Helen Williams
carefully sets her china teacup in its matching saucer, pours hot
water over the Earl Grey tea bag and then sighs. Re-folding the
worn note, again, she heads over toward her stylish CD player and
selects a favorite. Suddenly her tasteful condo is awash in the
passionate Handel piece, ‘Water Music’.
The
orchestration is powerful, tragic, with just the right amount of
hope. “My God, what should I do?” She says out loud, shaking her
head. Helen turns down the volume, takes up her tea and deposits
herself in the window seat overlooking Lake Superior. Known around
the University of Minnesota Duluth as Professor Williams, who would
guess her dilemma?
She kicks off
her pumps, crosses her perfectly creased Ann Taylor slacks and
retrieves the note, again. Unfolding it, she re-reads the lively
hand written letter.
Dear Helen,
I’m getting
used to your name, I had originally named you Amy, but Helen’s nice
too. Had an aunt by that name… Anyway, to get to the point of this
note, on October sixth, nine-teen-seventy-five, I had you—gave birth
to you—I mean. You were such a cute little thing, but I was all of
seventeen and it just wasn’t in the cards for me to raise you.
Trust me on this, what the hell do you know when you’re seventeen?
So I gave
you up for adoption. They assured me that you’d have a mom and a
dad—home stuff—that you’d get a really good stab at life, a life I
myself was trying to figure out. I only held you the one time, but
I’ll always remember how you hung on to my finger, the nun had to
pry you away. God that was hard.
Every
year—even still—I think of you on your birthday, wonder is more like
it. I wonder if you got placed into a happy home. If you had
birthday cakes with candles and got lots of presents, if your
Christmas tree was small or big. I imagined you with a dog, a
bouncy brown one, wagging tail and all. I’d picture this stuff with
the hope that I’d done the right thing. I’d cry sometimes, too.
I’ve never
wanted to leap into your life in hopes of becoming your long lost
mom or anything like that. I still don’t want to intrude, only—I’m
dying to know that you’re okay, that your life has been a good one.
God I hope so. A friend of mine (her name is Mary Jo) runs this
business where she helps mothers find their kids and well, she’s
been on me to do this and after thinking about it—forever—I
agreed.
Look, I
promise I’m not going to like stalk you or anything, I only thought
that maybe you’d have some questions. Medical stuff. Aren’t you
the least bit curious? I’d be glad to meet you somewhere. Scared
to death, to be honest, but to finally meet you, in person, I can’t
tell you how great that’d be.
Okay, so I
don’t go mad with wonder, would you at least let me know that you
got this note? You can contact Mary Jo and she’ll let me know, she
suggested I offer that so as to not be so intrusive. Or, you can
email me: eve@rubysaprons.com or you can write directly to Eve Moss,
Steamboat Point, Madeline Island, Wisconsin.
Love,
Eve
PS Sure hope to
hear from you!
Helen lets the
note float to her lap, wiping away a lone tear, she makes up her
mind and heads over to her computer…