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Adoption

Fiction

The Russian Children Are Not Happy

Now she’s rocking back and forth, back and forth in her padded rocker, holding a pillow to her stomach with one hand, bringing her drink to her mouth with the other, and moaning every now and then, “How did this happen? How did this happen?” And I don’t know if she means Boo Boo, her three Russian children, her outlaw pedophile husband, or her drinking, but I feel sorry for her. God, just one of those things could sink you for a while.

By Ellen Slezak April 2003
Fiction

Flesh And Blood

Most people wonder about their ancestry, scanning family history for glimpses of their destinies, seeking proof that they’re not the accidents they often appear to be. But when you’re adopted, you have no archives to dig through. Like Adam or Eve, you invent your destiny.

By Colin Chisholm December 2002
Fiction

800

When she looked in the mirror, she imagined herself as someone very different from the person she’d become. Not the sort of woman who was about to purchase a child on a home-equity loan from some poor young desperate thing whom fate had tricked and whose womb had performed the labor of incubation for nine months and who — for financial and emotional reasons, most likely — would be unable to keep the part of her that is advertised as every woman’s greatest joy. What would it mean, this exchange, and how would they explain it satisfactorily to the child, who would “want to know,” as all the books and experts repeated like a refrain? Certainly not as tricky to explain as anonymous artificial insemination, or the donor-egg scenario.

By Alyce Miller November 1999
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Man Who Hated Dogs

After all these years, my father’s rich, deep voice still filled me with a mixture of fear and awe, even over the telephone, “I don’t know why you people want a dog,” he said. By “you people,” he meant not just me and my husband, but everyone everywhere who has ever had the slightest inclination to get a dog.

By Donna Cornachio August 1999
Fiction

The Door

She climbed the little trail to her cabin, her mind weary, each step pulling at her energy. But the sight of the door took her breath away. Something filled her, swept through her body singing. She went toward it slowly, then ran her two hands over every inch.

By Sharon Claybough December 1992
Readers Write

A Letter Never Written

Adopting, reconnecting with an old friend, being AWOL in peacetime

By Our Readers June 1988
Fiction

My Father’s Grandson

I called my father at his bank in Tulsa. He wasn’t there, as usual, so I left a message with his secretary, as usual. “Tell him, Helouise, that he has a new grandson.” I had to repeat the message twice, as Helouise was well aware that I was an only child and quite unmarried.

By Brad Conard January 1983