Work Text:
INTRODUCTION:
My birth came as no surprise. The story circulated around my home, such as it was, that my parents tried to conceive for five years without luck. Two years of in vitro fertilization drained their savings and ended in nothing. After eight years of infertility, genetic, sperm motility, ovarian, fallopian, and any kind of snake oil testing, no result ever came up with a conclusive issue.
Per report, my parents devoutly believed in Christianity and prayed publicly every Sunday at St. Peter’s. Each night, the story goes, they prayed before bed, on their knees, begging God to give them a child. They tithed the church hoping by performing their duty God might be impressed. They volunteered to help feed the indigent, invited refugees to their homes at Christmas, and performed the good works of God as if the quantity of their deeds would sway his hand.
Ten years into a barren marriage my parents decided to adopt. They looked to local adoption agencies hoping someone would give them a baby. But time passed without fruit, and they seemed passed over, so they looked over seas hoping to find an unwanted baby hidden in an impoverished corner of the globe to shower with love. Yet, each time they felt they were close to wrapping their arms around a child something fell through. A visa couldn’t be obtained. The birth mother came to claim their loved one. The child had too many medical issues to travel. Each and every excuse possible passed across the adoption desks and my parents grew despondent.
Why wouldn’t God hear their prayers and give them a child? One. They only wanted one singular child. Boy, girl, the sex didn’t matter. Race didn’t matter. Each day their lack pierced their souls, yet week after week, month after month they went to church and venerated the God who deprived them of their dearest wish.
Alone in the world, my parents wished for siblings, but each grew up only children. Maybe a childhood yearning for a brother or sister made them want a child so badly. They both lost their parents at young ages, thus, with no immediate family to lean on, they let the church become their surrogate family. They let the congregation into their lives treating the church’s children as their own.
Then, one month, my mother missed her period. A momentous occasion for my family, for this was the sign that God had finally blessed them. A baby grew within her womb. That which was barren now grew life. Over the next nine months, I’m told my mother became the picture of health. She glowed, radiant in her new found fecundity. Her skin shone alabaster, her hair curled and grew long and silky. A sparkle lit her eyes, and a smile forever curled her lips. No matter how many kicks I rammed into her uterus she remained beatific as if blessed by God himself.
I grew in utero as many other babies do. Placenta and umbilical cord supporting me I started as a zygote, my cells divided, heart started beating and I curled into a human being. My parents watched via my mother’s growing belly and a series of ultrasounds to ensure my toes and fingers developed as they should. My mother gushed God’s praises and my father remained silent, yet his chest puffed proud.
So, to no one’s surprise, at the end of term, I came squalling into the world 7 pounds and 2 ounces of healthy baby girl. However, to everyone’s shock, my mother died birthing me. As I emerged into the world, her heart stopped beating, and after attempts to restart it she was gone. One might assume my father would become my protector; the two of us bonding as the remnants of our family. Instead, he tore from the hospital, drank himself silly, got into a car accident and wrapped his car around a transformer. He not only killed himself, but also knocked out the electricity in Pasadena, CA for six hours.
I stayed in the hospital for two weeks while my fate hung in the balance. Where once my parents yearned to adopt a child, it might have been thought that I could be given to a family that also longed for a baby. However, my parents had written a will bequeathing everything they owned and had to the Catholic church, specifically St. Peter’s. I might have left the hospital sooner, as my health blossomed even in the maternity ward devoid of a mother. However, St. Peter’s wasn’t really sure they wanted me.
A small school existed that was kindergarten through high school with around 150 students. The priest had a house on the property and there was a small convent for the sisters who taught at the school. But there wasn’t an orphanage or even any boarding students. At first it was thought that I should be sent to an orphanage and then be adopted out once this conundrum was sorted, but to my mother’s credit, the nuns couldn’t bear to see her offspring be brought up elsewhere. They all felt that my mother had been such an integral part of the church that they needed to help raise her child.
The nuns whisked my nursery my father set up at my familial home and ensconced me in a small room meant for another nun. My pink and white crib must have looked gaudy against the bleak grey walls, yet I’ve seen photographs of me lying there, looking up at a mobile of lambs and stars, sunlight beaming in from the east window. If that innocent baby had feelings about grey walls her smiles showed nothing but joy in the world around her.
Anything that had any value sold in an estate sale and the proceeds were put into a trust for my care. My parents didn’t have much and I imagine the money made from the sale barely covered my room and board let alone schooling. I never wanted for anything in childhood, but I never had much. Televisions, video games, and cell phones remained in the bailiwick of the outside world. But the nuns loved me I suppose.
I have little memory of the next several years. Some people say they can remember being two or three, but my memories start around four or five when school started. Those baby years went by swiftly, I imagine, as the rest of my childhood went by as if on gossamer wings. Lest you think this is a tale of evil nuns rapping my knuckles with rulers or priests molesting me in the night, it isn’t. In general, if I’d been anyone except for the person I am, my childhood escapades and games would have been pleasing if humble and penitent. No, from as early as I can remember the concepts of humility, forgiveness, and repentance were anathema. I wanted to be the best, the most, and powerful even as a child.
Do not get me wrong. Faint plans of becoming Mother Superior were not my ultimate goal. Presiding over a group of passive women nauseated me. I longed to crush the weak under my heels. Bending souls to my will remained my focus. I’d been taught to love my neighbor as I loved myself, but I never could. I wanted my neighbor to give me obedience and do what I demanded as if a trained dog begging for a treat.
Now, as a grown woman, I am the commander in chief in this mortal coil. There is no person to gainsay me my will. I answer to the Emeritus and Satan alone. I am Imperator and this is how I got here.