Back in the late '80s, the high-school girl who would become my wife was simply a tall, skinny girl named N, who was around our house a lot, a friend of my little sister. N and my sister were part of a larger group of girls, whose main recreational activity during their junior year in high school involved driving around in somebody's 1965 Mustang and teasing fraternity boys at college parties.
Among this group of girls was a girl we'll call Marie (not at all her name, but it's better than a pronoun.) Marie was a bit spoiled, and she knew it, and she was OK with it, best I could tell. I didn't know Marie as well as I knew my sister's other friends, but what little I knew of her suggested she was the one of that group with the "reputation."
She was also the one who ended up pregnant that year.
Marie was by no means the only person I knew in high school who became pregnant. She was the only person, however, who ever showed a visible sign of it. Marie chose to carry the child the term.
I can't imagine this was an easy decision, even for a girl who herself was adopted. She had to put up with the stares and the pointing and the ostracism and the talk of those who simply said it confirmed her "reputation." None of that mattered to her.
As the rest of the group drifted away from Marie, N stuck by her. This foreshadowed the adult N, by the way; the girl who stuck by her friend in a tough situation became an intensely loyal woman, a woman who people can depend on no matter what. This is cool, and is one of the things I love about my wife. Back in 1987, though, she was just a girl who was trying to do the right thing.
Marie's child was born on N's 17th birthday. N was there for her at the hospital. I'm pretty sure he was the first newborn boy she ever held.
A few days later, Marie's child was headed home, home with his new parents. Marie went home, too, back to her parents. She was back in school a few weeks later.
Even at 17, a girl has maternal instinct, and that instinct would rebel mightily against separation. Marie had to be convinced that he was going to a better place, a place with people more qualified than she was to provide what that baby needed. I can imagine nothing more beautiful, and more painful.
Life went on. Marie never quite reconnected with that group of girls; she had been forced into adulthood, and acted accordingly. She and Natalie were still close, sort of, but nobody would ever fully grasp what Marie had been through, and it probably didn't matter to Marie if they did. They all graduated from high school a year later and went their separate ways.
Marie contacted my wife by e-mail several years ago. The electronic reunion was brief; a couple of messages exchanged, then life moving on.
Natalie still mentioned Marie's boy on his birthday the first few years we were married, but hadn't for many years. As I was giving the new Dixie Chicks album its 249th spin on my iPod, I gave a close listen to "Voice Inside My Head," a heart-shredding song from the perspective of a woman who gave a child up for adoption.
Immediately I thought of Marie, a person who I hadn't thought of since we received that e-mail four computers ago. I did some quick math, and I said to Natalie: "Remember Marie's baby?" She said, "Yeah, he was born on my birthday."
I said, "Yeah. He would have just graduated from high school a few weeks ago."
"Oh. My. God."
My wife has recently developed excellent research skills. If your name has ever been snared by Google's spiderbots, she'll find it. She found Marie. Marie is now living in a large East Coast city; she married exceedingly well, has two little girls and by all accounts wants for absolutely nothing. They're exchanging e-mails again.
That little baby boy that N held is off to college, or a job, or the military, or whatever. We'll probably never know. Life went on, and it went on very well for Marie, which is as it should be.
Marie called upon some serious strength that day 18 years ago, and that strength is having to carry her through the rest of her life. I admire her, and other women who made the same decision. Unplanned pregnancy brings up complex questions that can't be answered the same way for every person. They most definitely cannot be answered politically, or through legislation.
The 16-year-old Marie, even though she likely didn't know it at the time, came up with the right answer for her situation. Things worked out for her. Hopefully they worked for that little boy, too.
I still have to think that no matter how gilded your life is, though, that's gotta be a hard memory to carry with you, and that you wouldn't be able to help but wonder how things might have been different if ...
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