You've got me at my more lucid. There are days I wander around barely able to string two coherent sentences together. The kid is mostly sleeping through the night but she still requires a lot of focus and energy. She's weaning, taking solid foods, but my body still produces milk. I've stopped feeding her on the breast but I do pump because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than formula. Overall I'm so emotional and dazed that it's hard to remember the time before I was here, before I was this. I feel a little broken in that sense. You haven't heard from me because I simply don't have the mental energy to write, which is like a form of death to my original identity.
I grouse, but there are times I don't hate it. I'd have to be made of stone not to see at least some of the beauty in giving and sustaining life, largely with my own body. There are times I think it's a miracle and I cry. There are times I think it's a curse, and I also cry.
There actually isn't all that much to tell. Most of Kiara's mom's attention went to the baby, as it frankly should, and then to the younger kids. I don't mind being a little "forgotten" -- I don't want to be here, I don't belong, and Kiara kind of forfeited any natural attention she should have gotten around the holidays when she added another mouth to the household.
I did get a couple of bucks from Grandma Kelly and some aunts. I told them I was going to buy concert tickets, which is half-true. I set some aside for an outing I was planning early in the New Year. I spent the rest on a rabbit, which was discreetly mailed to me a few days later.
Before you all drop your jaws to the floor and think I'm some kind of gross weirdo sex fiend for masturbating and then talking about it, let me explain my thinking. Kiara's body is prone to fairly intense period cramps. At least, they feel intense to me, a man who didn't grow up with this sort of thing. In my research, I learned that masturbation (or orgasming in general) can help ease these symptoms. I can confirm that it helps a little bit and feels very good overall, and hey, don't I deserve a little joy in this hectic life? Sexual gratification is a good thing, I don't think I'm the first reporter to break that story.
Over the Christmas break, I came to a few conclusions.
One was that I'm screwed. As determined as I was to keep working on my story, undaunted, I woke up in the middle of the night and it struck me how many cards my foe holds. I'm connected to way too many people and who knows how long their tentacles are? They did this to me, what could they do to my loved ones? Of course I mean the Nishimuras, but it's not like I'm callous to what could be done to my adoptive family as well. I don't just mean tricking people into going to the Inn and messing with their lives. There are plenty more ways to screw someone over.
The other was that if I can't convince the original Kiara to take her life back, then I have to keep it.
As much as I am very much not a natural at parenthood, I have been learning as I've gone along and I've adapted. There could be better people for this role but there could also be a lot worse and I see no reason to toss the coin on that. I'm not even worried about what becomes of me. I'm fully willing to take a chance with my own life. If you're well enough to go to the Inn there's a good chance I could stand being in your shoes, based on what I've done in the last six months. But for the baby, I won't take that chance. Only one person deserves this life more than me.
And that brings me to January 2. Just before the start of the new school session (we don't have "semesters", we have six-week sessions with two courses.) I made an overnight trip over the state line to Knoxville. Armed with an ID from an older cousin who kinda-sorta looks like Kiara, I got into this dive-y honky tonk bar. I treated myself to a Miller Lite. I haven't drank a lot lately, not necessarily because of lack of access but because of the milk situation. The band took the stage at 9, and I was already kind of wiped but I stayed. The singer, Lisa Brown, was all decked out in a sparkly cowboy hat and boots, tight skirt, half-unbuttoned top. Pretty face. Wholesome but still kind of glamorous. If she had a stylist, they could probably really make her into something. I'm not saying the next Taylor Swift, but maybe she's got a future in this, you know? Good voice. Poised. I don't know a lot about music but I can spot a performer on the way to learning her craft, you know?
They played for a few hours. Mostly covers, some stuff I knew but a lot that the crowd sure did. Kacey Musgraves. Carrie Underwood. "I Miss Me More." They did a couple of original songs, which I didn't think much of. One was a ballad, it went "You changed me for the better / even though we're not together / Anymore..."
I hung around a while after the set. The crowd started thinning out. I ordered another Miller and asked the bartender if a $50 tip could help him facilitate an introduction to the band, because gosh I was so impressed.
I went back there and found the band. Lisa was on a couch, chatting closely with some short-haired woman, who I noted with academic disinterest, had huge breasts. The rest of the band were also busy, but pretty much all of them paused to take note of this strange creature that had just entered their space.
My eyes were fixed on Lisa, and hers on me.
Finally, I spoke, gushing. "Lisa, I just wanted to say, I'm a huge fan. I follow you on Instagram. I came all the way from __________ to be here tonight, ever heard of it?"
"Hm," she pondered, "I think I know where that is, maybe. That's pretty far."
"Oh, it was worth it," I grinned. "I was wondering if you were thinking of touring up north this summer? Maybe New England? ...Maine...?"
Lisa's eyes shifted to her friend as she drew in and held a breath, then back to me. "I don't know..." she hemmed in her very twangy, almost performative-sounding southern accent, "This is kind of our... home base. Not sure we have an audience up there."
"Oh, country's popular all over, you know," I smirked, "They're starved for a new act like you. I mean... weren't you living in that area as recently as last summer?"
She furrowed her brow. I could tell she was fuming. Embarrassed, she said, "Maybe we should talk somewhere private."
She kissed her friend on the cheek as she stood and led me to a quiet alcove near the back of the bar.
"How did you find me?" she hissed.
"It wasn't easy," I said. "There were a bunch of women's names in the guest book before yours, but most of them were accounted for. You -- or, Lisa -- only signed L.B. I had a lot of connections to wade through to try to figure out who that was. But from the handwriting I gathered it wasn't Larry Bronstein." When I found out that Lisa Brown of Providence, Rhode Island was now working as a singer in Tennessee, it wasn't hard for me to put two-and-two together. Kiara left a guitar and lots of music posters on her wall, journals full of lyrics attesting to her desire to get out of her one-horse town and try to make it big.
Then she got pregnant and it seemed like that dream was dead.
"How did you get to Maine?" I asked her.
She heaved a sigh, like she really didn't want to talk about it but felt cornered. "When Sierra was 3 months old, I was getting desperate. Not that I didn't love her. Not that I wasn't going to be a good mommy, but I could already see everything I wanted for life getting away from me. I was gonna have to drop out of school, learn cosmetology, and just... become my mom."
"Your mom wouldn't let you drop out of school, trust me," I said firmly.
"Whatever," she sneered. "I found an ad for this talent agent. I sent him some videos of me playing, which I now realize were horrible. He said they were great and there was a workshop he could get me into... in Maine."
"And there was no workshop."
"I guess not. The first night I was there I transformed into Lisa. A property manager from Providence. I figured, I've got a bit of money and freedom now, so long Rhode Island, and hit the road. Wound up here."
"Does anyone in your, uh... circle... know?"
"Jennette," she bobbed her head toward the back, "She was Byron, a 36-year-old computer something-or-other."
"You and her, uh...?"
"Yeah. Don't judge."
"I wouldn't dream of it," I said. "She's cute, if a little butch for me."
"He's nice-- she's nice. Very grateful, you know?"
"Sure," I said, laughing darkly.
"You were a guy," she discerned. "You kinda sit like it."
"Yeah, well, I haven't put a lot of effort into debutante lessons," I said. I explained a bit more about who I was and how I came to be her.
Her face went cold. "So... what now?" She dropped the corny accent.
"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" I said. "It doesn't seem like you're ready to go back."
"I'm really not. I've come too far to give up on my dream, Tom."
"How does the real Lisa Brown feel about you using her body to pursue your dream?"
"She's a CEO now," she shrugged. "Too busy to care."
"What about your little girl? You left her with a stranger. I could be anybody."
"You seem okay," she winced.
"That's not the point," I said. "I have to think about myself. I'm stuck mopping up after your mistake."
"Don't call her a mistake!" she hissed.
I fumed quietly at that. She had no right to be so defensive, in my opinion.
"Look," I said once I had my bearings, "It's clear you never meant to abandon her or anything. You were tricked like I was, like so many others were. You can have the life you were meant to have. And it's not like going back to being Kiara is going to ruin your chances of being successful."
"I can't do it as Kiara," she insisted, eyes darting around to make sure nobody was listening. "No offense, but look at you and look at me. This is my chance."
I gritted my teeth. I did not like the way this was going.
"Maybe... in a little while..." she said, tentatively, "When I'm stable, we could... I don't know.. share custody somehow."
"That's terrible and it makes no sense," I said instantly. "She needs stability, she needs a full-time mom, and where would Kiara even meet Lisa Brown?"
She became increasingly agitated. "Give me... two years. Two years to make it. Get a record contract. Get on my feet. Then... I'll adopt her! Yeah! Nobody will blame you, you're young and overwhelmed, and Jennette and I can't have our own anyway. She won't even remember this part of her life."
Regardless of whether this even made sense to consider, it turned my stomach. I was just supposed to nurse this baby through the hard times and then hand her over to someone who left her behind? Last summer she may have been tricked but this was her decision.
"I don't think I can agree to that," I said coldly. "Look. In a few weeks, I'm going to be able to book a room at the Inn. I'll book you after me. But if you don't tell me by Memorial Day that you're coming, I won't go either. And then this is over. You can't have it both ways, I'm sorry."
"You can't do this to me," she gulped, "That's my baby!"
"Yeah," I said, standing and downing the last of my beer, "I know."
I walked out of that bar into the cold, feeling like the ground had dropped out from under me. I had hoped for the best and tried to prepare myself for the worst, but it hit hard.
My future was starting to take shape.
-Tom, Kiara
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