Mystery and Uncertainty
By Laurent Clow
Her name is Lori. She was wearing red lipstick one day in August of 1996. She had recently finished reading "White Butterfly" by Walter Mosley. That's all I know about her.
Lori's name and the date she read the book are carefully contained inside a kiss. The deep red lipstick, the only evidence the kiss took place, has not faded in the eight years since she held the book in her hands. The lip-prints are on the inside back-cover of the book. Underneath the musty smell that all books eventually take on, there's a subtle hint of perfume.
I found Lori's copy of "White Butterfly" on a shelf in Wilson's Book World, a labyrinthine used bookstore on Dr. Martin Luther King Street in St. Petersburg, Fl. I know about the lipstick, the perfume and the date. But I don't know her last name or what she looks like. Where she lives. How old she is. If she has kids or a dog. I don't know why she picked up the book, or if she even liked it. I don't know anything about her, really. Just a small piece of her story. I tried to track down Lori. I called the bookstore and asked if I'd be able to find a particular person who traded in a book. The clerk laughed and said, "No, not through us." I hung up the phone. Oh well, I thought. At least I tried.
Lori is as much a mystery to me as my birth parents. When I tell people that I'm adopted, I downplay it. I say that I want to find my birth parents eventually, but it's no big deal. And it's true, to a certain extent. The question of who my birth parents are is not some burning, all-consuming thought. It's not something I get melodramatic about. Instead, it lurks quietly in the back of my head, surfacing every now and then to give me some idle questions. Are they like me at all? What if they're super rich? What if they're international spies? What if they're in the Mafia? What if they run a pizza shop in Canada? My birth parents exist as a mystery that I can safely solve within the confines of my imagination.
I decided two years ago that once I finished college, I would take a few months and start searching for them. I planned to go back to New Hampshire, visit with family and use my free time to start the search process. I told my parents. My dad thought it was a good idea, but my mother didn't seem to be too keen on it. Whenever the topic of finding my birth parents has come up, she gets quiet, a little nervous. We talked about it once, a few years ago, and she said she's afraid that when I do find my birth parents, I'll end up loving them more than the family that raised me. I told her that was ridiculous, that I wouldn't just abandon my family for a bunch of strangers. She smiled and acted reassured, but I sensed that doubts still lingered.
I talked up my plans. I told friends. I told other family members. I was trying to convince myself I could actually devote the time and energy to the search. That I had the guts to do it. Shortly after graduation, my roommate Frank and I were talking about my plans for the summer and the fall.
"So are you still going back to New Hampshire in the fall?" he asked. "Didn't you say you wanted to find your parents?"
"Yeah, but I don't know now," I said. "When I come back from Florida I'm going to have to start looking for a job and I can't put that off. Plus, if I went to look for my birth parents, I'd have to live at home and find a job in New Hampshire or something and I don't want to do that."
I hadn't even started yet and I was giving up.
"Are you going to look for them eventually? Or are you just going to let the whole thing slide?" he said.
"No, no, I'll look," I said. "But I don't have the time now and it's a long process to search for people and it'll be easier once I have a job and have some money saved or something."
Actually, I have no idea how long the process will take. I haven't looked at any information about adoption records or anything like that. The whole idea of the search process has joined learning to drive stick and eating healthy in the "stuff I should really do but don't have the time for" category. I tell myself it's because I don't have the time or the money, that I need to focus on getting a job before I do anything else.
But the real reason is that I'm afraid of the outcome. I'm afraid of disappointment, of rejection. I think of the worst possible endings. That they're in jail, or homeless, or afflicted with some horrible disease that I'll inherit. Or, worst of all, that they won't speak to me, deny I'm their son. I weigh the options: disappointment and rejection, or a never-ending mystery with infinite outcomes. I say that I don't have the time or money to devote to the search. But the truth is it's safer to live with the ambiguity of their identity than with the reality of who they are.
The deadline I set for myself two years ago is quickly approaching. I've made no effort to even begin the search. As a journalist, I spend my time looking for other people's stories. I'm comfortable with plumbing the depths of their lives for tragedy, comedy, drama and all those other big ideas. I don't mind taking 10 minutes to track down some woman who owned a book before me. But investigating myself, going out on a limb to find my roots, is infinitely more uncomfortable. I know that I should start my search soon, that every year I put it off it will become more difficult, harder to navigate through the records. That if I wait too long, the only way I'll know them is through their obituaries.
I'll never know the rest of Lori's story simply because it would be nearly impossible to find her. The rest of my story, the question of who my birth parents are, is within reach. But I'm not sure if I'm ready to make that leap yet. Until I am ready, they'll have to wait alongside Lori and all the other unsolved mysteries.
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