It all started with a question. Just one simple question.
One excited boy sat with his classmates, everyone eating their packed lunches. This boy was full of energy and asked the kindergartener sitting next to him, "Are you adopted?"
"Nope!"
He then asked the kid next to that kindergartener, "Are you adopted?"
"Nuh-uh."
Maddy quickly noticed the boy was going around the table, and soon it would be her turn. Adopted? I'm not adopted.
"Are you adopted?"
"No way, José!"
Or am I adopted? I couldn't be, could I?
"Maddy!"
Maddy snapped out of her thoughts. "What?"
"Are you adopted?"
Mom and Dad would've told me if I was, right? But... "I–I don't know...."
The boy looked at her. His nose scrunched, as well as his baby blue eyes, but he shrugged it off and continued asking the same question until everyone had answered.
At the end of the day, Maddy's mom, Dhelia, picked her up from school. While her mom was driving, the five-year-old decided to ask her mom about the adoption thing. She needed to know for sure.
"Mom? Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, Maddy. What is it?"
Maddy hesitated a little bit. Part of her was curious, but another part didn't want to know. She took a deep breath and asked, "Am I adopted?"
"Why do you ask?"
Her mom seemed a little worried, but even though Maddy noticed this, she brushed it aside and continued casually. "A boy at the lunch table I was sitting at was asking everyone that."
Dhelia hesitated; her eyes held uncertainty, glancing between the kindergartener and the road. The mother took a deep breath.
"Yes, Maddy. You are adopted."
The world Maddy lived in tumbled and crashed down. She didn't know what to say, especially since that was definitely not the answer she expected. Her eyes stayed glued to the floor, her lap, anywhere else but her "mom".
"Your birthmother's name is Beth."
The young girl didn't say anything until she and her mom reached home. "Can I see what she looks like?"
Dhelia gave her a weak smile. "Sure."
They both got out of the car and walked into the house. Dhelia immediately went to the refrigerator and lifted a magnet so she could get the picture sitting underneath it. She picked the picture up and showed it to her daughter. Maddy already recognized her parents. They looked pretty much the same. The only differences were her parents' hair. Her dad's hair was still the same style and still a deep brown, but now you could see the specks of grey. Her mom had a bob in the picture, but her chestnut hair now reached her shoulders.
"Who's that?" Maddy asked, pointing to a lady with long, straight brown hair that reached to her waist.
"That's Beth."
Maddy looked confused when her eyes landed on a man with white hair and wrinkles on his face. "What about him?"
"That was the judge." Dhelia paused for a minute, and then said, "We have an adoption video. I could find it for you if you want to see it."
Maddy just nodded, still looking at the picture. She glanced at her birth mom. She didn't know what to feel. Should she feel sad? Happy? Angry? Why did she put me up for adoption? Maddy asked herself. Did she not love me?
Questions like those kept running through Maddy's mind. She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard something playing on the television. The word "Adoption" hung on the screen. It then turned to a woman who started talking, seemingly introducing the story. After a few seconds, the screen switched to her mom carrying a baby. When Maddy looked closer, she saw that it was her.
The screen switched again; this time of a man and a woman as a name appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Beth Ryan and boyfriend." Pretty soon, the adoption segment finished and commercials came on.
"There is one more thing I have to tell you," Dhelia said.
Maddy looked at her.
"You have a half-sister named Hallie."
Maddy was quiet for a minute before she spoke. "Did Beth keep her?"
"Yeah."
Maddy mumbled, "Why?"
"When you were born, Beth had no family with her. If she was going to keep you, you wouldn't have a father. She wanted you to have a mother and a father. She wanted you to have a family. You wouldn't have that if she kept you. Beth made a list of pros and cons."
Maddy interrupted her mom. "What are pros and cons?"
"Pros and cons are good and not-so-good things. Pros are positive things and cons are negative things."
Maddy nodded.
"There were more cons on the list. But she put you up for adoption out of love. You didn't do anything wrong."
Yes, I did. Being born is what was wrong! Maddy closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling.
Maddy was at home one day on the computer. Being ten years old, "curious" was her middle name. She typed "Google" and once the page loaded, she immediately put two words into the search engine: Beth Ryan. She clicked on every website that had that name in bold, going down the entire list across multiple pages of results.
About half an hour later, she gave up. This is useless! she thought. I'll never be able to find her.
Five years later while on vacation in Oahu, Hawaii, Maddy and her sister, Kim, went to a magic show. Before the show started, Maddy looked up at the stars to admire them, especially since she still wanted to be an astronaut.
Gasping, Maddy turned to nudge her sister. "Kimmy! I just saw a shooting star!"
Kim looked up, and even though she didn't see anything, she believed her sister. "Aw. Lucky!"
Maddy looked back to the sky and decided to make a wish on that shooting star. I wish I could find some way to contact Beth.
In that following January, Dhelia stopped Maddy after walking in the door.
"I looked up Beth on the Internet and found her address."
Maddy stared at her mom. She wished on the first star she saw every night, every time the clock read 5:55 or 11:11, and she even prayed to God asking him if she could come in contact with her. An address, phone number, anything really. But when she found out that her wishes had come true, she felt scared. She had wished for twelve years, and she never thought her wish would come true. She felt so scared that she wanted to run away, but because she was so shocked, she couldn't move. She couldn't even blink.467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDxNH1FESIl
and then Add to home screen.