“What do you mean you’re moving in with him?”
“I’m in love,” I said, my face hot with embarrassment.
“You’re in love?” she replied, astounded. “You don’t even know what love is!”
“I know I love him. That’s what matters.”
“No, you don’t. You’re sixteen. When I was sixteen, I had no clue what love was. Neither do you.”
I left her office barely managing to hold in the angry tears and determined to prove her wrong.
And I would prove her wrong, but it wouldn’t exactly be a smooth ride.
The drug-dealing neighbours got worse over time, so we moved to the far west end of the city—as far away as two poor kids with no car could manage. Kanata was the end of the line for buses and student budgets. It was the whitest and wealthiest place I had ever lived. Our street of rental row houses stood out among the large suburban homes with their manicured lots.
Where we used to blend in, we now stood out. Cashing my welfare cheque, which was helping me pay the bills while I went to high school, was never a pleasant experience. I always felt that all eyes were on me—from the other clients to the bank tellers. The shame I felt leaving with my monthly deposit slip would linger for days.
The friends we met in the suburbs lived at home with parents who weren’t fond of their children spending time with two young people who lived alone. Even though we were sober and going to school, we had no jobs and kept late hours when we weren’t in class.
“My mom thinks you’re a bad influence,” one of our friends told us. “She said if I stop hanging out with you, she’ll buy me a new car.”
I felt like Zenji all over again in the burbs. And when, nearly three years into our relationship, we found out I was expecting, I became a pregnant nineteen-year-old in a place where pregnant nineteen-year-olds stuck out like a sore thumb. I wondered what my friend’s mom would give him not to be seen with me now. Maybe he would get a new house.
My next thought was that we needed to move out of the suburbs.
Aerik was born on November 30, 1996. He was ten pounds and six ounces of adorableness. The moment I held him was transformational in a way no one could have explained to me until I experienced it. Motherhood packs a mighty punch.
“Don’t mess this up,” a voice inside me said as I gazed upon my child for the first time. I was twenty years old. Six years earlier, I had been in a rehab centre, fighting my way through depression and substance abuse. Life had been in a state of flux ever since. I had yet to finish high school and was working far too slowly on correspondence courses. We were living on one modest income, well below the poverty line, and I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Now we had a baby, and the reality of the situation was unfolding before me.
Don’t mess this up, Amanda. You can’t mess this up.
FIVE
integration
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND these people!” I yelled over the TV, startling baby Aerik, who had fallen asleep at the breast. A couple were arguing on a talk show and making a complete spectacle of their relationship. Watching them fight was a guilty pleasure, an escape from the humdrum of new motherhood.
We had moved back downtown shortly before our son was born, into a dark and narrow semi-detached home that was never meant to be split in two. I had already seen three cockroaches in the kitchen. The furnace stopped working right before Christmas, and the landlord made no apologies for it when he got back from Florida a few days later.
Because I’d left school rather than a job to have a baby, I had no maternity-leave pay. We existed on what my partner made working for a small local internet service provider, and it was just above minimum wage. What we could afford downtown was half the size of what we could get in the suburbs. Because the area we were in was a patchwork of diversity, however, we attracted less unwanted attention as young parents.
We were happy. I mean, sort of. We were happier than the couple on the talk show, arguing over who slept with whose best friend first. We were certainly happier than the middle-aged neighbours across the street, who seemed to take rotating shifts moving in and out of their apartment between fights.
Compared to them, we were Brady Bunch bliss.
But we were a muted sort of happy. Or maybe, I sometimes wondered, a muted sort of unhappy? It was hard to tell. We sat in a space between big emotions, in calm but overcast waters. A sea of grey. We didn’t fight much, but we didn’t laugh much either. We didn’t drink coffee together on the porch like we used to, but who had the time? We were three now, not two. We had made a family, and maybe this was how families were. Maybe this was the new grey kind of happy. I looked at my sleeping baby and wondered, not for the first time, if we had perhaps jumped in too far or too soon.
* * *
—
The girl from Peterborough, now twenty-three, a lanky six feet with dark hair and thick brows that made her green eyes pop, was trying hard to be a man. In the past three years, she had done all kinds of straight, manly guy things. She had met a girl, settled down, got a job and had a baby. And now she was trying to be that baby’s father.
The problem was, she wasn’t a dad. Although she looked like one, was told she was one and had seen her name printed on the baby’s birth certificate next to the word “father,” the role fitted her as badly as the clothes she wore, the name she was called by and the shame she carried for not feeling right in the life she was building.
But she would keep trying. She wasn’t one to give up, and she knew she could make this role work if she just kept moving in the right direction. She loved the girl she’d met at that party three years earlier. She loved the baby they’d made together. And she would be what they needed, no matter what.
* * *
—
We were married on August 16, 1997. A glance at the wedding photos—none of them professional, since we couldn’t afford a photographer—reveals a bride and groom, young, in love and ready to start their lives. Friends and family surround them, and a baby is often glued to one of their hips. In some pictures, they stand outside a small United Church on Island Park Drive. In others, they’re dancing to Blue Rodeo’s “Lost Together” across the river at the marina in Aylmer, Quebec, while several dozen guests look on.
Grey still surrounded us much of the time, but that day was special. I held my spouse—“my husband!” I would exclaim for weeks, until the newness wore off—close to me as we danced. There was a lot of love between us. There was also a giant wall in the way, big and invisible, but we were able to climb to the top of it that day and connect with passion.
Our son was eight months old when we said our vows. He was terrified of my nineties bride hair and poofy rental dress. He didn’t recognize me. But then, I hardly recognized myself. In the span of four years, I had fallen in love, had a surprise pregnancy, become a mother and gotten hitched. From lost soul to somebody’s mom, from lonely girl to somebody’s wife, in what felt like the blink of an eye. Barely an adult with all the adult responsibilities and a relationship issue I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
* * *
—
When I was twenty-two, we moved back to my hometown of Aylmer and bought a starter home in a new neighbourhood with no trees and plenty of babies. My spouse had managed to get a job at a large high-tech company, which meant we had defied demographics and were able to climb out of poverty as a young couple with a child. This was the first time our family broke the statistical mould, but it wouldn’t be the last.
It was strange bumping into people I had once known, my toddler in tow. Some were old friends, some weren’t but were now friendly, and others were people I remembered who didn’t remember me at all. One especially awkward encounter happened in the produce section of Loblaws, where I spotted Sylvia. Like me, she was pushing a cart with a child in it.
My breath caught and my chest tightened. This was someone who had made my life miserable, smeared my reputation with new people in a new place and th
en set me on fire. There is no etiquette guide to handling situations like these.
I took a deep breath and turned my cart in her direction. A decade had gone by; we were adults now, and both mothers living in the same town. It was time to bury the hatchet, right?
“Sylvia?”
She turned and looked at my smiling face. As recognition set in, her own face darkened.
“I’m not sure if you remember me,” I said. “I’m Amanda. We went to school together.”
“Oh, I remember you,” came the reply, disgust oozing out of it. Her expression and body language screamed hostility. The preschooler in her cart was playing with a bunch of bananas, seemingly unaware of his mother’s sudden change in mood.
“Is this your son?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied curtly.
“He’s so cute,” I said, struggling to lighten the mood. “This is mine. They look to be about the same age.”
Commonality is a helpful tool in creating connections—except, apparently, when you’re trying to connect with someone who literally set you on fire.
“Yeah. Sure,” she said, looking over her shoulder to give me a clear view of how uninterested she was in talking to me. When she met my eyes again, they were as cruel as ever.
“Well,” I said, not wanting to prolong the awkwardness any longer, “it was nice seeing you. I hope we run into each other again.”
“Uh-huh. Bye.” She turned and walked away, her son waving at mine.
I had always wondered what had happened to those girls after I left the school. Were they reprimanded? And if so, how severely? Did the people they were trying to impress turn on them when they realized I could have been seriously hurt or killed? How did that one decision affect the rest of their lives?
I hurt more for her than I did for me when I saw how she handled our surprise reunion. Perhaps her hostility was due to embarrassment over what she had done, or maybe it was just lingering dislike, but a part of her had clearly never left the schoolyard. What must it be like to be locked in time, your raw emotions frozen for years? I had worked through that pain in therapy. I had moved on, but she hadn’t.
“And that,” I said, looking down at my young son with a smile, “is how you treat people with kindness, even when they don’t give it back. Rise above, okay? Always remember that.”
* * *
—
Imposter syndrome is the inability to internalize your own successes, and it has wrapped its wicked tendrils around my mind for as long as I can remember. Someone with imposter syndrome is always waiting to be exposed as a fake and run out of her life. I have a formal diagnosis of it, which is not something I’m proud of. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like a giant fraud.
Being a mother did not automatically make me feel like I was part of the sacred circle of motherhood. Holding a mortgage did not make me feel like a grown-up. And nothing made me feel as if I belonged in the life I was leading. After all, we’d had an unexpected pregnancy, followed by a shoestring wedding, and we weren’t as fairy-tale happy as I’d thought we would be. Everyone in this new neighbourhood seemed to be educated and gainfully employed, and I didn’t even have a high school diploma, let alone much job experience. I was waiting for someone to reveal all that, and to upend my life again.
Our house was nestled between the homes of two couples who were very close. We bought the middle house after it had been vacant for almost a year. When we pulled up with the keys, the neighbours were hanging out in our backyard. I opened the patio doors and said a friendly hello. They looked at me as if I was imposing—on my own property—and slowly dispersed like teenagers who had been caught loitering. For the next few years, they rarely spoke to us.
To early-twenties me, this was a clear sign of what an imposter I was. The neighbours didn’t want us there, and therefore we didn’t belong there. I felt buried by their judgment, and anxiety welled up whenever I went outside. Our yard was the schoolyard all over again, and I avoided it whenever they were in theirs. Meanwhile, I tried to make our life appear ideal to anyone looking in. I made sure that we were courteous and quiet, and that we kept up with all those suburban activities, like washing our cars and planting lush annuals in baskets on the front porch. I didn’t want us to be “that” family—the one people had reason to talk about. When I saw both male neighbours pointing their fingers at the number of weeds on our lawn, I spent the next couple of days trying to eliminate all the dandelions. When that didn’t work, I insisted we tear up the lawn and order new sod. We spent hundreds of dollars making our front yard into the nicest one on the street. Now our yard, at least, was manageable. What was going on inside the house was not. I could fix the lawn, but I couldn’t fix my spouse, who was not only unhappy but also unpredictable, with a temper that flared up quickly.
What we all saw, friends and family both, was a miserable man whose misery didn’t seem to stem from the circumstances of his life. He was attractive and in his prime. He had a wife who loved him and an adorable child. He was on the rise at work in the high-tech field. He had two cars in the driveway of a brand-new house. Sure, the neighbours weren’t great, but it was nothing some sod couldn’t smooth over.
Sometimes I thought it was the demands of work. Sometimes I thought it was undiagnosed depression. But most of the time, I thought it was me. I had a spouse who felt stuck in the responsibilities of family life. I worried it was just a matter of time before I became a single mom—another example of what happens when you marry too young. A statistical inevitability.
But don’t worry. A baby fixes everything.
* * *
—
“Can I have a little brother?” Aerik asked me one day, his winter boots crunching against the snow on the sidewalk.
“Well, you don’t exactly get to pick what you get, you know,” I laughed. “But yes, we hope we can give you a sibling soon.”
“Good. Because I’m the only kid in my school with no brothers or sisters.” He threw his mittened hands up in the air, the four-year-old drama meter hitting a 7.5. “The only one!”
His preschool had only about fifteen kids in it, so this wasn’t nearly as unusual as it sounded. But I hadn’t realized he was noticing the differences between our family and the families around him. I wondered what else he’d noticed. How young we were? How the neighbours barely spoke to us? How hard I worked at trying to make us fit in?
I had recently been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, which is a hormonal disorder that can cause a host of problems, including infertility. I watched enviously as friends and family members conceived, carried and birthed their newborns with only minor hiccups. Now I knew that Aerik was watching them too. Having grown up in a family of six, I’d always believed the family I made wouldn’t be complete until the kids outnumbered the parents.
Some days, motherhood felt like all I had. See the nice breakfast I made Aerik? See the cute outfit he’s wearing? Look at that craft we did together and the pictures from our museum trip this week. Look at how happy he is. Motherhood gave me tangible proof that I could do something good—something right—for once. But it didn’t look like it would ever happen again. Twice I had confirmed pregnancies, and each time I lost the baby.
One night, in the middle of miscarrying, I looked toward the sky and spoke to no one in particular. I do this only at times when I feel particularly lost—it’s a throwback to my Catholic upbringing.
“Look, I’m not asking for the moon here,” I said through tears. God, Allah, Gaia, Buddha, Jesus, the Universe—I figured one of them might be around. “I just want a baby. And I know that seems greedy because I already have one. But I promise, if you help make that happen, I will love that child like you’ve never seen.”
I don’t know who was listening that night, but whoever it was made sure I kept my part of the deal.
In 2002, after four years of doctors’ visits, treatment plans, negative tests and plentiful tears, a stubborn little egg got togethe
r with an equally stubborn sperm. That stubborn little cell cluster would grow into our second child and change our family in a much bigger way than we could have imagined. Somewhere up there, Buddha, Allah and Jesus likely high-fived, taking credit for what was going to happen, while Gaia sat quietly with a knowing grin on her face.
The following few months were some of the most anxious of my life. As my belly swelled, I would lie quietly and wait for kicks to let me know there was life inside. Each checkup was a good one, and all the people around me were excited. But I couldn’t reach that excitement—not until I was holding a baby in my arms. I finally got that chance on November 13, 2002. After twenty-seven hours of labour and an emergency Caesarean, I heard the doctors say, “It’s a healthy boy!” I felt indescribable relief.
Like a lot of parents, I loved my first-born so much that I worried about being able to love another child as fiercely. What if I couldn’t do it? But within seconds of hearing the first healthy cry, that worry melted and my heart opened wider.
Just under four years later, my body did another miraculous thing and made baby number three. Weighing in at a positively svelte ten pounds and two ounces, Jackson was the smallest of the siblings. He was also the bookend baby—the one who made the kids outnumber the parents, and thus put an end to our baby-making. Even though it took a full decade, we had the family I had always dreamed of. Meanwhile, the neighbours on both sides had become parents for the first time. Their lawns weren’t looking so pristine anymore! I would walk out of the house proudly with my three kids and greet the new moms with an air of expertise. Welcome to the club, kittens. I’ve been here awhile and I know a few things.
Love Lives Here Page 4
