Renée always wanted to live in Los Angeles, ever since visiting there one summer long ago. She went there with her roommates as a freshman in college on summer break. There was a romance and mystery about the city. So much glamour. So much history.
Unlike most of her friends, she didn’t dream of being an actress, she just seemed drawn to the Southern Californian lifestyle. She wasn’t naive enough to think that lifestyle was realistically achieved, but the thought of it was appealing.
She didn’t hate her hometown, she just didn’t understand why anyone ever decided to settle there. Renée couldn’t imagine an intrepid group of explorers travelling westward ever stopping in this place and deciding it was sufficiently flat, cold and barren - perfect for raising a family. She wondered if it was the effects industrialisation took on the local area that made it so unappealing to her. Maybe at one time it was a beautiful landscape, with fantastic rapids in the river, and blossoming flowers as far as the eye could see. She just decided it was a case of a caravan stopping here after their oxen had died, and they never left. Renée thought her imaginary story was probably more romantic than whatever the real story was, so she never made an effort to learn.
Renée never made it to Los Angeles. She didn’t even finish college. Instead, she met a boy. A boy named John.
John was tall. Renée barely rose to his shoulder when she wore her wedges. He had brown eyes that made Renée swoon. John was also squiriferous and romantic. He would spend hours meticulously planning dates for the two of them that took them all over the town, doing new and exciting things. One Friday evening, John arrived at Renée’s door promptly at 7:00 wearing a dark lounge suit with a white carnation in the lapel. Offering his arm to the lady, John walked her to the nearest bus stop. They rode around the town in the bus, all dressed up, taking in the city at night, and talking for hours.
The pharmaceutical company said there was only a 0.3% chance of getting pregnant. But when you are pregnant, you’re 100% pregnant. To say, “John handled it much better than Renée” would be cliché. For him, it was an added responsibility; for her, it was an entire new life paradigm. John was very supportive, however. He promised her he would be there forever. He wanted this child. He was excited to be a father.
They made a deal: If the child was a boy, John would get to name him; if it was a girl, Renée would name her. John chose “Silas.” He said it was a good name. It was different enough to be unique, but not too different to stand out. Renée chose “Jolie,” after her maternal grandmother.
It was a boy.
When Silas was eighteen-months-old, John left. He didn’t say anything. He just left. He didn’t take his mobile phone, just a small bag of clothes and his car. Renée would spend the better part of two years trying to track him down, even enlisting the help of two private investigative services. He was discovered living just outside Austin, Texas.
Being a single-mother in her mid-twenties, Renée struggled to make ends meet. She was fortunate to have her family nearby, but she still had to work two jobs just to pay the bills. Even earning what she considered a decent wage, she was living paycheck to paycheck. Without the help from her parents and social services, she couldn’t imagine how she would make ends meet with only one worker in the home. But the worst part was being away from her son for seventy hours every week. It crushed her when Silas took his first steps while she was at her night job.
It wasn’t a glamorous life, but Renée loved her son. She resented John for what he did, but he did give her the only joy she now had in her life.
Silas grew up to be tall, just like his father. He was smart too. Smart enough, in fact, to get a scholarship to a technical high school for engineering. Renée felt that if she couldn’t have her dream, at least she could help her son find his.
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