Unnecessarily spoken, the words flew across the room and latched themselves onto my brain, into my mind, through my heart. They are all I can remember from that moment in time. I stood there blankly for the duration of that scene, processing what had just been said. Now, I can remember their lips still moving, conveying thoughts I’ll never know from that experience alone.
You are adopted.
Such simple words. Such meagre language. Yet the meaning of them combined with the epitome of all I had surreptitiously observed and rebelliously thought completely mowed me over with the mere simplicity of it all.
“What? How?” I knew the answer all too well. Had I not been plotting for the day years before? Still, I felt the same dumbstruck view of the situation I had vowed so early on never to show. “What do you mean ‘I’m adopted’?”
“One day, we decide to have a child without-well- having a child and the answer was you.”
“So that’s it? No thought behind it? No serious consideration? Just me?”
“Well, of course there was serious consideration, and much thought behind it. It took a lot out of us to finally get you.”
“Yeah, so much that you decided to just have a kid the next time,” I replied adding with a murmur, “You should have done that the first time.”
“Now don’t go talking like that young lady,” my so-called father said, using his dim-witted stern voice.
“Since when have you been allowed to treat me that way?” I asked, defiant and disgruntled. “You’re not even my father.” With that, I stormed off in my most spectacular display of the hate I’d kept hidden for over three years and slammed the door to my room shut after swooping in it. The anger was overwhelming. It wasn’t the fact that I was adopted that made me so livid, for I’d been waiting for that announcement for a while. In fact, I’d been wishing for that statement, the time when I could finally fantasize about something-anything- not my life without feeling so guilty regarding it. No, it was the way it was said, without any respect, like it was just a plain part of anyone’s life. Like they could just waltz in and reveal a secret obscured for thirteen years- a secret of MUCH significance- and expect me to say, “Oh, okay. Thanks for telling me. I’m really glad I know now. So, let’s just continue our regular life.”
No way. Yo-di-lay. Jose. I thought. No way. I just never thought it would happen like this, with them being forced to tell me. I had been snooping around subtly, without making much of an effort to censor my speech. Apparently, it was enough to get them moving in the right direction. Soon, the dimwits figured I hadn’t been suddenly spurred in the right direction by some ghost seeking to right their wrongs. They looked in the “hidden” places where the documents were kept and discovered how disoriented and rearranged they were. Somehow, I-or someone- had been shifting through the files. Then, it was all history. Of course they had to expose the secret. The morals of this family meant something, they’d said. Yeah, well, if they really meant something I wouldn’t have felt as completely screwed as I did.