She’s back in an instant with a towel, dry socks and fuzzy slippers.
“These should fit,” she says, squatting down and pulling off my barely damp socks, then briskly rubbing my feet and ankles with the towel. It feels so good sitting here in the warm kitchen, being taken care of.
“You shouldn’t let yourself get wet like that,” she says, starting to put one of the dry socks on my right foot. She stops suddenly, staring at my two unseparated toes.
“That’s why I’m a good swimmer,” I laugh. “Webbed toes.”
She looks at the other foot.
“A matched pair,” I tell her, stating the obvious.
“Do they hurt?”
“No. And look, I can even wear flip-flops,” I say, showing her the normal space between my big toe and second toe. “My dad had the same kinds of toes, and Grams did, too. ‘A rich heritage’ my dad used to say.”
Penny laughs, then slips the socks and fuzzy slippers on for me. She stands up with a groan, using the edge of the table for support. Penny is definitely not a physical fitness nut like Nikki is. I guess it’s the difference between being an English teacher and being a coach.
“Where were you?” Penny asks, taking salad fixings from the refrigerator.
“I met a friend down at Jamba Juice. I told Nikki. . .”
“Next time tell me. Okay?” she says, smiling a sort of stiff smile. “I could easily have picked you up on my way home from school.”
“Sometimes I like to walk.”
“Well . . . not in the rain. You’ve got to be more careful. There’s more than just one of you to think about.”
I really appreciate Penny. Who wouldn’t after being stuck in a place like the home. She fixes my breakfast every morning and she packs tasty lunches for me. This Saturday we’re going shopping for more clothes that will fit. It’s like she can’t do enough for me. Nikki’s nice, too, but she’s not quite so attentive. The thing is, though, sometimes I’m not sure if Penny likes me because I’m me, or because I’m growing a baby in me. I know Nikki likes me for me, because she liked me a long time before I was pregnant.
In the morning before school I check my email. The only new message is from Danni.
It’s strange. All of the time I wasn’t able to use email, Jason sent messages every day. Now that I’ve been answering, he’s stopped sending. I know I can’t see him while I’m pregnant, but I would at least like to keep in touch. Things have changed so much, but I don’t want all of our years of friendship to just be wiped out.
I search the Internet for the kind of math puzzle Jason loves and then forward one to him. Just so he doesn’t forget me. Then I open Danni’s message.
Let’s get together again next week, same time, same place? And don’t forget, I’ll be there for you! Promise! YBF
PS. You could name the baby after me—maybe my middle name? That’d be cool. Little Genevieve Grant. We could call her Genny—She wouldn’t be just any old Jenny, she’d be Genny with a “G.”
Shite! There’s still so much I have to confess to Danni! Maybe it would be easier just to write it all out in an email. Or maybe I should just drop a few hints in emails and then tell her the rest in person. Gad! There’s so much I wish I could undo!
Saturday morning, after breakfast, and household chores, we spread the adoption packets out on the table. Really, it’s mostly Penny and Nikki who do the chores. Penny says the movement it takes to vacuum strains the abdomen in a way that can be risky for pregnant women. She doesn’t want me to clean the cat box, either, because of germs. I can rinse dishes and put them in the dishwasher, but when it’s time to put them away I can’t put the plates on the second shelf because reaching might also be a strain. Today I dusted the furniture and wiped down the counter tops with an organic cleanser that’s guaranteed not to give off toxic fumes while Nikki and Penny did everything else.
Nikki picks up my “adoption plan” packet and reads the first unanswered question.
“Do you want the adoptive parents to be birth coaches?” she asks, pen poised over the blank space.
“We talked with the doctor about that yesterday,” Penny says. “I’m planning to be Autumn’s coach, unless you want to do it.”
“I love being Autumn’s coach for volleyball, and track, but I’ll leave this one to you.”
“That’s good,” Penny says, laughing. “I already filled out the forms with my name on them.”
“Do you want the adoptive parents to be in the labor/delivery room?”
“Definitely,” Penny says, smiling across the table at me.
“You said here you don’t want to spend time alone with the baby in the hospital,” Nikki says. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Nikki scans down to the next unanswered question.
“Do you think you’ll want letters and pictures over time?”
I try not to go for that trip on “da Nile” that Ms. Lee warned me about. I try to think about how there really is going to be a baby, and how she’s going to be here, in this house, growing up with Nikki and Penny.
“Yeah. I guess I might like to see some pictures.”
“How often and when?” Nikki asks, her pen set to fill in the next blanks.
I shrug.
“Let’s just say once or twice a year—maybe a birthday picture and a Christmas picture?”
“Sure,” I say, unable to even think about how that might be. Like, will I be in a dorm room somewhere in San Luis Obispo, opening mail, and I’ll get a picture of a little girl blowing out birthday candles? I can’t even project my mind into that dorm room, much less to the pictures falling out of an envelope.
“Autumn?”
I look up at Nikki.
“Let’s try to focus here. We want to drop these papers by Audrey’s office on Monday.”
“Okay,” I say, standing up and stretching out my aching lower back.
“Are you all right?” Penny asks.
I nod and sit back down.
Nikki reads the next question.
“Do you want to see the child occasionally over the years? If so, how often?”
I sit looking at the form in front of Nikki, reading it upside down. It seems like a fantasy game, like that old game of “Life” where you have to make guesses about a pretend job, and pretend family—all pretend.
Nikki taps her pen against the unanswered question, getting impatient. I’ve watched her at practice, tap-tap-tapping her pen against her clipboard while she waits for a slow-moving player to get with the program.
“It might be better if Autumn doesn’t see the baby, at least for the first couple of years or so,” Penny says.
Nikki looks surprised.
“Why?”
“Well, you know . . . We’ll want Nancy to know for sure that we’re the moms. It could be confusing for her if Autumn was around.”
“I don’t need to see her,” I say. “I’m not going to be her mom.”
“Right. That’s what I’m thinking,” Penny says.
Nikki still doesn’t fill in the blank.
“It wouldn’t have to be confusing,” Nikki says. “Not if we handle it right.”
“I’m just saying it might be easier,” Penny says.
“Well, think about it, Autumn. You can fill in this part tomorrow.”
Penny goes to the freezer and gets a chocolate covered ice cream bar.
“Anyone else want one?”
“No thanks,” I say.
“Too early for ice cream for me,” Nikki says, tapping her pen against the next question.
Nikki taps when she gets nervous, and Penny eats. Me? I guess that’s when I take a cruise on da Nile.
“Last question, Autumn—will anyone else want visiting privileges? Is there anyone you would specifically want to exclude?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” Nikki says. “What about the father?”
“He won’t even know,” I say.
“That could be a
problem,” Nikki says.
“Why?”
“In California, the father has to sign a release for a baby to be adopted. It’s not just the mother’s decision.”
Elvis jumps up on the table and licks at a dab of ice cream that’s melted off Penny’s Dove bar. I sit staring at Nikki, not believing what I’ve just heard.
“But it’s my body—my decision!”
Nikki shakes her head. “That’s true for abortions, but once there’s a baby, the father has rights.”
“According to Audrey, it’s mostly just a formality,” Penny says. “In her ten years of adoption consultation, she’s never once had a father fight an adoption plan.”
“She’d never had anyone pretend to be pregnant and cheat people out of thousands of dollars before, either,” Nikki says, all sarcastic.
“But he doesn’t even know!”
“Maybe it’s better just to leave it that way,” Penny says.
“And have him find out three years later and take the baby from us? That’s not a chance we want to take. Besides, it wouldn’t be right.”
Elvis, having licked every last remaining molecule of ice cream from the table, slinks down onto my lap, purring. I scratch behind his ears.
Penny gets the disinfectant spray from below the sink, sprays the table, then wipes it down with a sponge.
“What about women who get raped by some stranger?” she asks. “Or who get so drunk they don’t even know who they’ve had sex with? Or they’ve had sex with fifty guys in one month?”
“Every reasonable effort has to be made to find the father and inform him of the situation,” Nikki says. “That’s the law.”
I’m thinking as hard and fast as I can. What if I say I don’t know who the guy is? Like just somebody I met at a party, who maybe slipped some X in my drink, and I don’t even know his name. That would be so much easier than trying to get Jason to sign a release. But . . . I’m tired of secrets, and half-truths. I want to get back to the old way, where I was honest with everyone and never had to worry about getting caught in a lie.
“Autumn? Is this going to be a problem?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Penny looks shocked. “You mean he might not want to release the baby? Our baby?”
She closes her eyes, shaking her head slowly, back and forth, back and forth. Nikki reaches across the table and takes both Penny’s hands in hers.
“Oh, Babe,” she says, “Please. Don’t cry.”
She slides her chair close to Penny, who leans her head into Nikki’s shoulder and lets the tears come.
I am suddenly tired—more than tired, exhausted. I push myself up from the table, barely aware of the surprised cat half-sliding, half-jumping to the floor. In the pink room I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling. The crib is put back together now, filled with teddy bears. Framed Disney pictures are back on the wall. What if it all has to be taken down again? I wanted to do something good, to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I reach for the stone heart on the bedside table and hold it tight, trying to sense my father’s love, trying to believe I’m still awesome.
By Sunday morning the storm has passed and the sky is bright and clear. Nikki asks if I’d like to go for a walk with her. I can tell by the way she asks that she’s wanting more than just light exercise.
“Sure,” I say, getting my sweatshirt from the pink room.
Nikki leaves a note for Penny, who still isn’t up yet even though it’s after ten o’clock.
We walk together, not talking, until we come to a little park I didn’t even know was here. I can tell Nikki’s making an effort to walk slowly so I can keep up. How sad! I used to be able to run way faster than Nikki and now I can’t even keep up with her walking. I wonder if I’ll ever get my old speed and strength back.
At the park, I follow Nikki over to the swings. We take the two middle ones and sit, barely moving, while Nikki drags her foot in the sand, drawing a line and covering it over. She finally looks over at me.
“We absolutely can’t run the risk of losing another baby,’’ she says. “We’ve got to get a release from the father.”
I nod.
“If you want to go to another placement for teen moms, and release the baby to an agency, and let them worry about the father, then we’ll help you get that set up.”
I think about the place Miss F. told me about, where six pregnant teens, or teen moms, live together. A group home.
“I want to stay with you and Penny,” I say, turning my swing to face Nikki. “I want you to have my baby.”
Nikki takes a deep breath.
“Well, then, we’ve got to get a release from the father. You’ve got to let him know you’re pregnant, and work it out. And you’ve got to do it soon because Penny and I aren’t doing so well on the old baby adoption roller coaster.”
Now it’s my turn to drag my feet in the sand and cover the lines over.
I picture Jason in my mind—try to guess what he might say, how he might react. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s going to be easy.
“Do you know the guy’s address?”
“Yeah. I’ve got it in my organizer.”
“Write it down for me when we get back and I’ll take it to Audrey when I drop the other papers off . . . I want her to get started on that paternal consent right away.”
“How does that work?”
“I don’t know for sure. I’ll find out more about it on Monday. I think she’ll send a letter informing him of paternity, and something for him to sign saying he gives his permission for the baby to be adopted.”
“I’d like to tell him first,” I say, “before he gets the letter.”
“Okay. You just need to make it soon.”
“He’s in Iowa, in college. But he’ll be home for Christmas.”
“We need to get going on this before Christmas.”
“But I’d like to tell him face to face.”
“All I know is, we’ll be moving along on the legal end of things. How you decide to deal with it personally is up to you . . . What’s this guy’s name, anyway?” Nikki asks.
“Jason. Jason Garcia.”
“That guy that used to come to our games, and root for you and Danni?”
“Yeah.”
“The guy that Danni had the hots for?”
I nod.
“Does Danni know who the father is?”
“No.”
“Does she even know you’re pregnant?”
“Yeah. I saw her just the other day. But I didn’t say it was Jason and I didn’t say I was giving the baby to you and Penny.”
Nikki shakes her head. “It’s like we’re living a damned soap opera right now. I hope whoever’s writing the script likes happy endings.”
Back home I find Jason’s address and write it out for Nikki. “Thanks. I’ll call Audrey first thing Monday morning and have
her overnight the forms.”
Gad! It’s possible Jason could be getting information in the mail from Audrey as early as Tuesday! I go into the pink room and get my cell phone, wondering how I’m going to say what I have to say. I press the symbol beside Jason’s name and wait, my heart pounding fast. An out-of-service recording comes on.
In the den, I log on to my email account. After a lot of starting and deleting and starting over again I end up with:
Hey Jason—I just tried your cell phone and got an out-of-service message. Do you have a new number? Or could you call my cell? It’s working again. I really need to talk to you. I wish it could be face to face, but I don’t think it can wait until Christmas. —Autumn
Chapter
22
“If you’ll please put your books away for now, we’ll do a timed writing,” Karen says.
Every day we do a timed writing as practice for the writing proficiency exam. I passed all of my proficiencies in my freshman year at Hamilton High, but I guess not everyone else has. I do the timed writings anyway, for English cre
dits. I close my American Government textbook, happy to take a break from “The National Judiciary and a Dual Court System.”
I take two sheets of lined paper from my notebook.
“Can I borrow a sheet of paper?” Tiffany says, holding her hand out as if she already knows the answer.
I hand the paper to her and look at the timed-writing topic Karen has just written on the board. She reads out loud:
“Write about life from your baby’s point of view. What is he/she experiencing and noticing? What’s she afraid of? What’s he happy about? What might he/she be expecting from life?”
Tiffany groans. “How would I know?”
“You don’t know.” Karen says. “I’m just asking you to make
some guesses.”
Heather asks, “Can I just write a whole page of ‘My gums hurt and I don’t want my mom to sleep?’”
Karen laughs and shakes her head. “Get creative.”
Another girl, Olivia, says, “I haven’t even met my baby yet, how can I write anything from his perspective?”
“Make it up,” Karen says, sitting down at her desk and looking through a school furniture catalog, marking pages along the way.
There’s more grumbling about how stupid the assignment is, but Karen seems not to notice. I feel a flutter kick on the lower left side and try to imagine what that’s like from the baby’s perspective. I think about the sonogram picture. I wonder if the baby can hear anything from inside me? I decide to pretend she can. I start writing from her imaginary point of view:
It’s dark in here, and comfortable, but it can also be kind of boring. It feels crowded sometimes, too. When I heard one of the girls in this class was carrying two babies I was shocked! I wouldn’t want to be sharing this tiny space with another baby.
Sometimes when I start feeling closed in, I turn a kind of somersault to get in a better position. And sometimes I kick my mom just to make her notice me. Sometimes she even groans when I do that. Oh, and there’s a way I can turn that puts a lot of pressure on her bladder and makes her run to the bathroom. That’s the best! But she’s already told me she’s not really my mom. She doesn’t love me so she’s going to give me to someone who will. When I hear some of the other girls in here talking about how much they already love their babies, and they can’t wait to hold them in their arms, I wish I’d ended up inside one of them. But then, when I hear that those same girls drink sodas all day long, and never eat vegetables or drink milk, I’m glad to be growing strong and healthy inside Autumn. And then I think, maybe she does love me just a little bit, if she’s being careful about what she feeds me. Or sometimes I hear another woman on the outside telling my not-mom to drink some milk, or keep her feet dry, and I think maybe that’s the one who will love me. I hope someone will.
No More Sad Goodbyes Page 19