Oh, wasn’t I the open-minded one! Insisting that Dong-mei stay connected to her roots, even calling myself “Mama Number Two,” until doing so upset her so much I backed off. Taking her to Chinatown, pushing her to take Chinese lessons. Wasn’t I the great liberal, unselfish and tolerant! Easy to do when the possibility of her ever wanting to find her birth mother was so remote, never mind actually tracking Chun-mei down. Now I feel like a hypocrite and a fool.
Kevin was skeptical from the start, but he went along with me, the teacher who knew all about children, who had taken all those psychology courses at university, the woman who, as it turned out, didn’t know a damn thing. It was all theory, all talk. My daughter had had no interest in China or her original family. Why should she? All she knew was Kevin and me and Megan, our house in Milford, her school, her friends. What did she care about a country far away, even if she was born there?
But no one could tell me that. I had to insist, had to push. As she matured into a young woman, I hardly noticed her gradual change in attitude, her growing interest in China. Kevin had always wanted Dong-mei to take a business degree at university, and once I overheard him talking about what a great asset her knowledge of the Chinese language would be in the future. She didn’t fly into a rage the way she would have when she was a child. But none of that sank in.
When she made her birthday request at the dinner table, it struck me like a punch in the stomach. I could hardly speak. No, I wanted to say to her, you can’t go! You’re my daughter. I raised you. Insanely, I thought about my lost baby. I recalled the time I walked Megan to kindergarten on her first day of school, then years later took the same route with Dong-mei. I relived the aching sense of loss that only a mother can understand.
Of course Dong-mei has a right to know, to search out her birth parents, find closure—a word I hate. She’s entitled to have a relationship with them if she wants to. It’s up to her. I know all that. Haven’t I said it enough times? But it’s different when it happens to you. I don’t want to share her with a stranger. She’s ours.