LIKE YOU
Joyce Peterson
Beth put the casserole in the oven, then pulled the letter from a pocket in her jeans. She wish she could throw it away, instead, she opened it to read it for the fifth time since she took it from the mailbox earlier in the afternoon. It was almost time for her husband to come home. She hoped Sue Ellen wouldn't get home before he did. It would give them a little time to discuss it, to decide what to do. Her daughter had asked to go to a friend's house after school and she had given permission since the friend lived just two doors down the street.
She didn't realize that Chuck had come in the back door until she felt him kiss her on the cheek. "Must be some letter you've got there."
She jumped back. "I didn't hear you come in," she said as she handed him the letter. "It's a letter I never wanted to get."
He gave a soft whistle as he finished it. "Well, you know we've got to tell her now. It's something we should have done before she got to be nine years old." He handed the letter back to her.
As she put it in the envelope and stuffed it back in her pocket, she told him, "I know, you've been telling me that for a long time. I knew we would have to tell her some day, I just always hoped it wouldn't be THAT day…today.." she corrected herself. "I'll have to send an answer…"
Chuck had put his arms around her. "You can do that tomorrow. Let's talk to her after dinner. Let's see what Sue Ellen thinks. Maybe we should take a vote," he laughed.
Their daughter came in just as he finished talking. "What are we going to vote on?"
Chuck answered, "Why don't we have dinner first, then we can go to the living room and settle down and see what it is we will be voting on."
Sue Ellen hugged him. "I vote yes on that, " she told him. "I'm hungry. Smells like we're having my favorite tuna casserole." She looked at the table. "It's all set. I thought that was my job."
Beth tried to smile but was sure her lips weren't cooperating. "I had time and I thought we might want to talk about that vote we will be taking." She motioned for them to sit.
It was so quiet during dinner that Sue Ellen looked at them and asked, "What is it? Did somebody die? Was it Aunt Clara? I knew she was sick."
Beth and Chuck both laughed. "No. Aunt Clara is fine. Now finish your dessert so we can put the dishes in the dish washer and go to the "Voting Room"."
The girl scraped the last bit of pudding from her dessert bowl and swallowed it as she talked. "Maybe when we're talking you could answer something for me." When they both nodded, she asked, "Who do I look like?"
Both Beth and Chuck practically choked on their pudding. Chuck told her, "We'll talk about that when we get to the living room? "
"OK," she answered as she started taking the dishes to the sink. She had really been an easy child to raise.
When they were finally settled in the living room, Chuck took his usual big tilt back chair and Beth sat on the couch with her arm around Sue Ellen.
Beth was not surprised when her daughter moved away and said, "OK, you guys, this is about me, isn't it?" Sue Ellen had always been a smart child. "Have I done something wrong?"
Beth and Chuck both assured her that she had done nothing wrong. He nodded to Beth, telling her to take over but it was hard to know where to start. She guessed the beginning would be the best place.
Since all this had happened in Cincinnati before they moved to Arizona, Beth hadn't anticipated the questions to start so soon, not that nine years was soon, she had just hoped that they would never start. She knew she would probably have to explain someday but she had always hoped it would be some tomorrow, not today.
"No, sweetheart, you haven't done anything wrong" Beth answered carefully as she took Sue Ellen's hand in hers. She was only nine but she would recognize a lie. Beth suddenly realized that the girl had given her a place to start. "Why do you want to know who you look like?" she asked.
"Some of my friends were saying that people told them they looked like their Mom or their Dad. I just wondered who I look like. I have red hair and blue eyes. You and Dad both have brown hair and brown eyes so I wondered who I look like." The child was just inquisitive but Beth felt trapped by the question.
Just yesterday they had got a letter from the birth mother who, after all these years, wanted to meet her daughter. How could she not let that happen? It would be totally unfair to Sue Ellen to cut her off from any contact with the woman, but how to tell the child now? She was smart but could she possibly understand?
She put her arm around Sue Ellen and pulled her close. "Maybe it's time we talked about all this. If I say something you don't understand, tell me and I'll try to explain. OK?"
"OK?" Sue Ellen sounded like she was unsure of to what she was agreeing.
Beth felt like the first time she had when she jumped into the water holding her nose because she didn't know how to swim. She tried to steady her voice as she said. "You know that, before you were born, Dad and I lived in Cincinnati." When the girl nodded, Beth knew she had to tell her the rest, but how? "We had a baby that…didn't live…"
"You mean before me?" Sue Ellen asked.
Beth felt like walls were closing in on her. "More like about the same time."
They had had the "baby talk" more than a year ago so she wasn't surprised at the child's reaction when she said, "I didn't know you could do that."
This smart daughter was not going to make it easy for Beth. "Let me explain a little more before you ask any more questions. You see, when our baby died we found someone who knew about another lady who had had a baby that she would not be able to take care of. The baby was you and we were very lucky to find a baby that needed us as much as we needed her."
There was a long pause as Sue Ellen seemed to be absorbing what she had just heard. "So, I'm adopted?" Both Beth and Chuck nodded, vigorously. " There's a girl in my class at school that was adopted. She said that her mother loved her more than our mothers loved us because she was chosen and her mother didn't have to take whatever she got, like our mothers." She paused before asking, "Why didn't my other mother want me?" She waited for a answer.
Beth had told her to ask questions but, since she hadn't planned on answers, it took her a while to reply. "I'm sure she did, sweetheart, and I'm sure that giving you up was the hardest thing she ever did. From now on, let's call her your Birth Mother."
"OK, Mom. That will make you my real Mother. What about my Birth Father? Didn't he want me?"
Beth had to rely on the truth. "We didn't hear about him. Maybe he didn't know about you?"
"I guess I'm lucky to have Dad for my real Father. But I wonder what she looks like, my Birth Mother, I mean. Am I like her?"
Beth tried to remember the brief encounter they had had with the woman that gave birth to their daughter. She had been surprised that it was a woman and not a young girl."It was a long time ago but I remember that she did have red hair."
Beth pulled the letter from her pocket. "I got this letter a few days ago. She lives in Phoenix, now, and would like to visit. I think we should decide, together, if you want her to come. Do you?"
Sue Ellen pondered the question for a while before she answered. "Why not, unless you think we shouldn't." Looking up at her mother with big, blue eyes, she added, "I vote yes. What do you think?" Voting had been the thing to do, in the family, when something related to all of them.
Beth held her breath for a second before she whispered, "I vote "Yes". She put the letter back in her pocket and crunched it in her hand.
Sue Ellen looked at her father. "What about you, Dad?"
Chuck stood up. "I've always loved that name…DAD," he said, "Of course, I vote yes."
The child nodded, toward the pocket into which Beth had stuffed the letter, as she asked, "Will you let her know or do you want me to write to her? I'm not very good at letter writing."
Beth smiled as she told her, "I think that would be my job since she wrote to me."
The girl sounded relieved as she said, "Great. Let me know what happens," and left the room.
Beth couldn't believe that it was over. She had told Sue Ellen the truth and didn't feel like she had hurt her in the way it had been done. She hoped the child wasn't hiding some unexpressed feelings. They had always been able to talk things over but she decided to listen for anything that might change in their relationship, even in a small way.
That night, when they were alone in their bedroom talking it over, Chuck laughed when he told her, "When she said 'Why not...',it sure sounded like something you'd say. Maybe she'll be like you whether you were her birth mother or not," he told her.
Beth smiled. "I'll try to let her see just the good parts," she promised.
The next day Beth answered the letter, telling the woman that she would be welcome but to let her know when she would be coming. However, after a month, when she had not heard any further, she thought the woman had given up the idea, but she had been wrong.
She was weeding in the front yard when an old model car pulled up in font of the house and a woman got out of the driver's side and came around the front of the car. Coming up the walk, she asked, "Mrs.Moore?"
Beth knew it was her, the hair was still red but brighter than she remembered and she was at least fifty pounds heavier. "I'm Beth Moore and you are…?" She asked.
"You won't remember me. I wrote you a letter a while ago…Liz Desmont."
Beth had a hard time trying to sound polite. "I remember. I asked you to let me know when you would be coming."
The woman sounded like she was on the verge of tears as she answered, "I know. But I had to get up the nerve and I had to come without my husband knowing. I had to come when I could…?"
Beth began to feel sorry for her, "I see," she said, "your husband didn't know?"
"He knew when I had her because he's the one who didn't want children, that's why I gave her up. I told him a few times I wanted to try to find her, he wouldn't let me. But I had a detective look for her. I was glad to find out she was in this little Arizona town, not too far from Phoenix. We moved there about five years ago." Liz was near enough to Beth that the alcohol on her breath became an unwelcome perfume in the air.
Beth was doing her best to make this meeting a good one but found it almost too hard. She stood up and brushed herself off. Holding her hand out to the woman, "It's… unusual to meet again." Beth couldn't make herself say 'good to meet you', there wasn't anything good about it. "Let's go in the house. Sue Ellen will be home from school soon." She led the way up the walk.
"Sue Ellen, what a lovely name." Liz followed her through the door and sat in the armchair to which Beth motioned.
Beth wondered if she could get the woman to drink some coffee. Maybe that would disguise the alcohol smell a little. "How about a cup of coffee? I just made a fresh pot," she lied, she'd have to make it.
"Sure. That would be great," Liz told her.
Beth was in the kitchen, trying to get a pot of coffee started, when Sue Ellen came in the back door, "Hi, Mom. You got company? I saw a car out front."
Beth felt a trap closing in on her. "She's here," she mumbled, "the letter…" she tried to explain.
Her daughter whispered, "My birth mother? Should I go in?"
Beth nodded, "Tell her I'm getting the coffee ready."
Sue Ellen walked through the living room doorway and looked at the woman who was smoking a cigarette. "Hi, I'm Sue Ellen. My mother doesn't like anyone to smoke in here."
The woman looked around. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. Could you get me an ashtray? I don't see any."
The girl found something that would serve as an ashtray and handed it to Liz. "That's OK. You'll know the next time you come."
Liz was studying the beautiful child before her. "Sue Ellen…I'm…I'm…"
"I know, you're my birth mother." She sniffed the air. " Is that some kind of perfume you're wearing? It smells like what Uncle Danny says is his shaving lotion?" Beth was in the kitchen but had been listening to what was going on in the living room. She had to smother a laugh. Danny was Chuck's imbibing brother.
Liz sniffed the air, too. "I don't smell anything, maybe I'm just used to it. You look like you have a good life here, Sue Ellen."
"I always have had. Mom and Dad are the best. Mom's a good cook but she watches what I eat so I stay healthy," she looked at the heavyset woman in the chair, "and don't put on too much weight."
Beth was coming through the door with a tray of coffee and cookies. She couldn't hold back back the laugh but let it come out as a tight lipped, "Pppppp". "Sorry."
"I understand," Liz said. "Maybe I should get your recipes." Beth was glad she seemed to have a sense of humor. She would need it, living with a husband like the one she had described.
The rest of the afternoon went so fast that Chuck walked in the door before they realized what time it was. "I see we have company," he announced.
Sue Ellen was the first to jump up. She ran to him, "Dad, you'll never guess who this is." She took him over to Liz. "This is my birth Mother."
"I can see a little resemblance," he told her.
"Oh, the hair. She's going to get some of Mom's recipes so she can lose some weight and she's decided she doesn't like that perfume that smells like Uncle Danny's after shave lotion. She doesn't live too far away but she won't visit too often because her husband won't come with her…"
Beth held up her hand. "Honey, let's leave some of our afternoon talk so we can discuss it over dinner. You're welcome to stay and eat with us," she told Liz.
"No, I have to go. I should have gone before this. He doesn't like for me to be out this late." Liz gathered her purse to her and stood up. Looking at Beth, she said in a small voice, "Thank you for letting me come."
Beth and Chuck both shook hands with her. She looked like she wanted to hug Sue Ellen but the girl extended her hand to her, too. "It was good to meet you," she told her.
When the car had pulled away, Sue Ellen announced, "It WAS good to know who she is, but, Mom, I hope I grow up to be just like you."
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