Hattie lay awake all night, thinking about what she would say, and how to do it. By morning, she was exhausted, and by that afternoon, she was a nervous wreck. She went to the address Michaela Foster had given her. Her office was in a bright modern building in a renovated area that had been a slum only a few years before, but was being gentrified. Hattie gave her name to a young receptionist, and a few minutes later Michaela came out to greet her. She had a warm, gentle smile, and Hattie was shocked for a minute. Michaela looked strikingly like Hattie and Melissa’s mother, although in a much friendlier, more upbeat, younger version. She exuded charm and humility and was clearly very intelligent, with natural beauty. Hattie sat staring at her, and didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve asked my team to be available, if you’d like to chat with them,” she said easily, making Hattie feel welcome, and guilty for her lies to get to her. And the promise to Mother Elizabeth she was about to break. Hattie wanted to seize the opportunity she had while she was there.
“That won’t be necessary,” Hattie said in a low voice. “Mrs. Foster, Michaela, I have a story to tell you. It may sound crazy, but it isn’t. If you’re who I hope you are, I’ve been looking for you, and my sister has been searching for you for years. We thought your name was Ashley,” Hattie said, feeling foolish, and Michaela Foster looked surprised.
“That’s my middle name. My mother wanted to name me Ashley, but my father preferred Michaela, so they compromised, and Ashley is my middle name. Where have you been looking for me, and why?” She looked puzzled.
“Mainly in Ireland. I came from there two days ago.”
“I was born in Ireland,” she said, looking intrigued. “My parents adopted me there, and brought me home. I think foreign adoptions were easier then. It’s more complicated today.”
Hattie jumped in without waiting any longer. “My sister, Melissa, gave birth to a baby girl there, she was unwed and just sixteen. My parents sent her to Ireland to spend the pregnancy in a convent, and give the baby up, which she did. She always regretted it. Sixteen years later, she married and had a son. He died of a brain tumor at ten, six years ago. They divorced, and she’s alone now. Her husband knew about the baby she had at sixteen. She reached out to the convent to find out where the baby was, who had adopted her, and where she grew up, in the hope of meeting her one day. The nuns told her that all the records had been burned and destroyed, and there was no way to trace any of the babies, birth mothers, or adopting parents.”
Michaela was staring at Hattie too, as though she’d seen a ghost. “I called them too. Saint Blaise’s. My mother was always very open with me about the fact that I was adopted. I always knew, she never hid it from me. She and my father were older parents. She was forty, and he was sixty-two when I was born. He died when I was three. He was a famous producer and I never knew him. I don’t remember him at all. My mother is a wonderful person, an honest, incredibly talented woman. She was always very candid about the fact that she realized that the adoption had been a mistake. She thought she’d be more maternal, but she wasn’t. And she felt she was too old for motherhood by the time they got me. And then my father died suddenly. She has a huge career and she’s busy. Even now, at seventy-three, she makes about two movies a year, more if she can. The adoption was my father’s idea, and she blames herself for not being around more when I was young. She says she’s not maternal, but she’s better at it than she gives herself credit for. I love her very much and she loves me. She’s been a wonderful mother.
“I’ve wanted to know more about my birth mother from the time I was in my teens. My mother encouraged me to find out. She knew that my birth mother was American, and from a good family in New York. But that was all she knew. When I was eighteen, I called Saint Blaise’s, and they told me about all the records being destroyed. There was nothing I could do after that, so I gave up, and figured I’d never know who she was or anything about her.”
“My sister decided the same thing. She admitted to me recently that giving you up was the worst thing she ever did, and in some ways it ruined her life. Her parents forced her to do it, and she never forgave them for it. I think she called the convent a couple of times, and got the same answer. It was a dead end. I want to help her, so I went there myself a few days ago. It’s an abysmal place. The worst part of it is that they destroyed the records intentionally, and thought they were doing the right thing, to protect everyone’s privacy, and themselves.
“The only reason I got your name is because I came across a woman who was a nun and a midwife there. She left the Church since then, but she remembered that your mother adopted a baby the year that my sister’s baby was born. It was a wild long shot, but I decided to come here to try and find you, and hope we got lucky. It’s a miracle if you’re really my niece. My sister doesn’t know I’m here, she doesn’t know I went to Dublin to go to Saint Blaise’s in person. She told me details recently that she’d never told me before, and I realized that the greatest gift I could give her was to find her daughter. You, hopefully. So here I am. You look remarkably like my mother, and I hope you’re the baby we’ve been looking for.” There were tears in Hattie’s eyes when she said it, and in Michaela’s as she listened to the story. It didn’t come as a shock to her, it came as a relief, and she suddenly had the feeling that she was complete. “And by the way,” Hattie added with a wry grin, “as a further surprise, I’m not a reporter, I’m a nun.”
“You’re a nun?” Michaela looked shocked at first and then she laughed. “You don’t look like a nun, or act like one.”
“But I am. I left my habit at the hotel. My order doesn’t require me to wear it in daily life. And I couldn’t pose as a journalist, and show up in the habit.”
“I guess not.” Michaela grinned.
“Would you be willing to take a DNA test?” Hattie asked her and she nodded, thinking.
“My mother is very open-minded and always encouraged me to find my birth mother if I wanted to. But I don’t want to tell her about this though until we’re sure. I think in some way, it will be a shock to her if what she calls my ‘real’ mother turns up. She’s my real mother and has been all my life. But there’s room in my life for the woman who gave birth to me. I can only imagine the trauma it must have been for a sixteen-year-old girl to have a baby and give it up.”
“I don’t think she ever recovered from it. There’s a sharp side to her. And losing her son nearly finished her off.”
“Where does she live? In New York?” Hattie had said that she lived in New York, so Michaela thought her birth mother might too. “She lives in the Berkshires, in Massachusetts. She has become a recluse since she moved there four years ago, two years after her son’s death. And she’s divorced.”