More from Charlie's Diary

I don’t know what to think.  If this were a soap opera instead of real life, I’d probably have a nervous breakdown and start having an affair or something.  Nikki says I ought to “confront” my father.  Karen thinks I ought to try to track down my sister.  But I’m really not that interested; I spent so many years repressing my curiosity and feelings about the whole thing that I don’t have the energy.

Every summer my father would fly out to see my sister for two weeks.  He would call home every couple days, but he never mentioned her.  As I grew older, I wondered if my father’s first marriage was simply an elaborate ruse designed to fool either my mother or me or both of us.  Maybe he had a girlfriend that he saw once a year.  Maybe money that supposedly went for child support was just his fun money.  My mother was easy to fool, because it never occurred to her that people would say things that weren’t true; that would defeat the whole purpose of communication.  You’d have thought this would have been great for me, but I stopped taking advantage of it because I felt too guilty; it was liking stealing cookies from a blind child's lunchbox.

This was before I knew the story of his first wife and the Trashing of the Offices.  Janet said that she’s not surprised with all that was going on in those days.  There were even parties where people would pair off with someone else’s spouse.  Not that she ever did; it creeped her out and anyway she’d never been invited to one. At the time, everyone in her crowd had young children and they were all too tired.  She supposed she should have suspected something when Doug told her he thought it would be “interesting.”  But at least he’d had the decency to wait until the kids were teenagers.

Kate, of course, was very concerned and kept asking me how I felt about things.  I said I didn’t know.   She kept eyeing the box of tissues and offering me tea.  Then she asked me if I wanted to go out and get a drink or a hot fudge sundae.  I opted for the sundae.  We didn’t talk about It, but just about stuff, like the kids, and how Janet’s cats are adjusting to the rectory, and what we were doing for Thanksgiving.  Strangely enough, I felt much better.

Karen and Nikki want me to get more information from Aunt Pooh.  I decided we could all go over to see her; she loves to tell stories and this certainly is a good one.

Charlie Starts a Diary

I can’t believe what happened!  I can’t put it on the blog, but maybe if I write it down as if I were blogging it I’ll feel better or something.

Aunt Pooh was an at-home mom who wrote in her spare time and was active in the women’s movement.  Today, she’s won awards for her writing and teaches at the community college.  My Uncle Joe is a therapist, which Ed says was lucky for my cousins, who had to grow up in a house with writers and feminists hanging around all the time and making protest signs in the living room.

Aunt Pooh gave me a nice cup of pumpkin spice tea and organic oatmeal cookies.  “Well now, I always wondered how long it would take you to notice your birthday.  I figured that if you were like your mother, you’d have spotted it years ago.  But you take after the rest of us.  Too busy with life to worry about numbers.”

“Well, I never needed to see it.  I thought I knew when I was born.  But why did everyone tell me I was a year younger?  I could have been driving or drinking or voting!”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Not lying to you, but not arguing with your mother.  She was upset enough.”

“Upset about what?”

Aunt Pooh signed.  “Charlie, for someone who reads so much, you are showing a real lack of imagination . . .  Do you remember when you got married, and your mother’s dress fit perfectly except in the stomach area?”

“So we got it altered.”

“And if you look at the wedding pictures, you’ll see how big her bouquet was.”

Fortunately, I’d put my cup down or I would have dropped it.  “You mean my parents had to get married?”  I don’t know which was more shocking, that my mother had been pregnant at her wedding or that she had lied about it.  “But why . . .”

“Oh, Charlie,” Aunt Pooh shook her head.  “Your mother was so innocent.  She was so wrapped up in her science and numbers that she didn’t know what could go on with people.  She didn’t see consequences and when they turned up, she was dumbfounded.  But there’d been enough scandal already.  She didn’t want it to follow you for the rest of your life.”

“What scandal?”

“You know your father was married before and that you have a half-sister.  Didn’t you ever wonder why she never came to visit?”

“I gave up asking.  My mother always changed the subject.  And it made me too sad to think about it.”

“Well, your mother’s office was next to your father’s.  One thing led to another and his wife found out.  She stormed into the Chemistry Department, trashed his office and your mother’s and got a quickie divorce.  Very bad business decision on her part, but she agreed because your father offered to pay very generous child support and not have her arrested, which he could have done.  And then she moved; she was probably too embarrassed.”

“What did Grandma and Grandpa say?”

“There was all kinds of stuff happening at the time.  Everyone was getting divorced either for ‘personal growth’ or because they found someone else.  You know how your grandmother was, always looking for the positive.  So she threw herself into planning the wedding and then the baby shower.  Dad said that your mother could always support herself and a baby if she had to.  You know, they never understood poor Louie.”

Poor Louie!  I never thought of my mother like that.

I’ll have to think about this and talk it over with Karen and Nikki and maybe Janet and maybe Kate and maybe even Ed.

And I’ll have to think about something else to put on the blog. 

Did I miss a year?

It’s been a tradition in my family to give the children literary names.  Betsey was named for Elizabeth Bennett, David Copperfield’s aunt, Betsey Trotwood, and Jane Austen.  My mother was Louisa for Louisa May Alcott.  I have three names, Charlotte Emily Anne, after the Brontes.  Cilla was supposed to be Belinda Harriet as a salute the Barbara Pym’s heroines in Some Tame Gazelle, but she was born on Thanksgiving, so we decided to give her a Pilgrim name, and she is Priscilla Temperance.  Josh escaped, because Darcy is a girl’s name and you can’t really name your son Mister.

Betsey did not believe that I had two middle names.  “That’s weird.”  So I dug out my birth certificate.

“See, right here.    ‘Charlotte Emily Anne Somerville born November 12 . . .’”  Then I noticed something.  My birth certificate said I was born a year earlier than I was.  I guess I’d never read it. 

That was weird.

Ed joked that I had married him under false pretenses and that maybe we’d have to get married again like Rob and Laura Petri had.  Unfortunately he said it in front of the girls, who were all set to have another wedding.

Karen thought there might be some romantic story behind it and Nikki said it was probably a clerical error.  She had had to have her daughter Jennifer’s birth certificate changed because it said “Hennifer” and her nephew is Matthew David instead of David Matthew, since her sister didn’t want to go to the trouble to change it.

Nikki is probably right, but I decided to call my Aunt Pooh.  That is my mother’s sister, who was named after Ursula in Women in Love.  When she didn’t like it, my grandmother explained that Ursula meant bear, so she decided to call herself WinniethePooh, but somehow it degenerated into “Pooh.”  Aunt Pooh has four children, my cousins Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and Jim.  When Jim realized that he had been named James so he could be called “Jamie,” he rebelled.  I think my uncle was relieved.

When I called Aunt Pooh, she said she’s been dying to have a nice visit and could I come over to her house and how would Saturday be?

I was puzzled, but I said “Of course.”

It’s always nice to see Aunt Pooh.