Skip to content “Because I’m angry.”
“At Ruth?”
“What if meeting her makes everything worse?”
“No.”
“Then don’t make the decision because you’re angry at Carol.”
He looked at me.
“What if meeting her makes everything worse?”
“It might.”
“Helpful.”
The next morning, he called.
“I’m serious. You don’t owe anyone a reunion. But if you want to know where you came from—and what medical history belongs to you—that’s a different question.”
The next morning, he called.
A week later, we drove to meet Ruth.
Darren asked Carol to come too.
Ruth opened the door, looked at Darren, and immediately started crying.
“If I’m going to hear what happened,” he told her, “I want both of you in the same room. No more separate versions.”
The meeting was nothing like a movie.
Nobody ran into anyone’s arms.
Ruth opened the door, looked at Darren, and immediately started crying.
Finally she said, “You look like my father.”
He swallowed.
Ruth had a box waiting.
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
We sat around her kitchen table.
Ruth had a box waiting.
Inside were photographs, family medical records, old documents, and letters.
Darren picked one up.
“Carol and your father were your parents. That was the agreement.”
“You wrote to me?”
“Every birthday for a while.”
“Why didn’t you send them?”
“Because Carol and your father were your parents. That was the agreement.”
Carol looked down.
“I thought about you. Constantly.”
Ruth continued.