Invisible Ties

Kirk Donner has been my patient for eighteen years, ever since his adoptive parents brought him home at age two weeks. He is their pride and joy, very wise for his years, talented in languages and sports and strikingly handsome. He is taller than his parents with olive skin, curly dark hair and brown eyes, contrasting with their fair complexions and reddish blond hair.

He had known he was adopted from early on. At his well-child visits he would explain to me that he didn’t grow in his mother’s belly but in her heart as she longed for a baby to love some day.

His parents told him his birth mother was very young and wasn’t able to take care of him. She placed him for adoption because she wanted the best for him, they had explained.

Kirk often wondered what she was like and if they had a lot in common. His adoptive parents knew very little about her. They had a medical history questionnaire and a short biographical sketch from the adoption agency. They knew her first name was Suann.

A few times in moments of anger he had lashed out at his parents: “You don’t love me! I wish I could live with my real mother”, but most of the time he was happy with his life and didn’t even think about being adopted.

For several years before his eighteenth birthday the Donners had promised to take him to the State Capital if he wanted to go to the adoption registry. He knew that by registering there, he might be able to find his birth mother.

Kirk hesitated. He was very curious about her, but he also worried about what it would be like to meet her. Would she be someone he could respect and how would she feel about him? His eighteenth birthday passed and he still wasn’t sure.

Then a classmate’s mother had a car accident and was nearly killed when a moose ran into the road in front of her car. Kirk decided to make the trip as soon as possible.

With his adoptive mother he decided on a day and they made a date of it with lunch at a nice restaurant across the street from the registry. Kirk enjoyed the food but didn’t eat with his usual appetite. They had agreed that he would go alone while Beth Donner had coffee and they would meet back at the car when he was done.

Kirk took the elevator to the fourth floor. He was alone. As the door slid open, he stepped forward and almost collided with a tall, dark-haired woman with designer jeans and a plain, white blouse. Her eyes met his as he stopped and apologized. They were large and kind. She flashed a smile as he swerved around her, embarrassed and eager to get to the registry.

He walked up to the receptionist and stated his errand with words he had practiced in his mind the whole trip.

The clerk handed him a form and as he reached for a pen he saw a stack of similar forms in front of her. Reading the top one upside-down he saw the name:

Suann Walker.