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husband
signs a contract in blood, swearing to be a concerned
parent."
"You know you have to get pregnant to have
children," Star teased with a coy smile. "You know
that means you'll lose your perfect figure, and you'll
throw up in the morning."
"I know what it is to be pregnant, thank you." "Unless you adopt like her parents did," Star
said nodding at me.
"Yes, that's right," Misty said. "It doesn't sound
like they really wanted children. Why did they adopt
you?" she wondered.
I turned and gazed through the window. Angry
clouds had reached Brentwood and had drawn a dark
gray veil over the trees, the grass and flowers. The
wind was picking up and the tree branches were
swaying. They looked like they were all saying, "No,
no, no."
Why did they adopt me? If I had asked myself
this question once, I had asked it a thousand times.
My mother wouldn't reveal any answers, but I had my
own deep suspicions, suspicions I had never
expressed before, even to Doctor Marlowe. When I
glanced at her, I thought she was hoping I would now
and I thought maybe this was one reason she wanted
me in this group therapy.
"I can't imagine, could never imagine my
mother having a baby the normal way," I began. "I
have seen my father kiss her on the forehead and
occasionally on the cheek, but I have never seen them
kiss like people in love, never on the lips. Mother
probably would be thinking of some contagious
disease if he did. Even when he kissed her on the
forehead, she would turn away and wipe it off with
the back of her hand. Sometimes, he saw her do it;
sometimes he didn't."
"Don't they sleep together?" Star asked. "Not in the same bed," I said. "They always had
twin beds separated by a nightstand. He's not there
anymore, of course."
"But even people who don't spend the night in
the same bed can get together long enough to make a
baby," Jade said. "I have friends whose parents even
have separate bedrooms."
"What do they do, make a date to have sex?"
Star asked her.
"I don't know. Maybe," Jade replied, thoughtful
for a moment. She smiled. "Maybe it's more
romantic."
"Oh yeah, you're married, but you got to make a
date to have sex. That's really romantic."
"Passion should be . . . unexpected," Misty said
with dreamy eyes turned toward the ceiling. "You've
got to turn toward the man you love and have your
eyes meet and then float into each other's arms with
music in your heart."
"You're living in your own soap opera," Star
told her, but not with her usual firmness. She looked
like she hoped she was wrong.
"Maybe, but that's the way it's going to be for
me and the man who loves me," Misty insisted. Jade drew her lips up in the corners and shook
her head. Then she turned back to me.
"So you don't think your mother and father had
sex? Is that what you're saying?"
"They had to have had it once," I said. "What do you mean? You just said they
adopted you:'
"My father told me there was almost a baby. He
was alone with me one night when I was feeling very
low, and he told me the story. He said my mother
didn't know she was pregnant or didn't want to know.
She found out when she had a bad pain in her
stomach, went to the bathroom and lost the baby that
was in her. She flushed it down the toilet."
"Ugh," Misty said.
"She collapsed and he had to help her to bed.
She refused to go to a doctor even though she kept
bleeding. My father made it sound as if she wanted it
to happen. From the way he described it to me, I don't
think she wanted to have sex and I think she was
angry it had happened and she had become pregnant. I
don't know. To this day I can't imagine them making
love," I said. I guess I had a guilty look on my face.
Misty widened her eyes a little and-leaned toward me. "What?" she whispered.
"Nothing," I said quickly and looked away. My
heart had started racing again, beating almost like a
wild frantic animal in my chest.
"Come on. We've told you lots of things we
wouldn't dare tell anyone else," she urged.
"You know that's true, Cat," Star said.