Who's to Blame pt.3 of 3

From: The Albertson College of Idaho Coyote, May 25th, 1994, p. 14. Revised and reprinted with the author's permission.

High school was pretty normal I guess. That is, normal if you can overlook the fact that anytime I ever felt second best, or did something embarrassing, or got turned down on a date, I naturally blamed it on my “condition.” All the while I wondered why my parents thought that I would overcome this better if everyone just forgot about it and pretended it didn’t exist. But the time finally came that I began to do the one thing which leaves us all in terror, at least it should I think. I began to ask questions, and I found that my condition was not the only thing in hiding.

It was a weekday evening as I recall. My parents and I never really spoke about much more than church, which made this conversation awkward from the start. But in the middle of peaceful silence I said it. “Mom, Dad... how did I get Cerebral Palsy?” They looked at one another but not at me.

“I thought we had discussed this,” Mom said.
“Well, I know stuff like... that you didn’t dilate enough. And that finally the doctors decided to do a c-section.”
“That’s right,” Mom said still not looking at me.
“And when they moved you to another table, they laid you on top of the umbilical cord, and cut off my supply of blood for ten minutes. And I know that it damaged the part of my brain that controls coordination and motor skills. But, why didn’t you dilate to begin with?”

My Dad looked at my Mom. He was giving her that look that he used to give me when I had done some terrible evil. But it was different this time. It wasn’t just an expression of anger; it had a hint of fear behind it. I can’t remember their initial answer. It was probably just the fact that I was a month premature, which, of course was another thing I had been wondering about. But that night, as I sat in my room, I heard another story. It came under the door and through the wall. I was asleep before it was over, but I still managed to hear the last thing I ever should have known. I heard the truth.

“I knew this would happen someday! You are the most deceitful woman I have ever known. It’s your own treachery that’s caused this. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“You’re just as much to blame. You pushed me to do it.”
“Oh that’s horseshit, and you know it. You knew how I felt. You never should have lied to me in the first place.”

None of it made much sense. I listened for hours, but they never seemed to say anything else. It was one of those nights when you wonder if life is just an elaborate case study, and you’re the main subject.

The next evening Mom had to work late. I don’t recall Mom ever working late any other day, but I had decided not to ask any more questions. My fingers had been thoroughly burned already. So Dad and I went out for dinner. Despite the loss of my inquisitive mind, something told me that the subject would still find its way to the table.

“Could you hear Ilene’s T.V. this morning?” Ilene lived in the apartment above us. We could always hear her T.V.
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“You probably heard your mother and me last night too.”
“Some.”
“Well, I think it’s time we clear a few things up.” I knew already this would never be clear.
“You see, your mother and I had only planned on having two children. And after we had your brothers, your mother decided that she had to have a girl.” I noticed that he kept saying “your mother.” He never said that. It was always “Mom.” Not even “Your Mom,” just “Mom.” It made me think of when he used to say “Mary, do you know what that son of yours has done?” He went on and started leaning over the table and speaking as quietly as he could. “You see at that time your Mother was using a foam contraceptive...”

He continued by detailing their evening ritual and how one night “My Mother” didn’t use the contraceptive. He noted it at the time of course, but she assured him that everything was “taken care of.”

“During the entire pregnancy she tried to convince me that she hadn’t done it deliberately, and finally, the night before you were born, she realized that I wasn’t ever going to believe it. I remember that night she asked me if I’d rather she have a miscarriage. I said no, of course, but I knew she was up to something. You see there’s an old wives’ tale that if a woman takes castor oil during pregnancy, she’ll have a miscarriage. And... well when I got back home after you were born, the bottle of castor oil was sitting on the bathroom sink.”

I tried to figure out what Dad was telling me. It didn’t seem real that I could have been the root of a disaster like this. The shock from hearing such a thing kept me numb and docile all the way home.

Conveniently enough, Dad had to work the following Saturday, and Mom had the day off. Dad working on Saturday was pretty rare, but it did happen. Still, the timing seems just as orchestrated to me now as it did then. So it came as no surprise that Mom wanted to take me out for lunch. It started out about the same way as with Dad. I tried to act as ignorant as possible, hoping I wouldn’t have to hear another story. But she finally got to the point.

“I want you to know that your father wanted only two children. He didn’t think that we could afford any more. And your father, the whole time I was carrying you, would curse me everyday because he blamed me for your being conceived. He even threatened to hurt me a couple times. The night you were born, your father and I had a big fight, and the strain of fighting pushed me into an early labor.”

I thought at that point that I knew what it must have been like for my parents to hear two different stories from my brothers and me. Although neither of them told the same story, I find their confessions to simply be two different angles to the same truth.

I never asked Mom about any castor oil, nor did I ask Dad about cursing or threatening. I wonder sometimes if they even know what really happened. I’ll never know for sure what took place when I was born, but I do know the consequences.

Too often we direct our anger at the result of our actions, rather than the mistake which was made. We curse the traffic cop for writing our ticket and never acknowledge that we’ve actually broken the law. My parents are guilty of this. They know that something went wrong, something terrible, but they still don’t know what it was. And once in a while, when they look at me, they get a sad look in their eye. And when they turn away I get the feeling that I’m simply a terrible reminder of mistakes that were made many years ago, and I realize that they blame me for their misery.