Golden Child

Mom, I really do have to give you credit. All of these years, you have honestly tried not to show that Bayley is your favorite, but I have always known. You do try so hard with the others, but your eyes light up naturally when she sits next to you. I think that you see yourself in her, your oldest granddaughter, despite your differences. You see the spunk that bubbles up in her to defy expectations and stick to her own ideas of fairness, the way that animals approach her, knowing that she understands them on a nonverbal level, and the lift of her chin as she digs down deep to brace herself and face a challenge. You also marvel at her grace, her empathy, her comfort in her own skin – things you never permitted yourself.

When Amelia and I were growing up, you were always so worried – about right and wrong, about little girls who choose the wrong one. We were raised on your stories like fairy tales warning us not to wander into the woods. The week after your 15th birthday, your parents had packed you off to live with Aunt Alice until you finished school. You hadn’t done anything. It was for what you might do, for the shame that teenage girls bring upon their families. After all, Linda, next door, had suddenly gone to study in Chicago with her cousins for six months in the middle of her junior year. Grandmother couldn’t have that stigma, with people looking at her the way that she looked at Linda’s mother.

I always hated them for that and for how it branded you even though you never did anything to deserve it. It made you rigid, self-critical, and willing to sacrifice for appearances. I can say that now, but I was too busy fighting your expectations when I was one of those teenage girls. You could never really talk to us. You were never able to tell me how to stay out of trouble. You would just shut down. And of course, I found a lot of trouble.

It was never on purpose. I just seemed to attract friends with something broken inside. Maybe I was used to dealing with your damage and didn’t question them. They needed me. They needed me to go with them to get their clothes back from their dad’s house instead of going to second period math. They needed me to talk to Mr. Brown at the counter in the front of his store while they lifted pop-tarts from the back for tomorrow’s breakfast. They needed me to hold their backpack and what it contained when we got caught cutting through the new subdivision on our way home after curfew.

Amelia never caused you those headaches. She didn’t push back or ask questions. She was my golden little sister, the one who actually did her Science Fair projects (instead of dropping Menthos into Coke the night before), who practiced for her piano lessons, who could defuse us.

I was stubborn enough to make it into the community college in town, motivated largely by being able to prove everyone wrong, mostly you. Not that community college was supposed to be for us – we were destined for loftier ambitions – but it could have been worse. The one who believed in me was Ami. We balanced each other behind your back. Looking back, maybe you knew and just didn’t want to examine it too closely. She was honestly the reason that I managed to graduate at all, especially that last semester, and in turn I picked her up from theater practice and her boyfriend’s house – the one you didn’t like and thought she had broken up with.

Having you distracted by my mistakes took some of the pressure off Ami. She never felt as scrutinized as I had, although I don’t know any more whether you actually were easier on her or she just didn’t mind as much. She breezed into college on a scholarship about the time that I managed to pull together enough credits to land an internship with a mid-grade public relations firm. I had always been at my best working with people and figuring out what they wanted.

You looked relieved when we came home at Christmas. Both of your girls were moving in the right direction, and you could maybe begin to relax. Ami was exhausted after her first round of finals, and I couldn’t stay more than a few days, but it is still a warm memory. You had pulled out all the stops, decorating the whole house and baking, remembering our favorite cookies and putting real thought into the stockings that you insisted on hanging.

Then I did it again. Bayley made her appearance the following May. You were shocked, disappointed, scandalized, but somehow not surprised. You didn't ask who her father was. You wouldn’t have understood if I had told you, and he wasn’t going to be part of her life, so it didn't matter. Later, when Dan and I were married long enough for Max and Emma to be born, he was a far better influence in Bay’s life than her biological father ever could have been.

But Dan and I didn’t last, not that it was his fault – at least not most of it. So there I was, a single mother three times over, working part-time and figuring out how to raise them on next to nothing. Not at all how it was supposed to go. Ami and I were still close, but she was busy with her research out in California and her new life there. She was still my biggest fan and able to make the kids giggle when she called, the cool aunt who sent care packages for them and sometimes money for me.

You had your first fall in the spring after Dad died, about the time that our landlord sold the house we rented. It seemed logical to move in with you – logical to anyone but us. After living my whole life pushing back against your values, here I was crawling back with my tail between my legs. No “real” job, no money, three children that I was struggling to support, even with what I got from Dan. And my bear cubs were boisterous and adventurous rather than docile; smart and compassionate but undisciplined.

Surprisingly, it has worked, mostly thanks to Bayley. I think that no one can stand up to her, honestly. She finds ways to make things fit. You will never admit it, but she had you wrapped around her finger within the first week. She is softer with you than I can be, and she buffers you against her brother and sister, finding compromise and compatibility where there would otherwise be rough patches. I know that you can’t believe that after our lifetime of disconnects, my oldest, born-out-of-wedlock child can bring us closer. I see you looking for yourself in her smile and her walk, and hearing my laugh in hers.

You have been a far better grandmother than I remember you being a mother. Maybe it’s just easier with a generation in between. Maybe you see other possibilities in them. Maybe I just broke all your taboos and wiped the slate clean. You ask them questions at the dinner table, eager for their answers. How was your Great Depression presentation? Did Mrs. French find Josh’s frog after it got out? When are auditions, again? You care, and you engage with them. It astounds me, but I bask in the glow of the interplay between you, letting it splash over me as well.

You and I are also reaching a tentative balance. I am learning to stop jumping defensively to conclusions, to see you as a person rather than as my mother. It helps. I have always connected with people. I just couldn’t bring myself to see you outside of the rigid frame of reference that we both had built. Bayley, my golden child, has a softening effect on everyone. Her brother and sister are warm, bubbly, brave. They haven’t defined themselves yet, although they will. Bayley just shines.

Except that she is not mine. I mean, of course she is mine: She has my strength and the confidence that you never could encourage in me. I have cheered her unladylike softball games, caught toads with her in the back yard, and talked about the mean girls that you couldn’t help me to avoid. But I was not the one who came home pregnant at Christmas that year.

Ami couldn’t tell you. It would have broken both of you. Not that I would have cared what you thought, and I hate to admit that part of me would have been glad to see your world tarnished by someone other than me. But Ami was sick with terror. I was already the black sheep. It was easy to tell you that I had hidden everything, just one more screw-up that I didn’t share with you, and to let her continue being the golden child. I did it for her. At least, I told myself that at first. I don't like to imagine my life if I hadn't. I know that it has eaten her up over the years, but she has been good to all three of them, and when she comes home, she puts on a good enough face that Max and Emma don’t suspect. Besides, with her being married to Drake and having the new baby, there is plenty of distraction to go around now.

I don’t know whether we will tell Bay. Certainly not for a long time. It would turn so many lives upside down, and at least for now it’s not worth it. You and I have just started to learn to live with each other, and I don’t know whether I am strong enough to tell you this, to give up the best thing that I have ever done in your eyes. I have always been able to be strong for everyone else, but so many times I worry that the détente we have now is founded on Bayley being my daughter, that it wouldn’t survive the knowledge that she isn’t. As always between us, the linchpin is not you, and it is not me. It is a third force between us that joins us and allows us to move freely. My golden child who is mine and not mine.