Chapter 1: The beginning of my life
Way back, when I was a toddler no more than 3 or 4, my mother told me the truth of my birth. That she and another man were drunk and I was made. She didn't give me too many details other than that, except for my father's name-Bill Cutler-and the fact that he deserted us. She said he didn't live too far away from us in Richmond, but when I mentioned visiting him, she withdrew herself from my presence, as if suggesting visiting him was unmentionable. I hadn't the faintest idea then of why she seemed to hate him so, but even at 4, I sensed that eventually I would find out.
All through my life, I sensed with knowledge of a teenager that my mother despised me somehow. Sometimes she would simply glare at me for a while, other times when I would enter the room she would quickly exit. Sometimes, in my childhood years, I would wail when she glared at me until she either slapped me hard across the face or screamed at me and ran from the house, holding her ears tightly and screaming "I can't do this anymore!" She left me alone for days at a time when she ran from the house like that, forcing me to live alone for a little while until she decided to come back to me and start anew.
As I grew older however, her days of deserting me grew into weeks, into months. She lost her jobs as quickly as she gained them, and therefore leaving me penniless during many of her night sprints from the tiny 2 bedroom house we shared. I ended up having to go to neighbor's houses when her trips were longer, claiming to them that my mother was out with someone and had neglected me. They took me in until my mother came home, usually, and then they handed me back and chewed her out for deserting me. She never listened to them.
Other times, when my mother wasn't drunk or out with her endless line of boyfriends, she could be the nicest person on the face of the planet. She would buy me a new outfit, taking me by the hand and pulling me through stores, showing me clothes she thought would look cute on her, bragging about her figure so childishly sometimes I think she thought she was talking to another female. She might as well have been, since she called me by the female version of my name a lot and I looked somewhat like a porcelain doll with my pale, unbroken skin, my tiny figure, and the black curls that hung about my face. I was 10, unstung by acne or facial hair, looking my best.
One of the other things my mother would do for me on her good days-which were unfortunately becoming rarer and rarer as my age progressed-was take me to art museums. My interest in the arts was becoming larger every minute of the day; I was so fascinated by the talents of the artists before me in the museums. I had begun to sing as well, and my voice range was rapidly increasing. I had also started to paint and to write as well. I wanted to dance, but my mother called it a 'girl's sport' and strongly refused to get me lessons, claiming that her son would not turn into a female, despite the fact that he resembled one (she just had to point that out each and every day). She actually tried to get some of her male friends to talk to me about 'male things.' Dating, sports, video games, television, comic books, practical jokes, everything a boy should be into. Supposedly. I couldn't understand why she was so worried about my image then; I was only 10 years old. I didn't know that what I did reflected on my mother, and that she was getting teased about what I did; my musical influences. Apparently it wasn't cool for me to be into such things.
I remember asking my mother about my real father when I was older. Obviously, I didn't recall what she told me in my earlier years, and I wanted to know, naturally. When I asked her, her eyes became foggy and far away…perhaps she was recalling happier times with my mysterious father. I wonder now if she saw him in me…just a little. Was that why she resented me?
Flashback:
"Hey Momma?" I walked up to my dark haired mother as she lifted her black eyeliner pencil from the desktop. Why she wore as much makeup as she did, I never knew. She was beautiful without it, and too made up with it on. Sometimes I thought her ridiculous.
"What is it?" she asked harshly in a tone not even used for a naughty child.
"Who…who is Daddy? Where is he, and why isn't he here? I know you told me when I was little, but I can't remember a word." I asked her, not sensing that she would slam her pencil down, her makeup half done, and turn to me with a fiery glare in her emerald eyes.
"Why do you ask?" she demanded.
"I just…wanted to know. Shouldn't a boy know who his father is?"
"Well…" her face softened, nonetheless looking frightening because of the half-completed makeup.
"How was I born?" I asked suddenly.
"How?" she thought for a moment, motioning for me to sit down next to her while she thought of a suitable answer. "Adamantine, when a man and woman love each other they get together and…"
"I know all that already!" I snapped. "But…did you really love him? Then why isn't he here with us?"
She sighed, lowering her eyes to the mahogany tabletop of her vanity table.
"No, Adama, I did not love him. At the time, I thought I did…but he only charmed me into believing such a thing. I was stupid in believing in thinking we could be together."
"Weren't you drunk?" I asked. She gazed at me thoughtfully, and I could see the question in her eyes. Quickly embarrassed, I explained how I knew. "I…I overheard you telling someone that on the phone."
At last she smiled, turning to me and running her soft hand through my short black hair (of which had been recently cut), ruffling it a bit.
"I see." She turned back to her makeup table, grabbing a lipstick. "You know, you would have made a very pretty girl."
I understood what she was saying once more: That if I was a girl things between her and me would be different. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible, and she knew it. Yet as much as she yearned for a female child, whenever she caught me doing something a girl would do, she would reprimand me. That was something I did not understand.
"Momma," I spoke up, interrupting her from her makeup again. "Tell me again how I was born. How my father charmed you."
"Well…I suppose I could. Let me finish my makeup first." I nodded and waited patiently, gazing at my own reflection in her wide mirror. I realized then that my features were feminine, even more so than my mother's without all of her makeup. I compared my features and hers, finding identical noses and lips, but the rest of my face was different from hers. While her beautiful emerald eyes were round like a button, mine were almond shaped and black colored.
Her neck and mine were similar, long and thin, like a ballerina's neck. I also seemed to have her soft shoulders. I had her deep raven black hair color, but the texture of our hair seemed different. I also had a little of her voice, smooth, creamy, light, and feathery. Then again, I was a child. I also seemed to have inherited her pale complexion, but I wasn't too sure since she always wore makeup to cover her faults. I also had a natural rose to my cheeks that she didn't possess, but tried to achieve every morning.
A moment later, my mother lowered her lipstick to the wood and turned to me finally.
"Now, your father was a man named Bill Cutler. He is a very powerful man these days, you know. He runs a hotel near Virginia Beach called Cutler's Cove."
I would remember that fact forever.
"Anyway, I was working at a bar in Richmond, when one day this man comes up. He's very handsome, with eyes that glint like a child ready to spread mischief and beautiful blonde hair. You inherited the texture of it, you know.
"Well, this man introduces himself to me as Bill Cutler. He asks if I want to get a drink, and since my shift was almost over I agreed. A few hours later, we were drunk. He took me to his hotel room and we made love, whispering vows of love forever in the other's ear."
"And when do I come in?" I asked, eager to know.
"Well, you were made that night, the beginning of September, 1899. Sometime later in 1900, you were born. And now here you are."
I never thought once about my mother being weak then. I was happy-go-lucky, ever questioning my mother's actions, no matter how thoughtless they were, no matter what the consequences turned out to be.
But I would grow up to resent her for her weakness.