(no subject)
Christine crouched in front of the tombstone, the single red rose forgotten in her hand. She brushed her fingertips across the cold slate, along the etched in letters describing in less than three lines the whole life of a person. A person she never knew, but in some ways, knew only too well. Jessica Christine Parker, b. July 14, 1962, d. September 21, 2003, loving mother, wife, daughter and friend.
Christine knew that she was named after her mother, but seeing the words right in front of her had a spooky feeling. What she didn’t know was everything that was written in the last line. Loving mother, wife, and daughter. Her mother, her real mother, had another family. She had more kids, probably a husband, parents, and who knows what else. Christine started to cry. If only she had come two years earlier, two years, and all her questions could have been answered. She fiddled with the rose in her hands, trying to figure out where to place it. Staring indefinitely at the tombstone, as if she were staring through it, she snapped her head up at the sound of crunching leaves behind her. Slowly, her eyes made their way up towards the sky, towards the faces of the two men behind her.
Scrambling up to her feet, Christine dropped the rose, and stammered, “I…I…I’m so sorry. I’m go…I’m gonna go. I…I’m sorry.”
The two men, one older, one younger, like a father and son pair, stared at her with interest. The son dropped his gaze to the rose on the leaf-covered ground that was his mother’s grave. The father held Christine’s gaze steadily, the look of interest suddenly turning to a look of recognition and then pain.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing Christine’s arm before she could run away, “what are you doing here? How did you find her? You weren’t supposed to know.”
The son stopped, in the process of picking up the rose. He turned his head and stared at his father, a look of confusion sweeping his face. He continued to pick the rose off the ground, and hand it back to Christine. With shaking arms, Christine accepted the rose and laid it across her palm.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir. Like I said, I’m really sorry, but I have to go.” She tried to escape once more, but the father touched her arm with such sensitivity that she turned around to face him once more.
“Christine…” he whispered. A look of sheer terror passed over her face. She went as pale as a ghost and her mouth just gaped. How did he know her name? How…. Unless…could he be? “Sit down, everybody.” The father said, glancing at the son for the first time since setting eyes on Christine. He nodded towards a bench a few feet away, and guided Christine over there.
“Look, sir, I don’t know who you are or how you know my name, but…” is all she could get out. The man nodded as if he knew exactly what she was trying to say.
“I know your name, because it was once hers. You have not only her name, but her eyes.” He said, gesturing to the grave. “You were hers once too, weren’t you?” Christine nodded uncertainly, the tears streaming down her cheeks once more. “You can’t be more than, what 18, 19 years old now?”
“I…I…I’m 20 now. Just turned 20 in August, sir.” Christine’s voice was shaking as she spoke. The father gave a low whistle and murmured, “20 years. I can't believe it's been 20 years already. Sometimes it seems as if it were just yesterday.”
“Excuse me, sir, but what seems like it was just yesterday?” Christine whispered, suddenly interested, but still scared.
“The day we gave you up, of course. It was such a hard day, but it was for the best, even if you may not think it. Christine, my name is Charlie, Charlie Parker. Jessica Parker was my wife. And this is our son, Patrick. Your….brother.” Patrick looked up at the last speech. He had a sister? A…sister? It was as much of a surprise to Patrick as it was to Christine. Here, right beside her, was her real family. Her father, and a brother, the family she had never known.
“Tell me. Tell me the story, please?” Christine asked her father. She already knew the basic facts, but wanted to know the story, from his view.
“Of course. There’s nothing too exciting to tell, I must admit. Jessica and I had gotten married young, she was 20, and I was 22. For the next 3 years we both had steady jobs, and work was mainly our lives, besides each other. We would go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, spend the evenings together, and repeat the next day. It doesn’t sound like a romantic life to most, but it suited us. We never thought of having kids for a couple of years, both of us wanted to be settled, to have a stable home life so we could give the kid the best life possible. Just two years into our marriage, Jess got pregnant, with you. We didn’t know what to do; we weren’t ready to raise a child. We both worked hard, and at that point, neither of us was able to leave work. Jess was strongly against abortion, as was I. she carried you to full term, and we did try to keep you for a couple of weeks. But we both knew that it was hopeless, that you deserved better than what we could offer you. We contacted our lawyer, and less than a week later, you were gone. Two years after that, Patrick was born, but this time we knew we were ready. We didn’t want to lose another one.
“We never knew where you went. We only knew that you were the most beautiful little girl we had ever seen, and that you went to a lovely home with two new parents that were ready to take care of you and love you as if you were their own.” Charlie sighed and stared at Jessica’s grave as he finished his story. A look of utter sadness overcame him and he sighed once more. Patrick put an arm around his father’s shoulders as he glanced over at Christine, still in amazement. He was never told the story, never knew that Christine even existed.
Christine, on the other hand, was trying to take it all in. She had known her whole life that she was adopted at one month old, but never knew there was a whole other family, another life that she had never known about. There was a reason she appeared here today, the reason that she started to look for her mother in the first place. Even though her search had brought her here, to the graveyard, she felt obligated to tell her newfound brother and father the truth.
“Thank you for telling me the truth. My parents, my adoptive parents I mean, took real good care of me, they always told me that I was adopted; they never wanted to hide it from me. I guess it's a good thing because…well there was a reason I came to look for my real mother. Even though it's a closed case adoption, there are exceptions to the rules. I learned that if the adopted child needs medical attention that requires a complete family history, the child may open up the files. It had to be done. Mr. Parker, sir, may I ask how Jessica died?” Christine had taken a couple deep breaths before beginning, and now her stomach was tying up in knots. Panic and nervousness set in.
“How she…died? Jessica was diagnosed with cancer, leukemia, in early 2001. She responded quite well to the chemotherapy in the beginning, but then….it got to be too much. She died two years ago today.” He responded quietly, looking at his shoes, but then turning her head to face Christine, he asked, “Why?”
“Mr. Parker, sir, I need to be honest with you. I started to look for Jessica, because I, too, have leukemia. The chemo worked for me in the beginning also, but I have stopped responding to it. That’s the reason they opened my file. But I never knew that my search would lead me here.” Christine trailed off at the end, everybody this time looking over to Jessica’s grave. Charlie started to weep, not only for Jessica, but for the daughter he never knew. He knew coming to the grave today would be difficult, but he never imagined this. “Sir, I’m sorry for springing this up on you. I see that you are upset, I think it's best if I leave now.” She stood up and peeked back at Charlie and Patrick.
Patrick, still silent, never saying a word, finally peeped up. “Don’t go. Not yet. At least, let us drive you somewhere. Are you staying at a hotel?”
“I just flew in for the day. I have a plane to catch; I have to go back to the hospital in the morning.” Christine replied. “But…if it won’t be too much trouble, I’d love a ride back to the airport.”
Charlie looked up at Christine and nodded. “It’s the least I can do. I feel… somehow responsible for all this.” He looked so downtrodden that Christine could not help but start to cry herself.
“Mr. Parker, you could not have known any of this would ever happen. You are not responsible in the least.” With that, the Parkers stood up and they all started to walk towards the car. Coming to a halt, Patrick turned to Christine and mentioned the rose, which was still forgotten in her hand. Turning around, Christine and Patrick went back to the grave and placed all the flowers down, taking a moment of silence. Charlie looked on from the distance, at his two children, old and new.