Am I His Child?

I had just gotten the job at Warner Bros. The admin department told me I needed to order a name plate for my desk. Simple enough task, right? Just list my name, and hand in order form. Yet, I hated having to think about something so many others took for granted.

My name has always been Renee Lynn DeMont.

But very few knew that. My adoptive parents thought it was Dobranich, and then later on, my husband thought it was Duenas.

A writer on the television show I was working on walked past my desk one day and said, "Renee Duenas...Duenas? That doesn't sound right."


"What's your maiden name?" I responded with "Dobranich." "No, that doesn't sound right either."

I giggled.

Trying to solve the puzzle for her I offered, "Well, my birth name is DeMont..."

"That's it! Renee DeMont...Sounds like a movie stars name! You should go by that."

I liked Jeannette. A lot. But she couldnt' have known how hard it was for me to say no to my parents, my husband.

I remember looking down at the form again and thinking, "Maybe I could just enter my initials: RLD, and leave the rest off, make everybody happy? After all, through birth, adoption and marriage the one thing that remained constant was my initials.

But I wanted to enter: DeMont. That is who I really was. Or was it?

As a little girl I had fine hair, which meant I had fine eyebrows. They were a constant disappointment to my mother. She would often sigh, "Nee, come over here." I'd watch obediently as she would lick the back of each of her thumbs, grab hold of my face, reach up and slick back the tiny hairs above my blue eyes, securing them back into place. There was one time though she said something I will never forget:

"Remember, you are a ten month baby. You won't understand that now, but one day you will."

Um. okay.

Years later, I was sitting on my grandmother's couch in her cozy warm home in west Tennessee having a heart to heart, when I shared why mother's odd remark, "Do you know what she was trying to tell me?"

Gram took along drag off her cigarette, and with a nod in my direction, gave herself permission to say, "I think I might."

"Your mother ran away on Thanksgiving day. I know it was Thanksgiving because the police officer knocked on my door during our dinner, "Ma'am, we found a car registered to you. It was abandoned down in Los Angeles."

Mama had run away with Gram's car, and apparently drove it till it ran out of gas. Impound had it. Gram could not afford to down to LA and pay to retrieve the care, so she just let it go.

My grandmother was angry at losing the car, but she seemed to soften as she recalled what prompted my mother to run...

Mama had been a senior in high school, earning good grades, had her driver's license, and had fallen deeply in love with a soldier stationed there at the military base in San Luis Obispo. A wee before the holiday, her beloved was in a tragic car accident. "Your mother spent that whole week by his side in the ICU. Never left his side."

I wanted to know more, "Did you know him?" "No,not really. I worked nights at the hospital then, but I knew she care for him. When he died, it was, I think, more than she could take. Ran away just a day or two later. Thought she'd come back but she met Dock pretty quickly and that ended that."

The junior detective in me started to put it all together and my heart ached for my teenaged mother: November she lost her true love...I was a born in August...ten month baby. Her soldier was probably my father. My mama must have been heartbroken. Terrified. I wanted to hold her; I wanted to hold my mother because I knew no one had.

Found out later, his name was Richard Lewis. But that is all I found out.

Am I his child? Maybe. Maybe not. I wish I knew.

Gonna keep a warm place in my heart for him though; mama loved him deeply. I want to believe I was a product of true love.

Since I don't know for sure, and that little girl in me has always enjoyed the sound of the "movie star" name listed on my birth certificate, I have decided that while I am appreciative for those whom have wanted to share their surnames with during different chapters of my journey, as my marriage ends so will the last name of Duenas.. It is time for a new chapter in the book of my life; a chapter written by:

Renee DeMont