What One Direction taught one writer about life, death, and motherhood
Photo: Gluekit Harry Styles has a cold or a hangover or a broken heart. Still, the Jumbotron tightens its focus as he prepares for another moment of intensity. The sudden silence and deep stare. The heavy breathing and tossed, greased hair. I’ve seen him nail it dozens of times. He’ll lift the mic to damp, open lips, sharpen his blue steel, and bore a message of love into the sea of screaming fans. The girls’ response is tidal, shrieking solid as a brick wall.
It’s this last question that interests me most, because I, too, am here, willingly, happily, and I am not a girl. I’m a trespasser disguised as a “mum.” In truth, I’ve logged hundreds of hours listening to 1D without my kids. I consume 1D in huge, voracious doses as one might a bag of Cheetos. Sometimes I feel sick afterward but most often not. Most often 1D makes me feel light and lifted and full of gladness.
When my twins were 3 weeks old, I was asked to give a reading of my latest novel. I told the full auditorium that, because everyone had been so kind and welcoming to me in this new town, I now knew they were vampires who wanted to suck the blood of my newborns. Some people thought I was telling a joke. Others shifted nervously.I’m the last appointment of the day. The room is mostly dark. The ultrasound techs are sleepy and want to go home. “Feet in stirrups.
“No, way,” my sister says . “Zayn’s mine. I gave you Louis.” We trade boys like baseball cards. If we were 40-year-old men talking this way about 20-year-old girls, I would hate us.“Okay. Okay.” Ella takes account of what we’ve got. She’ll be the judge. She sizes both of us up, taking note of my Union Jack hair kerchief. She makes her decision public. “You get Zayn,” she tells me.“Mom.” Ella talks her down. “Mom. She knows all the words.
With my family asleep, the loneliness of death is real. It’s a darkness without boundary. I pass my laptop on my way to the bathroom and think, I should delete my new novel, a recently completed book that took me five years to write. From where I’m standing beside this solid mass, even literature, my true love, is the tiniest scratching on a distant wall.
When my twins were born, I didn’t care about literature anymore. As I said, I had three children under age 3. The only book I managed to read that first year was Smith’s Just Kids. I wedged its hardcovers between Marie’s and Juliet’s heads as they tandem breast-fed. At night, I had a mantra. “Patti Smith is a mom. Patti Smith is a mom.”
Rosa, Ella, my sister, and I already have our tickets for a 1D show next September, tickets to a partial thing. I haven’t even told my girls yet that Zayn is gone. It still feels too much like death.
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