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IT’S COLDER HERE THAN I thought it would be. Where I’m from, the air doesn’t bite with a chill until September. Throwing an old sweatshirt on, I bend down to tie my sneakers and head out for my morning run.
At least the air here smells clean. I breathe it in deeply, letting my lungs fill as I work my legs through several stretches.
I could run for miles through scenery like this. It’s nothing but woods full of the largest evergreens you could ever imagine, lush moss on boulders littering the forest floor and air so clean—you want to bottle and drink it instead of breathing it.
But I didn’t come here for nature. I came to Springdale to dig into the past and find out who my parents were.
My mother was a whore.
There’s no sugarcoating that fact.
She gave me up, but luckily, I was adopted as a baby. Although, she did fill out some paperwork just in case when I turned eighteen—I would want to know who she was.
I did want to know.
There’s nothing I wanted more.
But now I wish I didn’t. My adoptive parents never told me any of this until my thirtieth birthday last year.
Over a decade.
I lost over ten years waiting for answers, and I didn’t want to wait one more day. So, I tracked down the town of my birth: Springdale, Oregon and started making plans. It took almost a year, but when I was ready—I booked a one-way ticket from Chicago O’Hare Airport despite the pleas from my adoptive mother not to go.
With my bag slung over my shoulder, I walked through security, ticket in hand gripped so tight it turned to mush from the sweat from my palm.
Have you ever seen the look in someone’s eyes the moment their heart gets ripped to shreds?
I have.
The instant I turned around locking eyes with the woman who raised me through the glass wall separating us. I shook my head mouthing, “I’m sorry.” The tears streaked down her face as she clutched her gloves wringing them in her hands like a wet dishrag.
She said she thought she was protecting me.
Protecting me from what?
Turning left down the road that leads into town, my feet make quick work of the same route I take every day.
Up the hill, I climb, stopping at the top to catch my breath. The rusted metal gate swings open at my touch. I slowly make my way through the headstones finding the one I’m looking for.
“Hello, Ma.”
My finger traces her name carved in stone, Dee Dee Stanton where someone spray-paintedwhorein neon green on it a long time ago. It’s faded, but it’s still there.
It was a punch to the gut the first time I came here, and I tried in vain to scrub it off. I even complained to the caregivers, but they just asked if I’d like to buy a new headstone, not giving a shit in the least that it had been defaced.
Sitting for a minute, I wipe the sweat from my brow and begin the story from where I left off yesterday. I’ve decided to tell her all of them. Every last one she missed out on since she gave me away. But it doesn’t even matter since she died a few years after putting me up for adoption. She would’ve missed my life regardless.
“… then in kindergarten, I met my best friend, Lucy. She was an only child and said we could be “sisters.” We’re still BFF's today, and she thinks I’m crazy for coming here when there’s nothing left. But that’s the thing Dee Dee, she shares the same blood as her parents and knows her whole history.” I hang my head, toeing the overgrown grass with my sneaker, feeling guilty.
“I’m obsessed with history. I had told her. She knows this. I became a high school history teacher for Christ sakes.”
Glancing at my sports watch, I check the time. “Shit. I gotta go, Dee. Good talk.”
I stand, brushing the leaves and twisted sticks clinging to my sweaty legs, then walk a few rows over. “Good morning, Dad. I’m going to find out if you even knew that you fathered me. The answer has to be here somewhere.”
His grave is the complete opposite of Dee’s. It’s freshly kept. The grass around is watered and manicured, fresh flowers fill the urns on both sides, and little American flags stick into the ground. My fingers trace his name just like I did with Dee’s.
John Masters.