I truly thought that was going to be the worst thing she could say. Her boyfriend at the time, and it is kind of me to call him anything other than fuckstick or dickwad or some other pejorative, was something short of great. So, I said, are you pregnant? In my naiveite, I thought that was the worst that could happen. What she said first was, I don’t want to tell you. And if you know anything about me, that alone should render fright from deep in your bones, yo. I was unable to do anything other than open my mouth to say something but simple move my mouth and jaw in a fashion very similar to a fish gulping for air. Not speechless like when someone tells you that their neighbor is sleeping with their spouse, or your kid is caught passing a vodka bottle around on a school trip, or even when your partner says something hurtful in a fight. When the words, the unfamiliar, foreign, and unbelievable truth was spoken, I was speechless. While I sat in a flowered wing-backed chair that, in my memory, still looks like something that would be found in a common room of a nursing home, I listened to the therapist and my daughter hem and haw, dancing with words, neither wanting to tell me the crux of my visit. I thought I was coming to this appointment for the obligatory “your mother is the root of all your problems” visit that was so common in those days. On a warm September morning, the Monday after my first 50-mile MS walk, I hobbled on swollen and blistered feet into the office of my daughter’s therapist.
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