If You Could See What I See

by Cathy Lamb

  “I want to talk to you about one more cat, Aunt Meggie. She has a good heart like Pop Pop, and the curiosity of Mrs. Friendly, and the brain of Ham the Hamster . . . and Aunt Tory, I think I have the perfect dog for you. It’s a small Great Dane named Spider . . .”

  Hayden said that school was better. He was teased some, but not near as much, and tried to ignore it. He’d lost a couple of friends but gained more than that. Hayden was wearing a white dress and sandals and gold hoop earrings, his hair in a ponytail. He had the lead in the school play. He would play the part of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Tory worked on his acting with him. She’s impressively dramatic.

  Lacey and Matt were talking about what his future would look like in terms of an operation, hormones he could take, etc. It’s complicated, it’s not easy, nothing was easy, but there was no question that Hayden was more comfortable, happier now in many ways. As he said, or as I should say she said, “I have to be on the outside what I am on the inside.”

  Cassidy received another 4.00. As she also takes AP classes, Calculus, etc., she is hoping to be valedictorian her senior year. “Cody and I are going to take a year off after high school and travel. Mom says no, I say yes, and I’ll be eighteen. We want to make love in ten different countries. That’s our goal.”

  What to say to that one? Tory said, “I think Scotty and I should have that same goal.”

  That night I sat in the yellow Adirondack, Tory purple, Cassidy red, Hayden green, and Regan blue. Pop Pop sat in my lap. Breadsticks sat with Tory. The cats had had a small fight, but we separated them before stitches were needed.

  “We have the best aunts in the world,” Cassidy said, so pleased. Regan and Hayden agreed. I saw Tory hide her delighted smile in Breadsticks’s fur.

  The maple trees were budding. Soon we would have green leaves hugging us again.

  “Can we talk about the sperm donors?” I asked my mother. Lacey, Tory, baby Victoria, and I were at her Snow White house, drinking coffee and eating banana, zucchini, and orange bread and chocolate muffins. My mother had been up all night again, grieving for her mother, so instead of wasting time in bed, she’d baked.

  “We don’t need to talk about them,” she said. She waved her hand as in, “They are nothing.” “The chocolate muffins have a silky svelteness to them this time, I think. I added two types of chocolate chips: semisweet and baking chocolate, light crust of sugar on top.”

  “We need to talk about this,” Lacey said, nursing Victoria. “Please, Mom. You’ve always said you had one-night stands, two of them, to have Meggie and me, and you only knew our father’s first names, but that doesn’t make sense. You’re too smart, Mom.”

  My mother picked up a china platter. “Please taste this banana bread. It’s scrumptious. I added orange peel and an extra dash of salt.”

  “You know more, Mom,” I said, dipping my banana bread in my tea.

  “I’ll have banana bread,” Tory said. “My horoscope says I should pay attention to what I’m putting into my body so I can settle my inner serenity.”

  My mother took a sip of coffee. Today she was wearing black slacks, flats, and a light green crew neck sweater. Her hair was in a prim ball, glasses on. The other night she’d done an interview where she encouraged everyone to buy one sex toy this year. “Just try it!”

  “They were your sperm donors, girls. That’s it. They are not your fathers. It’s always been us, not them.”

  “But it’s not that simple, Mom. We accepted your story that you didn’t know more about these men, but you do,” I said. “Why keep the secret anymore? We have a right to know.”

  “Why can’t we have a pleasant morning drinking coffee with cream and eating my breads?”

  “They are good,” Tory said. “I’m exhausted anyhow. Scotty and I did it three times last night.”

  “Good for you, dear.” My mother patted Tory’s hands. “Sex is good for the complexion, and yours looks wonderful. I must say”—she peered over her glasses at Lacey and me—“both of you look particularly pink and healthy, too. I’m pleased.”

  “Mom, please,” I said.

  “With the zucchini bread I used a Mexican vanilla for that extra punch.”

  “Mooomm,” Lacey said.

  She sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know the nationality of Sperm Donor Number Two, my father.” I put my coffee cup down. “What do you know about my biological dad?”

  “I know that his grandparents were African American.”

  “What?” My father’s grandparents were African American?

  “His grandparents were African American, but they told me there was white in both their backgrounds because of slave owners attacking the women, those poor women.” My mother paused, collected herself. “Their son married a white woman with Norwegian blood, so your father was half black, half Norwegian. His skin wasn’t dark, actually. This makes you one quarter African American, one quarter Norwegian, and half Irish. I think that’s why your eyes are so dark, dark brown, Meggie. They are so like his grandmother’s. Lucy was a warm, wise woman. We baked together twice. She’s who I learned how to make fried catfish and hush puppies from. I learned how to make Norwegian meatballs from his mother with allspice and red wine.”

  “Mom!” Lacey cried, shocked.

  “I think there’s been a lie told here,” Tory said, shaking her head. “The truth now emerges like a bomb. It’s like reading your horoscope and knowing you’re going to clash with a Virgo or a Sagittarius that day.”

  I could hardly breathe. “You told us it was a one-night stand! But you knew his family. You baked with his grandma and his mother! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  She waved her hand again. “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it does, Mom. You must be joking.”

  “Your father was a handsome, handsome man. My goodness, he made my knees weak.” She patted her heart.

  “That’s what Scotty does for me,” Tory said. “Makes my knees weak. Makes other parts weak, too. And excited.”

  “Did he know you were pregnant?” I asked.

  “No, dear. I didn’t want a husband, and he would have wanted to get married. He was old-fashioned and conservative, a true gentleman.”

  “And you never told him about me?”

  “No, he doesn’t know.”

  “That wasn’t fair to him, Mom, or to me.” I felt my anger growing, step by step, like it was leaping up a ladder.

  She looked unsteady, then regretful. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “What’s his name?”

  She paused. “Jefferson. Tobias Jefferson, from New Orleans.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this? You’ve always told me you only knew the first name of my father, but you knew his last name. You could have told me.”

  “I could have, but then I would have had to deal with him, and I didn’t need that. I wanted to live here, he lived there. I was a young woman on an extended vacation, and I certainly didn’t want to get married.”

  “I like being married to Scotty,” Tory said. “And I’ve promised not to leave again with my Jimmy Choos.”

  I sat back in my chair, stunned. This was a completely different story.

  “What about Sperm Donor Number One?” Lacey asked.

  “Tell me about my father.”

  My mother held up the platter of zucchini bread. “With a dash of extra cinnamon and walnuts, not too many.”

  I rolled my eyes. Lacey clenched her teeth. Mother got the hint.

  “He was Mexican American, Lacey. I met your dad in Texas, at a bar. His family owned an enormous cattle ranch. That’s their business. They went way back in American history. His Mexican ancestors were living in America before America was America. He was dark, brooding, lots of black hair, so tall. You look Irish, Lacey, like my side, except for your eyes. Your eyes are his eyes. The shape, the dark brown color. It’s like looking into his eyes again. So interesting that both of you girls have such dark eyes.
Coffee eyes.” She sighed. “That man made me quiver.

  “And the way he sat on a horse, ummm . . . He rode that horse.” Her eyes became dreamy. “In that cowboy hat, those jeans, that swagger, the way he handled me. Never met a man with so much machismo. We dated for a few weeks—”

  “A few weeks!” Tory, Lacey, and I exclaimed.

  “Yes. I went out to his family’s ranch. They even took me on a cattle ride. His parents were intellectuals. Father had been to Harvard, mother to Wellesley. I learned how to make flautas and Mexican chocolate mousse with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper from his mother.”

  I slapped my forehead.

  Lacey said, “How could you lie to us all these years?”

  Tory said, “The story is now upside down completely. What we thought we knew, nope, nada. Not true. Lacey is half Mexican, like me, and Meggie is one quarter African-American, one quarter Norwegian, and half Irish.”

  “What is my father’s name?” Lacey asked.

  “Your father’s name is Manuel Del Torrosso.”

  I rolled that name around in my mouth.

  I rolled the name of my father, Tobias Jefferson, around in there, too.

  We glared at her.

  “Don’t you think our fathers had a right to know?” I said, “They were kind, weren’t they? Not abusive?”

  “Both delightful. Whip smart. Articulate. Sophisticated, but warm and friendly, too. I choose my men carefully, and they were perfect. Look at you two! You’re proof I know how to pick them. Who wants a slice of my orange bread with yogurt and raisins?”

  “And all you wanted was sperm,” I said.

  She threw up her hands. “Yes. What you need to know is that you’re my daughters, your grandma’s granddaughters, and you’re American. Americans are a blend and a mix from all over the world, and there are a lot of surprises in our genetics that we don’t know about.”

  “But there shouldn’t be these secrets,” Lacey said, “from us or them.”

  “How are you better off knowing this information than you were before you walked in the door?” she asked.

  “I’m better off because,” I said, “I’ve always wondered who he is, who his parents are, if he has siblings, if I have half siblings.”

  “I wanted to know where the other half of me came from,” Lacey said. “And you hid it by deliberate omission.”

  Tory said, “The halves of me came from Greece and Mexico. At least I’ve always known where my passion comes from, my ability to do the tango, my love of wearing only a sombrero for Scotty, tacos, sunny weather, Greek history, and island hopping. . . .”

  The conversation went round and round.

  Lacey and I were furious.

  Our mother tried to hug us when we left.

  We did not hug her back.

  She was very upset. “How about another cup of coffee with cream?”

  “Think we’ll ever go search for our fathers?” Lacey asked me later that night as we swung on her porch swing, Matt, Hayden, Regan, and Cassidy laughing inside.

  “Yes,” I said. I held Victoria. “No. Maybe. Never. Tomorrow. I don’t know. They don’t know about us, so this will be a total shock. It’s like dropping an oversize stork into the middle of their family room carrying a grown woman.”

  “I’d like to meet my father,” Lacey said.

  “Part of me wants to meet your dad and my dad. But does our want, our need, to meet them override what’s best for them? And what is best for them? They don’t know they have daughters. Will they grieve for all the time they didn’t have with us? Will they sue Mom? What if they want to be really involved in our lives, more than we want? What if we want more time than they want to give? What if we don’t like them? What if they don’t like us? What if they don’t want us in their lives at all? What about their wives? How fair is this to them? We probably have half siblings. What about them? Some might want to meet us, some might be virulently opposed. Do we have the right to cause friction and stress in their families?”

  “Would it be simpler and better to let everything lie as is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  What to do?

  Lacey and I let the conversation float in and out over the next few weeks. We did not feel compelled to come up with a quick answer. I am a decisive person, but one thing I’ve learned is that impulsivity can land me in a bad place. We did not have to rush to see our fathers.

  We could, however, start some private research on our own. . . . Lacey made the call to a former high school classmate, Dan Kawa, who was now an investigator. He was a hunkin’ machine when we were in high school. Lots of fights. Defensive line on the football team. I mean, he was the defensive line on the football team. He was huge.

  He’s still a huge, hunkin’ machine, but now he’s married and has six kids.

  “I’ll look into it, Lace Lace,” he told her, using his own nickname for her. “Tell Tory Tory and Meg Meg I said howdy-do. And I know I told you this at the funeral, but I’m sorry about your grandma. She was one special lady.”

  Blake and I went skiing on Mount Hood, the mountain that invited me each day from my windows at work to ski on it.

  It was the first time in many years.

  I had to buy new skis, boots, poles and a helmet, as I’d left my gear in the L.A. apartment.

  We took one warm-up run, then we went to the top and skied the black diamonds. We kissed on the chairlift. We kissed at the top of the run. We stopped and kissed midrun.

  I refound my love of skiing fast, and hard.

  It was like I’d never left.

  Only this time, I had someone to ride the chairlift with, and he was huggable and lovable.

  Dan Kawa called us back within the week.

  Our fathers were both alive.

  They were both in long-term marriages. Lacey’s father had four children, and my father had five, not counting us, of course. Lacey’s father still owned the cattle ranch; it was successful, one of the biggest in the country. My father had a doctorate and was a business professor at an elite private college.

  Lacey, Tory, and I talked. We talked endlessly to our mother, too.

  She had decided that Lacey and I would have Sperm Donor One and Sperm Donor Two instead of fathers. She had shut down on all our questions by pretending she knew nothing about them. She had lied. We understood she didn’t want a husband, but shutting us out completely from that information, especially as adults? Denying all of us—including the fathers—an opportunity to have a relationship? That’s a hard one to work through.

  What did we decide to do about the dads?

  Nothing.

  Yet.

  But at least we knew.

  And we knew we still loved our mother from Oregon to Louisiana to Texas and back.

  My nightmares were receding, especially since Blake held me close at night.

  My daymares were receding, too.

  I could take baths now, if Blake was in there with me.

  I did not have anything against the color red anymore.

  I was not seeing Aaron around corners.

  Regan had gotten himself a pet rat named Charlie.

  I even held Charlie. He is a good rat and does not bring on any flashbacks.

  “I can get you a rat for a pet, too, Aunt Meggie,” Regan told me, so eager to help the rat population. “I know of one who is curious and understanding.”

  I thanked him for his offer, and declined.

  “Why Mom?” I asked. “Why have you never married?”

  “Dears, marriage is for other people.” She bent to pour tea for Tory, Lacey, and me in her Snow White house. Lacey’s kids were upstairs watching a movie, Victoria asleep in her car seat. We were over for the afternoon because mom wanted to bake and ice cookies in the shapes of flowers with the whole family. And, most important, she was trying to mend our relationship.

  “What’s the real reason, Mom?”

  “Marriage is stifling.”

  “The truth, Mom,” Tory s
aid. “Don’t gargle it all up like a female gargoyle.”

  “Sleeping with the same man would never satisfy me.”

  “Nice try,” Lacey said. “What is it, Mom?”

  “The truth is, dears . . .” she said, then hesitated, setting the silver teapot down.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “What is it, Mom?” Lacey said.

  “Yank it out of yourself,” Tory said. “Spit it out.”

  “The truth is . . .” She patted her hair, back in a bun, then pushed her glasses up her nose.

  “Come on, mother who wears cat suits and negligees on TV and makes a dress out of the pages of her book, why have you never wanted to get married?” I said.

  She nibbled on a tulip flower cookie, then she let off the bomb.

  The sucker punch.

  “I have never married . . .”

  “Because . . .” I prodded.

  “It’s a challenge to say,” she said.

  “You can handle it,” Tory said. “We know what you say on TV, can’t be harder than that.”

  “The true reason is that . . .” She set down the tulip cookie. “I don’t like sex.”

  “You what?” I asked, stunned, even though I’d heard her.

  “How . . . what?” Tory said, her purple nails flying through the air. “What did she say?”

  Lacey dropped her rose-shaped cookie. “You . . . for how long . . . have you always . . . but then you . . .”

  “I don’t like sex, darlings, at least not that much. If I had to choose between my knitting and needlepoint and sex, my baking and sewing and sex, time with my girlfriends and sex, the knitting, needlepoint, baking, sewing, and friends would come first every time. And I can’t imagine having a man around all the time. That would make me feel smothered and faint, dizzy with claustrophobia.”

  “Is this a joke?” Tory asked. “You’re a sex therapist—”