Mother's name.Josephine Shelton.
34
Jo
Fifteen Years Old
My fifteenth birthday was yesterday.
And I'm pregnant. Happy birthday to me.
I don't understand how any of this is actually happening. Or how it's all my fault, like they've said.
Ezra told me what we were doing wasn't a big deal. He said if he only put it in a little bit, we were still technically virgins.
I assumed he knew what he was talking about, because I definitely didn't. My mom never breathed a word to me about sex. I asked her a question once, and she told me not to be a foul girl. It was the first and last time I would ever ask her about it. Everything I learned was gleaned by whispers from other kids.
How was I to know I could get pregnant my first time? My only time?
And then Ezra, so bold when he pushed up my skirt and pulled down his pants, cried to his father the very next day. He said I'd shown him my breasts, and tempted him.
What really happened was that he lifted my shirt and lost his mind, touching me frantically. Nothing he did felt good. I was just happy to feel wanted.
His father came to our little house, his face red. Two other men stood on either side of him, like I posed a threat. As if my feminine wiles were so powerful I could take down any man with a simple look. Or perhaps they thought I would remove my top, my breasts entrancing them like a snake charmer. They must've believed there was power in numbers.
They ordered my mom and me to leave. They gave us three weeks to find a new place to live, somewhere far away from God's Redeemers.
I found out I was pregnant last week, and my mom forced me to tell Ezra and his father. I hadn't wanted to, but she said I didn't need to add to my sins by hiding a child from its father.
Ezra cowered behind his dad while I took the verbal lashing. According to our distinguished church leader, I was a whore and carried the spawn of Satan in my stomach. The child growing in my abdomen did not belong to Ezra, because Ezra had been taken over by the devil, therefore the child was not his.
I'd laughed. A real, honest to goodness laugh. My mother smacked me.
It was the last time I saw Ezra.
We foundwork about an hour away, cleaning a motel. The owner, an older woman named Taffy ("Like Laffy," she'd joked), took a great deal of pity on us. She let us live in one of the rooms for almost nothing. We didn't tell her right away that I was pregnant, and it wasn't obvious for a few more months.
When it became clear, she sat my mom and I down and asked us if we had medical insurance. We told her we did not, which I'm sure she expected. She said her sister was a retired labor and delivery nurse, and when my time came she would come help me.
I was making a bed when the first pain ripped through me. By then I'd been to the library and read everything I could about what to expect. But nothing could've prepared me for it in real life. The pain seared me, splitting me in two, and I hobbled back to our room and called Taffy at the front desk.
Donna, Taffy's sister, arrived shortly. She explained to me what was going to happen, and she felt for the baby. The pain was constant by then, and she told me to push. My mother sat nearby, as stoic as ever. I think she wanted to be happy, to supersede all her other emotions about my pregnancy, and revel in new life. Maybe she did it on the inside.
Travis was born at 2:08 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. His hair was blond, and his eyes were blue, just like mine. He didn't look a bit like his father.
After three months at the hotel, my mom decided it was time to move on. Taffy was sad to see us go. She gave me a blanket she'd knitted for Travis, and a little bottle of nail polish that still had the one-dollar sticker on the side. "Every girl deserves to feel pretty," she'd said.
We settle in Sierra Grande, Arizona, a place where my mom had been once and said it was the most beautiful place she could remember visiting. I didn't agree with her assessment, at least not at first. It was mostly desert, until the higher elevation started and it turned into pine trees and cottonwoods. The people were so nice, so welcoming, that the whole place started to become beautiful, and I understood what she meant.
My mom goes to school at night, earning her licensed practical nurse degree after being inspired by Taffy's sister. She works weekends, all day Saturday and Sunday, at a restaurant in the next town over. I go to school during the day and spend the rest of my time taking care of Travis.
My mom tells people Travis is her son, and I don't argue. She's ashamed of me, and I'm ashamed of myself. By the time Travis turns one, I've given written consent of legal authority over him to my mother. I only want to give Travis the very best, and this feels like the only way. And, selfishly, I want a life too. I want the chance to be like my peers at school. I want to laugh and talk with my friends, buy food from the cafeteria instead of unwrapping a sad-looking cheese sandwich while hiding in the girls' bathroom every day.
I love Travis fiercely, but he terrifies me too. When my mom decides she is going to rejoin the church, I argue against it. But I know, deep down, that Travis will be better off there. If she leaves and I insist on keeping Travis with me, his quality of life will be worse. I cannot keep him here with me, trying to make ends meet while I juggle school and a job. By the time I pay a sitter, I'll have nothing to feed him and clothe him and pay rent. I have to admit that my child's best option doesn't include me. My heart feels ripped to shreds.
My mom leaves, taking Travis with her. When she returns a year later after being refused by the cult, we continue the farce. I do not correct people when they assume Travis is her son and my younger brother. She has told me enough times what people will think of me, how they will look at me, how I will never get another date in my life, if people know the truth.
It's incredible how one simple lie can become a mountain, and how that mountain can become insurmountable.
