Crisis of Identity

’Can I get you a coffee… or maybe a bourbon…? mum asked as I slid onto her two-seater couch.

I certainly didn’t come back inside for a social visit. In fact, my knuckles were white from tightly crossing my arms. ‘No, thank you.’ My response was intentionally direct.

Mum slid into the seat beside me. She silently regarded me for several seconds. She held out her hand, waiting for me to offer up my hand. My arms stayed crossed, so mum placed her hand of my knee. I couldn’t look at her as she began to explain.

‘I owe you an explanation…’ she said. ‘But you have to understand, it is not how it seems. You were never kidnapped. Your father and I essentially adopted you.’

I snapped my frowning glare at mum. ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you…? You sparked one of the largest searches in the country’s history and you’re going to sit there and tell me everything is alright because, “you adopted me”. Please, Mum… Don’t treat me like a fool.’

‘I’m not treating you like a fool, Kade. I’m just trying to—’ Mum took a deep breath then exhaled heavily. ‘OK… Maybe I should start at the beginning.’

‘That would help.’

‘OK. Your father and I met Mandy and Graham around the mid-eighties. We were on a day trip to Great Keppel Island. We—’

‘Probably not that far back…’

‘Met them on the ferry on the way over and hit it off. It will help if you understand everything,’ Mum clarified. ‘We spent the day with them on Keppel and from there, kept in touch ever since, becoming close friends.’

I suppressed a yawn, so as not to offend mum’s epic tale. mum continued.

’Mandy was… is a lawyer and Graham was a physiotherapist. Mandy was a career woman. She was driven. She had aspirations of becoming the first female Judge on the Queensland court circuit. Neither had time in their busy lives to start a family and neither wanted any children. I suppose you could say they were a little selfish about kids.

‘On the other hand… your father and I desperately wanted to start a family. Unfortunately I was diagnosed with severe endometritis in the mid-eighties…’ Mum’s eyes fell heavily to the floor. She paused as if revisiting something in her mind.

’It’s a horrible women’s complaint… and mine was particularly debilitating. Anyway, because of the endo we were told it was unlikely we would ever be able to have our own children. We tried everything… I won’t bore you with the specifics… but we tried everything possible to have our own children… all without any success.

‘My Gynaecologist told us to prepare for life as a childless couple. That news devastated your father and me. In the end, your father and I simply gave up…’

‘Gave up?’

‘Stopped trying… to have our own children. Eventually and on persistent advice of my specialist, due to the severe recurring pain and other women’s problems, I had a hysterectomy. Medical advancements are considerably different now, but back in the eighties, a hysterectomy was thought to be the only way to eradicate the insipid disease.’

‘I never knew that…’

‘How could you?’ mum said. ’But as you know, once I had that procedure, it sealed our fate for ever becoming natural birth parents.’

‘Now I understand why you were so stressed about Dawes accessing your medical records through his warrant…’

Mum rolled her eyes. She exhaled as she fell back into her chair. ‘If he’d got those records…’ She slowly shook her head. Her words tapered off as her eyes fell heavily to the floor. The rest of her sentence didn’t require articulating.

’What about adoption…? I mean lawful adoption… Did you look into that?’

‘We did, but the government bureaucrats told us the waiting list for Blue Riband babies was long and by the time we reached the front of the extensive list, your father would be too old to qualify.’

‘Blue Riband babies…? That is an interesting way to refer to a baby.’

Mum nodded. She shrugged. ’That’s what they called healthy babies… Ones without disabilities. Look…’ she said as she adjusted herself in her chair, turning towards me. ‘We were offered a special needs baby without having to wait, but we decided that wasn’t for us. We were also offered a child from overseas without waiting, most probably a baby from Africa or Asia, but again, we decided that wasn’t for us.’

Mum’s emotions were very raw, appearing to relive everything as she recalled it to me. It wasn’t until mum was well into her detailed story that I realized I had unfolded my arms at some stage.

‘It must’ve been an emotional time for you and dad… I get that… I understand it would’ve been tough on you, but how does all that justify what you did…? You kidnapped a three year old child which ultimately cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, searching for me…’

‘Maybe you’ll understand more if I continue…’

‘I don’t think I will ever understand, or accept any justification you have for all the deceit and for breaking the law in the way you have done.’ I extended a hand. ‘But, please… continue.’

Mum’s face tightened and her nose twitched. Was it anger because I was not on board? Was it embarrassment because I wasn’t accepting, or agreeing to her illegal actions? It was too difficult to tell.

‘A few years later… I think it was about June 1990, Mandy announced she was pregnant… Pregnant with you,’ she clarified. ‘Mandy was devastated. All she kept moaning about was, “there goes my career”. Can you understand how that made us feel…?’ She asked rhetorically. ‘Here we were, unable to have a family of our own. Mandy didn’t want children, yet she was about to have her own baby.’

Mum’s eyes fell as she slowly shook her head. Even after all these years the pain from one of life’s cruel ironies is still in there. ‘I can’t believe I’m asking this… But why didn’t she have an abortion, if she strongly didn’t want the kid?’

‘It was Mandy who came up with the suggestion that we…’ Mum held up quotation fingers. ‘Adopt you… She had this idea that after you were born we make it look as though you were ours… You know, with cleverly posed photos and the like. It was scary how calculating her mind was, actually. She had it all worked out by the time she presented us with the suggestion. Then when the time was right, she reported you missing, presumably kidnapped.’

‘And you agreed…’ mum didn’t need to respond. She simply held my glare. ‘Why didn’t you simply adopt me, lawfully?’

’Mandy looked into the laws of the time in Queensland. In the event of an unwanted birth… that’s what you would’ve been in the eyes of the law. You would have been taken away and placed into the system for adoption by the next people on the waiting list.

‘So Mandy came up with this idea that your father and I move interstate and take you with us. The consequences were… our friendship with Mandy and Graham would effectively end, but we would have you. She thought of a number of options, but the one we went with was the kidnapping.’

‘I’m sorry… But I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You concocted a kidnapping so you could illegally adopt me. I probably sound ungrateful right now, but what you did was wrong on so many levels.’

‘I’m fully aware of that Kade.’ For the first time mum’s tone firmed. ’We all were. How do you think I felt when you told me Dawes recognised you as Jayden Evans? I thought my world was about to end. I’d already lost your father… Now we were on the precipice of being exposed.

‘When you were in Queensland I called Mandy to tell her you were in town—’

‘Wait… You called Mandy? So you keep in touch…?’