it religiously every morning for thirteen years. I also insisted that the guys I was with wear condoms. I relaxed my doubled-up birth-control regimen with Grayson—maybe because we were together for so long— and that’s how I got in trouble the first time. And then, even before Joel, I began to grow forgetful. In the middle of the week I’d remember that I had forgotten to take my pill for a few days. I grew tired of reminding guys to put on a condom.
I was ultra-cautious as a teenager because I was terrified by the idea of getting pregnant and having my family find out. That was what would wake me up with night sweats. That’s what would make my head hurt while I waited for my period to start each month. I was terrified of the reaction of my mother, grandmother, father, and aunts. Pregnancy without marriage was unthinkable in our family.
I honestly don’t know what changed. My family still scares me. Gram knows now, and somehow her knowing and planning for me is more frightening than her not knowing. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, heart flip-flopping in my chest, thinking, Why did I do this? Why?
I have told my readers again and again that a baby is not an answer to anything. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t fall into that trap. Keep this in mind: A baby is simply, and decisively, and irreversibly, a baby. To give birth to a child is to take on the responsibility of another human life.
KELLY
My first memory is of the day my sister died. I know that child psychologists would say this isn’t possible, since I was only eighteen months old at the time. They say the brain isn’t developed enough to hold on to images until a child is closer to three years of age. But, in my case at least, they are wrong.
I remember every detail of that day, and no one ever told me about it. There is no one I could have gotten my information from. My sister was gone, my brother Pat would not be born for another week. For the only time in my life, for a few short days, for the wrong reasons, I was the only McLaughlin child. During that time no one spoke to me. My parents were so shocked and numb, they were not aware I was in the house with them. Willie shushed my tears. The deaths in my family, as well as the births, were occurrences that carried a warning with them. They all happened in slow motion, steeped in silence and disapproval. There was the sense that this should not be witnessed. And, if witnessed, should never be spoken of again. Birth and death were too common, too raw, for my self-made father and my properly raised mother. They were beneath our family; their messiness cheated us out of perfection. Death was of course the worse of the two, and it put a terrible pressure on those who survived to make up for what should not have happened.
My sister’s death marked me, both with a sense of shame that I drew from my parents, and with an indelible memory. When she was a little girl, Lila used to wonder aloud who she might have gotten her memory from. I never spoke up and told her that it was me. I wanted to tell her, but somehow I couldn’t. It is a secret I have never shared with anyone, and it is also my curse. I watched with wonder and admiration as Lila grew up touting her memory as a great gift. She used it in school to get top grades. She used it in card games to beat her friends. She used her memory at every step of her life in order to be the best. Until I watched my daughter, it had never even occurred to me to utilize my memory to my own gain. It is something I have always worked to deny, push away, hide, ignore. My memory brings me pain, because everything reminds me of everything. Everything is connected. All it takes is a glimpse, a flash of color, a smell, and I am taken into the past.
A fall day with the colorful leaves turning belly up to a stiff breeze reminds me of going clothes shopping with my mother. The six McLaughlin children would line up in age order (me carrying a list of what each child needed as