I Went Out Alone When I Shouldn't Have And Returned Home Pregnant

When I was young we lived overseas where my father was the expat manager of a business. We lived in a nice house, and had one car provided by the company. As a kid I went to this private school which catered to expat kids. It was 'good' living.

But I was fourteen and I needed to get out and wander. It wasn't safe and I was kept indoors and out with driver and the maid. At fourteen that got to me. One afternoon, it was later already, but I snuck out of the gate and walked up the hill to the park that was there. I walked around, really for the first time figuring it out, because the park wasn't safe, especially for a lone teen girl. I walked and walked and poked my nose into the bushes. I was curious. I found a pond and some ducks, and I found a man.

I went home much the worse for wear. The maid figured out what had happened. My mother came home I was sitting at the kitchen table, and the maid told her. It was an anxious moment. They waited, with me at the table, until my father came home to tell him. A man. And I had gone out alone.

I had a little brown baby. My mother insisted that I name her Cristina. When we returned to Wisconsin the story is that she was adopted. Cristina grew up as my adopted little sister. Although my mother never stopped me from calling her my baby or telling her I was her mother. Cristina was never phased. At home I was Mommy, outside I was Carla. She referred to my parents as her parents. When along the way in college I met a guy and we got serious I had to bring up the obvious. He listened, but I could see in his eyes that it was over. He never spoke to me again.

I didn't get married until I was in my early thirties to a more worldly man and I had a baby with him. Cristina was both aunt and sister, and as with everything else it never phased her. Cristina was already a full grown girl, in high school and on the cheer team. One day, she was with some of her friends, and I was over at the house with my baby and she picked up her sister and asked her friends, was she an aunt or a sister? And one of her friends said, you're both silly. Cristina was wide open and all her friends knew I was her mother. And from that day till this one, we dropped all pretensions. Cristina is my baby, my daughter, and I'm her Mommy.