Mae-be Roses
Rebecca Bloomer

THE BOOK

Mae (Mae-be) Rose, is a self-confessed 'nothinger'. She gets good grades but is not the sportiest, coolest or cleverest girl in school. Mae-be has no siblings to hate and no history of abuse, self or otherwise. When she finds herself pregnant, Mae-be has a lot to learn. She learns the hypocrisy of some, the kindness of others and the need for making a life after she brings one into the world. Mae struggles not to sink into the quagmire of teen parenthood. Along the way she learns a lot about herself, via her mother's story.

Ma, as Mae calls her, had her own, illegitimate child at twenty. In the days when the legal voting age was twenty-one, and women weren't worth educating, she was forced to give her daughter up for adoption. Two weeks after adoptive legislation changes, the phone rings and her daughter wants to speak with her. Mae-be Roses follows a mother's story, from rumour, to truth, to a touching reunion

EXCERPT

"I'm pregnant." Every person in the room fell heavily silent, all sound seemed to sink to the floor. Then just as quickly as silence had come, my world exploded into the expected furore. I sat silently as the angry words and recriminations rained like punches about my head. I didn't say anything. I knew they had a right to be angry and disappointed. I was, why shouldn't they?

The one thing my mum didn't want me to do. Right, like she wanted me to do drugs, alcohol, submit to peer pressure and become a high school drop out. There was, in fact, a rather long list of things my mum didn't want me to do. Pregnancy had definitely been on the list. Dad wanted to know what Jamie was going to do about my predicament. Exactly what he thought Jamie might be able to do was beyond my understanding at that point. So I sat. Mute. Waiting for the storm to pass.

Truthfully, I didn't really hear most of what they said. I was holed up in my own little shelter of shock and fear. I heard the odd screaming, bellowing phrase like, get rid of it, but really those things were just noise in the background. Words bounced off me like water off hot fat, an accompaniment to my own sizzling, burning, horror and confusion.

I don't know what I was afraid of, certainly not my future; I hadn't had time to compute that yet. I wasn't afraid of my parents either, for all their yelling and wildly flailing hands, they weren't going to hurt me. Somewhere in the back of my head, the dread was linked by a cotton thin thread to uncertainty. Maybe it was the uncertainty that made me feel so sick.

Finally, very late, Jamie left and we all went to bed. Tension oozed around and around the house, like some giant, green, parasitic slug. While I lay in my darkened room contemplating my new world, I could feel it there, just waiting to suck all the joy out of me.

Eventually I stopped trying to sort out my circular, head-aching thoughts. Lack of thought was unusual for me. I really enjoyed thinking. I rarely did anything unless I'd managed to get some perspective. I liked the feeling of stepping outside myself to look at an issue from every angle. Take my subject selection for high school for example; I was the last person to hand in my subject choices for Grade Ten. The drama in choosing them for Grade Eleven was not something normal humans could even comprehend. Always I looked for the catches and loopholes in situations, waiting cynically, for a naïve choice to come back and bite me on the bum. That's probably the reason I never managed any more than Maths B at school. Maths C and Physics never struck me as being particularly realistic. Every question had a million loopholes, all of which had to be ignored if you wished to apply the formulae. Life doesn't come as a formula.

I don't know. The one time in my life when I failed to be rational and look at what happened … I'd swapped moments for lifetimes without even thinking.

DEDICATIONS

For my mum who needed her story told.
For my dad who never once reneged on his promise of unconditional support.
For my brothers who learned to change nappies at fourteen and fifteen years old.
For my sister who, once found, will never be allowed to disappear again.
For my son who spurred me to be better than I ever thought I could.
For my man Jason, who wiped my slate clean.
For my daughter Felicity who helped me begin a new chapter.
And for all of you who find yourselves feeling battered by the wind instead of learning to soar. Be strong and be smart. Know that the most beautiful roses bloom amongst the most ferocious of thorns.

THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Bloomer is an English/Biology teacher in Australian high schools and was a teenaged mother herself. While raising her son, she accrued a degree and a Masters in education. But in nine years of teaching, she's watched in dismay as pregnant students left empty chairs in her classes. In writing Mae-be Roses, Rebecca aimed to encourage all girls to keep roses in their hearts, wishes on their lips and brains in their heads!

 

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