the pieces of my life

Day 24 of Nanowrimo (challenge: use “”After so many of years of trying to NOT get pregnant who knew it would be so hard to GET pregnant?! Who knew that there are really only about 48 hours of each month in which most of us can get pregnant? Why didn’t they teach us about our fertility limitations during health class? I feel like you’re in a club in which I long to belong — the mommy club”):

“I have a brother.” I sat back down and took a sip of my martini. Not bad. Not the best I’d ever had—just a splash too much of vermouth for that—but good enough. “I have a brother. An older brother.”

“Older brother?” My mom looked genuinely confused. “I never figured for that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

My mom smiled guiltily. “Well, I guess I used to fantasize a little about your birth mom.”

“You did?” I asked, rather shocked.

“Yes.” My mom laughed just a little. “I pictured her as a very young woman—pregnant with you as a teenager. She’d find us one day and look at what a wonderful young woman you’ve become—”

“Not so young any more,” I interrupted.

“These fantasies happened a long time ago,” my mother teased. ”But she’d look at you in awe and tell me that she did the right thing in giving you up, that she was happy I raised you.”

“This is eye opening,” I said.

“What can I say?” My mom sipped at her wine. “I think there was some guilt in your adoption. It happened so fast, and I knew nothing about the birth parents. I always felt a little like it was too good to be true, like I was stealing you away. I always wanted reassurance that I was indeed the better parent for you.”

“Mom—” I started, but she stopped me.

“No, no. I’m not looking to you for reassurances. Those days were such a blur and so devastating. I spent all those years—so many of them!—trying not to get pregnant. Who knew it would then be so hard to get pregnant? The things your father and I did—”

“Um, do I really want to know?”

She shrugged. “You’re thirty-two years old. Surely you know by now your father and I have sex.”

“Had sex. Exactly twice. Once when you didn’t get pregnant with me and once when you did get pregnant with Jocelyn.”

“Alisa, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you here.”

“I know. And I know I’m a grown-up. But the idea of you and Dad having sex is still a vastly unappealing one. But go on. I can take it.”

“I tried acupuncture and herbs—which weren’t very easy to come by in the 70s—I measured my temperature and check for discharge. Did you know that there are really only forty-eight hours in the month when you can get pregnant? They didn’t teach me that in my high school health class. I remember when your aunt, Della, got pregnant. She was three years younger than me and she and your uncle Seth had only been married for three months. They hadn’t even been trying! When Jason was born, I felt like there was some secret mommy club and Della got to be a member but I was being blackballed. I wanted in so badly.”

I took my mom’s hand from across the table and gently rubbed it with my thumb. “I know,” I said softly.

“So when the opportunity to adopt you came up, I jumped at it. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t want to wonder why it was all happening so quickly. I just wanted to be a mother. Later, I started to imagine things. Why did she give you up? Did she miss you? Who was she? I guess, I’m just telling you that I fantasized about your birth mother, too, I had pictured her in my mind. Another child never entered the picture. So, what’s this big brother of yours like?”

Tagged nanowrimo

§ One Response to For Tara

• jen says:

  November 27, 2007 at 7:45 pm

  Hi Jenny,

  Have been lurking off and on since our last e-mail re: booksfree.com. Still love the reading suggestions.
  How about this prompt from my 6 year old?

  “Do you like where I put my Woody? It’s the same place I put it last year.”

  Though in our house it is in relationship to the Disney ornaments the kids have for the Christmas Tree.. Thought it might fit in somewhere with your heroines job… Good Luck, and Hi Carly if you read this… The other Jen Brown http://www.thebrownshouse.blogspot.com