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The day she learned she was pregnant, she had to relinquish plans she'd been cherishing a long time. I was in no way a part of these plans. My birth was unwanted and unexpected. By coming into the world, I crushed her dreams. I've always loved her so much that if I had known this, I think I would not have been able to let myself be born.

My mother had already brought up thirteen children. For more than twenty years she'd kept house. She did the washing and the housework, the cleaning, the ironing, the meals. And she did it all over and over again, during good times and bad times, 365 days a year. By the time she became pregnant with me, she thought, and she had a right to think, that she had finished her work. My mother believed that at long last she would be able to do something else.

Her two youngest children at that time, Paul and Pauline, who were twins, were entering school the following fall. My mother would have some free time. She could leave the house and see the world. She wanted to get a job and make a little money. Maybe she'd travel with my father to see the sea and the part of Quebec called the Gaspe peninsula again. They had both spent their childhoods there, and they hadn't been back since their marriage.

My mother had gone so far as to see the parish priest to ask him if she could "stop having children," as they said at the time, which meant using contraceptives. At the time the priests of Quebec had a lot of authority. This one began preaching to her. He told her she didn't have the right to defy nature. My mother was furious. So was I when she told me the story. But at the same time, I have to admit that, in a way, I owe my life to that priest.

The twins were celebrating their sixth birthday on the day my mother and I came home from Le Gardeur Hospital, where I had been born four days earlier. Maman left me in the arms of my sisters and brothers and made a chocolate cake for the twins. At our place, children were always entitled on the day of their birthday to a big

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