An Accidental Mother (16 page)

Back home from my trip, I immediately telephoned Jim, but as was his way, he did not answer. I left a message, but he did not call me back. I e-mailed him, and he did not reply. All of my messages were the same: “When can I see Michael?”

The next day my world fell to pieces. I received an e-mail from Jim stating that he believed it was “in Michael's best interest” that we no longer have contact. I screamed, I yelled, I sobbed. He claimed that our family
counselor had advised him on this issue, but I didn't believe a word of it: I had been seeing the family counselor all along, and he had told me the exact opposite.

I was in disbelief; I was in shock. I was devastated.

I cried for an entire week.

The last time I spoke to Jim was by telephone. It had been more than a month since I'd last had contact with him. Upon the advice of our family counselor, I had sent Jim an e-mail asking if he would reconsider allowing me to see Michael. He telephoned me a few days later. I told him our counselor had said that even though the amount of time I spent with Michael would naturally lessen over time as our lives moved in different directions, he thought it best that I retain contact with him now, even if it was only in limited amounts. Jim insisted that the counselor had
told him the opposite, but he did not provide any details or further insight into why.

For just a moment I wondered if the counselor was playing both sides for his own benefit. “If our counselor is telling you one thing and me another, why don't we go see him together?” I suggested.

Any doubts I had about the counselor's intentions were immediately cleared up by Jim's reply. “No, I'm not doing that,” he said. “And besides, it's not going to change my mind.”

“What have you told Michael about all of this?” I asked.

“I told him that people move on. You've moved on; we've moved on. People move on. You just need to let this go. I'm not changing my mind.”

“I'll never let it go!”
I screamed into the phone, and then I hung up on him. Although I can't recall specifically, it's also possible I called him an asshole.

But the fact remained that my threat carried absolutely no weight; there wasn't a thing I could do about any of this.

I feel as though there has been a death. And there has been. The death of motherhood, the death of my child. I have been told I cannot see this boy, a child I raised for six years, yet my mind tells me he is only a fifteen-minute drive away. How can this be? What kind of logic is this? What have I done to deserve such punishment? I wonder how I will survive this loss. But more importantly, I wonder how Michael will survive it.

I was not so naive as to think I would get regular visitations, scheduled time, annual vacations, or invitations to every school event. But I thought I could remain
a part of Michael's life as just one of many people who loved and cared about him. I was a big part of Michael's childhood and hoped I could remain a presence—even if just in the background—through his teens and into adulthood so he would know that even if people come and go, love does not have to. Sadly, that will not be the case.

My heart aches when I think that Michael, abandoned by his real mother, might believe I abandoned him, too. I am an adult; I can survive the pain and at least try to understand the psychology behind his father's actions. But Michael has just turned ten; no matter what his father has told him about my absence (of which I'll never really be certain), how can he understand any of it?

I continue seeing the family counselor, and I try to learn to deal with my loss. I am told that Michael's life path is his alone, and I am not responsible for it. I love that child with my full heart, but it is true that I have no control over Michael's journey and am not responsible for his father's actions. Still, it is impossible to
accept that Michael and I have to be dead to one another, gone from each other's lives, when I know all the while that he is just across town.

And what of Elizabeth? I first met her at the age of one, and nearly her whole life has included me. Does she wonder why I've gone? Does she miss me? I cared for Elizabeth alongside Michael whenever she came to stay with us. I loved her, too. She would often crawl into my lap on the sofa and tell me she loved me in return. So much of my time with Michael was commingled with caring for Elizabeth.

But Elizabeth has a mother, and Michael does not. Knowing I cannot be there for him is like a knife through my heart. I worry about him being alone, and I cry for all the things I can no longer do with him: I will not be able to have conversations with him, listen to his observations, or answer any of his inquiries. I cannot take him to the movies or shopping, or buy Christmas and birthday gifts for him. No longer will we squeeze into the reading chair together with our books and our blanket. I will not be able to snuggle
him, laugh with him, make ketchup smiley faces on his plate, talk to him on the phone, or tell him every single day how very much I love him. I won't be there to see him change, grow, and develop.

I miss everything about him. I miss his freckles, his big blue eyes, his smile, his habits, his questions, his ideas, his creativity, his kindness, his sweetness—and it is like torture to me. I won't see his school projects. I won't be there the day he outgrows his stuffed animals. I won't get to meet his friends, be introduced to his first girlfriend, witness him getting his driver's license, or help him off to college.

For six years Jim asked me to help parent his son, and I did so. For six years I saw Michael nearly every single day, and now I have been told I cannot see him at all. For six years Jim stated that the interests of the children came first, and I believed him.

But here's the thing: even now, knowing the outcome, it is impossible to imagine changing any of the past because I cannot fathom giving up even one minute of those six years with Michael.

As the weeks roll by and I try to figure out how to live a life without Michael, two things strike me: first, how much I miss his companionship, and second, how much free time I have. Nearly half of my adult years were lived as a single person, and I have always had an active life. But now I have no idea what I did before I became a mother; I cannot remember how I filled my days when I lived alone.

Fortunately, I have amazing, generous friends and a dear, precious sister. These loved ones invite me to dinner, take me out, call me, let me talk about it, and
let me not talk about it. Still, there are only so many dinners in a week, and the days are long and lonely. I wonder what Michael is doing, if fourth grade is difficult for him, if he is making new friends, if he is happy. I worry about him, too. Is he scared when he walks to the bus stop, nervous about coming home to an empty house? Does his father help him with his homework, or does he have to do it alone? Most of all I worry incessantly that he believes I intentionally abandoned him. I want to write to him, tell him I have not abandoned him, tell him again and again how much I love him. Although I know his father will not give him my letters, I decide that will not stop me from writing them.

And so my journal of letters to Michael begins. I write to Michael and tell him that I miss him, I love him, and I think about him every day.

The weeks turn into months, and I know I must find a way to live again. I decide to return to the sand dunes, a place where we always camped as a family. I arrive as a single person and take on the challenges of
my sand rail and the motor home alone. It is difficult, but I push through my fears and insecurities and come home feeling capable and successful for handling everything on my own. It feels strange and different to be doing this without Jim, Michael, and Elizabeth. But it also helps me a little to be doing something I enjoy. I come home and write in the journal, telling Michael how often I thought of him while I was there.

On another weekend I go out to see my musician friends. They play in a band at a local night spot. They call me up on stage and let me sing a song with them. Everyone claps. I thank the band; I enjoy myself and go home to my dog. I write in the journal and tell Michael I miss him and recall a year ago when we went to see these same friends and Michael played the tambourine with the band.

At home in front of the television, the programming is interrupted by commercials for the latest Disney movie, and I am sad to know that I cannot talk to Michael about it, ask him if he wants to see it, make plans with him to do so over the weekend. I write
again to Michael and tell him how I would love to take him to the movies, wondering how many he has seen without me.

Throughout all of this, I realize I am not only lost and sad but flabby and fifteen pounds overweight. At the advice of a friend, I join a gym and hire a trainer. As the pounds start to come off, so does my sadness. But missing Michael never goes away. I write and tell him so.

Another season of
American Idol
comes and goes, and I watch it faithfully, the spot on the sofa next to me terribly empty. I wish I could call Michael, ask him whom he is rooting for and who he thinks will get voted off next. But I can't. So I write to him and tell him how much I wish we were watching it together.

It is difficult for me to live a life without Michael, but now I have a way to tell him when I am thinking of him, a way to wish him a happy birthday or a merry Christmas or to remind him that the first time I ever met him was on a Mother's Day. I know the letters are as much for me as they are for him, but I write them in the hope that someday he will actually read them.

This past Easter I was especially frustrated by the fact that I could not buy Michael an Easter basket. For the prior six years I was the one who shopped for baskets and toys and Easter candy and helped the children to color Easter eggs, sometimes dragging along all the supplies to do so in the motor home. I wanted so badly to buy him a basket, wanted so much to be able to give him a gift. I opened a separate savings account that week and deposited five hundred dollars into it: one hundred for Easter and two to make up for Christmas and his birthday. The rest was for the days I could not buy him new Pokémon cards, new books to read, new clothes to wear, or a new game for his Gameboy. I wrote to him again and explained that I now had a way to give him presents for every holiday and that someday he could use the money to buy a car, or to go to college, or to do whatever he wants with it.

I put another hundred dollars into the account just before Mother's Day. As I write to Michael to say that being his mother was the best thing that ever happened
to me, I realize it's been more than a year since Jim told me they were leaving, almost a year since they actually left. On Mother's Day I sort through the box of mementos from Michael and Elizabeth, including Mother's Day cards and dozens of school projects made just for me and addressed to “Mom.” As I expected, I shed quite a few tears that day.