I was in my mother's 29th Street House in Portsmouth, listening to my mother and my sister talking in the background about going to court to obtain adoption papers for someone whom they were trying to help. They mentioned a bond and I thought there must be a bond for adoptions. I recalled I had recently gone to court to open an administration of estate and to obtain a temporary restraining order. In that instance I had been obliged to go to a bonding company and obtain a bond. When I began calculating in my mind how much the bond had cost, I realized that in the case of the temporary administration, the bond had been one percent, whereas the bond in the case of the temporary restraining order had been two percent. I didn't know how much an adoption bond would cost. In addition to the bond, I thought an oath would have to be taken when the child was adopted.

After I had talked a while with my mother and my sister, I realized that Tammy Farner (my first girlfriend when I had been in the second grade and the first girl I ever kissed) was living in that town. When I asked my mother and my sister if Tammy had ever gotten married, they said no, that she was thinking about it. I thought about calling up Tammy up and asking her to go out with me. Even though it had been over 20 years since she had seen me, I thought she would remember me; I thought I would like to go out with her. But I didn't call her and left.

When I returned the next day I discovered a woman there. A small, round baby crib (only about ten centimeters high) which looked like a basket was also in the room; inside the crib was a baby. Water was in the crib and it looked as if the baby was barely holding its head above the water. When I tipped the crib a bit, it looked as if the water went over the baby's head. I quickly picked the baby up out of the crib.

I called to my mother and asked her if she knew the baby was under water. When I asked my mother who the baby was, she said it was the baby for which they had been planning the adoption. When I held the baby in my hand, it was very cold (almost like a statue) because the water had been cold. Gradually the baby began to thaw out and became more limber; I could tell it was still alive.

I thought I myself might like to have a baby like this to hang around my neck like some kind of pendulum. But I realized the baby would gradually grow and would be unable to be worn like that very long.

When I looked again at my hands, I realized I wasn't actually holding a baby, but some pictures. When I looked at the pictures more closely, they seemed to be of a girl (about 17 years old). I asked my mother about the pictures. Apparently they were pictures of the same girl who had been the baby and who was being adopted by the woman. I asked my mother who the girl was and I suddenly realized she was actually my daughter whom I hadn't seen in years. She had now grown up and was being adopted by someone else.

In the pictures the girl was learning to use a typewriter or a computer. A sequence of pictures went through the stages of the girl's learning to use the computer.

She was an extremely pretty girl. She had black hair and was wearing a black sweater. She reminded me somewhat of the actress Marlo Thomas. I decided, since the girl was my daughter, I wanted to see her. I decided to go see her even if the woman adopting her objected.

The woman adopting her was overweight and reminded me somewhat of a Dallas attorney I knew named Frieda.

The more I looked at the pictures, the more emotional I became as I thought about the girl being my daughter and I began to silently cry. Crying felt good because the crying released pent up emotions caused by thinking about the girl who was my daughter. I resolved that at last I was going to see the girl and tell her she was my daughter. I felt good about having a daughter.