I assured her I would. As I left her room, I could feel myself being lifted up, like a kid who had been put on her father’s shoulders and was suddenly seeing the world from a different perspective. Some of the shame I’d been carrying around like an albatross around my neck began to fall off me and in its place rose a new feeling. It was such a new feeling that at first I didn’t even know what to call it. But then I located it: pride. Yes, that’s what it was. I felt proud of myself.
That day was also the day the seniors in our Y club were to officially turn leadership over to the juniors, and the day we were going to elect the president of the club. It may not have been a surprise to anyone else that I was elected president, but it was to me. One of the seniors said that I had great leadership skills and that she was pleased to know they had left the club in my good hands.
To top it all off, I had gotten almost all A’s on my report card. The only B I got was in geometry, my worst subject.
It was my mother’s day off and I couldn’t wait to get home to tell her all about my great day. As usual, I found her sitting on the new brown couch she’d bought on time, reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette with a beer sitting on the coffee table in front of her. I told her what Mrs. Lester had said to me about my writing. And about being elected president of my Y club. And about almost getting straight A’s. I finished up by telling her about how good I felt about myself, how I finally felt like I’d been accepted in high school after years of feeling like an outcast.
She nodded and half smiled, half smirked. “Well, that’s good, honey,” she said. And then she went back to her magazine.
But today her lack of encouragement or interest didn’t bother me.
Nothing you can say or do is going to take away these good feelings, I thought as I went into my bedroom to call Dee-Dee.
About an hour later, as I walked through the living room, I must have had an extra spring to my step, or maybe a smile on my face. Whatever it was, my mother didn’t like it.
“You really think you’re something, don’t you?” she asked in a sinister tone, putting down her magazine. “Well, let me tell you who you really are: You’re illegitimate. Do you know what that means?”
Of course I knew what it meant. It meant I was a bastard, someone who was lower than low. I was the kind of person people spat at, the kind of person who was shunned by others, not the kind of person who was elected president of a club.
The look on my face must have frightened my mother. This was a secret she’d hidden from me all my life, that she’d been saving for just the right moment. She must have wanted to bring me down a notch or two—but instead she’d flattened me.
Her face softened, and she motioned for me to sit down next to her on the couch. Then she shared with me more about herself than she’d ever told me before.
“It wasn’t as if I was a young girl who didn’t know any better,” she started. “After all, I’d been married twice, once to a golf professional and the second time to an alcoholic, good-for-nothing artist who sponged off his wealthy family. My first husband— Anderson was his name, Mark Anderson—was a wonderful man and he was crazy about me.” She picked up a cigarette and lit it. “But I got tired of traveling around the country on the golf circuit, staying in one hotel and then another. The first few years were fun but after a while it got tiresome, living out of a suitcase, constantly on the road. After several years of this, I told him I wanted to settle down—wanted a home of our own. But he didn’t want to quit the circuit. So that’s when I decided to leave.”
“What did he say when you told him you were going?” I asked, still reeling from all this new information.
“Oh, I didn’t tell him I was leaving. I just packed my bags one day when he was practicing for a tournament.”
“You just left without saying anything? You didn’t even tell him you were going?” I asked incredulously, remembering all the times she’d threatened to send me off to a convent if I didn’t shape up.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I knew he loved me but I also knew he loved his golf. It wasn’t fair to force him to choose.”
“So then how long was it before you met the artist?” I asked. I was becoming engrossed in her story, and it helped to soothe the sting about discovering I was a bastard.
“Oh, not too long. But I was still legally married to Anderson. I heard from friends that he still loved me and was hoping I’d come back someday, so he hadn’t filed for divorce. But I sent word back to him through a friend that I wanted to get married to someone else, so he filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion.”
“What was the artist’s name?” I asked, not believing that she was opening up with me like this, not believing she was telling me so much about herself.
“Richard Engel.”
I stared at her, trying to let this information sink in. I wondered if he was my father. But she’d said I was illegitimate. How could that be?
“That’s my last name,” I finally said.
“Yes, I was still legally married to him when I conceived you. I woke up one day and decided I’d had enough
