Before I Called You Mine

by Nicole Deese

  For several seconds my chin remained tipped skyward, my face soaking in the sun’s transformative warmth, my soul lingering in the space between heaven and earth. Without conscious thought, my feet backtracked several steps as I sought the bench seat behind me. Because somehow, being in this sweet place, this tender spot where eternity felt close and peace felt tangible, was exactly what I’d been craving in that waiting room. Not an aimless walk around a rose garden, but a place to rest, reflect.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled the breath I’d likely been holding since the moment I first took hold of Aria’s hand in China. I tuned my ears to hear the flitting notes of a bird’s song, the rustle of leaves somewhere overhead, and the hushed conversations of patients and their loved ones strolling through vivid blooms too beautiful to be associated with illness or suffering.

  And then, after another deep exhale, I opened my eyes. And just like that, all the blood in my body warmed to a sight I hadn’t laid eyes on in so, so long.

  At first the figure in the distance was little more than a sun-spotted haze of long-legged strides and wind-tousled hair. But that one glance was enough to make me question, enough to make me stand, enough to make me exit my sanctuary of solitude and speak a name I thought often yet spoke rarely.

  My lips pushed the three-syllable word out before the synapses in my brain had time to fire. “Joshua!”

  Following a path I could see only through a slender gap in the hedges, he stopped, turned, and then simply stared.

  I’d wondered about this day many times, wondered how it might feel to be near him again after so many months and a lifetime of events had passed us by. Wondered if time and circumstance would sever our once-strong connection.

  Within a minute, he was there. Right in front of me, his face much the same and yet different somehow, too. His hair was trimmed, tailored to fit the professionalism of his business attire, yet his eyes were the same shade of kindness I remembered.

  “Hi,” I said, words suddenly eradicated from my vocabulary.

  He shifted on his feet as if the ground beneath him was unsteady. “Hi.”

  A stiff breeze swept my hair across my face, and I worked to pin it back behind my ear, a move he silently tracked.

  “I—” we both began at the same time.

  We smiled and then tried again, only to stumble over each other’s thoughts for a second time.

  He laughed and gestured to me. “Go ahead. You first.”

  I nudged at a fallen flower with the toe of my shoe, hoping to sweep the awkwardness between us away just as easily. “My daughter—Aria—she’s in surgery. Since this morning. Her heart.” I didn’t know why I couldn’t form complete sentences, but he’d always been able to string together my disjointed thoughts. I hoped that hadn’t changed.

  He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I didn’t know that was happening today. I was told it was on the books for next week.” He paused. “Jenna.” Both a name and a statement—Jenna, the one to fill in all the gaps and connect all the missing links.

  “They moved it up a few days due to a cancellation.”

  “How is she—Aria?” A tender question I wished I could answer in much more detail than a chance encounter on a hospital sidewalk allowed. In a different life, I’d tell him all about the more of motherhood, about bonding over sparkly nail polish and stick-on earrings, about the way my chest still constricted whenever she entered a room and called me Mama.

  I’d tell him about the losses she’d already experienced at such a tender age, how she often wept before bedtime, clinging to me as if I might suddenly disappear, how she routinely spoke of children she missed from her orphanage, how she dreaded the dark and needed to be prepped before any lights were turned off, and how her hardest moments at home were often bathed in the struggle of needing to feel in control of something—anything—in her young life again. And then I’d tell him how God had broken my heart over and over and over, pruning away my limited views on love and grafting in His own.

  I swallowed and slipped my phone from my pocket, glancing at the blank screen and rerouting my brain to current events only. “I’m waiting to hear still. They should be finishing up within the next hour or so. At least, that’s my hope. Brian said it could take between five and six hours before she’s back to her recovery room.”

  His eyes focused on mine, his expression so earnest and honed that I couldn’t soften its impact on my pulse. “Lauren, I’ve started at least twenty texts to you since you’ve been back home. I just haven’t known . . .” He allowed the sentence to fade into the breeze before he began a new one. “I’ve wanted to be sensitive to you. And to your daughter.” He tugged on his left shirt cuff. “But if there’s ever anything I can do, anything I can ever help you with after the surgery . . .”

  “Thank you.”

  Another long pause as I noticed his laptop satchel and his crisp white button-down dress shirt for the first time. My gaze traveled from him to the path he’d been walking that led into the main building. “Oh—I haven’t congratulated you yet! Congratulations!”

  A fog of confusion shadowed his features.

  “On your big hospital contract,” I amended.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “It sounds like Brian and the entire board were so impressed with your presentation.”

  “It was a good day.”

  But the measured way he said it made a girlish voice inside me yearn to ask a trillion more questions, about all the days I’d missed—the good, the bad, the in-between. I cleared my throat, drowning her out with a mature voice of reason. “Does that mean the storyboard you created was a hit? You worked so hard on that. I bet your family was so proud to hear the news.” I could easily imagine George slapping his son on the back, his smile bright and wide, while his mother’s eyes glistened with unshed tears over her son’s winning entrepreneurial spirit.

  “Well, not to brag, but I did get a fancy dinner out of the deal.”

  “Oh yeah? Another Avery seafood extravaganza?”

  “Better. My niece invited me over for a date. She cooked. I cleaned. We even had some extra guests join us last-minute—a few with well-loved fur, others with plastic scales. Oh, and one scantily clad Ken doll missing a leg.”

  I raised my eyebrows and stifled a laugh. “Well, now, that does sound like a fancy meal indeed. I didn’t realize Emma had such an interest in culinary arts.”

  “Oh yes, she has quite the refined palate.” He twisted his lips into a pondering smirk. “Let’s see, I think her menu was mac and cheese from a box, a side of sliced hotdogs, and an applesauce pouch. Oh, and of course, hot Earl Grey tea.”

  I snickered at that. Emma and her obsession with all things England. “Sounds like a well-balanced meal.”

  “Exactly what I told her.” A smile reminiscent of the ones lodged deep into the folds of my memories tugged at the corners of his lips.

  I’d forgotten this, the banter that had come so naturally to us both, the common ground we shared, the satisfaction of being known. I’d missed it. Missed him, even more than I’d let myself realize.

  “How are they—your family?” The humor had faded from my tone, replaced by a genuine need to hear about a family who had been so quick to take me in and show me kindness and care.

  “As ornery as ever,” he said. “But good just the same.” For the briefest of moments, his glance skimmed the ground at our feet. “They still ask about you.”

  “They do?”

  He nodded and tucked his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “Emma especially. She thinks you moved to China to have a baby—no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain it to her, she still doesn’t quite understand the concept of adoption.” He shook his head. “But she hasn’t forgotten your British accent. Whenever I attempt one of my own, she always says it’s not as good as Miss Lauren’s.” He caught my gaze with his. “She’s right.”

  My stomach dipped and knotted. “Tell her I said hello, will
you? And that I haven’t forgotten her, either. I haven’t forgotten any of you.”

  An admission that bordered far too close to the truth.

  The phone I’d tucked inside my sweatshirt pocket vibrated against my palm, sending all the blood in my body rushing to the space between my temples. I yanked out the device and shaded the glare of the screen with my hand, reading the update I’d been waiting on since our first appointment with the cardiology team at Boise Pediatrics two months ago.

  The shorthand was separated into three digestible, bite-size phrases:

  Surgery’s over.

  Better than expected.

  Back in recovery room in thirty minutes.

  The only words I could utter were “Thank you, God.”

  “Looks like a best-case scenario. Aria must be as brave as her mom.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, she’s much, much braver.”

  I raised my chin to find Joshua’s cheek only a short distance away from my own. He’d been reading the update over my shoulder, right alongside me, and despite him never having met my Aria in person, and despite not being present for any of our major homecoming events, it felt absolutely right that he was here for this one. That he’d been the person with me when I received the good news. And for the first time, I wondered if running into him like this hadn’t been happenstance at all, but something much more divine.

  As if my feet had grown roots into the cobbled path, my body swayed slightly as new relief expanded in my lungs.

  “She’s good,” he said firmly. “She’s gonna be fine, Lauren.”

  His comforting words resounded in my heart on repeat. She’s gonna be fine. She’s gonna be fine. She’s gonna be fine.

  An arm fastened around my shoulders. It was the only encouragement my pounding head needed to nestle against a chest I’d sought comfort from before. We stayed that way for several minutes, joined together at the convergence of a divided path, a place that sought no apologies, or excuses, or any words at all.

  Joshua escorted me inside the building and down the hallway where Aria’s support team would be anxiously awaiting the good news. Steps away from the entrance to the waiting room with the giant fish tank and ladybug side tables, Joshua’s stride broke. He stopped, as if there were a line drawn across the cold linoleum floor that prevented him from crossing the threshold.

  He didn’t reach out, didn’t try to touch me at all. He just offered a smile that resurrected every emotion I’d filed away last January. “I’m happy for you, Lauren. For both you and Aria. It was really good to see you.”

  I cleared my thickening throat. “You too.”

  In lieu of a good-bye, he simply dipped his head once and strode away, back down the long, lonely hallway.

  “Hey, Joshua!” I called after him, backtracking my steps at a near jog until he turned. His eyes locked on mine. “You should meet her—Aria,” I exclaimed in a breathy sprint of words. “We’ll be here for close to a week, so if you want to stop by in a few days, after she’s in more of a routine, that would be nice. We’re in Room 404.”

  For the longest time, his expression remained unreadable, completely transfixed, as if he were analyzing every possible angle of my spontaneous invitation, and perhaps, knowing Joshua, that was exactly what he was doing.

  But when he finally blinked, finally opened his mouth to reply, his voice registered low and clear. “I’d love nothing more.”

  chapter

  thirty-three

  In the eighth grade I went on my first-ever real camping trip to the mountains with a group from my school. We pitched our own tents, cooked our own food, and slept in sleeping bags that promised warmth in any weather and yet always felt cold and damp by the time the sun came up. After two long nights in the great outdoors, the highs of camping life had worn off, and I craved nothing more than the comfort of a soft mattress, walls that didn’t shake from a light breeze, and a bedroom where nothing howled or screeched when the lights turned out.

  In a way, extended hospital stays were much the same. Though my thirty-one-year-old body appreciated the fold-out recliner in arm’s reach of Aria’s hospital bed, both my daughter and I were ready for a full night’s sleep without round-the-clock interruptions from beeping monitors and vital check-ups.

  Today was day four of recovery, and Aria’s moods had suffered even more than her REM sleep. My usually enthusiastic child had retreated into a worrisome shell of disinterest. And it seemed no matter how many times I tried to reassure her that these long days of recovery would not be the rest of our lives, the vortex of the hospital often felt a world away from reality.

  “Mama.” Aria’s voice was a dry-sounding croak. She pointed to her water bottle and mimed the action of drinking. I stood from my recliner—currently in the day position of a chair—and placed the ribbed straw into her mouth so she could sip. Her appetite had waned considerably since the surgery, but her thirst rarely seemed quenched.

  “Are you hungry?” I set the jug of water back on the portable tray over her bed and reached for the slice of buttered toast she’d left on her breakfast plate. Along with ninety percent of her scrambled eggs and yogurt. Two things she had usually eaten with abandon since we arrived home from China.

  “No.” She shook her head and sighed against her pillow. Her once sparkly brown eyes looked dull and depressed, especially when compared to the bright Get Well Soon balloons and flowers that filled her room. I held up her Etch A Sketch and the colored pencil case my niece had brought her yesterday along with a sketchbook, but again she shook her head.

  Although Brian assured me this response was normal, even expected after seventy-two hours in the hospital, the nagging sensation in the pit of my stomach wouldn’t fade. It wasn’t that I expected her to sing and dance and ask to be read to every few hours the way she had at home, but even the smallest light in her eyes would do my mommy heart good. Her heart, too.

  Despite her low energy and even lower interest in the world around her, Aria’s vitals had been excellent, ahead of schedule, with zero setbacks. I’d watched her sleep those first twenty-four hours, fearful to close my eyes for even the briefest of naps. But Gail had nudged me to put the recliner down when she’d visited the following day. And my body had sunk into a dreamless oblivion for nearly three hours without stirring.

  Between Jenna, Gail, my mom, and my sister, I’d had plenty of opportunities to nap and shower and feel semi-human over the last few days. And while I longed to be home, longed to comfort my baby in her own room, I often wondered if my instincts would compare to those of a mother who’d worn the parenting badge for much longer than I had. Would I know what to do if something came up at home? I pushed the thoughts away and focused again on trying to find something—anything—that would spark some interest in my daughter’s eyes.

  I rummaged through the bag I’d packed with all her favorite toys the night before her surgery and passed on the digital book with vocabulary picture cards in both Mandarin and English. It was one of the best things I’d purchased for language development and a huge contributing factor to her English taking off so quickly over the last two and a half months. But while she’d loved using this tool inside our house, she hadn’t been interested in it here at all, no matter how many times I’d presented it to her.

  “Aria, look!” I’d just pulled my hand out of the bag, twisted around, and wiggled the five finger puppets I’d put on that I’d been saving for a day just like this one, when a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in.” I expected a nurse to bustle inside, or whichever pediatric cardiologist was on call today, but it wasn’t medical personnel standing on the other side of the door. It was Joshua.

  My hand froze midair, all five members of Peppa Pig’s family suspended in time.

  “Hey, hi,” I said dumbly, ripping the pigs off one by one and tossing them behind me. “You came. You’re here.”

  “I hope I didn’t miss the puppet show.” He worked to smooth his hair to the side
, but less than a half second later, it rumpled right back. “I texted you a couple hours ago. I wasn’t sure if I should wait for a reply or try my luck and just show up.”

  I shot an anxious glance in Aria’s direction. She was straining to catch a glimpse of the mystery man just outside her field of vision behind the door.

  “No problem if it’s not the best time for a visit, I can just—”

  “No, no. It’s a fine time. Perfectly fine. I just . . .”—have no earthly idea how I should be feeling right now or how exactly I should introduce you to my daughter or if I even remembered to run a comb through my hair after I brushed my teeth—“I’m sorry I missed your text. I keep my phone on silent because I’m never sure when Aria might take a nap.”

  “Mama?” Aria pointed at the doorway and then lifted her hands in a shrug. “Doctor?” She could pick out several words in an English conversation now, even string three-word and sometimes four-word sentences together, but there was no way she’d comprehended any of my quick, disjointed replies. Her understanding of body language, though, was another thing entirely. Aria could read a person’s mannerisms and tone better than most adults.

  “No, not a doctor,” I said, shaking my head and waving our guest inside.

  Joshua stepped over the threshold and into the hospital room. His clothing choice of a faded orange T-shirt with the phrase Got Nerd? on it, paired with distressed denim, was a far more familiar sight than the business attire I’d seen him in a few days ago, though his laptop satchel was still slung across his chest.

  “Aria.” I touched Joshua’s upper arm as my daughter’s gaze connected with the man who’d once loved me enough to let me go. “This is mama’s pengyou.” The Mandarin word for friend. “Joshua.” I said his name slowly, emphasizing the consonants and vowels and giving her a few seconds to absorb it.

  “Jo-shu-a.” Aria tracked my pronunciation well, mouthing and repeating his name. “Pengyou. Friend,” she translated on her own.