FAMILY SKELETONS

Every family has its skeletons.  This story is for Riley.

LOST AND FOUND

            I had a cousin once, till I was six.  We were the same age.  Her name was Riley.  Riley Weiss.  I loved playing with Riley.  And then she disappeared.  I heard my Mom and Dad talking.

            “Harry needs to take care of his own children,” my Dad said of his brother.

            “They’re not ours.  We have two children of our own to raise.  We don’t have room for two more,” my Mom said.

            “They’ll be better off if they’re adopted,” Dad said.

            They were talking about Riley and her baby brother, Raymond.  They were the two youngest in a family of five children, the only two sired by my uncle.  It was 1957 and jobs were not plentiful.  The family had nothing, and the nothingness couldn’t bind them together.  My uncle left and went his own way.  His common-law wife left with her two oldest, both boys.  The middle child was her daughter.  She lived with other relatives temporarily, and later joined her mother and brothers.

            I didn’t know what being adopted meant, but I did know that nobody wanted Riley.  What would happen to her and her brother?  Who would look after them?  I went to bed hugging my doll and crying for Riley.  And then I cried for me.  What would happen if nobody wanted me or my little brother?

            As the years went by, the names of Riley and Raymond disappeared from the family lexicon.  They were never mentioned.  Pictures of them were non-existent.  Uncle Harry was still my father’s brother, but we never saw him.  We moved away from Surrey, and moved back, and moved away, and moved back a second time.

            In 1964 I was thirteen and just starting grade eight in junior high school.  Leaving music class one day, a girl with a pretty skirt and sweater set, and short curly hair, moved in front of me and stopped me from leaving the room.

            “Is your name Lisa Weiss?” she asked.

            “Yes.”

            “Did you have a cousin named Riley?” she asked, looking at me with eyes that pleaded for me to remember.

            “Why?  Do you know her?” I asked this girl, as devastating memories flooded back.  My heart was racing.

            “Um.  I’m Riley,” she choked, starting to cry
.

            “But….but, your name is Pearl,” I stammered, trying to make sense of what I was hearing.

            “I got to pick a new name when I was adopted.  Because I had a new last name, I got to pick a new first name, too.  My name is Pearl Bailey now,” she told me, as both of us were wiping tears from our eyes.

            “What about your brother?  Do you know what happened to Raymond?”

            “We were both adopted by the same couple.  But he was a baby and he doesn’t know he’s adopted,” she told me.

            “Oh, my God.  Can I tell the family?  Tell them your new name and where to find you?”  I just couldn’t imagine losing her again .

            “No!  Not yet.  I don’t want to get in trouble.  I can’t have them phoning me or anything.  Maybe I shouldn’t have told you!” she panicked, and started to leave.

            “Wait!  It’s okay.  I won’t tell anybody if you don’t want me to,” I said, putting my hand on her arm to stop her leaving.

            “Oh, I don’t know what to do.  I want to see my brothers.  I want to see Grandma.  Do you know where they are?”

            I told her that as far as I knew, her half-brothers had moved to Prince Rupert with their mother.  And I told her that her half-sister had moved up there as well.  As the hope in her eyes started to fade, I hurriedly told her that our paternal grandmother lived nearby.  Her head lifted eagerly.

            “Could you ask her if she wants to see me?” Riley asked, her eyes beseeching me.

            “You want to see Grandma?  You don’t want to see your Dad, or your Mom?” I asked.

            “No.  Never!  They gave me away.  They’re not my parents!  Why did they give me away?”

            “I don’t know, Riley.  I don’t know.  I heard your Dad didn’t have work.  We don’t see him.  He has a new wife.  And more kids.  But we don’t see them.”

            “Oh.  He has more kids?  But he didn’t want me?” she asked, with a little girl’s frail voice.

            Seeing the haunted look in her eyes and the bleak slump of her shoulders, I put my books down and reached out and hugged her.

            “I wanted you, Riley.  I wanted you.  I would have kept you if I could.”

            As she disengaged from my hug, she said, “I’ll give you my number, and you can give it to Grandma.  She can phone and ask for me, but she has to ask for Pearl, not Riley.  My name is Pearl now.  And don’t tell anybody else, not even your parents.  Okay?”

            Taking her number, I gave her my promise, crossing my fingers behind my back.

_________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton