The Sperm Donor’s Daughter and Other Tales of Modern Family by Kathryn Trueblood Read Free Book Online

watched the steel wheels in the track over my head jerk towards me as she flung the garage door open. There you are , she said. Her arms were crossed, gripping the excess material of her sleeves, then I saw she was shaking. Why didn’t you come when I called? But I was the one who bawled, trying to find words for the ways she used my love against me, fruit juice dripping down the front of my pajama top, my bare feet cramped and cold on the cement floor. Get in the car . My face streaming tears. Please get in the car . She fired on all eight cylinders of our Chevy Malibu with a terrific blast of gas, then shoved the fan and heat levers forward. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. But you mustn’t say those things. Your father left and never came back. I couldn’t stand it again . She would apologize but somehow it was always me hurting her. The fact of my existence. Born to hurt others. That’s who I am. I’d do anything for you. You know that. I’d die for you . I heard proclamations of need not loyalty. There was something she wanted said. Not that I would die for her. That I would be born for her.
    After I found out my father was a semen donor, she never blamed my bad behavior on him again. Though for three years I went to great lengths to make her do so. No, in her mind, this donor was merely a catalyst, something as scentless and innocuous as water poured over a seed. Sometimes I love her for this, for claiming all my badness. Do you think my father had depressions or rages? I’d ask. Do you need so much to know? You come by it honestly enough on this side . So I’d take another tack. Do you think he’s a journalist or a historian and that’s why I love to read so much? But she refused to imagine him into being with me. Well I’m the only one in my family that devoured books, and no one ever told me where I got it. Remember I was a teacher, you know? Sometimes I hate her for this, for seeing herself as a blueprint for me, giving me no room to surprise her, for making me hers through and through. I refused to discredit or dismiss him, though I knew no qualities of his to defend.
    Every man I ever loved left me, I figured insemination was a shortcut. It’s not the kind of thing I hope you’ll understand someday, I hope you’ll never understand. Carson’s death was a leave-taking I didn’t recover from. I told you he was your father so you’d have a good story to grow up on . But he’d proved to be a disappointment too. He wouldn’t marry her before he left for the war, at least that’s what she says. Sometimes I say to myself: disappointment is my father.
    I don’t consider my story so odd. My friend Jackie’s dad was sent to jail for selling cocaine and he used to beat up on her mother. Jackie has some memories of her father. One time her parents were fighting and her mother ran to lock herself in the bathroom but her father was too fast. He shoved her backwards into a tile shower stall where she fell and cracked her head. When he went to jail, Jackie’s grandfather helped out. He mowed the lawn and paid the bill when the utilities company was about to shut the power off. After the divorce, her mother married her ex-husband’s father. Now her grandfather is her step-father. How would you like to explain that? This is my grand-step-father? I say my father was gone by the time I was born. Ever hear from him again? No, it’s like he vanished into thin air. Kids like Jackie envy my situation.
    There are snapshots of Carson and my mother standing on a stone bridge in the wind. Carson was chubby, crew-cut, wearing chinos, a windbreaker, a big metal watch. My mother was wearing a heavy loden coat, the kind with a hood and wood toggles. She was closer to the edge of the snapshot frame, but he had his arm clamped around her. My mother was pulling hair out of her mouth and laughing at the same time. Carson was looking