by Grace Sammon
I continue to scan and see one from Green World Solutions. Ever since I entered the contest proposing The Eves worthy of the best green and sustainable award, I’ve been getting way too many unsolicited emails. I open it anyway and turn to Erica asking if she can quickly go get CC.
“Why, what’s up?”
“Come and look over my shoulder!”
“OMG! I’m on my way.”
“Don’t tell her!”
Erica and I stand and hold hands as CC reads every word of the email printout I hand her.
Dear Ms. Barnet;
Thank you for submitting “The Eves: A time of Re-creation” for the Mid-Atlantic Green and Sustainable Housing Award. It is our pleasure to inform you that the committee found your submission clever and captivating and exceeding all criteria for recognition. Indeed, the committee point value ranking of your submission placed it amongst the highest values awarded to any First-Place awardee to date. Congratulations to you and the entire team at The Eves.
You will not be receiving any paper communication notifying you of your award based on the committee’s own commitment to keeping green. However, please find attached materials to be completed for the distribution of the cash award and links to the forms we would ask you to complete. Among the forms, please pay special attention to the request for biographies of the individuals cited in your application including the concept designer and architect(s) as well as the instructions and information needed for further press releases and photographic uploads.
Again, congratulations. Your First-Place award, as well as the names and information of the other awardees, will go out to the press networks today. We have listed Ms. Cynthia Newbury as the point of contact for press inquiries as noted in your submission.
We also want to inform you that one of our committee members serves on the board of Retired Persons International (RPI). She has taken the liberty to share your draft article “Living Gray and Green” with the editors of that organization’s publication with the caveat that it is already under consideration. In the unlikely event that your article is not immediately picked up by the other publication, I have attached the contact information for Dr. Marianne Vesay and the RPI editors. Ms. Vesay indicates they would be greatly interested in publishing your work.
Sincerely…
CC looks up from the paper, eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. Oh my god, thank you. I don’t know who to tell first. Tia and Tobias are up at the barn, Roy’s there. Malcolm didn’t come over, did he? He needs to know right away. I can’t think! I just wanted all of the oldies to have a place of their own, a place of renewal. This is so much more than I could have hoped. Let’s go up to the barn. Erica you’ll need to drive the cart. I can’t even think. Hot damn, we won! There is a story here!”
“More than one,” I tell her, as both Erica and I hug her.
jubilation
J
ubilation abounds! So does an awful lot of work. I gratefully take the publication offer from RPI, with its international and immense circulation. Since theirs is an electronic publication, news spreads quickly about ‘our’ little corner of paradise. The Washington Post has sent a request for an article. They want a spin on The Grange and how it has changed over time. With some help from Tobias filling in my historical gaps, it is pretty easy to churn out “The New Grange Movement” article incorporating the full complement of things that are happening down here. That article, with a much more diverse audience, prompts more interest. Deans of Students, eldercare facilities, state and federal agencies are all interested in what is going on here.
Malcolm and Roy are busier than ever. I’m ghostwriting responses for CC, who has more requests for information than she can handle. There seems to be as much interest in Tobias and the women as there is in the sustainable materials and green nature of the house. Of course, the award is exciting and well timed for Earth Day. However, it is also the end of the semester already and I’ve got papers to grade and record, graduation to help plan, and my first dissertation review.
It’s hard to be overly stressed though. There is no more beautiful place on the planet, in my opinion, than Washington, DC, in the spring. The cherry blossoms are notoriously stunning, but it is the total combination of brilliantly red tulips in front of white monuments, skies that have lost their winter gray and turned to brilliant, cloudless blue. Daffodils along Rock Creek Parkway dotting the hills and calling attention to the majestic cemetery that sits high on one of them. Trees are just waiting to explode into full-leaf, while the giant magnolias in pinks and whites are displaying their large showy flowers and the dark-barked red bud trees have their minute, deep pink flowers creep along and cover each branch and limb. Pear blossom trees are everywhere with their magnificent and dainty white flowers that fall away like so many snowflakes when their time has come.
Good news just keeps coming. Sydney is in full remission. This allows a whole new level of ease for all of us, but most importantly for Sydney and Gene. You can watch them visibly relax into their deepening relationship.
Roy and I too continue together. He understands that I really do like him a considerable amount. I’m not going any place either. There are nights when my fists still clench but those seem fewer and further apart. Roy, now more than the vodka, keeps my demons at bay.
Then, out of the blue, there is the inquiry, and the world tilts on its axis.
inquiry
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Subject: Inquiry
17:22
Dear Ms Barnet
I hope this email is not an intrusion. My name is Jesper Stengle. I was born in Oslo, Norway on 11 December 1977. I was surrendered to adoption by a foreign woman. I am inquiring if you are my mother.
Please forgive the abruptness of how I say this, I have been searching for a very long time and it appears that you are a good, how should I say, candidate. I wrote to you three years ago and got no response.
I would like you to know that I am not asking anything from you. I am a grown and independent man. I am writing you again. If you would consider a response to me, I would be very grateful.
Respectfully,
Jesper Stengle
Breathless, literally. I have to tell myself to breathe.
Hit [REPLY]. Think better of it.
Hit [PRINT].
Text - “Sonia, pls come.”
An hour later she is in my parlor, I am pacing and drinking. Not pacing my drinking. I hand Sonia the email and she gasps, eyes growing wide.
As she reads, my mind races. He wrote me three years ago? That would have been at the height of everything. I probably just deleted the email not recognizing the address. I wouldn’t have read it and forgotten this, right? How do I know it’s him? What do I do? A million questions run through my head. What if he wants to know about his birth father? Do I have to, finally, tell James? Oh, God, what about Ryn and Adam? I am so hoping that something in my new approach with the kids will open the door to communication. Will this be just one more opportunity for them to hate me? What does this Jesper want? What if it’s him? What if it’s not?
“Jessica, you are getting overly worked up. This is not the time to be drinking and it is not the time for hasty responses.” Taking the glass from my hand, “First, we need to answer him. It is the polite thing to do.”
Her saying that “we” have to do this makes this situation somehow manageable. We go up to my office and Sonia sits at my desk. Before she hits “reply,” she reads it again. “How honest do you want to be, Jessica?” I simply nod. She types. I read over her shoulder.
Dear Mr. Stengle,
Thank you for your email, it was no intrusion. A surprise, yes, but no intrusion. I do not recall receiving correspondence from you earlier, as I am sure I would have responded. As to your specific inquiry, may I ask why you suspect I am your mother, as well as why you are opening this conversation
after so many years?
That said, I must say there is a possibility that I gave birth to you, that you are my son. I did give birth to a beautiful boy on that date, in Oslo.
You said you have been searching for your mother, your birthmother, a long time. Thank you for letting me know that. How would you like to proceed?
You should know that I have wondered about the son I gave birth to, always. I always pray that he is happy.
Jessica
Sonia turns to me. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, what am I supposed to say to him? Do you think it might sound too formal, like I’m putting him off? I’ve thought about this, hoped for this, and now what?”
Sonia looks at the printed email again. “I didn’t realize he was so close to my age. I guess I always thought of him as just a bit older than Ryn.”
“Great, Sonia, remind me that I could almost be your mother! Now I feel old on top of everything else,” pausing, “Let’s hit ‘send.’”
Sonia stays a while and we try to imagine what might lie ahead. After she leaves, I call Roy to say good night and tell him what has happened.
“You don’t sound happy about it, Jes. Are you OK?”
“I think so. It’s complicated. How could he have found me? What does it mean for him to find me now? It’s just really unsettling. The time difference doesn’t help. I’ve checked the computer dozens of times for a reply.”
“Of course, you did. Well, try to get some sleep. I love you, sleep tight.”
“Thanks, you too. I like you a considerable amount. Talk to you in the morning. I wish you were here tonight.”
We ring off. It’s after midnight. Unable to sleep, I get up to recheck the computer. We sent our email hours ago, nothing. He wrote at 17:22 his time, 5:30 in the afternoon. Maybe he was just finishing work. I wonder what he does. What is the time zone change? I think it’s five hours, like London, no, it’s six ahead of us. When we hit “send” it would have already been 11 o’clock there. Of course, he wouldn’t be answering.
Looking at my inbox, there’s a sweet good night note from Roy. “I love you Jes, thank you for liking me a considerable amount. This is a very good thing. There is hope for us.”
No other emails. Then, it pops in, time stamped 06:22.
Dear Ms Barnet
God morgon! Good Morning. Takk! Takk! Please excuse me, I am excited. Thank you, thank you very much for writing back to me. It is a possibility that you are my birth mother, and you wrote back. This is more than I wanted to let myself hope. It is a way to, to use your word, proceed.
Let me tell you, first, to allay your concerns, I am fine. I was and am happy. Thank you for saying you wondered about me. I never knew if my birth mother ever thought about me. And this matters. This makes a difference to me. Takk.
I had a good childhood. My parents adopted many children. I was their last. I went immediately into a big family. I have many sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews. I am not married.
My parents were older when they adopted me. My father died ten years ago. My mother is still alive and is in her mid-eighties.
You, perhaps, remember how difficult the foreign adoption process was in Norway until a few years prior to my birth. It was unheard of, really. In the year of my birth, there were less than 30 such adoptions. That should have made the searching easier, so few women to try to identify. The laws were so strict on trans-national adoption. Women who could not meet the legal requirements simply officially abandoned their newborns. This makes the parental search for these adoptees much more difficult. I was such an abandoned baby.
“Abandoned.” The word both stings as I read it and confirms that it’s him. I reach out to touch the screen. I was so naive when I went to Norway thinking I could just hand my baby over. The laws were strict, requiring involvement and releases by both countries. ‘Abandonment’ was my only choice, and a far better choice than the one James gave me. Gave Jesper.
It is my mother’s search for a place to ‘retire,’ a place that suits her intrepid nature that made me find your name again. A companion of hers found the article ‘The New Grange Movement’ on the Internet. Mother very much wants to find or, more humorously, start something that would be as stimulating as The Grange sounds. You would have to meet my mother to understand the humor of this, but let me leave it, for now, that she is an amazing woman and I am blessed that she found me.
When you did not respond three years ago, I assumed either I had identified the wrong person, or you wanted to stay in secret. Then there was the peculiar confluence of the Grange article, and your name as the by-line.
I want to also assure you I want for nothing. I am not seeking anything from you emotionally or financially. My parents were people of means. I am a well-established documentarian. You could go to my web site, if you have interest. jesper.stengle.no.
What I seek is a history. When you are adopted, at least for me, regardless of how well loved you are, you know that the older generations of your family are not your history, not your lineage. Their stories are not your story. Their illnesses and reasons for demise are not yours.
I look at people both here and in the United States when I travel there, and I wonder are you my mother, my father, my half-brother, or sister? I think you can understand this. In searching for you I found an article you wrote many years ago, it was on women and DNA. Quite simply, I do not know who I am.
If you would please consider corresponding until we are sure, I would be most grateful.
Respectfully, yours?
Jesper
Cute, clever, child-like.
I hesitate, only for a moment before going to his website. This silences any last doubt. His picture beams out at me. Although there is something different about the eyes, this is an older version of Adam. If Jesper was sitting on a train across from me, I’d be staring at him because of the likeness. I reach to the screen and trace his face, the bridge of his nose, the eyebrows, the lips, and under his chin. It’s been thirty-eight years, four months, and a handful of days. I know he has ten fingers and toes.
Text - “Sonia, Roy, it’s him.” Joint responses.
“Amazing, are you OK? You do not need to decide anything now. – RLG”
“Of course she does, Roy. What are you going to do now, Jessica? S”
What indeed, I ask myself.
not lost in translation
T
he irony of it being almost Mother’s Day when Jesper reaches out to me while my own Ryn and Adam remain silent isn’t lost on me. I wonder at Jesper’s timing. The “magic of the internet” teaches me that although Mother’s Day is celebrated almost universally in May, in Norway it’s early February. Coincidence then.
In my email back to Jesper I tell him that I believe I am his mother. I also ask for some time to process all this. He has been searching for a long time. In my mind this day would never happen. While I am so very glad he found me, I would not allow myself to search for him. I knew that I had “abandoned” him and did not feel I deserved finding him. I need some time, a small bit of time, to figure out how to move forward. I want to be very sure, I assure him, that I simply don’t muck this up. I tell him all of this. He is gracious, but you can hear the edgy eagerness in how he responds. I ask the he just let me get through a big celebration I am involved in at The Grange in a few weeks and he agrees.
After our email exchanges, I head down the hall to their bedrooms, vodka in hand. As I face them, Ryn’s is on the left at the top of the stairs, Adam’s to the right. Ryn was always her younger brother’s ever-protector. If he headed too close to the top of the stairs as a toddler, or if Adam thought the always-feared monster was ascending from below, she was there for him. They idolized each other then and always.
As I have done for years, I go into each of their rooms, smooth the bedspreads and make some small, unneeded adjustment to the placement of something that hasn’t been touched since the la
st time I dusted or came in here—a favorite book, doll, trophy, or an art project. These have become relics to me, holy icons of those who choose to be dead to me.
I breathe in their presence and remember only happy times, reading books, picking out prom dresses, sorting baseball cards. Even the times when they had problems—a stomachache because Ryn hated her fifth-grade science teacher or when Adam had a migraine and came home sick from school. It was all good because we were family. We were three. We were so close. How does the lack of that closeness not leave a gaping hole in them that needs to be desperately filled? Filled? Is it selfish to think it should be filled by me?
Then, as I did countless times when they were tiny, I lean with my back against the small hallway wall that separates their doorways and slide to the floor, knees to my chest. I talk out loud to them. I’d do this after they had both been tucked in bed and well snuggled, but when one of the three of us was not quite ready to say a final good night. I’d sit there on the floor to be close to both of them, neither the favorite. Sometimes I’d read, sometimes we’d recount the day, or plan a new one. Slowly, I would hear their responses grow sleepy and their breathing become regular. Even then I would sit and be at peace just a bit longer.
Tonight, my ears long for those sounds as I talk aloud to their empty beds. Tonight, I imagine the little versions of Ryn and Adam. “Tonight, my children, I will tell you a story. It is not an easy story to tell. This story is not hearsay, this is really true. A very long time ago, before you grew under my heart, before Papa and I loved each other well, Mama took a long, long trip. On that trip she gave birth to a little, tiny, boy. That little tiny boy grew up to be a man, a man almost forty years old. I’ve seen his picture. He is your brother. Not a half-brother, a full brother, a big brother. He looks a lot like Papa and like you, Adam. Ryn, I think he has your eyes. He takes photographs like Cousin Erica and makes documentaries too. His name is Jesper.
