Riding Rockets

In a remarkable coincidence, Donna was born on the identical day and year of my own birth, September 10, 1945, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was just a few hours older than me. (In her childhood, my youngest daughter was convinced that men and women had to marry someone who shared their birth date.) Donna’s mom and dad, Amy Franchini and Joseph Sei, were first-generation Americans, born of Italian immigrants. Both spoke fluent Italian, argued incessantly, and smoked like forest fires. When Donna was born, the couple already had one child, a boy, ten years old. They had been trying to have a second child for nearly a decade, praying to a pantheon of saints for a daughter. Amy Sei was thirty-five years old when she finally conceived. In their minds Donna was a miracle and she quickly became the center of the couple’s existence.

Donna’s life was the polar opposite of mine, root-bound. She never moved. Throughout her youth she lived in the same home, only a few blocks from one of the major pathways of adventure for the Mullane clan, fabled Route 66. As a little boy, I had passed within a few hundred yards of the little girl I would one day marry.

We were high school students when we first met. She attended the downtown Catholic high school, St. Mary’s, while I was a student at the uptown school, St. Pius X. Her cousin was my classmate, and through this family connection, Donna and I were introduced in 1961 in our sophomore year. This was a horribly insecure time in my life. My blemished face would have repulsed the Elephant Man. It looked as if I had lost a paint ball game in which the other side had been using Clearasil bullets. And, of course, there were my radar-dish ears to horrify the ladies. I could not imagine any girl finding anything attractive about me. When Donna was introduced I said “hi” and ran to hang with the guys. Destiny would have to wait for another four years.

I continued my tortured journey through high school, occasionally running into Donna at various teen functions, but never talking to her, much less asking her on a date. She wasn’t beautiful. Attractive, with a bubbly personality, would be an honest description.

In May 1963, I graduated from St. Pius and several weeks later departed for the hellish rigors of West Point. Donna was now two thousand miles away and nowhere in my mind. I was fighting to survive. Upperclassmen were taking numbers to get in line to scream in my face. Even after putting plebe year and its hazing behind me, the pressure did not diminish. The academic workload was overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine any other nineteen-year-old in America having it worse than I did. I was wrong.

In faraway Albuquerque, Donna was ill, suffering periodic bouts of nausea and vomiting. Since she had previously experienced a kidney infection, her mother assumed a reoccurrence and took her to the doctor. The blood test results came. With her mom sitting primly at her side the doctor delivered the diagnosis…pregnancy. The father was another teenager.

Donna’s parents were destroyed. This was 1964 and it was a minor scandal for even a Hollywood starlet to be pregnant and unwed. For a traditional Italian-Catholic family to have a pregnant, unwed daughter was worse than a diagnosis of a terminal disease. For the first time in her life, Donna got to see her father cry.

It was her brother who organized a face-saving escape. Donna would stay in Albuquerque as long as possible. Before her belly could betray her, she would travel to an out-of-state Catholic home for unwed mothers. The baby would be given up for adoption. Extended family and friends would be fed the lie she had left town for college, but few would believe it. The daughters of traditional Italian-Catholic families did not leave home until they were married. But a priest, who was a family friend, taught at a nearby Catholic university so he willingly joined the conspiracy, prepared to cover for Donna if anybody inquired after her.

While I was thinking my life had ended at West Point, Donna was certain hers was also over. She had far greater reasons to feel condemned. She was making the first trip of her life away from her parents…as a social and family outcast. Joe and Amy made it clear she had shamed them. “Don’t you dare look at that baby when it’s born” had been her mother’s send-off warning. “I don’t want you getting attached to it.”