30
I am so surprised sometimes to notice that my sister is a wife and a mother, and I am not.
Somehow I always thought it would be the opposite. I thought it would be me who would end
up with a houseful of muddy boots and hollering kids, while Catherine would be living by her-
self, a solo act, reading alone at night in her bed. We grew up into different adults than any-
one might have foretold when we were children. It’s better this way, though, I think. Against all
predictions, we’ve each created lives that tally with us. Her solitary nature means she needs a
family to keep her from loneliness; my gregarious nature means I will never have to worry
about being alone, even when I am single. I’m happy that she’s going back home to her family
and also happy that I have another nine months of traveling ahead of me, where all I have to
do is eat and read and pray and write.
I still can’t say whether I will ever want children. I was so astonished to find that I did not
want them at thirty; the remembrance of that surprise cautions me against placing any bets on
how I will feel at forty. I can only say how I feel now—grateful to be on my own. I also know
that I won’t go forth and have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life; I don’t
think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto the earth. Though I sup-
pose people do reproduce sometimes for that reason—for insurance against later regret. I
think people have children for all manner of reasons—sometimes out of a pure desire to nur-
ture and witness life, sometimes out of an absence of choice, sometimes in order to hold on
to a partner or create an heir, sometimes without thinking about it in any particular way. Not
all the reasons to have children are the same, and not all of them are necessarily unselfish.
Not all the reasons not to have children are the same, either, though. Nor are all those reas-
ons necessarily selfish.
I say this because I’m still working out that accusation, which was leveled against me
many times by my husband as our marriage was collapsing—selfishness. Every time he said
it, I agreed completely, accepted the guilt, bought everything in the store. My God, I hadn’t
even had the babies yet, and I was already neglecting them, already choosing myself over
them. I was already a bad mother. These babies—these phantom babies—came up a lot in
our arguments. Who would take care of the babies? Who would stay home with the babies?