Bmom - what should I do...if anything

Hello everyone. This is my first post to the birthparents board. I've been thinking about this lately since I joined this site several months ago. I have spent many an hour on the adult adoptee boards reading everyone's stories, but really haven't posted my entire story. I'm hoping someone can give me an idea if I should try to talk again with my birthmother, or just let sleeping dogs lie. Please bare with me. I don't want to give any unnecessary details, but want everyone who reads this to get the full picture. I'll try to condense the history. I was placed for adoption at birth. I was 21 when I "miraculously" (pre Internet) :) found my bmom. She spent maybe two minutes that night on the phone denying who she was, then admitted it - to my relief. She told me my two sisters' names, but that was really as far as we got with anything personal. She did ask if I'd had a good life. I called her occasionally over the next few months. She was always polite, but it was very general (how is the weather?) type of phone calls and she'd have an excuse not to talk very long. She never called me - I always called her. When I realized that I was the one making the effort, I decided to wait to see if she contacted me on my birthday which was 3 months away. That day came and went, she didn't call, and I was devastated. (I was pretty young and naive at the time). Shortly after that, I called one of her other two daughters. They knew nothing about me, but all was ok with them both. They were shocked, as this was never something they expected their mother to do. But, they never even considered that they needed to forgive her for anything and were never angry at her for keeping me and the adoption a secret. They accepted what she felt she had to do, and they accepted me as part of their family. Ok, I'm trying to fast forward and not leave out anything important. I went to visit about 6 months after contacting my sisters for the first time. Bmom came to see me, and was polite but distant - like I was her daughter's friend or something. She said she was glad she got to finally meet me. That was it. During that visit, I found out that I look quite a lot like one of my cousins (my baunt's daughter.) I started to put two and two together and began seriously wondering if my aunt's ex-husband was my father. My sister's, when I suggested this to them, were thinking the same thing. My bmom had told the adoption agency that she was raped by two men. Her husband was in the military and overseas at the time I was conceived. The adoption agency doubted her story, but I never really thought much about it until meeting the family. During my next visit, I went with my two sisters to have our picture taken together. I was always dissappointed that I didn't look like either of them. After that, I would have contact with my sisters and occasionally my uncle and grandmother, but for the most part, respected that (as far as I could tell) my mother had been made pregnant by her ex-brother-in-law and that she didn't want the community and her family to know this. I understood and so, I kept myself scarce. Fast forward 15 years. (a year ago last October) my bmom's mother passed away. I went back to pay my respects, but had planned to keep a safe distance because I still suspected that her ex-brother-in-law was my father. Before I arrived, my bmom's niece was visiting my sister and saw the picture of me and my two sisters. She said, "My dad is her dad. There's no doubt in my mind." My bmom found out about this. The day of the funeral (I got permission to attend from my bmom - however, my sister was the one to ask her). When I walked into the church, my bmom came over to me (it's the first time she's ever approached me). Gave me a hug and said, "It's time for me to leave my past in the past." "I'm sorry." Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked away. I was thinking, she finally wants to try and have a relationship with me. This was huge. But then, she didn't talk to me the rest of the time I was there and wouldn't come see me before I left. So I thought, "Well, I must have misunderstood her and she was actually telling me that her past (which I am part of) needs to go away." I thought, "Why would she suddenly do this, after all these years?" Then I remembered that my cousin was getting a little too close for comfort in her ideas as to who my father is and my bmom was trying to cut things off at the pass. This further cemented the possibility of him being my father. Fast forward again 8 months. To try to shorten this long story, I'll skip some details. I ended up calling the man I suspected of being my father (my bmom's ex-brother-in-law.) I said to him, "I was born in Dec. 1968 and I think I may be a relative of yours." He said, "Oh, my God, I have wondered about you for years and years." I told him that I knew who my mother was, but that I needed to hear it from him. I NEEDED to hear it from the source itself without any prompting from me. If that makes sense. He told me without my prompting him in any way and I was blown away. What I had suspected for 15 years was true. Turns out, my bparents had a 9 year affair - 7 of those years was after I was born. This was confirmed by him and by his ex-wife and some of their children. My dad was married to my bmom's sister the entire time of the affair and my bmom was married as well. I can fully understand her wanting me to stay away. She has built a place for herself in the community and she doesn't want people to judge her and suspect her of being something other than what she has presented herself to be (I believe she has lived as the person she WANTS to be and just wants to ensure that everyone else sees her for the person she is/wants to be.) Hope that makes sense. Now that I knew the truth. I felt that in order to put this to rest, I needed to let her know that I knew the truth. I called her for the first time in 15 years. I said that I had some things I wanted to say to her and began by apologizing for contacting her by phone the way I did the first time 15 years before. And I apologized for not being as invisible at her mother's funeral as I had planned to be. She said in the sweetest, most loving voice, "Oh, that's alright. None of this is your fault." Then she proceeded to tell me that she is afraid to go out at night because of what happened to her (the alleged rape). And that everytime she hears my name, she gets sick to her stomach and because I've called her, she won't be able to eat for a week. Ouch. She didn't say it in a mean way. She said it as if she were really in pain, but her words stung, that's for sure. So, I took a deep breath and told her that I had something else I needed to tell her - that I knew her ex-brother-in-law was my father. She stammered and didn't know what to say. So, I tried to turn it into a good thing. I said, "I'm relieved, to be honest with you." "I'm glad to find out that my father isn't some unknown rapist." She paused for a bit, then said in this shrill voice, "KNOWN rapist." I said, "Excuse me?" She said in an even more shrill voice "KNOWN rapist!!" I said, in a pretty sad weak voice, (now that I think about it), "I thought you might say that." Because it certainly crossed my mind that she would lay the blame on him. She then said, "I didn't know how to say No!" So, I said, very gently, "But...for nine years....?" She then said, "I am a Christian woman! I went to Sunday school every Sunday as a child. I go to church faithfully! I was married! I would never do something like that!" So, I ended up saying, "well, I just wanted you to know that I know and that it's not my place to tell anyone (referring to her other two daughters.) We then spent the next two hours talking about politics and terrorism and the current events of the world and had a wonderful conversation. I actually tried to give her an out three different times, by saying, "Well, I really don't want to upset your life at all and maybe someday in the future we'll talk again." But each time I said that, she would go off on something else about how she felt about certain things, or her likes and dislikes. Finally, on the fourth try, I said, "Well, I don't want to cause you any stress" to which she said, "Yeah, I have a lot of that in my life." and then I said, "Well, maybe we'll talk again someday in the future." She said, very cheerily, "Ok, we'll talk to you soon!!" and we hung up. That was 5 months ago. She hasn't called me, I haven't called her. Also, everyone except her two daughters know (for sure) who my bfather is. Except that my bmom doesn't know that they know. She should know that they know? Should I just leave her alone? I had a very wise person tell me, "That is great that the mention of your name makes her sick! This is the first step in working through the past and being able to move on!" I was blown away by that. But I'm confused. Should I just leave well enough alone, or should I try to reach out to her and hopefully in the process, help her get over the past, so that maybe we can have some sort of relationship (friends) and she can finally be healed of the pain she's endured? I totally appreciate any and all opinions on this. Please, if you have anything to offer at all, please post. I desperately don't want to make the wrong move here. I don't want to hurt her and at the same time, if there is a chance of us both healing our past wounds, I want to forge ahead. Raina