The How & the Why

by Cynthia Hand

  “It’s too late for that,” the nurse said.

  “No, no, it can’t be!” I may or may not have started to cry. “I can’t do this tonight. Maybe if I go home and rest up a little. Come back tomorrow.”

  Melly grabbed my hand. “You can do this,” she said. “I’ll be right here with you.”

  Then we both heard Amber scream from the room across the hall.

  “She’s crowning,” we heard the doctor shout.

  “Go on,” I said to Melly.

  She let go of my hand and moved toward the door. “Goddamn moon,” I heard her say as she went out.

  Now I was really on my own. My doctor wasn’t even there—he was delivering Amber’s baby, apparently, but I was okay. It hurt. A lot. But I could take it.

  Then my entire body started to bear down without my say-so. I made this weird animal sound that I never knew I could produce.

  “Don’t push!” ordered the nurse. “Wait for the doctor! He’ll be here in a minute.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, and my body pushed again. I couldn’t stop it.

  “I’m sorry,” I panted. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just breathe,” the nurse told me. “Pretend like you’re blowing out birthday candles. Like this.”

  She got right into my face and started to blow out these little breaths. Whew. Whew. Whew. I tried to do it with her. I could feel everything stretching, the watermelon versus the lemon, and then my body heaved again.

  “Don’t push!” ordered the nurse.

  “Can’t you just catch her or something!” I screamed, and then I made another animal noise.

  I heard a baby crying. It was confusing, since my baby still seemed to be trying to rip me in half.

  “Dr. Rutledge!” called the nurse. She was now down on her knees between my legs, preparing to catch you, X.

  I felt like I was on fire down there. And the watermelon was definitely stuck.

  “Dr. Rutledge, in here!” the nurse yelled again.

  My body pushed again.

  The doctor literally slid into the room, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves, mask already in place. He basically skidded in there right as you were making your grand entrance into the world.

  I screamed.

  Something gave way inside of me.

  And then there you were. A baby.

  Your face was purple, and your body was an alabaster white. The cord was around your neck, and in a flash the doctor cut it and gave you to the nurses, who wrapped you in a towel and started rubbing you all over.

  You didn’t cry.

  It was me who started crying. “Is she okay? What’s happening?”

  Three people were working on you by that time, and the doctor returned to his spot to deliver the afterbirth stuff (gross) and started sewing me up. Apparently you came out so quick that I tore. You owe me, X. I’m going to be like Noodle after this, I know it.

  “Somebody talk to me!” I yelled.

  That’s when you cried. It was the best noise in the whole world. You cried, and everyone in the room gave a sigh of relief. Your body got pink instead of purple and white. The nurse held you up.

  “It’s a girl,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “A beautiful, healthy girl.”

  “She’s healthy?”

  “She’s fine. Gave us a little scare, is all. Would you like to hold her?”

  I’d been thinking about whether I’d hold you ever since Heather. I wanted to. There was something about the skin-to-skin contact, and something about the special milk, and more than that, you were right there. I could see your little fist waving in the air, like you were reaching for me. I could smell you. I wanted to count your fingers and toes, to kiss the top of your head, to whisper hello in your tiny ear.

  But then I wouldn’t have let you go.

  I couldn’t have.

  In that way, maybe Amber was right.

  I couldn’t hold you and then give you up again.

  “No,” I whispered. “I can’t hold her.”

  The nurse nodded without judgment and snuggled you closer to her body, like she was going to play the part of your mother now. Then she wrapped you in a blanket and took you away.

  The next bit was hard. They moved me to another room, and they gave me a big shot in the hip because of my blood type or something and made me pee before they’d take the IV out of my arm. When I’d done all that, when I could walk a little, they gave me a rubber glove full of ice to stick between my legs and left me alone.

  In that hospital, every time there’s a baby born they play part of a lullaby over the loudspeakers. So I lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, crying a little, and listening to the song. It played three times. It reminded me of how many babies there are in the world. Five last night in this hospital alone, you and Amber’s baby, who arrived right before you.

  In the morning Melly came to see me.

  “You did good, kid,” she said. “I’m proud of you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “How’s Amber?”

  “She had a girl, too.”

  “And what’s going to happen with her?” I asked.

  Melly looked sad. “I don’t think she knows yet.”

  “Did you see my baby?”

  She smiled. “I did. She’s a beauty. I’m obligated to tell you that your baby is cute, but most newborns look like they’ve been in a boxing match and lost it, if you know what I mean. But your baby is beautiful. She’s already got everyone wrapped around her little finger.”

  “What about her parents?” I asked.

  “She’ll go to a foster family for six weeks, and then they can come and get her.”

  “Why six weeks?”

  “That’s how long the state gives you to change your mind.”

  “Oh.” I swallowed. “Well. I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “Good for you,” she said. “I think you’re doing the right thing. The best thing for her.”

  “I know.”

  She left, and I used the hospital phone to call Dawson at the Kappa house. He didn’t say much, but he seemed happy that you’re alive and well.

  “And how about you?” he asked me.

  “I’ve been better,” I said. “It’s hard.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I told him. “Be happy for her.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I will.”

  After a while I got up and made my way down the hall to Amber’s room. She was lying there all alone, like me, staring toward the window where the light was streaming in. It was nice outside, sun shining, the leaves starting to turn against the foothills. A pretty fall day.

  Amber looked surprised to see me. “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi. How are you feeling?” I asked.

  She wiped at her face. Tears tears tears.

  “Me too,” I said, handing her a tissue.

  She blew her nose. “There’s so much I can’t give her, and I want to give her the world.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve been a brat to you.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  She smiled. “But I admire you. You always knew what you were going to do, and you stuck to it. You’re so sure of yourself. You make the rest of us look bad.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m thinking about sneaking down to the nursery and grabbing my kid and making a break for the parking lot, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “It does,” she said. “You won’t, though.”

  “I won’t.” I sighed.

  “I won’t, either.”

  “You’re going to give her up?” After the way she talked, I didn’t think there was any way she’d choose adoption, no matter what.

  “She deserves more,” Amber said.

  I nodded. “If you want to talk, I’m right down the hall. I swear I won’t punch you.”

  She laughed. “Promise?”

  “As long as you’re not too annoying.”

  After I left Amber�
��s room, I made my way to the nursery. Not because I intended to steal you back, but because I wanted to see you again. I couldn’t help myself any more than I could yesterday when I couldn’t stop pushing. My body took me to you. My feet had a mind of their own.

  The nursery was set up with a bunch of plastic bassinets in a big room in front of a window, just like you see in the movies. It took me no time at all to find you, a little bundle right in the middle, still waving your fist.

  The other babies had their last names already, written on a card on the back of the bassinet. Baby Holmes. Baby Marushia. Baby Payne.

  They didn’t put my name on you. Your card was labeled, “Baby Star.” I liked the idea—like you were born as more than a mere infant. You were a star, fallen to earth. You were shining so bright.

  You were wrapped in a white blanket with a pink-and-blue stripe along one edge, and you were wearing a knitted pink cap, so I don’t know if you had any hair, and I can’t remember from yesterday. But your eyes, X. Your eyes were darker than mine, but maybe that’s a baby thing. They were a deep, ocean blue.

  I stood there for almost an hour staring at you, while other people came and went, mothers and fathers who were there to visit or pick up their babies, grandparents and aunts and uncles who wanted a look at the new member of the family, that sort of thing. The nurses fed and changed and rocked whoever cried.

  You didn’t cry. You stared up toward the ceiling, waving your hand.

  I took a deep breath. I waved back.

  “Nice to meet you, Baby Star,” I said. Then I blew you a kiss and went back to my room, and now that I’ve said hello, I started writing this letter to tell you goodbye.

  S

  44

  Sandra Whit. The name is like a magic spell I’ve memorized, and I find myself saying it even when I’m thinking about something else. I’ll be in the grocery store buying apples, and I’ll think about that bit she wrote about Heather in the grocery store, and I’ll think, “That’s right, Sandra Whit. I could be here with Heather, too. She could be that lady right over there, and we would never know.”

  When I found her face on the yearbook webpage, Mom started to cry, and that made me cry. Again. Still. It’s like the name makes my birth mother real. It makes her actually attainable. It was all kind of an exercise in existentialism until then.

  “I wonder if it’s short for Cassandra,” Mom sniffled out when she recovered herself enough to talk, which had not occurred to me until that moment. “Wouldn’t that be strange and wonderful, if you had the same name? Or is it possible that some part of me knew about her, to name you something that included Sandra?”

  I don’t know. Before my parents always told me they simply liked the name. I looked up what it meant once on some baby naming site, and it referred me to either a Greek woman who could see the future (but no one ever believed what she predicted), or Batgirl. I preferred Batgirl.

  Mom started crying again. Dad made her sit down on the little sofa in the hotel room and drink tea.

  “You have to be careful now, Boo” was all he said. “Tread lightly. These are people’s lives.”

  I took what he said to heart and have spent the last week only doing some light virtual stalking of Sandra Whit. Fortunately for me, the name Whit (as opposed to White) isn’t as common as you’d think. There’s Governor Whit, of course (it still blows my mind that I met him, that there’s a picture of him and Nyla and me framed in the display case in the hallway of Bonneville High School). And Jeremy Whit, who was indeed very good at football and graduated from Notre Dame, who ended up in New York State in an architectural firm. And Beverly Olsen, who was formerly married to Michael Whit, aka Evelyn, a literal beauty queen turned real estate tycoon up in McCall. The internet offered them all to me, and I ate them up eagerly.

  But Sandra is harder. Sandra doesn’t live in Idaho anymore, for one thing, and she’s quiet, not the sort of person to seek the spotlight for herself. She doesn’t even have a Facebook profile. The pictures I find always come from other sources: a news article where she was mentioned, a party she attended, a book club photo. Her social media is always designated private. But little by little I find out what I can.

  Sandra Whit currently lives in San Francisco.

  She’s married. In one of the pictures I see a ring on that finger and a tattoo of an Asian symbol on her wrist.

  She’s a music producer and software developer in the video game industry. It’s so perfect, my birth mother who loves music ending up turning music into her career. It makes me want to cheer and hug her and tell her I’m proud, like her victories, in some small way, are my victories.

  Mom was right that Sandra Whit has my eyes. Or I have hers, anyway. They’re the same shape, the same exact color, with the same eyelashes, even. My eyebrows are a bit lighter. My hair, I think, if I can even remember my natural hair color before I started dyeing it all the time for theater, is also lighter than hers. But she has my eyes. My smile—my teeth. My ears. She’s shorter than I am, and slightly skinnier. She seems so young compared to my mom.

  She is young, I remind myself. She’s only thirty-four.

  The more I see her, the more I know, the more I want to find out more. I want to know where she went to college. How she met her husband. Why she chose the career path she did, and how she made it happen. So I start making a plan. I discover an email address that might work. I begin to mentally compose the message I would send.

  Hello, Sandra, you don’t know me, but . . .

  God, that’s awful. So cliché.

  Hi Sandra, I hope this message finds you well. I recently discovered that you are my birth mother. I just wanted to say thank you.

  It’s not much better, and it’s not entirely true. Saying thank you is not all I want to do. But Dad’s right in that I have to be careful. Go with baby steps. Introduce myself first. Figure out if we should meet later. When we should meet. How. I can imagine that, too: knocking on her door. The hug. The tears. Introducing her to my parents (my mom!), which would involve more hugging and more tears. Talking about the letters. Telling her about my life, and hearing about hers. I can see it all, a pretty daydream I’ve secretly been having for months.

  I try again.

  Dear S,

  You would know me as Star, but the name my parents gave me is Cassandra McMurtrey. I got your letters a few weeks ago. Thank you so much for writing them. I loved every single one. They make me feel like I know you (or the sixteen-year-old version of you, anyway), and that makes me feel like I should know you—I would like to meet you—if you’d like to know me, too. . . .

  I write the message carefully, agonizing over every sentence, and it feels like I’m making some progress with it.

  Until the day I stumble over a picture online that stops me cold.

  It’s a normal photo, like a million others posted by a million other women, but this one somehow slipped by Sandra’s strict privacy practices. It shows two little girls standing on the street in front of a school bus. They’re different ages—one is probably six and the other eight or nine. They both have shiny long dark hair and dark eyes, not blue, but . . . they also have her smile—the teeth and everything. They are wearing school uniforms, blue-and-green plaid with white ballet-collared blouses. They both have pink backpacks and little Mary Janes. Their arms are wrapped around each other, their cheeks pressed together, smiling wide.

  First day with both the munchkins at school, Sandra captions the photo. Brb I’ve got something in my eye.

  It’s such an S thing to say that tears spring to my eyes. I stare and stare at the picture, seeing my smile, my earlobes, the subtle layer of baby fat I used to have around my neck at that age. I wonder if they even have the duck feet.

  They’re my sisters. My biological half sisters, anyway.

  The thing is, they look happy. They look like everything in their world is as it should be.

  I can’t help but think then about how this message I’m writing to their mother co
uld upset that world. It leads to a lot of questions I haven’t wanted to ask myself before.

  What if Sandra Whit’s husband doesn’t know about me?

  What would it do to their relationship to find out she had a baby she gave up for adoption? A baby who is now grown up and wants—no, is freaking demanding—a relationship she didn’t ask for?

  How would those little girls feel then? How could Sandra Whit possibly explain it to them?

  And what if Sandra doesn’t want to know me?

  This life—these two little girls and their dad—is the life that Sandra Whit meant to have. It’s what she chose for herself.

  Who am I to break that life wide open and insert myself in there again?

  She works in the computer industry. She definitely knows how to google. She knows, and she hasn’t made that choice. Because she’s happy with the way things are now. She’s happy.

  I’m happy.

  It all comes back to this hard truth: if she wanted to find me, she could.

  45

  “You were quiet at dinner,” Mom says. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  She’s still too darn perceptive.

  I shrug. I’m sitting hunched over the kitchen counter, watching my mother frost a cake. “Sandra Whit,” I confess as she smooths the frosting with an expert hand over the surface of the cake. The whole kitchen is filled with the heady smell of vanilla and my mother’s dreams come alive again.

  But my dreams, well. I don’t know.

  “What about S?” Mom asks. She still calls her S, while the rest of us have taken to calling her Sandra Whit like that’s all one name. And who knows? Maybe Sandra Whit doesn’t go by Sandra, any more than I go by Cassandra. Maybe she’s something else.

  “I don’t think I should contact her,” I say.

  Weirdly, Mom doesn’t seem surprised by this. “That’s a tough decision,” she says.

  “What do you think?”

  She sighs. “I can see it both ways.”

  “Would you still like to meet her?” I ask.

  She dips her knife into a small glass of milk, then keeps frosting, smoothing the wrinkles, perfecting it. “Yes. Of course. I would still like to thank her. But only if I knew that my presence—our presence—wasn’t going to be any big disturbance to her life.”