Meeting the stranger who was my mother

When I was six, after 2 years in hiding, my mother found us living in a basement somewhere in Brooklyn. She had hired detectives, contacted Interpol and others who could help, and came to live in the USA for six months to try and find me.
I cringe when I think of the basement apartment we lived in. It was dark and big and lonely. A young family lived upstairs, and I remember that my father went to Canada for a few days and left me with them. I cried when he left, but went reluctantly up the stairs and sat on the edge of the couch. It was strange to be with a normal family. I found a book on childbirth on the coffee table and looked at the pictures, fascinated. When the mother saw what I was reading, she grabbed it from me without a word but with a horrified look on her face. I thought I must have done something wrong but wasn't sure what it was.
I was introduced to my mother in the Brooklyn courthouse, and I was terrified. I didn't remember her, and all the good memories had turned into distant, negative ones with the passage of time. I was terrifed that I would lose everything I had if I was friendly to her. I remember feeling numb. She showed me pictures of my former life and tried to connect with me, but I was frozen with fear and confusion and did not respond much. We saw one another many times, but in between visits with her I was admonished to remain loyal to my father, and warned that I'd be sent to a strange land if I opened up at all, so my mother had no chance. I wanted to stay with what I knew, even though it wasn't very good. My mother took me to the park, gave me some beautiful toys and fed me, and I began to thaw the tiniest bit. That's when my father abducted me once again.
One morning before dawn, after the judge had ordered that I was to go to Norway for a visit that Summer with my mother, we painted our car from red to blue and took off into the sunrise. It would be 12 years before I would see my mother again. Now we were truly on the run. I'd pass through 34 of the 50 States and Mexico and Canada in those 12 years.