My Child

Mother says I’m not really her child. You’re Grandma and Grandpa’s child. Monica and Simeon were 5 and 6 years old when Mother had me. You were so white, she teased. So white and beautiful that Grandma and Grandpa took you in their care. Grandpa took one look at you and told Grandma, Old Lady, look at her. She looks just like you. I was 8 when Grandma and Grandpa finally had to give me back to Mother and Father.

I’ve never heard Mother complain or harbor any ill thoughts and feelings towards Grandmother and Grandfather for taking her baby away from her. It started with the return home from the hospital. Mother thought her husband’s parents were being unnaturally nice to her. Grandmother told Mother to rest, that she would take care of the baby. You need to get healthy again! she scolded Mother. As the daughter-in-law, Mother couldn’t say no. Once, twice, three times, the child became their child. She spent her days and nights closeted in their room. She only knew their scent and the warmth of their hands. She shied away from her Mother’s touch and held her little arms out to the person who’s touch and face she recognized. In the middle of the night, her cries were hushed by Grandmother and Grandfather’s persistent push of her baby carriage. Mother likes to say how funny it was to watch Grandma get so angry at the baby for crying so much. Mother always laughs when she remembers the episode. She would raise her right hand, ready to spank you. She would say, what a bad child, and her hand would swing down hard, but would never actually touch you.

I was the favored child and I knew it. I could be mean, pull my younger sister’s hair, cry and lie that Monica and Simeon had teased me, and I would always come out the winner. Even if I was wrong, Grandmother would never scold me in front of others. She’d take me to her room, sit me on her bed, and gently tell me to avoid getting in trouble. Mother tells me I was the object of many arguments between her and Grandmother. When you were still an infant, Grandma and Grandpa fed you milk all the time, even if you weren’t really hungry! When your father and I took you to the doctor, he ordered that we feed you less, and when we told Grandma and Grandpa, they were outraged. They stood up, took you back to their room, and told your Father and me that we wanted to starve you. That we were so greedy with our money, we didn’t want to spend it on buying you milk. Fine, Grandma raised her voice. If you and my son are so poor that you can’t feed the child, we’ll take care of her! The door closed with a bang. Mother says she and Father never brought the subject up again.

Even though my primary caretakers were Grandmother and Grandfather, I knew who my parents really were by the time I was two. I was more afraid of Mother’s wrath and Father’s disappointment, than of Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s. I think all children know, intuitively at some point in their young lives, who their real parents are. Maybe it’s the language. Calling Mother, mother and Father, father. Associating words and faces.

I was seven going on eight when Grandmother sat me down by the window overlooking the endless field of green grass where my siblings and I loved to frolic during our free time. There’s the lonely tree we use to climb and pretend to play battleship in. It took me a while to learn how to climb it without needing Simeon’s help, and I was so proud when I made my first climb by myself. Grandmother’s fingers are raking through my fine hair. She’s quiet. She sighs. My little girl, she starts. Grandma and Grandpa are leaving you for good. Do you know? I nod my little head. I bite my lips just slightly. They were leaving for America where Mother and Father got Liz and me our cute and fluffy dresses and the cool looking jean jackets all of our friends were envious of. Grandmother continues to speak. I don’t really listen until she asks, If you want, we can pack you into our luggage and you’d be able to go with us as well. I shook my head. Grandma sighs and tells me when she dies, she’s going to come back to look after me.

That night, I told Mother I didn’t want to go back to Grandmother and Grandfather’s house again. Mother tells me Grandmother and Grandfather accused her and Father of turning their little girl against them. Grandma points her finger at Mother and says, You, you did something. You’ve said something. You’ve made her not want to be with us anymore! Mother can only laugh and try to placate her enraged mother-in-law. Mother wants to tell her husband’s mother, it’s your own fault, you told her you wanted to put her in your luggage, and you told her you’d come back for her after your death. But she didn’t. They were leaving. There was no sense in starting a fight. They had had too many already and old wounds didn’t need to be re-opened again.

They left and two years later, we joined them in the land of Indian Summers, my favorite song. Simeon was visiting Grandmother and Grandfather during his summer vacation. They took away his passport and called Mother and Father. If you don’t send our child to us, we’re keeping your child here with us. He’s not coming back. They warned. Mother and Father didn’t know what to do, but pack up the entire family and leave the home they’d work so hard to build again. They could not go against the elders. It was simply not done. Simeon was for a long time, my parent’s only son. Sons are very important in the family, but they couldn’t simply give up one child for another. I was also theirs as well, and they didn’t want to have to choose.