Podcast Script

Scene 1: Present Day in Kitchen  

Cindy and Steve are in the kitchen. Cindy is doing dishes and Steve is cooking breakfast harper comes running through

Harper: Bye Mom Bye Dad love ya! I’m gonna be late and Mrs. Spector is teaching us how to apply for college today!

Steve and Cindy: bye honey love you!

Harper: Oh yea mom and can you get all the paperwork I need out so I can start doing applications before school?

Cindy: Of course honey!

Sound: door slams

Cindy: Steve...we have to tell her the truth.

Steve: Jeez Cindy we have been over this thousands of times no it will ruin our family.

Cindy: Whether she figures out from us it would be so much better than her figuring out some other way

Steve: There is no way she will figure out the only people that know are our parents and they would never tell Harper that.

Cindy: I don’t know Steve she is a smart girl she already has made comments

Steve: You are just overthinking this honey now we gotta get going, don’t want to be late for work

Cindy: Okay but I’m not over this yet

Scene 2: Flashback Steve and Cindy are in a hospital room

Hospital machine noises

Cindy: I’m so scared

Steve: We did the treatments right, everything will be okay honey

Cindy: Yea well some…

Steve: I don’t wanna hear it only positive thoughts

Door Opens doctor enters

Doctor: Hello Mr. and Mrs. Adler, I have gotten back your results

….

Doctor: I’m sorry to say but it seems these treatments aren’t working and you are infertile

Cindy: What do you mean no? This can’t be

Steve: What can we do, is there anything else

Doctor: I’m sorry I hate to tell couples this news and unfortunately no there is nothing else for you to do. I can put you in contact with some good adoption agencies that I have referred many of couples to who are in the same situation

Crying

Steve: We will take the information.  

Scene 3

Opens door

Harper: Mom, Dad anyone home?

No response from either

Harper: Great, Mom forgot to get the paperwork I needed. Guess I will get it myself

Walks up stairs opens door takes down box

Shuffles through paperwork

Harper: What no.   

Harper: *as she sifts through the paper:* Middletown adoption agency? What?

*Flashback* (Use some noise for that)

*Middle School Classroom*

Teacher: Ok class, so make sure you all turn in your family tree, with photos sometime by the end of class.

Random Kid: Hey harper, how come no one looks like you?

Harper: What do you mean?

RK: You have blonde hair, and everyone else has black hair!

Another kid: Haha, harper was probably adopted! HAHAHA she doesn’t even know.

Harper: Shut up, just Shut up!

*Present day*

Harper: it all makes sense, but why would mom and dad keep it from me all this time. My mother is really Angela Marie Quinn from San Diego, California that's only 30 minutes away from me… why didn’t they ever tell me?

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Scene 4

Next day

Parents enter house with groceries

Steve: Alright Cindy alright I heard you the first five thousand times stop repeating yourself please just please

Cindy: No Steve not until you really listen to me she’s been acting weird since yesterday for whatever reason and I don’t like it

Steve: Okay well she’s a teenage girl I don’t understand why her mood swings are alarming you now

Cindy: Because something just isn’t right and all I can keep thinking about is how she needed the paperwork for her applications

Steve: Okay yes she needed them what about it and asked you to get them for her as soon as we got home because she said she didn’t know where they were

Cindy: I know that but they seemed out of place when I went to collect them

Steve: I honestly think you’re just overthinking this a little bit

Cindy: I’m telling you I’m not and I want to tell her because I feel like she’s catching on

Steve: What if you’re wrong about this though what if we tell her and it upsets her to the point where is affects her work on all of the applications

Cindy: Well at least she’ll know the truth and if I didn’t have a strong feeling about this I wouldn’t keep being so persistent and bring it up every five minutes

Steve: Alright fine  We’ll tell her tomorrow after she gets back from soccer practice

Cindy: Great

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Scene 5

Middletown Adoption Agency

Adoption Center Agent: Harper Alice McCollins?

Harper: Yes that’s my full name

Adoption Center Agent: It says here that you were adopted a couple of month before turning a year old on June 6 2000 by Mr. Steven Richard McCollins and Mrs. Lucinda Avery McCollins

Harper: Yes those are my parents

Adoption Center Agent: Uh huhh…

Pauses and looks at Harper for a few seconds

Adoption Center Agent: Did they tell you about all of this

Harper: Well… no but I found the papers so I decided to come over here

Adoption Center Agent: Alright well I’m assuming they don’t know you’re here so what else would you like to know dear

Harper: What were my birth parents’ names

Adoption Center Agent: As it says on your adoption papers your biological mother is Angela Marie Quinn and she’s currently residing in San Diego, California your biological father’s information does not seem to appear on any of these documents

Harper: Is the information on my birth mother still accurate

Adoption Center Agent: Let me see if it’s been updated since then

Goes onto the computer and searches information

Adoption Center Agent: It seems like it was last updated in 2016 and the location she claims as her current residency is the same

Harper: Where in San Francisco is she

Adoption Center Agent: She’s in the Excelsior district at 243 Madrid St

Harper: Okay thank you so much for your help

Harper starts to excuse herself by standing up

Adoption Center Agent: Wait one second

Harper pauses and slowly sits back down

Adoption Center Agent: Be careful okay love I know this is all knew to you so maybe you should take some time to process it all I don’t you to do anything irrational

Harper: I won’t I just really want to meet her

Adoption Center Agent: I understand alright then good luck dear

Harper: Thanks again

Harper gets up completely this time and heads out through the door

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Scene 6

Cindy and Steve are in the living room watching TV

Cindy: She’s been gone for a long time now

Steve: Cindy oh my god she’s 18 and is probably out with her friends having fun because it’s Friday night

Cindy: I know but she usually comes home first to drop her stuff off and then goes out again

Steve: Maybe she just decided to leave it in one of her friend’s cars instead this time

Cindy: (sighs) I guess so…

Cindy pauses

Cindy: We are definitely telling her tomorrow first thing in the morning

Steve: I know that we are!

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Scene 7

Harper is on the bus

Harper: Oh my God I’m so close

Bus stops on Mission Street a few block away from Harper’s birth mother’s house

Harper: Thank you (she says to the bus driver as she gets off)

Harper walks down hurriedly at the sight of it becoming late and there being a substantial amount of homeless people all walking around her. Harper stops in front of the door of her destination and sees several door bells

Harper: Angela Marie Quinn… It only says Quinn so let’s go for this one

Rings doorbell and waits about a minute before she hears someone coming down the stairs.

Door is slowly opened, all Harper can see is the very beginning of someone’s forehead

Angela: Yes?

Harper: Hi, I’m looking for Angela Marie Quinn

Angela: That’s me and who’s asking

Harper: My name is Harper and I found your name in my adoption papers earlier on this week. I think you’re my birth mother

Angela opens the door all the way

Harper’s Thoughts: Standing in front of me was a woman who was the spitting image of me in 20 years. She has long blonde hair and cold green eyes, but her presence felt soft - just like mine. I kept staring at her in disbelief and could not believe that we were actually meeting each other in person.