The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(91)
ARIEL: The thing that really used to make me go ick was the way my mom would brush my hair, straighten my collar, pull on my hem, and— JESSICA: Like they’re never not touching me— ARIEL: I’d spend the afternoon smiling this way, smiling that way, looking into the distance, gazing downward. Pose, pose, pose. On the one hand, our birth parents in China couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. On the other hand, we’re the biggest gift to our adoptive parents. Sometimes I try to imagine what their lives would have been like if they hadn’t gotten me. It’s so weird, don’t you think? In China, we were considered worthless. I mean, really worthless. Here we’re superprecious, like Heidi said. But you could also say our moms and dads got cheated by getting the runts—the throwaways, anyway—of the litter.
JESSICA: At least we weren’t thrown in a well or whatever.
DR. ROSEN: Could we talk a little more about parents?
JESSICA: It’s your group. We have to do what you tell us to do whether we want to or not.
DR. ROSEN: I wouldn’t phrase it that way. I want each of you to benefit from our sessions.
JESSICA: Don’t forget, Doc, my parents are physicians. I know what’s what. You’re going to use us for—
DR. ROSEN: Jessica, maybe we can talk about your need to constantly challenge me another time, but this session is for everyone. Can we get back to my question? Ariel, would you like to tell us a little about your mom and dad?
ARIEL: My mom makes me batshit crazy. Sorry. Can I say that in here? Yes? Good. I love her, but she’s such a mom. She wears things that are totally embarrassing.
TIFFANY: Mothers can’t help it. That’s just the way they are.
ARIEL: That’s very understanding of you, Tiffany, but have you heard your mom talking on the phone to her friends about you? The other night she called me a hormonal monster. Even when she says nice things—I love you and that kind of stuff—a part of me still feels like she’s lying. One time I totally lost it. I yelled at her, “I wish I was in China with my real mom!” She got so mad, she yelled right back at me. “Yeah? Well go ahead! Try to find her! See if she’ll take you back!” Later she came to my room, crying like you wouldn’t believe, and apologized. Soooo many times. I’m like, okay, Mom! God!
DR. ROSEN: Lots of young people say things like that. I wish you weren’t my mom or I wish I had a different dad. Maybe even your mom said something like that to her mom or dad when she was younger.
ARIEL: Maybe. So?
Dr. Rosen: What do you think she was feeling when she came to apologize?
ARIEL: I felt real bad— DR. ROSEN: I hear that, but what do you think she was feeling?
TIFFANY: Maybe she was upset because she’d said something so inappropriate to you. Inappropriate. I get that word a lot from my parents.
JESSICA: She should have felt guilty for acting like the worst mom ever.
ARIEL: Yeah, maybe. But maybe she was right in what she said. I mean, could I ever find my birth mother? No. So who else do I have but my mom and dad?
HALEY: My mom and dad always say that the parents here and the baby girls they adopt have happy endings and “the holes in all their hearts are filled with love.” But what happens to the birth parents? I think about that when I can’t sleep. Were my birth parents left with holes in their hearts or did they just forget about me?
ARIEL: I wonder what it would be like to be a biological child. Or white. When I was younger I couldn’t grasp the idea that a pregnant woman would keep her baby. If I ever have a baby, I hope she’ll look like me, even if I marry someone white or whatever.
HALEY: People will come to the hospital and say, “Oh, she looks just like you.”
ARIEL: No one has ever told me I looked like someone in my family before. When I become a mom, I’ll never have to answer questions from strangers about where I got her, if she belongs to me, or— HALEY: If she’s from Mongolia.
ARIEL: And she’ll never have to answer questions about who her real parents are.
JESSICA: Oh, my God. I hate that! I mean, screw them. What’s real anyway? Isn’t it just what we’re stuck with?
TIFFANY: I’ll be a great mom. For sure my baby will look like me. She won’t be in rags and have ants all over her face, like when my parents got me. She’ll be my only blood relative that I know, and I’ll love her forever and ever.
DR. ROSEN: Don’t you think your mom and dad will love you forever and ever?
TIFFANY: Of course they will. But I don’t know if I can explain this. I love them and they love me, but it’s like Ariel said. It bothers me that I don’t look even a little bit like them. They both have blond hair! Everyone in their families has blond hair. We spend a lot of time visiting relatives—and there are a ton of them—in Indiana. Once, at Thanksgiving dinner, when I was, like, six, I asked, “Why am I the only one here with a tan?” Uncle Jack answered, “You’re our little yellow one.”
JESSICA: You’ve got to be kidding! Jesus Christ! That seriously sucks.
HALEY: You must have been really hurt. It would have hurt me.
TIFFANY: But you haven’t heard the worst part. That label—yeah, another label—stuck. Now the Indiana relatives call me Our Little Yellow One. Mother and Father have asked them about a billion times to knock it off. Forget it. They think it’s cute. But the thing is, I’m not just tan in Indiana. All my parents’ friends are white. Nearly everyone in our church is white. I hate it. I stick out like a sore thumb. It’s really hard because it makes me feel like I’m not a part of them.