Bratton Street x 3

[Teresa]

The house at 2839 Bratton Street was difficult to recognize when we drove by yesterday, the trees so much taller, the bricks warmer from an interior somehow more occupied.

 

It was the first house we lived in when we moved to SugarLand in July of 2003, one month before we married, a house rented from an attractive Chinese woman who thanked us profusely for taking care of it, though later she would keep most of our deposit to pay landscapers to tend her neglected yard. 

 

During our six months on Bratton, my thirty-nine year old body was altered by a surgeon named Rosenfeld who reversed my tubal ligation, a gift and promise to the man I married, his dream, which was not negotiable.

 

The day after surgery, my pelvic area littered with tubes and black rubber bladders squeezed for pain relief, I cooked bacon and eggs for my husband.  I was happy the surgery was over, that I'd crossed the bridge I was afraid to cross, only I was mistaken; the bridge still loomed ahead.

 

Within six weeks I was pregnant, numbed by the shock of a pink smile or plus sign -- I can't remember which.

 

~~~

 

I lost the first baby, which wasn't a baby at all but a blighted ovum or frightening mass of chaos.  It was my first miscarriage which felt like a mini-labor, still painful enough that I couldn't walk during contractions or drive without squinting as invisible hands forced me open.

 

I remember resting on the brown leather sofa, the waves of pain that were to my mind a relief.  My first two children were almost grown; I was not ready to raise another.

 

Six months later I was pregnant again, forty weeks of toggling between joy and despair, the worst moments spent focused on the baby's occasional stillness then wondering if she was still alive, just shy of hoping she was not.

 

The depression continued postpartum, my autoimmunity attacking in bloody patches of psoriasis on both elbows, mastitis fevers and joint pain, then throughout my child's first year of life this inescapable apathy she must have sensed, her tiny being slowly convinced that, from conception, she was not lovable.

 

~~~

 

She has always talked too much, her chatter and performances like a chronic need for approval, for assurance that she not only exists, but is worthy of existence.

 

She is likely the most beautiful child in the world, in the history of the world, so bright and eager to love.  But there are moments when I wrap my arms around this perfection and still feel the hollow between us, some gaping hole that feels both solid and empty.

 

I often admire her credits, splints on a soft doll -- her trophy won in SugarLand's "Cutest Contest", colorful silk ribbons for dance, art and The Hen & Her Chick on piano; I stare at the photos of her on horseback, or the copyrighted video of this black-haired beauty in aqua tulle, this Alice In Wonderland on Houston's famous Wortham stage.

 

I know I love her, deep down in contiguous moments that run backward to the beginning of time, the beginning of me inside my own mother, the accident my mother referred to as a "surprise".

 

I wonder if my mother struggled to accept my mirror, an image too soon or too late, the one of too many who would talk too much, who would never stop dancing for the mother, the teacher, the boss and every man, the continuous child born to please an empty house.

 

[Stephen Torelli]

Sincere and deeply felt. Excellent work, Teresa.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

Teresa, I agree with Gita.

[Gita]

I think that the memoir deserves a chapter on The House on Bratton Street. If not a chapter, then a good piece of one because there are so many women out there who have gone through similar experiences when  they changed their reproductive plans for another person. And I've never seen it told better.

 

[Mike Handley]

Words fail me, in this forum. But another time and place ...

[Jeanette Cheezum]

But ugly is part of life.  I guess I was confused and thought it would be a major factor.

[Teresa]

These thoughts came to me when I flashed on my best friend's relationship with her mother.  She was the youngest of four children -- boy, girl, boy, girl.  The relationship had always been strained, but the mother tormented Deedee, beat her with a broom, accused her of being a slut and forced her to have a pelvic exam to prove it.  Deedee was a virgin.  When her Uncle Niles died in 1996, Deedee asked me to go with her to Bardstown, Kentucky because she didn't want to face her mother alone.  While we were there I saw a photograph of Deedee's mother, age seven or so, and her resemblance to Deedee was so obvious.  So I pointed this out to the mother, smiled and said, "The two of you look so much alike."  The mother's face was a blank.  Nothing registered.  I thought that showing her how much Deedee was a part of her would open the relationship.  Of the four children, Deedee was the kindest, the most beautiful, the funniest, you-name-it.  But she was invisible to her mother.  The mother didn't want to look at herself.  This event wasn't recalled until about a year ago and the link scared me.  My situation is not nearly as severe.  It's just not optimal but I'm working to make it so.  It's still early.  We learn as we go.  And Bill ~ I thought about that and many of those same conflicting emotions went through me -- disgust being one of them.  My aunt and uncle adopted me.  This is becoming an ex-issue.  None of it will be saved.  It would never make any sense to her.  It barely makes any sense to me.  But I don't want her to ever question her self worth or my devotion to her.  My mother left, in spirit then body before she died.  I would never, ever do that.  And Jeanette ~ I doubt this would be in the memoir, not in this form.  It's ugly but needed to be explored -- among writer friends.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

This is heartfelt and I am proud of you for sharing.  Is this part of your memoir? You had my attention from beginning to end.

[Gita]

Just in terms of writing, sections one and two are a good fit,  whereas section three wanders  away into speculation. But you redeem it with  "the continuous child born to please an empty house."  We all know people who remain continuous children with mother or father issues that stunt them. 

I wanted more scenes from the early days of the marriage in that house on Bratton Street. I wonder what they will show...

[Bill Floyd]

Wow.  You use the device of the rental house to great effect there at the end.  As an adopted child, this one made me feel a host of conflicting emotions.  You're taking the admonition to work from a place of honesty to heart, and it's already paying dividends.  I wonder, though, what your daughter will say about it when she's old enough to read and understand.