This story is by Darlene Elder and was part of our 2025 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
When my ten-year-old asked if she was wanted, I nearly choked on my chai.
Why was she asking? Did her older sister say something? Or maybe her dad, my ex-husband? I wouldn’t put it past him, since he clearly didn’t want another child with me, even suggesting he would be fine if I had an abortion.
“What makes you ask?” I was sitting at the make-shift desk in my bedroom, grading papers. Nora was stretched out sideways on the bed, head propped up on her hands, watching me. Hugo, our fat black cat, sidled up next to her and demanded to be scratched.
“Today, this girl named Sasha told us her mother hated her. Nobody likes Sasha. She’s kind of a sourpuss. Why would a mother hate her own kid?”
I’m not sure what answer I expected, but it wasn’t that. “I can’t imagine why she would think that. I met her mother at Parents’ Night. She seemed lovely.”
“Sasha said her mother’s not her real mother. Her real mother didn’t want her when she was born and gave her away. It’s her real mother who hates her. That’s why she gave her away.”
I felt a burn creep up my neck and spread over my cheeks. I tried to speak, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
“Mom, are you okay? You look funny.”
“I’m okay.” My voice was shaky. I could speak now, but what do I say? I watched Hugo cuddle up next to Nora. She stroked his long black fur as the cat purred quietly. “It sounds like Sasha was adopted,” I said, my voice cracking on the word.
“Why would a mother give away her child?” Nora asked. “Didn’t she love her? I thought mothers had to love their babies.”
“Well,” I said and then stopped, filled for a moment with a flood of emotions and painful memories.
I am seventeen, a senior in high school. My friends and I are at a party with a roomful of people we hardly know. Older kids, too, home from college for winter break. Lots of drinking. Eventually, people pair off and disappear. I never drink, so it doesn’t take much to get me loopy. Before I know it, I’m upstairs in a bedroom with a guy I hardly know. At some point, I pass out and remember nothing else about the evening, except my friends dragging me out and driving me home. Five months later, the consequences begin to show.
By late summer, I’m awaiting the birth of my baby. My family has convinced me to put it up for adoption. I don’t want to, but I have no choice. I don’t even know who the father is. My parents decide I should stay with my Aunt Becky and get a job close to her after the baby is born. Get away from this small town we live in. So much for college.
My aunt drives me to the hospital, where they put me in a small room with nothing but a bed, alone. It hurts so bad. Eighteen hours. Alone. The nurses finally take me to the delivery room. I am scared and exhausted. I hear the doctor say, “Calm down, Miss or Mrs. or whatever your name is.” I will never forget that moment. Finally, I hear a tiny cry and watch the nurse cradle the baby. I am not asked if I want to hold it. She tells me it’s a girl. My aunt comes in, and I sob in her arms. That is the last time we mention what happened.
“Well, what?” Nora asked in that snippy little voice she sometimes used with me. I was too overwhelmed to call her on it.
“I’m sure the mother had good reasons to do that.”
“Like what?”
I closed my eyes for a moment and felt an old, familiar pain, like a jabbing in my gut. No matter how much I try to forgive myself, somehow, I can’t do it. At times, the guilt swallows me up.
“Did you hear me, Mom? What kind of good reasons could she have?
I opened my eyes and smiled. “Scoot over and I’ll brush your hair.” Nora loved it when I did that. She sat up and settled herself in front of me.
As I drew the brush through her tangled hair, I struggled to come up with an answer. “Mothers always love their children. But sometimes they’re unable to care for them. Some mothers are too poor to raise a child or too sick.”
“Then the dads should raise them. They shouldn’t just give them away like a pair of old boots, right?”
When I didn’t answer quickly enough, Nora slid off the bed and dragged Hugo into her arms. “I’m hungry.”
“Head to the kitchen. I’ll be right behind you after I grade these last few papers.”
In the cluttered kitchen, we sat at the small pine table, and I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Nora’s favorite. She gobbled the sandwich down with a tall glass of milk.
“Where’s Katharine?” Nora said, a jumble of crumbs spilling out of her mouth.
“Very cute,” I said, wiping the crumbs off her cheek. I hoped we could put an end to the Sasha conversation. I didn’t like the idea of Nora believing the birth mother was a horrible person, but I knew at age ten, her thinking was black and white. “Your sister is still at school, rehearsing for the senior play. Do you have much homework tonight?”
“Not much. Five math problems and ten pages of a story to read.”
“That doesn’t sound bad,” I said. “You might even have time to practice piano.”
Nora grinned. “Yeah, maybe.” She twirled the straw around the dregs of milk in her glass. “Remember Sasha, the girl I just told you about?”
How could I forget? “Of course,” I said.
“Sometimes I feel a little jealous of her.”
“Why, because she was adopted?”
Nora giggled. “No, why would I want to be adopted? Duh.”
“Then why are you jealous?”
“Because her mother buys her anything she wants and lets her get away with stuff you would never let me get away with.”
“Oh.” I had no idea what to say after that. I could think of a few possible reasons why Sasha’s mom might overindulge her but none that I wanted to share with Nora. “Do you wish I were that kind of mother?”
Nora grinned. “Well,” she said, drawing out the word. “To tell the truth, I don’t wish that because then I might turn into Sasha. She’s mean to her mother, and sometimes mean to other kids, too. She always seems a little bit mad.”
I stared out the window at our overgrown garden. Nora and I were so excited to plant the flowers and herbs out there, but we weren’t good at taking care of them. My thoughts drifted back to my first child. Did she turn out like Sasha, overindulged but still unhappy? What was her childhood like? Did she feel loved? Did she think I hated her?
Nora stood up and walked behind me, giving me a bear hug. “What’s up with you today, Mom? You’re acting extra strange.”
How do I explain this to Nora? She’s too young to understand how complicated life can be. Someday, I will tell her, like I did her older sister, when a conversation like this tells me the time is right. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, even harder than “the talk.” Katharine never said much about it, but I knew she was disappointed in me, had a million questions she wanted to ask but never did.
“I’m okay,” I said. “It just makes me a little sad for Sasha. And her mother.”
“Yeah, me too. It’s not her fault she was adopted.”
“And maybe not her birth mother’s fault for giving her up.”
Nora stepped away and gave me a sharp look. “How can you say that? The mother had a choice. Sasha didn’t.”
“Maybe when you’re older, you’ll understand.” I was worn out by this conversation.
“You always say that, but you’re wrong. I will never understand someone giving up their own child.” Nora frowned and stared hard at me. She looked so much like me when she was mad.
I stood up and hugged her. “You’re right. None of this is Sasha’s fault. Maybe you can try being a friend to her, no matter what the other kids do.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why? Because everyone needs a friend. Maybe having a friend will help her not be so mad all the time.”
Nora thought about that. “I can try,” she said finally, her face softening.
And maybe someday, a miracle will happen, and I’ll get to meet my firstborn daughter. I pray she has forgiven me. Maybe then I can forgive myself.
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