Take Note : It's All Different

2. Taking Note

This letter rocked me. I am a fourteen year old girl who's life was looking up. My grades were good. I was healthy. I was keeping very fit. I was emotionally stable. I had a good social life. Now how much would change. Did anyone else know i was adopted? Did most of my family know? They probably did but it would be worth asking when I saw them next.

As I sat on my bed and I thought about everything over this last period of time. I tried to find the name Ambrose in my memories but there was still no luck. I gave up because I had other issues. Now I didn't know what was true and what was false. My natural "human" instinct said cry this is emotional and a huge deal, but my mind said investigate. If this was correct and I was adopted I wanted to know why I was put up for adoption and why did my parents adopt me. I also want to know how they got those after birth photos. My mind was racing one thousand miles an hour and I was overloading myself with assumptions but mainly queries.

There were so many questions that required answers. All my questions required answers and I wasn't sure whether the answers I may be given would lead to more questions. Which would then lead to the need for more answers and henceforth the cycle would continue. And continue. And continue. And continue before I would end up back at the question I started with. Too many of my questions I wanted answers for but I couldn't ask them to save my life. I can't just go up to my parents and say are you my real parents. It would be kind of out of the blue. And I couldn't imagine there reactions would be anything other than overwhelming. To be completely honest I'd never even questioned anything about my life, my parents or my family in general until this letter came.

Can I even call it a letter it's an invitation to a funeral. A funeral for a woman who is apparently my grandmother that I haven't met. It was a funeral notice. A single funeral notice was changing my life. It made me question even the things I thought I was completely sure of, right up until know. The funeral was for a grandmother I didn't know I had. But she had the same hair colour as me. But it didnt change the fact that I didn't know she really existed because I thought the Kalecon grandparents or oldies as I called them were the only grandparents I had but now it seemed like they weren't or aren't.

I stormed myself right up to my parents bedroom door and just before I went to knock furiously against the painted wood, the door swung open with a huff.

"These documents and various pieces of paperwork should give you all the answers you need. I was aware the invitation was coming but I was not sure whether it was time for you to know. When you came in I wanted to rip it from your hands and tell you 'no it was for me' but you saw the name and you have access to the Internet. Plus your curiosity would play a hard ball for the rest of us to try and hit."

My face began to heat up as I clutched the box of paper works she has plonked into my hands. The box I now held contains documents and bits and pieces of my history. The history I didn't know existed. I felt a few tears trickle down the sides of my face. But Helen was right I was too curious to leave this information alone. To forget the name Angel Charlie Ambrose would be impossible.

I hadn't realised until much later that I had begun to think of the person I'd called mum my whole life as a lady named Helen. I'd always seen her as Mum never as Helen. But now I saw it all differently. My world has already shifted and all I basically have heard and seen written is a name. Ambrose.

Helen wiped my cheeks and walked me outside her room and down the hallway into my own. She sat me down on my bed and stood above me. She spoke the words no child thinks they will hear unless they are I don't mean to be racist but dark skinned in a white skinned family or white skinned in a dark skinned family.

"Yes Angel, you were adopted. Yes, I am not your real mother and James is not your real father. Your real father is in fact John Ambrose. Your mother is Frankie Ambrose. They are both members of the defence force. Both Police Officers in fact." Her voice began to faulter but I saw no hurt in her eyes. Helen kissed my forehead before walking out of my room with tears beginning to form in her eyes. Before closing the door she turned back and said "There is one other piece of information you need to know but that is not mine to tell you. I have sworn never to tell so it is entirely up to you. It also isn't in many of those files. You'll need to look beneath the details to see it. Just remember that it is really well hidden."