“You’re giving up?”
“I never gave up before. Not completely. I would semi, quasi give up and get depressed and then come back knowing what I believed was right. If I just got pregnant again, my little twin would complete her journey … finally.”
“Mom, don’t get depressed again. Don’t give up on Dad yet.”
“Your dad is a good man. No, a great man. He loves me and he loves you. He would do anything for me. Anything. But, the one thing I wanted and demanded—he couldn’t give me. And I’ve worn him down, and I’ve worn him out with eighteen years of false hope. I had hoped he could complete what was started all those years ago and fell just short of the finish line … birth.”
She kicked at some rocks on the trail and they rolled down an incline.
“Michael, part of you is incomplete, and part of me is incomplete, and there’s no way to put those pieces together.”
Was it the wind? Was it the trees? Was it shapes in the clouds? Something, way back in my mind, was speaking to me. Some vague idea was taking shape and making sense. It wasn’t there yet, and maybe it would come, or maybe it would get lost. I didn’t know … yet.
“So today,” Mom said, “When your Uncle Zack and Auntie Lee announced they were having a baby, I felt that I had lost my turn. Finally lost my turn forever. It was their turn to have a family. And, I’ve never told you all this because I wanted to fix it, bring your twin into the world before you had to know of the loss of your other half.”
THERE! It all fell into place! The nature trail had done its magic, and I knew exactly what had to be done.
“MOM!” I yelled. She looked startled. I jumped high off the ground and came down saying, “I got something great to tell you!” I knew I had a tremendously big smile on my face. I ran a few step up the trail and turned and ran back to Mom.
“Mike! What’s got into you? Are you crazy? Have I set you over the edge by telling you the truth?”
“Mom, you kept telling me pieces of stuff I needed to know. I needed to know enough to put it all together. I needed enough to know how to fix this. Let’s sit down right here, and I’ll tell you.
We had arrived at a scenic overlook bench. Mom sat first and then I beside her. She gave me a strange look.
“Mom, it’s not Dad’s fault. Don’t you see?”
“But the doctors say it is his fault. That I’m fine. It’s that he couldn’t … And now, he’s …”
“Impotent, dysfunctional. I know that part.”
“Michael!”
“But, Mom, he never had a chance. He wasn’t SUPPOSE to get you pregnant! He couldn’t reinvent a twin a second time. Never could have worked in a thousand years. My sister is waiting in line, next in line. Dad couldn’t make that happen and he couldn’t skip the line to the next child. Michelle was in the way. In the way, waiting. Don’t you see?”
“I see your logic, but I don’t think it works that way, not scientifically.”
“Was it scientific that you heard that voice or felt that piece of you knew Michelle wanted to be born? No! But you believed it anyway. Could anybody in the whole world have talked you out of what you believed? What you still believe?