Beyond Happily Ever After

A life-changing telephone call shatters the calm of one Chappaqua, New York family's routine evening. The caller was looking for his roots and wanted to speak with the writer's late mother. What happens next is the tale of an adoption reunion, when a severed branch is attached to the family tree. The reunion between the adult adoptee and his original or birth mother does not, and cannot, happen in a vacuum. Several family systems are involved as well as the mother-child duo. Volcanic anger from the adoptee and delayed grieving on the part of the mother are all part of the story. This edition contains an epilogue describing the reunion and the family interactions 17 years later.