Brooklyn, New York, 1963

At 15 years old, Barbara made the confident, curious decision not to take the test. She was rather thin and basked in the naiveté of being the second youngest of four girls. She had her older sisters, Norma and Rosalie, to provide good morning gossip and school bus waves, and her younger sister, Arlene, to occupy the attention always directed at the baby of any family.  She decided to remain within the life she knew; she focused on what was in front of her. 

It was November of 1963 and Thanksgiving was right around the corner. Her parents were rarely home; it seemed they always had something extremely important to take care of or incredibly urgent to attend to. They ran what was definitely considered to be a fairly successful fruit stand in Brooklyn, New York and often relied on Norma, Arlene, and their respective husbands to act as interim parents in their absence — all of which Barbara never seemed to mind. 

Days came and left and typically looked quite the same each time they did. She enjoyed the same lunch at school with the same group of friends and did well enough in her classes to continue on to the next grade. Boys were cute, thoughts were as simple, and things felt as they did for most in a stable, normal family at fifteen years old. 

***

Paul Noveshansky was in a band — that’s what won her over. Barbara loved the way he would sing to her as they walked hand and hand around Williamsburg; she liked whenever she didn’t need to think too much. It was easier, more stable, and more concise to wake up and brush her hair into a day filled with mundane predictability in her own controlled environment. 

As the second youngest, it was easy to fall between the cracks. She kept to herself and with her parents tending to the fruit stand so often, she rarely had anyone to answer to. Perhaps, this was why she didn’t take the test. Perhaps, it was her undiagnosed, misunderstood mental health issues. Perhaps, it was the beauty of basking in what is unknown and uncertain at fifteen years old. 

Whatever it may have been, the unknown, the uncertain, and the unavoidable cataclysmically collided nine months later, just one day after she and Paul had been rollerskating hand in hand. The naiveté was whisked away like the swift untie of a roller skate. On August 15th, 1964, Barbara gave birth to a healthy baby boy and to the horror, dismay, and confusion of everyone around her, made her very first concrete, completely uncomplicated decision: the baby was to be put up for adoption.