Marie was well proportioned and fit but with natural curves at 5’3″ and 110lbs. Though her profile picture didn’t hint so much at that, her dazzling blue eyed smile and long curly red hair drew plenty of attention from strangers.
The only reason she didn’t delete before reading was that she found this Rob Hanson attractive enough to steal her attention. It had been a long time since anybody had caught her eye.
‘Okay handsome Hanson,’ she muttered apprehensively, ‘what have you got to say for yourself?’
“Hi, sorry if this shocks you but I’m looking for my mum. I was adopted at birth and never knew her. You share the same name…”
Marie didn’t know how to feel. After so many years of feeling there were no more surprises left to catch her off guard, she never truly believed this moment would happen. Even if she imagined the many different ways it would happen, and those first words spoken, there was no preparation for it.
For hours she couldn’t reply. Her heart remained in her throat all morning. She was a nervous wreck. Her mind was neither here nor there.
‘It is him, it is. It has to be. How many Roberts do you think were born to any old Marie Redgrave?’ she debated with herself. Then she battled to keep a cool head, going back to the computer to finally respond to him.
I gave birth to a baby boy nineteen years ago and put him up for adoption. Can you tell me more about yourself? What hospital were you born in? What city?
The wait was maddening, her nerves shot. Marie waited and waited for a reply. Then to see that he had read her message and that he was in the process of sending his own reply, her heart fluttered, and her abdomen knotted up with anticipation.
When Marie’s son found her that day, she didn’t cry like she always thought she might have. It was just the second most surreal day of her life since giving birth to him, knowing that he wouldn’t be hers but somebody else’s son.
‘That’s that, then,’ she said to herself in the deafening quiet of her apartment.
3
For months they spoke back and forth. They were as inseparable as relative strangers could be through the power of the internet. That’s where she laid out her undying remorse for him, and her life story ever since.
‘I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I bet you’d have been a great mom but I understand. You just need to know that I’ve had a good life, he told her and then, don’t let it pull you back, mum.’
“Don’t let it pull you back…”
He was so mature for his age. Marie wished there and then that she had exercised more care and maturity at that age. Now what was she doing? She was trying to make up for lost youth by living like a widow. And Rob was right. She had let it pull her back her entire life.
And he had called her mum.
They had talked about Rob’s adoptive parents a few times. Marie found it fascinating to know what kind of woman replaced her as his mother and couldn’t help but feel something like jealousy.
She’d have been so proud for her baby to call her mom and for it to mean something. But she hadn’t mothered him. She hadn’t raised him. She couldn’t claim that title any more than as a term of affection.