I’ve always known I was adopted. I thought it was normal. Mom told me “God just wanted you to get to us in a special way.”
She made me feel loved and comfortable in my skin. That is why I never yearned to know my birth mother. I was complete without her. My adopted mom made me extra special when she wrapped a bow about my origins and turned it into a fairytale.
“Your mother was a ballerina in San Francisco. She fell in love with a European businessman who had another family abroad. They could not marry as he went back to Europe and she never saw him again. He was the love of her life.”
That story worked for me. Born of a love story and raised by the best mom a child could have.
Well, some of that fairytale story was true…
At 25-years-old, sitting at a bar in Quito, Ecuador my business associate and I were celebrating an import contract. She had brought her adopted Otavaolian Indian daughter with her. Ermalina was six-years-old and in native costume. A gorgeous child.
“I’m also adopted.” I told my associate as we drank caparingas.
“Have you met your birth mother?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I love my mother who raised me and don’t feel the need to find her.”
“You don’t want to meet your mother?” She was shocked.
I froze and a door opened in my heart. When I got back to California I started my search. It was a long investigative journey that took ten years (this was before the Internet).
One clue led me to Marty Ziff—a famous San Francisco lawyer who arranged the private adoption.
Ziff was still listed in the phone book.
A gravelly voice answered the phone.
“I believe you are the lawyer that handled my adoption years ago. My birth mother’s name was Maxine Baker.”
He said, “I remember Maxine. She was a beautiful woman. I want you to meet me at my law offices today.”
He paused and then said with emphasis again, “She was a really beautiful woman.”
I drove to the Financial District in San Francisco and took an elevator to the top floor of a very tall building on California Street.
The receptionist led me to grand oak doors which swung open. Marty Ziff sat behind a battleship-size polished desk. He stood up suddenly and squinted at me.
And after a long, silent moment he announced with disappoint, “You don’t look anything like her.”
I got the strong impression that he had been having an affair with her and still dreamt of her years later. We had a short, dry conversation. He did not know what happened to her after the birth but wanted me to keep in touch if I found her. And no, he was not my dad—just one of her many dalliances in a wild and unpredictable life before the era of birth control….
Leave a Reply