Denise Emanuel Clemen - Birth Mother: A memoir

As I step out of my boyfriends car on a chilly Saturday night in October, Im unaware of the watery journey thats launched inside my body. I know only that my heart is pounding as I climb the two concrete steps to our side door. Im worried that my father has gotten up from his recliner and will look out the window to catch me smoothing my rumpled red-and-white checked skirt.

My parents always wait up for me, but my mother is more than likely in the basement doing laundry or sewing, less able to monitor my comings and goings. Theres music on the radio, the hum of the dryer, and the churning of the washing machine to distract her. Shes a night person and comes alive after dinner. She could be singing along to a country song or an old jazz standard, engrossed in some project with its pieces laid out on the antique oak table. My little brothers, Mike and Pat, and I are all still waiting for her to sew us the funny egg-shaped stuffed creatures called Gonks. Shes promised me the one with the Beatle haircut, but the fabric is still in a bag somewhere, and its hard to say what new project has captured her attention now.

Its my father who wrests himself from his evening doze, pries his eyelids open, and watches for headlights coming up our driveway. He comes home tired every evening. He owns a car dealership and never seems to sell enough cars so we can breathe easy. The nights I linger too long in my boyfriends car, my father shuffles to the kitchen and flicks the light over the back door off and on. But tonight the light burned steady while my father slept.

Im home, I say as I round the corner from the kitchen to the living room. My father is out of his chair now, freshly awake. He cranes for a look at the clock above the kitchen sink. Midnight. Or a minute or two after.

Early to bed, early to rise, he says. This is his little joke. Its hours past what he considers an early bedtime.

Good night, Dad, I say.

Dont let the bedbugs bite, he says, shambling off to find my mother.

When Im in my bedroom at the top of the stairs, I dont let myself think of what went on in the backseat of the car that my boyfriend borrowed from his father. Undressing, protected by the darkness, I slide my long flannel nightgown over my head and slip into the smooth sheets that feel so different from the rough grip of my boyfriends hands. I lie in the dark and pray.

Somewhere in the cupboard underneath my desk there is a box where I keep the white prayer book from my first Communion, two rosaries, and a stack of holy cards. The holy cards were given out as prizes by the nuns in grade school. On the one of The Annunciation that I got for winning a spelling bee in second grade, the Angel Gabriel is on his knees. He looks off balanceas if hes stumbled or fallenand the Virgin Mary has her arms out as if shes pushing him away. I push away the things I am thinking and sleep.

When morning comes, I go to church. Church is part of our family routine, although my parents never go with us. My mother claims the church will fall down the minute she walks through the door. My father isnt Catholic, and she was automatically ex-communicated when she married him, she says. Ive always taken the idea of her ex-communication literallya certificate filed in a cabinet somewhere, or her name on a shameful list that the nuns at my school have read and committed to memory.

Mike and Pat and my married sister, Van, and I are all baptized Catholics. My brothers attend the Catholic grade school, while Im a senior at the Catholic high school. Its not as if theres much of a choicetheres no public school in our town of 3,000. Sundays some members of our family need to be seen in church or we risk being thought of as heathens.

Heres the thing about my family. We have a secret history. My father was married twice before he married my mom. His second wife was married before she married himand she had a daughter, my stepsister, Mary Lou. I have a half-brother, too. My dad and his second wife werent quite married when Joe was born, and he has the wrong name on his birth certificate even though its my dads last name that he uses.

Families like this are unheard of in my town. Joe and Mary Lou are almost as old as my mom, and if people saw us all together they would assume that Joe and Mary Lou were my aunt and uncle. The biggest secret of all is that my sister Van is really Mary Lous daughter. My father legally adopted Van after her dad ran off. Mary Lou was only 16 when she got married, and the whole thing was a mess that happened before I was born. Its taken me years to figure all of this out, and we dont talk about it among ourselves, much less with anyone else. Vans adoptive mom was my dads second wife, and she died of cancerthats the part of the story I tell my friends if they ask why I have a sister whos eight years older with no other siblings between us, so unlike the families of my friends with brothers and sisters like stair steps.

Catholicism is a big thing in my town. No other denominations have churches here, and as far as I know, everyone except my father is Catholic. But he has a cover. Hes a member of the Knights of Columbus and does the volunteer churchy things that all the Catholic businessmen do. And he tithes money to our parish, which is the fanciest church for miles around. Our church is no ordinary church; its a basilica. The nuns at school tell us this means that should the pope decide to visit Iowa, he would choose to say Mass at our church. Its an imposing edifice of brick and stained glass at the west end of the two-block-long business district. Tourists often come to gape at its rose window, but I think its interior with gold trim on every surface is overdone. This morning, as I cross the threshold, I picture the gilded columns crumbling into dust.

I kneel and pray because my life depends on it. Getting pregnant is the worst thing that can happen to a high-school girl in my town. Getting raped or murdered could lead to sainthood, but pregnancy is a Harley ride straight to hell. After what happened last night I know I am in a state of sin and should not receive Holy Communion, but I shuffle up the aisle anyway. Everyone takes Communion, eyes downcast, hands folded like plaster saints. Not taking Communion would be an admission of guilt. I silently say the Act of Contrition while I wait my turn. This is how Catholics save their souls. Magic words to cleanse you in an emergency. Technically I should confess my sin to a priest, but I will tell no one what I have done. Body of Christ, the priest says as he places the host in my cupped hands. I look into his eyes and think of my body.

Amen, I say.

On Monday morning my mother wakes us for school the way she always does. She stands at the bottom of the stairs and pounds on the wall, calling out, Up and at em! Everybody out of bed! Rise and shine! She cooks a hot breakfast for my father, who comes to the table dressed in a crisp shirt and tie and a sweater vest. His silver crew cut is perched on the top of his head like spikes of energy. Hes cheery and talkative in the morning, patting his shirt pocket to confirm the presence of his Kelley Blue Book while my mother is lost in a sleepy haze of cigarette smoke, worshipping the coffee pot. All of us know that most mornings she dives back into bed after weve left. Horizontal Ethel, my father calls her.