EYES OF OCEAN

EYES OF OCEAN

When the baby was born all I could see were his eyes. Pale eyes. By the
time I had the strength to look at him, his eyes were the colour of
quicksilver, which made the pupils fathomless pinpoints of darkness. I
was afraid. I was shocked that this strange presence and fragile body
had actually emerged from my body. I could feel the great domed mass of
my pregnant belly had begun to flatten. This was my baby and I was
fourteen. I was a statistic: a teenage mother, a young teenage mother.
All the adults around me were full of good advice, now the time had
passed for advice to make any difference. Where had they been when I
had been alone and bewildered in a world of emotions too complex for me
to control? Standing by or too occupied with their own lives to see
what was happening to mine. My mother was stressed out trying to bring
up three children alone. My twin brothers were only fifteen months
younger than I was. They had no memory of our father and I had only a
series of disconnected pictures in my mind in which I could see the man
my mother had once loved enough to marry. She told no stories of what
had broken their relationship. She tried instead to be a strong force
for us, working while we were at school, taking in dressmaking to do at
home and making every penny count as she fed and clothed us. Somehow
she assumed that we would understand the fierce and protective love she
had for us. But she rarely showed it, except in her care of us. She
spoke words of affection, only when we were ill, or hurt in scuffles at
school, or by falls from our second-hand bikes.

So when Steve had wanted to walk me home, tall and protective at almost
sixteen, I was flattered. When he told me I was wonderful, I wanted to
believe him. When he held my hand, I was incredulous and when he kissed
me, I knew I was in heaven. Did I understand what making love might do?
Yes, of course I did. We were all experts in the mechanics of sex,
talked about safe sex, boasted about our experiences, claimed to have
"done it", although most of that was wishful thinking. Mechanics have
nothing to do with feelings. No one had ever prepared me for those.
Certainly not my mother. She barely paused to notice that I had
matured. Tampons and press-on sanitary protection appeared in my
underwear drawer about six months before I needed them. She made sure I
had "found the things" and said no more. She made sure I had a
brassiere at the right time, but the implications of my changing body
to my confused mind and sense of self were either beyond her or
embarrassing to her. Either way she never discussed love or making
love. That left the locker room wisdom of other adolescents as my only
source of information and their gossip as the only outlet for my doubts
and fears.

Steve was very confident. He knew all about everything, it seemed. He
was reassuring. He was gentle. He led me tenderly towards the loss of
my virginity and I was happy to be made a real woman when he took the
decisive step. We made love three times. And then I knew I must be
pregnant. I never saw him after my mother told his mother. He left the
school and so did I. What was I to do about the baby? I had already
decided that it should be adopted. I could not add to my mother's
burdens. She was wonderful about the "accident", as she called it. She
treated me as though I had suffered a really bad bruising on the
playing field. She never scolded me, or was openly angry with me, but
she did expect me to give the baby up to have "a better chance in
life". I might have had an abortion, but I delayed telling her about my
situation, until it was too late. I finally spoke out around the fifth
month, when I could no longer pretend I was putting on weight, or
conceal my belly under layers of loose clothes. That is how I became a
statistic and my baby with the eyes of ocean, icy winter ocean, went to
new parents. I was relieved and anxious to forget the interruption in
my young life.

I went to a new school. I made new friends. I decided to study hard. I
succeeded. I went to university, much to my mother's surprise. I got
all the financial help available and I graduated with my bachelor's
degree, then went on to take my teaching certificate to work with
primary school children. I was aware of the fact that being with five,
six and seven year olds filled a need in me. Did I ever think about my
son? Yes, I suppose so. He was not, however, a conscious factor in my
decision making. I met a fellow student at teacher training college
and, for the first time since the long-ago Steve, found myself being
loved and loving back. Older and wiser, I took no chances and we
finished our courses, collected our diplomas, applied for and got our
first jobs as qualified teachers. Then we got married. I was
twenty-five and Len was twenty-six. And we should have lived happily
ever after. We actually lived happily for almost eight years. We wanted
children. We tried. We failed. I had two miscarriages. We went to
doctors, clinics and even a hypnotherapist. What had been so easy in my
adolescence seemed to be impossible in my twenties. Len knew all about
my "accident". My mother died of congestive heart failure that she had
never mentioned. We still wanted children. The strain began to show.
Len bought a Harley Davidson motorbike. He was thirty-one. He became an
enthusiast, an anomaly, a middle-class, middle-income biker. Perhaps it
was some kind of consolation, a compensation for him. I never
questioned his decision. He never upbraided me for not giving him the
son he longed for and we were coping quite well, except for the Harley.
Len began to attend rallies and meets and parades. He bought leathers
and a crash helmet with Hell's Angels wings on each side. He went off
for weekends with fellow bikers and started to compete in speed trials
and other high-risk activities. I was afraid for him. He was not as
tough, or as experienced, as the bikers he rode with, but he was
determined to be one of the boys. We only ever had two real rows: one
when he went rallying for the first time and one the day before he
died. Len was killed when he lost control of his beloved Harley while
racing on the North Circular Road around London. He crossed the central
reservation by Staples Corner and met a heavy goods vehicle head on. It
was very difficult to identify his body, but I did recognise what was
left of his helmet and leathers, as well as the personal insignia from
his shattered bike, a crowned letter "L".

I was a widow and not yet thirty-three years old. I had no children. My
brothers were far away, one in the United States, the other in New
Zealand. They did not travel to London for the funeral. Some of my
colleagues and many of Len's colleagues did come to the funeral. So did
a few of his closest biker friends. They were the kindest and the most
grief-stricken of the mourners. They approached me with respect and
talked about Len with genuine affection. Women bikers, too, girl
friends and wives dressed in the same kind of leathers as their
men-folk, quick to embrace me with real sympathy. These women lived in
the shadow of dreading just such a death. People left the house
afterwards, coffee and tea and sandwiches consumed. I was relieved to
see them go, but the house was empty with the echoes of conversation
and hollow with memories. I closed the front door after the last
farewell and went back to the kitchen. There was someone sitting at the
breakfast bar, leather jacket on the stool beside him, close-cropped
head bowed, silent. He did not look up when I came in.
"Joanne, I want you to know something before I go."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Eddie. I was with Len when he died."
"Do you mean you were the one he was racing against?"
"Yeah - but there were three others. We were storming up the tarmac
like a team and Len was holding us all off. He was doing great. Then I
went to the front and I suppose I pushed it real hard." He shook his
head and took the kind of short breath children do when they are trying
not to cry. "I had no idea what would happen. Our side of the road was
empty. Like the police said, it was stupid, but we'd all done it
before."
"Why are you telling me this, Eddie?"
"Because I feel so bad about what happened. Len was a great guy. He was
like a father to us. He was just a great guy to know. And now he's dead
and you're left alone. Doesn't seem right, does it?"
"Do you feel to blame?"
"Kind of, yeah - I was the one pushing the pace, he was the one got
killed."
"Eddie, Len chose to do his thing. The Harley was his thing. He loved
that bike. He loved being with all of you. Biking was special in his
life. I had to accept that when he was alive. I have to accept that now
he's dead. If you hadn't been the one pushing the pace, someone else
would have done the same as you did. Len wanted to be there. He wanted
to be on the edge. He just lost his balance, in every sense. No one is
to blame. I certainly blame no one. Yes, it is a raw deal. He was a
lovely person. He was my husband and I haven't begun to take in what it
means to have lost him. I can?t imagine life without him, but regret
won't bring him back and neither would revenge. Thank you for
explaining what happened. You must be hurting, too."
"Well, I just wanted you to know - I wanted to play straight with you.
I guess I'll go now. Leave you in peace."
He picked up his jacket, slid off the breakfast stool and walked
towards the front door. "I'll see myself out. I left my number on the
table. If you need anything, give me a bell." The door closed loudly
behind him and I took the first of many deep breaths.

I had often wondered what widows did. Now I found out. Widows go on
living. Widows are invited out frequently in the first few weeks.
Widows shop and cook and clean as before, but for one instead of for
two. Widows come across things day by day that reawaken the ache of
loneliness: photographs, letters, invitations, birthday cards,
favourite books, tangible evidence of intangible absence. And widows
learn to survive. They learn to be silent, they learn to suppress,
because grieving is a private process and healing is both slow and
mysterious. It is not an experience that anyone else can share. Even a
widow's closest friends find her situation uncomfortable to discuss.
None of them knows what to say. To keep their friends, widows learn to
make light of their pain and to turn to other matters. Everyone is
relieved to see a widow getting over it, as though bereavement was a
mild sickness and rapid recovery was to be expected. Widows understand
that.

I did not call Eddie. I thought about calling. Then I wondered what
would I call for? He already felt guilty, I would only make that worse.
I dismissed the bikers from my mind. My deep breaths included
acceptance of Len's choices and the consequences, all the consequences.
Weeks passed. The Easter holidays came and the summer term began, with
a burst of fine weather. I was weeding in the small front garden on
Sunday afternoon, when a voice said: "Hi! How are you? Need any help?"
I straightened up to see Eddie just outside the garden gate.
"I've been meaning to come round. Thought you'd lost my number. P'raps
I can do something useful in the house? Or the garden? I can fix cars,
too." His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans and his
shoulders defensively bowed forward inside a baggy old grey
sweatshirt.
"Hi, Eddie! Well, the back garden certainly is a mess. I've not got
around to tidying it up. It was never my job, not before..."
"Let me have look. I'm my mum's best helper with outside work, she
says!"
I led him into the house, through the living room and slid open the
patio doors to the back garden. We began work together, trimming and
staking plants, weeding and digging flowerbeds, edging and mowing the
lawn. Busy under the cloud-flecked sky, we were very easy together and
the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. I was happy to have so
undemanding a companion.

That is how our friendship began. Why? Because I was lonely. How?
Because we did practical things together. Was it wise? I never gave it
a thought. Was it risky? I never imagined it could be. Was I
emotionally vulnerable in bereavement? I was unaware of that
possibility. Was he a predator? He was not. Gradually as the summer
went on, I became dependent on his visits. He worked in a music
warehouse that sold stuff on the Internet on a 24-hour schedule, so he
had flexible hours. He was able and willing to be there for me whenever
I had leisure time. We were more and more drawn into sharing ideas as
well as activities, often laughing together, sometimes crying together.
There was an unspoken bond between us. We followed each other's train
of thought without any effort. I realised before he did that we were in
danger of falling in love. I was thirty-three and he was not yet
twenty, but I felt as though I had known him much longer than those few
months of summer and I was afraid. Autumn came and the garden could no
longer be an excuse for his visits. He had repaired and repainted every
corner inside the house. He had made my old car run like a brand-new
model and laid down a new driveway of bricks. We had no more reasons to
meet. Then he was forced to declare himself and I to respond according
to my heart, although my head had doubts. We were married eleven months
after Len's death and our first child was born ten months later. It was
a boy. We called him Paul. I was overwhelmed with joy and so was Eddie.
I reconsidered my status and decided that I was not too old to be a
good mother. Our twin daughters were born eighteen months later,
followed by another son and lastly another daughter. By that time I was
forty and our family was complete.

The miracle of having children, of bringing them up with a husband who
loved me and loved them so completely was a second chance at life for
me. The anguish of childless years, the pain of disappointment and the
shock of widowhood, were all washed away on a rising tide of
contentment. The difference in our ages was a small price to pay for
the transformation brought about by the fulfilment of my dreams. I was
thankful from the depths of my being and my well of happiness seemed
inexhaustible. When our youngest, Ellen, was almost thirteen, Eddie's
mother died. She lived in Edinburgh and had never entirely accepted our
marriage. We all went up to the funeral and met the rest of her family
in the strained and unnatural way that near-strangers do meet at such
times. There was a will and some legal delay. I drove back home with
the children. Paul had just started at the University of Warwick, the
twin girls, Antonia and Isabel, were in Sixth Form College and Ethan
was still in Secondary School with Ellen, so we had every reason to get
back to town. I rang Eddie that evening. He sounded tired and anxious
to get home, but he was sure the solicitor would soon be
finished.

Paul dashed back to his Hall of Residence in Warwick the very next day
and I had just put the ?phone down after receiving his brief statement
of his safe arrival, when Eddie phoned to tell me he would catch an
early evening train and take a taxi home from the station, leaving me
free to carry on with the usual family comings and goings, interspersed
with food and comfort as the four still at home expected. It was nearly
midnight when I heard a taxi draw up outside. I opened the front door
before Eddie could get his key in the lock and he put his arms around
me as he back-heeled the door closed.
"I thought I was never going to get back to you!" There was something
about his tone that bothered me.
"Well, you're home now - that's all that matters. What can I get you?
Food? Coffee? Drink?"
"I just need to relax and hold you hand - and we have to talk."
"What about?" I felt a chill as though icy fingers had touched my
spine, although there was no reason to be concerned. It was probably
something to do with the lawyer or the will. So said my head, but not
my heart.
The living room was warm and the sofa wide and welcoming. With the
habit of our lifetime together, I curled up with my head on his lap
ready to listen. He stroked my hair and let his arm rest around my
shoulders. Only the table lamp beside us gave light to the shadowed
room. I had been reading before he arrived. My book lay on the floor
where I had dropped it as soon as I heard the taxi.
"I had some news today that shook me up a bit, Jo - it turns out that
my mother was not my mother - not my birth mother - apparently I'm
adopted. The will is very precise about dividing mother's property
between her surviving blood relatives and her adopted son. I didn't
understand at first. No one ever told me. I'd never thought about it. I
knew she was old to be my mother, but so what? I don't have brothers or
sisters, but that happens. The solicitor thought I knew already, so did
the rest of the relatives. It was like my world collapsed around me - I
felt lost, abandoned - angry!"
The muscles of his thighs tensed under me head and his body trembled.
His breathing rhythm changed and I glanced up to see his lips tighten
in distress.
"I asked the solicitor to find out who I was - to find out who my birth
parents were, at all costs ? I have to know, I have to!"
His intensity made me tremble, it was so out of character. But then I
had never considered my identity as a factor in my thinking. I tried to
imagine how I might react if, as well as coping with the death of my
mother, I suddenly discovered that my family was not my family and I
was not who I had grown up to believe I was. The situation was beyond
my imagining, inconceivable. I eased the tension from his legs and
rearranged us so that he was nestled on my lap and I was able to stroke
and gentle him. Like a wild creature in shock, he gradually relaxed and
breathed more evenly under my touch, but something in him had been
broken and it was slow to heal.

The next day, Eddie wandered around the house, his face gaunt and
strained, no energy in his step, barely speaking. He lay beside me at
night, turned away in a defensive foetal curl, willing himself to
sleep. Before I woke up, he had left our bed and made himself a fresh
jug of coffee to take into the workshop shed, where his beloved Harley
was still the focus of his care and attention. I came down every
morning of the next week to find the percolator refilled, kitchen
heating on, the workshop light the only indication of his whereabouts.
In the house, he was a wonderful family man, in the garden, a genius
with every plant there was, but in his workshop he was himself alone, a
solitary brooding spirit, and the family understood they must leave him
be. Now he emerged only to check the post and then retreated into the
workshop and into himself. He took time off, long owed him by his firm,
and went to ground emotionally and physically, stripping down his bike
to its mechanical bones and painstakingly rebuilding it, day by day. I
could find no way into his isolation, no means to reach out and comfort
him. He avoided contact, had no conversation and behaved like stranger
in his own home. Even the children lost touch with him. We were all
bewildered. We clung together and waited for him to come back into our
world. He made no move to do so.

Eddie's exile ended ten days later, on the morning that a bulky
envelope arrived with an Edinburgh postmark. He sat down at the kitchen
table and looked up at me with the merest hint of a smile. I smiled
back. It was the first moment of near normal interchange between us
since he told me his news. He opened the envelope with a knife in one
fierce stroke. Unfolding the documents inside, he examined them
thoroughly, one by one. I sat down opposite him and waited for him to
speak.
"Ah - here it is! My adoption certificate - "Father: Stephen Laisel" -
"Mother: Joanne Casson" - look, Jo!
He pushed the paper across to me. I looked at it. My heart pounded so
violently that I was afraid Eddie would hear it. He smiled
widely.
"Fancy you and my mother having the same first name! What a
coincidence, don't you think?"
Not only that, her surname was my maiden name. Not my widow's surname.
Not the surname Eddie knew me by before we married. His birthplace was
given as the hospital in which my baby was born. Eddie was refilling
the coffee percolator with his back to me. I had pushed out of my mind
the date of my son's birth. Eddie's birthday had seemed familiar, but
now seeing his date of birth robbed me of the power of speech. I was
fourteen again and holding my newborn in my arms. Of course I could
remember the day, and the hour and the moment of his birth. I breathed
deeply and tried to sound casual, relaxed.
"Will you try to find them? Your birth parents?" My voice sounded odd,
husky, tight in my throat, but Eddie was busy settling the percolator
onto the gas hob. He sat down again and picked up the crucial sheet of
paper once more.
"No, I don't think so. I don't think I need to, do I? My parents were
my parents. I never knew they were adoptive. I don't need another
mother and father. I had the best and I loved them and they did right
by me. I feel I was - I am still - their son."
My pulse was slowing back to a more steady pace and I found I could
breathe without forcing the air in and out of my lungs. Eddie explained
and all unaware he offered me salvation, a way out.
"I've often thought about what must happen when a total stranger knocks
on someone's door and claims to be a child long ago given up for
adoption, and maybe long forgotten ?" No, I thought, never forgotten.
Only put out of mind by a deliberate act of will.
"I mean, think about the shock to the family. Maybe the husband or wife
has no idea - has never been told. What about the children? How would
they react? What would it do to them? They could well feel their mother
or father had been living a lie. Imagine how destructive that could
be!" I said nothing. But, oh yes, I could imagine the unimaginable and
its effect on everyone involved. Eddie folded all the papers back into
the envelope, neatly, methodically, decisively. He went on, without
noticing that I had not made any comment.
"I know the law gives me the right to find out more, but I don't
believe I have the moral right to wreck anyone else's life. Do you?" I
shook my head and struggled to find words, any words that might sound,
normal, unconcerned.
"No, perhaps you shouldn't risk hurting anyone - it would be much
kinder to leave things as they are. Very unselfish, but much better for
the others and for the people they love and who love them." Eddie
cradled my hand in his.
"I'm glad you agree with me. Let's just put this stuff away somewhere
safe and forget it. I know who I am. Who my birth parents happened to
be, by chance, or accident, or circumstance, can't change who I am. I
have all the family I want. All the family I need - because I have you,
Jo!"
He looked at me and I at him.
"I love you, Eddie ?"
"And I love you!"
He raised my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers one by one. With my
hand held between both of his, he laughed gently. Shocked with the
horror of recognition, I realised at last why I had fallen in love with
him, with him and with those pale, pale eyes. Quicksilver eyes, the
pupils ocean deep, gazing at me. Waves of emotion broke over me,
turbulent, dangerous, terrifying. He rose, yawned and stretched,
smiling to himself. "I think I'll go and finish off in the workshop, Jo
- O.K.?" The percolator had quietened down. He poured a fresh cup of
coffee for me. I watched his hands place the mug on the table. "You
O.K., Jo? You look a bit pale?" His eyes, the eyes of my son, looked at
me with tender concern. I nodded and managed to smile at him, so he
went out to tinker with his bike, whistling tunelessly to himself, his
head held high.
I shivered, deadly cold in the sunlit kitchen. There was no warmth left
in the sun. I encircled my hot coffee mug with chilled hands and felt
victimised by fate. From the day I gave away my newborn son until the
day we married, my life had been full of loss: loss of my firstborn,
loss of the children I had longed for with Len, loss of Len to his
Harley and then to death. How could I face the loss of everything that
now made up the fabric of my life: loss of my husband, loss of all my
children, loss of their peace of mind? I would have to leave them, or
they would leave me. How would they ever come to terms with the
impossible? What havoc would be wreaked in the emotional lives of my
children, of all my children, but particularly my dearest love, my
firstborn, my husband. Hot coffee splashed onto my fingers. I was
shaking with my desperate struggle to grasp the dreadful truth. I knew
that I had to absorb the shock, for all of us. I knew that I could
never destroy what I had, even though the family tree had grown up and
flourished, rooted in the most forbidden of forbidden fruit. I had not
recognised Eddie. How could I? I had never dreamed of seeing my baby
again. He had been dead to me. Only that certificate of adoption, that
official scrap of paper, had made me see what I had looked at so often
with such love, his eyes, those eyes seared into the deep recesses of
my far memory. I took a long slow breath and decided that I must hold
on to just one fact to save myself, to save us both, to save our
family. I loved him so. I loved our children I loved all my children
much too much to ever tell them who they were.
? Lindy McNaughton Jordan, 2002 (4,800 words)