This Is Not the Beginning of a Memoir, I Don’t Have Time for That

*Creative Nonfiction Assignment*

When asked how many children she had, Mom would point to Father and say, “he has three, I have three and we have five.” After letting the questioner’s baffled face simmer, she would explain how their previous marriages left them each with two children and that I was their only shared child. It was a good story, but she always lied.

Mom has four children of her own, but she never talks about the first. He never made it to four months old. Sometimes when she would get real quiet for a day, I wondered if that was the day. The day she last held him to her chest, their heartbeats pattering to the same rhythm. I wondered if she was remembering the last time his fingers curled around her thumb, his breath softly humming against her neck. I wondered if the nurses had to pry away his body from her, or if she let him go willingly, almost desperately in hopes that they could save her baby boy. I think maybe when she looked lost in her own body, she was remembering that day. The day her own son stole her most defining virtue; motherhood.

I don’t know if she ever got that back, even after the next two pregnancies and the divorce. I wondered if she remarried just to hold another baby, as if somehow that would stop her from grieving. As if she didn’t still remember the first pair of little hands she cupped into a heart. I didn’t think that chasm could ever be filled, yet she still wanted another baby at forty four years old. 

None of my siblings wanted me to be born. They thought I was going to steal their parents from them. My sister wouldn’t hold me, she said I wasn’t her family. I didn’t blame her, she didn’t ask for the wedding, the step-siblings, the baby, the new room. She didn’t ask for a new life. She was mad, I know, until she bought me my first pair of four inch sneakers. She spent all her money on clothes for me, I became the best Barbie she ever had. After the wave of jealousy was over, they expected me to become the family adhesive. At six months old I was responsible for holding everything together. Everyone thought the baby would mend the rift between familial strangers, but I only became the wedge that drove them apart.

They started leaving after that, my brother was the first. He was flipping the bird in all his baby pictures. No one could get that damn—sorry, dang— finger to stay down. The neighbor’s laughed it up, joking that “the Devil was starting them young,” which was probably true. He held that finger up all the way to Michigan when he left home, left the church, and our family. When he left me. Mom doesn’t talk about that. In fact, she doesn’t talk about a lot of things. Like her dead ex, the wedding, her dead baby brother. She doesn’t like to talk about the things that end. Even though my brother’s still alive, he’s not here. And to her, that’s final. My sister followed his example soon after, and it wasn’t long before the other two were married in God’s white palace.

I couldn’t remember any of them ever living at home, they all left by the time I was four. I never got in any fights because there was no one to fight with. I never had my hair pulled or been blamed for eating the last cookie. I never taped a line down the center of a shared room and got angry when a shirt was touching my side. I never had a chatty sister to gossip with or an overprotective brother to beat up the first boy that ever broke my heart—not that there ever was one. I never had anyone to help me sluff class when my cramps were a little too much, or someone to bring me a drink when they knew I was having a shitty day.

I only had parents who were more in love with the idea of a perfect family than they were with each other. Mom and Father were always working when I got home from school. They knew they didn’t have to worry about me. I wasn’t rebellious or troublesome, I got my schoolwork done on time and I didn’t need anyone to keep me company. They said I was born an angel, but that was only an acquired trait. I was independent because no one was there, obedient because I knew what a belt felt like on my ass. I learned quickly to keep my tongue in my mouth and never say, “no”. If I stayed out of the way, I was a perfect child.

My parents didn’t have to do much parenting, the walls of my bedroom raised me. They would comfort me when I let anxiety rub my head against a washboard, and mourn with me when my best friend died. They held me when Mom forgot I was still her baby and let me cry alone in the dark. Those walls became my four siblings, my family.

Then I left it all behind.

I got a new set of walls that didn’t know me as well. They let my fears sneak up on me, and they didn’t know how to handle a girl with too much emotion. But they were what I had, and they were home. The kind of home that smelled like must and rain, the familiar smell of a new beginning. A beginning that lifted my head up from the tiles of shame. “No” became a part of my vocabulary, I liked the way consent felt in my hands. And for once, I had power over my own body.

God taught me to love the wicked up close, but judge them from afar. My family taught me Father could scream and hit then go to church the next morning and be forgiven by God. Forgiven for every sin he committed against me without ever apologizing. God taught me to love the sinner, but my family showed me how easily love can be broken. How quickly eternal families become fractured and mortal. Maybe that’s why I don’t want one; a family.

Maybe if we only have one life, I’d rather find my own kind of love that isn’t riddled with contradiction and judgment. A kind of love that rainstorms give to the thirsty earth, that doesn’t break when my family leaves. I haven’t found that kind of love yet, but I’m content with where I am. I always thought black sheep were prettier anyway. I guess it feels appropriate.

-Bree

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completely unrelated, but I have to start prepping for finals… but I’m so damn tired

college burnout sucks.

and I always feel the most creative when I’m stressed

shit.

-I’m sorry