That's My Girl

"The reason your parents stated for relinquishing you was their fear they were unfit as parents. They thought they would be unable to adequately raise you. They thought your adoption by a functioning family would be in your best interest. And you were adopted almost immediately by our Momma and Papa.

"That is the story told by these documents. For more details, read them carefully, then talk to Randy. By the way, Randy has absolutely zero knowledge of what I have done here. This is entirely my doing.

"I had the original documents destroyed for what I hope are good reasons. I want you to live your life, free of your murky history. I fear that if anyone found those documents, they could make our lives -- all of us -- a living hell.

"It would be so easy to destroy all we have. Incest accusations. Criminal charges. Predatory lawsuits. Horrible publicity. Trial in the media. Lily, and any further children, siezed and institutionalized, lost in the system. It would be utter disaster.

"With those files gone, you have a chance. A chance to be whomever you want to be, starting as Natasha Ives of West Samuels, Idaho and San Francisco, California. You may be happy with this identity. You may want to be another person. It is all up to you. But you will never be forced to be either victim or villain.

"How will you handle this information? I have just one recommendation, or maybe it is a dying wish: You should love Randy and Lily and any other children with all your heart for as long as you live. Randy is about the best man I have ever known. Love him and cherish him and never leave him.

"I wish I could have presented all this to you face-to-face, not just in a dead file. But your reading this means it can never happen. Be strong. Be brave. That is how you were raised. And know that I have always loved you."

Jenna's signature was clear and crisp.

"Oh fuck," Susanne whispered. She knelt and hugged Tasha tightly.

Tasha's eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. Processing this was NOT a pleasant experience for her. I saw her shiver and convulsively grip Susy's hand.

Tasha eventually opened her eyes and looked at me. She looked for a long time.

"Sit the fuck down, Randy," she said. "Right there. Now tell me the fucking truth. Why did you and my mother -- I won't say Mom, my Mom is in Idaho -- why did you two abandon me, give me up? What was wrong with me?"

The fears emerged: the trauma of abandonment, like it's her fault. Oh shit.

We were all naked or mostly so. I looked at the sisters, my wives, staring fiercely at me. I had an answer, an honest answer. I opened my mouth to speak.

We heard the mini-lift arrive and our door open. Trinh breezed in, carrying Lillian, the Sprout, now sprouting nicely.

Trinh took one look at us. She felt waves of tension. She wordlessly took Lily to her room and set her in the soon-to-be-outgrown crib. Trinh pulled off her outer clothes, then came to us and looked more closely. She sat beside me on the couch.

"Okay, give. Tell me. Now." Trinh was pretty damn smart.

Susanne passed the hand-printed pages to Trinh. Nobody spoke while she read.

Trinh looked up. Her bright eyes took us all in.

"I think I know where you are here. Randy needs to explain himself, right?"

I didn't feel a headache, or nausea, or sharp pains, but my body felt like it had turned inside-out and back again. Isn't passing through a space-time-warp supposed to twist chordate nervous systems like that? I shook myself, focused, forced myself to talk.

"Mary Jane and I were really, really dumb kids, and totally mismatched. We hooked up for lousy reasons, almost by accident." I sighed. "We knew each other for a couple years in high school before we fucked bareback and she got pregnant. We married because that was the right thing to do.

"After Elise, now Tasha, was born, we lived pretty shittily. I had dropped out of high school, had no job skills, just worked at day labor while we collected welfare. Our friends were drunks and dopers. We stayed stoned a lot.

"Welfare counselors sent me to adult high school and then some job training that never worked out. Welfare expired after a year and a half. I kept at minimum-wage day labor that just barely paid for food, wine, and a slum room overrun with roaches in a rooming house full of junkies.

"MJ and I were dumb but not totally stupid, nor amoral. We realized our lives were shit. We realized baby Elise would have a shitty life. We could not do that to her -- to you, Tasha. That's why we sent you to Social Services."

I locked my eyes on Tasha. "We did what we did because we cared for you too much to do anything else." She blinked a few times and held my gaze.

"Mary Jane and I stayed together awhile after the adoption. Then we just fell apart. We divorced. She married my best friend. They have kids. That's nice.

"I haven't contacted her since. For some years, I was in touch with her sister Beth, a minor celebrity. We had been high school friends and were on good terms. We corresponded often. Then Beth got married to another minor celeb, and MJ refused to let me attend the wedding. I haven't talked to any of their family since then.

"Tash, you're lucky you don't look like us. MJ was short, blond, Germanic. I was tall, black-haired, Dutch-Anglo. You must have caught all our recessive genes in just the best ways. You are so beautiful!" Tasha's Celtic freckles flushed.

"I didn't know you were my daughter until just now. I had hints -- your age, your birthday, the way your Papa looked at me. He knew my name, I'm sure. If his mind had been intact, he would have talked. And Jenna would have produced her papers. And we might have lived very differently -- and Jenna might still be alive."

Tears ran down my face as I spoke.

Trinh held my hand. She broke into my monologue.

"I haven't known you all for a long time but I feel like I've always known you, always loved you. I feel like we're all just one big beating heart.

"I know Ran would do nothing to hurt any of us. Whatever he did long ago is done. Whatever he did last week is done. Whatever we all do from now on -- we need to agree on. We need to be together.

"Tash, I know your pain. I can even label your pain: abandonment issues. You've probably always felt guilty, and inferior, not good enough -- if you were good enough as a person, why did your parents throw you away? What did you do to them?

"Randy just answered that. It was their failure, not yours. You bear no blame.

"Tash, you have choices. Your inside voices are shouting at you. Which voice will you listen to? The voice of pain might tell you to run away. The voice of despair might tell you to hurt yourself. Other voices might lead you into the darkness.

"Or you can choose to listen to the voice of love, and accept that Randy loves you. Susy and Lily and I love you and need you. You are part of us. We would all be empty and desolate without you.

"That's not just your own voice. That's Jenna's voice. The voice of love."

Trinh held her hands out to Tasha.

"Come here, my friend, my sister, my lover. Come to your husband."

Susanne squeezed Tasha's hand tight as a vice. Tasha looked at us all. She rose and stood naked in front of me, her fine red bush just before my face. I stood too.

"I love you," Tasha said, and embraced me, and cried. I held her, and Susy and Trinh held us,and our tears flowed together, washing us clean.

Then Trinh tickled Tasha and drew a quick giggle. Susanne caught on, and tickled me and Tash. I tickled back. We were soon all writhing and laughing.

Not much later, we were all totally naked, and in the big bed. Soon after, we were all crying, but cries of joy and love, not anguish.

We came, and cried, and cooled off, and calmed down, and conferred.

Trinh was in her usual naughty joking mood. "If you gals are my sisters now, and Randy here is Tash's father, does that mean we should call him Daddy?" Her eyes gleamed evilly.

Tasha was somber. "I had a Papa all my life. I don't know if I'm ready for a Daddy, especially a Daddy I'm in bed with, and loving, and fucking."

"I can't think of this tall hunk of man-meat as Daddy," Susanne said. "I only know him as my husband, and brother-in-law, and lover, and best male friend ever. He's my man, our man. He's just Randy."

"Well, not at the moment I'm not too randy," I joked, "but give me some time and I'll be randy enough to keep you all happy." I got punched.

Tasha was still serious. "I'm thinking about my pregnancy, about the baby I'll have that will also be my father's baby. I worry about the baby, and genetics."

"Stop worrying," Trinh said. "I read the genetic analysis. You have very very little chance of any hereditary problems. Any kids should be okay."

"That's great," Tasha said, "but I also have another scene in my mind. I saw that old noir film CHINATOWN. There's a scene where the Jack Nicholson character is interrogating the Faye Dunaway character about the young woman in Dunaway's house, and the role of her evil father, the John Huston character.

"Nicholson demands, 'Who is she?' Dunaway says, 'She's my sister.'

"He slaps her. 'She's my daughter,' Dunaway says.

"He slaps her again. 'She's my sister AND my daughter.'

"He's stunned. He realizes Huston raped his own daughter decades ago; he's been raping her ever since then at least.

"When my baby is born, will I be the Dunaway woman? And agonize that my daughter is also my sister? I know Randy hasn't raped me, hasn't used me. I know we are where we are because we didn't know who we were. There's no evil intent, just love. I know I need to give forgiveness.

"But that's the video in my brain. It keeps replaying and rewinding in endless loops. I don't know how to stop it from haunting me."

We all held Tasha. We did not speak, not in words, nothing so limiting. We just radiated our love.

Trinh worked the greatest miracles on Tasha. Trinh's training focused on child development but also included clinical psychology and counseling. As our in-house shrink, she kept us in tune with ourselves and each other, and helped us smooth our rough edges, and generally lubricated all our interactions.

And Trinh helped Tasha come to terms with herself. Tash finally dumped a great load of guilt and anxiety and anger and low self-esteem she had carried with her ever since she realized she was adopted.

Tash finally felt worthy as a person, as a mother-to-be, as part of a strong loving family. And as both my daughter and my wife.

Trinh's counseling closed Tasha's wounds, and our love washed and healed them.

*****That was a few years ago. Tasha kept her identity, and she birthed a gorgeous daughter, Alicia. A few months later, Susanne gave us lively twin boys, Jason and Jeffrey, and Trinh squirted-out yet another daughter, inquisitive Nicola.

All my women returned to The Pill. Three girls, two boys. Enough kids for now. Really!

Jenna's life insurance payout bought us a big-enough house in Pacific Heights. We named it Jenna's Joynt. We can see the Golden Gate from the back deck.

We helped Chet and Mark buy a smaller adjacent house, with a back yard adjoining ours, for their own growing family -- an ADOPTED family. All our kids are being raised together as one brood of siblings superintended by six mamas and papas.

We host regular and irregular visits by the Ives family. Yes, all uncountable dozens of them at one time or another. Big sister Lynette nearly lives here now. I think she wants to be the matriarch of the local clan.

We party a lot -- nicely in public, obscenely in private.

I think we have all come to terms with who and where we are. My wives don't call me Daddy but my kids do. I love that. My wives sometimes call me Shithead or Dork. I usually deserve it. I can live with that.

I look at either of my sons and I think, "That's my boy."

I look at a wife, or a daughter, and I think, "That's my girl".

My secret has been unlocked. And I don't hurt so much now.

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