My sister and I were born in Somerset, England, and we enjoyed a carefree childhood until the Second World War broke out. That was when our mother decided we’d be better off living in America—families in the United States were offering safe haven for English children for the duration of the war. She figured we’d be gone a year at the most. I was seven years old. My sister was a few years older.
A couple of months later we boarded an ocean liner, along with maybe three hundred other evacuated children. We were leaving all we knew and loved behind, and looking ahead to a strange new world. My sister and I were sent to live with a family in Newton, Massachusetts. They cared for and looked after us for the next six years. We became part of their family. As time went on it became hard for me to believe that one day I would return to a country I couldn’t remember, and to a mother who would be a stranger to me.
I was thirteen when the war came to an end. Suddenly it was time for me to go back to England. This time I’d be travelling alone, as my sister was in college and wouldn’t be returning for a few more months. Shortly before I left, my mother sent me a small parcel. I opened it and found a triangular piece of material; it was navy blue and had a pattern of small white polka dots. I had no idea why she’d sent it until I read the note. The note said that the piece of material had originally been a square, and that my mother had cut the square into two triangles. When she met the boat at Southampton, she wrote, she’d be wearing her half of the square as a headscarf. She’d like me to wear the other half. That way we would recognize each other when the boat docked.
My mother was obviously as nervous about our meeting as I was. She’d realized that I was no longer the blond seven-year-old she had said goodbye to. There was no email or Skype or any of the other technologies we can use today when people are apart.
I sailed home on the Queen Mary. It had been used as a troop ship during the war, and this was its first voyage home as a passenger liner. I was put in the care of a young couple who’d just been married. As luck would have it, they were more interested in each other than in me—which meant that for the five-day crossing I had the freedom to wander wherever I wanted.
The days passed happily enough. There was wonderful food and lots of decks to explore. In the evenings I’d go to the ship’s lounge and watch movies. I stayed up way past my official bedtime. Finally, however, the boat docked in Southampton. Finally the moment of truth.
I decided I wouldn’t wear the headscarf. I wanted to see my mother before she saw me.
So, bareheaded, I went on deck and looked over the railing. I searched for her among the throng of excited parents on the dock. It took only a couple of minutes for me to spot her in the crowd. She was wearing the scarf. I started waving and calling to her, forgetting I had no scarf on my head. She was waving to someone farther down the deck. It didn’t matter. She was my mother and all the love and longing I had suppressed for six years came flooding to the surface. I couldn’t wait to disem-bark and run to her.
I watched her realize her mistake, and then I watched her searching through the throng of young children. She finally saw me for who I was—a teenager with a big wide grin, slightly darker hair, and a wave that could only be meant for her.
A few weeks later, after I was safely settled at home, she told me what it was like for her when the Queen Mary docked and she saw all the children waving and calling out. She told me she’d completely forgotten she was looking for a teenage girl wearing a navy blue headscarf. She told me that, in her joy and relief, she’d been waving to a little bareheaded blond girl who must have been about seven or eight years old. In that moment the six long years of waiting had melted away; her little one had been safely and miraculously returned to her.
We put the scarves away after that. They hadn’t been needed then, nor were they ever needed again.
Fredericton, New Brunswick