Page 10 of The Pieces of Us

Back on the floor of Minnie’s bedroom, my throat burning, my eyes scan the pages.

They land on certain words and details, a few different dates – all before my second birthday.

My own name over and over again. The first line of the last paragraph: The child is too young to understand the purpose of my visits.

I go back to the start. ADOPTION .

The jarring noise in my head grates like radio interference, preventing me from forming a coherent thought. The woman watching television in the living room is – according to the document I’m clutching with trembling hands – not my mother .

I lean against the tower of catalogues and try to think over the interference, to cast my mind back through the years, tap into memories of Minnie talking about my birth.

It was a long labour, I was told, and I needed a little medical assistance to arrive safely in the world.

But when I did, I was healthy – long and slim, she said, with no hair.

She told me I cried a lot straight after I was born.

That I had strong lungs . Was any of that true?

Was she actually there to marvel at my long legs, to hear me cry?

Or were those someone else’s words, someone else’s details?

I read the document again, trying to process what it’s telling me.

Minnie is not my biological mother. Hugh was not my biological father.

They were doting parents who were more than capable of meeting all my needs.

I was a happy, affectionate child. There were no concerns about my development, my social skills, my health.

What it doesn’t tell me is who my biological parents are, or when, where or how I was adopted.

If this is true – and I’m struggling to believe it, despite reading it over and over again – why didn’t Minnie ever tell me? We spoke about everything.

Somehow I manage to stand up, and my hands and feet and reflexes do what they’re supposed to.

Despite my mind splitting off in a thousand different directions, like a fine bone-china cup falling from a great height, I manage to leave Minnie’s room and head straight for my own, where I tear through my wardrobe, my drawers, every possible hiding place.

I do the same in the kitchen, until I finally find my birth certificate at the bottom of a box on top of the fridge.

It tells me only what I already know – my name, my date of birth, that I was born in Glasgow.

That’s it. No parents’ names. I run back into Minnie’s room, grab my phone, ask the internet for help and realize that I’ve lived my entire life without knowing there are two types of birth certificate.

And that the type I have is no use to me right now.

The text on my phone screen bounces around in front of my eyes as I try to work out how to get the facts I need.

I quickly end up in a maze of information about adoption records, learning that they’re not conveniently stored in one place, at least not when it happened in the late seventies.

The faint voice at the back of my mind asking if I really want to go down this road right now grows louder until it overwhelms every other thought, and I finally put my phone down.

I sink on to the bed and stare at Minnie’s collection of photographs on the wall.

There are none of me as a baby, but I already know those exist. I’ve seen my little body swathed in a blanket, nestled in the crook of Minnie’s arm.

With Hugh too – the only dad I ever knew, for such a short time.

Photographs of us together tell me he had dark hair, an unforgettable smile and broad shoulders to carry me along the beach on a cold day.

He had firm hands to lift me to the top of the Christmas tree to position the angel, his long fingers clasped round my tiny waist to keep me safe.

A strong urge to look at those images again gives me a rush of energy.

In the corner of the room, there’s a large box marked PHOTOS that I haven’t opened yet.

Maybe I’ll find something that tells me the truth.

As I tear at the tape with my fingers and yank open the flaps, Minnie walks into the room.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks. ‘I’m bored.’

Without warning I’m choking on tears. ‘Photos,’ I croak.

‘Shall I help?’ Without waiting for an answer, she kneels beside me.

I stare at her face, the features I know so well: the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, proof of all the years she laughed a lot more than she does now; the age spots on her cheeks; the jaw bones that have grown sharper recently as her appetite has diminished.

There’s a long, wiry hair protruding from her chin; I know she won’t have noticed it.

This is all a mistake. Minnie is my mother. I keep staring at her as she lifts packets of photographs out of the box. We have the same nose, the same eye colour. We’re both left-handed.

But I need more. I need to hear her say it. Of course I’m your mother, you eejit. I’ve never heard such a ridiculous question. Now stop talking nonsense and go and make me a cup of your dishwater tea.

‘Aww, would you look at that. It’s wee Ruby.’

I look at the photograph she’s holding up, a close-up of Ruby as a toddler, huge eyes peeking out from beneath the wide brim of a straw sun hat.

‘That was my hat,’ Minnie says.

I grab my chance before I can overthink it. ‘Min, are you my mother?’

She doesn’t look at me. ‘I can’t remember where I got that hat,’ she murmurs, gazing at the image. ‘I want to know where I got that hat.’

‘It’s OK.’ I reach for her hand. ‘We’ll figure it out.’

She nods, her tiny hand warm against my palm, her eyes still on two-year-old Ruby’s face.

‘Mum, can you look at me?’

When she does, her eyes are troubled.

I ask her again, even though I can see she’s starting to slip back into her other world, the place I can’t access, no matter how hard I try. ‘Are you my mother?’

‘I need the toilet,’ she says.

She’s oblivious to the tears running down my cheeks.

I take her arm and help her to her feet, standing outside the bathroom while she does her thing, wondering how long I’ll have to wait for another chance to get the truth from her.

I ignore the voice in my head telling me that I already have the truth – ADOPTION in black letters on the document on the kitchen table.

I can’t – won’t – believe it until Minnie tells me it’s true.

I listen to the toilet flushing, the tap water running, and then the bathroom door opens. She walks past me without the slightest glance, goes into the living room and shuts the door behind her.

‘What are you doing?’ Ruby appears from behind her own door and looks me up and down. ‘Are you OK? You look … weird.’

I force a smile. ‘I’m fine. Are you OK? You look exhausted.’ It’s true. Her face is pale, the skin under her eyes puffy.

She shrugs. ‘I fell asleep. I’m starving now. Going to make pasta.’

‘I’ll do it,’ I tell her. ‘Do you feel like you’re coming down with something?’ I place my hand on her forehead. ‘You’re a bit warm.’

She rolls her eyes and throws my own words back at me. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Will you make sure your gran is behaving in there?’ I tilt my head towards the closed living-room door. ‘I’ll sort dinner.’

While the pasta cooks, I get rid of the evidence. My useless birth certificate goes back into the box; the box returns to the top of the fridge. I roll up the adoption assessment and slip it into my underwear drawer.

During dinner, I brush off Ruby’s questions with perfectly credible answers: Nothing’s wrong.

I’m just tired. It’s been a long day. She doesn’t push me any further, perhaps because she knows I suspect something’s not quite right with her either and she doesn’t want to take her turn under the spotlight.

She lingers a little in the kitchen, rests her head on my shoulder before going to her room.

‘It’ll be OK, Mum,’ she says, and I need to summon every grain of self-control to stop myself from sobbing into her hair.

I put Minnie to bed without a bath, then spend the rest of the evening on my laptop searching for information about birth certificates and adoption processes, feeling like I’m going round in circles.

If I was younger, things would be far more straightforward.

But adoption in the late seventies wasn’t subject to the same rules and regulations as today.

I make notes with pen and paper in the hope that writing things down will bring clarity.

When a child is adopted in the UK, the original birth certificate is replaced by an adoption certificate.

The original birth certificate is then sealed and kept in a secure location. Only certain people can access it.

Not all adopted people want to see their birth certificate – this is a personal choice.

The process of accessing the original birth certificate can be complex.

Finally, at 1.40 a.m., I lie on my bed in the darkness, where I try and fail to silence the phrase that has replaced the uncompromising buzzing in my head.

She’s not my mother. She’s not my mother.

I barely sleep, which helps add weight to my I’m just tired excuse.

‘Try to take it easy today,’ Ruby says to me after breakfast, planting a kiss on my cheek and heading to meet Sophie and Lauren, her two best friends since nursery. She’s wearing more make-up than I’m used to seeing on her, which isn’t quite disguising the dark smudges under her eyes.

I spend the next two hours wandering around the flat, picking things up and putting them in different places. I’ve got an armful of shoes when Minnie walks out of her bedroom. She has a cardigan buttoned haphazardly over her nightie and Ruby’s Build-A-Bear tucked under her arm.