by Alli Curran
“We have to go get it, right now, to try it out. Where’s the medicine?”
In the fridge in Joan Riley’s lab, on the fourth floor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering—exactly one floor below where Aimee’s father lay dying.
“Umm, at Memorial. But it’s not like we can just walk over there, take the drug, and inject it into your father.”
“Why not? Let’s go!”
Pulling my elbow, Aimee stares at me with a look of stalwart determination. Since she’s standing less than one foot away from me, I’ve got a great view of her eyes, which are shining with a combination of hope, defiance, and love. It’s a look I finally recognize, one that I last witnessed nearly 10 years ago, but in another pair of eyes entirely. The missing piece of data, the one I’ve simultaneously been rejecting and trying to draw into the light of conscious thought, has finally fallen into place. From the start, I recognized this child because she looks so much like the boy I dated in high school, the one I still dream about, who’s married now with children of his own. Yet that’s only half the story. Since her skin is so fair, porcelain white like a china doll, and her features so delicate, the similarities are not immediately obvious. But if you study the almond shape of her eyes, or her ridiculously long eyelashes, you start to see the resemblance. The child, of course, looks a whole lot like me…her biological mother.
Chapter Seventeen
Skeletons in the Closet
During my junior year of high school I met the first great love of my life. A broad-shouldered, handsome Irish guy with red hair, blue eyes and a terrific sense of humor moved with his family to my little town in Central Connecticut, captivating everyone he met, including me. After my fifteenth birthday, in the fall of that school year, we started dating; by summertime, the two of us were head over heels. For better or worse, this was teenage love taken to the extreme—pining, immature, lustful, innocent, awkward, and romantic, all wrapped up into one big, messy package.
With a family trip to California planned for midsummer, I started envisioning our plane falling out of the sky, crashing to the ground in a fiery explosion. Most likely, raging hormones fueled this irrational expectation of impending death.
Lying on the floor of my bedroom with my head in his lap, I looked directly into Red’s baby blues and said, “I think we’d better have sex.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I don’t want to die a virgin.”
At 15, sex was pretty high on my bucket list.
And did he argue at all about the likelihood of our plane crashing? Of course not! What 16-year-old, horny, virginal teenage boy would? My redheaded hero, who probably would’ve patiently waited for a few more years at least, was thrilled to give in to my demands for sex.
Predictably, our first encounter with intercourse didn’t go exactly as I’d planned.
“Did you buy some condoms?” I asked.
“Yup. I’ve got one in my wallet,” he said. “Just let me pull it out of my jeans.”
Red reached across the couch to grab his Levis.
“Ooh—good job. Can I see it?” I asked. “What does it say on the package?”
“Trojan, ultrasensitive,” said Red, reading the square, silver packet. “When are your parents getting home again?”
“In about three hours. We’ve got plenty of time,” I said, snuggling my naked body next to his under a fuzzy brown blanket that we’d thrown over my parents’ living room couch.
“Okay, then. I’m gonna open this sucker up now,” said Red, ripping the foil apart with his teeth.
“Can I hold it?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, passing me the condom.
“Eww. It’s so gross—all wet and slimy!”
“I think it’s covered with some kind of lubricant.”
“Can I try putting it on you?” I asked.
“Go for it,” he said.
“Okay. Here goes….”
When I tried to push the condom down over Red’s erect penis, it wouldn’t open.
“Hey, I think this one’s defective,” I said.
Red started laughing.
“It’s not defective, Emma. You’re just holding it upside down.”
“How would you even know?” I asked. “You’ve never done this before, right?”
“Right, I haven’t. But I practiced a little, to get ready.”
“Okay, I’ll try flipping it over. Oh, there we go,” I said, sliding it all the way down this time.
“Ooh,” said Red.
“What?” I asked. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. It just felt hot, the way you slid the condom over my cock like that.”
Red stood up, looking at me, and the sight of his naked body was so beautiful.
“Are you ready to try for real this time?” I asked, gazing back into his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
After kissing him deeply, I reached for his hips, guiding him forward, drawing his body into mine.
“Ouch!” I yelled, unprepared for the knife-like pain that instantly seared through my entire pelvis.
“Oh,” said Red, withdrawing almost as quickly as he’d entered.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, but that hurt…a lot.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I’ll be alright. Do you think we should try again, a bit more slowly this time?”
“Maybe later,” said Red, “but we can’t do it again right now.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I came already,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yup.”
Then we both started laughing.
Soon thereafter my family survived the trip to California, and Red and I had endless opportunities to practice our technique. Over time, the sex got much better. In fact, it got great. A piano player with long, expressive fingers and a good sense of rhythm, Red taught my body a number of important lessons.
“What just happened?” I asked one evening in Red’s bedroom.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “You screamed so loudly, I worried that I was hurting you.”
“Are you kidding? That felt amazing.”
“Maybe you had an orgasm,” he said.
“Huh? An orgasm? Now I know what all the fuss is about. That was great! Can you do it again?”
“Sure thing.”
To the delight of my insatiable teenage hormones, he repeated the miracle, over and over again that summer. Listening carefully to his instructions (yes, Red actually provided useful verbal guidance for inducing his sexual pleasure, unlike any of my subsequent lovers), I did my best to return the favor, which wasn’t too challenging. At 16, he was pretty easy to please.
For the first half of that fateful summer the two of us were deliriously happy. Yet like most teenage relationships, it wasn’t long before ours unraveled. The trouble began when Red and his friends started hanging out and drinking. One evening toward the end of August, he cancelled a movie date at the last minute, claiming his presence was required at a family dinner. An hour later, simply by chance, I ran into him at our town’s big teenage hangout, the local 7-Eleven. On a quest for blue raspberry Slurpees, my dad and I encountered Red and a bunch of under-aged high schoolers loitering in the parking lot, drinking beer.
At the time, I must’ve looked pretty pissed off.
“Emma, why don’t I go pick up those Slurpees, while you speak to Red?” my dad offered.
“That sounds great,” I answered through clenched teeth.
Then I marched over to my boyfriend.
“Red,” I yelled in front of his friends on that warm, summer evening. “What are you doing here?”
Just like Danny in Grease, Red played it cool in the spotlight.
“What does it look I’m doing?”
Under different circumstances, I might’ve clammed up and walked away, but on this occasion, my intense anger fueled a
n outpouring of vitriol before I could censor myself.
“It looks like you lied, and now you’re breaking the law,” I said.
“Ooh,” laughed one of his friends. “You’re in trouble now, Red.”
“What’re you gonna do,” said another one, “call the cops?”
“If you make me angry, I will,” I said, turning to face the little punk. “You’re Joey Smalley, right?”
For once I was able to match a name with a face.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said when the kid got a worried look in his eyes. “I know who you are because our mothers work together. And if you don’t want yours hearing about this, you’d better shut your mouth.”
That quieted him down immediately.
Turning back to Red, I continued, “I can’t believe you lied to me. Why didn’t you just tell me that you wanted to hang out with your friends?”
“Emma, I….”
“And the beer, Red? How were you planning on getting home? I bet you don’t even have a designated driver. Do you?”
Red cleared his throat. “I, uh, well….”
“I’m so mad, I can’t even listen to you,” I said, cutting him off.
Then I stalked off to my father, who was waiting patiently for me in the car.
“Mind if I make a phone call?” I asked.
“No problem, honey,” he answered.
“Hi, Mr. O’Brien,” I said, after dropping my quarter into a nearby payphone. “I was just calling to let you know that Red has your car at the 7-Eleven....Yeah, I know, but he’s drinking beer with his friends….No, they don’t….Okay, no problem. I’ll tell him you’re coming to pick him up.”
A few days later, intoxicated once again, Red crashed his dad’s car into a neighbor’s mailbox at midnight. Fortunately, the neighbors were vacationing in Maine at the time. Hoping to avoid police involvement and serious consequences for Red, Mr. O’Brien claimed responsibility for the accident.
When Red told me about the incident over the phone, I asked, “Did you get hurt?”
“Not at all,” he said.
“That’s too bad,” I remarked.
“It is?” he asked, sounding confused.
“Yeah,” I said. “Breaking a leg—or better yet two legs—might’ve taught you a lesson.”
Unlike his father, I had no intention of letting Red get away with being such an idiot. The next day I stormed into his basement bedroom and threw his high school ring at his face. Ducking my unusually accurate throw, Red barely managed to avoid getting injured. Launched with the power of a young woman’s scorn, the ring lodged itself in the sheet rock right behind Red’s head.
“You’re not breaking up with me, Emma…are you?” he asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Can I call you next week?”
“No. You can’t call me next week.”
“Then when can I call you?”
“Not until you grow up.”
“Next month, maybe?”
“Give it a few years, at least!” I snapped, striding out of the room.
At the time, I knew that leaving him was the right decision, for both of us.
Then something unexpected happened. Exactly one week after breaking up with Red, I discovered I was pregnant. I’m not completely sure how it happened, but the slow removal of condoms with unintentional leakage was likely the culprit. Since my mom and I had an excellent relationship, I didn’t hesitate to explain my predicament.
“I’m not ready to take care of a baby,” I told her.
That’s when Cecile calmly suggested an abortion. My ex-hippie, radical feminist, card-carrying member of NOW mother, Cecile Elise Silberlight had big plans for me and my future career…not that I’d picked a career yet. As far as she was concerned, no accidental baby was going to darken my bright future. In many ways she was right to think this way. If my grades were any indication, I was certainly headed toward college, and likely professional school as well.
The abortion was scheduled for the following week at a local clinic.
Yet as the days passed, I began to feel excited about the pregnancy. Somewhere deep inside, my body held a marvelous secret, a tiny spark that would soon flame another soul into existence. Instead of an abortion, I started envisioning a different path—one that ended with a baby.
On the day of the procedure, my mother walked me into the spotlessly clean exam room.
“Hi, Emma,” said a friendly nurse. “Have a seat on the table. I’m just going to take your blood pressure. There we go. Ninety over fifty. Nice and low. The doctor should be here in just a few minutes.”
While we waited for the doctor, I knew I couldn’t go through with it.
“Mom,” I said, “I need you to take me home, right now.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I can’t have an abortion.”
“Oh, no, Emma,” she said. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t have a baby. You’re only fifteen.”
“I’m turning sixteen in a few weeks.”
“Regardless, you’re much too young to take care of a child.”
“I want to have the baby,” I said.
“So what, then? You’re going to give up college, and a career, to become another teenage mother with no hope of ever getting a decent job?”
“I’m not going to become a mother,” I said.
“What?” she asked, confused. “I’m sorry, Emma, but I’ve got no idea what you’re trying to say here.”
“I’m going to carry the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption.”
From my starry-eyed vantage point, I was already picturing a kind, handsome-looking couple in their twenties, or possibly early thirties, hoping to adopt a baby. They’d be hard-working, well-off people with fertility problems, who wanted more than anything to adopt. By making their dreams come true, I’d be doing a good deed for them and society in general. And of course the baby would always be happy, wanted, and well cared for, growing up to become an emotionally healthy adult.
“That is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” my mother answered without hesitation. “Listen to me, Emma. Just have the abortion, before you ruin your life.”
But it was her life I was ruining, not mine.
“I don’t understand why you’re getting so mad about this,” I said. “When I told you I was pregnant, you didn’t get angry, and you didn’t mind the idea of me having an abortion. What’s so bad about carrying the pregnancy?”
“Emma,” she answered, “you’re six weeks pregnant. Scraping away a few embryonic cells is no big deal. But you’re talking about giving away a child—your child, my grandchild. How can you possibly think that doing such a thing would be okay?”
“The baby won’t really by ‘my baby,’ or ‘your grandchild.’ It’ll belong to someone else.’”
As a teenager, it was easy for me to think this way, but my mother vehemently disagreed. Over time our relationship deteriorated. Two months into my first trimester, we essentially stopped speaking to one another.
I remember the last evening that my mother, father, and I all sat around the dinner table together. It was the beginning of my second trimester, and I still wasn’t showing at all.
“Larry, would you please tell Emma to pass the butter?” said my mom.
“Emma, please pass the butter to your mother,” he said.
“Dad, could you tell Mom that if she wants more butter, she’ll have to go to Stop and Shop and buy some more. I used the last bit for my potato.”
“Larry, tell Emma that she used way too much butter. That piece must’ve been half an inch thick.”
"Dad, can you remind Mom that I’m eating for two now.”
“Enough,” said my dad, losing his temper. “I’ve had enough of the two of you fighting, bickering, and not speaking to one another. I’m tired of being in the middle of all this. As a family, we’ve got to come up with a solution to this problem
, before I go crazy.”
“I have an idea,” said my mother.
“Really?” said my father, suddenly looking afraid.
“I think it’s time for Emma to move out,” she said.
“Cecile, that’s not really an op….”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve already contacted Aunt Pam, who said she’d be more than happy to have Emma move in with her until the end of high school.”
“But, Cecile, don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? Do you really want Emma to switch schools, right in the middle of her senior year? Moreover, Pam isn’t her mother. Who’s going to look after her during the pregnancy?”
“Pamela is a perfectly competent woman. I know she doesn’t have kids, but she’s been a pediatric nurse for the last ten years. Plus she’s a blood relative, my own sister. I can’t think of a better guardian for Emma.”
“I’m sorry, Cecile, but I’m just going to have to put my foot down here. What you’re proposing is absolutely….”
“Great! I think it’s a great idea!” I interjected.
“You do?” asked my dad, staring at me.
At the time, I didn’t want Red to know about the baby. If I moved out soon, before I started showing, he’d never learn the truth. Not to mention the fact that I’d finally get a break from my mother, who was rapidly driving me insane.
“Yeah, I do. How soon can I leave?”
“Tomorrow,” said my mother.
“To-tomorrow?” my father stammered.
“Yes,” she said. “I transferred Emma’s records to the high school in Pam’s neighborhood last month, just in case.”
“Perfect!” I said.
Jumping up from the table, I ran to the basement to get my suitcase.
“Aren’t you going to finish your potato?” my father called after me.
My poor dad. Caught in the crossfire between my mother and me, he was never able to glue the broken pieces of our family back together.
After moving in with Aunt Pam, my life did improve. Sure, I was pregnant, and looking more and more like a large marine mammal with each passing day, but at my new high school nobody knew me or cared enough to bother me about it. Plus I wasn’t the only girl in this situation. Since I’d be leaving soon for college, I didn’t try to make friends or socialize with the other kids—not even the pregnant ones. Mainly I read a lot of good books, focused on my schoolwork, and hung out with Pam, my fun-loving Aunt who indulged me like a doting big sister.