The Day I Gave My Baby Away

It’s the same story threaded through time, the heat of it not as hot but the memory forever present.  I was thirteen, so free and wild, still discovering childhood yet sneaking a peek into adolescent.  I was comfortable being alone in my own world and lingering in my youthful imagination.

Our home was rural and my walk to school was barely one mile.  It was my time of solace to employ my dreams and wonder aimlessly through the woods.  I would hear yellow pine birds, brown bunnies rustle through the pitch of soft ground cover, and Sunnybrook Creek babble along.  My favorite spot was a short distance from the main path along the creek.  There stood a cedar tree so old its trunk was as round as a covered wagon wheel, the reddish bark like field furrows.  I imagined its birth and how it weathered life.  Its needles almost touched the ground and it provided a safe haven when the rains would come.

Early one Spring day I found my spot along the creek, my journal in hand to write yet another story.  I loved my time alone to sit along the creek and pen thoughts as they dribbled out.  I had known for as long as I could remember that I would be a writer for it was the one thing that freed me.  The sky began to blacken, the droplets grew in size and the rumbles of sky bellowed out.  I ran for cover under the cedar tree.  Not long though I heard footsteps.  It was Frederich, the quiet German boy from the dairy down the road.  His family kept to themselves.  It was the 50’s, not long after the war ended.  People were still stung by what happened in Europe so neighbors were rather harsh at times.

I told Frederich I’d share my tree until the rain stopped.  We just stared at each other, not knowing what to say.  He asked what I was reading and I told him it wasn’t a book but a journal of stories.  He told me he liked to read.  I asked him, “What was it like to be German?”  He asked me, “What was it like to be American?”  From then on we started to meet in secret and told each other stories, and shared dreams.  No one knew about our friendship.  My papa would’ve whipped me and cursed to no end. 

One day Frederich held my hand.  This was months after our first meeting.  Frederich was two years older than I.  I thought him to be so wise but really he was just a boy unbuckling into adolescence as I was.  I felt safe with him and after a year we were inseparable, still in secret though.  He gave me a small German storybook and taught me a few German words.  We had secret code words between us – it was if we created our own world away from our regular existence.  Another year passed and soon we talked of being together forever and where would we go and what would we do.

One hot Summer day we splashed and played in the creek and then we ran back to the shelter of our tree.  We hugged and kissed and giggled.  Then I felt Frederich’s hand touch the fullness of my breast. I tingled as never before.  This started our discovery of the flesh in little tidbits at a time.  It was Frederich who wanted to go slow, so different then what I thought a boy would be.  It was me who wanted to keep tasting.  One day we did go to the place of divine pleasure.  It was awkward though, that first time, both achy and pleasurable.

Four months passed and in that time sickness overcame me each morning.  My belly had swollen but I was still able to hide my secret within the fullness of my dresses.  My mother knew though.  She finally pulled me aside and questioned me up and down.  I had to tell her but I didn’t tell her it was Frederich.  She knew my father would be furious and go into a rage.  She arranged for me to go away for five months to live with her widowed sister.  I could live there until the baby was born and earn my keep by taking care of her.

The baby came, a girl I secretly named Emma Lily.  She was born April 12th.  It happened to be the day Frederich and I met that one rainy Spring day.  I screamed when they took her away.  I never got to hold Emma Lily.  They rushed her slippery body, legs and arms dangling, lungs in full bloom to a readied blanket.  She was wrapped tightly and whisked to another room.  I lay there in utter emptiness, no physical pain felt, the dull emotional pain taking over as if time had stopped.

I went back home and sank into my writing.  I couldn’t see Frederich again, not even at our secret place.  The risk was too great that people would find out who my baby’s father was.  If only I had known what was to come.

One evening flames could be seen.  It was at Frederich’s family home.  No one admitted to it.  They said it was spilled candle oil that lit the farmhouse.  Frederich and his family had perished, just five months after my return.  The next day I left, left the memories behind me except for the little German book Frederich gave me and the memories that no one could take away.  To this day they are with me.  When I hear a baby cry I hear Emma Lily.  When I see a young lad who reminds me of Frederich I stop and linger in yesterday.  I don’t cry now.  I used to.  I used to cry inside so hard that it was all that I could do to keep it contained.  Now when a memory bumps into me I stop and let it wash over me, I feel it, I sense it, I linger in it and then I keep moving until another knock arrives to say hello.