We are at an insurance conference in Hawaii.  It is beautiful here.  While Paul is in his seminars, my days are full of relaxation, yoga and hiking.  But the real reason we are here is business, which also means a calendar full of cocktail parties and company dinners.  Those have been tough. Small talk used to be intuitive and comfortable for me, but now it’s awkward and scary. I don’t want to be asked about my family.

Quickly I develop a survival strategy.  I’ve reinvented myself as the most interested woman at this insurance conference.  Former opening lines have been discarded. Now, I immediately take control of the conversation, steering it far, far away from the subject of kids. I ask people about themselves before they can ask anything of me. I make them believe they are the most fascinating people in the world. I let them talk on and on about themselves.  Anything to keep them from asking me the dreaded question.  Unfortunately it’s not full proof.

The first time, standing at tall cocktail tables overlooking a particularly scenic stretch of beach.  Turquoise sea with wind chattering the palm fronds above.  Our host’s wife strolled over and opened with “So, tell me about yourselves?  Do you have any kids?”  I took a deep breath, apologized for my discomfort and explained that it is a challenge for us to answer that question, because we recently lost a son and we don’t know how to answer.  It happened quickly. Like a murderer lurking in a dark ally, a knife went swiftly into her heart and the the tears began to fall.  First for her, then for me.  “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine” she says.

That didn’t go well, so I amended my answer the next day when I was asked the same question by a darling young couple at dinner.  He, a young executive in our host’s firm.  She, a young mother, familiar in her focus, taking her motherhood job thoughtfully; obsessing over the details.

“One, I said. Just one!’ mustering as chipper and enthusiastic a reply as I could.

She beamed.  “Us too!  One and done?!”  “How hard was it for you to decide to just have one?”

“Um, not that hard.  It just sort of happened that way.”  I kept smiling, tossing a decoy that maybe she would think it was an infertility issue and she should move on. She did, but this time to a million questions about Matthew.

“Where is he in school?”

“Um, at MIT” (when in truth he has taken the year off and is in South America sorting through the life changing experience of loosing his brother before he returns to an academic pressure cooker)

“What a great school!  How did you get him interested in academics?”

“Um, he was an inquisitive guy from the very start.” (Amending the part that the two boys just came out with their distinct interests and abilities)  I try to get her to talk more about her boy, but she’s focused our story; our shared experience of parenting one son.

“How did he deal with the horrible winter they had back east this year?”

“Um, well, it sure is an adjustment from California weather!”  My answer is cheerful and vague. (He withdrew at the end of September and spent the seven weeks in the tropical weather of Southeast Asia, never once needing snow boots)

On and on the questions come.  I deflect, I smile, I try my best to change the subject, to shift the focus to her and her cherished only son.  With each answer comes an increasingly oppressive realization that I am a liar.  I am weaving a tale.  I am altering history.  I am a fraud. I feel psychotic.

That night I wake in a panic. I lie in bed, now fully awake thinking about last night’s conversation. What if I am discovered? I don’t want to be discovered for what I am, a psychotic lying fraud.

Now I have to remember to whom I’ve told what.  One son, two sons, dead son, son in South America.  What is true and what isn’t?  No more cocktails for me.  I’ve got to keep it all straight. I’m protecting strangers from the truth so they don’t cry at a business cocktail party.  I am lying so others can enjoy the off site business conference that is so well deserved. No one deserves to be brought to tears by asking a normal question, especially on vacation in Hawaii.

Another day, another party. A tall, leggy young woman with long, straight hair is standing at the cocktail table adjacent to ours.  There is something Shelby-like about her.  A guy about Paul’s age wearing a Dartmouth Hockey cap welcomes another couple to their table.  I’m barely in earshot but I hear him introduce the arriving pair.  “This is my son’s girlfriend, and you know my son.”  The son is tall, athletic build, dark haired, handsome.  When we pass by I glance at his name tag. “John” it reads.  I wish that by making up stories, I could make up the story that we were here with our son John and his girlfriend.  I wish that I could make up a story and have it be true. I wish it wasn’t this hard.