I got off the bus on Central Avenue and started walking towards the restaurant with a huge neon-lighted Mexican sombrero hanging over it. Many people are familiar with that sign, watching it move from one business location to another in the Albuquerque Heights over the years. But this was 1956, and the sign was fairly new and I thought it was beautiful and unique. The late evening air felt refreshing after the heat of that June day. I was feeling fine, having gotten more than my usual two or three hours sleep.
I glanced at the clock inside the restaurant as I opened the door, noting with satisfaction that I was reporting fifteen minutes early for my shift. A deluge of odors assaulted me as I entered: hot oil, corn tortillas, chili, menudo. Without warning, I felt vomit raising in my throat. Horrified, I ran towards the womens' rest room, but even with my hand clamped over my mouth, the vomit erupted, spewing on the floor, on me. Startled customers sitting in booths gaped at me with disgust as I rushed by.
Inside the rest room, I leaned over the toilet, my stomach retching, as wave after wave of nausea shuddered through me. With trembling hands, I washed my face, which seemed a light shade of gray in the mirror over the sink. I scrubbed my white uniform clean, wanting to remove every trace of odor, then combed through my short brown hair and put on some lipstick. Reluctantly, I opened the door to face the stares of customers and fellow workers. Dan, the dishwasher, had finished cleaning up the trail I had left from the front door to the rest room. Sweat made his black face shine. He passed me, pushing the heavy scrub bucket with the mop. "I'm so terribly sorry, Dan," I whispered to him, as I laid my hand on his arm.
"Don't you worry about it, Darlin', it was no trouble at all," he said, exposing big white teeth in a wide grin. "You feelin' better, Sugar?"
"Yes, much, thank you." I hung my head in shame and he chuckled and patted my shoulder to show his support before pushing the bucket towards the back door to dump it.
Stella, the hefty swing shift supervisor took me to the kitchen. She knew I was new to New Mexico, that I had been born and raised in Pennsylvania. I had never been in a Mexican restaurant until I started to work there three weeks before. She was kind but curious, and asked if I needed to take the night off.
"No, no," I told her, "I feel fine now, really I do. It was just the smells. I'm not use to them yet and . . . " I let my voice trail off. I didn't want to tell her I was pregnant for the first time in my young life.
"Okay," she said, "if you think you can handle it, go ahead." Sighing, she looked at me carefully, her eyes almost hidden between the puffed up fat of her face. "I wish," she said with a sad smile, "I wish I was nineteen again, like you, pretty and slender. Enjoy your youth, Martee. It sure goes fast."
I was working the counter that night and would take over the cash register and booths as well when Stella left at eleven. Jack Phillips, a regular, was sipping a cup of coffee, still wearing his dirty cook's uniform. He motioned me over and asked if I was alright. I nodded, not wanting to talk about it. He had left his downtown job early that night, he explained, because business was slow.
Jack was a friendly fellow, not much older than me, with blond hair and a pleasant smile. He stopped by every night when he got off work. He had asked me out several times, but I had always refused. I was in love and going out with another man had no appeal for me, especially since I was pregnant. It would have been indecent.
In Pennsylvania, when I had told Pat, my boy-friend, that I was pregnant, he had hesitated for just a moment and then began talking about some funny thing that had happened that day. I thought at first he hadn't heard me. We were driving to a favorite dance club and in the dim light, I wasn't able to read his face. He never mentioned it the entire evening, nor did I. He was nervous, less affectionate than usual, and I knew he was struggling with it, trying to decide what to do, what to say. I would be patient; I would give him time to absorb it.
Jack nudged my arm and pointed to his empty cup, which I promptly filled before moving off to wait on a pair of young lovers who had just entered. Stella left and the night crawled on. There were few customers. Jack hung around much later than usual, calling me over to talk whenever I wasn't busy. I didn't mind. It helped pass the hours. "How far along are you?" he asked me suddenly.
Shocked, I stared at him. "How did you know?" I asked.
"Your little mishap earlier was some indication," he responded, "plus which, you're a bit thicker about the middle than you were when you first started working here."
It was a relief to be able to talk about it. He was a good listener. I told him how I had to leave Meadville, my small home town, before my pregnancy became apparent, so as not to disgrace my family. In the fifties, being pregnant out of wedlock was a very serious thing. The girls were shipped off to out-of-town relatives and carefully contrived stories were told to explain their sudden departure.
My mother and I had chosen New Mexico because my oldest sister lived there with her husband and two children. On a visit to Albuquerque a year earlier, Joan had pointed out a large, old fashioned two-story house in Old Town, saying it was a home for unwed mothers. It didn't make much of an impression on me at the time.
Pat never called or came by my mother's house where I lived, after that night when I told him the news. The message was clear, and I was too proud to beg him to marry me.
I had felt flattered when he first asked me out. He was so handsome, with dark curly hair that tumbled onto his forehead. He was popular, sought after, and he had chosen me! I was ecstatic when we continued dating. He was fun, a good dancer, always the life of the party. He was the leader of his group of friends and everyone looked up to him, depended on him. That he would continue to date little insignificant me was amazing. "You're fun to be with, Martee," he told me. "I like you a lot, but don't change a thing, don't ruin it by getting serious."
And I had tried hard not to. My status in our small town was increased by my friendship with Pat. He and his friends were so much fun and I was one of them now. I belonged. It was a good feeling.
It was winter when we had first started dating. With spring came love that I couldn't control. He warned me again, "Don't fall in love with me, Martee." But it was too late, I already was in love with him, and I hadn't had a period in two months.
The day before I was to take the El Captain train across country to New Mexico, I got into my "46 green Ford and drove to the house where he lived with his large Italian family. Although he was 22 years old, it was expected and accepted that he remain in the family home until he married. I told him I was leaving town to visit my sister. He couldn't meet my eyes. My visit was brief. As he walked me out the door, we paused on the old wooden porch. "I don't want you to get an abortion," he said. (Illegal, back alley abortions were available even then in my small Pennsylvania town.) It was the first, and only, verbal acknowledgment he had made of my pregnancy.
"I never considered that alternative for a moment," I told him, stung that he would think such a thing. He didn't even walk me to my car, but instead turned his back on me and went back into the house and shut the door. I suppose up to that very moment I had hoped he would marry me. I didn't fault him; he had clearly warned me. Still, the agonies of rejection and abandonment rushed through me.
Filled with pain, I drove straight home and laid on my bed until dark, wild thoughts whirling through my head. After my family went to bed, I went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I took a fresh razor blade from the medicine chest and stood in front of the sink for a long time before making the first, hesitant cut on my wrist. It hurt. Steeling myself, I cut my other wrist. They didn't bleed much. I had heard that running hot water over your wrists made the pain less, so I did that, cutting as the water gushed over my arm. It still hurt, and I still hadn't cut deeply enough to get serious bleeding started. I began crying softly. I wanted to die, but I wanted to die painlessly. After a time the bleeding stopped and so did the tears. I wrapped clean rags around the tiny inch-wide incisions I had made and went quietly back to bed. The next morning I left for New Mexico, wearing a long-sleeved blouse.
I told all this to Jack. He was sympathetic, understanding. He had kind green eyes which he never took off me. He encouraged me to continue talking whenever I returned to him between customers.
I told him how I had, with much dread, but as casually as possible, broken the news to my sister. We were driving to the grocery store. Staring straight ahead, I asked her if the home for unwed mothers was still in Old Town. She gasped and said yes. The next day she took me there and I was interviewed. The rules were simple and they were firm. They would take me in, give me a place to live and food to eat. They would pay for the doctor and hospital. But . . . why is there always that "but"? They would accept me only if I signed papers agreeing to give my child up for adoption. I would not be permitted to see or hold my child. I would not be told the sex of my child. I asked if an exception could be made, saying I loved my unborn baby and intended to raise her or him, with or without a husband. "I cannot even consider signing those papers" I told the hard-faced woman. No exception could be made. Wordlessly, I got up and left that office and that house. My sister was waiting in the car. The bright sunshine blinded me so that I could not see her expression when I told her things had not worked out, that I had not been accepted.
The morning was approaching and business would be picking up soon, Jack said and I agreed. Then he took my hand in his and looking directly into my eyes, asked "Will you marry me, Martee?" Stunned, I could only look at him.
"Cat got your tongue?" he teased. Still, I couldn't speak. Moments before I had told him I was still in love with Pat, in spite of his rejection of me, and of our baby. How could I marry anyone else?
"I know you don't love me," Jack said, "and I don't expect that. We'll do it anyway you want. We can marry and live together and see what happens. I'll accept your child as though it were mine. I swear that, Martee. And maybe we'll fall in love." Numbly, I shook my head no. "If you don't want that, then marry me for the sake of your child. Marry me so "out of wedlock" won't be written on the birth certificate. I won't expect anything of you. We can get married right now, this morning, and then I'll take you to your sister's house."
"That's crazy," I said, finding my voice at last. "I can't accept that from you. It wouldn't be fair."
"But I want to do this, Martee, for you, and for the child you're carrying. Let me do it. In a year or so, we can get divorced. No one will ever know the truth of the matter."
By the time the relief shift showed up at seven, he had me convinced. A marriage certificate would mean I could hold my head up, it would mean my child could not be called a bastard.
We climbed into his beat-up old pick-up and drove to the Bernallio County Courthouse and waited until the doors were unlocked. We sat in the truck and talked. He kissed me. The odor of cigarettes on his breath sickened me, and I had to turn my head. "If you want to come home with me, for just the day, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine too," Jack said. I felt terrible, for I did not want to be with him, not in that way, in spite of what he was doing for me and for my unborn child.
When the courthouse doors opened we went in and did the paperwork. No blood work was required, no waiting period. A paper was issued, the small fee paid for by my tips. We were taken before a judge, his secretary acting as witness. What a sight we were, both of us in dirty white uniforms, smudged with stains, and white shoes splashed with food droppings and grease. We hadn't even washed our hands or combed our hair. The ceremony was brief and I held my breath when Jack kissed me.
True to his word, he drove me straight to my sister's house in the northeast heights of Albuquerque. We went in and showed her the marriage license. She was astounded, and thanked Jack for his kindness. He and I exchanged addresses, so we could keep in touch. He wanted to know when the baby was born, the baby who would bear his name of Phillips. I promised to send him a copy of the birth certificate.
After he left, I laid on my sister's bed and cried for a long time, with mixed emotions. I had a marriage certificate; my child would not have to bear my maiden name or suffer taunts from other children in school. I was a married woman, but it certainly wasn't the marriage I had dreamed of. My sister and her husband were sympathetic, supportive, in spite of the fact that I had gone to visit them without even telling them I was pregnant.
I never went back to the restaurant; never saw Jack Phillips again. Jane, another sister, living back in Meadville, agreed that I could live with her. Her husband was in the Air Force and she was raising three small children on her own. I would care for them during the day while she worked. With marriage certificate in hand, and a story about the marriage not working out, I returned to my home town.
That Pennsylvania winter, two weeks after I turned twenty years old, I gave birth to tiny, non-identical twin sons, with dark curly hair. As promised, I mailed off a copy of their birth certificates to Jack Phillips. Two years later, we divorced, through the mail. It seems impossible, but those sons are 37 years old now, with children of their own. They know the truth of my first marriage. As adults, I wanted them to meet their father, but Pat refused.
My mother put a curse on Pat when my sons were born, saying he would never father another son. And he never did. ~~~
Martha R. Thomas
January 27, 1994
Belen, New Mexico