|
Consequences
by Mika Yamamoto There are consequences for seeing a boy in bright yellow pants walking down Kaiser Strasse in Frankfurt on a grey March day and mistaking him for the sun. There are consequences for knowing you are not in-love but letting yourself get pregnant anyway. There are consequences for marrying someone who hit you because you don’t want to be a single parent. There are consequences. There are consequences for staying in a marriage long enough to get pregnant again. There are consequences for ending the marriage, too. You have to hear your five-year-old son tell you he is so sad he feels he will die. You have to drink wine with your mother-in-law and see her thinness. You have to wipe butts at the hospital so your work schedule allows you to be home by three. For this there are consequences too. You must apply for free or reduced lunch for your kids. You won’t be able to add to your retirement account. In fact, you will withdraw from it. Your expensive comparative literature degree continues to be useless. So when it comes down to it, you pay the consequences for the original mistake you made as a 20 year-old on a cold March day in Germany. Had you never made that mistake, there would be no consequence for it. The equation would come out to zero. But then you have the problem. Where do you write down the 14 stitches put into two children by 3 different doctors? Or the 17 people you have worked with for 3 years? The 22,005 cups of tea you drank in Japan? The 7 steps down into your garden apartment? The 11,040 miles spent on a plane alone with a baby during which time he vomited 4 times? The 1 brown corduroy pant suit in size 4 girls? The 5000 dollars earned from donating 12 eggs which may have resulted in as many babies you will never know about? Or the 1 set of braces for 1child the egg money paid for? But where on the ledger do you write these numbers down? Debit or Credit? |
|
