Ch 10: Intervention

Sometimes friends can see what you can't, even if you wish they'd keep it to themselves.

“Have you ever thought about having kids?” Rick held a forkful of lasagna in the air as if he might be aiming it toward a toddler in a highchair. A big guy with black hair and a contagious laugh, Rick lived in the apartment below Michelle and me. He taught drama at a nearby high school, and although not out at his school, he lived an active gay life, regularly traveling to visit the leather scene at gay bars in Detroit. No one had heard of HIV/AIDS in the late-70s (the first case wasn’t reported in the U.S. until 1981), so Rick, like many gay men in this time, relished promiscuity and the freedom of anonymity in his sexual encounters. But he also loved his students, and I could imagine him being a good father.

I squirmed in my chair at his question as I imagined Mom sitting across the table from me. “I’ve thought about it,” I replied, not looking up from my plate. “It sure would make my mom happy.”

I always responded defensively when Mom asked me about having kids because I saw it as a challenge from her to my sexuality. I identified as a lesbian to myself and among friends, and worked hard to better understand how my sexuality defined me, but the closet door was only slightly cracked, especially with my mom. She saw it as an immoral choice that I was making to hurt her or that God was using to punish her. I did everything I could to avoid discussing the topic with her.

Most of my friends were other closeted lesbians, many of whom were members (or lovers of members) of our college basketball team. We found a deep comradery with each other, even if we rarely talked about being lesbians. As a result, I struggled with what it meant to live into this truth about myself. I’d taken a psychology class on sexual deviance and earned an A on a paper I wrote defending the morality of homosexuality (yes, at a Catholic college), but still felt uncomfortable with the perceived judgement others had of me.

Complicating this already too complicated situation, Michelle and I still lived together, even though she devoted much of her emotional and sexual energy to men. I longed to have her focus her attention on me, but that was not her way. I raged with jealousy but, whenever she decided to gift me with her presence, I welcomed her back into my bed. My insecurities had insecurities.

And above all else, I wanted to do everything I could to please my mom, to make up for the disappointment I was to her. To make up for being a lesbian. And more than anything, my mom wanted grandkids.

Every time she brought it up, I made the same argument. “I don’t get it. Jarrett’s son is almost a year old now. And he has an adopted son, too. You already have grandkids.”

“It’s not the same when your son has a child as when your daughter does,” she bemoaned. “A grandmother can get closer to her daughter’s children. That’s what I want.” She looked down like she was praying and added, “Don’t you want to have children? You’re so good with them.”

To Mom, having children meant I needed to marry a man, and for all practical purposes, she was right. At least I needed to have sex with a man. Although intrauterine insemination (IUI) had been around for heterosexual couples for centuries (maybe as early as the 1700s, and possibly even before), it didn’t become available to lesbians until five years after I graduated college when, in 1982, the Sperm Bank of California opened their doors and welcomed lesbians and single women. In 1976, the only unmarried lesbians who got pregnant did it the old-fashioned way.

“No, Mom, I don’t,” I said, hoping to let the conversation drop. That usually stopped her, but every time, guilt burrowed deeper into my psyche. I yearned to please her as strongly, maybe even more strongly, than I longed to be who I was.

“Would having kids make you happy?” Rick’s question snapped me back to the present, as he finally guided the forkful of food into his mouth.

Mom had never asked that question, at least not in that way. “Yes, I think it would. It would make me happy to have kids.” I’d never said it out loud before. I’m not sure I’d ever said it to myself before. I want to have kids.

Without pausing, Rick said, “Let’s do it then,” His smile so wide I thought his face might break.

It might have been the wine. It might have been the food. It might have been the fantasy of finally finding a way of pleasing my mother, but I said yes.

To protect his teaching career and whatever job I’d end up with, we decided that we’d get married, with the clear understanding that our sex life would—ironically, much like many right-wing heterosexual couples— be focused exclusively on procreation. Whatever other private lives we had would be completely up to us.

It seemed like a perfect solution to the situation we found ourselves in. We’d have a cover for our “deviant” lifestyles, we could have kids of our own, and I could give my mother the grandkids she longed for.

“Oh, Annette. That’s wonderful!” Mom exclaimed when I told her I was engaged. As if she’d been freed from the iron lung her polio-stricken daughter Marlee had lived and died in, she could breathe again.

I didn’t tell her the rest.

Despite my engagement, Michelle and I moved from the spacious apartment above Rick’s to a smaller, upper room on the other side of town—a temporary place until I found a job and could pay for something better, or perhaps until Rick and I got married and moved in together. A knock on the door interrupted my unpacking. I stood up awkwardly, trying not to trip over the contents of a kitchen box sprawled out in front of me. I hadn’t yet told anyone where we’d moved, so I figured it must be someone selling something.

With a diamond engagement ring shimmering on my finger, I flung the door open. Five friends from my basketball team stood on the other side. All members of the secret society of lesbians at my school, several had graduated the year before me. I hadn’t seen them in a while.

My college basketball letter sweater

“Wow! Come on in! I’m so happy to see you,” attempting to cover my hesitation with a welcoming smile. Except for Leslie who’d lived with Michelle and me in our last apartment, these were not women who came to visit much, especially not as a group. Something was up.

“We’ve come to talk with you,” Mary’s voice monotone and direct. “Do you mind if we sit down?”

“No, of course. Please sit.” We didn’t have a lot of furniture, so I gestured to the sofa and side chair, but also to the floor. They took their places.

“What’s up?” I asked, already feeling nervous about the purpose of their visit.

Leslie cleared her throat and began. “We want to talk about your engagement.”

“Oh?” I said. This couldn’t be good. Although I still didn’t know a lot of the rules of being a lesbian, I knew enough to know that other lesbians wouldn’t look fondly on my decision to marry a man, even, and maybe even especially, a gay man.

I eyed the ottoman but chose not to sit there. Memories of my conversation with Mom years before when she confronted me about being a “homosexual” came flooding back. I’d learned my lesson that perching on a spherical blob in the center of the room is not a strong place to defend oneself (If you missed it, see Ch 08: Holy Outing). Instead, I grabbed a wooden chair from the kitchen, straddling it with the backrest in front as a makeshift shield.

For the next hour, maybe longer, my friends did what can only be described as an intervention on me.

“Do you love him?”

“How can you marry someone you’re not in love with?”

“What’ll happen if you have children, and they find out?”

“Aren’t you still a lesbian?”

“What if you fall in love with a woman?”

“What will she think of your ‘arrangement?’”

I stammered to answer, even though I don’t think I succeeded in finishing a coherent sentence.

After the questioning died down, they lambasted my decision-making and left no doubt that, in their opinion, I was making a big mistake. I felt as if I was on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, Klingons were attacking, and Captain Kirk had just given the order, “Shields up, Mr. Scott.” I needed more protection. The chair’s backrest was clearly failing me.

I don’t remember how we left things. I don’t remember saying goodbye. All I remember is closing the door and leaning against it as if pushing hard enough would hold back a torrent of tears. It didn’t work.

I stumbled to the sofa, put my head in my hands, and let the tears flow. The words of my friends echoed in my mind as I grappled with the weight of my decision. In the days that followed, I knew I had to confront the truth. Even though I didn’t appreciate how their loving act came across as harsh and uncaring, I knew they were right. I didn’t want to children if it meant giving up who I was. I could feel my body relax at the thought of being free again. Of being me again.  

I don’t know if I made the decision that day or sometime later. But at some point, soon after my friend’s intervention, I found myself sitting across a table from Rick at some other restaurant hearing him say, “I need you to give me the ring back.”

That shocked me at first, but of course, it made sense. I slipped the ring off my finger, dropped it into his hand, stood up, and walked away.

It was over.

All that was left was telling my mom that I wouldn’t be getting married, and even more disappointing to her, that I wouldn’t be giving her grandkids anytime soon. If ever. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

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Read Chapter 11: A New Life

Ch 11: A New Life

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