She Bought the Book

Publishing my memoir was grueling, freeing, emotional, really just a rollercoaster of ups and downs and “all arounds.” I self published it out of fear of having my life story rejected for not being “good enough” — self publishing was a way for me to tell myself “this is your story, and it is good enough.” So it’s for sale on Barnes and Noble’s website and Amazon. My bio mom knows about the book, and I asked her not to buy a copy as I don’t want her to relive the moments in her life she tries so hard to forget about. We came to that agreement, and though I know she wants to support me, I have more peace knowing she won’t read it. My adoptive mom on the other hand, I hadn’t talked to in years — until my book was published. She bought the book.

I got a text message out of the blue one day from my adoptive mom. It read something along the lines of “hey, it’s been a while, would be great to catch up, want to do lunch?” Immediately my mind went “she read the book.” I called my sister, and even my sister — after a pause — said “she read the book.” A part of me wanted to believe that she didn’t, that she really just wanted to get a quick lunch, but I knew it was too much of a coincidence. She texted me so soon after my book was published after years of no contact. Realistically? She had to have at least heard some things about the e book. So we met at a Starbucks for some coffee, and I was shaking.

I stood in line to get a hot chocolate, since caffeine probably wouldn’t have helped the situation. Then I see her walking in, and with her a huge tub of photos. My heart dropped into my stomach — did she take me out of her scrapbooks, I thought? Does she want to forget I was ever a part of their family? I instantly texted my sister “I can’t do this,” and choked back tears and my increasingly debilitating anxiety. On the outside though, I smiled and waved. “Do you want anything?” I asked. “Nope, I’ll find a table,” she replied — that was that. The longer I stood in line, the more my mind dreaded finding out about the pictures. I expected the worst from our conversation.

I went and sat down after getting my hot chocolate and continued to smile. We engaged in small talk right off the bat, then there was a silence. “So I bought your book,” she proclaimed. The moments after that statement felt like a lifetime, I thought I was going to throw up. Where was the conversation about to head? “Oh! Okay!” I mustered up. “It was good,” she replied. “None of it was false.” I didn’t know how to feel, part of me felt like some of my trauma had just been confirmed by the one who caused it, but another part of me just wanted to cry and apologize. But for what?

The majority of the time we spent together that afternoon was her talking about our past. It started off with her validating everything I wrote about, remembering how she acted and, surprisingly, apologizing for most of it. Then it took a slight turn when she explained that I “didn’t make it easy.” I was a child with fifteen years of trauma, I did my best, I thought to myself. On the outside, though, I agreed, and I apologized. What stood out to me the most, though, was when she told me that none of the social workers prepared her for a child with trauma, “it seemed like they were just in a hurry to get you off their books,” she stated. They just wanted me out of their hair. So then I wondered, if they had prepared her, if they had offered her classes and meetings and literature and support, would it have ended differently? Would it have ended at all?

The pictures she gave me were allegedly copies from Walgreens, but some of them had leftover glue, tape and scrapbook paper on the back of them. So, I feel hurt that it seemed like they no longer want to remember me as a part of their family. Regarding the bigger picture, I worry for the future adoptions that will take place with parents being underprepared — how many more failed adoptions will there be? It’s not enough to get a foster child “out of the system,” you must set them up for success, otherwise are you as a social worker, DCFS worker, attorney, or judge really doing your job to the best of your ability? At the end of the day, as I left Starbucks, I thought to myself “I really was just a paycheck to them all, huh?”