"I am," I agreed without shame. "That"s why you hired me, Destiny Greaves. You needed some caretaking."
At that, she burst into wild laughter.
"What"s so funny?" I asked, concerned by the edge of hysteria that I heard in her laugh.
"Nothing"s funny. Absolutely nothing," she muttered as she stood up abruptly.
"Where are you going?" I asked in a voice that must have revealed alarm.
"Calm down, Kris. You"re like a mother hen. I"m just going to go swing for a while. Right over there." She pointed to the swings. "You can watch me the whole time. You can even join me if you"d like."
"Thanks, I think I"ll watch."
"Suit yourself," she said as she sprinted off.
Once she got to the swing, she didn"t waste any time. She started swinging fast and furiously. In her frenzy, she was almost graceful. Seeing her fly high up into the sky, I remembered all the times I"d jumped from swings when I was a kid, always seeing if I could jump just a little farther. As I watched Destiny swing, I hoped she wouldn"t jump. Surely she would have hurt herself from that height.
"Do you think I look like her?" she shouted at me.
I didn"t know what to answer. I tried to think of the reply that would cause her the least amount of pain, but I couldn"t imagine what that would be. In the end, I opted for the truth.
"A little."
That obviously didn"t please her. She continued to frantically pump her legs, her long blonde hair streaming behind her.
She didn"t say anything more after that.
I moved to the merry-go-round and tried to think of what I could say to this woman who had lost and found so many mothers in such a short period of time. Not surprisingly, nothing came to me, so I just sat there for the longest time, feeling very alone.
The playground reminded me of my first girlfriend. We met in the third grade. Her name was Sharon Seabaugh, but I called her Sharon s...o...b..ll. By the time we were in sixth grade, she"d had three different names. She was Sharon Seabaugh, Sharon Smith and Sharon Cavanaugh, and by her third name, she was getting into all kinds of trouble. Today, her uncontrollable behavior would be given a fancy name, and she"d be put in a special learning program for disturbed children. Back then, we just thought she had a screwed-up mother who got married too often.
I wondered how Sharon had turned out.
And what her name was.
I was hunched over, arms folded, elbows resting on my thigh s, when I felt Destiny"s hand on my shoulder.
"Hey, aren"t your feet cold?" she asked.
I looked up. "A little," I said and smiled. Much to my relief, she smiled back.
"Don"t they freeze in the winter when you don"t wear socks?"
"You get used to it after awhile," I said between sniffles. "Like the first day you go barefoot, your feet are tender, but by the end of the summer, they"re rock hard. Same thing with temperature. I get so I don"t notice."
"Why don"t you wear socks?"
"I don"t know. I never have. Probably related to my dysfunctional childhood somehow. I haven"t made the connection yet, but I"m sure it"s my parents" fault." I smiled.
"Isn"t it always? All parents fail their children, Kris. They should have the nurse tell you that the second you"re born."
"Good idea, it"s true isn"t it? And I suppose children fail their parents. By the way, don"t your legs hurt from swinging?"
"Not as much as the rest of me." She hopped on the merry-go-round and sat with her legs straddling the silver bar and her chin resting on the cold steel. She started to move the merry-go-round, but I asked her to stop.
The motion surely would have made me sick.
I was going to ask her if she thought the pain would ever go away, but she spoke first, and I never did get the answer I desperately needed.
"It"s funny, Kris, when I was growing up, every time someone remarked how much I looked like her, it made me sick because I knew I couldn"t possibly look like her a" she wasn"t my real mother. My mother, the one I looked like, was dead. I wanted to tell everyone who said that to me. But I never did. Every time they"d comment on the resemblance, I"d wish I was her real daughter so she wouldn"t look so sad. She tried to hide the hurt look in her eyes, but I always saw it. And you know what a" those looks couldn"t possibly compare to the look I saw in her eyes today when she found out I was her daughter. That"s a h.e.l.l of a note, isn"t it?"
"I think she was just shocked, not disappointed," I lied.
"Did I look hurt, too?"
"A little."
"Of course, I did. How could I not? For years, I wanted her, Liz Greaves, to be my real mother. And obviously, she wanted me to be her real daughter. And now that we"ve found each other, we feel horrible. Isn"t that just the most f.u.c.ked up thing you"ve ever heard of?
"This is the end of the line a" no more mothers to track down. She"s the only one I"ll ever have, and blood ties or not, she"s not enough. Just because I discovered today that I came from her flesh, she didn"t magically become enough mother. I still desperately miss this "fantasy mother" that I think would have given me all the things she couldn"t."
She paused.
"Do you think Barbara Kenwood would have been a better mother if she"d lived?"
Now how on earth could I answer that question?
"I don"t know, Destiny. She loved you a lot, but that"s not always enough."
"It"s a h.e.l.l of a good start!"
"True."
She paused again, her brow furrowed in thought.
"This searching, Kris, is it really worth it? Do you think we"ve accomplished anything by it?"
"Of course we have! You have hope now, hope that what happened to you as a child can finally stop consuming you as an adult. Because as much as you tried to suppress the memories, they"re the only thing that can help you figure out why you act crazy sometimes. You"ve finally stopped running from the pain. That"s what you"ve accomplished. And I"ve accomplished it, too. The world is changing a" we"re changing it!"
"Maybe it was better when we were running."
"G.o.d, no! How can you say that? You"re the one who got me to stop running, the only one I trusted enough to slow down for. And I stopped running long enough to tell you I"d been abused, something I"d never been able to admit before. The day I told you, Destiny, is the day I finally started the long, slow process of healing.
"It probably doesn"t seem like it, but you found out some things today that might give you more peace than you"ve ever had. Don"t you see, the way your mother treated you was a reflection of her own failings, not yours. Same with my father. We weren"t bad. They simply weren"t good enough.
"Now you know why it was hard for your mother to accept you. She couldn"t love you like she should have because she wanted you to be her real daughter. And you also know why your birth mother deserted you. Because she was raped and every time she looked at you, she would have been reminded of the a.s.sault. I agree it"s extremely weird that both these mothers happen to be the same woman, but at least you have some resolution. And maybe now, you and your mom can work on improving your relationship."
"Maybe," she said begrudgingly. "I still can"t believe she didn"t tell my dad, though!"
"Was he the kind of man who could understand what it felt like to be raped, and then to have to bear the child of your rapist?" I asked, able to guess the answer for myself.
"Probably not," she said, and for the first time, I heard a hint of compa.s.sion for her mother.
I freed myself from the merry-go-round and stood up.
"We should probably be getting back to your mom"s. Do you think you"re ready?"
"I suppose. I guess I have to face her sometime."
We started back toward the car. As we walked, I lightly draped my arm around her shoulders. She let it stay there.
"I"ve got a long way to go, don"t I?"
"Probably, but you"ve come a long way, too."
She was silent for a moment, as if pondering the accuracy of what I"d said.
"I guess I have, haven"t I? I forget that sometimes."
"You"re a fighter. You always have been. You had the courage to survive. So did I. Now we have to find the courage to thrive."
"That"s the harder part," she said.
We walked along in silence.
And then, out of the blue, in a voice full of self-confidence that didn"t seem to belong to me, I said, "Let"s do it, Destiny, let"s make love." I tried to keep my tone lighthearted, but even I could hear how serious my request sounded.
She stopped dead in her tracks, looked straight at me, and shook her head. "You know I"m not ready for that, Kris."
"But I feel like I am!" I practically shouted, filling the park with the sounds of joy and wonderment.
"d.a.m.n, you want to and I don"t. That must mean we"re both healing, but when are we ever going to be ready to do it at the same time?"
I shrugged my shoulders, and we both laughed.
"I"m glad you"re in my life, Kris," she said as she hugged me tightly.
"Me, too, Destiny."
I closed my eyes and held on for a long time.
end.