And This Is My Adopted Daughter

And This Is My Adopted Daughter
£12.00
By Marie Berger
ISBN: 978-1-84747-189-5Published: 2007Pages: 180Key Themes: relationships, adoption
Description
This emotional, turbulent and poignant book tells the story of Marie Berger's discovery that she was adopted. Marie only discovered this fact as the result of a playground argument. The book describes Marie's childhood and chronicles how she felt in finding that she was adopted, how she searched for and eventually found her natural mother – and how there was no fairytale ending. This is an intensely moving and excellently written book.
About the Author
Marie Berger was born in May 1945 in Reading, Berkshire. She trained to become a teacher and is also a qualified masseuse. She is now an author by profession and lives with her husband and her children in Lincoln. She is fond of travelling, foreign languages, pastel drawing and of course her writing.
Book Extract
On the doormat is a letter. I pick it up. I don’t recognise the handwriting. It’s postmarked New York, United States of America.
I only know of one person who lives there. And it couldn’t possibly be from her…could it?
Feverishly I tear open the envelope, unfold the notepaper.
My mind’s in a whirl. It’s impossible to take in the words. They swim across my line of vision. The bits I manage to read here and there don’t make sense…
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here mesmerised. My mind’s blank. The neat script is dancing before my eyes.
This can’t be happening. It must be a dream.
I blink rapidly, shake my head, and try to focus on reality. But there’s no way I can get a grip on myself standing like a zombie here in the hallway. I must get out.
I put on my coat, wander bewildered into the first café I come to. I sit in a corner, order a coffee, sip the hot liquid. I can’t stop shivering.
I hold my breath, force myself to start at the beginning, concentrate on each word. I begin to read…
Dear Marie Teresa,
I really don’t know how to begin. Aunt Maud and Aunt Margaret came to visit me a week ago. I hadn’t seen them for twenty-five years and they waited a week before telling me about you. They were scared. They gave me your letters and the lovely photos of the children I had never told anyone but Lorne, my husband.
Marie Teresa, it wasn’t on your birthday I thought of you. My heart cried out for you every day. When I had you I had no one to turn to and then I had to work and it was so hard to find anyone to take care of you. It wasn’t like today. I gave you up so you would have a happy life with a mother and a father. I was never given their address and I knew years later that I should have taken you to Belfast to your granny but I thought the shock would kill them. When you were born you were the image of your grandpa.
So I had a long talk with Lady Winifred Ewes who was in charge of the adoption agency. She was about seventy and her advice to me was to give you up for your sake.
I didn’t get married in England, I came to America to a great aunt. If I’d been married in England I would never have parted with you. I came to America in 1947 and then met Lorne in 1948. But after I came to America I saw things were different and I wrote to Lady Winifred to see if I could get you back. She wrote back and said that in a few months she was coming to America to visit some relatives and she would contact me when she arrived, which she did. This was in 1947. I asked her then, “Could you get my baby back because I could provide for her now?” and she said, “I could try but I doubt it. Leave Marie Teresa where she is, she has a little sister named Rita and she’s happy and it might break her heart.” So I kept in contact with Lady Winifred. Then one day a letter was returned – “deceased.”
I married Lorne, told him everything, and he wanted you but we had no one to contact. Never a day went by that I didn’t wonder how you were and at night I prayed to God to keep you safe. I took it as my cross to carry. John was born in 1949 and he looked like his grandpa, too. How many times he said, “Mammy, I wish I had a sister,” and I would cry and he wouldn’t understand.
When Aunt Maud told me about you it took her a week because she was afraid about Lorne. When I told Lorne that Maud had said you’d written and she gave me all your letters and photos Lorne cried too. Then John came in. Of course he wanted to know why we were all crying so I told him the story and he cried and said, “I have a sister! Why didn’t you tell me years ago?” I told him I was afraid to and he said, “Mammy, you carried that secret and your heartbreak, all those long years wasted.”
I’ll regret till the day I die that I gave you up. I hope you will forgive me but I thought I was doing the right thing so you would be happy. I read all your letters to Aunt Maud and I feel better that you are so wise and understand. Every day was hard but your birthday was awful. But Marie Teresa, I dreamed, loved and prayed for you all these years.
In one photo you look like I looked when I was young and in another photo you are the image of your Aunt Margaret. They say she looks like me.
Too bad Aunt Maud didn’t tell me sooner but I told her I’m so grateful that she wrote to you and kept in touch. After lady Winifred died I had no place to contact. I went back to Belfast in 1955 for a few months. Then I got arthritis and I had to use crutches and I never seemed to get better. A few months ago I fell down the doctor’s steps and broke my arm and John’s wife Laura wrote to Aunt Maud. She cried and said, “I wish I could see Mary” and Uncle Albert says, “Well you are going,” and went and booked the plane. She didn’t tell you because she wanted to tell me first and God help her, she was scared, it took her almost a week.
Thank God you have a good husband, Les, and three beautiful children. How I have regretted all these years not seeing you growing up. I’ve read all your letters to Aunt Maud many times over and looked at the lovely photos. John is thirty-one years old now and was so happy and understanding. I was afraid to tell him but he saw his dad and me and Aunt Maud and Aunt Margaret crying so we told him. He cried and was so happy.
I hope this letter won’t interfere with your mother and father for all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I had no choice when I gave you up and I saw your mother and father were nice. Lady Winifred said you would be happy there and I was doing the best thing.
The children are beautiful. One day, please God, I will see you and your husband and children. I am unable to travel at this time, but knowing Aunt Maud heard from you has made me so happy. It’s too bad we’re so far apart. John said right away, “Tell my sister to come.” John is married and has two beautiful girls, six and three.
Well, Marie Teresa, I’ll end now. It has eased the pain seeing your photo and the three beautiful babies. I hope I will hear from you. Letters today take from five to twelve days airmail. The mails are terrible.
So God bless you and Les and the children and keep you safe. And well you were loved and prayed for thirty-six years.
Love,Mum
Clutching the letter tightly I walk out into the street. Tears are streaming down my face. Nothing can make up for the lost years.
*
It’s been an arduous journey across the Atlantic.
Eleven-week-old Ben has slept in his air cot throughout most of the long flight. Les and I have tried hard to keep Simon, Rachel and Nathan calm on their first plane journey, their first visit to the Nana they’ve never met. Quite naturally, with so much happening they’re over-excited.
They also have to cope with a postnatally depressed mum. Ben and I were only discharged yesterday from the Mother and Baby Unit in the Psychiatric Department. And Mummy never visited, wrote or phoned. Pills help mask the despair and hopelessness but they don’t take them away. I’m looking out of the window, praying I can continue to act normally during our month-long stay with Mum.
It’s taken a year since her first letter to save for this moment. I mustn’t let anyone down, especially her; not after the many letters of love, hope, regrets that she parted with her baby.
In my bag is a black-and-white photo she sent. She says it’s the one decent picture she’s kept. I treasure this image of my mother taken twenty years ago when she was in her thirties. The sleek dress shows off a good figure. She holds her head high. Thick, wavy dark hair frames an attractive face. I admire her fine bone structure, lovely eyes and full lips. I love her soft Irish / American accent when we talk on the phone.
I’m proud of my mother. She’s beautiful in every way.
We go though Passport Control.
I wonder how I’m going to recognise my half-brother. John has given us a rather unflattering description of himself and told us he’ll be wearing a short-sleeved, light-blue shirt.
A heavy-set man, jumping up and down, his bearded face wreathed in smiles, has spotted our noisy brood. He’s hurrying towards us. He’s in tears.
Perhaps I should be emotional but I’m drained. I’m intrigued, though, by the round, freckled face, the non-stop talk. At first sight he’s so like me. Extremely demonstrative, he hugs us each in turn, lingering to hold me by my shoulders at arm’s length.
“You look just like Mum! I can’t get over it!” he exclaims. “Come on, she can’t wait to see you.”
He drives us to upstate New York, chatting about his wife, his three children, Mum, his dad.
I doze fitfully. John is still talking. We’ve come at a good time, he enthuses. They’re having a hot summer.
I can’t say much. I leave Les to make conversation with him.
It’s hours since we left the airport. I stare out of the window. We drive through a small town, past meadows, fields…
We turn sharply off the road down a narrow track that John says is part of the acres of land owned by his parents. I wind the window down, peer out into the twilight.
The car screeches to a halt outside a house. I fully expect to see Mum rushing towards us...
Suddenly I feel sick. This can’t be real.