Lost and Found

*Trigger Warning: substance abuse, overdose.

Allison didn’t know that she could feel so happy and so sad at the same time. 

The fasten seatbelt sign flickered off and other passengers on the plane began to get up and start the arduous process of collecting baggage and standing in the aisle, waiting for the passengers in front to disembark. Allison remained in her seat for a moment (there was no sense in getting up anyways) and reflected on the last four days.

When Allison went to San Francisco, she felt like she knew who she was, but now everything seemed to be changing. She felt both lost and found, known and isolated. By the age of nineteen, she thought that she had finally grown accustomed to being parentless, surrendered to strangers as a baby. She had grown up in a sequence of group and foster homes, ending with Martha and Steven Green for her junior and senior years of high school. She did her best to make a few friends and do well in school, but still she struggled with the unknown question of where she came from–who was she, other than Allison Goodwin, the unclaimed child? Who did she get her blue eyes from–her mother or father? Which of her parents did she have to thank for her crooked teeth and poor eyesight? If she had known her parents, would she have ended up with a different accent than the southern drawl that surrounded her in Birmingham, Alabama? She felt like these questions spun around endlessly in her mind, but answers never followed.

Growing up had been brutal because of the others–other foster children who cycled in and out of homes that she was in, who taunted Allison and made her fight for her place. Other children at school who found it endlessly amusing to pick at every snag in Allison’s clothing and every unfashionable and outdated top that she wore. Other adults who liked to look at her with pity or as their new project, rather than just trying to get to know her. She never could understand why the others got so much pleasure out of poking at the thing that caused Allison the most pain and confusion.

When she turned eighteen, she moved out of Martha and Steven’s home, taking a job as a waitress at a small southern restaurant. That’s when she decided that she wanted answers and to start looking for her parents. It took some time and money that she got from customers that she winked at and flirted with at the restaurant to hire the private investigator. And then she found Arthur–a private investigator who had just a little too much sympathy for little orphan Allison and was willing to give her a short term discount rate for his services. In just three weeks, he delivered.

Mother: Elizabeth Goodwin, 5’6”, blonde hair, blue eyes. Deceased.

Father: James Thurston, 5’10”, brown hair, blue eyes. Resides in San Francisco, CA. 

The word ‘deceased’ next to her mother’s name came like a punch in the gut. But she had a father. Even more, Allison had half siblings. James lived with a wife and two daughters in San Francisco, raising a family that Allison was never invited to be a part of. She held onto the information (which came with a mailing address) for several months while pondering what to do with it. When she hired a private investigator, she just wanted answers–she never gave much thought to what she would do with the information. Should she contact him? Would he be interested in meeting this other offspring or would he feel angry that Allison had dredged up some past memories or faults that he had tried to forget for eighteen years? What did he know of Allison? Did he know that she existed? Was he aware that there was a little human out there who shared his genetic code and blue eyes? Were there other traits of his that Allison possessed? Perhaps he had the same allergy to shellfish and was also left handed. Or maybe his smile was also a little bit crooked. Or maybe none of these things and he hoped to never cross paths with her.

But eventually, curiosity won out. Three months before her nineteenth birthday, Allison sent James Thurston a letter, informing him that he had a daughter, her name was Allison, and that she was interested in learning more about him and getting to know him. After she posted the letter, Allison was more anxious than she had ever been in her life (and that includes when she took her driving test). She checked the mailbox daily as if she was a starving dog looking for its next meal.

After what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was only a week), she went to the mailbox to find a letter from a J. Thurston of California, which read:

“Allison,

“Thank you for writing! I knew that Liz had a child that she had given up, but I didn’t know anything else about you. To be honest, we were both just kids, and I think neither of us were ready for the responsibility. She passed away about a year after you were born. I’m glad that you decided to get in touch. I haven’t told my wife or family before that I had another child, so they’ll be interested to hear more about you.

“I’ve lived in the Bay area for a long time now, working as an accountant for a law firm that’s based here. My wife Jennifer is a teacher, and our two girls Betsy and Jamie are in 5th and 3rd grade.

“To be honest with you, your mother and I in our youth weren’t the best example of well mannered teenagers. I was seventeen and Liz was fifteen when we started dating and at the time we were living just outside of Montgomery. My parents weren’t very involved with my life; Liz’s parents tried to be more involved, but she did everything that she could to not let them like dating me, using heroin, and getting pregnant. When Liz found out she was pregnant, her parents stepped in. They took her and checked her into rehab where she eventually gave birth and you were placed up for adoption, or so I heard. I never saw Liz again after that–her parents moved their family to another part of the city, but from what I heard Liz got involved with heroin again. I hate to say it, but from what I was able to find I think she died of an overdose.

“I’m not proud of this story, but I’m grateful that some good people helped me get back on track when I went to college. I’m sorry that I never looked for you or tried to find you, but for a long time I was in no shape to be a father. If you’d like to continue talking, I’d be happy to continue writing. Tell me more about yourself and what you do. Take care.

“Sincerely, James”

Allison must have read and re-read the letter six times before she put it down. Her feelings were mixed. James had known she existed, but hadn’t ever told his family about her? And her mother–Allison had always been told by other kids trying to hurt her feelings that many children who were placed into the system were the kids of drug addicts, but she never stopped to really think that could be her parents. Her story. What did that say about her? Was she bound to the same fate that had claimed her mother? Many of the foster kids that she had grown up with had already dabbled or spiraled headfirst into the world of drugs, but living with Martha and Steven in her later childhood had given her a safe place to grow, and she had always felt less inclined to take any drugs because they had encouraged her to make choices that would help her in her future.

You didn’t get to decide how you came into the world, Martha would say, but you can decide what you do with the time that you have. She had tried to make good use of the time that she had. She had worked hard and made relatively good grades growing up, but had struggled to get enough scholarship money to go straight into college–hence her current role as a waitress. But her hope was to save up enough to start at the community college and eventually transfer to a university. She was torn between going into education or social work, but whatever she did she wanted to help others, especially kids.

In her next letter to James, which was posted about three days later, she told him about some of these dreams, and she told him about Martha and Steven. While she had never been adopted and had her fair share of hardships in the foster system, she assured him that she had still been raised for most of her childhood by people who cared for her well. She had never asked too many questions about why she was never adopted by anyone, but she had never been hurt like some children. 

And so the weeks passed, with Allison sending a letter one day and receiving a reply about a week later from James. They both had just as many questions for the other as they had stories to tell, and after two months of corresponding, Allison received a letter from James that ended with an inquiry: “How would you feel about coming out to San Francisco to meet?”

When Allison responded that she didn’t have the money to buy the plane ticket, James offered to buy them for her, and then a month later she was there.

She waited anxiously on the curb at the San Francisco airport for James to pick her up, contemplating what a person was supposed to say when they finally met a birth parent face to face. She tried out several greetings (“Hello Daddy-O!” just didn’t feel quite right), and before she had settled on one, a silver Toyota pulled up to the curb with the window rolled down and there he was. Her father. Five feet away from her. 

“Allison?” he asked from the driver's seat. When Allison could do nothing other than nod and give a weak grin, James got out of the car and came around to face her. They stood there and just observed each other for a moment, like they were both looking into a mirror and trying to pick out the parts of themselves that resembled the other. James was three inches taller than Allison, had a darker complexion than her, but bore matching blue eyes and the same crooked grin.

Finally Allison managed to form words, though they were few. “Hi,” she said meekly. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

They both laughed, and the barrier of awkwardness was demolished. The next four days passed in a rush of fun and laughter as Allison was welcomed into the Thurston’s family with a remarkable amount of grace and warmth from Jennifer and the two girls. They frolicked around San Francisco for several days, walking part of the Golden Gate bridge, watching the sea lions at Pier 39 lounging and fighting with one another, seeing the beauty and history of Alcatraz Island one evening. 

On the last day of her visit, Allison and James went to visit Point Bonita lighthouse, just the two of them. They walked the half mile trail and passed through a rocky tunnel that opened up to the suspension bridge that crossed the expanse to the point that bore the lighthouse. James and Allison chatted on the walk, reminiscing about the last several days and their favorite parts of Allison’s visit. At the furthest point of the lighthouse, they stood at the rail and looked at the vast expanse of deep blue water where the Gulf of the Farallones met the San Francisco Bay, keenly watching and trying to catch a glimpse of a whale out at sea. 

After a few moments of silence, Allison looked at James and asked something she had been working up the courage to ask the whole trip.

“If you could go back, would you do anything different?”

James turned to look at her, staring into her eyes as if he could stare into her soul and see the pieces of her that were made up by the pieces of him. His gaze seemed to flicker between different emotions and thoughts, weighing out his options and responses. Finally, he looked at Allison and said, “If I could change things so that I could have known you and seen you growing up, I would. But that would have meant changing the person that I was at the time, and in that case you might not have been born.”

Allison looked crestfallen, like she had wanted and expected James to satisfy her desires and say that he would have taken her if he could and raised her as his daughter. But the brutal truth that likely nothing could have been different hit her hard. But what did she expect or want? Even if James said that he would have done things differently doesn’t mean that they would be different.

“Allison. I may not be able to change the past or what you experienced growing up, but I can help change your future. What we do now is up to us.”

Allison smiled at that, realizing that the hope of a better tomorrow was better than a doomed wish to change the past. 

The two of them returned to James’ home and had dinner with Jennifer and the girls. In unison the whole family declared how much they had loved getting to know her and insisted that she come back to visit as soon as she could. With full and glad hearts they all went to bed, rising at the break of dawn to take Allison to the airport. They parted ways with hugs and promises to stay in touch. The rest of the family went back to the car while James walked Allison the rest of the way to the door and saw her inside.

With a parting hug and kind words, Allison’s first trip to meet her birth father was over and left her full of happiness and sadness in equal measure. As she waited to get off the plane in Birmingham, she felt completely the same and yet completely changed. She was the same person she had been four days earlier, but meeting her father helped her understand herself and where she came from better. She felt happy and overjoyed that she had a kind of a family–people in the world who cared about her and wanted to claim her as theirs. She also felt deeply sad seeing the way the Thurston’s lived together and loved each other, each in their own way. When Allison had been in the foster system, she had felt like she knew in theory what she was missing out on as a child growing up without a family–but spending these last four days with this family has painted a clear picture of what she didn’t get. And while there was so much hope and joy ahead that Allison would visit and become closer to James and his family, there was no changing her childhood years. 

Yet one thing was certain–tomorrow would be different because Allison had a father. 

The aisle in front of her emptied of people, and Allison stepped off the plane a different person than she was when she walked on.