The Secret Daughter by Kelly Rimmer

bed?’
    ‘I will when you go to work,’ I promised. ‘Let's have breakfast first and make small talk about the boring engineering jobs you're going to suffer through today.’
----
    I slept the morning away. When I woke up, I was disoriented and confused at the blaring midday sun, and at first I thought I’d had a feverish dream. I stared at the ceiling for a while, facing properly this time the full barrage of the hurt and confusion. Even after a little sleep, the shock had eased just enough that I could think the words and understand their full implications.
    I was adopted.
    I knew a lot of things about myself. I was a teacher – but a singer and a musician at heart. I knew jazz better than almost anyone I knew. I could take a ratty seven-year-old and transform him just by giving him a triangle. I was petrified of crowds, unless I had a microphone in my hand and a band behind me. I preferred to wear bold colours, and I was taking my first baby steps towards motherhood. I loved my husband with a strength and a passion that seemed almost other-worldly. I hated the taste of cinnamon, and with an equally strong preference, enjoyed any form of basil. I had never had a piercing, or a tattoo, or even dyed my hair. I had always been overweight, and in recent years, I’d finally accepted that I always would be. I had a very happy, uneventful childhood. I had scraped through school and university, just by the skin of my teeth and the strength of my results in my music classes.
    And now, I had new facts to add to my internal dossier on Sabina Lilly Wilson.
    I was adopted. I was a victim of a life-long lie. I had been betrayed.
    I had five missed calls on my phone and a bunch of text messages. Mum and Dad had both phoned me twice, and there had been a call from Ted. I drafted a quick message to Ted to let him know that I’d slept and that I was ‘doing ok’, whatever the hell that meant. And then I turned the phone off.
    After a shower, I made myself a decaf coffee and sat back at the laptop. I opened the browser and brought up the Wikipedia page again, and this time I read all the way through it, right to the end.
    I let the picture form in my mind. I stared at the photo of the maternity home and I imagined in sepia a young woman standing out in front of it holding an old style vinyl suitcase. Mum had said she was sixteen – less than half my age. In my mind, my biological mother looked exactly like me, and was lost like me, but she was about a million times more terrified.
    And then I imagined her looking down at her stomach and I wondered what she was thinking of me, nestled in her womb. I imagined her looking to the front doors of the maternity home and being nervous to step inside, but believing she had no choice. I imagined that she thought it was for the best, but maybe she was really not sure. I could only assume she wanted the best for me.
    I wondered if she wanted to keep me.
    I wondered if she had made something of her life.
    I wondered if she still thought about me.
    And then I wondered if I should try to find her.
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    I took a second day off work, and I went to visit my parents.
    I didn’t tell them I was coming, just as I didn’t tell Ted that I was going. I was nervous about the discussion, and I thought I might back out at the last minute, so I didn’t want to have to deal with any expectations or concerns.
    As I stood on their doorstep, I wondered if, on some level, I was looking for revenge. Here I was, turning up unannounced, demanding answers and information – just as they had turned up unannounced and tipped my life on its head. I hesitated at the double oak front doors, my hand on the ornate gold knocker. My parents were not wealthy, but they were definitely well-off. I’d grown up in a large home in the pricey suburb of Balmain, only a few kilometres from the Sydney CBD. My parents always had new cars, I’d attended prestigious private schools, and we’d holidayed overseas almost every