by John Ayang
“You’re not going to fire me, after all that outburst and nastiness?”
“Fire you! Okay, Barbs,” Dr. Horacek said, chuckling, glad for the opportunity to demonstrate his capacity for magnanimity mixed with humor. “If that’s what you were spoiling for, then that was quite a lousy effort and you’ve failed woefully. I don’t fire people for venting their frustration over unrequited love, especially when the culprit happens to be me, as has been factually proven. So, if you don’t mind, be at your nursing post and at work next Monday, as usual.”
“Well, I have no choice,” Barbara replied. “You have me in a stranglehold. I need the money, and you pay well…very well…but I think it’s just cruel of you to imprison me with a fat paycheck while starving me of your love. I wish to God it was different. I’ll be at work, Monday, but it’s going to be hard for me…very hard.”
“All I need, Barbs, is for you to understand that it’s not easy for me, either. It’s complicated, very complicated. Really!”
That was twenty years ago. Dr. Josef Horacek was right. What happened later, in the course of the next three years, proved to be, even much more complicated for all concerned. But little did she know then that she would use the same word, twenty years later, to try and calm her daughter. She smiled, ruefully, at the irony of it all.
A click sound upstairs woke her from her revelry. Looking up at the sound, she caught a furtive movement from her daughter, Crystal, standing at the top of the stairs, looking at her. Barbara got up and looked longingly at her daughter for a few seconds. Then she called out, warily, “Are you hungry?” Then, as Crystal started down the stairs toward her, she continued, “Do you want a banana split? Let me make you one. I know you like a banana split. I can make one fast.”
Crystal reached the step where her mother was and said, “Listen, Mom. Don’t trip over yourself to please me. You hurt me, but I want to apologize for freaking out on you. I apologize for the stupid things I said. I don’t hate you…”
“Oh, Crysie. Come here, honey. I know you didn’t mean those things,” Barbara said. Reaching out and taking Crystal’s hand, she pulled her close for a tight hug. “And I want you to understand that I love you and am very sorry. Very, very sorry.”
“I know, Mom. And I’m sorry that I said what I said,” Crystal said, hugging her mother.
“It’s okay, honey. Everything is alright now. As my only child, I couldn’t ever dream of not loving you, Crysie. But it is complicated. I know you don’t want to hear that word, I’m sorry to say it again,” Barbara said, laughing with tears rolling down her cheek.
“It’s okay, Mom. I don’t mind,” Crystal said, struggling to endure her mother’s tight embrace.
“I love you, sweetie,” Barbara was so beside herself with relief at having reconciled with her daughter that she hugged her a little too tight, stroking her long hair at the neck region.
“Mom!” Crystal called out. “I can’t breathe!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, dear!” Barbara released her daughter and, holding her hand, led her down the steps to the kitchen. “Come, let me make you your banana split and I’ll tell you the story behind that phrase, ‘it’s complicated’.”
Crystal sat down at the breakfast table and was relieved to see her mother recovering so quickly from their row of the previous thirty minutes or so. She knew her mother was a strong woman. Being a single mom, she had to be. She fought for everything good that she wanted her to have, but she wondered why she had to be so secretive about her biological father. She was eager to hear the story she wanted to tell. Maybe it really was complicated, as her mom kept saying. Looking at her mother bobbling about the kitchen, preparing a banana split for her, she almost felt ashamed at her unwarranted outburst.
“There you are. Enjoy your banana split and let me tell you my story.” Barbara placed a saucer of banana split in front of Crystal, took a seat opposite her daughter, and began her story.
It was almost 7:30 p.m. when Barbara finished her story. She heaved a sigh of relief and sat staring off into space. Crystal was staring at nothing, too. Eventually, she looked down at her plate and saw that she still had a last piece of banana left, with the ice cream and syrup now melted and looking like milk. She tried to gather as much of the milk-like fluid on the plate as she could, along with the banana piece. Before shoving the scoop in her mouth, she asked, “So, why did you finally decide to ask Dr. Horacek for help?”
“He was the intern who worked with me when I was impregnated with the baby who belonged to that couple,” Barbara continued in a somewhat subdued tone. “After I gave them the baby, I missed him so much that I decided to never think about IVF. I just consciously lost interest in researching or reading anything further about IVF other than what I needed for helping the clients who came for treatment in our clinic because I didn’t want anything that would remind me of the baby and make me sad that he was not mine to keep.” She paused and then continued, “That baby was beautiful. He had blue eyes and tawny-colored hair. And he was so full of life.” Barbara smiled toothlessly, with lips clenched. Tears stood in her eyes, evidence that she still missed him.
“Was he the donor?” Crystal asked, looking, not at her mother, but at her plate, and still scouring it with the spoon, as if to clean out the last drop of the sweet cream on it. “Did he tell you who the donor was in my case?”
“No, Crysie. He didn’t,” Barbara interjected. “You see, we had to adhere to the terms of the contract, which forbade the donor and the beneficiary from knowing each other. We were not to make any claims either way. So, contact was forbidden. He sold his sperm, and that was it…Well, I know we say ‘donate’ to avoid any semblance of selling body parts. But, what the heck! It’s one and the same thing. I paid three thousand dollars, and that was it.”
“I didn’t know I cost you such a fortune,” Crystal quipped. “That was big money then, I guess.”
“That’s why I named you ‘Crystal’,” Barbara replied, matter-of-factly. “I wanted to name you ‘Diamond’, but it sounded too strange in my ear. So, I settled for ‘Crystal’. You know, crystal is precious, don’t you? You are precious to me because you are all I have, and you remind me of my mother, and so many things in my life.”
“I know,” Crystal replied insipidly.
“And you’re my only child.”
“Okay, Mom. That’s crystal clear,” she quipped again, and they both chuckled briefly at her intended pun. “How did his wife react? Did she know he was helping you?”
“No, Crysie. That was just between me and Dr. Horacek,” Barbara replied. “Now, don’t forget, I was still working at his clinic. So, we could pull it off without any third-party knowledge.”
“It is interesting that as close as you were, he wouldn’t breathe a word of the identity of the sperm seller….”
“Crysie, please call him ‘sperm donor’,” Barbara interjected, wincing at the way her daughter pronounced the phrase ‘sperm seller’.
“Okay, ‘sperm donor’, whatever,” Crystal said, in the characteristically throw-away tones of the young and bored. “Don’t you think he could have, at least, whispered a name to you, contract or no contract, just for old time’s sake?”
“He probably could have if I had pressed him for it,” Barbara conceded. “But I didn’t want to give the impression that I was taking advantage of the situation to force him to do something unethical, but, yeah, he could’ve told me.”
They fell silent again, each seemingly mulling over the whole incident. Then, suddenly, Crystal said, “I found his name.” She rummaged in her shorts’ pocket and brought out a printed piece of paper. “We used his code name of ‘California two four nine’ to search, and we found him listed under that code name. Surely you remember the man who went by this name and worked at the clinic the same time you worked there?” she asked, with exaggerated irony, shoving the piece of paper in front of an incre
dulous-looking Barbara, without waiting for an answer.
“No, that can’t be true!” Barbara said, a shade too vehemently. She sat back with a start, as if retreating from the sting of some harmful bug.
“Yes, it is true,” Crystal said, looking straight at her mother.
“That cannot be true!” Barbara repeated, looking quite alarmed. “I don’t think that’s the name. No, Dr. Horacek couldn’t have pulled that on me! No, no…he could have told me.”
“Well, Mom, he PULLED that on you,” Crystal said, with a confirmatory tone of voice. “And he didn’t tell you because it was policy and part of the contract. You said so, remember?” Crystal said, almost mockingly. “Since I wasn’t party to that contract, though, I am DEFINITELY going to find out why.”
School wasn’t the usual big fun for Crystal the following day. Her mother’s story of the previous evening had both a depressing and an exciting effect on her. Depressing because she had never known until then how difficult a life her mother had as a teenager and a young adult. She had told her snippets of it in the past, but not in vivid details, as she heard her do that evening. She also realized that, had she known such detailed facts about her mother’s life, she would have probably shown her more appreciation and understanding than what she had been showing her before that evening. Again, she surmised that her mother was probably shielding her from the trauma she would have experienced listening to an account of such a difficult life. She kept wondering whether telling her the story before that evening would have been more beneficial for her or more damaging. In the end, she decided that whatever was the case, her mother handled the situation as best she could, and probably couldn’t have done any better, given all the circumstances that came into play.
On the other hand, she was so excited that she had discovered, at last, who her biological father was, and it was just a matter of time before she would meet him face to face. Would he acknowledge her as his daughter? Or, would he require DNA testing to confirm or disprove? Crystal began to wonder. However, she did not allow that to worry her so much just then. Whatever his reaction would be when she would meet him, she decided to leave that till that moment. For now, she wanted to enjoy the euphoria of the moment fully. It felt very exhilarating for her, the knowledge that she now had a dad with a name, who was soon going to have a face. It was very healing for Crystal. She felt like other normal kids now, she thought. Most importantly, she had discovered something else. She had discovered what a hard-hitter at life her mother was. Yes, life had hit Barbara Sanders hard since childhood, but she had hit back at life even harder. To have overcome all the difficulties she recounted and still strive to make something respectable of herself, not just scratching through, but living comfortably as a woman of means, all by her effort and hard work, was something Crystal would always admire about her mother. She did graduate with a Master of Science degree in Nursing from the University of Virginia and, a month and two weeks later, had Crystal as the graduation gift she had planned for herself. She resigned from the Norfolk Fertility Clinic and moved to Texas, where she got a job at the Baylor College of Medicine. She was one of the few women at the university to be earning a six-figure salary. It dawned on Crystal what a strong woman and a great achiever her mother was. She made a mental note to write a poem for her mother to celebrate this fact about her on her next birthday.
“Hey, girl. What’s up?” It was Edo-Mma. “You look quite bright today, with a smiling face. Tell me, what did Josh do to you?” she asked, looking coyly at her friend.
“Do I?” Crystal replied. She had no idea that her ruminations about her mother had brightened her countenance and made her appear as though she was smiling.
“Yeah, these past few weeks, you have always been very moody,” Edo-Mma said. “But I am telling you, Crysie, I am so overjoyed to see you smiling. Josh must have done something right. Now, tell me, what did he do?”
“Must everything be about what Josh has done or not done?” Crystal asked in mock alarm. “Come off it, Edo. Josh is the least thing on my mind right now.”
“What an awful thing to say, Crysie!” Edo-Mma chided mildly. “Good thing he is not around to hear that.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t mind,” Crystal dismissed. “Poor guy is purple-sick with love for me. Josh does make me happy, don’t get me wrong. I’m just as purple-sick over him, you know that. But something happened last night between me and my mom.”
“You confronted her?” Edo-Mma asked warily.
“Not as such,” Crystal replied. “Well, you could say it was such at the beginning. But along the way, it turned out that I hadn’t known a whole lot about my mom. She opened her entire life to me for the first time, and I tell you, Edo, my mom is a great woman. I have a newfound respect for her. She is a very strong woman!”
“You showed her the name?” Edo-Mma asked, expectantly.
“She recognized it immediately, but she herself was kept in the dark about it until last evening,” Crystal said. “Can you believe that?”
“How so?” Edo-Mma asked, getting more interested.
“Let’s get to the basement, and I’ll tell you,” Crystal replied as she steered Edo-Mma in that direction.
“And I will also tell you what I discovered when I told my father about it,” Edo-Mma said, with excitement. “You won’t believe it, Crysie. The man, your dad…Can I call him your dad?” Edo-Mma asked, self-consciously, confused about how to address the subject of their conversation, who, from all indications, was now discovered to be her friend’s flesh and blood.
“Yeah, call him that,” Crystal replied. “He’s my dad. Even if he denies it, in theory, it’s a fact.”
“Your dad was a college and frat mate with my father at Berkeley,” Edo-Mma said.
“You mean it?” Crystal asked, incredulously.
“Better believe it, Crysie,” Edo-Mma replied. “And they had kept contact with each other over these years. My father recognized the name and immediately took out his phone and dialed him up. I tell you, Crysie, they talked and laughed, well into the night.”
“Hey, Edo. Remember when I told you that our middle school geography teacher, Mr. Herken, used to say, ‘This world is round’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this world IS round,” Crystal said, pursing her lips for emphasis.
“It’s a small place, too, they say,” Edo-Mma concurred. “Come. Let’s go sit down, and tell me your mom’s story.”
Crystal and Edo-Mma almost didn’t get to finish regaling each other when the bell rang, signaling the end of break and the beginning of the afternoon session. As they emerged from the basement to get back to their classroom, Kelechi and Josh were also coming out from the auditorium with a group of other boys with whom they were practicing their step rhythm on the stage. They caught up with the girls and continued their chatting into the classrooms. That afternoon, before boarding their rides back to their different homes, Crystal declared her intention to travel to visit her biological dad for the first time. She planned it for the short Spring break, which would end with Easter Sunday.
Norfolk, Virginia
Spring, 2012
THE BOEING 707 American Airlines Airbus, Flight 56, taxied smoothly into Terminal A at the Norfolk International Airport in Virginia and Barbara stretched and unbuckled her seatbelt. She looked at her daughter, Crystal, who, as she could tell by her facial expression, looked excited and apprehensive at the same time. Barbara knew she was thinking about the impending meeting with her biological father, not knowing how she would be received. Barbara had assured her when they left home in Houston that everything was going to be alright, but now, watching the faint expression on Crystal’s face, she could not help wondering if the trip was a foolhardy venture after all. Though Barbara felt a little fluttering in her stomach, also, she decided to muster up her courage and do what needed to be done.
“It’s okay, sweet
ie,” she muttered, assuredly. “Everything will be alright. Are you ready for this?” Barbara asked rhetorically.
“Uh huh,” Crystal replied, bobbing her head back and forth to show she was determined and there was no going back.
“Okay, baby. Let’s do this,” Barbara said with a note of finality. Barbara slid out of her seat and opened the carrier compartment to retrieve her carry-on bag. Crystal slid out, too, grabbed her backpack, and followed her mother.
Muttering words of assurance to Crystal was a way for Barbara to beef up her own courage. Neither mother nor daughter knew how their host would receive them, and how he would react to their quest. That, however, did not deter them from making the trip from Houston to Virginia. The worst that could happen might be a flat rejection. In that case, there would be nothing to do but turn back and go home. They had prayed together to prepare their minds to handle the situation with calm resignation, if it came to that. The important thing was that Crystal would have, at last, confirmed the truth which she already learned about her biological father. And Barbara was determined to help her to do just that.
She could not get that evening out of her mind when, three weeks earlier, Crystal, sitting at the table across from her, pushed that piece of paper in front of her. The name on it was all too familiar. For seventeen years, Barbara had thought that she was done with that name, and would never cross paths with its bearer. As it stood, that was not to be. She kept wondering during the short flight to Norfolk, how uncanny destiny’s long arm could reach across time to loop a person back into its original design, for better or for worse. She prayed and hoped the path of destiny she now travelled with her daughter would bring something better.
They reached the baggage claim area and waited silently, if uncomfortably, for their luggage. They had not waited two minutes when a series of beeps came through the loudspeaker and a warning to steer clear of the conveyor belt, which started moving with muffled rumbling, squeaking, and screeching. As mother and daughter waited silently for their luggage to appear, each was deep in thought. Crystal went down memory lane to ruminate on why and how she decided to embark on a quest to find her biological father. She had always wondered who her father was and what he looked like. The most her mother could tell her then was that she bought, from a sperm bank, the sperm that she used in the IVF process that resulted in the pregnancy that became Crystal. It was later, when Crystal was probably 15 years old, that her mother revealed that her former boss at the Norfolk Fertility Clinic brokered the process, and that she was not allowed to know the “donor,” to legally avoid claims either way. That was alright, as far as her mother and the mystery “donor” were concerned, but Crystal had often wondered where she fitted in in the equation. That both parties—her mother and her sperm “donor” father—seemed nonchalant about her feelings and her sense of self-identity and esteem bothered her to the point of being painful. As the years went by, she began to feel some resentment, first toward her mother for dismissing the matter lightly every time she brought up the subject, and then toward the mystery man whose genes she came from, at least, partly.
