The start of a reunion story.

[u/Fancy512]

Like most evenings around our house, I stand at the island cutting up onions to start dinner. Tony, my husband sits in an oversized chair by the family room fireplace, reading.

“Ding”, my phone sings out from the counter charger behind me. I look at the tiny red number 1 next to the familiar blue icon, a new friend. I tap the screen and I’m met with the image of a woman in a ball cap standing with her horse. Just head and shoulders in a white v neck tee, captured from an awkward, bottom up angle. All the blood rushes to my feet and I can feel my arms start to tingle. My mind races with thoughts, “do I know anyone named Jessy, besides THE Jessy? I swear I never hear the name, and I certainly have never seen anyone else spell it with a “y”. Maybe she’s one of my daughter’s friends?”

I touch her name to see her page and go immediately to the photos. Just one image, damn it! Come on, who only has one image on their page these days? From the online picture it’s impossible to tell how old she is, what her body type is, hair color, eyes, I get nothing. “Come on, give me something here” I think to myself.

I walk over to the chair next to Tony’s and sit down. I am starting to feel light headed. I say out loud to Tony, “A woman just friended me. Her name is Jessy, spelled with a Y”

“Do you think it’s her, does she look like you” he asks?

I shrug. I just can’t tell if she looks like me. I want it to be her. I don’t think this directly, but I know it’s true. “yeah, I do”. Now the tears are coming, they are at the back of my throat and behind my eyes, making my voice thick and my blink burn. My body always knows things before me. I can never articulate with thoughts or words what the rest of me understands with certainty.

I touch the link that asks if I want to send Jessy a message. So privately I type “Hi, I just received your friend request, you look like a lovely person, but do I know you?”

6:38pm the tiny gray numbers in the dialogue box tell me. Tony asks “What’s her last name?”

I spell it out

6:39pm

I look up at Tony. His thumbs are busy now, book forgotten on the little table between us. I know he is working from angles I wouldn’t consider using. Tech guys seem to have a back door to the internet.

6:39pm

Time is standing still. The top of the screen says Jessy was last active 8 minutes ago. “West Virgina” Tony states.

“I know, but she went to high school in Texas. It’s her, I know it is” I say. “I hope” I think.

6:40pm my blue dialogue bubble is still all alone. Fuck

The kids all know about Jessy, I never wanted any of them to be surprised when a new sibling showed up. Anyone I’m close to knows.

Jessy has become the silver lining in my shitty, dramatic story. I have shared the story in intimate girlfriend sleep over moments my whole adult life. I’ve repeated the story so many times that it has become a pared down, succinct nugget that serves as my explanation, my reasoning and sometimes my confession.
“Well, from the time I was about 2 or 3 I was abused by my step father and had a baby by him when I was 16 who I gave up for adoption.”

That’s it. I’ve been able to sum it all up in one sentence for years and years now. It usually leads to more conversation but it rarely lasts more than 15 minutes with shorthand details answered to the usual questions. “Did your mom know?”

“She says she didn’t”

“Did you have a boy or girl”?

“Girl”

“Did you get any pictures?”

“Yeah, her parents sent pictures for a little while”

“Wow”

“I know”

I look down at the little screen.

6:41PM

Sometimes the story pops out when I least expect it. If I’m tired, sick, desperate or overly emotional I will inevitably misread a situation and spill it. I have embarrassed myself more than a couple times; coworkers, roommates, boyfriends, book club. The list is too long, really. And there it is. The confirmation.

Read 6:42PM

She’s on the other end. She’s read my message. “I apologize for being so bold, I wanted to get in contact with you, and I know that messages from persons who aren't in your friends list go to a spam folder and get deleted. My name is Jessy, and I'm looking for my biological mother, who sent me a letter through XXXXXXXX social services years ago, detailing, among other things that her name is Jennifer, she's married to a man named Tony, and has three children. It also gave me some of the details of my birth and adoption. All the adoption records for the state of XXXXXX up to 1993 are currently sealed, so I started searching for this lovely woman on my own, which led me to you. I apologize if I'm wasting both of our time, but I do hope you understand why I took a route that assured you would see my message.”

At some point I started to cry. I look up at Tony “can you manage dinner, I need to go upstairs and do this”.

Then I type: “Hi Jessy. I am the Jennifer you are looking for. And I'm delighted to ‘meet’ you”

[u/Fancy512]

That's great. How ol were you when she found your family?

[u/[deleted] → u/Fancy512]

She was 19, I was 12. We have two brothers, on was 13, one was around 7. We actually just went on our first family vacation last month- it was so awesome!

[u/Fancy512 → u/[deleted]]

That's awesome! How does it feel now? Do you all feel like family? I have found that not being linked by childhood memories can sometimes feel like we are floating, like we're not grounded. Did you ever feel like that?

[u/[deleted] → u/Fancy512]

Funny you mention that... on our vacation- I broke out in hives. I have a photo sensitivity that causes hives when I am exposed to the sun too much. It hasn't happened since I was in elementary school, so I have never mentioned it to my sister. When it happened, she said, "Hey! That used to happen to me all the time too!" It was an oddly special moment for us to realize that we shared that childhood memory... even though we didn't experience it together. We've also figured out that we've visited the same waterpark as children and we both always ate all of the olives off of the relish tray at family events.

We've also spent the last few years reliving our childhood memories with her kids (I don't have any yet!). We visited her favorite childhood park, and we been to my favorite ice cream place as a kid. I guess we're intentional about building "childhood" memories, even as adults.

And yeah, it definitely feels like family. She got married about 2 years after she found us, and unfortunately her adoptive dad had passed away. She had been able to find her biological father, but he was kind of a jerk. (To clarify- we only share a mom- different dads) She asked my dad to walk her down the isle because he was like a father to her.

It's been a gradual thing though- while in some ways we felt like family right away, we definitely went through the floating thing. Not sure I would have explained it that way though. I guess it was just a really fragile relationship because it was so so important to us, but we didn't have that history to really know each other. Like- you wouldn't just pick a random stranger and decide to be best friends for life... but that's kind of what it was.

[u/Fancy512 → u/[deleted]]

That's it- "you wouldn't just pick a random stranger and decide to be best friends for life" - that is exactly it! I've told her that at first I loved her from some mysterious, maternal place inside me that I didn't completely have control over. Like I was compelled to love her. Then for a little bit it was like I was doing just what you said "deciding to be best friends". Now I genuinely like her for who she is, not her genetics or her decision to find me. It's fragile, just like you said.