Moving beyond the fairy tale narrative.

We walk along the sandy beach, the four of us. My biological father, his second wife, my husband, me. Low tide pulls the Brewster Bay water so far out, it looks like we could walk to the end of the earth.

Part 2.

1972. I’m sitting on the padded peeling black leather seat, bumping up and down in the little yellow school bus as it traverses pot holes with poor shock absorbers. My raincoat is translucent, crisscrossed with red plaid, my soft brown curls pulled into pigtails. The bus pulls into the Robin Hill Nursery School parking lot; it parks, and the bus driver sings a song to accompany our exit. I interrupt her. “I’m better than everyone else because I’m adopted. My parents chose me. Your parents were forced to keep you.”

The Unfair Cruelty of Secrecy.

Exhausted, sweaty, jet lagged and anxious, I got off the elevator with no idea where to go so I turned left and wow, there was my mother at the end of the long, antiseptic hallway. Her tiny body — four feet, eight inches — and gleaming white hair, gripping a walker, a tall nurse walking beside her.

How mine changed my life.

It’s 1996, I’m 27, and my soon-to-be mother-in-law requests the time and place of my birth to have my astrological chart done. Sun sign, rising sign, are you good enough for my son sign. She is a stunning Brit with fiery red hair and an upper crust accent that sends my shoulders back and my spine straight. I am desperate to please her.

Stop weaponizing adoptees for political gain- Have you ever vented to a friend about how your parents’ divorce fucked you up, and the friend said something like, “at least you have a roof over your head” or “no one else I know is fucked up from divorce?”

Probably not.