Featured – Page 2 – Donna Moriarty

The Apology Dream

For Yom Kippur, a tale of forgiveness and an apology… of sorts

Woman looking down at her keyboard with eyes closed and hands up towards her forehead while a man behind her points at her screen and looks like he's reprimanding her

During my sixteenth year working in an executive position at a medical school, a new chancellor was hired and became my new boss. He seemed to take an instant dislike to me, going to great lengths to correct, humiliate, or make an example of me almost daily. It wasn’t long before I dreaded coming to work.

This went on for nearly two years, from his first day on the job to the day he called me into his office and “invited” me to retire. After spending thousands on a lawyer — several other women of my age and station were suddenly leaving, hinting at discrimination — the resulting separation agreement included a non-compete clause that prohibited me from working in my field.

I’d given my best years to the organization. I had served as a trusted member of the president’s cabinet. I had allies and loyal staffers. But once I signed that severance agreement, I was shunned. There was no farewell party, no thanks, and no fond goodbyes from the people I’d served with for almost two decades.

Faith and My Father

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How can we access the inner fortitude that can carry us through darkness?

On the streets of New York, it’s raining babies. Infants and children are everywhere — in strollers, carriages, front carriers, back carriers. The ache under my ribs, that familiar, grasping feeling, urges me toward the babies I pass on the street. Or, rather, toward just one. A single infant reaching for me, who nuzzles for my breast, one whose eyes meet mine.

It’s been almost a year since I gave birth to a stillborn daughter. The cavity it carved in the middle of my being still throbs. I feel it as I stand in bright sunlight, angry as thunder, waiting for the empty place to be filled.

It’s November, and all over the news is one story: Princess Diana is pregnant. People are falling all over themselves–an heir, an heir! The television reports capture the dewy mother-to-be from every angle. She is constantly surrounded by admirers reaching out their hands, photographers snapping photos as she ducks her pretty head for meager protection against the constant whirr and flash.

I stare at the television, listening to incessant details — her due date (summer of next year), her morning sickness (or lack of it), where she will deliver the baby, the baby. I wish everyone would shut up about the royal fucking baby.

The Interlopers

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It was summertime. Loud talk and laughter floated through our apartment’s open windows and down to the street. Guests continued to arrive for hours — neighbors and old friends, my husband’s coworkers and their mates, all the people we liked best.

When the door opened and a beautifully dressed Hispanic couple stood there smiling, holding a small gift, I stared for a moment. I called over my shoulder, “Honey, come say hi.” My husband moved to greet the charming couple, welcoming them in. He doesn’t know who they are, either, I thought.

For an hour I moved to each of my guests, casually asking if they knew who’d invited the pair. No one knew them. Uneasy, I approached the couple, who were laughing and talking with one of our neighbors, and waited until the woman noticed me. She touched the man’s arm and they both looked at me expectantly, moving closer together as the other guest wandered off.

The Lie

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I was four years old when I told my first deliberate lie.

A little girl with long thin brown hair looks down and blows on a dandelion

My best friend was a boy my age who lived next door named Billy Matthews. Billy was the first boy to show me his private parts, offering it as a bonus when he went to relieve himself in the weeds behind their garage. But that was not the incident that prompted the lie.

I was playing at Billy’s house one morning when his mother, whom I liked because she was young and pretty and never scolded us, appeared at the doorway to the playroom.

“I’m going to make Billy’s lunch now,” she said. “Would you like to stay and have peanut butter and jelly and chocolate milk with Billy?”

In my house, jelly was a rarity and chocolate milk was non-existent. Nothing on earth was going to stop me from fulfilling the desire that swept over me, blotting out all else.