several minutes of silence. I watched Mom wince. I knew my words hurt her. I tried to feel bad that I had not mimicked her use of “biological mother,” but I couldn’t do it. This revelation was just too painful for me. My entire understanding of my family was shatt
ered. My confidence about my place in it had quickly crumbled away.

  “Your biological mother left your father when you were a baby,” Mom explained. “You were with her most of the time until just before your father and I married.”

  “So, I wasn’t adopted,” I stated, seeking confirmation to my earlier question, still trying to sort things out.

  “Yes, you were. You were adopted by me. Your father and I did a single-parent adoption.”

  “I have a lot of friends whose parents have been divorced, but hardly any of them were adopted by a step-parent.”

  “We felt it may prevent legal problems down the road.”

  “What kind of legal problems?” I asked. Legal problems like my real mother coming back to reclaim me? I wondered.

  “Oh, things like dealing with doctors and hospitals or government issues. For example, when we went to get your driver’s license, I could sign giving permission as a parent because my name was on your birth certificate.”

  I remembered going with her to apply for my learner’s permit. I recalled that at the time, I briefly looked at my birth certificate, then handed it back. Then it was just a piece of legal paper that only mildly interested me and only because my name was on it.

  “I thought they gave you your birth certificate when you were born,” I said, wrinkling my forehead. I felt very confused.

  “They do,” Mom confirmed. “But when there is an adoption, especially of a young child, they issue a new amended birth certificate with the name of the adoptive parents. The information on the original birth certificate is sealed.”

  At that point, I felt a desire to look at my birth certificate more closely. I wondered if Mom would put me off about it like she had with her and Dad’s wedding pictures.

  “Rob and I are going to need our birth certificates to get our marriage license,” I hinted.