Phone Call From A Stranger

“People create stories create people; 

or rather, stories create people create stories.”

~ Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (2012)

Being adopted immediately ensnares the babe in the web of a lifelong mystery story.

~ Joan Griffin, Adoptee

            I was startled awake by the ringing phone. Disentangling myself from the blankets, I was careful not to disturb my sleeping eight-year-old son in whose bed I’d fallen asleep while reading bedtime stories.

            I tiptoed out of the room, then dashed down the hall as the siren of the ringing phone continued. In the kitchen, I grabbed the receiver.

            “Hello,” I said, just as the answering machine’s message kicked in.

            “Hello. You have reached…”

            “Hang on. Hang on,” I said to encourage the as yet unidentified caller to wait for the recorded greeting to finish.

            “… the home of Tom, Joan, and Dean. Leave a message at the beep, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” said my own recorded voice.

            “Hello,” I repeated into the now silent line.

            There was a short pause.

            Then an unfamiliar female voice said, “Hi. You don’t know me. My name is Peg Gildersleeve. I’m looking for a Joan Griffin who was born in June 1954 in Los Angeles and was adopted.” She spoke nervously fast, without taking a breath, like she was reading from a statement she had prepared ahead of time.

            In that instant, all vestiges of sleepiness vanished, and I was wide awake, my antennae on high alert. I said, “That sounds like me.”

            My head buzzed. It felt like I was on an old fashioned party line, and every neuron in my body was leaning in to eavesdrop on the phone call.

            “I think I’m your birthmother,” the stranger said.

            I leaned against the long pantry cabinet. My legs let go under the weight of this information. My back slid slowly down the smooth wooden surface until I was sitting on the tile floor, knees to my chest, the phone a firm pressure against my ear.

            “Tell me again. Who are you?” My brain had downshifted and I was having difficulty processing the disruptive meaning of her words.

            “My name is Marguerite Brinker Gildersleeve. Friends call me Peg. I was twenty-three years old in 1954 when you were born at the Florence Crittenden Home for Unwed Mothers in Los Angeles,” she said, her voice quavering a bit.

            This was the elusive reunion I had fantasized about since I was eight years old. That night, at thirty-eight, my excitement was mixed with an equal measure of fear. After all these years, what did this woman want?

            “How did you find me?” I asked. My adoption had taken place in an era of “closed adoptions,” meaning all legal files were sealed, their contents permanently secreted even from the participants.

            “I hired a private detective. It took him only forty-eight hours to locate you,” she said. “I don’t know how he did it.” That little piece of data surprised me. A sense of vulnerability swept over my skin.

            “I want you to know, Joan, that not a day has gone by that I’ve not thought of you. I always wondered where you were and what you were doing. As a baby, you had wisps of reddish hair, so whenever I saw a girl with red hair about your age, I wondered if she was you,” this stranger who was my birthmother said. There was something in her voice that resembled a plea.

            “I have two questions that I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind,” she said. “They’re two questions I’ve thought about for years.”

            “Okay…” I said. “Sure.” For some reason that request made me uneasy.

            “First,” she said, “did you have a happy childhood?”

            “Yes,” I said. “Very.” Then I did a quick summary of my family and my Wonder Years-like suburban upbringing. It’s actually difficult, when under pressure, to do the mental gymnastics required to review, prioritize, compose, and then deliver the “elevator talk” promotional version of your whole life and make it sound both coherent and “Very” happy.

            An audible sigh came through the line. I’d obviously succeeded in giving her the answer she was seeking.

            “That makes me so happy to hear,” she said, her voice more relaxed. “My second question is, did you go to college?”

            “Yes,” I assured her. Rather than feeling pride in sharing my own accomplishments, I felt like I was being held up for comparison to some ideal. I was not only having to prove myself worthy, but I was somehow being offered up as evidence of my Mom and Dad’s worthiness, as well.

            “I went to UCLA. I earned my BA in Psychobiology in 1977. Then I went back to get my teaching credential just a few years ago.”

           

We talked for nearly an hour, me sitting unmoving on the cold tile floor of the kitchen the entire time. By the end of the conversation, I felt a bit more relaxed, comfortable that she intended no harm. Yet, I retained the sense that my parents and I were being judged. I’d succeeded in passing the test, whatever it was, but we had indeed been measured.

Before hanging up, we agreed to communicate again.

She wanted to dive right into the deep end of this new relationship. She wanted to get together. She wanted me to meet her husband and my two half-siblings. She wanted to meet (and thank) my parents. She wanted to get to know my husband and son (her grandchild).

I preferred to wade slowly into the shallow end, testing the waters with each new step. My inner turmoil held me back. I wanted to maintain control of the relationship. I wasn’t ready to open up my life to this person who had walked away from me on the third day of my life, and thirty-eight years later wanted to walk back in. I needed to keep her at arm’s length for a while, until I could clarify for myself how I felt and what I wanted. Besides, I had a personal origin story, painstakingly created over my lifetime, to reconstruct in my mind.

I insisted that we only communicate through written letters for a while, until we got to know one another better. Until I felt comfortable.

            I stood, stretched my stiff back, and replaced the phone’s receiver. I felt simultaneously befuddled and wired to the gills. I wanted to tell someone, share my galloping emotions with someone, begin to sort out my feelings.

            I looked at my watch – it was a little after nine. My husband, Tom, wouldn’t be home for an hour. He was at an evening class.

I paced.

            Who can I call? Who can I talk to?

            Though I wanted to talk to my folks about the phone call and this Peg Gildersleeve, I wasn’t sure if, at that moment, I had the stamina necessary for what would have to be a long involved conversation with my mother. I needed to do a bit of mental sorting first.

I paced some more.

            Who else can I call at nine o’clock on a school night? All my friends were either teachers or parents of school-aged kids or both. It was too late to call any of them that night.

I paced towards the phone.

I had to talk to someone.

            Lifting the receiver again, I dialed my parents’ number. I knew they’d be up and awake. My need to verbally process what had happened outweighed my anxiety about telling my mom. I just had to trust her.
Copyright 2018  by Joan Griffin