As much as I liked her, I couldn’t help feeling envious. She had grown up with a mum and dad, gone to school, played sports, all the things that had been denied to me. And by her own account, she had squandered all of those opportunities to live in a solitary way until just the last few years. Now, she had friends, now she had some kind of job playing the piano. I had nobody in my life except her, and I could never be fully honest with her.
The connection I yearned for was not in Ireland. Neither Sally nor my Uncle Mark could give me the feeling I craved. Sally was so pleased to have me there, Mark less so, but I couldn’t relax. The tension in my head never dissipated, even for a moment. I needed Lindy, or someone like her.
I checked in with work regularly on my laptop, and said I was dealing with my medical issues. They knew me well enough not to pry. Several problems arose that I could handle remotely, often in the middle of the night. I needed to stay on the payroll until I figured out what I was going to do next. I couldn’t stay with Sally indefinitely, but could I stay in Ireland? Should I go home to New Zealand? Where was home?
Over Christmas lunch, Sally mentioned Amanda Heron. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would show up on the ancestry website. In the beginning, I denied all knowledge of her, but Mark was so suspicious, I lied and said I’d had some short affairs. They showed me the website. There she was, the baby I had delivered, ‘50% DNA shared’. I told them I didn’t want to know. My initials that were connected to her on the website were PG. That, at least, was some comfort. If anybody went looking, my initials in New Zealand were SA. Mark and Sally had provided no other information, not even their birthdates.
But I had underestimated those amateur podcasters. On 12th January, an email landed in my inbox.
