When the World Didn't End by Guinevere Turner

Author:Guinevere Turner [Turner, Guinevere]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2023-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

That night after dinner, Mommy sat cross-legged on the purple shag rug in the living room, rummaging through a cardboard box, looking for my birth certificate. Annalee was upstairs in our room, and FP was out finishing some painting job, and when he wasn’t around, Mommy was more relaxed and a lot chattier. I was sitting on the floor next to her, eager to see this document and wondering: If it was so important and she didn’t think she’d ever see me again, why did she take it with her when she left the communities? She pulled out a photo and cooed, “Aww—look at this. That’s you on Fort Hill when you were four.” The photo was a little blurry, but I was smiling big and recognized the outdoor space between the Kids’ House and the Big House there. Mommy sighed. “That’s the only photo I have of you when you were little. I put all the baby photos of you in an envelope and then lost it somewhere along the way.”

I thought about how that meant that there was an envelope of baby photos of me floating around in the world. Then I thought about the old diary I’d stashed on a very high shelf in the Kids’ House in L.A. in April, knowing I’d be back for it in November, and how it was November now. Was the Caravan on the move? Did anyone talk about me?

Mommy let out a dramatic gasp and said, “Here it is!” She unfolded the weathered piece of paper in her hand and smiled at it for what seemed like a long time. “I remember when I was pregnant with you, I used to smoke reefer until I couldn’t figure out which end of my cigarette to light, take a bunch of downers, and pass out until I woke up and did it all over again,” she said wistfully. I scooted next to her and looked at the document. There it was: “Guinevere Jane Turner, May 23, 1968.” I was oddly excited at the sight of it, as if I’d never realized I was legally and legitimately a person until this point. Where it had a space for “father,” there was simply a squiggled line. When I asked her about the squiggle, she said, “I wasn’t going to tell them your father’s name!” When I asked why, she said, “In those days you just didn’t tell people stuff that was none of their business.”

Still on the floor, she leaned back on the end of the couch now, looking off and shaking her head. “Boy, was I scared. I thought I could handle it and didn’t go to doctors or anything, and even when I was in labor I was feeling real cool, like this was going to be fine. I just got myself to the hospital and they laid me down on a gurney and I was ready. But then they wheeled in this girl who must have been thirteen, and she was in labor too and screaming the most bloodcurdling scream, like a maniac.

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