by
Pat Tyrer
would be anything but ordinary. I suppose every day is ordinary until something unusual or
spectacular or frightening happens and then it’s no longer ordinary. From the moment the day turns
from run-of-the-mill to peculiar in whatever dimension it enters, from thereafter, it’s a space carved in
time, buffeted by emotion, and seated in memory to be resurrected by electrical impulses beyond
control. Nevertheless this day was ordinary. There was nothing special about it until the phone rang.
The uncomfortably calm, obviously elderly woman on the line explained that it was not something
she would normally do. I wondered, even at the time, how I was possibly to know what was normal
for this woman I didn’t know. She explained that calling an unwed mother, yes, that’s what she said,
an unwed mother, was not something she would normally do. An unwed mother. The day had said
good bye to ordinary and was heading down the road to bizarre with a brief and painful stop in the
distant past.
“Your son wishes to meet you before he turns thirty,” she continued as if the statement was most
reasonable and most expected. “Oh,” was all I could muster at the moment, my mind racing around
inside my head, trying to affix itself to something familiar, something routine. I should brush my
teeth, I suddenly thought to myself, as if commitment to a routine task I barely remembered on an
ordinary day would stop the mental whirling.
“Well,” I began, pausing while trying to figure out how much information this woman already knew.
“When will he be thirty?” I asked, trying to sound as if the question were perfectly natural.
The voice on the other end was momentarily silent. That staked the conversation in place, I thought
to myself; she must be from the agency; thinks the adoption was my idea—what a laugh.
“Oh,” she sighed aloud; the rustling of papers in the background, “I’ve got it right here, April…April
2nd” she confirmed. “Yes, that’s right,” she continued,” April 2, 2:37 a.m., Lutheran Hospital, 8
pounds, 3 ounces, 21 inches, delivered by caesarean section; father unknown, mother…well, you
dear.”
”Mother…me,” I said softly into the phone, repeating the only information I had known about my
brief encounter with this living, breathing child of whom I knew nothing, including his birthday.
“Will you hold,” I asked politely, catching the woman slightly off guard.
“Yes, of course,” she responded, meeting my level of civility.
I pressed the hold button, set the receiver back in its cradle, walked around the desk, shut the door,
returned to my chair, sat down as if prepared to resume proofreading the report I had been reading
before the phone rang, laid my head on my folded arms, and sobbed.
As he walked down the jet way toward where I was standing, I saw the reflection of his father within
the young face walking toward me. “Hello mom,” were the first words he spoke while simultaneously
hugging me.
“I suddenly remember your father,” were my first words to this fully-grown, dark-haired stranger
who was my son.
“Wow,” he blurted out. “Do I look like my dad?” he asked.
“You do,” I acknowledged, “and,” I hesitated, “a little like me.” He took my hand, staring at me.
As we walk through the airport heading for the baggage claim, I’m seventeen-years old again, but I
don’t have to hide in the basement when company comes. I don’t have to move to the Florence
Crittenton Home for unwed mothers. I don’t have to remain in a hospital bed, listening to the cries of
a baby down the hall whom I will never hold, never caress, never see. I am seventeen-years old and I
am holding the hand of my son, my boy, my baby.
writing, literature, and technical communication. She is the mother of five children, including her first-born son, the
subject of this essay, as well as five grandchildren. Her short stories have appeared in the Journal of the College
Conference Teachers of English, the Caprock Sun, and Readers Digest. She is currently revising her first
novel written with co-author Pat Nickell.
