The Uncertainty of the Meek Part 3--There's Nothing Sublime About Your Absence Sarah continued her guise of straightness. She dated boys until they insisted on either too much time (say, two dates in a two-week period) or wanted some kind of sexual satisfaction. Then they were gone. Her mask hid me even more than her, as any rumor's of Sarah's sexuality would immediately draw very undesirable attention to me, something with which I was ill-prepared to deal. Sarah's false love life provided us protection. We were free to show some affection in public, and, more importantly, our parents never questioned our sleepovers, even when they began to happen three or four nights a week. I could catalog every point on Sarah's body that gave her pleasure, along with exactly the right stroke, the precise pressure to draw her to the height of ecstasy. As for me, Sarah discovered more of my erogenous zones than I did. I have, of course, given you only the oyster, while retaining the pearl for myself. Our loving was the least wonderful aspect of our love, but the moments of silent hand-holding, of hugs after her sports victories, her joyous awe at my stories, all the things which measure the wealth we had--they are narrative wisps, invisible to the outsider, floating only in breaths we alone shared. Briefly, while in college, I saw a therapist. It was a short-lived relationship, as she insisted that my relationship with Sarah was codependent and, thus, bad. Her orthodoxy could not encompass what we had. I suspect my relationship with Sarah was like one of those flowers that blossoms only once in a century; most people who encounter it assume that it is some more common bloom, never to realize how precious that singular moment is. Certainly my therapist would have trampled a field of Century flowers while on her way for a cheap red rose. My therapist was correct in only one thing. You must continue to move when even the earth beneath you is exploding with spears of lava and ash. My ground began to erupt seven weeks before Sarah and I were to leave for Columbia University, our first choice in a list that we had constructed carefully together, school by school. In an era of high unemployment and grand malaise, my father's company downsized him. There was no hope to be found anywhere on the continent--outside Sarah's heart and my own, of course--so the prospect of paying for an expensive private university education was selfish and imprudent, in my mother's words. We--a world consisting of my immediate family, but not Sarah--would have to weather the storm together, and by staying at home and attending UC-Davis, I would be pulling my share. I had enough scholarships to get a de facto free ride at a California school, but not at Columbia. I could cry, but I couldnšt argue the logic. Sarah immediately planned on to join me, but her parents insisted, with the same unshakable logic my parents employed, that she would not pass up the opportunity Columbia offered. Two years of catastrophic telephone bills and a summer of intense loving was all we had left. Sarah left for France for her Junior year and returned out of the closet with a French lover. I remember almost nothing from college after that. The only memory that stands out from the black fog that encased me is the moment I realized my parents knew Sarah and I had been lovers. The night Sarah destroyed me, I blurted out to my mother that Sarah left me. She pulled me into her arms while I cried for however many hours it was, leaving me only to get me water and tissues. After my crying calmed to a minor storm, she stroked my hair and said, "Michi, my sweetest, you'll find another love, I know." "No, there's nobody like Sarah. I can't love anybody. . ." And then it hit me. My mother just described Sarah as my love. I didn't think she knew. The surprise momentarily took me out of my grief. She read my mind. "When you were sixteen, I saw you and Sarah kissing rather, well, passionately. I was shocked, but I wanted to think about what I was going to say. I talked with your dad, and, well, we couldn't think of a better solution than just ignoring it. We came to accept it, and then to even be happy for you that you found a lover like. . ." She knew as soon as she said it that she was returning me to my grief. It took me a week to be able to thank her for handling everything so well and for her to tell me the whole story. Of my post-Sarah life, I think there is no memory I treasure more than the calm, even happy look on my motheršs face as she described seeing Sarah and I for the first time, and then starting to notice our hand-holding. I think my mother loved Sarah, just as so many parents love their child's spouse for bringing their offspring such joy. My life continued on an unremarkable path once I graduated from college. I decided to attend graduate school, quite possibly only because I was particularly talented with languages. My love was the classics: Ovid, Virgil, Cicero, Homer, Thucydides. I would probably be a professor today if I could stand teaching. But teaching is an extrovert's game, so I found translation, an introvert's sport. I have published a translation of Cicero that I'm quite proud of, but my main work comes from translating legal and business documents into French and Italian. There is shockingly little demand for legal documents in Latin, despite the millenniums-old legal tradition arising from Latin texts. C'est la vie. I settled in Portland, Oregon, with my partner, Anne, whom I met while I was still in graduate school. Several years after buying a house together, we decided we wanted a child. Adoption was the obvious answer, but at that time, gays and lesbians were having a difficult time getting adoptions approved. We both wanted a child that which carried the blood of at least one of us, since science couldn't manufacture a sperm from our eggs. Anne and I, briefly enraptured by the I-ching, sat around a tile-covered table, watching the dust whirls in the sun, as we focused our energy on the sticks we were about to throw. Anne held the sticks, while my hands encased her other hand. Anne's raised hand hung in the bright sunlight, the sun highlighting each of the divining sticks before she thrust her hand down and sealed my fate more than even Sarah's French lover. The sticks splayed out before us, and we both could read the sign. I was to bear the child. Life would dwell in me; life would come from me. And, more importantly, we would know the father. Anne was disappointed--I knew her too well to not notice--but she didn't complain. In so many ways, it seemed at the time not to matter who bore our child, as we both were creatures of the meek, and our child was sure to inherit the earth, as had we. Of course, it did matter. Anne and I took our I-ching very seriously. We had placed our energy into it; we had studied carefully, so the decision would be right. Bearing a child would be one thing, but knowing the father proved a difficult matter. Anne and I both knew men, of course. I had male coworkers, as did Anne, and we both had friends who had friends, but there were no men in our life who we were the slightest bit intimate with. No, we weren't the stereotypical man-hating dykes that everyone seems to want to portray lesbians as, but when you've gotten comfortable with women, men seem odd and threatening, especially for the meek. But we were to know the father--we couldn't have a child without knowing him and knowing him intimately. Nowadays, lesbians would probably never take the direction that Anne and I did. Most major cities have sperm-banks and willing physicians who will assist desiring woman in to become pregnant. There are sophisticated screening procedures ensuring that not only do you get top-grade sperm, but that your child will have a greater chance of being President one day than locating her father, if you or he so choose. Men can be involved in only a jerk-off way. Most of our friends felt that was the way men should be involved. Sleeping with a man, well, lesbians don't do that once they've left the closet. Bisexuals are a bit of a pariah in the les/gay community, suggesting that perhaps our sexuality isn't as fast as we lesbians would like. But the I-ching gave us no option. We met Tom Bitteresmeer in a gay-friendly coffeehouse. Not over the top with dyke-power banners, but definitely out. A friend of a friend of a friend recommended him through the chain. A dozen suspicious lesbians scrutinized him before he even learned our names. He looked good on paper--no family history of any icky illnesses, intelligent, calm-tempered, reportedly a very good guy all around. While I don't have a great appreciation for male beauty, it was obvious that Tom was an attractive man, and he carried that assurance with him when he greeted us. The way he slid the chair out from the table reminded me of Sarah claiming her spot at the table--a sense of belonging conveyed by a gesture of grace. Anne had been more critical of the candidates we had met than I, and I was no pushover. Her posture said stay away from me; her answers were monosyllabic and usually negative. However, Tom was a charmer, and soon Anne's shoulders had loosened, and an occasional smile found its way to her lips. A third round of tea followed the second, and we started to get excited. Tom met all of our requirements. He wanted limited time with his child, since he felt it was important for a child to know her biological parents, but he didn't want to interfere with our parenting decisions. For him, the interview process was a chance to determine if we could raise his child the way he'd want to. If not, he'd walk away. He was willing to provide some financial support but expected that we'd take the bulk of it. He was very charming. Very charming. We wanted a charming child.