Thursday, September 7, 2017

Monologue Mania Day # 1302 Like Mother, Like Daughter by Janet S. Tiger (c) Sept. 7, 2017

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Monologue Mania Day # 1302 Like Mother, Like Daughter by Janet S. Tiger (c) Sept. 7, 2017 

                                     Like Mother, Like Daughter                                                 
                                               by Janet S. Tiger  (c) 2017 all rights reserved     
                                                             tigerteam1@gmail.com
    

           (Teenage girl comes out, she is pensive)

Seventeen.  I am seventeen today.  Not old enough to drink yet, well, not old enough to drink legally, that is...(giggles).....old enough to. (not giggling anymore, serious)......do a lotta things my mom couldn't do at this age.....or so I thought.......you can keep a secret, right?

           (Listens)

Good, thanks.  I appreciate it.....you're the only person I can tell, and even though you're kinda old,  28 is old, ya know?  I think you won't tell anyone and I think I'm gonna burst if I don't tell!

Ya see, what happened was, I was looking in the basement for some old clothes because there's a play in  school and they need clothing from the sixties.....and that's when my mom was my age......and one box had a lotta old stuff, ...and inside was an old diary.....which was not that interesting....I read it and it was all about the things she did.....going to school, working, fights with her dad, then her mom, then her sister, my aunt....they still fight!  And having to go take care of her grandfather in Ohio when she was only 16, what a lot of responsibility!  I'd never known about that...she never told me.

And I was about to put everything in the box, and an envelope slipped out from the back, something I hadn't noticed......I picked it up .....(sighs)....and it was a ...birth certificate.

        (Listens, nods)

And the name on it.....was a boy....my mom's full name was on it, but the father......unknown.  I looked in the diary....she knew.  She just hadn't made a big fuss in the diary.  But it was there.  How it was during a pep rally, she and this guy had 'done it' is the way she put it.  His initial was B......and once I knew what to look for, all the clues were there.  She loved him, and he was going running away to Canada to avoid the draft.  She didn't tell him.  There weren't as many choices back then, abortion was illegal, you couldn't get free rubbers so easy......people still were calling kids born that way....bastards.....

She left school and had the baby at her grandparents, and gave it up for adoption.  Forty four years ago.  I have a brother I never knew about.....44 years old......Who is he?  Is he alive?  Does he have a family - those would be my....relatives!.....But here's the best part.....the part I love......He was born on my mother's..... 17th birthday....that's today, my 17th.......I wonder......where will I be in 44 years?  What will I be doing?  

          (Turns to leave, stops, looks back)

And what about....my baby?  (sighs)  I guess....like mother, like daughter....

          (Lights down)
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Janet S. Tiger    858-736-6315                CaregiversAnon.org
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8

2 comments:

Miriam said...


I really love how this story unfolds. Such good writing!!

Jennifer Silva Redmond said...

Aww...heartbreaking and real.