Him

“You want some sugar with that?”

I had my mouth full of cookies. I nodded.

Mom looked back at me with satisfaction. She loved having me at her place and serve me food.

“You could come over more often, you know,” she added. “It does get lonely from time to time.”

“Mom, we talk on the phone all the time,” I try to say. But since my mouth was full, it came out more like “Mmm, we talk on the phfn all the tam.” She got the message. She rolled her eyes:

“I get it, I’m not as interesting as these young ladies you’re seeing. But I never said you should come over alone. Bring them along. Bring them all at the same time, for all I care. Up to you how you sell the story.”

I finally managed to swallow with a noisy gulp.

“Mom, it’s just Natalie. I’m not seeing anyone else. We’re together now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

She liked to make fun of me, saying that I brought too many girls at home to meet her and that she couldn’t keep up when a new one entered the equation. It was a recurrent joke of hers. She probably only met three or four of my girlfriends.

“Ok. Then is it okay for me to say that I’m glad Christine is gone?”

I looked up at her, curious. This wasn’t the first time she’d say something like that to me. It was, however, the first time she had something to say about Christine. She’d usually wait for them to get out of the picture before starting to complain about whatever she didn’t like.

“I guess it’s okay,” I said cautiously.

“Great, because she was an odd one. She never seemed right to me. Very arrogant, maybe? Yeah, I don’t know. She was also dressing too skimpy for my taste, as if she had something to prove. I bet she only kept you with her for so long with sex!”

She looked back at me, waiting for a reaction. I had pulled my phone and I was scrolling bored.

“What, are you done?” I asked.

“Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know, are you? I never heard you say this before.”

“I didn’t want you to think I’m disapproving of her, or anything...”

“Right, how could I ever get that idea?”

“…but really, Jamie, what was with all that cleavage? I mean, we get it, you have boobs. Good for you! But there’s no need to shove them into our faces all the time!”

“Didn’t you ‘Like’ a photo of hers on Facebook the other day?”

“It was a good photo. A very nice bathing suit, too,” she added while grabbing her breasts, trying to imitate Christine’s size.

“She didn’t shove them into anyone’s face. Except maybe mine.”

That wasn’t entirely true.

“Oh, please. Remember that Thanksgiving dinner? Your uncle Steve could barely get through the first course, what with his eyes almost popping out of his sockets.”

“Maybe that was more of an uncle Steve problem?”

She laughed, poured herself some coffee and sat down.

“Ah, maybe you’re right. You know, your dad was like Steve in that regard. Couldn’t keep his eyes off beautiful women. It’s what got him killed, in the end, I think.”

I started coughing, chocking with some cookie crumbles.

“Mom, he died of cancer.”

“Well, that was his excuse, anyway.”

Mom – she likes to say funny things. I get that after her. Can you tell?

“It was sheer coincidence that his oncologist just happened to be some tall blonde driving a Porsche? I think not!”

“Right, so he decided to fake having cancer and then the lie got so big that he decided to die from the fake cancer?”

“We will never know, dear. You know what I always say…”

Another one of her recurring jokes was that dad had been cheating her throughout their marriage. I never knew if it was just her telling silly stories or if there was a grain of truth from all that.

She’d been a widow for fifteen years when I had started dating Nat. We lost him back when I was in high school. It was hard on both of us, obviously. But she took it upon herself to never make the event the tragedy that would define our lives. He’d been a loving father and husband. We missed him dearly. We wanted to live on happily. So, she liked to tell all these (mostly exaggerated) stories about him. Making fun at his expense. Somehow, it was easier than give into the grieving and treat it with seriousness.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“…He made sure I was old and wrinkly before he died. He wanted to make sure no other man would ever want to replace him.”

“Mom, c’mon,” I replied.

“He’s dead, Jamie, he won’t care, regardless if it’s true or not.” – that’s what she’d say.

She was never truly disrespectful (if you ask me), it always in good fun and it all came from a place of love and longing of the good old days.

“In any case, I didn’t come here to talk about Christine nor about dad. I was curious on how you felt about Natalie.”

It had been her birthday, a couple of weeks before. I decided to bring Nat to meet her. It went alright. Not sure what to say more. If you were expecting a rom-com-like story inserted here, well…I don’t have one. As per her usual, mom was well behaved, kept most of her dark jokes to herself. She’d only let herself go in my presence.

“So, what did you think?”

I could see on her face she couldn’t wait to be asked.

“She seems wonderful, Jamie,” she replied smiling. “Pretty enough. A bit too tall, maybe? Does she tower over you if she wears high heels?”

“I don’t know…maybe?”

“Bummer but what can you do? You take after your father in that regard. He was kind of short too. It’s why he couldn’t work in the military.”

There she went again. I started scrolling through my phone again.

“Are her parents rich?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, so you two still have to work for a living.”

I burst out laughing.

“What else would we do?”

“Well, you’re both still young and good looking. I heard on tv about this new website, you can do adult videos and get paid for it.”

Now I was baffled.

“You want us to do porn?”

“If it pays,” she answered shrugging her shoulders. Does she look good, naked?”

“Mom…”

“I bet Christine would be good on that website. Especially with that suit on.”

She was relentless.

I took her hands, made her look into my eyes.

“Mom, I’m serious. What do you think about her?”

She took a moment to turn serious again.

“Look at you getting all dark and serious on me.”

“I’m serious about her,” I replied.

She looked at me impressed - “I think she’s great, hon. But I also think that all the girls you’ve been with have been great in some way or another. You’re good people, so were all your girlfriends so far. It all depends on how happy you are. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

I smiled.

“I’m pretty happy!”

**

Her

I was shaking. I had been a wreck that whole day leading to this moment. Now that part of the truth was out, I didn’t know how to react. Jamie was quiet, his eyes fixated on something on the wall. The silence was deafening.

He then noticed my shaking so he reached out, grabbed me gently and kissed my hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It must be hard for you.”

We were one year into our relationship and we were getting serious. He suggested we move in together. That sounded like an amazing idea. But I still had to share something with him that was hard.

For months I struggled between the idea of telling him everything that had happened with me and Theo (including the lost pregnancy) or just limiting the story at the simple fact that I was unable to have children (which was a direct result of the lost pregnancy episode). In the end I decided to keep the story to myself and just tell him how things were. I never mentioned Theo nor the pregnancy.

Why? Shame, mainly. After all these years, I still felt shame for what had happened. No matter how much people tried telling me that it was not my fault and that it had just been a terrible accident, I couldn’t get past the guilt. I was responsible for the baby and I failed to protect her.

I was surrounded by supportive people. Mom, Theo, his parents. I even went into therapy, trying to convince myself that I was indeed, not responsible. It didn’t work. It drove me away from them all at the time.

Years later, I had made my peace. I was not 100% convinced, but I accepted it. When the moment came, to share with Jamie, I cowered - I was scared that telling him the whole story will bring back all the negativity and guilt that I fought so hard to suppress.

The other part of it was fear, fear that he will leave me upon hearing it. We were serious. We felt like a family. But could we really be one without a child?

He probably deserved to know everything, but what difference would that have made?

“I am unable to have children.” – that was all I said.

I braced myself for the moment he’d stand up and simply leave, trying to soothe myself with the thought that, at least, I didn’t tell him to whole dreadful story. That would have made me feel even worse.

It didn’t happen, of course. I told you - my guy was special.

“How do you feel about adoption?” he asked during our first weekend living together.

I had always been reluctant at the concept. It was probably rooted in the same guilt that I bathed in since the lost pregnancy. But somehow, with Jamie at my side, it made sense. It made total sense. So, I felt unsure, scared but open to the idea.

We decided to prepare for the moment we’d take that decision. That’s how we got the cat – Penelope.

We loved her so much that it fascinates me to this day. It started as a hobby and it ended up occupying such an important part in our hearts, that I become overwhelmed with emotion just thinking about her.

I could tell you stories about Penelope for days without an end. She really was just a fun and adorable cat to be around and it simply enriched our lives. At times it was also so exhausting that we got scared. If it was so difficult with a cat, how will he handle a kid?

Jamie used to joke on the topic, saying that “We need to train the cat to help us with the baby.”

But we never got to take the decision. We always found a reason not to, albeit work, the pandemic, wanting to escape after the pandemic etc. But it always there, in the back of our minds. Our big plan. One day, we were going to implement it. There was no rush. One funny moment was when we had Anne, Jamie’s mother, visit us for dinner. We told her about the plan and how one day we’ll get to put it into motion.

I remember her sitting in the armchair, Penelope in her lap. She was happy to see us being so lively about it. She knew about me. I knew she did. I had always wondered how bothered she really was about it. She never gave me a reason to feel nervous about it, but still the thought persisted that because of me, she’d never get to be a grandmother, not in the conventional sense, anyway. It made me doubt myself and made me feel like less of a woman.

I still have that image in my mind, of her looking at me, gently caressing the cat. It should have been a happy memory. The vibe then was nothing but happy. But for some reason it stirred something else in me.