How to be a Good Little Orphan II: Filling in Some Gaps

When I was a kid, I had braces. I also had an addiction to Cool Ranch Doritos, so I popped lots of braces off, which means that the process took extra long. I had braces for a long damn time.

When I met my birthsister Beck, she had braces. I can't remember if she had braces at her wedding. I wish there weren't so many gaps in my memories from back then; September of 1997 was the tipping point of my life. I remember that in Beck's photo on her wedding invitation, her lips were very consciously together. I remember Beck being self-conscious about her diastema -- the gap between her two front teeth. I suppose she saw how much a diastema hurt the careers of Lauren Hutton, Kate Moss, and Madonna.

If a gapped-toothed smile is a common trait within my birthfamily, then I am an exception. I have a small gap between my two front teeth from a childhood injury to my gums (I can spit a thin jet of water Super Soaker style). Apparently my orthodontist thought my mouth was too full, as he had four of my permanent teeth pulled. I had one more pulled because of a cracked root. Oh...and all four of my wisdom teeth were cut out -- which may explain the gaps in my memories. I am down nine teeth already. I feel like such a stereotypical hillbilly.

I was raised by hillbillies (hillbillies with teeth, though). My Dad is from western Kentucky near Ft. Campbell. My Mom was from eastern Kentucky in the mountains. Growing up in Lansing, most of our neighbors were third and fourth generation Dutch. I think some of those neighbors were puzzled that we weren't obliged to live in Black Oak or Lake Station -- but I have never been a Hoosier. Lansing is my hometown. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. So, I left Lansing for Carbondale -- southern Illinois, hillbilly country.

While living downstate, I began to worry about my birthmother whom I did not know. It seemed like every Lifetime movie in the 1990s starred Melissa Gilbert (a fellow adoptee) as a young mother who gave a child up and then spent her life trying to fill that gap -- with booze, with men, with pine cones and hot glue. If there were I gap left in my birthmother's life, I thought I should at least preheat the hot-glue gun. I searched for my birthmother through Children's Home and Aid Society...and quickly found her. Surprise, my birthparents raised five girls an hour north of Lansing.

I originally sought my birthmother to let her know that I was okay, to tell her that I did not begrudge her anything. I let her know. I told her. Then what? I had sought and found and filled in what gaps I could, but had scant idea how to proceed. I didn't just have a birthmother, I had five birthsisters. Six women, familiar strangers, came slowly toward me like a horde of loving zombies.

I let my Mom and Dad, my adoptive parents, know that I was doing a search for my birthfamily. Growing up, they had asked me numerous times if I was interested it finding my birthmother. It seems they expected me to do it sooner or later.

Mom said she was glad for it, glad for me.

Lie.

Dad said that once the newness wore off of the situation that he wanted to get everybody together for a barbecue -- my birthfamily and my adoptive family.

Complete insanity.

Extended analogy? Don't mind if I do. Let's say I had a girlfriend who left me (although she loved me) because, for one legitimate reason or another, she did not think she could stay with me. She even went so far as to leave me in the hands of a matchmaker. In short order, the matchmaker set me up with someone else and I married this someone else. Years later, I reconnect with the ex-girlfriend and it is obvious in hindsight that she could have indeed stayed with me and that she never stopped loving me. Am I going to invite that ex-girlfriend to a barbecue thrown by my wife? Nuh-ho Wuh-hay. After that, I tried to avoid talking with Mom and Dad about my birthfamily.

I was in Carbondale then. The 340 miles between Six Corners and SIU hindered relationship-building somewhat -- but slow and steady as she goes.

Then, in the fall of 1996, Mom got sick -- my adoptive mother, the mother I grew up with. She had a heart condition called cardiomyopathy, a weakening of part of the heart caused (in her case) by a viral infection. I didn't come see her when she was first hospitalized. She told me not to. She told me she was fine, just a little wake-up call.

Lie.

Mom got sicker. She had to take IV treatments of dobutamine for several hours at a time several times a week. Angioplasty didn't help. A stent didn't help. A permanent port for the IV that was put under the skin of her arm didn't help.

Multiple drugs used in combination helped -- but those cocktails had side effects. The drugs made her loopy-headed and paranoid.

At this same time, my marriage was on the skids. I withdrew socially from just about anyone I couldn't go have a drink with -- even my new-found birthfamily somewhat, even my adoptive family somewhat. When I called my Mom to tell her that my marriage was on the skids, she absolutely shredded me. She was sure that I had violated my marriage somehow. I had not. She was sure that I had stepped outside the marriage to fill some petty imagined gap in my sex life. I had not. Mom set fire to a heap emotional trash and dumped it in my lap. She pushed every one of my buttons that she could. I froze -- too shocked to hang up, too shocked to cry, too shocked to even breathe.

Eventually, my wife Tracey and I fixed our relationship -- but right then, at that moment, during that phone call when my Mom was shredding me, my wife who was packing her shit to move out took the phone from me and explained to my Mom that I was a faithful husband. What was Mom thinking? Why was Mom so angry with me? Why couldn't Mom see the gap in her reasoning? Why could Tracey (who was only in my Mom's life because of me) convince Mom, when I (her own son) could not?

I met Tracey about a month after her mother died. Tracey took to Mom right away, and Mom took to her. I understood this. Still, I was family, goddamn it. This was a matter of family, of real family -- not an add-on who was soon to be a used-to-be. I couldn't figure Mom out.

I didn't speak to Mom for a long time after that. I barely spoke to anyone for a long time after that. Dad -- with the look of Norman Schwarzkopf, the diplomacy skills of Bobby Knight, and the voice of Strother Martin -- made a sincere effort to patch things up between Mom and me. It never really took.

Within a year, my wife and I had reconciled. My Mom was still sick, but was acting as if she had never shredded me. I was still gun-shy. Mom had blown a big hole in our relationship, and done nothing to mend the gap.

By September of 1997, my wife Tracey and I wanted a fresh start together, but the culture gap between our student lifestyle and and our professional lives was a problem -- as was having professional lives in Bumfuck Little Egypt. We decided to move back to Chicagoland. Every week of September of 1997, something momentous happened. Week one: I accepted a transfer from the Kinko's in Carbondale to the Kinko's at Ashland and Clybourn via teleconference from St. Louis. Week two: Tracey's amazing grandfather Walter died, so we went up to Chicagoland and back. Week three: I headed for Chicago alone while Tracey continued at SIU Press until she found a publishing gig up north (our goodbyes conceived our daughter Chloe). Week four: Tracey came up from Carbondale to go with me to my birthsister Beck's wedding to a bass player -- where I met my birthfather. After Beck's wedding, there were only a couple of days left in September, yet Tracey and I managed to squeeze in dinners at two of out favorite local restaurants -- Cafe Borgia and Mario's Tacos.

Last month, my birthsister Beck and I met up at Mario's Tacos. I think we had only seen each other a couple of times since her wedding. I wish there weren't so many gaps in my memories from back then; September of 1997 was the tipping point of my life. I had been going through some old pics before I saw her, so mentioned that I had recently been looking through pictures from her wedding.

Beck made a very still face. "You were at my wedding?"

Hurray! Her reaction made me incredibly happy. Here I was, trying to remember whether or not she still had braces for her wedding -- trying to remember details of all the important events of that month. September of 1997 had obviously been a huge month for Beck as well, yet there were some gaps in her memories from back then. I wonder if she's had her wisdom teeth cut out? I'll bet it's genetic.

Next time: more hi-jinx, and I will try to wrap up this orphan business John Irving style.