Rudy Owens’ memoir on the American adoption experience
© 2017 Rudy Owens. All rights reserved.
I’m not surprised to see you. It’s as if you were meant to come.
—Rudy Owens’s Paternal Half-Sister
Once again I found myself in San Diego on a perfect, warm day. A quarter of a century earlier, it felt like it did that sunny morning. During both trips to this sprawling, coastal city, I was hoping to meet someone I never really knew.
At best I expected to leave a note on her door while she was away at work. Maybe she might meet me for coffee after the workday, during my four-day trip. She likely would ignore the letter, and our lives would go on as they always had. I had planned almost entirely for this outcome.
But the events unfolded differently.
Less than two hours after landing, I had parked in front of her modest adobe-style house, located a mile from Balboa Park. She was home on a weekday. Her car sat in the driveway.
Clearly things were not going as expected. I had no choice now. I sucked in a gulp of air and then knocked. With the door still closed, she asked for my name, and I told her it was Rudy Owens. Instead of turning me away, she invited me into her living room.
And there I sat on her couch, across from a woman two years younger than me. She had dark, shoulder-length brown hair and a chin and lips that very much resembled my own.
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” she said, with a sigh of resignation.
Read more: Chapter 2: The Most Suitable Plan