Phone Rings Messages Left

It’s 4:00pm. My fourteen-year-old appetite and are home from school. The house is quiet. My parents will return from work at approximately 4:45, which gives me around forty-five minutes at home alone. It is my favorite part of each day, and I relish being alone and nestled in a place of security and familiarity. 

I begin my daily afterschool routine of making a sandwich before dinner. I take the Wonder Bread from the cupboard and lay one slice next to the other. I grab the mustard and the cold cuts from the refrigerator. I place the first slice of baloney on one piece of bread, topped by one slice of boiled ham, then one slice of yellow American cheese. Occasionally, turkey breast will be available; if so, that is the last element to be added. Then, I repeat the layering process, in the same order, before I begin packing on the French’s mustard. I press the palm of my hand down on the sandwich to take the air out of the bread, then cut my creation in two halves. 

I’ve become a craftsman at the art of sandwich making, and I do it with the precision and confidence of a master bricklayer. I’m now ready to peacefully enjoy my post-school snack and watch this day’s episode of “The Edge of Night,” an afternoon soap opera with which I’ve become strangely obsessed. 

The timing and regularity of my routine bring me the same comfort as a cat following warmth in the same patches of sun inside the house. 

I take my sandwich into the living room, turn on the television, open the snack tray, and place the sandwich plate on it. The telephone rings before I can sit on the couch and move the tray in front of me. 

I go to the phone between the kitchen and the dining room, and I answer it, “Hello.” 

A woman’s voice responds, “Is Mr. or Mrs. Madama at home?” 

“No,” I answer, “but they should be home soon. Can I take a message?” 

“Yes, please tell them to call the Department of Welfare at this number,” (I write down the number on the message pad next to the phone), “and tell them we need the papers signed and returned to the office for their adopted son… (and then she mentions my name).” 

My first reaction was to inform this woman that we were not on welfare, but that thought quickly eroded into confusion with the words “adopted son.” 

“I’m adopted?” trickles out of my mouth. 

The woman on the other end of the phone realizes that she’s not been following the proper protocol for talking to fourteen-year-olds because she quickly says, before disconnecting the call, “Oh, you didn’t know?”

“I’m adopted?” I repeat. 

“Just have your parents return this call.” 

The phone line goes silent, while at the same time, the noise in my head thunders. 

“I’m adopted?” I continually repeat to myself. 

My mind is filled with thoughts, knocking from one side of my brain to the next. How can this be true? Wouldn’t I know this? It’s not true. How is it possible? It can’t be. 

I take the phone away from my ear and hang up the receiver. I stand motionless, leaning against the doorway between the two rooms. I keep the paper with the telephone number gripped between my thumb and index finger. I can hear the actors on the television working through their soap opera dramas, but I can’t comprehend what they are saying, nor does it seem important. 

Eventually, my mother and father came in the front door, carrying a bag of groceries. I don’t know if they see how lifelessly I’m positioned in the doorway. 

As they approach me, I extend my hand, offering my mother the note with the phone number on it, and simply say, “Someone just called, and they want you to call them back because they need the adoption papers for your son…” (and then I mention my name). 

I hope one of my parents will tell me this is a joke, that somebody has made a mistake or has the wrong number. 

Instead, without pausing, my mother took the paper and continued into the kitchen, mumbling something that sounded like, “They should have never called.” 

My father then silently passes me, but eye contact is never made between us. 

I want to pursue the conversation, but I’m too afraid that if I ask any questions, I may get an answer for which I’m no more ready than if I were being told that my dog had just died. I don’t know what to do or what to think, and it soon becomes clear that my parents aren’t going to give me any guidance. 

For a moment, I try to believe that if I ignore the past fifteen minutes, nothing may have changed, but after a few seconds, the impossibility of returning to the past becomes evident. 

My life was suddenly divided into two realities, before and after I heard this message. 

I go back to the couch with an emptiness in my stomach that I will later learn is reserved for mourning the loss of someone who has been a part of you. In this case, the someone is me. 

My body trembles as I try to eat my sandwich and watch the rest of the television show. Except for the television, the house is silent. 

I finish my pre-dinner meal and go into my bedroom, where I stand, trying to control my shaking and make sense of what happened. My mind is too cluttered to sift through my emotions. I don’t have the energy to cry or to perform some act of violent frustration. 

I’m frozen with only one thought: I want to become invisible. I am so fearful that this new information will be true that I wish I could cease to exist. 

With the loss of my childhood innocence, my regular daily routine is thrown into chaos that I will try to escape for the rest of my life. 

The evening after the phone call, my parents and I had dinner together and acted as if nothing unusual had happened. Still, now that Pandora’s Box had been opened and the hidden information released, we could never again live in the naivete of the past. Behind our eyes, we all knew there was a secret lurking, and no one was willing to make the first move to free it.

From then on, we simply co-existed instead of living as a family. My parents and I never rediscovered the connection we had previously known. My home now felt like I was living with strangers, and wondered if they had also thought that same thing. 

Eventually, the fear of finding the answers to my identity gave way to the curiosity of discovering any confirmation of the truth. If my parents wouldn’t give me any answers, I’d find them myself. 

I did what any fourteen-year-old would do. I began using my forty-five free minutes after school like a thief. I searched my parents’ closets, boxes, and drawers for any clue. Finding nothing to confirm or deny any factual evidence, I was about to give up my hunt when I found a locked tin box under their bed. I remembered seeing a key when searching one of the drawers and decided to try using it. The lid snapped open effortlessly when I put the key inside the lock. I slowly opened the box, wondering what was about to discover.  

The sight of a pistol and a small hunting knife immediately greeted me. I felt like an explorer navigating dangerous objects to get to ancient treasure. I removed the knife and then lifted the gun out of the box. This was the first time I’d ever held a real gun, and I began playing with the firearm like a toy until I saw there were bullets inside the box, and I carefully set it aside. 

Next, I found a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, but upon closer examination, I saw pictures of cartoon characters inserted into the oval where one of the presidents’ heads should be. I realized that they were as fake as my life. 

There was a View-Master with a disk of 3-D, nearly naked, artistically posed women that gave me great enjoyment to look at. 

Under that was a photograph of my father glowingly holding a baby. I’d seen baby pictures of myself and knew this wasn’t me. It must have been significant for someone because it was included in this secure and secret case, but I decided that it was too overwhelming to take on another family secret. The image of my father and this child has never left me, though.

Finally, at the bottom of the box, I found a stack of folded legal papers, and I knew I’d discovered what I’d been snooping for. They were on thin typing paper, so I had to delicately lift them.

I tried to read through the legal language and decipher as much as possible. I eventually found the one sentence containing all I needed to know. The document became blurred, except for four words, “Adopted son, my name.” 

Again, the blood rushed from my head, and terror followed. It was now confirmed that everything about me was a lie, and I made the decision to never believe in anything again. 

I had hoped that finding a document confirming my adoption would give me peace. Instead, it created new questions. 

I heard my parents parking the car, so I hurriedly replaced all the items, closed the box, and returned the key. 

My relationship with my parents continued to deteriorate, and my trust in everything around me followed the same path. My home stopped being a sanctuary of familiarity and warmth, instead becoming a place where I was being stored and could easily be discarded. I’d come to think of myself as an accessory. 

I began to seek ways to make and hoard money, believing that I’d eventually need to support myself when I was inevitably unwanted and abandoned. I saw everything as temporary, but I still tried to hold on to what I had and everyone with unreal expectations of keeping. I often visited this box like a religious shine and hoped to find a different answer. With each visit, I lost hope and retreated further into my isolated world. I no longer had a “real family,” and my friends now seemed different. 

My parents died carrying this burden, which they clearly felt was important enough to keep. These secrets now follow me into the present. I lost my trust in others, and I lost it in myself as well. I had no aspirations for a professional future, and my personal life seemed unattainable. 

Whenever I found a community of friends I hoped would offer stability,  my mistrust inevitably eroded my connection to them. I pushed them away before they could do that to me. I couldn’t commit to a future and lived as if I were a temporary tenant in every place I inhabited. 

I grew older while living my life sideways and saw no escape. I feared that one moment, event, or message could change my life again, and not for the better, so I actively tried to protect myself from those moments. I was afraid to extend myself past what I knew was safe, so I lived protected and in loneliness.  

However, as time passed, my life improved significantly through professional help, finding a loving relationship with a partner who would not allow me to repeat old patterns, and encountering people who recognized a potential in me that I didn’t know existed. I eventually found a successful and happy life and created my own family. 

Looking back at my defining moment, I wonder how my life would have been different if that phone call had come an hour before I was home or five minutes after my parents returned. 

I will forever regret that one moment tore apart a family and harshly exposed a young boy to a reality he wasn’t able to yet comprehend. 

In many ways, I’m still that boy making sandwiches. I may have changed the brand of bread, the meats and cheese I eat, the condiments I use, and the television shows I watch, but nothing is more comforting than standing at the kitchen counter and repeating the experience of making my afternoon snack.