Imperfect Ch. 11

Now suddenly we were officially a lesbian couple- expecting a baby. People assumed all sorts of things to fill in the details. I found it hard to ignore them and just smile, especially as my belly grew and my hormones swung wildly from here to there. I also found it hard to think of myself as half of a lesbian couple- just saying it felt so political- when I had always considered myself nothing more and nothing less than simply sexually open minded.

At first I insisted that I wasn't gay. People were confused.

"Are you living with a woman?"

"Yes."

"So is she your friend or your lover?"

"Both."

"But you're not a lesbian?"

"No, I don't consider myself to be a lesbian?"

"So you're bi?"

"I don't consider myself to be bi either."

"But you're in a lesbian partnership, right?" they would ask, genuinely confused.

"I guess you could say that," I would concede.

"So you're a lesbian- right?"

At this point I would usually sigh and say, "I guess that's the simplest way to put it- yeah."

Over time my answer was boiled down to the much more simple, "yeah," and everything else that came before it was just skipped for the sake of brevity. And to keep me from pulling my hair out.

My mother had the hardest time understanding. I had found prince charming, but managed to let him slip though my fingers. Even though I was having his child. (She knew nothing about the married friend who was another likely candidate for fatherhood.) Now I was living with a woman. "What will your father say?" she guilt-ed me with when I informed her of that bit of news. "What are you bringing my grandchild into?" she lamented day after day when she called to check in on me. She was driving me out of my mind with constant questions and recriminations. Still, she was exited about becoming a grandmother, despite her apprehensions. She barely knew from one day to the next how she felt about the situation, and refused to tell anyone in our hometown that I was 'shacking up with some lesbian corruptor' as she called my beloved Zoë.

Though not to her face- my mother was a dear thing to Zoë and I think that she even liked her on a personal level, but not as a life partner to her only daughter. A daughter who was destined to marry a rich art collector who would take care of her so that she could produce many grandchildren. Zoë was no rich art collector, and she didn't have the right tools for the rest of it.

She clung to her dreams for me, insisting that Zoë was some kind of fad. "I read that all the college kids try it at least once," she once said dismissively- conveniently ignoring the fact that I had long graduated from college. Still, she was sure that lesbian romance and illegitimate children were a phase that would pass, and it would be unnecessary to alert the town gossips. It would all blow over, and her fairy tale world would come true for me. Even if they were wished that I had never made for myself, but wishes she had conferred on me long ago.

The months leading up to the delivery were long indeed. There was much uncertainty, but at least I knew that Zoë would love and support me no matter what. I had security in that.

Zoë's house wasn't very big, so we decided to start looking for a family size home- with room for a studio, so we could stop paying on a whole other apartment. I already had some savings, so we considered our options of either buying or renting, and decided that we would buy. We planned to raise this child for at least 18 years, and we wanted to be able to give him or her some sense of stability in what was likely to be a tumultuous childhood. It was a huge step for us, neither of us having made such a large purchase ever, and here we were, doing it together. It made us realize the finality of our decision, the weight and meaning of all that we were about to embark on.

It wasn't difficult getting the loan, however we found to our surprise that finding a house would be. There was quite a lot more resistance than we expected. Our town was a fairly progressive, liberal minded college town- or so we thought until we tried to find a neighborhood that wasn't hostile to the idea of us relocating there.

We found that an amazing number of people really didn't mind us being what we were, they weren't against us being a couple or having a baby together, they just didn't know how our presence was going to change the dynamic of their community- or what they might tell there children about us. Even among the open minded, it seemed there was fear.

We didn't want to be crusaders and insist on our right to live in a neighborhood that didn't want us there. We wanted to find a warm and welcoming home for ourselves and our baby. We kept our faith that somewhere, someday soon, we would find that place, and that it truly did exist.

At last we found a slightly run down community who's residence for the most part were young twenties and rather bohemian in attitude. There was a real experimental feel about the place and we were welcomed with a warm attitude of 'we don't have things figured out- we don't know everything all ready; so why would we tell you that your way is wrong when we don't know which way is right." There were a lot of artist types and even a few that were more or less simply shiftless. It was nothing to write home about- not to my mom anyway- but it felt remarkably like home to us. And we were grateful for the accepting atmosphere.

The house itself had three bedrooms, a roomy kitchen and living room, a porch with a decorative wooden rail and a big square back yard. Nothing was new and quite a few things either needed repair, or would soon but it was far from condemned. We were surprised that we could afford it. We were so exited, we just scooped it up.

We had thought, since the bank approved us for a loan and we found a house, that we could move in quickly before the time came for the baby to come. Wow, were we wrong about that! The process of purchasing a house is so harrowing, and so time consuming that I won't bore you with the details except to say that we felt quite deflated when we realized how long we were going to have to wait. And relieved that we had started as soon as we had.

The pregnancy itself was a healthy one, and physically not as bad as many, or so I hear. I was nauseous a lot, and much warmer than everyone else and had night twitches and muscle cramps. But I was lucky to escape without swollen hands or feet, varicose veins, or a host of other uncomfortable and stressful complications. I ate well, and continued to work. Zoë looked after my health as much as I did, making sure I got plenty of milk and dairy and fresh fruit and of course fiber. Even as my belly grew, the two of us grew closer.

We made frequent visits to the homes of our soon to be neighbors, who were as eager as we were for our new arrival. Actually, their excitement was what helped me forget my misgivings and fears much of the time and embrace my growing belly and changing life.

Dexter and Ilene were the neo-hippie couple across the street. They wore bell-bottoms and leather fringe and bead shirts found at Goodwill. They had a very non-materialistic view on life, and were really big on recycling.

Janice and Menache where kind of hippy-is too, but they bought all the new wave hippy styles. Janice was a potter, and Menache worked in the city. He was a political lobbyist and was paid very well. They were the 'rich couple' on the block. Which meant they were still pretty poor by the rest of the world's standards. They had a little boy who was 2 and a baby girl.

The third neighbor we were close with was Miss Henderson. She was a sixty year old novelist, who pretty much always said what was on her mind. She like me, had a very open attitude toward her sexuality, and even when we met her had two female lovers and one male lover. Miss Henderson had never been married and informed us that she never intended too either. Her hobby was playing the piano and she was quite good. Her three lover's had far-flung interests as well. The man in her life built quality hardwood furniture and was a part time travel photographer. He was a young man of 43. He also was a gardening nut and raised prize winning roses. In his spare time he liked to make macramé plant holders!

Miss Henderson's two female lovers were as different as night and day, and both closer to her own age range. Matilda was the young and feminine one, with shoulder length wavy brown hair. She was 56. Katherine was 58 and full of piss and vinegar. She dressed simply, never putting on airs, never bothering with the slightest bit of make-up, indeed she thought moisturizing lotion was a luxury, which she occasionally indulged in. The first time I met her, I was taken aback. She was clearly a woman- and she had a beauty that was not only external, but seemed to radiate from within. Her long hair she wore pinned up, but she refused to cut it. She was extremely brusque to the point were she seemed rude, and that's what had taken me off guard about her. I thought she must surely hate me, but I found out later from Miss Henderson that she was quite fond of me. It was something I never would have guessed. And I had to learn very quickly to read between the lines with her.

Sometimes a group of us would get together in one of the houses for a game of Rummy. I wasn't very good at it, but I enjoyed the company. Sometimes we would bring Glen or Guy or even Simone or Chase and we all quickly became one big semi-dysfunctional group of mostly artists and free spirits. Simone and Chase were clearly the 'straight men' of the group, but we loved them just as much as the others.

We used to joke that even if we didn't end up moving in, we would all still be close fiends. Which was funny until we almost didn't get the house.

At the last minute the bank informed us that there were some problems that could potentially make the entire deal fall through. We were close to due date, and very tied up with last minute preparations. We were very scared that we just weren't going to be able to balance everything out and be able to salvage our claim on the house. It was Miss Henderson's friend Katherine that pulled us up out of the fire at the last minute. It turned out that she had some connections and she really wanted to see us in the neighborhood. I was so exited when I got the news that things could once again move forward, I considered hugging her, but one look at her told me that was a very bad idea. Instead I told Miss Henderson in private how much we appreciated it, and she passed on the information.