by Lori Lansens
Aunt Lovey tied a sweater around my waist to hide the bloodstain on my tan shorts and said, “Well, welcome to womanhood, Rose Darlen.” Uncle Stash could not meet my eye. He patted my shoulder and muttered, “Sorry,” as though it was his fault.
I was too miserable to appreciate the moment of transformation, and too aware of what I was to imagine my womanhood meant much more than further inconvenience. We watched an ailing tiger swat flies with his tail, then I asked quietly if we could go home.
Ruby cried in her dreams that night. I wanted to shake her awake and tell her that I’d give anything to be like her and have delinquent ovaries and never get my period, but it wasn’t precisely true, and I said untrue things to Ruby only when I was sure she would believe them.
WITHIN FORTY-EIGHT hours of intercourse with Frankie Foyle, I knew I was pregnant. I awoke with a metallic taste in my mouth and a tingling in my breasts that was unlike the premenstrual tenderness I was used to. I sensed a fullness below my abdomen and an ache in my urethra. But most significantly, most vividly, I remember that my skin smelled different. A hint of mildew, a piss-sweet stink, something undercooked. Ruby noticed it too and asked me, “What have you been eating? You reek.” I’ve read about other women who’ve experienced immediate recognition of pregnancy. How incredible it is to know that you have been occupied, in a most mysterious and sublime way. In my perfect youthful womb a perfect egg had joined with a perfect sperm and formed a cluster of beautiful cells, dividing completely to become a person who would be half me and half Frankie Foyle and all her own. A child who would not be joined to anyone but me, by a spongy cord and natural law.
I had imagined myself a mother many times in my private teenage fantasy life (not in the fantasies I shared with Ruby, though, because it would have hurt her). But I never, never pictured myself as a real mother, not like the ones Ruby and I watch in the library or at the grocery store, exhausted, harassed, peanut-butter and snot stains on their roomy errand clothes. My version of motherhood included upswept hair and white pants and perennial youth. I never expected to be a real mother. That is to say, I never expected to have intercourse. And I never expected to be pregnant. And I certainly never expected these two things to happen when I was only a teenager.
The nausea that plagued me in the first days disappeared, and during the first couple of months, it was easy to pretend that I was not profoundly changed. I began to write, each night, a letter to this perfect baby growing in my imperfect body whom I loved so well and deeply. Ruby punished me for writing, and for keeping a secret, by watching reruns and eating eggs, which were the only food whose odor I couldn’t tolerate.
Initially I didn’t gain much weight during the pregnancy, and hardly any that would have been noticeable in the first few months. But soon my sister began complaining about her difficulty in straddling my expanding middle, and sometime in my sixth month, Ruby glimpsed my body in one of the mirrors in the bathroom and, laughing, said, “I told you you’re getting fat, Rose. God, you look pregnant!”
Ruby could not see my face in the mirror. There was a long pause.
I hid my face from the mirror’s angles, knowing in that moment, as my sister made it real, that I would not, and could not, keep my baby.
I held Ruby’s body tightly as she let go her grip on my neck. Slowly, leaning one leg on the edge of the vanity, she reached down to touch the swell of my womb. We found the other’s reflection broken by the foggy mirror.
Where once we were two.
Now three.
Concentric Circles
Once a month, usually on a Sunday, Aunt Lovey would announce that it was Slovak Night, whereupon Ruby and I would stop what we were doing and follow her into the big steamy kitchen at the back of the old farmhouse. Uncle Stash would have already been put to work peeling potatoes at the long pine table or searing ham hocks in brown butter for Christmas Soup (an oily concoction made with sausage and barley that we—not Ruby—ate year-round). There would be the halushki to make (a dish of dumplings with cabbage and bacon and goat cheese). The cabbage rolls. Rice sausage. Horki. Apple strudel. And the palacsinta. We’d spend hours, our little family, together making the traditional Slovak dishes, which we kept in the freezer for nights when Aunt Lovey was working late at the hospital. We called them our “rations” and took their depletion seriously.
Ruby and I were in charge of the palacsinta, the Slovak version of crepes. We fried the thin eggy batter in a hot shallow pan, then spread the resulting pancake with a thin layer of black-currant jam and rolled it in the traditional way. The palacsinta weren’t meant for the freezer. Instead, the little crepes sustained us while we cooked our Slovak freezer meals, in the thrall of one of Uncle Stash’s stories (instead of Aunt Lovey’s for a change). Nostalgic from the sauerkraut, Uncle Stash would talk about his boyhood village of Grozovo, describing the view from the church at the top of the hill, so that each time it seemed more wondrous and strange, like a place from one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Uncle Stash talked endlessly about his cousins. Zuza had been the most beautiful, and Velika the best dancer. He talked about his cousin Marek, who was like a little brother. And Grigor and Milan, who were his boyhood chums. He told us all about the saints’ days on the traditional Slovak calendar, St. Katarina, St. Ondrej, St. Lucia, and stories related to their superstitions, which we gobbled with our crepes. I could never remember if the Witches’ Days began on the feast of St. Katarina or St. Lucia, and I couldn’t keep straight which traditions made St. Ondrej’s feast different from the others.
The fusion of cabbage and bacon, and our world and his. Even now, a whiff of paprika, and I’m transported to Slovak Night, licking jam from my fingers and listening to the story of how young Cousin Marek nearly drowned in the duck pond, weighted down, as he was, with pockets full of coal. Uncle Stash had saved the younger boy’s life, dragging him from the water, pumping on his chest, and had basked in praise for the heroic deed. It was only when the village decided to hold a celebration to honor him that Uncle Stash’s conscience stepped forward. It had been Uncle Stash’s idea to steal the coal, after all, and to put the coal in Marek’s pockets instead of his own, and his idea to swim across the pond too. He couldn’t bear the guilt, and went to confess at the church on the hill. But Uncle Stash had forgotten that it was his grandmother’s day to polish the pulpit, and when he finished telling the truth about what had happened at the pond, he drew the drapes of the confessional to find the old woman there, rag in her hand, rage in her eyes. She raised her arm and swatted Uncle Stash hard across the face, her hands so dry and rough he felt he’d been struck by five crooked asps. The priest didn’t say a word. His grandmother, respecting the sanctity of the sacrament (though she’d eavesdropped on the confession), never told a soul the truth, and the celebration went on as planned. Uncle Stash ate all manner of sausage and too many pastries, and was sick for several days. He used to say that, if he looked hard enough, he could still see the imprint of his grandmother’s hand.
One of my favorite stories, because it had mystery and intrigue (and no lessons in deceit), was about the time a man came to Uncle Stash’s house wearing a military uniform and carrying a pistol. His mother let the man into the house and had a pleasant chat, then left Uncle Stash in the stranger’s care while she went to fetch her husband. The stranger told Uncle Stash that he was his eldest brother and laughed when Uncle Stash insisted it couldn’t be true. The man took his gun from its holster. “You want to hold it?” he asked casually. Uncle Stash nodded slowly. He took the gun from the man, stroking the black metal of the slim barrel. He’d dreamed all his young life of holding such a weapon. Uncle Stash raised the gun to his eye, steadying it on his forearm, the way he’d seen in pictures. But the stranger ruffled his hair, startling Uncle Stash, who pulled the trigger and fired out the window, which, thankfully, was open. Uncle Stash was paralyzed. The stranger cocked his ear and listened, waiting. But if the shot was heard by anyone nearby, it was ignored or credited to a hunter. Uncle
Stash trembled, horrified, then thrilled. The man laughed, like a conspirator. The stranger took his pistol back from Uncle Stash and returned it to the holster. Glancing around, the man noticed the family Bible, the only book in the house, on a shelf above the stove. He picked the Bible off the shelf and looked through its pages. Glancing up at Uncle Stash, he grinned. An impulse appeared to strike him and he took from his pocket a fat roll of paper money (Slovak koruny), inserting the bills between the pages of the Old Testament, a few at first, then so many that the binding nearly ripped. Just as the man returned the Good Book to the shelf, the door opened and Uncle Stash’s father appeared. He did not smile or embrace the stranger, or use the Slovak word for “son.” Instead he began shouting and shaking his fists. The stranger cast his eyes down, not angry and not frightened, but something else. Uncle Stash couldn’t bear his father’s assault on the man who’d let him hold his gun, and he would have protested if the man hadn’t turned on his heels and left. No one ever explained who the man was. It may have been his brother. Or not. When Uncle Stash gathered enough courage and had the opportunity to look in the Bible a day later, the money was gone. Poor as they were, Uncle Stash knew the koruny had been fed to the fire.
One day Uncle Stash’s mother and father took him to visit the graves of his brothers in the cemetery. Then, with only a few relatives from the village aware of their plans, the Darlenskys climbed into the back of a wagon and set off for the airport at Kosice. Young Marek was supposed to go with the family to Canada, but, at the last moment, his drunken father had plucked him from the wagon, declaring he couldn’t betray his homeland the way Uncle Stash was doing. Uncle Stash was heartsick, imagining he could hear the cries of his young cousin all the way down the mountain.
Slovak Night seemed as good a night as any to confess my pregnancy to my parents. Uncle Stash was stirring a pot of dumplings at the stove. Aunt Lovey was stuffing peppers at the long pine table. They looked up to see Ruby and me, struck by our grave faces.
Aunt Lovey sat behind her mountain of diced onions, quietly blaming herself, while Uncle Stash kept banging the pots and raging about the sicko, pervert, hajzel, prdel, sracka, who would do such a thing to his girls. Uncle Stash talked about killing the kokot bastard, while Aunt Lovey weighed the advantages of driving to see Mrs. Foyle over inviting Frankie and his mother to the farmhouse to discuss the matter. (No one mentioned Berb.)
I’d completely forgotten about Frankie Foyle. “He’ll deny it,” I said.
Aunt Lovey did not challenge me. Who would believe that a handsome young kid like Frankie Foyle would have sex with one (or was it both?) of The Girls? Aunt Lovey simply nodded several times and said, “We won’t tell him.”
Uncle Stash nodded faster, taking his wife’s lead. “He will not ever know,” Uncle Stash said. “The little sracka prick.”
The matter of Frankie Foyle having been decided, Aunt Lovey took a deep breath. “What do you want to do, then, Rose? You’re nearly in your third trimester. You must have thought about what you want to do with the baby.”
“I want to give the baby up for adoption,” I whispered.
Aunt Lovey nodded, ignoring the quaver in my voice. “You’re making the right decision.”
“Okay.”
“That is the greatest gift you could give that child, Rose.”
“Okay.”
“You’re much too young to have a baby.”
“I know.”
“Your health is uncertain.”
“I know.”
“You’re very courageous.”
“Okay.”
I felt Ruby tremble beside me.
Ruby was unexpectedly quiet about the whole thing, and though I don’t officially believe in God (today), I’m thankful for the small mercy of my sister’s silence about my baby and my choice.
Aunt Lovey didn’t know, none of us knew, if what I was doing was the right thing. She knelt beside me, whispering close to my ear so Ruby couldn’t hear. “But, Rose, if you want to keep the baby, I’ll do anything to make sure that happens.”
It hit me that Aunt Lovey was referring to a battle with the courts and child welfare agencies that might not consider a conjoined twin with elderly parents a suitable mother. I started to hum, and Aunt Lovey knew that I was gone, not physically of course, but that I had walked through a door and closed it behind me and could not be reached for comment. (Ruby has the same capacity to make a swift mental exit, and I’ve read about the phenomenon in other conjoined twins. Some people call it “wandering.” It’s a state of consciousness that is not quite here and not quite there, deeper than a daydream, not awake but not asleep. It is a technique Ruby and I discovered rather than learned, and I wonder if all people don’t possess it in some measure. I’ve observed husbands wander from their wives while sitting thigh to thigh on the crowded Leaford bus. I saw a little boy wander while clutching his mother’s hand, stabbing at a dead bird with a stick, though she’d said, “Stop it, Steven,” eight times.) I wandered away a good deal after I told about my pregnancy because I couldn’t bear the way Aunt Lovey was looking at me. And the way Uncle Stash was not.
Aunt Lovey let Uncle Stash have a pipe outside that night. Ruby and I quietly opened the window to let his Amphora Red smoke sneak into our bedroom. I listened to my uncle sniff, and exhale, and I knew he was crying, as men do, with hush and humiliation. I put my hand through the cloud of smoke that settled over my head. It was the nearest Uncle Stash and I ever came to talking about my baby.
IT WAS DECIDED that I could easily keep the pregnancy secret for another few weeks, until after Christmas, and then we’d make arrangements to go to Aunt Poppy’s in Michigan for the final two months. Aunt Lovey would deliver the baby, and Aunt Poppy’s husband knew someone from Ford who was looking to adopt a child. (The odds that my baby would have a birth defect were the same as those of the general population, but I had in the back of my mind, and still do, that my baby would not be average. In fact I’m quite sure that my daughter is extraordinary.)
Having been born, as Ruby and I were intended to be born, joined at the skull, we are normal to ourselves. It’s normal for me and Ruby to be who we are and to live as we do. But being pregnant did not feel normal. For the first time in my life, I felt fully freakish and monstrously, hideously, deformed.
I remember my pregnancy in freeze-frame photos. There’s the photograph of Ruby in her oversize navy blouse (which she wore in solidarity) and me in my stretched black pants and lime-green sweater set (from the plus-size department rather than maternity) hugging Nonna at her place on New Year’s Day. I remember how Nonna kept touching my tummy, rubbing and thumping my bump, remarking on how fat I’d gotten, never suspecting I was expecting. I was so afraid the baby was going to kick Nonna’s hand and give her a heart attack. Nick was in jail that year. I remember Nonna crying because Nick had been wrongly accused of something unsaid (or unspeakable?). I remember Aunt Lovey crying too, and Nonna thinking it was empathy.
There’s the photo Uncle Stash took the morning we left for Aunt Poppy’s in Hamtramck. The fields were covered by a thick blanket of sharp white snow when we stepped outside. There were a few dozen crows in the distance, strutting on the icy crust. We were standing in the driveway waiting for the car to warm up. I was already having contractions then. Little tiny contractions, whose name I knew but have forgotten, preparing my uterus for the expulsion of this wondrous growth in my womb.
I’m not a vain person, not like my sister, and normally don’t care how I look in pictures, but I hated to be photographed when I was pregnant. I was annoyed that Uncle Stash had insisted on going to fetch the camera before we left. Ruby and I froze as we watched Uncle Stash climb onto the picnic table to snap a picture of us two, careful to get the crows in the shot, saying that the crows in snow made the picture worth taking. I asked acidly why, if he wanted a picture of crows in snow, he’d made Ruby and me wait in the cold, to which he responded by muttering something in Slovak. When I saw the pictur
e later, I had to admit it was interesting, with Ruby and me in the extreme foreground and the crows, sprinkled like pepper on a plate, in the back. I expected my face would look angry in the picture, or frustrated. Instead, I just look afraid.
There are many, many photographs of me, resting my new laptop computer on the hill of my pregnant stomach. (Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash had discussed the wisdom of buying me the costly and rare computer. To Uncle Stash, it seemed like some sort of reward. But Aunt Lovey knew that writing would be my salvation.) I wrote a thousand poems when I was pregnant. Poems about connections, never feeling satisfied I had accurately described my delight and my horror, and my misery and my bliss, at the occupation of my body.
I shared the pregnancy with Ruby in surprising ways. She was affected by my hormones, of course, weepy and exhausted. She craved ketchup-flavored potato chips and black licorice, while I had no cravings at all. As my blood volume increased, so did hers, making her nose gush every time she sneezed, swelling her lips and other erogenous zones. One night I woke up because the bed was shaking. I was accustomed to night waking. Ruby shifts. I wake. Ruby snores. I wake. Ruby shivers. I kick the covers over her trembling legs. But on this night it was not Ruby’s legs that were shaking, and she was not asleep. She was attempting to make the concentric circles I had described to her one night, when she’d tearfully questioned my disgusting new habit, and wondered why she never felt driven to do the same. Sex organs engorged with blood because of my pregnancy, Ruby had been awakened.
I encouraged my sister to put her hand over the mound of my stomach, to guess at the lumps: elbow, knee, tiny round bum. When the baby was moving, I guided her palm to the kicks. We talked to the baby, told her stories, and sang her songs. But I knew I would grieve, in a way Ruby could not, to lose this creature to whom I was mother.