Dear Seraphina,
It’s been a week now, and after seeing all those pictures you post on Instagram, it’s clear that you haven’t taken my advice to heart, which is very disappointing. I want nothing but the best for you. Do you remember my very first letter? How I told you I watched Wildcats one night, and that the movie wasn’t so great but that you kept my attention throughout? Do you know why that was, Seraphina? Do you know why I stared at the screen without blinking for nearly a minute before moving off the couch and crawling toward the TV so I could get a closer look? Do you know why every time you came on screen I reached out and touched your face with my finger, so many times that once the movie was over, the screen was covered in my fingerprints?
Inside, I knew. Deep down in that hollow place inside me, the place that opened up when I was forced to give away my baby, I knew. I saw you there on TV—the shape of your nose, the color of your eyes, the way your eyebrows would sometimes raise—and I just knew that you were mine. That you were the baby I was forced to give up.
A mother always knows, Seraphina. She just does.
This entire time I have been wanting to tell you so badly . . . there were even times that I wrote it down, but I knew it was too soon, so I ripped those pages up and flushed them down the toilet. I knew if I didn’t destroy them, I might be tempted to send them anyway. So imagine my shock when I saw the article about how you had apparently been reunited with your birth mother. I was devastated, of course. But I was also scared.
For you, Seraphina. I was scared for you. Because I know in my heart and my soul and with every fiber of my being that the woman who claims she is your mother is not truly your mother. I am willing to take a DNA test to prove it. This woman somehow manipulated the test, just like the crazy man from that Dateline story.
Please, my sweet daughter, please contact me so that we can finally meet in person and I can give you the hug I’ve wanted to give since the moment I had no choice but to say goodbye.
Love,
Your Mother