Page 90 of Days You Were Mine

‘It’s quite common for an adoptee to have a fear of abandonment – for obvious reasons – but coupled with the contradictory hunger to attach. And that abandonment feels life-threatening – is there any bigger trauma than being separated from your mother, the one person you needed at the beginning of your life? I don’t think so.’

I cry openly through these one-to-one sessions, partly withsorrow but also relief. For the first time in my life, my fucked-up-ness is beginning to make sense.

Joel explains about the trio of grief that marked my beginning. Mine at being separated from Alice, Alice’s at losing her child and Christina’s at her failure to have a baby of her own.

‘You begin life,’ Joel tells me, ‘with an impossible job description. From the word go you have to be a son to parents you don’t fit with genetically and you are there to fix an enormous grief in them at not being able to have children. As an only child, the onus is entirely on you to make things better.’

‘My mother admitted yesterday that she’s never really got over losing her baby,’ I say. ‘He was stillborn in her final month of pregnancy and I now think she was battling depression right through my childhood. And that made me feel guilty. I knew, without her telling me, that she was mourning her dead baby. But to me it felt like I was a constant disappointment because I wasn’t him.’

‘Do you think you would have felt different if you’d grown up with Alice? And Jacob?’

Jacob, this man I never knew; just the mention of his name triggers instant painful tears.

‘I don’t even know why I’m crying. Jacob died before I was born.’

‘Is it possible to feel grief for someone you have never known? Absolutely. You are grieving for a man you believe would have made a perfect father and a woman who wanted very much to be your mother.’

‘I’m poleaxed by sadness, but I didn’t even know of Alice’s existence until a few months ago.’

‘That’s part of it. Adoption is based on secrets and silence and nobody talks about how they’re feeling. How ridiculous is it that you spend your entire childhood without knowing whoyour real parents are and not feeling that you can ever ask? And without having the facts, you start to believe you must be flawed, because why else would someone have given you away? Sound familiar?’

‘As if you’re looking inside my head.’

Joel laughs. ‘You’d be surprised how many people say that to me. The problem is that everyone from the adoptive parents to the birth parents to the social workers bands together to protect the myth that it’s a great thing. “You were so lucky to be adopted,” how many times were you told that? I bet your parents said they “chose” you, didn’t they?’

‘My mother told me she’d gone to a hospital ward full of babies and picked me out because of my spiky black hair and my dark eyes.’

‘But you know that couldn’t possibly be true, don’t you? There’s no ward full of babies ready for adoption, like a supermarket pick ’n’ mix. It’s not a litter of puppies we’re talking about.’

‘And anyway, Alice managed to keep me for the first few weeks of my life.’

‘Did she tell you what you were like?’

‘Happy, always smiling. I never cried, apparently.’

‘And when you arrived in your new home, what were you like then?’

‘I cried day and night for the first three weeks. My mother thought it was colic.’

‘I listen to a story like yours every week and it amazes me that this great conspiracy still exists. Why don’t people understand the trauma of relinquishment? That pain you felt as a baby is still there, Luke. It’s locked away inside you.’

I’ve been crying almost without noticing for the last ten minutes. Now I press a tissue against my face, holding it therewith the palms of my hands. Inside me there is a shaft of such intense sadness my heart is actually hurting.

Our time is probably up, but Joel lets the silence run on; he waits until I take the tissue away from my face. We gaze at each other while I try to find the right words.

‘Will I ever feel better?’

‘I think so. You’re already beginning to understand the reasons why you feel the way you do. That helps, doesn’t it? With therapy you can learn to manage the trauma so you spot it the moment it walks through the door rather than waiting for it to knock you down.’

Most days my mother picks me up from the Priory, waiting in the car park in her navy-blue Golf, with my small son and his ragged bear strapped into the back. Samuel always smiles as soon as he sees me. He has mastered his version of a wave, one hand flung out in recognition, accompanied by a whoop of delight.

Sometimes I get into the back beside him. I kiss his face, his tight, smooth cheeks, his unfeasibly long eyelashes. My mother likes to brush his hair into a 1950s sweep-over. Hannah jokes that he looks like Laurel from Laurel and Hardy.

‘Hello, Laurel,’ I whisper as Christina starts the car and pulls away.

And Samuel laughs and claps his hands, his latest trick, waiting for me to do the same.

Then

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