Parenthood Theme Analysis

I was born because a scientist managed to hook up my mother’s eggs and my father’s sperm to create a specific combination of previous genetic material. In fact, when Jesse told me how babies get made and I, the great disbeliever, decided to ask my parents the truth, I got more than I bargained for. They sat me down and explained all the usual stuff, of course—but they also explained that they chose little embryonic me, specifically, because I could save my sister, Kate. “We loved you even more,” my mother made sure to say, “because we knew what exactly we were getting.”

It made me wonder, though, what would have happened if Kate had been healthy. Chances are, I’d still be floating up in Heaven or wherever, waiting to be attached to a body to spend some time on Earth. Certainly, I would not be part of this family. See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn’t get here by accident. And if your parents have you for a reason, then that reason better exist. Because once it’s gone, so are you.

I think there are crossroads in our lives when we make grand, sweeping decisions without even realizing it. Like scanning the newspaper headline at a red light, and therefore missing the rogue van that jumps the line of traffic and causes an accident. Entering a coffee shop on a whim and meeting the man you will marry one day, while he’s digging for change at the counter. Or this one: instructing your husband to meet you, when for hours you have been convincing yourself this is nothing important at all.

“Providence Hospital doesn’t know anything,” he says fiercely. “Do you remember when the chief’s son broke his left arm, and they put a cast on the right one?”

I stare at the ceiling again. “Just so you know,” I say, more loudly than I’ve intended, “I’m not going to let Kate die.”

There is an awful sound beside me—an animal wounded, a drowning gasp. Then Brian presses his face against my shoulder, sobs into my skin. He wraps his arms around me and holds on as if he’s losing his balance. “I’m not,” I repeat, but even to myself, it sounds like I am trying too hard.

Anna’s real name is Andromeda. It’s on her birth certificate, honest to God. The constellation she’s named after tells the story of a princess, who was shackled to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster—punishment for her mother Casseopeia, who had bragged to Poseidon about her own beauty. Perseus, flying by, fell in love with Andromeda and saved her. In the sky, she’s pictured with her arms outstretched and her hands chained.

The way I saw it, the story had a happy ending. Who wouldn’t want that for a child?

“For God’s sake, Anna,” my mother says. “Do you even realize what the consequences would be?”

My throat closes like the shutter of a camera, so that any air or excuses must move through a tunnel as thin as a pin. I’m invisible, I think, and realize too late I have spoken out loud.

My mother moves so fast I do not even see it coming. But she slaps my face hard enough to make my head snap backward. She leaves a print that stains me long after it’s faded. Just so you know: shame is five-fingered.

My first strike was marrying a guy without a college degree. My second and third were getting pregnant. I suppose that when I didn’t go on to become the next Gloria Allred, [Suzanne] was justified in counting me a failure. And I suppose that until now, I was justified in thinking that I wasn’t one.

Don’t get me wrong, she loves her niece and nephew. She sends them carvings from Africa, shells from Bali, chocolates from Switzerland. Jesse wants a glass office like hers when he grows up. “We can’t all be Aunt Zanne,” I tell him, when what I mean is that I can’t be her.

“Anna,” I say, at the exact same moment as Sara Fitzgerald.

It is my responsibility to explain to Anna that Judge DeSalvo wants a few minutes in private. I need to coach her, so that she says the right things, so that the judge doesn’t throw the case out before she gets what she wants. She is my client; by definition, she is supposed to follow my counsel.

But when I call her name, she turns toward her mother.

The baby’s head slips through the seal of my skin. The doctor’s hand holds her, slides that gorgeous cord free of her neck, delivers her shoulder by shoulder.

I struggle to my elbows to watch what is going on below. “The umbilical cord,” I remind him. “Be careful.” He cuts it, beautiful blood, and hurries it out to the room to a place where it will be cryogenically preserved until Kate is ready for it.

“Do you have kids?” Anna asks.

I laugh. “What do you think?”

“It’s probably a good thing,” she admits. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like a parent.”

This fascinates me. “What do parents look like?”

She seems to think about this. “You know about how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he’s really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.”

[Kate] sprinted, and nearly had it, but then Jesse took a running leap and slammed her to the ground, crushing her underneath him.

In that moment everything stopped. Kate lay with her arms and legs splayed, unmoving. My father was there in a breath, shoving at Jesse. “What the hell is the matter with you!”

“I forgot!”

My mother: “Where does it hurt? Can you sit up?”

But when Kate rolled over, she was smiling. “It doesn’t hurt. It feels great.”

My parents looked at each other. Neither of them understood like I did, like Jesse did—that no matter who you are, there is some part of you that always wishes you were someone else—and when, for a millisecond, you get that wish, it’s a miracle. “He forgot,” Kate said to nobody, and she lay on her back, beaming up at the cold hawkeye sun.

“You are allowed to take a break, you know. No one has to be a martyr twenty-four/seven.”

But I hear her wrong. “I think once you sign on to be a mother, that’s the only shift they offer.”

“I said martyr,” Zanne laughs. “Not mother.”

I smile a little. “Is there a difference?”

“Did you want to get your crown of thorns out of the suitcase first? Listen to yourself, Sara, and stop being such a drama queen. Yes, you drew a bad lot of fate. Yes, it sucks to you.”

Bright color rises on my cheeks. “You have no idea what my life is like.”

“Neither do you,” Zanne says. “You’re not living, Sara. You’re waiting for Kate to die.”

“I won’t let your sister take care of Kate,” Brian says. “I’m supposed to take care of Kate.” The hose falls to the ground, dribbles and spits at our feet. “Sara, she’s not going to live long enough to use that money for college.”

The sun is bright; the sprinkler twitches on the grass, spraying rainbows. It is far too beautiful a day for words like these. I turn and run into the house I lock myself in the bathroom.

A moment later, Brian bangs on the door. “Sara? Sara, I’m sorry.”

I pretend I can’t hear him. I pretend I haven’t heard anything he’s said.

The paper [Brian] has been scribbling on falls out of his hands and lands at my feet; before he can reach it I pick it up. It is full of tearstains, of cross-outs. She loved the way it smelled in Spring, I read. She could beat anyone at gin rummy. She could dance even if there wasn’t music playing. There are notes on the side, too: Favorite color: pink. Favorite time of day: twilight. Used to read Where the Wild Things Are, over and over, and still knows it by heart.

All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. “Is this…a eulogy?”

By now, Brian is crying, too, “If I don’t do it now, I won’t be able to when it’s really time.”

I shake my head. “It’s not time.”

“Taylor already thinks you’re beautiful.”

“Well I don’t!” Kate cries. “I don’t, Mom, and maybe I want to just once.”

[…]

“We’ll sew something,” I suggest. “You can design it.”

“You don’t know how to sew,” Kate sighs.

“I’ll learn.”

“In a day?” She shakes her head. “You can’t fix it every time, Mom. How come I know that, and you don’t?”

I don’t tell Kate something else Jenna Ambrose said—that afterward, she went inside and stared at her son, who wasn’t her son anymore. That she sat for five whole hours, sure he was going to wake up. That even now she hears noise overhead and thinks Taylor is moving around his room, that the half-second she is gifted before she remembers the truth is the only reason she gets up each morning.

Can you tell me what the right answer is here? […] Because I don’t know where to look for it. I know what’s right. I know what’s fair. But neither of those apply here. I can sit, and I can think about it, and I can tell you what should be and what ought to be. I can even tell you there’s got to be a better solution. But it’s been thirteen years, Mr. Alexander, and I still haven’t found it.