The Liberation of Amy

This time it was her. I had been called in twice before to see if the poor waif in the morgue was my errant wife and each time the young woman was someone else's tragedy. They were each almost the same as my Sara: blond hair, blue eyes, short at 5' 2", petite build, but larger boobs, pretty. It is surprising how similar they look when they are like this, after a lengthy time on the streets and the ravages of drugs. One was almost identical but upon a second look and the fact she didn't have the butterfly birthmark under her right arm as my Sara, I had to shake my head 'no'; but... this time it was her.

I had been prepared for this moment, or thought I was. I thought I would cry, I thought I would mourn, but all I felt at this moment was a profound sadness. The loss of what could have been before mental illness and heroin took their toll. Who knew which came first but each ravaged this woman's tortured life, beyond my ability to help or even understand.

We had met in college and she was a beautiful vivacious woman who, I learned after our marriage, had a tortured past in the foster care system. People didn't talk as much of such things in those days but she was raped and sodomized in more than one of the homes she was assigned from the age of four. In others she received enough nurturing to actually grow up fairly normal and so when I met her, I fell hopelessly in love and we married as soon as I graduated from college.

We had Gracie 10 months later and 2 years after that we had Gordon Jr. Both beautiful, tiny replicas of their parents, lovely and precious. Sara suffered Postpartum Depression after Gordon was born and that seemed to degenerate into what I later learned was schizophrenia, The two were actually not connected but I didn't know that at the time. The drugs available for schizophrenia helped but they left her in a daze much of the time. Unknown to me, she sought solace in pills and before too long was shooting heroin.

One day, I came home from work at the University to babies messy and crying and a rapidly scrawled note in an erratic hand: "I can't do this," on the kitchen counter, no signature, no explanation, nothing. I discovered that she had not been taking her medications for a couple of weeks. I blamed myself for being too busy to notice her agony.

I had a few friends on the police force who saw her from time to time on the streets. They kept me more or less informed about where she was and what she was doing but they were always vague and looked nervous about telling me anything at all. I sensed it was much worse than what they conveyed. Now, a little more than a year after she left us she was here, at the morgue, a thin and worn wraith that was once my lovely wife.

She was still beautiful, or rather her basic beauty still showed. She was rough looking, too many months on the streets, too many needles in her arm. I didn't have to imagine too much to figure how she paid for her drug habit. She must have tried to keep her looks so she could preserve her only source income.

So after I identified her as Sara Grayson, my missing wife, I signed the necessary papers and arranged for a small ceremony. I knew almost no one would be there, she had no known family but me and the kids. I never knew her to have a friend, or even co-workers at her several jobs before our marriage. After we became a family and bought a house she wanted to stay at home and raise the babies, something she was determined to do, probably out of her own deprivations as a child.

"No child of mine will be raised by a babysitter!" She proclaimed emphatically! So she had no one at the memorial service except me, and the kids and my sister Jess.

After the funeral, I went home and Jess took the children to stay with her a week or so. I didn't let them see their Mom. I couldn't let them see the specter that she had become. They were 'too young to remember' people said, but I feared maybe not, I had vague glimpses of memories that I was told happened when I was asyoung as two, so you never know. I didn't know how I would handle the story of their Mom when they began to ask in a few years, it was too much to think on right then. Jessica had been watching the kids for me but she had her own life to live and a new job starting the next week. So at that moment I didn't know how I was going to raise two kids under 3 years of age and work at the same time. I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands too tired to think, too sad to cry, too spent to do anything but worry.

My sister Jessica and I were very close growing up. Our birth dates are in the same year., not particularly rare but pretty unusual just the same. Jessica was a mere 11 months older than I. She was born in January on the 15th day of 1960 and I was born exactly 11 months later on the 15th of December.

In those days there were only three ways to prevent pregnancy. One was using a condom, or 'rubber' in the parlance of the day, but they had a bad habit of breaking as one did when Jessica was conceived a mere two weeks after Dad and Mom married. The second was the rhythm method which almost every set of parents of the day had tried...yes the joke is true. I was conceived under that method. There was also a vasectomy which at the time neither Mom or Dad had previously considered because of their youth and later on Dad still refused it out of hand.

Total abstinence was the only foolproof method, but Dad was of the old school, he had his rights as a husband and a man: Mom was his wife and had no say and that was that! That is until she found herself pregnant with me within weeks of delivering Jessica. After that she insisted he either have a vasectomy or her legs would be permanently closed. This became the greatest issue between them. Dad refused and she held to her pledge. Dad did the only thing he could, he had affairs. Mom knew and figured that as long as he brought home the paycheck and did his duties as a father she was willing to loan out the sexual duties to any floozie who would keep him busy. As far as I know they never resolved the issue until the day they died.

Some years later when Jess and I were away at college there was a power outage back home that left the house in sub-freezing temperatures, Dad tried to heat the house with a kerosine heater and he and Mom both succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. So by age 19 we were orphans.

Jess and I were sharing an apartment at University when we got the news. We were devastated, of course, We hardly knew our Dad, he had always been distant, but Mom was our anchor. She kept us going in the right direction, made sure we did our homework and that we kept to our responsibilities. She made sure our clothes were clean and were reasonably fashionable. She kept us grounded. We both were at a loss when she was gone.

The day we were informed of Mom's and Dad's death was awful. The planning of the funerals was worse, the funeral and wake the worst, until everyone went home and then it was just Jess and I in the house. That was what did us in. We both collapsed into each other's arms and cried for what seemed hours. We cried until we ran out of tears.

We continued our college, but it was an effort to keep going. We found ourselves clinging to one another too much, jealous of any intrusion into our much abbreviated family. Jess was the first to make the break declaring she loved me but she had to get out in the world. She was right of course, soon we each were dating and exploring other relationships. We had to, out of necessity, loosen our emotional hold on each other and build our own lives, probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

It was about this time that I met Sara James and Jess met Steve Williams, her husband. We continued to be close but not like before.

Steve and Jess were very much in love, both anxious to become parents. After two years and no babies were forthcoming they began to seek answers. It turned out that Jess had a congenital condition in which her Fallopian tubes were deformed and unable to function. Jess would never bear children. Steve was disappointed, but promised they would adopt instead.

Jess was depressed, she so wanted to bear a child of her own and resisted the idea of adoption but eventually she agreed. In the meantime, unfortunately, Steve found a younger woman who got pregnant every time she dropped her knickers and Steve divorced Jess with little thought to the matter. Jess was depressed even more and almost dropped out of my life completely.

I was having my own difficulties about that time. Sara was beginning to hear voices and doing bazaar things, I even feared for the safety of the children a little, though there never was an incident that alarmed me too much. Still, she became more depressed after Gordon Jr, was born and disappeared a few days over the next several months. She always came home again, asking forgiveness and promised to get on her medications and stay there, only to disappear again. Finally as I mentioned before, she just left and the next time I saw her was 7 days ago at the morgue.

Now I sat at the table in my modest home. I was already used to Sara's absence from this place but the knowledge that there was no hope at all of her return seemed to make the place emptier than before. I tried to make excuses for her, but the pain of her betrayals and deceptions were too great at the moment. I wandered through the house trying to remember her here but mostly failed. I came to the big mirror behind the couch and did remember her buying it and helping me hang it. I think we were really happy that day. But now I was startled at the man looking back at me in that big mirror and hardly recognized him. He stood 5' 11', like myself, average build, light brown hair that I noticed was tinged with grey at the temples. I wondered when that happened? The man in the mirror looked sad, profoundly sad. His features drooped to a near constant frown...I needed to change that for the sake of my kids. I tell myself that but it is hard when your heart isn't into it. I continued my impromptu tour about the house looking at all the other decorations and furnishings that she had placed when we moved in here that now seemed to mock the happiness that so alluded her. I decided to redecorate as soon as I had caught my breath but I wouldn't throw them away, instead I would box them up and put them in the attic, for now anyway. Maybe someday, I would understand better and be able to look at them and remember the good I saw in her albeit so briefly.

As I mused on these things, the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 7 pm, a little late for anyone but a family member so I answered the door to see what Jess needed, She probably needed some diapers for Gordy so I grabbed a few as I headed to the front door.

When I opened the door, I almost had a heart attack! Standing there was Sara, or so was my first thought. I regained my composure enough to look again, the woman standing there looked amazingly like Sara, but as Sara would look if she was in her thirties instead of 23.

I was speechless and must have been standing there with my mouth agape.

"I'm so sorry to startle you like this, I didn't know what else to do, may I come in and talk to you, Gordon?" said the woman. She even sounded like Sara. All I could do was motion with my hand that was full of diapers for her to come in. I had no voice at that moment.

She smiled a little and said, "Oh my, I have shaken you up a bit haven't I?"

"Yes," was all I managed to utter.

"May I take off my jacket?" She asked as she started to remove the blue denim garment.

"Yes, of course, where are my manners."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, you didn't expect to see me."

"That is certainly an understatement!"

"You didn't even know about me, did you?"

"No, I can unequivocally say I didn't know about you. Are you Sara's sister?"

"No, My name is Amy James, I'm actually Sara's mother."

"Muh...mother?" That bombshell nearly knocked me off my feet. I just managed to guide her into the kitchen and pulled out a chair for her.

"Ah...she DIDN"T tell you about me. I'm not surprised."

Surprised was the word that described everything that had happened in the last five minutes! Here sitting in my kitchen was a person I didn't even know existed and she is my mother-in-law, evidently! I was stunned and just sat there for a minute when I finally remembered my manners as a host.

"Can I get you something? Coffee, a beer, wine?"

"I'll share a beer with you, I can't usually drink a whole bottle or, I should say, I SHOULDN'T drink a whole bottle," She declared with a giggle, it was Sara's infectious little laugh that I remembered so well, one of the good memories.

I handed her a beer and opened one for myself.

"I owe you an explanation," she said after she took a small sip from the bottle. "I had Sara when I was fourteen years old. I didn't sleep around, oh no, I was a good girl! My step father came into my room one night and..." her voice caught for a moment, the memory still hard for her these years later "and raped me. He called it 'making love', HA! What a joke! He didn't know the first thing about love and I think he knew even less about sex!" She mocked wryly. "Anyway he came in many nights after that and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I told Mom and she didn't believe me, I told my Pastor and my teachers, none believed me. My step father was an important man, why would he do such a terrible thing!"

I just listened. I got the distinct feeling that very few people had ever listened to her story. She told it with less bitterness than I could have mustered had it happened to me but still she had a deep hurt there that no one had tried to sooth.

"It took me years of therapy and tears to function again normally as a woman. It was during that time I volunteered at the Hospital Day Care and discovered I have a talent for dealing with small children."

She looked up at me and took a deep swig of her beer, "I'm so sorry to unload that on you, you didn't need to hear that right now."

I really didn't mind, maybe her pain made mine seem a little less monolithic.

"Anyway," she continued, "they wouldn't let me keep Sara. I cried and cried but they insisted I give her up. She ended up in an orphanage. When that closed down she became a foster child and I had trouble keeping track of her. I met her once or twice and tried to tell her how sorry I was but she hated me and told me she never wanted to see me again."

"I tried to find her again and had just got a line on her when she disappeared from your house. I did find her on the street one more time but she saw me coming and went the other way and screamed at me to leave her alone. I think my presence added to her delusions. So I decided to stay away and just keep track as best I could. Then I heard of her death. I was there at the cemetery but you didn't see me. I stayed back a ways. You gave her a very nice ceremony, Gordon, I know it was hard for you."

"Yes, it was," was all I could say. I did vaguely remember seeing a slight figure behind a family mausoleum and thinking it strange.

She sat for a long moment and fidgeted with her necklace. I hadn't really looked at her closely until just then. She was really quite lovely, maybe even more beautiful that Sara. I figured for a moment: if she was fourteen when Sara was born that would make her 37 years old now only 7 or 8 years older than I. She looked much younger than 37. I knew women my age who looked older than her. She was a little shorter than Sara, maybe 5' 1" or 2 and quite petite. She had honey blond hair like Sara but she wore her's a little shorter to just at her shoulder with gentle waves and curls that framed her oval face. She had pleasant smile lines at the corner of each of her very round eyes. Her lashes must have been naturally long since she wore minimal makeup, if any at all. Her eyes were a deep blue and her eyebrows were neatly shaped. Her lips were pink and full, identical to Sara's and she had straight white teeth that shown whenever she smiled. Her smile reminded him of Sara's and that made her feel familiar.

Her shoulders were exposed by her sleeveless blouse of a pretty floral print of pink and red roses on a background of white daisies. She wore the blouse with the top two buttons undone showing a modest amount of her cleavage. Her breasts caused the top button that was fastened to pull tight across her chest. She had smaller breasts than Sara but not by much. Sara had been 5' 2" with 34C bra size, I knew this because I had looked in her underwear drawer for her sizes to buy her much needed bras and panties right after Gordy was born when she was too depressed to shop for herself. Amy's legs were quite long for such a short woman and gave her an elegant, graceful look. She had nice legs, their shape plainly visible from the tight denim dungarees she wore. She wasn't tall enough to be a model but she had the right proportions with all the curves in the right places.

I realized I had been staring at her when she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. I looked up at her to see she was looking intently at me with a small grin on her face. She had to know I was checking her out.

I blushed and cleared my throat, "So, why have you come here today?" It sounded rude and defensive and I regretted how I said it immediately but she didn't give any indication she was offended.

"I wanted to meet you and was hoping I could meet my grandkids and maybe offer to help you in some way."

"The kids are at my sister's for a day or two, while I get arrangements done, you know Social Security, insurance, death certificates and so on."

"Oh," she seemed disappointed. "Can I meet them soon?" She looked so lost I felt a surge of compassion for her...she was my mother-in-Law after all, my children's grandmother.

"I will pick them up tomorrow evening at my sister's, You can come by about 6:30 and see them and maybe help me put them to bed, if you like?"

"Oh that would be wonderful."

"What kind of help did you have in mind?"

"Help?"

"Yes, you offered to help in some way, what did you have in mind?"

"Well, I don't want to be presumptuous, but I have made my living as a nanny the last ten years or so. It occurs to me you may be in need of a nanny right now."

"I could definitely use one, the only problem is I can't afford a nanny."

"It's not a problem, I will work for room and board."

"You want to stay here?"

"I've been living in a motel room that I rent by the week and the week ends tomorrow so I could use some accommodations if you have the space?"

"I have an extra room right next to the kid's that just needs some sheets, and a pillow and you can be set, Do you want to see it?

"Sure." She said and scooted off the chair, she wasn't much taller than when she had been sitting. I touched her shoulder to guide her toward the hallway and goose bumps appeared on her arms.

"Oh sorry," I said, fearing the touch was too forward.

"For what?' She asked innocently, looking up at me with her beautiful blue and round eyes. The look was stunning, giving an impression of innocence and maybe even lust had the circumstances been different. I really doubt she realized how she had reacted to my touch.

"Oh nothing. Right this way," I motioned with my other hand as I kept my hand on the back of her shoulder. It felt nice to touch an adult who was soft and warm and who's voice was higher than my own.

I opened the door for her and let her enter the room as I held onto the door knob. She passed through and her shoulder brushed gently against my arm, probably by accident. She looked around and noticed the room had its own bathroom or rather it shared the bathroom with the kid's room.