Escape From Nowhere

Excerpt

www.leeannprescott.com

Presented at USF MFA in Writing Graduation Reading

August 14, 2012

Identity Crisis

First Grade, Newbury, Vermont, 1978

Today in school we learned about genes. Miss Driscoll

told us that genes are what make you look like your parents.

She said that some genes are dominant over other genes. One

thing is hair color but the he main one she talked about is

eye color. Brown eyes are dominant over blue eyes. So if the

mother has blue eyes, and the father has brown eyes, the

child will most likely have brown eyes. Two brown-eyed

parents will not usually make a blue-eyed child unless both

of them had one parent who had blue eyes. And two blue-eyed

parents cannot make a brown-eyed child. This is confusing

but it’s true.

I have brown eyes and Cheryl has blue eyes like

Grammy’s. I have always called my mother Cheryl. She told me

she didn’t want me to call her Mom because I might also call

her Mummy and mummies are dead people. Everyone says that I

look just like her. Well, I must look a little bit like my

father because if what I learned today is true, he must have

brown eyes. Big John, Cheryl’s last boyfriend, has brown

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eyes, but I know he is not my father because he is Chrissy

and Johnny’s father. When we all lived together in the

yellow house in Pike, I called him Daddy because that’s what

Chrissy and Johnny called him, even though I knew it wasn’t

true. Scotty is her new boyfriend and he has blue eyes, so

he can’t be my father either.

I thought about this all the way home from school, and

went straight to the living room to look at photo albums. I

have never seen pictures of Cheryl in a wedding or with a

man other than Big John, but I wanted to make sure. I take

all the photo albums down from the shelf and spread them

out. Cheryl comes in and sits down beside me. “How come

other kids have fathers and I don’t?” I ask.

“Because it’s better for you not to have a father.”

“Why is it better?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because it’s just better,” she sighs. “You can find

out who he is when you’re eighteen.”

“Why do I have to wait until I’m eighteen?”

“Because that’s when you become an adult, and legally

you can find those things out.”

“Then why did you have me, if I couldn’t have a

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father?”

“Because you wanted to be born.” I can tell she doesn’t

like talking about this, because all the photo albums are

stacked up in a pile.

“Does my father have brown eyes?”

“Yes, he has brown eyes.” She puts the albums back on

the shelf. “Why don’t you set the table for dinner?”

It’s Saturday and Cheryl is outside helping our landlord Mr.

Oliver plant the garden. I have been having dreams wondering

where my father is, but I don’t dare ask her any more

questions, and I don’t want to wait until I turn eighteen. I

know that she keeps important papers in a metal file box in

her bedroom, so I decide to go look for papers about my

father. The box is by the window, and that’s good, because I

can see her outside in the garden.

The first thing I find is the very first picture of me.

It’s in a big cardboard frame and I look like I am thinking

about something. My hair is almost black and my eyes are

brown and my skin is tan. The reason I look tan, Cheryl

said, is because I was jaundiced, which means I was yellow

at first but it faded by the time they took the picture. She

said when I came out I didn’t cry and looked all around like

I wanted to know everything about the new world around me.

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Right after that, they took me away from her. They had to

take me to Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover because they

needed to fix the jaundice and something that was wrong with

my blood. I stayed there for a week and Cheryl didn’t have a

car so she had to get rides from Aunt Cora to bring me her

milk.

I don’t know how it can be, because I was a tiny baby

and must have had a tiny brain too, but I can remember being

at Mary Hitchcock. They kept me in a little glass crib.

Cheryl said that they covered my eyes and put me under

special blue lights, which made the jaundice and the blood

problem go away. In my mind I can see the room, full of

little glass cribs and oh, I tell you, it was very lonely. I

wasn’t so sick that I was going to die but I wanted to die

because I was so lonely. My life must have gotten a lot

better after that because my next memory is of eating Lucky

Charms with some other kids and it was exciting because I

don’t usually get to have that kind of cereal. Cheryl won’t

buy me Lucky Charms or Fruit Loops or even Trix, no matter

how long I stand in front of the boxes at Kelley’s

Supermarket.

The next thing I pull out of the gray box is a paper

that has pictures of my feet. But they are not really

pictures – someone put my foot in ink and pressed it against

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the paper. On the paper it doesn’t say my name; it says

“Baby Girl Prescott.” Cheryl told me before that she

couldn’t decide what to name me, because she thought I was

going to be a boy and she only had a boy name picked out.

She chose the name LeeAnn after someone she knew in

Massachusetts who was smart and successful. She thought it

would be nice if I grew up to be like that woman named

LeeAnn.

Behind the pictures of my feet is a yellow paper that

says “Birth Certificate.” It says my name, “Lee Ann

Prescott.” The Lee is in the space for First Name and the

Ann is in the space for Middle Name even though everyone

calls me LeeAnn and I say I don’t have a middle name. The

space where it says Father is blank. In the space for

Mother’s Maiden Name it says Cheryl Anne Prescott. Cheryl

told me that a maiden name is your name before you get

married. But she has never been married. I don’t understand

why the woman has to take the man’s name. What if she

doesn’t like his name? Because of this rule, most people

have their father’s name, but I don’t. Cheryl is coming back

inside and nothing in this box is going to tell me father’s

name or where he is. All I know is that he has brown eyes.

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