by S. E. Brown
Slowly, she began to read the letter, wanting to absorb her words.
Hello, Baby Girl,
I’m not sure what your name is, so I suppose Baby Girl will have to do for now.
First and foremost, I want you to know you are loved. If you’re reading this, your parents have told you they aren’t your biological parents, and you probably have many, many questions. In my heart, I know they love you as much as your mom does. As much as I do.
To start, my name is Ellie. You and I aren’t related, at least not by blood. I was given the gift of helping a girl who found herself pregnant at a very young age - your biological mom. She came to live with me when she was just fifteen years old and four months pregnant.
Being pregnant at such a young age was pretty scary for her. She did her best to care for herself and you while you were with her. But she put up her guard when it came to you - afraid of what her future would hold, afraid of what the future would hold for you, afraid to get too close. She had already made the decision to let a family adopt you and she didn’t want to get too attached. To feel too much. But I’d often see her rubbing her belly and hear her talking to you. She may not have felt she could care for you, but she did love you. There is absolutely no question in my mind about that.
Your mom knew when the time came, she would need to give you to a family that would love and care for you in a way she felt she couldn’t. This was, by far, the most difficult decision she’d ever had to make. I’d venture to say that statement still holds true, no matter how old you may be as you read this.
Your mom is one of the strongest, loving and beautiful young women I know. She is funny and witty, and she’s an amazing artist. She is so extremely talented! If you have an inkling for drawing or the arts, you definitely got that from her. I will try to include one of her drawings if I can.
I don’t know what the future holds for you, Baby Girl, or for your mom. My hope is one day the two of you will find each other again.
Never, not for one second, think you were forgotten or not loved. You have always been, and will always be, in our hearts. Please know that. Believe that.
My wish is that your life is filled with wonder, Baby Girl, and beauty and friendship and most of all, love.
Ellie
Madison sat, staring at Ellie’s name at the bottom of the letter. She didn’t know what to say. Or think. Or feel. She never thought she’d hear from Ellie again. She never thought she’d see her daughter again.
Any doubts that Issy was her daughter had vanished.
Slowly, Madison turned her eyes from the letter to Issy. “I’m not quite sure what to say.”
“Me either,” Issy answered with a slight shrug.
“You must have a lot of questions,” Madison suggested.
“Some,” Issy nodded, a soft smile forming on her lips. “You probably have a lot now, too.”
Madison chuckled for the first time since opening the front door. “Yeh, you could say that.”
She studied Issy’s face for a short time trying to find the words to explain what would be the hardest for her to say.
“I knew what I was doing was right for you. For me. For both of us. I couldn’t give you, not at sixteen, the life you deserved. But,” she stopped as she felt wetness come to her eyes and her throat close, “my only regret,” she stopped again, “was I never held you before they took you away.”
Issy wiped her own tears and stood. “I’m here now.”
Madison felt tears roll down her cheeks as she stood and finally, after nineteen years, held her daughter.
Chapter 15
“Why don’t we get something to drink and start answering some of those questions?” Madison wasn’t sure how the next few hours would go, rehashing her past, but she felt it was something she needed to do. Not that she felt obligated ... but Issy deserved to know who her parents were, her biological parents, and why they didn’t feel they could keep her and raise her as their own.
“That sounds good. I just need to text someone first.”
“Okay,” Madison smiled as she walked into the kitchen.
Issy: It’s her. :)
Brooke: OMG! Are you ok?
Issy: I think I am. :) I’m going to stay and talk with her for a while.
Brooke: I’m happy for you Iss. I can’t wait to hear all about it.
Issy: Thanks, B.
“That was my best friend, Brooke.”
“Ahh,” Madison smiled, handing her a glass of iced tea.
“She wanted me to text her, let her know I was okay.”
“That sounds like a good friend.”
“She is. She wanted to come with me, even if she stayed in the car, just in case you were crazy.”
Madison laughed. “That’s fair.”
“Not that I thought you were!” Issy quickly added, not wanting to offend her.
For some reason, the look on Issy’s face made Madison laugh even harder and soon Issy had joined in. It was stupid, really, but the intensity of the situation was so overwhelming the laughter helped relieve some of the tension.
When they could finally breathe and speak again, Issy tried to explain. “She was just worried. I never told her I was adopted, so everything kinda got sprung on her all at once.”
“I totally get it,” Madison smiled knowingly. “I have a good friend like that, too. Ryan. Sounds like she and Brooke have a few similarities.”
Taking her seat, Madison had questions about Issy’s family – were they good to her? Did she have a good childhood? Were her parents loving and kind to her? Did she have any siblings? But she wanted to leave the floor open so Issy could ask what she wanted to know.
“So. I’m sure you have a thousand questions buzzing around up there. Which one do you want to start with?” Madison figured it was best to just let her get started.
“Yeh, I do,” she smiled nervously. “How about … You were fifteen when you got pregnant?”
Madison nodded. “I was.”
“And you went to live with Ellie when you were four months pregnant.”
Madison nodded again.
“How come? Why didn’t you live with your parents?”
“Well …” Madison started, moving around as she tried to get comfortable. “My parents … Growing up …”
Damn it! Just spit it out!
Madison didn’t want to sugarcoat anything, but she wanted to keep it simple. There was a chance Issy would want to learn who her grandparents were. That was her choice, although it wouldn’t be one Madison would advocate for.
She took a deep breath and started again. “Growing up, my parents and I didn’t get along very well. They hadn’t been trying to get pregnant and I was a very unwelcome surprise. Although they were quite strict, they also didn’t want to see me. They much preferred me to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”
Issy raised her eyebrows.
“One of their rules was that I wasn’t allowed to date until I was sixteen. However, since they didn’t want me around and rarely checked on me, let’s just say I learned very quickly how to sneak out of the house. And when I came home one day and told them I was pregnant, that was the last straw. They kicked me out.”
“Seriously?”
Madison nodded. “Seriously. I’m not proud of it, but I haven’t seen or talked to them since that day. Honestly, I don’t even know if my parents, your grandparents, are still alive.”
Issy wasn’t sure what to make of this news. Her parents had always loved her, no matter what. They didn’t always agree with the choices she made or how she went about things, but they always stood beside her. She couldn’t imagine anything different.
“So how did you end up with Ellie?”
“That was thanks to Mrs. Erickson,” Madison smiled at the memory. “She was my English teacher. When I told her what was going on with my home life, she reached out to Ellie and arranged it so I could live with her.”
Issy was quiet, trying to take everything in. She had more q
uestions, more details she wanted to know, but there was another pressing topic to tackle.
“Do you … do you know who my dad is?” she asked timidly.
Madison nodded as sadness seeped back into her eyes. “I do.” She paused for a moment. “His name was Jeremy. We met when I was fourteen and he was my first … everything. Boyfriend. Love. Lover. You have his eyes, actually,” she added with a smile.
“I do?”
Madison nodded. “You do.”
“Do you know where he is today? How to contact him?”
Sighing, Madison shook her head. “Unfortunately, Issy, he passed away before you were born.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Did he know about me?”
“He did.” A gentle smile came across her lips. Madison remembered how excited Jeremy had been when she told him she was pregnant. He thought they should quit school and get jobs and raise the baby together. Knowing what she did today, that likely wouldn’t have been a wise move. But given the alternatives – he could have insisted on an abortion or just simply walked away – his response was probably the best she could have hoped for. “He was very excited.”
“What happened? How did he die?”
“It was a drug overdose. He liked to mess around and one night it went too far.”
Issy nodded. She hadn’t been sure she would ever find her biological parents, and the fact that she was sitting across from her mom, the woman who gave birth to her, should have been enough. But it wasn’t. A hole had appeared in her heart the day she learned she was adopted. A part of her had become unsure of who she was and where she came from, even with all the love and kindness and acceptance she received from her family. Learning Madison was her mom, that hole had instantly started to fill. Knowing she’d never meet her dad, it felt like a part of that hole would remain empty forever.
“I’m sorry, Issy.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
Madison thought for a moment. “I think so. Let me go check upstairs.”
Madison quickly made her way up the stairs and into her office. In a filing cabinet next to her desk, way in the back, were a handful of pictures from her teenage years.
She flipped through the pile, smiling at the memories they brought to mind. Madison and Jessa at a school dance. Ellie hugging Madison’s very round belly. Even one of Madison and Mrs. Erickson, the day she met Ellie.
Finally, at the bottom of the stack, was a picture of Madison and Jeremy taken just weeks before he died. She took that picture, and the one of her and Ellie, and set them aside. The others she put back in the cabinet.
Joining Issy again in the living room, she handed the pictures to her and sat in the chair. “The first one is of me and Ellie when I was about, oh … eight months pregnant, I’d guess. The other is of Jeremy and me.”
“You were so young,” Issy commented while looking at the picture. Madison’s hair was wild and curly, much like it was now. It was her face that showed how young she was.
Madison chuckled. “I was.”
Issy turned to the second picture and just stared. Her parents. The people who made her life possible in this world.
“I can see myself in both of you.”
Madison nodded in agreement. “Seeing you at the gym, every so often the hair on my arms would stand straight on end. There was something so familiar about you but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And now seeing you, knowing who you are, I can definitely see bits of both me and Jeremy.”
Issy stared at the picture trying to conjure up the nerve for the hardest question she had to ask.
“Why did you give me away?”
Madison knew the question was coming. It was inevitable. If nineteen years into your life you found the person that was supposed to love you and care for you had just given you to another family, wouldn’t you want to know why? Why that person had done that?
She just hadn’t expected the question to land with such a thud in her heart.
“In my mind, and my heart, I suppose, I rationalized it not so much as giving you away, but placing you in the hands of someone who could provide you with a better life.” She paused a moment before she continued. “The easy answer is, I didn’t think I could give you what you needed.”
Issy nodded. She wanted to hear the other answer. “And the hard answer?”
“The hard answer,” Madison repeated with a sigh, “is I didn’t know how to love you. Before living with Ellie, I never knew what love was. My parents didn’t teach me, and while Jeremy thought he loved me, I’m not entirely sure he truly did. I don’t know if a seventeen-year-old can really comprehend that kind of love.
“Being pregnant at fifteen is a scary prospect. Not yet an adult, but somehow thinking you know everything there is about the world. Your parents are stupid and adults just don’t get you. You can probably relate to that, just having gone through those years. I think everyone can.”
Issy nodded. She could definitely understand that.
“All of that … Suddenly, knowing a child was growing inside me, I knew I didn’t know near what I thought I did.
“What if you got sick? How would I take care of you? Where would the money come from to buy diapers and formula and all the other things a newborn baby needs? I had no support system then, although I didn’t know that’s what it was called. All I knew was I was on my own. Jeremy was gone. My parents didn’t want me. I couldn’t ask a complete stranger to help care for me as well as a newborn baby … There were just so many things against us, I thought the best thing for you, and selfishly, for me, was to let a family adopt you.”
Madison stopped talking to let all of that settle in for Issy, and for herself. It had been so long since she had thought about why she had given her daughter to someone else, or wondered what her daughter’s life was like. If she was okay.
And not once, in all of those nineteen years, had she ever told anyone she had given birth to a baby girl. Not even Ryan.
“I know it’s probably hard to understand, but I truly thought I was making the best decision I could make with the information I had in the circumstance I was in.”
“I get that. I just had to ask.”
“And I get that,” Madison smiled softly at her.
Again, silence covered them as they sat with their thoughts.
Finally, Issy spoke up. “Do you have any questions for me?”
Madison nodded. “Definitely.”
“Like what?”
Trying to start simply, Madison asked, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Two brothers, Adam and Zach. They’re twins, three years older than me.”
“That’s kinda cool. Are you close to them?”
“Yeh. But I’d say I’m closer to Zach than Adam. We just kinda get each other.”
“That’s neat. I always wanted a brother.”
“They have their moments,” Issy grinned.
“Where do they live? Are they in school?”
“Adam is studying engineering at Penn State and Zach is pre-med at Georgetown.”
“Wow … smart guys.”
“Yeh, I guess so.”
Madison chuckled. “And what about your parents? What do they do?”
“My dad is one of those executive-types for a big manufacturing company. He travels a lot, but I always remember him being home for the big stuff. Mom doesn’t work. She used to be a journalist before she had my brothers but stopped to stay home with them and eventually, me.
“When they told me I was adopted, Mom explained how the pregnancy with the twins was so hard on her body she wasn’t able to have any more children. She really wanted a girl, so they decided to adopt.”
“How long have you known?”
“A couple years. They told me just after I turned seventeen. They figured I was still a minor so I couldn’t do anything real crazy on my own to try to find you, but it gave me a year to decide if I wanted to try.”
“Sounds like you have some pretty smart p
arents,” Madison smiled. A wave of relief she didn’t realize she had been holding washed over her. For nineteen years, although she didn’t think about her every day, she wondered if she had made the right decision. The right choice to put her daughter up for adoption. In her heart she felt it was the right move, but now she knew. She could see with her own eyes that her daughter was okay. She had been loved and cared for. And she had siblings she grew up with.
These were things Madison had been convinced she could have never given her.
Chapter 16
Madison woke and saw Issy sleeping on the couch. They had both fallen asleep during a lull in the conversation.
She had never felt so emotionally drained. Never, in all her life, did she expect to be reunited with her little girl.
Wasn’t that how it worked? If you send something away, are you ever supposed to get it back?
She stood and quietly stretched, then grabbed a blanket and gently laid it over Issy.
She looked at the clock and saw it was time for dinner. Walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator, she found she had absolutely nothing to fix.
She grabbed a piece of paper and pen, and wrote a quick note to Issy.
Running to the store to grab something for dinner. Be back shortly.
- Madison
As she set the note on the table next to Issy’s purse, Madison saw the envelope the papers had been in, a return address printed in Ellie’s handwriting. Madison knew that address well, although she hadn’t been there in years.
Her eyes moved to the name in the center. The envelope was addressed simply to: Baby Girl.
She grabbed her keys and wallet and quietly made her way to the car, not wanting to wake Issy. She started the car and turned off the radio. What she needed now was silence.
But as she drove, memories flooded her vision like a movie montage.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I answer, trying to keep my cool. Jeremy is a year older than me, tall, dark, extremely cute and has his driver’s license. We hang in the same crowd now that I’m friends with Jessa, but I haven’t seen him in a while.
