A Mother's Goodbye_A gripping emotional page turner about adoption and a mother's love

by Kate Hewitt

  And then the next thing I knew they were putting up a little curtain so I couldn’t see the mound of my own pregnant belly, and someone, a stranger, was holding my hand. I felt a weird, tugging sensation, everything moving too fast, and then the words I’ll never forget: You have a little boy.

  It jolted me, because I’d been expecting a girl, but then it didn’t matter, boy or girl, because all I saw, all I thought, was mine. They laid him on my chest and he blinked up at me with those deep blue eyes and I saw myself in him. Of course he was mine. I didn’t even think about Grace once. Not once, not even for a second. I just looked at my son and smiled and then I fell in love.

  Maybe from that moment it should have been simple. Forget Grace. This was my child. He’d been ripped out of my body. I was never going to hand him over like something the mailman had delivered that I needed to pass on.

  But then they took him to NICU and they wheeled me away, and my body throbbed and ached and I still hadn’t talked to Kevin, and I remembered that I’d deposited that check for five grand, and some of it was already gone. Nothing seemed simple any more.

  Kevin came later that morning, unshaven, his shirt buttoned wrong.

  ‘Did you hear?’ I gasped out and he nodded. Then I started to cry. I didn’t mean to; I’d wanted to be strong, but I couldn’t help it. I was so tired and absolutely everything hurt.

  ‘Babe,’ Kev said softly. He sounded torn, hurting the same way I was. ‘Babe.’ And then he climbed into the bed right next to me, gently, and even more gently, he took me into his arms. I cried into his shirt and Kev just held me.

  We didn’t talk much, even after my tears had subsided. I may have slept a little, and when I woke, Kev was still holding me. My stitches throbbed and I was so very tired, but I also felt just a little bit better, although I couldn’t even say why.

  ‘I didn’t expect to feel like this,’ I whispered.

  Kev stroked my hair. ‘I know.’

  ‘I thought it would have been easier to give it up, if it was a girl, but I don’t think it matters. Either way it’s our baby, Kev.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, and his fingers stilled on my hair.

  ‘The same as we always were.’

  That seemed incomprehensible to me, even as the truth thudded through me. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. For me.

  ‘Do you want to see him?’ I asked, and Kevin stiffened.

  ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘No, I don’t want to.’

  And stupidly perhaps, that hurt. After he left I asked the nurse to bring my boy to me. She said she couldn’t, he was too little; he had to stay in the incubator. But she could take me to him, and so I struggled into a wheelchair, my body sagging and aching in ways it never had before, and then let myself be pushed to the NICU.

  I knew him right away, even though I’d only seen him for a second, lying there on my chest. He was tiny and wizened and red, squalling and perfect, raging against life already. He had a tuft of light brown hair, a miniature cowlick, just like Kevin. And when he opened his eyes, I felt myself fall. My child. My son. It felt so simple, then. So right.

  Later, the doctor came and told me he was doing well, but his lungs were weak and he was jaundiced. He’d have to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and he might suffer from some complications later in life.

  ‘Complications?’ I stared at him fearfully.

  ‘Premature babies often have a few health issues as they grow up,’ he explained, his expression kind. ‘But for the most part they can be managed, with the proper care and attention.’

  Care and attention I doubt we could afford. He left me alone, and I lay in bed and stared at the wall and thought about my baby boy, and my three girls, and Kev and Grace. Everyone jumbled up together, but beyond the tight burn in my chest and the empty ache in my arms, I knew. I knew that just like Kevin had said, nothing had changed. I knew that Grace could provide this little boy with so much more than I could, including the medical care he might need. I knew that she would love him, and that if I kept him from her, I’d break her heart. I knew, even as I railed and raged against it, that he was hers, at least as much as he was mine. And I was the one who had made it that way.

  So when Tina came and asked if Grace could see me, I said yes even though I didn’t want to see her at all. I wasn’t ready, but I needed to be. And that was when I thought of it, how Grace owed me something. Life owed me something. Maybe not a lot, not everything, but something, damn it. One afternoon a month. That felt reasonable to me. It felt fair.

  The front door opens and I look up from the cake, my heart lifting, but of course it isn’t Grace and Isaac. They always ring the doorbell, even though I’ve told them they don’t have to.

  ‘It’s me,’ Emma calls, sounding tired. She works every weekend at CVS, eight-hour shifts on both Saturday and Sunday. She comes into the kitchen, still quiet and shy at eighteen years old, and just finishing high school. In the fall she’s planning to train as a nursing assistant, something I’m proud of although I was secretly hoping she might try for college. No one in my family has gone to college. No one’s even thought of it. Who has that kind of money? That kind of drive?

  ‘Oh.’ Emma notices the cake. ‘I forgot it was that Saturday.’

  ‘How could you forget?’ I ask, keeping my voice light. ‘What do you think of my cake?’ I stand back and survey the gray and green gloopy mess. The only thing to show it’s Minecraft-themed is the figure of Steve on the top.

  ‘Um… interesting?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ I sigh, wishing I could get it right sometimes. For the last seven years I’ve always felt like I’m just a little bit off with these visits. It was easy at the beginning, even though it hurt. Isaac was a baby, and I knew what to do with babies.

  The first time I held him he curled right into me. I swear he smelled me as his mother. He knew me, no matter that it had been almost a month. He’d only been out of the hospital a week, and Grace was awkward with him. She hadn’t got the hang of him; she held him as if he was going to break, as if he were one of her expensive pieces of crystal.

  She watched as I rocked him, my hand curving around his back, my fingers tracing the tiny knobs of his spine. He snuffled against my neck and I breathed him in. I turned away from Grace and sang a lullaby to him, love swelling inside me as he relaxed against me, tiny eyelids fluttering closed.

  I knew I was hurting Grace, and part of me was glad. I didn’t care if it made me petty or wrong. Grace had her money and her job and her apartment; she had her son. At least I had this.

  The next few visits I always played the expert, even though I knew it annoyed her. I told her when he was getting a tooth, when to start baby food, how to get him to sleep through the night. She was so uncertain, always doubting herself but never wanting my advice. Once I changed his diaper and made more fuss than I needed to about his diaper rash; she fought tears as I found the cream and applied it, clucking my tongue.

  But then Isaac got a little older, and he went through a phase of being not just shy but terrified of us. Of me. I’d go to cuddle him and he’d back away, burying his head in Grace’s knees, refusing even to look at me. Then she was the one who was smug, although she tried to hide it, at least a little. Not enough, though. Never enough. I could tell, and I wondered if it would always be a silent competition between us, a standoff over our son. I’d made it this way by insisting on these visits, and seven years later, I can’t even be sorry.

  Everyone else always seemed to fade into the background during these Saturday afternoons. Lucy, Amy, Emma, Kev. They’re in the room, but I don’t remember them. I remember Isaac, commando crawling toward the TV; then later, running around hyped-up on sugar, touching everything. I remember him playing Connect Four with me and how I’d slide the pieces in so slowly because I wanted the game to go on forever. By the next month he’d forgotten about Connect Four; I’d been waiting to play it with him again, c
ounting on it, and he wouldn’t even open the box.

  And as he’s got older, it’s continued to be that way. I buy caramel popcorn only to find out he doesn’t like it any more. The new Cars movie is has-been by the time he comes over to watch it, never mind that the DVD cost twenty bucks. I ask about the school play, his piano lessons, the trip to California, but by the time I catch up he’s already moved on, losing interest, slipping out of my grasp. Still I try to hold on, even though it’s hard. Even though part of me whispers one day I’ll have to let go.

  I don’t think he’s grown out of Minecraft, though. I’ve asked Lucy and she said kids still play it, like it. It was all he wanted to do the last time he was here; Grace let him have his iPad – he has his own – in the house, which annoyed me because I could barely get him to look up from the screen. The cake is starting to topple forwards, the icing sliding off in a gloopy avalanche, and I hurry to right it, before I turn to the oven to get the frozen pizzas ready.

  ‘Emma, can you get the paper cups out?’ I call, but she’s already drifted away, probably hiding in her room. Two years ago we could finally afford to move from the two-bedroom house that was so tiny for us. We now rent a three-bedroom duplex on First Avenue, a little bit away from the old neighborhood, new schools for the kids. We needed the change, and the space is great. I’m proud to have Grace and Isaac in this home, with its wood floors and fresh paint – well, once, anyway – and the back porch with the swing. It’s a nice house, a good home, even if Grace’s is far better.

  The doorbell rings, and as always my heart tumbles inside my chest. I’m so nervous and excited for these visits, every single time. It never gets old; it never feels familiar.

  I hurry to the door, past Kevin, who is sitting in his chair, the same old La-z-Boy I wanted to throw out when we moved, but he wouldn’t let me. It was good for his back, he said.

  ‘Grace, Isaac!’ I give them both big smiles; Isaac is standing a little bit behind Grace, who is holding a gold carrier bag with rope handles. She always comes with gifts – wine or chocolate or cheese, things that are too expensive to taste good. She brought artisanal chocolates once that the girls all spat out, right in front of her, brown drool dripping down their chins. I apologized for them, but the chocolates did taste bad, like dirt. It almost feels as if she is showing us up, pointing out again and again how we’re different.

  ‘Hi, Heather.’ As always, Grace sounds dutiful. She puts a hand on Isaac’s shoulder and steers him forward. ‘Say hello, Isaac.’

  ‘Hi,’ he mutters, hanging his head, his hair sliding into his face, and I act like he’s just given me a big hug. What else can I do?

  ‘Hey, Isaac. I’m so happy to see you.’ And then, because I can’t not do it, I lean forward and gently put my arms around his skinny shoulders. He’s so like Kev, with the same floppy brown hair and hazel eyes, the slight build – although he might muscle up later. Kev did, at least a little bit.

  I wonder if Kev has noticed the likeness; he hardly ever looks directly at Isaac, except when I urge them to do something together, like play a board game or go outside and throw a ball. I flap my hands, pushing them toward each other, and they obey, hesitantly, silently, but my heart still sings.

  And it nearly bursts when, on rare occasions, Kevin and Isaac relax into a game of catch or checkers, and I catch Kev’s slow smile, the flash of pleasure in Isaac’s eyes. I feel then that I almost have everything I’ve ever wanted, and yet I know it’s nothing more than a moment. Amy, in a spate of fury, once demanded what I wanted from these visits with Isaac. ‘Do you want him back?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just want us gone?’

  Typical of Amy, to make it about her. Of course she’d feel slighted when this has never been about my girls. I’ve given my whole life to them; Isaac only gets a couple of hours. Such a small amount of time; I just want it to feel like enough.

  Grace hands me the gold-corded bag and Isaac shuffles inside, head ducked low.

  ‘Amy’s gone out, but Lucy and Emma are here,’ I say brightly. Too brightly. ‘And Kevin, of course.’ Early on, I tried to get Isaac to call me Aunt Heather and Kev Uncle Kevin, and while Grace didn’t refuse, she never insisted or introduced us that way, and somehow it’s fallen by the wayside, like a thousand other things. It doesn’t feel right to try for it now.

  ‘Emma,’ I call. I peek in the gold bag and see a bottle of sparkling wine, something Kev will never drink. I tell myself Grace means well, but sometimes I wonder. After seven years, has she not noticed that Kev only drinks beer and I barely drink at all?

  Lucy skids into the room and gives Isaac a challenging look. Nearly five years apart, they’ve had an on-again, off-again friendship over the years. When Isaac was a cute baby, a chubby toddler, the girls couldn’t get enough of him. They’d plop him down on the living room carpet and lie on their bellies all around him, handing him toys, enraptured by his cuteness.

  Then he got older, and older still, and everything started to get more and more awkward. The girls drifted away. I tried too hard. And Grace continues to endure.

  ‘Let me get you a drink,’ I say in the same too-bright tone I can’t seem to ever switch off when they visit. ‘Coke? Mountain Dew?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Isaac’s off soda,’ Grace says firmly. ‘He needed a filling at the dentist a couple of weeks ago, so we’re really trying to limit the sugar.’

  ‘Okay.’ How many moments like this have I endured, having to bow down to Grace’s over-the-top dictates? No sugar. No soda. No peanut butter, just in case he had a nut allergy. He didn’t. No screen time, except when she brings in his iPad. No violent games, never mind it was only a couple of water pistols on a hot summer’s day. No PG movies, even though I’d checked, and there was nothing too bad in it.

  I grit my teeth and go along with it, because I know I don’t have much choice. I don’t have any choice. ‘Would you like something else, Isaac?’ Of course I don’t have anything else. ‘Water or milk?’

  Isaac shakes his head. He’s kicking his feet in his hundred-dollar Nikes, head still bent, refusing to look at me. I try not to mind. He’s still little, still so small. I suppress the ache to slide my fingers through his hair, his bangs out of his eyes.

  ‘The pizzas are in the oven so dinner shouldn’t be too long.’ He’s been here five minutes and I’m already feeling like I need to fill up the time. ‘Lucy, why don’t you get some games out?’

  Lucy shrugs and then goes to the living room cupboard that’s stuffed with board games, most of them in tattered boxes, missing pieces or dice, or both. ‘You wanna play Monopoly?’ she asks Isaac, who shrugs right back at her.

  I turn to Grace, determined to remain upbeat. ‘Grace? Something to drink?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She never has anything to drink. Whatever food I make, she barely nibbles. It’s like she can’t get out of here fast enough, and while I accept that, she could try a little harder. Pretend, at least, for Isaac’s sake if not for mine.

  ‘So, how are you?’ I ask as I move into the kitchen, one eye on Lucy and Isaac, who are setting up a battered Monopoly board on the living room coffee table.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Something about Grace’s tone makes me turn to look at her, waiting for more. ‘Actually, Heather, there is something I want to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oh?’ Already I don’t like the sound of this. Her voice has gone all officious, like she’s at a board meeting. She glances back at Isaac and Lucy playing their game, Kev in his chair, then she moves closer to me and lowers her voice.

  ‘The truth is, I’ve been thinking about our visits here, mine and Isaac’s, and how… productive they are, and I think perhaps it’s time to… disengage a bit.’

  ‘Disengage?’ My heart thumps in my chest. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

  ‘It’s just…’ Grace takes a quick breath, stepping even closer to me and lowering her voice to little more than a whisper. ‘It’s been seven years, Heather. That’s a long time. And I think now it would be be
tter for Isaac, for me, and even for you, if we visited… less.’

  ‘Less.’ I feel the first flare of rage, masking a far worse hurt. It’s one afternoon a month, I’m hardly dominating their lives.

  ‘Yes, less.’ Grace sounds strident now. ‘Maybe every three months, for a little while? And then, maybe every six?’

  ‘And then what?’ I snap. ‘Never?’

  ‘This isn’t sustainable, Heather. I’m sorry, but it isn’t.’ Grace folds her arms, looking stubborn and mutinous, and suddenly I hate her with a viciousness that curls my hands into claws, makes me itch to slap her. She has everything, and she still wants more. This was how I felt seven years ago, and it’s how I feel now. Nothing ever changes, no matter how hard I try.

  Looking at Grace, I realize she’s been waiting for this moment, and in a totally different, awful way, so have I.

  Fifteen

  GRACE

  Three interminable hours later I climb into my SUV, Isaac scrambling into the back. I rest my forehead on the steering wheel, feeling too exhausted even to start the car.

  ‘Mom.’ Isaac huffs out an impatient breath. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Okay.’ I raise my head and turn the ignition, pulling away from the curb and the McClearys’ house with a sigh of relief. As always, I’m happy to leave, but tonight I feel an uncomfortable prickling of guilt along with the vast relief. When I told Heather I wanted to curtail our visits, she looked, for a second, as if I’d just ripped her heart out. And the truth is, I knew I had.

  I pretended to myself that she would be expecting it, maybe she’d even agree. But I knew I’d blindsided her with my request. She’s been deceiving herself so desperately all along, that these visits work, that Isaac enjoys them. And, to be fair, he has had some good moments through the years. It hasn’t all been an endurance test for him. Just for me. After I told Heather my intention we didn’t talk about it at all. She just lifted her chin and went on her merry, determined way, chirping to Isaac about the pizza and the cake, which looked like a complete disaster. When Heather brought it in so proudly, icing the color of cement sliding off the top, Isaac looked horrified, although he tried to hide it.