My daughter turned four the day before my scheduled trip to Honduras, where I had accepted a teaching position at a secondary school in El Progreso.  The paperwork, pictures, and letters I saved from my pregnancy and her adoption were scattered on my bed.  Packing would have to wait as I studied her baby pictures taken by her adoptive parents and sent to me through the adoption agency.  In one, she was propped up against sofa cushions holding a baby ring with plastic keys, her chocolate-brown eyes and chunky cheeks smiling back at me.  The guilt and shame acted like trained assassins hired to kill me.  I thought of canceling my trip and curling up among her things.  Instead, I picked up the little wristband she wore at the hospital, searching for parts of her, hoping her DNA, like a map, would lead me to her.

     I had chosen her parents from a stack of letters from people wanting a family.  I wanted a family, too, and had promised myself, while in a Milwaukee courtroom, signing away my parental rights, that I was making the right choice.  I was wrong.

     I was in my twenties when I got pregnant, squandering those precious young adult years with the wrong people while making one bad decision after another.  For years, I worked in restaurants and bars.  Living on tips, I worried about making rent and car payments.  I didn’t have a safety net or a place to raise a child.

     My friend Tammy got pregnant during her second semester of college.  She was raising her little girl in government-assisted housing with the help of welfare assistance and food stamps.  One morning, I stopped by with donuts.  A little pink bike with a banana seat, a flat tire, and mangled training wheels lay on its side on the front stoop of the apartment building.  I dragged it into the yard.  Tammy and her daughter lived on the second floor.  The dingy linoleum stairs and hallway were filthy, and the walls were in dire need of a fresh coat of paint.  The apartment door was ajar.  Tammy’s little girl sat on a tattered rug, eating a bowl of cereal, and watching Scooby Do.  Tammy’s feet dangled off the sofa.  She was asleep.  I set the bag of donuts on the floor just inside the apartment.  Tammy’s little girl never looked up.

     Outside, the broken bike lay on the grass like a wounded animal.  Instinctually, I placed my hands on my belly to protect my baby. I’m not raising my daughter like this.  The memory of the broken pink bike, an image stacked among so many I collected like tarot cards during that time, reminds me why I chose to give up my daughter.

     I named my daughter Carley after seeing Carly Simon singing “Coming Around Again Itsy Bitsy Spider” on an MTV video: I know nothing stays the same / But if you’re willing to play the game / It will be coming around again.

     Her adoptive parents changed her name to Kelsey.  That name belonged to someone I hadn’t held in my arms at the hospital when she was born.  I was unable or maybe unwilling to accept the truth.  For years, my journal entries would begin, Dear Carley.

     I picked up the journal given to me by a dear friend who would, years later, die from colon cancer while her three children were still in school.  It wasn’t fair.  There was a single entry because, even though I had promised to write, it was too painful to address my daughter in such a concrete way.  I scanned the entry for clues to help me understand how I came to surrender my baby.  Then, as now, it makes no sense to me.

March 3, 1992

Dear Carley,

-If I wrote to you each time I thought of you, I would have volumes of letters to share.

-[The day I gave you up] was the worst day of my life.  I felt alone and empty.  I also felt about ten years old and that at any minute someone was going to start making decisions for me that would take away the pain and guilt.

-Before I had you, I always had a net or web under me to catch me if I fell: My friends and family, even things like money, a car, and a job.  But all the security I had could not help me make the decisions I made with you.  In many ways, I had to grow up.  You have helped me do that.

-I am sorry.  I am sorry I wasn’t there to hold you when you couldn’t sleep.  I am sorry I wasn’t there to catch you when you took your first steps, and I am sorry I won’t be there to answer all the questions you will have about your adoption.

     There wasn’t time to sink into the dank well where I often treaded deep, dark waters.  There was still so much to do before I left in the morning.  I gathered the papers and photos and returned them to the adoption box, a plastic tote I kept stored in my closet.  I debated taking it to Latin America, but the box was insurance that someday I would return.  I would never leave my daughter behind again.

     I slid the journal along with a few notebooks and a pocket-sized calendar I purchased at Walgreens, into my backpack.  It was time to finish packing, and it was time to untangle Carley from the past.  I would take her with me as a traveling companion rather than a symbol of grief I had worn like a heavy talisman around my neck for so long,  I had forgotten what a privilege it was to have brought her into this world.