Member-only story
THE NARRATIVE ARC
I Met a Brother I Never Knew Existed
My biological mother kept him, but not me
We agreed to meet in the middle. At noon.
11:36 AM. I arrive early, despite changing clothes three times (What DOES one wear to meet a long lost sibling?) and making two wrong turns.
“The One She Kept” lives less than a half hour from me. He moved to San Diego with his wife and children two years ago. I moved to San Diego five years ago. I suppose it’s some sort of sibling serendipity— shared with the brother I’d never known existed. Half-brother, technically. Biologically.
A sixteen year old gave birth to, then surrendered me to adoption. That same woman, at 34, gave birth to and then subsequently raised him. My brand-new, fully-grown baby brother and I were born 18 years and 2000 miles apart, and not once, but twice, unknowingly lived practically next door to each other.
“Wait, is this an LA number?” Me, to him, on the phone, the day we first spoke. Yesterday.
I’d assumed he’d live in Chicago, where our mother had lived, where I was born. I guess I thought people from Chicago stayed there forever. Except for me, of course. In any case, at age 50 I’d finally gone searching for this mystery mom—with my recently “unsealed” original…
