There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me Read Online Free PDF

from such different social backgrounds and social status, it seemed an inappropriate coupling. Basically, it just wouldn’t look good for my dad to father a child with somebody from Newark. He discreetly slid her an envelope and asked her to take care of the “situation.”
    According to my mother, she nodded in agreement, explained that she fully understood the state of affairs, took the envelope, and departed. She had no intention of getting an abortion but saw no reason not to take the cash. Instead of going to a doctor, she proceeded immediately to a favorite antique store. There she used the money in the envelope to buy a cherrywood oval coffee table whose four sides folded up with brass brackets to form a sort of connected tray. She was not surprised or angry but defiant as always and knew she wanted the baby and that was that. It’s funny—that table would become a favorite standing tool for me as I grew up. I remember teething on it and loving to repeatedly fold the sides up and down and up and down. The table saved my life and helped me to stand.
    I didn’t learn the truth until recently, but Mom, after buying her new coffee table, suddenly decided to play hard to get. She stopped talking to my father entirely. She said she didn’t want anything from my dad but just wanted the baby. She refused to see or even speak to him. Mom was trying to get Dad to realize that he could not livewithout her. My father, distraught by the pregnancy, and afraid for his future, he went to Mass (for the first and last time) and received communion the day he found out about the pregnancy. He was heartsick. He was evidently so in love with my mother that he sent her flowers galore and even sent my godmother, Lila, a cactus garden because she was from Arizona. As much in love with my mom as he was, my father was still not ready to get married or be a dad. He knew Mom would not terminate anything except their relationship, but he was extremely conflicted. Mom cut him off for a few months and hoped he would miss her enough to propose. She made it very clear to everyone that the baby was here to stay, and both my father and grandfather knew it.
    When my mother originally told me this story, she had altered it entirely and decided to tell me that my father had left the country during this time. She claimed that when he returned and saw that she had not had an abortion, he proposed. She said that she just calmly waited for his return and enjoyed the life growing inside of her.
    My mother’s version of the story has my dad going away for a few months and eventually not being able to stay separated from her. Like a comic-book detective, she loved declaring, “Your dad couldn’t stay away from me, and I knew he’d eventually come sniffin’ around again.”
    Mom continued on with her altered story, adding that when Dad did return to rekindle, he was shocked to see her big belly and immediately demanded she marry him. Mom loved the dramatic addition of saying that Dad thought he’d return and she would be thin again and without child, but when he saw that she was hugely pregnant, wanted to be a family.
    In her version of the story, she opened the door and he turned white as a sheet. “Jesus Christ, Teri. . . . I thought . . .” Not ever being one to be told what to do, Mom reveled in the idea that she could be so in control and shocking.
    But the truth was Mom avoided him until he said he wanted to marry her. I guess she broke him down. He did love and miss her, even though he wasn’t really ready for any of this. In the end, Mom happened to be desperately in love with my father. Once he claimed he wanted to get married, she ended his solitary confinement.
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    Dad bought a small diamond solitaire engagement ring from Tiffany (that would eventually be thrown out the seventh-floor window during a fight between my parents, but that’s another story). And one day in April, Mom, dressed in a gray wool gabardine