I file the order and return to where Karen sits. She has wiped her eyes and collected herself.
“You know, you hardly had to say anything at all. The judge did everything. I might have overpaid you.” I take it as a good sign that she is able to tease me.
“Good preparation,” I say, with mock smugness.
When Geraldine returns, she agrees that Karen can pick up Dawn at two the next afternoon. I shake her hand, and we all say goodbye.
On the drive back to my office, I turn on Bruce Springsteen and sing at the top of my lungs. I have a terrible voice and only sing when I’m alone in the car. When the CD ends, I start to rethink the morning’s events. It has gone too well. The judge had nearly used the wrong legal standard, which would have given Patty a good appeal. But he did have evidence to support his ruling. Still, with Geraldine on the other side, something else is likely to happen unless Karen can pacify Patty. I decide to call Karen when I get back to the office to make sure she is diplomatic with Patty in the transition. I will encourage her to arrange for Patty to be able to visit with Dawn.
But I have a new client appointment, several calls from distressed clients, and then a tricky negotiation with another lawyer over child support that had us at our computers comparing guideline calculations for nearly an hour. I forget to call Karen.
11
KAREN
I am afraid to look up at this fearsome judge. But when I hear him say, “the guardianship is terminated,” I can’t help myself and my eyes lock with his for just a second. I see understanding. I see compassion. I wonder for a second whether he has ever stumbled in his life. I want to sit there a moment longer and bask in this understanding, but Analee is antsy to get out of the courtroom.
I walk out of the courtroom in such a strange state that I forget my case folder on the table. The bailiff comes out and hands it to me very nicely, as if it were a diploma.
Dawn is coming home! I am suddenly in a surge of joy. I throw my arms around Analee to thank her, but her body feels solid and unmoved. I can’t even tease her into joy. She asks me to wait until tomorrow afternoon to pick up Dawn. I’ve waited this long; I can wait one more day. I will fill the house with flowers, I am so happy.
I have no memory of driving home from court. But then I am parked in front of my house and I realize I should have stopped for groceries on the way home. I don’t feel like grocery shopping at this moment. I’m too amped. I just want to celebrate. I call Megan on my cell, but I get only her voicemail message. Then I call Jenny, with the same result. I leave each of them a message that practically screams my joy and asks her to call me as soon as she can. I fish around in my bag for my house key and can’t find it. Instead of getting frantic as I might on other days, I try the door and it’s unlocked; my keys are on the kitchen table. Tossing off my shoes at the door and walking into Dawn’s room, I want to make it perfect. I want to make her as happy as I am. In twenty-some hours, I’ll be able to nuzzle her sweet little neck and welcome her home.
In my bare feet, I feel how dusty the floors are. I should scrub all the floors of the house. They’ll be clean and sweet-smelling, and I’ll burn off some of this energy. Time to buy Dawn a real bed and a dresser for her clothes.
I should sit down and collect my thoughts about what to do for the next day, but I am too antsy, so I change out of my one good dress, put on my jeans and hiking shoes and take off down the path behind my house. Euphoria – when’s the last time I’d felt euphoric? I know the bottom range of the emotional register, not the top. But I do remember feeling something like this when I took Dawn home from the hospital. Right after she emerged I was in some altered state, exhausted and just anxious to know she was okay. But when I walked out of the hospital I wanted to yell, “I’m a mother!” Patty was there too, of course; she drove me home. She was as excited as I was, but she practically had to pry Dawn out of my arms to put her into the car seat. “You have to face it backwards for the first six months,” she taught me. Dawn was so tiny we had to stuff padding all around her so that she fit snugly into the car seat.
I did it! I did it! I am saying it out loud now, but I was also saying it in my head that day we drove her home. Patty wondered why I wasn’t talking on the way home, but my heart and veins were so full of emotion I couldn’t even string words together. Meanwhile she babbled on about sterilizing bottles, making sure to burp the baby over my shoulder and holding Dawn’s head when I bathed her. I wasn’t really listening; the doctor had explained most of that to me and, besides, I was intent on nursing rather than on using formula. I don’t know if she’d assumed I couldn’t nurse because I’d borrowed her eggs or because I’m so small or because she herself had felt uncomfortable about nursing. “It made me feel aroused,” she’d admitted years earlier when Sandra was born, and nursing had given her a bad conscience. But her way wasn’t my way, and I couldn’t wait to get home and have her leave us alone.
Of course, soon after she left and I put Dawn to my swollen little tit, I fell into a panic. Dawn sucked so hard that my nipple began to bleed. I flinched and she let go, but started to wail inconsolably. She cried so much I thought the neighbors would report me to Children’s Protective Services. I offered it to her again. She clamped down again and I tried not to wince as she sucked and sucked without yielding anything but tears for us both. But the next morning, after she started to suck, I felt the most amazing surge in my breast. The milk came in like many rivulets flowing downhill after a hard rain, and I could feel the flow. It still hurt, but I was ecstatic, and so was Dawn. Her face transformed into placid contentment.
Today feels almost as good as if my milk had come in again. Tomorrow afternoon she’ll be back for good, and we’ll find again that perfect responsiveness to each other. Maybe I’ll take her down to the river, in that shallow, slow place near the bridge that doesn’t require a long hike. I’ll cook macaroni and cheese, her favorite dish, just the way she likes it, with mild cheddar and sundried tomatoes. By the time I get back to the house, I have a mental grocery list and plan for the perfect first afternoon. After the river, we’ll stop in town for ice cream and a new book.
I leave early to avoid any problems. I’ve emptied the trunk of my car to make room for Dawn’s clothing and toys. In an excess of efficiency, I’ve even washed the car, hauling the hose around from the back of the house, uncoiling the kinks, and spraying off weeks of accumulated dust.
I’ve cleaned the closets, all two of them in the house, the one that serves as a makeshift pantry in the kitchen and the one in my room that holds both Dawn’s and my clothes and shoes. The pantry disgorged a three-year old box of baby formula and some other foodstuffs with ancient use-by dates, which I threw out. The closet yielded up a small cache of five-year-old condoms that I took straight out to the garbage, a couple of my dresses and a college sweatshirt I never expected to wear again, and sandals that Dawn had outgrown by the end of last summer, which I put into a Goodwill box. I feel so ready.
Not ten miles down the road, I see a red light flash on my dashboard, like a capital U with its sides bulging and an exclamation mark in the middle. I slow down. A squirrel darts out in front of the car, stops, runs forward and then backward, before running out of my way just in time. Nothing feels abnormal; my red lights have never gone on before. What does this one mean? It looks vaguely like a tire, but I am not sure of the symbols. I pull over to the side of the road and walk around looking at my tires, which seem normal to me. I decide to check the manual that I store in the trunk of my car, only to find I’d removed it yesterday along with the spare tire, in my zeal to make room for Dawn. Should I go back to the house to get them? Is this some other emergency I am misinterpreting? I try to call Megan on my cell phone but stop before I finish dialing; I remember she has rehearsals today. Should I drive to the Toyota shop in Roseville? Go to the local garage, now about five miles back up the road? Return home for the spare tire and the manual? Any choice w
ill make me late.
Gaping into the empty space of my trunk, I come undone. First tears, then sobs rip from me. I collapse onto the trunk rim and heave sobs until my sides ache. I cannot be late today; the lawyers have negotiated the pickup time and I’m not supposed to call Patty. I am echoing Patty’s judgment that I am incompetent and inadequate to the task.
Just sitting there will also make me late, I tell myself, and get back into the car to drive to the Toyota place in Roseville. But I have not gone a mile before I tell myself how busy they always are, and if this were really an emergency the car could break down on the way. So I make a U turn and head for the familiar garage in Grass Valley, where a sturdy young woman (a woman, thank god!) named Gemma comes out to ask if she can help me. I tell her about the red emergency light. After taking one look at it herself, she confirms that tires are the problem and walks around with the air gauge testing each one. “Here’s the culprit,” she pronounces, as she shows me a nail in my front right tire.
“I left the spare at home,” I confessed.
“No worries; we can patch that.” She vanishes into the garage and returns with a vial of glue and a small tool that resembles an oversized wine bottle opener. As soon as she pries out the nail, the tire hisses air, but she plugs it with what looks like a little rubber plug, surrounded by glue, at the tip of the bottle opener tool. She tops off the air pressure, shows me how to reset the red light, takes my fifteen dollars and waves me on my way. The whole process consumes no more than twenty minutes. Giving thanks for the resourceful women of my county, I am back on the road, speeding just a little to make up for my lost time.
Just outside Roseville, I notice a highway patrol car immediately behind me and instinctively lift my foot from the gas pedal. At seventy-two, I am at the speed of the other cars on the road. Please don’t, I say to myself, and pull over one lane to the right. The patrol car passes without turning on its light. A second near miss. I shudder.
After all that negative prelude, I get to Roseville early and decide on a whim to bring ice cream for all three children – a cup of outrageously blue bubble gum for Ian, orange sherbet with vanilla for Sandra and chocolate for Dawn. Patty and I have bought ice cream with all the children together so many times that knowing their flavors is second nature. It will be my token goodwill gesture. I carry the three little cups stacked inside a freezer bag as I walk up to the front door. I can hear the children playing in the back yard; the swing squeaks and Ian calls “catch!” to one of the girls. In the old days I would have walked around the house to join them, but decide today I should ring the bell.
“I’ll get it,” Ian yells and runs around the side of the house.
“I knew it was you!” He comes at me as if about to tackle me, and throws his arms around my hips. I lean over to kiss him and tell him I have ice cream for him and the girls.
“What color?”
“Are you testing me? It’s blue, of course.” He grabs for the bag.
Sandra is on the swing, pumping as if for the sky. “Hi,” she calls out half-heartedly.
“Ice cream!” Ian yells, holding up the bag. Sandra slows down and gets off the swing, not wanting to look too eager. She comes over to me as if forewarned that I am the enemy.
“Dawn and Mom are inside,” she says, looking away from me. She takes her cup and its plastic spoon and walks over to the backyard table without saying another word to me.
“What’s doin’?” I ask Ian, still at my side. He tells me about the birthday party he is going to later this afternoon, a swim party for his friend Dan, just turning six. I start to ask him more about the party when I glimpse the back door start to open. Patty walks out holding Dawn’s hand, but I can only see Dawn’s hand and her legs behind my sister.
“I got him a giant water gun,” Ian tells me as I stand wondering why Dawn hasn’t run over to greet me. “Pshew! Pshew! Pshew!” Ian yells, pumping his arm and spewing imaginary water from his gun as he twirls around me.
Finally Patty lets go of Dawn’s hand. She walks toward me shyly. Her reticence is so out of whack that I am slow to notice what is odd about her head. Instead of the wild curly fluff that usually encircles her head, she has a short, straight bob. I blink and shake my head. “It’s me,” she says and wraps herself around me. I kneel down and hold her tight. “We’re going home, sweetie,” I whisper into her hair. It smells like the sort of spot remover you’d spray on a rug and bleach it for life. When I touch her head, it feels unnaturally smooth. I want to smell her, not this chemical on her head, and nuzzle her neck. “You’re coming home,” I repeat. As good as she feels, I can’t stifle a surge of anger.
“What did you do to her hair?” I yell at Patty, who stands with her hands on her hips, looking officious. Her posture alone infuriates me.
“It hurt her…. Every time I combed her hair, it hurt her.” She speaks slowly, accusingly. “So I took her to the hairdresser’s to get it professionally cut and straightened.” She stands defiantly. “There’s some product you should put on her hair every five weeks or so, when it starts to curl up again. I packed it in her bag.”
“Product! On Dawn’s hair?” A tornado swirls inside me. “How could you touch… my… daughter’s hair – without even asking me? What about her curls? You ruined her hair – can’t you see that?”
Dawn starts to cry. She wilts at my feet, but I am so furious I walk away from her to confront Patty.
“When did you do this?” I practically spit in her face.
Patty turns her back to me and returns to the house. “I’ll put her bag into the car,” she announces coolly. I stand glaring at the door for a long minute before turning around slowly. Sandra sits at the table looking down at her ice cream. Ian hands Dawn her cup of ice cream but she isn’t taking it. She lies curled on the ground.
“I don’t want to be ugly,” she moans, as I lean over to pick her up. She hides her head on my chest and snuffles into my shirt. Ian stands next to us, the ice cream cup indented in his hand and dribbling melted chocolate over his thumb. “It happened yesterday,” he tells me softly. “She was worried you wouldn’t like it,” he explains, putting his own free hand on her shoulder.
“Honey, I love you. Stop crying. You’re the most beautiful little girl I ever saw.” Dawn is limp in my arms. “You’ll get your curls back, don’t worry.” She starts to cry harder, hiccupping in my arms.
I carry her to the car, put her into the child seat in the back and ask her to wait for me. I go to the front door to have some more words with Patty, but she has locked it. She stands in the window next to the door, staring at me coldly.
“I won’t forget this. You bitch!” I yell through the door.
When I get back to the car I see only one small suitcase in the back seat.
“Where are your toys?” I ask Dawn, in not the best tone of voice.
“In the house,” she mumbles. “Aunt Patty told me I needed to leave them there ’til I get back.”
“Get back!” I yell. “She’ll be lucky if she ever sees you again!” At which she starts to cry again. I start to get out of the car to go to her side to comfort her again, but I see Patty in the window watching us. I gun the engine, skidding on the gravel as I pull out of her driveway, and speed down the block.
Dawn cries quietly all the way home. Every time I glance back at her, I catch sight of what Patty has done to her hair, and I get furious again. As many times as I said to myself I would not let Patty poison my time with Dawn, I cannot find a place in me to comfort my daughter.
Finally, as I open the door for her and she stands before me, I kneel down, wipe her eyes and nose with some Kleenex, and tell her I love her more than anything, no matter what Patty did to her hair. I suddenly remember something, and begin to giggle.
“Remember, a year or two ago, when Sam dyed her hair purple, how mad Megan got?” Dawn begins to smile. She takes my hand and we walk i
nto our house together. Together we unpack her tiny suitcase and put her clothing into the bins in her room. We agree it’s time to get her a dresser for her room, and a proper bed. We’ll drive to Ikea’s and she can choose them herself.
“I want white ones,” she pronounces. Her dresser at Patty’s was white.
“We’ll find you a white one, if that’s what you want.” I can do this.
We make our ritual trip to the outhouse, and eat strawberries together. I pick the greens off hers but don’t bother for myself. She asks for one with the leaves still on, and I pick one with no stem and a tiny span of leaves. After chewing it carefully, she asks me to take the greens off the next ones.
A bit later, in the middle of our simple dinner, she asks me why Aunt Patty ‘did this’ to her hair.
I put down my fork. “She said you cried when she combed your hair and she wanted to make it easier for you.” I use every bit of will power not to ask what Patty has told her.
“I think she wanted to make you mad.” She looks at me searchingly.
“Well, she succeeded.” I begin to laugh, and she does too. “I am so sorry I hurt your feelings. I wasn’t mad at you.”
After I wash the dishes, she comes out of her room with the can of ‘product’ in her hand.
“Can I throw this away?”
“Only if you want to.”
She tosses it into the garbage.
Within a week, my euphoria gives way to practical concerns. I am used to carrying on an internal conversation of ‘rationing resources’ whenever significant expenses arise, but now I am really, truly responsible for two of us in a way I have not been since Dawn’s first year. She and I have picked out and assembled her new white dresser, and the bed frame is to arrive soon. While her room takes on an orderly and cheerful new aspect, my finances do not. My royalties have fallen off without new books in the pipeline, and my ‘time out of life’ in the hospital and rehab (as my therapist and I reframed it) interrupted the flow of books from me. I am not quite finished with a new book, and I have irregular income from illustrations. I phone my agent to ask about new assignments for illustrations, and she says she will try, but that my best opportunities depend on my publishing a new illustrated book of my own. When I first told her about it, she liked the idea and ‘couldn’t wait’ to see it. She thought “Where Does the Ketchup Grow?” would be a clever title and concept. Now that I am one or two illustrations short of sending it to her, she seems dubious that it even exists.
Raising Dawn Page 9