Page 15 of And Still Her Voice
“We don’t need a piece of paper,” Ben said. “Why marry only to get divorced? What we need to do is divorce from society.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t Poppy make a cute flower girl?” She reached up to pinch Poppy’s chubby cheeks. “Oh, wouldn’t you?”
As their attention turned to their daughter, I finished my lunch and walked over to the edge of the cliff, gripping my hair as the wind swept up, my head spinning as I imagined what Mom would’ve said about me hanging around this “immoral” couple with a child out of wedlock. “Tan disgraciados.” I knew how the church stood against birth control, and even more against sex outside of marriage. And I also knew how Mom followed the church’s teachings, picking and choosing from a divine smorgasbord those beliefs that worked best for her.
“What I never understood about your mother was why she had so many children,” Grandma said suddenly. “Those Mexican Catholics just love a big family.”
“Grandma, remember I’m also half!” I recalled the moment she’d compared my light skin to that of my siblings. It made me sick being separated from the fold.
“After your brother, the doctor, warned her not to have any more.”
“Anymore what? Brownies? Jesus, can’t I just have this moment to think to myself? I’m sure she would have stopped if she could have,” I said, wondering, if it hadn’t been for that foam stuff and that red douche bag Mom had hanging in the shower, who knows how many more she might have had.
“All it did was burden my Charley further.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” As if it weren’t bad enough sharing Grandma’s mind, sometimes I imagined what my mother mightsay. I wanted to explode when I found myself constantly taking up her defense against Grandma Phoebe, against the white world. “Like he didn’t have a part in all of this? Like he’s the one who had to carry heavy bowling balls in his stomach around five times, go through morning sickness. Swell up like a blimp. Be cut open with Josie. I never even saw him change a single diaper. He was the one who cried when I was born a girl and then he wouldn’t let Mom give up until she gave him a boy!” My heart raced.
“He was never fit to be a father.”
“And maybe that was just a reflection of you!”
Grandma went cricket silent.
How could Mom let him be in charge of her own body, like she was his property. When it came to the number of children, Grandma and Mom were both wrong. If I were to have children, which I wasn’t, I’d have only two, one for each hand, not five for each . . . what . . . finger? Who needs more than five fingers on one hand anyway? And, definitely not an only child, one is an accident like Dad. One is the loneliest number, but then again, one of five can be even lonelier. A strong gust nearly lifted me off the ground. I moved away from the cliff, hugging myself and rubbing my arms to get warm.
“She had a choice.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Charley was not equipped to be a husband, much less a father. You were born and I had to do something.”
Did Grandma honestly think she could do something by moving into my headspace to try to protect me and control her son? Suddenly, I wanted to jump off the cliff, but I wasn’t quite sure about the consequences of suicide, like I knew it was a sin and sinners go to hell—but then, again, I might have been better off.
“She never should have had anymore. She could have left. From the beginning, I tried to warn her but she thought by giving him a boy, it would change things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how to be the father he never had.”
“Oh yeah?” Now I fumed. I looked up to see if Ben or Betsy might see smoke puffing out of my ears, but their eyes were seared onto Poppy. “And what I never understood was why you waited thirteen years to have my dad—an only child. What kind of birth control didyouuse, Grandma?”
“If the pill had been around, believe me, I would have taken it.”
“What? Really?”
Grandma hushed after dropping this little bomb, as if she’d planted the seed, no pun intended, for me to learn more about the “pill.” And since I already decided I’d never bring a child into this world, and I could never be a nun like Sister Bernadette, it was time to learn more. I’d take complete control of my own body. And now maybe, like Betsy, I’d never have to get married. Maybe I didn’t have to be a wife! Maybe I’d be a lesbian!
“Darling, it’s not something one chooses, like buying a new frock.”
***
I wiped my eyes tearing from the cold and spotted some sea otters or dolphins out on the ocean. My mind cast back to the book I’d read as a child,Island of the Blue Dolphins,about a young Native American girl caught in between two worlds. I imagined what it would be like living by myself on an island but then I realized there’d always be Grandma like one of the fur trappers who’d invaded the tiny place. Sadly, the true story of the woman of the island was that she ended up dying within weeks of her capture. Free at last.
Above me big clouds cast giant inky shadows blanketing a sea of grey. Dad’s accusatory electric eel eyes broke through and I turned away. In the distance, Ben and Betsy packed up.
Back in the car, Betsy, who loved to chat and mostly about herself and her view of the world, filled me in on everything without my ever having to ask. But I supposed that when you had a baby, there was no time for any sort of repartee, which was just fine by me. And then just as I thought how great that she hadn’t even asked anything about me, except for my name and age, so that I wouldn’t have to lie too much, she said, “So, tell us a little about you. Where did you say you went to school?”
I raised my voice over the sound of the car’s engine. “I didn’t say. I was homeschooled.” I hoped this would be the end of the interrogation.
She shook her head. “Far out. I had to drop out myself. But I’m only twenty-two, so there’s still time to take over Dad’s practice someday. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“And we won’t bring another child into this world until there’s peace,” Ben said.
