Blood Ties

I have no choice in the matter. I can’t raise this child. Besides, with all the meds that I’m taking, there’s a good chance that the kid would end up developmentally fucked up and completely damaged. I looked it up in the medical reference books at work. I would be lucky if the kid was born without three arms and two heads. I can’t let that happen.

I spent about two hours sitting cross-legged on the floor with the phone in my lap, dialing anywhere between three and seven digits of my sister’s phone number, dreading the conversation that would take place. But what was I going to say? “Hi, it’s me, I know we haven’t talked in a couple of years, but I need some money.” No, that just isn’t going to work. I can’t talk to her. I can’t face her disappointment and anger directly. A letter is the only way to handle it.

I dug out the box of good stationery that she had bought for me when I was in college. I don’t think I ever touched it before now, except to move it from apartment to apartment as I shuffled my way around the city. I wonder if she'll remember that she gave it to me as a gift.

Sitting down on my bed, using the phone book as a desk, I wrote eleven drafts before coming up with the final version, ridiculously chatty and pathetic, but I didn't know how else to handle it.

Susan,

Hi. How are you? How’s life at home? Is Bob treating you well? Do you hear from Dad much?

I broke my arm the other day when my bus was rear-ended in the rain – fortunately they tell me that the guy’s insurance will cover my medical expenses, although I doubt that I’ll get anything for the inconvenience and discomfort of having my left arm strapped to my chest with a sling for the next six weeks.

But that’s not why I’m writing. It seems that the arm is the least of my problems. When they did my blood tests at the emergency room, they discovered that I’m pregnant. I can’t have the baby, you know. I’m on too many meds and I’m too fucked up anyway to bring a new life into this world, so I need to find a way to get money to take care of things. I never imagined that I would have to make this decision, and yet it suddenly seems like there’s no other decision to make.

I know you’re reading this and you’re probably torn between the fact that you don’t believe in or support this decision, and the fact that you probably feel more strongly than I do that I shouldn’t ever be allowed to have a child.

I think you understand that if I could do this through any other means, if there wa any alternative to going through you, I would be doing it that way. You know that you’re the last person I would ask to help me. I don’t need a lecture, or any special thoughts that will make me feel any worse than I actually do. I just need money. That’s all.

Hope your life is as perfect as ever.

Take care,
Ange

I sealed and stamped the envelope and ran it to the mailbox as quickly as possible, hoping that I wouldn’t chicken out and tear up the letter into a million small pieces, like postal confetti. But there it went, down the blue chute, and that was it. I took a deep breath, turned my back on the mailbox and ran for my building, suddenly realizing how cold the autumn winds really were.

I had almost forgotten the letter until early in the morning, three days later, when I heard the banging on my door. I saw her through the peephole, angry and pacing outside my door. I pulled the door open a crack, leaving the chain attached. “What?” I asked.

“What?” she shrieked. “What! How can you possibly ask me ‘what’?” She was wagging her finger at me, and I felt a strong compulsion to grab it and rip it off. “Let me in,” she snarled.

I stood there for a moment, head to toe in flannel pajamas. There was a draft coming in from the hallway, so I was inclined to just close the door and go back to sleep. I started to push the door shut, and she jammed her foot into the space. “Don’t you dare close the door on me,” she seethed.

I stared blankly. “I can’t take off the chain unless I close the door first. Do you want to come in or not?”

Her face showed her doubt that the door would ever reopen. She pulled her foot back and the door closed with a click. I was tempted to just leave it that way, but I unlatched the chain and opened the door, turning my back on her and shuffling back to my unmade bed. The cat had curled up in the warm spot I had left behind, and I sat cross-legged beside her.

She followed me into the room with all of the force of a tornado ripping through a trailer park, slamming the door behind her. “What! What!” She couldn’t even get the rest of the words out.

I snuggled up against the cat who, under the circumstances, realized that the same person who whacked her with a cast in the middle of the night turned out to be the most normal member of the family. She yawned and began to clean the fur on her paws. I admired her ability to completely ignore the tornado and the conflict it brought into our home.

My sister’s finger was still wagging at me, like I was some preschooler being scolded.

“What is the meaning of all this?”

I thought about that for a moment. “The meaning? I thought the meaning was fairly clear. Did I miss something?”

Her mouth was moving at something close to the speed of light. I actually wouldn’t have been surprised if her mouth had gotten here before her, leaving her body behind in its haste. I chuckled to myself at the thought of staring through the peephole and seeing nothing but her mouth, bitching and complaining and criticizing without the backup of a body, which was probably still outside in the car, double-parked.

“And you think this is funny?” she asked, incredulous.

“No,” I said. “Really I don’t. I couldn't find it any less amusing if I tried.”

“You’ve got a baby, you stupid, immature bitch!” She was on a roll now. When she was angry, she could curse like a truck driver, a complete switch from her usually proper suburban demeanor. She was barely even in high gear yet, and still she was flying off the handle.

I grabbed my pillow and pulled it close to my belly for some sort of strange, polyester-filled emotional support. Some people have security blankets, others have security pillows. That’s perfectly normal, isn’t it?

She went to my kitchen and grabbed a new white plastic garbage bag and started loading all of my worldly possessions into it.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“You’re coming home,” she barked. “You’ll live with me.”

I laughed so hard that I snorted. “The hell I will!” I said. “I’ll have the baby and live in a cardboard box on the street if I have to, but I am not – and I do repeat – not coming to live with you. Period.”

She wagged the finger again. “You lost that right when you went out and got yourself pregnant. Do you hear me?” Yeah, I hear you, and so does everyone else on the 14th floor.

"Lost the right to live independently? I don't think it actually works that way."

She continued shoveling my few possessions into the bag, until I reached out and whacked her wrist with my cast. “Stop it.” I tried to sound authoritative.

“How dare you…!” She bellowed each word as though it were a separate sentence. "How. Dare. You!"

“Just stop, Susan. Stop. Look at yourself.” She was rubbing her wrist, as though I had taken a swipe at her with a sledgehammer. “Do you ever wonder why I don’t keep in touch? It’s because of this shit. It’s because you think you have all the fucking answers.”

“I know a hell of a lot more about life than you do,” she shouted.

I shook my head. “Somehow I find that very hard to believe. I’d argue that I did more living before I turned 18 than you’ve done in your entire life.”

“Smoking pot should not be confused with living.”

“A college degree should not be confused with living.”

“You always resented the fact that I was smarter.”

“No!” I was serious when I said that I didn’t. “I just resented the fact that you thought you were my mother.”

She gasped. “I could never replace our mother. She was a saint!”

I looked puzzled. “I'm sorry. A saint? Who are we talking about? The woman who left us?”

“She had her reasons for leaving."

“And I have mine for being angry and bitter.”

“You never took any of the blame for what happened to her.”

I was shocked. “Blame? I was six years old when she left! What did my six-year-old self do?”

“Not when she left. When she came back.”

“So I caused the cancer?”

“No, but you let her die. You didn’t give her the love she needed to keep on living.”

“You’re insane,” I said. “Love wasn’t going to defend her against advanced cancer. She was already dead when she walked through the door.”

“You don’t know that! She could have lived!”

“I do know that she was terminal. I have no doubts.”

“You let her die!” she cried out.

“I did not!”

“I hate you!” She was shouting at the top of her lungs now.

“Why? Because of mom?”

“Yes!” She softened slightly, on the verge of a breakdown that she didn't want to have in front of me, of all people. “She would still be here if you loved her enough.”

I shook my head. “No, Suzan. She was dying. It was cancer. It had nothing to do with either of us.”

That was when my sister began to cry, and I realized that she was finally and for the first time dealing with my mother's death fourteen years after the fact. She fell onto my bed, sobbing. I held her with my good arm and stroked her hair. She remained there for hours, until I finally begged her to move because my leg had fallen asleep under the weight of her head. I got up and shuffled towards the bathroom, dragging my leg behind like something from Dr. Frankenstein’s basement laboratory. When I returned, she was giggling.

“You’re quite a sight with your broken arm and numb leg.”

“Glad I could be your comic relief.” The leg was starting to cramp as the feeling returned.

She rose to meet me in the tiny kitchen area, and put her hand on my shoulder. “What can I do for you, Ange?”

I was shocked to hear those words. "I... I need your help."

"I'm here for you," she said.

And that was the moment that I rediscovered my sister.