Where Are You?

I know you’re here somewhere. My instincts scream it. I emerged from the mountain marrow of one coast, landed on the crust of another, and I am here now. So where are you? It seems like forever. Sitting in front of a screen in an over-supervised Mac lab, ‘search angels’ sent me messages, possibilities of your whereabouts, of your existence. You DO exist. Just sixteen years old and I pursued you; sneaked, scanned hungry eyes over websites containing endless bevies of dates and surnames, squished like sardines into free spaces; numbers and letters forming an algebraic equation I hoped to solve with you.

But I was never good at math. So here I am, five years later, playing games of hot and cold with my intuition.
You know, I drive beyond the city limits a lot: hop into my Ford, coast to the 101, weave between valley roads. I guess sometimes I seek a moment to reflect, other times I am heading somewhere- or at least I think I am. One time a car passed me and I wondered if the woman driving was you: bleach blonde, wide shoulders, a bulbous nose- it could’ve been. (Have you wondered about me?)
You see, the reason I know is because I think I found you once in an image tucked away somewhere in cyberspace; a series of pixels lost behind piles of weblogs and shopping channels. I received notice from a search person (“angels”, that’s what they’re called) who’d located a fitting birth certificate: L.A. hospital, ‘67, the fourteenth of June (Did you know you were born on Bastille Day?)
I took the angel’s word, browsing online images until I found a site with your picture; a smiling woman, tan, blue eyes and a McEvoy* face. Remarkably familiar. I was excited. But, acting as a high school-er will, I sent you an email, heartfelt but cautious. How foolish.
You never responded.
Mom says she doesn’t want to know. When she discovered my sneakiness- odd questions, rifled documents- she got mad. She’s the type that doesn’t like being sentimental. She cares more than she’ll let on, though. I know this, you see, because she admitted that at one time even she looked for you herself! Yes, the oh-so-callous hearing officer dedicated her hours to scanning zillions of web pages, filled so confusingly with searchers and searchees, her eyes peeled for your name. She couldn’t find you, though; you weren’t searching. “She doesn’t want to be found,” Mom said, “So why do you want to find her?”
A daunting question.
Why do I want to find you?
I learned about you when I was nine. Wrapped in an attack on mom (she was recently divorced then), my sister and I pushed her to her limit, which came in the form of a bath. Rocking on the porcelain tub floor, knees-to-chest, mom cried and spoke---no, gurgled--- about you. We shut up and listened. I’d never seen her so vulnerable.

So, maybe you’re a missing force I’ve known of all my life. I retain a memory that you might live in Simi Valley. Do you? Sitting here in L.A., staring upward at endless blue, I try to sense any part of you. Normally I feel nothing but sometimes, sometimes I swear there is something, just a little hint of familiarity, a likeness of blood, an inherent connection with someone nearby. After all, we were formed in the same womb. Maybe I want to find you and answer the questions that have circled your mind all these years, provide answers for at least half your family tree. Or maybe I just like the whole idea, like knowing secrets, like the fact that I know the identity of both your parents, like the fact that I’ve discovered your biological father, that he lives and works up north and that you look like him. Like to talk about your grandparents, our mother’s past, our sister. Maybe. Or perhaps I’m just inexplicably drawn to a woman who might be like me, who is so nearby yet distanced by a lifetime. Who may hold the other end to the answers I seek, who might be my missing link. Maybe.

Your name was Jade*. You were born in a Los Angeles convent to a beautiful, quiet and terrified teenager. A teenager who had to let go of her firstborn, had to continue to university, had to dust off her hands and continue life as though you hadn’t happened. A woman who later had children of her own, but never erased you from her memory. Your name was Jade*, and you are my sister. Where are you?

-Alison S. May
*=names changed