Preview.
I've always known that I was adopted, but in 2003 at the age of fifty one I decided to find my birth mother. After a short search with plenty of help, I found her in California.

I travelled over from Scotland, where I lived at the time, and stood on her doorstep. She lets me in and we hit it off right away.

She is now telling me the story of my American father, who had to leave for faraway shores with the Merchant Marines. He promises to write, and Mum receives a few letters. She then realises that she is pregnant, and writes numerous letters, but never receives an answer.

It is with a heavy heart that she gives me up for adoption right after my birth in May 1952.

Mum leaves for Heidelberg, Germany to work and to mend, when she meets George. They fall in love, and leave for Denmark to marry in the autumn of 1954.
They have just arrived at my grandmother's home after the wedding when she hands my Mum a letter.

End of last chapter:

"Elise," she said. "This is the last letter that arrived from that American lover of yours."

I almost choked on my wine, and all I managed to say to Mum was an inadequate. "You are joking!"


Part Seventeen.

"Ulla, I wish I was. There we stood, George and I, only married an hour earlier, and your grandmother threw that at us. I honestly didn't know what to do nor how to assimilate it. I was speechless. I took one good look at my mother, and I wanted nothing more than to leave. There was one question though that I had to ask first. How many more letters had there been? It came out in barely a whisper.

"My mother looked at me, shrugging. She thought there had been eight or maybe nine. She couldn't remember exactly.

"When I asked her what she'd done with them, she looked at me in disdain and said she'd burned them. I think I gasped out loud. It was hard to take in that she could have been so callous. How could she have done this to me and why? Did she really hate me that much? For what else could it be?

"This was way too much. I found it difficult to breathe, and I knew that George and I had to take our leave at once. I looked down at my hands that still clutched the letter, feeling that I couldn't be in the same room as her for a moment longer."

I was shocked at what I was hearing, and now it was my turn to whisper. "Mum, whatever did you do then?"

"Oh, George and I left immediately. He was so angry, he could hardly stop from shaking, and as for me, well, I felt bereft to say the least. This was supposed to be one of the happiest days in my life, and instead I felt like a steam train had just run over me."

I sat speechless not knowing what to say. The implications of what Mum had just told me were almost too much to contemplate. Dear God, what had she done, that grandmother of mine. She'd played God with all our lives. I swallowed. Oh this was hard to take in. I felt as if I was drowning.

For the first time since I'd met Mum, I felt a sense of great despair. It engulfed my whole being, threatening to take over whatever I had felt earlier. I was devastated.

I went in to free fall as the enormity of what Mum had just told overwhelmed me. I burst into tears realising that this was too much.

How could my grandmother have done what she did? And at that moment it dawned on me that everything could have been so different.

My grandmother had played roulette with all our lives, and a feeling of anger that I'd never experienced before descended on me. How dare she! I was reeling from the monstrosity of it all.

She had not only played with my Mum's life and destiny, but also with mine. Three lives in fact as she had also affected the life of my father. Whether it would have been a good life with my real parents was not the issue here, because I will never know, and it didn't matter, not now, anyway. What mattered was the utter frustration of it all, and again I asked myself, how she could have done what she did. What the hell possessed her? I sobbed into the napkin Mum had provided.

"I am so sorry Mum, but this just threw me. How could she possibly do that to you? And on your wedding day, no less. What did poor George do, and what was in that final letter from Dad?"

"Whoa, Ulla, that's a lot of questions. I will answer you one by one, but first we need to eat and I think yet another glass of wine is called for. I feel we both need the sustenance. Come on girl, in the kitchen now!"

I smiled, tears still running, but Mum was right, of course. What we needed was fuel to see us through what was to come next.

We brought our late lunch out to the terrace, and ate in silence, each engulfed in our own thoughts, and it was good not having to say anything just yet. It was such a beautiful day, the birds chirping away happily, or so it seemed.The bright sunshine and the gentle heat combined with food and wine warmed my rather chilled heart.

I thought about how incredible it was what had happened in the last forty eight hours since I met my Mum for the very first time. I still had another two days before I had to go back home to Scotland, but I pushed that thought away. Here and now was so much more important, and I was soon to learn what was in the letter from my father.

We finished our meal and Mum poured us yet another glass of wine before she resumed her tale.

"Ulla, why your grandmother did what she did, I will never know. It was never spoken of ever again. Besides, it was many years later before I could even face seeing her. What I can say for sure, is that George was furious. He could see the hurt she'd caused, and all he did was to grab my arm telling me that we were leaving.

"We found a hotel for the night, and after settling in, I remember we got some food delivered to our room. I found that I was still holding on to the letter, and I also remember George gently taking it out of my hand placing it on the table between us. His exact words to me were that first we were going to eat, and then, I could read it, and tell him what it said ... if I wanted to, that was. We had a lovely meal that I managed to enjoy while we went over the events of our day. George poured us some coffee, and the moment had finally arrived to see what the letter said.

"I opened it and started to read."


To be continued.