I try to suppress my emotions as I drive through the quiet suburban neighbourhood, stifling my growing nerves with each metre I cover. The closer I get to the unknown, the more my nerves intensify. Will I receive the closure I wish for? Or will I leave this experience feeling even worse about myself and the situation? Should I have just let it go? Was opening this Pandora’s box necessary?
I can barely appreciate the beautiful scenery and the picturesque images of the lovely yards and the white and brown homes that have the smell of fresh rolls and homemade sugar cookies wafting from them. It is 9:55 on a Tuesday morning, so the streets are mostly quiet and empty, and I wonder what living here would be like.
I take a deep breath. I am almost there. The map on my dashboard tells me that I am only four blocks away. My palms are damp, gripping the steering wheel so hard that I know it would scream if it were animate. Slowing down, I stop the car on the side and try to calm myself, unclenching my grip on the steering wheel. I can almost hear my mother’s voice in my ear, telling me to take deep breaths, so I do.
Destiny is a strange thing. Sometimes, it works in an almost unbelievable way. What were the odds that we would both be in the same state, so many years later, and continents away from our roots? And what were the odds that she would accept my invitation to interview her on her latest, yet-to-be-released, book? As one of the most successful authors in the past few years, many book enthusiasts and reporters had tried to interview Ama Blaq, but she had always been elusive, preferring to just release the books under her pseudonym and keep it moving. It was somewhat unusual for a successful New York Times Bestselling author to refuse interviews and public promotions for her books, but she had managed to keep herself out of the public eye and avoid the media until now. When her publicist revealed her real name and photo two weeks ago, I was gobsmacked. That was a name I was familiar with and had been since I was a young child of ten years old. And that face? I was definitely familiar with it as well. Her publicist had said that she was still not granting any interviews, but I hadn’t been able to resist trying. The title of the book, God’s Gift, also made it harder to resist. Nonetheless, I had been shocked when she accepted my invitation, and now it is almost time for us to meet. Does she know? Is that why she accepted? Or did she accept because I was a Ghanaian woman requesting an interview? When she looks at me, will she remember?
“Shit!” I curse when a cursory glance at the dashboard reveals that I have only one minute to the appointment time. Now feeling calmer, I drive the rest of the way to her house and park in her driveway.
My feet feel like lead as I take the short walk to her front porch, smiling at the adorable pots of flowers that are so similar to what I have at home. Once I am in front of the door, my heart starts to beat just a little faster. My finger hovers over the doorbell, waiting for my nerves to calm down before I take a deep breath and press it.
I hear the muffled sound of approaching footsteps, and before I am ready, the door opens, and she is standing in front of me. I see the quickly masked shock on her face as we stare at each other for a few seconds. She must have looked me up when I requested the interview, but seeing me like this in front of her is different. She knows. She can’t look at me and not know.
“Hello, Gift,” she finally greets, and hearing her call me by the name my birth mother had given me causes a lump to form in my throat.
“Please, come in,” she adds, despite my stunned silence and lack of response to her greeting.
“I’m so– sorry,” I stutter miserably, overwhelmed with emotions when I enter her large living room and see pictures of her on the walls.
“Please sit,” she invites, and her calmness makes me feel worse. How can she be so calm when my stomach is tied in knots? How can she not be affected? Does she really not care?
I sit numbly in one of her brown chairs, watching as she sits in the opposite chair.
“Can I offer you a drink? Or would you prefer water?” she adds when I decline the first offer.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
I take a deep breath. “I don’t know why I came.”
She tilts her head. “I thought it was to interview me for your magazine — or maybe to finally meet me.”
It is the last part, when her voice breaks to reveal her emotions and nervousness, that makes me realise that she’s not as unaffected as I had thought. It is almost like watching my own eyes—or a future version of them. We look too much alike for there to be any confusion as to who I am. Our faces look alike right down to the little mole at the corner of our left eye and the dual-tone lips.
“You know.”
I don’t say it as a question, and a response is not necessary given the obvious, but she nods.
“Did you know when you accepted my interview request?” I ask.
She smiles a little. “I would know your name anywhere. I named you Gift before I gave you to your parents. The Quainoos assured me that they would keep it. I was not going to interfere after giving you to them, but I wanted to be able to identify you by name if we ever crossed paths. And naming you was the least I could do for you at the time.”
“Why did you name me Gift?” I ask softly. “I wasn’t a gift to you.”
She looks at me with a bittersweet expression.
“You were a gift, even if I couldn’t keep you. I could not keep you because you deserved better. Here was this amazing, well-to-do couple who craved a child, and then there was me, a mentally unstable, broken 21-year-old woman who had barely outgrown teenagehood and could barely take care of herself. I had no business being the primary caretaker of a helpless baby. You were so tiny, helpless, and precious. And throughout everything I experienced as a young, pregnant widow whose husband died of cardiac arrest during a threesome in a hotel room, the Quainoos were the ones who helped me the most, even more than my family. I used to work as her assistant before I got married, and when my life went to hell, she and her husband were there for me.
They were so enthralled by you, and I could see the longing in her eyes. When it was time for us to go home, Mrs Quainoo asked me what they could do to help us, and I knew. It just hit me then that they were meant to be your parents. They craved children but couldn’t have theirs, and I knew that they were considering adoption. It seemed so perfect, right?”
There is a faraway look in her eyes as she recalls the moment. Her eyes close for a moment, and when she opens them, a tear slips down her cheeks, but she has a soft smile on her face.
My parents had told me about this, of course, but I hadn’t been too inclined to believe them. They were such pure-hearted and sweet people that I always thought that maybe they had embellished the story to spare my feelings.
“While I was pregnant, everyone kept telling me that you would heal me. ‘Being a mother will make you better,’ they said. ‘Once you see your little angel, you will find happiness, and through mothering, you will heal.’
And then you came. For the first few hours while I was your mother, something warm filled my chest. Something warm, wondrous, and sweet. I was exhausted and in pain from the birth, but I could not sleep. For hours, I stared at you in awe. How could I have created something so precious? I was a broken shell of a woman, and somehow, you came out of me.”
More tears flow as she speaks, and I find myself wiping at my eyes too. Then she gazes at me with tear-filled eyes that are soft with memories and emotion.
“And for a short while, I considered it. Maybe I could take care of this baby. God wouldn’t have allowed me to give birth to such a lovely and healthy baby despite everything if he didn’t think I was capable, right? Maybe this baby could heal me after all. But then something happened. I fell asleep gazing at you and had a terrible dream. In the nightmare, I had zoned out for hours and forgotten you existed. You cried and cried and cried, but I couldn’t hear you. I had been left with you for just an hour – and I forgot about you. When people finally came, you were lying in your crib, filthy and dead, and I was just sitting on the bed a few steps away, lost to the world. When I woke up and realised it was all a dream and you were still alive and well, I was sick with relief. It had seemed so real because it was a scenario that was entirely too possible. I used to zone out for hours while I was pregnant, and therapy wasn’t helping much yet. The grief, shock, and public humiliation I had gone through had broken my mind, and I couldn’t function properly.”
She is staring at me as she speaks, with more tears spilling down her regal cheeks, and for a few seconds, I can almost see that distraught, broken woman who woke up from the nightmare of zoning out while her baby died.
She closes her eyes again, and when she opens them, they are clearer and no longer teary.
“So I knew that I was not fit to be in charge of anyone, especially a fragile baby. I could get help caring for you, but sometimes it would be just us. My mother said she would help, but I remembered the kind of childhood I had, and I wanted better for you. Keeping you would be selfish and irresponsible. I had been on earth for many years, and I was broken. You just got here. How could I expect you to be the one to heal me? How could an innocent child be tasked with the job of healing a broken parent? And if, by some luck, I didn’t hurt you physically—what about emotionally? Mentally? How could a suicidal woman who belonged in a mental institution mother a child who will turn out sane, happy, and healthy? I was almost lifeless and mentally unstable, but I had enough love for you to see that I would be a terrible mother to you. You didn’t deserve to suffer with me.
“So when Mrs Quainoo offered her help, I had an epiphany. Maybe God’s plan was just for me to bring forth the child. I had done my part, and it was time for the Quainoos to do theirs – parent you. You were a gift from God to them, and you were a gift to me too, to begin my healing. Having you made me see that I was still capable of creating beauty and that I had more to live for. I may not have done it while mothering you, but I lived for you – the baby who brought life into my dark world and gave me the will to live again.”
My chest fills with emotion as I look at the woman who birthed me. I came for closure, but as we stare at each other, we both know that I only just opened a door by coming here. A door to something new and beautiful. I don’t remember who moved first, but we spent the next few moments hugging each other and letting the emotions wash over us. I have always felt like a gift because the Quainoos have been amazing parents whom I love dearly. They have loved me fiercely for as long as I can remember, and I have loved them too. Until Ama Blaq had revealed herself and I found myself staring at an image of a woman who looked like an older version of me, my birth mother had been someone whose existence I rarely thought about without a little bit of resentment and hurt. But now, as I hug her back, I feel my heart tug for the mother I thought had abandoned me. And I loved her for giving me up so that I could thrive.
