Mom shook her head “no.” Then said, “But, you’re taking this to a whole other level, just making stuff up.”
“No I’m not. I didn’t have a thought in my mind in this direction when we started, and then as you talked, it became clearer and clearer. Then, all of a sudden, I knew for sure what we have to do.”
“So, let me in on your big discovery. I could use some of whatever is making you act so happy.”
“You said you’re incomplete. You said I’m incomplete. You said I’m half. That means there’s the other half, the other half of me. You put the two incompletes together. And it makes a whole. And one of them is the half calling to the other half.”
“Slow down. What are you saying?”
“Mom, Dad was never meant to get you pregnant. Michelle has been waiting all this time for me, for her other half. Don’t you get it?”
“Michael—”
“My sperm, your egg. Two incompletes. Put together, and they make a whole. Put together and we free my other half.
“You’re not saying … you can’t be saying—”
“Mom! I want to make love to you!”
“No! No!”
“I want to get you pregnant!”
“Michael!—”
“Pregnant with my other half, my sister, my twin—Michelle!”
*********************************
We talked on that bench for an hour, going back and forth. I would say something and she would counter it or offer some objection.
But, she never said absolutely, positively “no.” It never would get to that. Sure she was shocked. Well—so was I.
When Uncle Zack had said it, I was shocked, but it was an idea with no backing or substance. There was no path for it to become real in my mind. But, when I found out I was a twin, and that Mom believed for my whole life she could bring Michelle back into this world, it all made sense to me.
I kept asking her if it made sense to her, the way I had pieced it together. She never could, or would deny that, taken with her beliefs from the day of my birth, that my plan of getting Mom pregnant in order to bring my twin to life was not correct.
It fit too well with what she already believed.
Finally, she rested her head on my shoulder and she looked out at the horizon.
“Mom, it’s going to take both of us, you and me … to heal this … to make us whole: my sperm, your egg.”
“Oh God! God, please … please forgive me. My son’s sperm … and his mother’s egg.”
************************************
“If we do this, it would have to be on Tuesday. That’s my day, my best day,” Mom said.
Mom told me she thought about what we had said all night and didn’t sleep at all. After all the turmoil and failures over the years and the added stress of my leaving for college and Uncle Zack’s announcement, her frayed mind had made a decision.