I meant to post this last Sunday, but my phone line got crossed with someone else’s (yeah, creepy) and we couldn’t get online. The rest of the week went to work, and working out my new script.
My one and only Jessie,
So when we cracked open the little red envelope from Netflix the other day and popped in Juno, I was totally stoked. Not just the hype and Diablo Cody used to be a stripper and Ellen Page is the coolest (but isn’t she?). I wondered if watching it would hold answers about that time, when we didn’t talk all that much because I was in St. Joe for senior year and you were pregnant with Kiley.
Juno was like you, the you I knew in junior high and high school. Tough, and a cusser. Kind of butch and super cute; Vans and the occasional flannel scored for $1.80 from St. Theresa’s. I still can’t believe I never went to an appointment with you. I never saw an ultrasound or felt Kiley kick or helped you take out the trash. I’ll have you know, though, that I drove around Lincoln all day one time in early ‘94, Russell Stovers in hand (actually on the passenger seat of my dad’s Corolla), stopping at like three halfway houses looking for you. All I knew was that you had a baby and your dad kicked you out and you were living God-knows-where. I got nothing. And I ate the sad-ass turtles by myself. Or maybe I took them to Steph’s.
Were you scared? Were you mad? Did you think you could do it? Did you wonder about what life would be like with a baby? Did you consider abortion or adoption? What’d you think about Ki’s dad? Who was he? I wish I knew what he looked like. You were really young, with a big belly, and I bet you got some stares. I always thought, over the years, that you got your practice on Teal. Like, you were her third parent, and a caretaker from the time I knew you.
I remember one day, my Air Force leave, fall of ‘94. You’d gotten that apartment on 33rd and Holdrege. I was impressed. You and this little blondie. And you liked her and made dinner for her, pulled her hair up in pigtails and made me watch stuff she did. She didn’t say much, but it sure was fun to watch her try and run. She had cheeks and fat legs and you dressed her in tiny jeans and t-shirts and white sneakers. I still have those pictures of Ki coming toward my disposable, the one where she has big shoulders like a linebacker. I didn’t learn that day that life as a mother–in your case, a single teenage mother–was about giving it all up for someone else, but I got a clue. I still only get little clues, dropped from heaven every now and then, when I hear you talk to her while we’re on the phone.
And now you have a beautiful, tempestuous, personality-laden teenager. She’s like we were, Jessie, she makes you want to beat her, drive her to school and work and practice. She demands food and liquid and parent-teacher conferences and doctor’s appointments and sign-offs for field trips.
Do me a solid. When you want to wring her skinny white neck, know that we want a sassy, opinionated thing of our own to wrangle with. And I hope we do as good a job as you’ve done. Here’s to you, Jessifer.
Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.
Love,
Britto
jessica
brittymidge
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