The Other Half of Me: Part Eight (Conclusion)

We all walked out to our cars together, Norma with me and James with Sarah. It had been four months since that cold February day when Sarah and I got the letter. Our birthdays had come and gone, and now it was James' time to celebrate. Norma's was in November, so we had a while yet. And I knew I couldn't wait that long.

I decided earlier that day I was going to tell her about the letter. The truth this time. Last time we had told her what she wanted to hear out of love. Now I realize it wasn't completely out of love, but also out of fear. And fearing the truth was not the way I wanted to live my life.

I also realized that I was living a lie not only with Norma, but also with Sarah and James too. He had eventually come around to the idea of me being his sister. He even started calling me that from time to time, but each time he did, it stung me like a hot needle piercing my heart. I had taken his trust and manipulated it for my own intentions while pretending it was the best thing for everyone else.

And it wasn't that I was getting weary of Sarah, but she seemed completely unfazed by our lies to her family, perfectly content to feed them any BS they wanted to hear. I didn't work like that. And her lack of remorse for it seemed to jar me a little. It was just so much of the opposite of myself.

As I said my goodbyes to my supposed brother and sister, I got into my supposed mother's car and rolled down the window when she turned the ignition. Heat poured out and cooler night air poured in.

“You were a bit quiet tonight, Sweetie. What's going on?” she asked as she backed up out of the front row parking stall, adjusting her glasses on her face.

I took a deep breath in. “I just have something to talk to you about.”

“Oh? Why didn't you say something before we left?” She pressed the button to roll her side down, too.

“It wasn't the right time.” I closed my eyes and let the air pour over my face as I neared the open window. I wanted to remember this moment, this space in time when my fate hung in the balance, before I lost everything I came to love.

“Hmm, and now is? Okay then, let me find a good place to park.”

“We can go to your house if you like,” I replied. I really didn't want to be stuck in a car with her when I told her the truth.

“No, I prefer to do my big talkin' outdoors. I love nature and its a gorgeous evening out,” she flashed me her perfect smile.

“Okay, the arboretum?” I always loved that park, with nothing but a hundred year old trees everywhere you looked. It seemed like the perfect place to say goodbye to her.

“Perfect!”

She drove up Mulford and almost missed the turn-in because it was a driveway hidden by a fence. The arboretum itself was a piece of the next-door neighbor's land at one point, but they donated it to the city so everyone could enjoy its spacious grounds with ginormous trees everywhere you looked.

The gravel crunched beneath our tires and sunlight, which spoke of day's end, flitted through the treeline which gave an ethereal feeling to the entire drive in. It was calming to pay attention to something other than the task at hand.

We parked, and got out of the car and I perched myself on a large boulder near the entrance.

“Let's walk,” Norma motioned me to follow her as she went into the grass area.

We walked in silence for around five minutes when Norma spoke. “What's this all about, Emily?”

Her warmth always made her words sound like butter. No matter what she ever said to me, or anyone for that matter, never sounded mean, hurtful, judgmental, or anything what I used to a mother sounding like.

I drew in my breath and cleared my throat. “I decided that I can't live a charade anymore. I need to tell you the truth.”

Norma stopped walking and looked at me. “You are king of scaring me.”

“Well, I'll just come out and say it. Four months ago Sarah and I got our DNA results.” I pulled the letter out of my jeans pocket. “And, well, we never actually opened it.”

She looked stunned and looked at the envelope in my hands. “What? You two told me that...”

“Yes, we told you the results were positive. Sarah and I thought because you already lost a baby once, that if they were negative, that losing me again would be too hard for you. You were so happy when you thought I was her. How could I break your heart again?” Tears welled in my eyes.

She put a hand on my arm. “Emily, how could you be so sure my heart would have been broken? You never opened the letter?”

I jolted back. “What? You're not angry with us? With me?”

Norma laughed and reached out to pull me into comforting hug. “Angry? What for? You did what you felt was right to protect me, I feel honored you thought that much of me, with hardly knowing my family at all. You wanted to keep my family happy and safe. What is there to be angry at?”

I let myself be hugged, even though I wasn't much of a hugger. It felt good to feel loved. “But I lied to you.”

She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “Lies are only bad when the are malicious and meant to hurt people. You did what you did to save me from more grief. It's okay. And as long as you and Sarah are as close as you are, what harm have you done?”

I hadn't expected to be accepted by her. I had expected for her to freak out, to leave me at the park and drive away. She had every right to. I wasn't used to being around those who didn't feel that every move I made was selfish, even if this choice was for a little of that reason.

“So, are we opening this letter together? Is that why you brought it with you?”

I smiled. “If you're ready.”

“Oh Sweetie, I don't need a silly letter to tell me what I already know. But if opening it will make you feel better, then let's do it!”

“You honestly believe I am your daughter?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “No, I don't believe it, I know it.”

I hesitated before ripped it open. “What if it says I am not? What then? What will we do?” My eyes searched hers for some sort of knowing. She seemed to be firm in her belief, I just wanted to see if it was something that I could pick up on, something I could assimilate.

“I will humor your question, even though I know its not needed. So if that letter says you're not my blood daughter, I will fucking adopt you.”

My eyes widened as I burst out laughing, as did she. “Oh god! Twice in one night! That's a record for you, isn't it?” But then I realized what she had just said. “Wait, what? You'll adopt me?”

“Yes,” she stated. “I will adopt you. You are my daughter, whether that letter says you are or not, okay? Can we just open it now?”

Tears welled up in my eyes again. I could not believe what I was hearing. She would adopt me? All my life I had been someone to throw away, to forget about. Someone who was only good enough to be around when it was favorable to others to do so. I wasn't someone people wanted. I wasn't someone people needed in their life.

“Why?” I asked through my tears.

She put her arms on my shoulders to hug me again. “Because. You are a part of us now. I don't care if my blood courses through your veins or not. That baby I lost thirty-eight years ago isn't you even if it was you. Know what I mean? I can't replace that time I lost with my twins, all those years. But I have you now. Get it? I don't need to replace her anymore.”

My body heaved in sobs as she held me. I wasn't allowed to cry as a child, but it felt like everything I was supposed to be, supposed to have, was in that moment while she held me and let me cry. She was my mother, the one I was supposed to have. That moment was what my entire life until that point was made for.

And that was it. It was all I needed. The grief from the lies I thought I was living for the past few months disappeared. I cried until there was nothing left inside of me to cry about. I cried until I was empty.

And suddenly the wind picked up and threw our hair in our eyes, and storm clouds came charging in from the West. I reached down to my right hand with my left and took the envelope in both hands and tore it into little pieces, over and over again, until they were pieces of confetti.

And I let them go, into the wind, into oblivion, which carried them up past the hundred-year old trees and beyond. They swirled above us in a vortex of air and then like magic, they vanished.

We stood in that spot, the place of our becoming, the place of our pact between mother and daughter, and paid reverence to what has just transpired. We held hands and let the wind blow our secrets away: our shame, our fears, our pasts, our everything. And the rain came down and christened us with our new lives, our new future—together, as two halves of one. As hearts are infinitely divided, yet infinitely spaced with room for anyone who deserves to be there.

When we finally left that space, hair and clothes soaked, we drove home in silence. It wasn't an awkward silence No, it was a sacred silence between two women who had undergone a deep transformation together, content to just be in each others company without a word spoken between them. Content to just be, with the other half of me.