Book title: MOTHERS OF FATE
Character: Deana Wilkes
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
First, thank you so much for wanting to interview me! It’s an honor to be in such an important publication. And…this first question isn’t easy. In a way, I was lucky. I had a two-parent home with a stay-at-home mother and a banker-father, both of them high-school graduates. My mother was obsessed with keeping our house spotless—but then she literally loved to clean. Although I was an only child, I don’t recall many family activities. I do remember that my mother and her friends were covertly competitive about their children and anything I did, I knew, was supposed to add to her reflected glory with them. My dad just sort of hung out in the background and didn’t say much of anything. They were willing to send me to community college as long as it was to gain a practical skill, in case I didn’t find a husband quickly. You know—that was the seventies, and it’s 2013 now. Even though many women were talking about their liberation back then, a lot of us were stuck with our families’ old views and values and really didn’t have the expectations that the girls that came up behind us have had.
What was your greatest talent?
Hmmm. I never considered myself particularly good at anything except trying to please people. I’ve gone in the opposite direction, now, tired after thirty years of waiting in the wings, working, saving, having nothing for myself, staying quiet, to do what’s expected and best for everyone else. I’ve always kept my word, and I still don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I know what I want and I’m going after it.
Do you have a significant other?
Well I have had them in the past, and I do now, but it’s not what you think. I was married—briefly, and good lord, was following that script that ever a mistake. I was a young—we all were when we married back then—and he did me the great favor of having a transparent affair just a couple of years in. It set me free to be divorced, although my parents were scandalized. After that, I grew out my hair, shortened my skirts, learned how to use makeup, and…that was when I met the love of my life. Tony. He was my boss, and he was also married. But he was my destiny, and we each made promises. And I believed life itself had made me a promise. Either I was right, or destiny is a damned liar, but I’m a believer, and ever since, I have had a very significant other in my heart, but not in my life. My son. I have spent thirty years waiting to meet him, and have retained a lawyer, one who is a certified mediator, also, to find him.
What’s your biggest challenge in relationships?
I’ve always thought it was that I was disabled. I have to use at least one arm crutch, and now that I’m in my fifties, with my hair gone shapeless and spider-web gray, when I leave my house I sometimes use two, the way I had to all the time long ago after the accident. I’m not sure disability is the whole story, honestly. Maybe it’s that I’ve never let go of Tony and that conviction that he was my destiny and we only get one. And, of course, I’ve been saving all my resources—and maybe that means emotional, too—to find my son when the time came. And it’s now.
Where do you live?
I live in Pittsburgh. Always have. Not over in the expensive side, Squirrel Hill, of course, but still, in a decent neighborhood where I have a small house with a detached one-car garage, same as most of my neighbors.
Do you have any enemies?
Kathleen, Tony’s wife, might think of me as an enemy. Not that I have had contact with her for thirty years, but when my lawyer does, I can imagine that it will awaken any hatred for me that’s been sleeping. Maybe Monica, my lawyer’s, offer will help that—but on the other hand, Kathleen could easily throw that aside as she’s rich in all the ways I’ve never been: children, family support, money and possessions.
How do you feel about the place you are now? Are you attached to it? Repelled by it?
I can’t imagine leaving Pittsburgh although I have no great love for it. I’ve no place to compare it to, for one thing. I’ve been alone and disabled so long that traveling held no appeal—and I either didn’t have the money or was saving it all. It’s where my time with Tony was, one spring, one summer. My son was born here. My parents are buried here. Where would I go?
What do you do for a living?
I am a CPA. I work out of my home.
Your greatest disappointment?
Honestly, I think it’s that I sold myself and my son out. Not that I thought of it that way at the time. I never wanted to give my son up and didn’t plan to. I think I was played. I’ll still keep my word, but I’m determined to make this right.
What is your greatest source of joy?
Hmmm. I don’t think of myself as having joy. I have hope, I’d say, that joy will come soon.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
I’m not exactly a fun person. I can tell you what I enjoy: the volunteer tutoring I do to help kids struggling with math. And I mentor several disabled teenagers after school to help them be confident that after graduation they can live with their disability but not be defined by it—they can do well, have good lives. No, I don’t let them know that I’m a terrible example. Mainly, they talk about their feelings, and I listen, understand, and accept. Encourage when I can. I enjoy that.
What is your greatest personal failing in your view?
That I did not see a way to keep my son. Yes, I was alone, pregnant, laid off when the economy was crashing around me, and my parents would not or could not help me, But other women did it, I’m sure. My family would have been horrified had I sought welfare, but of course, there must have been options. I was naïve, inexperienced, and scared to death. And then I got played by someone who was not.
What keeps you awake at night?
The sense that Monica Connell, my lawyer, is putting me off. She says she’s totally committed to my case after I’d swear she waffled about it while claiming she wasn’t. Why does she want so many meetings? And why does she keep warning me?
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
It’s related to what’s keeping me awake at night. I worry about Monica’s hesitations, though I really like her a lot. I preferred a woman attorney and one who is a mediator, too. She’s very kind and she listens to me. I don’t really understand why it’s so important to her to tell me that she was abused in a workplace, or that she has an adopted baby. Yeah, okay, it’s my leg that’s disabled, not my vision. There’s a picture on her desk that told me about her family. Monica’s baby is either biracial or black, the baby is being held by a woman who’s not Monica, and she and Monica are both white and both wearing wedding rings that look identical. So who cares? I see no relevance at all to anything, and especially not to what she needs to do for me. Can we move on now??
Is there something you need or want that you don’t have?
Oh yes. To fill this enormous hole in my heart, assuage my guilt, soothe the ache of my regret, and, I hope, earn his forgiveness: a chance with my son. He’s an adult now. How I wish I’ll know the story of his life until now. Someone does.
Why don’t you have it (what you want?)
Because I won’t break my word. And, I must have a mediator to go to Kathleen to make that right, as well find my son and give him a chance to say no. As much as I’ve been hurt, I still won’t destroy other lives just because mine has been. It’s all in Monica’s hands.
A Novel
Deana Wilkes, who's needed braces to walk since a disabling accident long ago, seeks out Monica Connell, an attorney, to find the child she was forced to relinquish in a closed adoption thirty years ago. Back then, Deana believed that the passion between her and Tony, her married boss, meant they were destined for each other. It was wrong, Deana knew, but believed it was also meant to be. Tony's long gone now, and Deana's constructed a life out of the wreck of their affair. She's ready to finally make things right and meet her son. But Monica's wife, Angela, was adopted herself after an early history of abandonment and foster homes. Devoted to the memory of her parents, she's certain that closed adoptions need to remain closed unless the adoptee seeks contact. She draws a red line: Monica cannot take the case. Monica, though, feels compelled to help Deana by her own complicated history, one she's never revealed to Angela. As this wedge between them hardens, will Angie or Monica have the best custody claim to their own beloved adopted baby? Nobody knows what Deana's son wants, including his adoptive parents. Not even redheaded Suzanne, and the possibility of love. After all, as an Iraq war vet and a long-distance truck driver, Daniel knows everything about hitting the road to avoid the confusion that's plagued his life. Lynne Hugo's thirteenth novel takes on the reverberating effects of sexual power dynamics in the workplace and vividly portrays lingering psychological wounds as characters struggle to reconcile self-determination with the sacrifices love demands.
Saga | Fiction Family Life | LGBTQ [Blank Slate Press, On Sale: April 22, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781943075911 / eISBN: 9781943075928]
Lynne Hugo is an American author whose roots are in New England. A National Endowment For the Arts Fellowship recipient, she has also received repeat individual artist grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her publications include thirteen novels as well as a memoir, Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year In the Life of A Therapy Dog Team which won the Riverteeth Creative Nonfiction Book Prize. Her latest novels are The Language of Kin (7/2023), A Matter of Mercy, 10th Anniversary Edition (8/2024), and MOTHERS OF FATE (4/22/25) She has also published two books of poetry and a children's book. While the bulk of her time goes to her writing, Lynne is also a licensed, practicing psychotherapist. She lives with her husband, a college professor and photographer, in the Midwest. The couple are parents of two, have three grandchildren, and an energetic beagle/Lab mix who excels at swimming, retrieving tennis balls, and terrorizing squirrels. In her spare time, Lynne loves to hike, do water aerobics, read, and spend time with their rowdy extended family.
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