Starchild

by Michaela Foster Marsh

  Eventually Frank takes the lead. “Did you know my mum well?”

  “No,” I sniffle. “I didn’t know your mum at all. I knew your brother.”

  “My brother?” He looks quizzically at me.

  “Yes. You had a brother who was my brother in Scotland.”

  “Oh.” He speaks very calmly. “That was where my mum was a student.”

  “Well, Northern Ireland actually. She studied in Belfast. It’s near Scotland.”

  “Oh, right. I can’t believe it. And my mum had a baby there. A baby boy.”

  “Yes, she did. And he was my brother. My parents adopted him into our family as an infant.”

  Frank looks at me for a long moment and says nothing. Then his eyes enlarge. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.” He reaches his hands over his head and leans back in the chair. “Oh, God. Oh, God. This is totally amazing. I can hardly believe it.”

  “It’s true, Frank.”

  “I believe you. But, wow, this is amazing. Totally amazing. Is he here with you?” He looks around, moving his head from side to side as if expecting Frankie to be standing close by. “When can I see him?”

  It is gut-wrenching to have to tell Frank his brother is dead. He wants to know how and why. He wants all the details. I hate explaining—I hate remembering. Frank takes it stoically. My aching sense of loss isn’t the same for Frank. How could it be? Frankie is a complete stranger to him.

  “Wow,” he repeats. “Then all this makes you my sister. I always wanted a sister. This is unbelievable! Let me give you a hug.” Frank hugs me and hugs me till I can barely breathe.

  Wow, I’m thinking. He’s taken this really well! I have a new brother. I really do have a brother, just like my brother who died. He even looks like him. How amazing is this? I’m not an orphan anymore. I have a family again. Isn’t life wonderful?

  I tell Frank everything I know about the circumstances of the adoption, and he listens intently. All he can say is wow, wow, wow, this is amazing, truly amazing. He’s not upset or angry at this news—he’s excited. But then I tell him his brother’s name.

  “That is my name. My father named me Frank. It means a man who knows his father.”

  Frank seems suddenly defensive and questions why his mother would choose to call a child, who was born after him, by the same name. He tells me this is not done in Uganda. I know a nerve has been hit.

  I ask if he would like to see a picture of his brother. I’ve come to Uganda prepared; I have a small album of Frankie’s life. I show him the one of Frankie wearing his kilt first.

  “Oh, my God!” Frank puts his hands over his face.

  I reach out to him and gently rub his arm.

  He takes a deep breath, “Oh, my God. He looks like me!”

  This is when the emotion that Frank has been keeping in finally shows and he realizes he did indeed have a brother with the same name who lived a very different life to his own.

  His brother lived in a country where men, just like his brother in this photograph, wear tartan kilts. Where they eat something called haggis and eat fish and chips on the street. And are rich—very rich, because everyone in the United Kingdom is rich—right? Oh, this brother must have had a very good life. A very good life indeed.

  I know Frank is deeply moved by the fact that he had another brother. It could have been such a different scenario. But it all seems as natural as it is astonishing for us to be together. We are two people with integral parts to play in a story that started in Belfast in 1966. Somehow, we have been miraculously brought together across continents. The conversation flows back and forth like the flock of birds above our heads. There is a natural ease, understanding, and curiosity.

  Just like I want to know about his mother, he wants to know all about his brother: his likes, dislikes, height, weight—simply everything. And everything I say Frankie liked or was like, he says he likes or is like too.

  But I have instinct enough to know this is not really the case. I also have the instinct to know he is upset about their name being the same; he keeps asking why his mother would do that. I also sense that as Frank looks at the pictures of Frankie’s childhood, Frank is thinking his brother Frankie is the lucky one. After all, he got to grow up in the United Kingdom where no one was suffering the reign of Idi Amin and a raging civil war.

  How can I tell him I believe that, given a choice, Frankie would have probably rather stayed in the arms of his mother than have had his heart torn apart by the separation? Frankie had his own battles in life.

  I’m not lying when I tell Frank that Frankie was an extremely happy boy—always laughing and smiling—because he was. That’s what made him so easy to love. But the hole that was left by the separation from his mother was a dark, lonely place, a terrifying abyss in his heart of which few were aware, as were his complexities and contradictions.

  Frank has brought many photographs of his mother, including her passport and some other legal papers. Before he came he obviously took time to sift through an assortment of pictures to give an overview of Janet through the years. He has also brought pictures of his brothers: David, Paul and—wait for it—the first born in the family, Stephen. The same name and spelling as my own eldest brother. Sadly, Frank tells me his brother Stephen, his wife and children all died of AIDS.

  I ask Frank why he brought all these pictures and how he knew to bring so many and so much information.

  That’s when Frank admits to me the family had been told their mother had given up a baby for adoption. He tells me a cousin told them about twelve years ago, but he didn’t want to believe his mother could have done such a thing and thought the cousin was lying.

  As I suspected, Janet never forgot about the baby she had given up; she thought about him until the day she died. It turns out Janet told her sisters that when she died, she wanted the brothers told they had another brother in the UK somewhere.

  After her death, the sisters decided not to tell the boys. However, when the last aunt was on her deathbed she did tell her daughter, who was in London at the time, so she could tell the brothers the truth. She did as her mother requested, but only to Paul, who happened to be home in the UK, where he lived at the time. He managed to speak to the dying aunt on the phone and believed her. Frank told me Paul went on a one-man crusade to try and find their long-lost brother. However, without any name or paperwork, it was impossible.

  Then, twelve years later, I show up out of the blue and put some of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. Was I meant to go to Uganda and meet this family or what?

  Frank shows me some pictures of his mum, Janet. He asks if Frankie had a gap in his teeth and points to his. “No,” I say, but then I recall he had braces for a short time as a child. He hands me another picture and points to a gap in Janet’s teeth. My God, I can’t believe it. I called a character in my book Janet Wevugira as a kind of hidden nod to the real Janet. She is not a main character, but I gave her a gap in her teeth! How was that even possible? I can hardly comprehend it, but it makes me realize we are all much more connected than we think.

  Frank shows me another picture of his mother and tells me it was taken not long before she died. When I ask what she died of, he looks vaguely perturbed. He takes a few moments and says, “Malaria. It was Malaria.” I’m somehow not sure I believe him, but I accept his answer. I ask Frank what year she died. He tells me she died in October 1993. I almost burst out crying again. It turns out Janet died only a few months before Frankie. You see, when Frankie died I used to say to people that perhaps his mother had died and wanted him back. It was a way for me to justify the fact that his life had been cut so short and my own heart broken by the loss.

  It gives me a kind of solace to think of them together again, back in each other’s arms where they belong. I believe the pull was so strong, even from the grave. My time with Frankie was short, but his mother’s had been shorter
. Call me a mystic dreamer, but the thought that they are reunited in some way helps my grieving process.

  Frankie and me sitting on my parents bed in

  Bank St, Glasgow

  Twins – When One Dies, So Does the Other

  Canada, 1994

  There is nothing hazy about this memory.

  I wake up. Someone is in the bedroom with me. Over me. They touch me. I’m going to be murdered. I freeze under the blankets. I can just make out the luminous green lights on the alarm clock. It reads, 1:20 a.m. I close my eyes, terrified, and pray. Oh, God, please don’t let this person kill me. I’m convinced I’m going to die. Someone is in this room with me. I’m not alone. I continue to pray. Please, God. Please don’t let this person hurt me. I know someone is standing right beside me.

  Next thing I know, I’m being woken by my husband, Gerry. He’s a firefighter and has just come home from night shift.

  “Oh, my God, I’m alive.”

  “Yes. You are,” Gerry laughs.

  “Someone was in here last night. In this room with me! I thought they were going to murder me.”

  “Don’t be silly—the doors are locked. You were dreaming.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I swear—it was real! Check the garage. Someone was in our house during the night.”

  “I’ll check, but no one’s been in here. You’ve had a nightmare.”

  Gerry checks the garage doors and locks and confirms that no one could have come in or out. The phone rings when Gerry is in the shower. I answer. It’s the chief of the fire department. He asks if Gerry can call him back. Gerry says he’ll call him after he’s dropped me off at work.

  A short time later, Gerry is back at my work accompanied by his sister. They’re there to tell me Frankie died in a house fire the night before. I go into shock. I run around the small boutique floor—run, run, running, in and out the chrome rails as if I can run away from what I’ve just been told. I eventually stop and hold onto a rail and wail. It’s a deep wail, primordial. I can hardly fathom where this guttural sound comes from or that I make it. Gerry catches me before I fall. After a horrendous Canadian winter journey to try to get from Ottawa to Glasgow via Montreal, I get off the plane at Glasgow and my body gives in. I’m home now. It’s real. Frankie won’t be here. I collapse. I can hear people over me trying to stir me, but I don’t want to come around. I want to lie here and die too. When one twin dies, so does the other. I moan. I growl from the pit of my stomach. It hurts. It is agony and only dying myself will release the terror of the grief I know I will have to face. But I can’t move. I don’t want to move. I drift off somewhere for a time. I don’t know how long. I hear Gerry. He’s there. He’s holding me begging me softly to come around. He keeps repeating my name, “Michaela. Michaela. It’s all right. Michaela.” But it’s not all right. Frankie has died. Never, ever again, in my life will I get to see my brother.

  Gerry was told Frankie died around 6:00 a.m. UK time. The clocks are five hours behind in Canada—the alarm clock read 1:20 a.m. when I was so oddly awoken the night before. When I finally come around, through my tears, I tell Gerry the person with me in the room was Frankie.

  To this day I still feel sure that when Frankie died his spirit came to my room to be with me, to try to say goodbye. I believe he leaned over me and touched me. Gerry often testifies I told him someone was with me in my room that night and how I made him check the locks, windows and doors that freezing cold morning, February 26, 1994.

  It had been an accident. It was the coldest night of the year. Frankie came in from a Friday night drinking in the pub and lay down on the sofa, the electric bar heater beside him. This style of heater was popular in Scotland for many years, giving instant heat. That night there was a rare power failure. We can only ever guess at the exact truth of the details, but reckon that Frankie thought the heater was in the off position. Unfortunately, when the power came back on during the night, so did the small heater. It smoldered away until the inevitable happened.

  When I was told how it happened, all I could think about was his beautiful face. The thought that he was physically hurt, haunted me. My father told me when he went to identify his body there was not a mark on him, that it was the smoke that had killed him and he looked peaceful. To this day I am not sure if my dad was just trying to make things that bit easier for me. Gerry, as a firefighter, told me the same thing. Visiting his flat afterwards, it was hard to believe he was rescued unscathed, but I hope so. I was also grateful that my father had the careful consideration to call the chief of the fire department in Ottawa that morning and make sure I wasn’t alone when I received the news.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Frankie, do you remember me?

  Uganda, 2012

  My heart aches when I see the little Ugandans at the first Babies’ Home I visit. I sense the complete and utter fear that grip the heart of every single one of these orphaned children. Babies are totally helpless and at the mercy of adults; they cannot survive without care.

  Their tiny, dusty hands clutch hard to my fingers, my hair, my legs—whatever they can clutch of my anatomy. I feel like a human climbing apparatus. They need to be held. It is as necessary for them as breathing. They fight each other to be held and touched, and their hugs are as hard on my body as they are in my heart. I can’t let go. Any one of them could have been Frankie and I find myself becoming more and more drawn in. I need to do something—anything—to help.

  Many of the babies were abandoned under terrible circumstances. Left on the side of the road, in bushes, pit latrines, police stations and churches. They are lucky to have survived. One of the first little girls I hold was found in a plastic bag with her umbilical cord still dangling. A dog had gotten into the bag and mauled her; she was covered in maggots. Somehow, she survived, only to be diagnosed as HIV positive. No doubt this little soul was the result of rape or prostitution; both are prevalent in Uganda. I cried when I heard an American couple adopted her a year later. There is a good side to adoption, a very good side.

  Kampala, Uganda, volunteering with some orphaned infants

  As I walk the narrow corridor, tiny grasping, needy fingers reach out from the metal bars of the deteriorated cot beds. It is as if I can hear them plead, “Please, Mummy. Come and get me. I’ll be good, Mummy. I promise.” “Pick me. Pick me. I’ll be good. I promise.” They all need and want a mummy. To be loved is their human right!

  I think of Mum and Dad. Was this how they felt when they went to Tanker Ha’ Children’s Home and saw the children there? If it was, then no wonder they didn’t think twice about the color of Frankie’s skin. I’m not sure what they would have done if they had ever come to Uganda. I imagine I might have had a lot more brothers and sisters. I remember Dad telling me he’d have taken every single one of the children from Tanker Ha’ home if he could. Mum also told me, when she was in the Marie Curie Hospice, that she had later wished she had adopted at least one more child. Despite the difficulties, she said it had all been worth it.

  Before I left to come here, I decided to organize a baby shower for Ugandan orphans. We held it at my friend Eta Leslie’s home and, with the help of family, friends, and Christina Manca’s filming of the event, we raised just over £3,000. We also filled three large suitcases full of much-needed supplies and gifts for a local Babies’ Home. A few of my friends were having their own babies at the time, and they couldn’t even begin to use most of the things gifted to them at their baby showers. Our unique little baby shower meant Ugandan babies benefited considerably.

  It is hard to come to terms with the dichotomy. My friends who were having babies had rooms full of gifts. They had everything and more you could imagine a mother needs, yet here in Uganda these orphaned babies have absolutely nothing. Not even milk.

  The money we raised manages to pay for life-saving surgery for one of the Ugandan infants. Lawrence is a lovely, wee two-year-old with a hernia the
size of a coconut. When we see him the day after his surgery, we find him playing in the sandpit at the babies’ home. He has a large dressing on his wound, but I still can’t believe he is sitting in amongst so much dirt. In Scotland, any child post-surgery would either still be in a hospital or be at home being mollycoddled. But, other than being a bit grumpy and sore, you wouldn’t have known Lawrence had just had major surgery. Rony soon has Lawrence giggling away on his lap. It is humbling to know we have helped this child and possibly saved his life.

  Oh, Frankie, why are you not here with me in Uganda? Why did you have to die? We should have come here together. I can’t do this alone. I can’t fix the hole in the hearts of these children. I can’t dry all these tears. It’s overwhelming. I want to help. I need to help. God, tell me—what do you want me to do? How can I help these children?

  We also discover five children have died from pneumonia at the home recently, so some of the money we raised is put toward immunizations against pneumonia. The money also helps to pay for the Home’s ongoing costs. But most important to me is the day we install the fire safety equipment.

  It was not a request I had been expecting, especially since the Babies’ Home knew nothing about me or Frankie or how he had died. Before I left for Uganda, I sent them a short email asking what they needed most. A strange request came back for fire extinguishers. It took me by surprise that there are actually many fires in Uganda due to electrical storms and faulty wiring. Most places wired for electricity in Uganda wouldn’t pass a basic safety test.

  I was moved by this request and wrote back to them immediately. I told the matron of the home, I would be happy to put the fire equipment in and would like to do so in memory of my brother who died in a fire in Glasgow.