My back hurts. It is a sharp pain that keeps cutting across. I lean back and allow my back to touch the soft cushion of the chair and then i throw my head back. I know what the problem is but i shall not be reaching out to unclasp my bra. Not right now in the middle of the church service anyway.
My mother is giving me one of her side looks, the ones that say "You better get your act together or there shall be hell to pay" I do not want to be paying hell, i cannot afford the kind of price it asks. I sit up in my chair and focus my eyes on the shoes of the man in front of me. He has been pacing for a while and i get tired just looking at him. Everything tires me these days.
I feel guilty for being here. I think that the people who should be here are the ones who have serious things to ask of God. I wish i could just run out and release the bra for a few precious minutes of relief.
The first time i felt the pain was last week. It was so bad i couldn't keep still. I kept walking up and down at every opportunity. Eventually i figured that the pain was from the bra. When i told my sister, she laughed and said i was growing up and my breasts had grown bigger. She said i needed a new bra.
The preacher motions to me and i know it is my mothers favorite time of the service. The time when i get up and sing my heart out. I love the words that i sing. This wonderful God who saved us and paid the price. The one who loves us unconditionally, the one who is father to the fatherless. My father died last year and so it is just us kids and my mother. He was killed in a car accident. My mother is still grieving. She grieves different from me.
Our house is a little distance from the church so after the service, after my mother has waited her turn to greet the preacher and have him say how beautifully i sing, we walk quietly home. The twins are nine years old, i am the middle child at seventeen while my sister is 19. I do not know how it is that no one else in my family can sing but i will say proudly that i sing like it is what i was born to do.
My back still hurts and i am quick to take off the bra when i get to my room. I immediately feel dizzy and sit by the bed. I am not sure if i should tell my mother but i hate to worry her with everything that is on her plate.
It is three weeks later and i am laughing at myself. Off course i am pregnant. I did the did, did i not? What did i expect? I am laughing but i know that i am in big trouble. I am laughing but i know it is going to break my mother. I am laughing but i know that i shall not be able to stand in front of the church and sing again soon. I am laughing but i know that i have let my family down. I think the tears coming from my eyes are real, even as i laugh.
My mother has not lashed out as i expected she would. She just stared at me after i told her and a while later, whispered that it was her fault. We have been sitting outside the church for a while now, waiting in line to see the preacher. She wants to tell him before this coming Sunday service. She is holding my hand and telling me it is going to be okay. I honestly have never seen this side of my mother. I thought she was going to disown me.
She tells the preacher that she feels she neglected me after my dad died. That she climbed into a shell and forgot about us. It is the truth but i still do not see how it is her fault that i am pregnant. My boyfriend, well he is not really my boyfriend, (seeing as it was just one night) is somewhere that i do not know. It was one night. I was at a house party, and there was lots to drink. I like to drink. I was happy and lost in the moment. I didn't understand why everyone at home was grieving and walking around sad and yet it was months since the burial. I am certain the boy doesn't remember me. I start to laugh again and i can see the concern etched on my mothers face.
I remember the day my mother got the phone call. She didn't say a word to us, just rushed out to the hospital. We found out later that evening when she came home, face swollen, with our aunt and uncle supporting her. She looked at us and started to cry. She kept saying over and over that she did not know what to do with us. That she did not know why God had taken him and left her.
My aunt explained it all and for a few moments, we cried and held each other. The twins and i eventually stopped crying. My sister who was much closer to my father, the apple of his eye, we used to say, sat with my mother longer and they just wailed and held each other.
The preacher tells her now to allow me to let it all out. I do not know what you let out in laughter. I also do not yet know that i am crying as i laugh. He says that this is me letting out the pain that i held on to so that i would not accept that my daddy was gone. I notice that i am crying when my mother wraps her arms around me and i feel her dress press against my wet cheek.
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