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

by Kate Hewitt

  I haven’t dated once since having Isaac. There hasn’t been the time, and I’ve never felt the need. I’m used to being alone in that way, and I have Isaac. But occasionally I feel the absence, and I wish things had turned out a little differently. That there had been someone, that I’d found him. But mostly I tell myself it doesn’t matter, because Isaac and I are a team.

  As it turns out Isaac doesn’t seem to mind Dorothy leaving all that much. He blinks and nods, and I gaze into his serious, little face, wanting him to understand the import.

  ‘Isaac, do you understand what I’m saying? Dorothy’s moving away to be with her daughter. We’re not going to see her any more.’

  ‘I know.’ He stares at me, wide-eyed and accepting, utterly unruffled, and it bothers me a little. I would have preferred tears, even a tantrum. At moments like this I have to keep myself from being reminded of Kevin, that blank-eyed stare, the hint of surly impatience in the set of his mouth. I hate those reminders, that his genes aren’t mine, that someone else’s blood flows through him, that maybe I can’t shape him the way I want to.

  ‘Okay. I thought maybe you could make her a card.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I put one hand on his shoulder, wanting to anchor him in place, in the importance of this moment. ‘Why don’t I get out the markers and some cardstock? You can make it in the kitchen.’

  In the end the card is only half-made, and I do the kind of thing I once thought I’d never do – I finish it, sloppily, so it looks like Isaac’s work. I don’t even feel guilty.

  On Thursday I arrange a dinner for the three of us, but Dorothy’s flight leaves at eight and so we end up bolting through it, everything feeling rushed instead of important.

  I give her Isaac’s card, and a card from me, and a gift card as a going away present, but what I really want to do is hug her, cling to her, beg her not to go. Losing her feels like being cut away from my anchor so I’m free-floating in a foreign sea.

  She’s the closest thing I have to a mom, someone whose calm, comfortable capability has soothed me over the last seven years. She has talked me down from the ledge of helicopter parenting more than once, boomed out her big belly laugh when I’ve stressed about things that definitely don’t need stressing about, like whether Isaac is getting enough Omega-3 in his diet or if he should learn a second musical instrument.

  ‘Child,’ she’d say, clapping a great big hand on my shoulder, ‘you don’t need to worry about a thing like that.’

  I’ll miss her so much. I’m scared to be a mother without her in the background, my safety net for sick days or sudden, panicked requests for advice or reassurance.

  ‘Keep in touch,’ I tell her as she heaves herself up from the sofa. ‘Please. And if you do decide to come back to New York…’

  ‘You’ll have someone by then,’ Dorothy says with one of her easy smiles. ‘You’ll be fine, you and Isaac. Right, my little man?’ She puts her arms around him and Isaac gives her a quick hug, still looking unfazed. And in that moment I realize he doesn’t remind me of Kevin; he reminds me of me I was around Isaac’s age, when my mother went into the hospital for the first bout of intensive chemo. I remember my father telling me to hug her, and I did quickly, squirming away before she’d let go because I was afraid and it all felt so strange. Maybe that’s what Isaac is feeling.

  He catches my eye and I give him a reassuring smile. It’s going to be okay. The two of us, a team, against the world. Just like me and my dad. That’s how it’s been; that’s how it will be now.

  Moments later Dorothy is gone, and I stand in the doorway after the elevator doors have closed, unwilling even now to accept that she has left for good. I’ve made a call to the agency I used to hire her but I haven’t even seen any applications yet. Tomorrow Isaac is going to Stella’s after school, but after that I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t depend on Stella every day; in any case, Will and his brother have about a billion after-school activities. I suppose it will have to be after-school club for Isaac, although that always feels like the garbage can of childcare solutions, a bunch of lonely-looking boys stuck in a classroom until seven at night.

  Then my phone rings, and with a wave of trepidation I see that it’s Heather.

  ‘Heather?’ I try to keep my voice light and bright, as if I didn’t give her a pretty devastating ultimatum four days ago. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Grace.’ She sounds serious, even grim. ‘We need to talk.’

  Sixteen

  HEATHER

  I don’t tell Kevin or the girls about Grace’s request to halt Isaac’s visits. Not right away, at least, mainly because I’m just trying to absorb it myself, but also because I’m scared. I don’t want to hear what they think. Not, at least, until I know what I’m going to do.

  I end up telling Stacy, because while it’s not always easy to hear her plain-speaking advice, she’s sensible and she’s on my side. At least, she’s not on Grace’s side. She’s never been bowled over by Grace’s glamour, not like the girls were when they were little, trying on her lipsticks and touching the buttery-soft leather of her bag. Kevin, of course, has never liked Grace; in fact, he’s liked her less and less as the years have gone on.

  As for me… every time she talked about my son in those first few weeks, it took everything I had not to ball my hands into fists and scream at her to give him back to me. I certainly thought about it many times. I envisioned it, almost relished the look of shock and despair I knew I’d see on her face. I pictured plucking my baby out of her arms, as easy as that. It was my right. For six whole weeks, it was my right.

  Of course nothing is ever that simple. The night before I signed the papers, I asked the nurse to bring Isaac to me. She resisted, because he was still in the NICU, but I just wanted a few minutes with my child, and she knew about the adoption.

  So she wheeled him in, and I held my son for the first and last time. I cradled him like a football, his head resting against my knees. He blinked up at me, scrawny and frog-like and so very beautiful. I stroked his petal-soft skin, I traced his faint eyebrows, the bow curve of his little lips. I memorized him, imprinted him on me.

  ‘I love you,’ I whispered, so only he could hear. ‘I love you. That’s why I am doing this. I hope you realize that one day. I hope you understand it.’ He began to squirm, and I hefted him gently; he was so very light. ‘You’re going to have a good life,’ I told him. ‘A happy life. And I’ll still see you. You won’t forget me.’ I kissed him then, and I put him back in the bassinet, and the nurse wheeled him away while my cracked heart broke in pieces all around me.

  The next morning I signed the papers, and then I left the hospital, and it felt as if someone had just snipped the strings that had been holding me up. I went back home, surrounded by Kev and the girls, everyone needing me in different ways; I wanted to fill up my hours taking care of them, but I was so tired and I felt as if I were viewing the world through a cloudy haze. I stayed in bed, letting the world unravel around me, for as long as I could.

  After a few days Kev’s patience and goodwill ran out, and Lucy started wetting the bed again, and Amy was suspended from school for two days for hitting some kid. I didn’t have time to indulge my grief. I put it away, and I soldiered on, waiting for that first visit, counting on it to sustain me. And it almost did.

  Now, sitting across from Stacy in her pretty kitchen with the fake granite countertops and colorful stencils on the walls, I tell her about the conversation with Grace. She raises her eyebrows but I can tell she’s not surprised.

  ‘So she finally worked up the courage to say something,’ she says when I’m finished, and I flinch. Even Stacy didn’t have to be that blunt. She’s supported me since I was pregnant, even though her kind of love has been tough sometimes. She babysat the girls when I was sore and aching, recovering from the Caesarean; she accepted it when I insisted on the open adoption, although I could tell she felt cautious. She’s even met Isaac a couple of times, and been cheerful and frien
dly, easy-going in a way that helped everyone else. But I can tell she’s going to give me a dose of her older sister know-it-allness now, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.

  ‘You think she’s wanted this all along?’ I ask.

  Stacy sighs and shakes her head. ‘Oh, Heather. Of course she has. Why wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Plenty of people have open adoptions, and the relationships are all positive and healthy.’ I read that in a book, but still.

  Stacy shrugs. ‘Maybe somewhere that’s true,’ she says, but she sounds doubtful.

  I sip my coffee, squinting outside at her yard with its trampoline and above-ground swimming pool. Mike got a new job six years ago, and he and Stacy moved to a bigger house, better neighborhood. Up and up.

  ‘I’m just surprised it took her this long,’ Stacy says. ‘I mean, seven years. She’s been bringing Isaac to you for a long time, Heather.’

  ‘You sound as if it’s been so terrible for her.’

  ‘Don’t most birth parents lose touch after a little while, even in those so-called open adoptions? I mean, a couple of phone calls and photos, whatever. But, Heather…’ Stacy looks at me seriously, the same look she gave me when she told me I was going to regret all this. And I did. How I did. Still I’m not ready to hear whatever it is she has to say. ‘I think this could actually be a good thing, if you let it be.’ Her voice is gentle, and that makes it worse.

  ‘A good thing?’ I swallow hard, trying not to show how hurt I am. ‘How on earth could it be a good thing?’

  ‘Heather…’ Stacy leans forward, coffee cup forgotten, her elbows on the table. ‘I’m not trying to hurt you, but you know, you’ve been kind of… obsessed with Isaac. Since you gave him up.’

  ‘Obsessed? I have not been obsessed.’

  ‘A little bit,’ Stacy persists. ‘Come on, even you can admit it.’

  ‘How can you be a little bit obsessed?’

  ‘I just mean, these visits. Every single month. Didn’t Grace once call and ask to skip because Isaac was sick?’

  ‘No, because he was tired.’ I press my lips together. It had been such a lame excuse. He’d had a science fair on Friday night, and then a soccer match on the Saturday morning. He was worn out, Grace said. He couldn’t take much more. She made it sound as if visiting us –me – would be this great big burden he had to bear. And maybe it was for Grace. But it didn’t have to be for Isaac. So I played hardball and said they still had to come. That tired wasn’t a good enough reason.

  It was dangerous, playing that game, because I was playing a trump card I didn’t actually have. What if Grace called my bluff? What if she said no, they still weren’t coming? What would I do? What am I going to do now? My head hurts thinking about it all. My heart hurts.

  ‘But, Heather…’ There is far too much sympathy in my sister’s eyes. ‘Did you honestly think this was going to carry on forever?’

  Forever? No, of course not. Nothing lasts forever. I know that, and yet… I hadn’t let myself imagine an endpoint to this. To Isaac and me. A time when I would see him less, and then not at all. Just the thought of it gives my heart a wrench, like a giant hand has reached into my chest. I picture him on my chest, bloody and new. The first time I held him, and he snuffled into my neck. When he was a chubby, complacent baby, balanced on my hip. And then later, five, six, now seven years old. The tentative strides I’ve made, playing Connect Four, talking about Minecraft. I know how little it seems. How little it is. And yet it matters so very much to me. How can I let it go now?

  ‘Heather,’ Stacy says, and now she sounds stern, ‘you have three beautiful girls who need you as their mother.’

  ‘They have me as their mother,’ I snap. ‘And if you’re going to, for one second, tell me I’m not a good mom because of one Saturday afternoon a month…’

  ‘It’s not just the Saturday afternoons.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ The words are ripped from me, savagely. ‘Trust me, it is.’

  ‘But it isn’t,’ Stacy says in that awful, gentle voice. ‘I’m not even there and I feel it. The week before he visits you’re hyped up on plans, rushing out to buy special ingredients or presents, whatever. And the week after you’re down in the dumps, moping around—’

  ‘I’m not moping—’

  ‘That’s how it feels, Heather. Mom’s said the same thing—’

  ‘Mom? Mom’s met Isaac once.’ A couple of years ago, for his fourth birthday. I had all my family over, and Grace wasn’t pleased. She didn’t say anything, acted like it was so nice for Isaac to meet his birth relatives, but I could tell. I can always tell when I’ve pissed her off.

  ‘This isn’t about Isaac so much as it’s about you, and how you are. How everyone around you feels you are. Ask Kevin if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘You’ve talked to Kevin about this?’

  ‘No.’ Stacy sighs. ‘But ask him and see what he says.’

  But I don’t want to do that, not yet.

  When I get back home, the kitchen is a mess, music is blaring from Emma and Amy’s room, and Lucy is in tears.

  ‘Amy called me a little fucker,’ she wails, and I briefly close my eyes.

  ‘Amy!’ I bawl, knowing my daughter can hear me even over the blaring rock music with its pulsing techno beat. No answer. ‘Get out here!’ Still nothing. ‘Now!’

  After several taut seconds Amy wrenches open her door and slouches out of her room, her expression managing to be both indifferent and defiant. ‘What?’

  I stare at her face. ‘Were you wearing that much make-up at school?’ Because she definitely wasn’t when she left for school this morning.

  Amy just shrugs. She’s wearing heavy pancake foundation and thick dark eyeliner, blood-red lipstick. She looks like a slutty vampire.

  ‘You know you’re not allowed to wear that much make-up,’ I say, although I don’t know why I bother. Amy won’t bother replying, and what am I going to do about it? I ball my fists. ‘Don’t call your sister names, especially swear words.’

  Amy flicks a scornful glance at Lucy and folds her arms, still saying nothing. Silence is her best weapon, and suddenly it enrages me.

  ‘You speak respectfully,’ I shriek, and for once I get a response. Amy’s eyes widen a fraction and her lip curls.

  ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Why did you call Lucy such a rude name?’ Except that isn’t the question I wanted to ask, because it doesn’t matter why. There’s no reason good enough.

  ‘Because she’s so annoying.’

  Lucy lets out a little shriek of protest and fury floods through me again. ‘Amy! You can’t – you can’t say things like that.’

  Amy arches an eyebrow that is too dark and sculpted to look remotely real. Where does she get all this make-up, anyway? She doesn’t have the money, and no one else in the house wears this kind of stuff. I certainly don’t. ‘Why not?’ she challenges me, sounding almost smug. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘That’s it.’ My temper snaps with an almost audible sound; I feel it thrumming through my head. ‘I’m taking away your phone.’

  Amy looks furious for a second, as furious as I am, and then she shrugs. She slips her hand into her pocket and takes out the Nokia brick that is all we can afford. ‘Fine. Take it. It’s a crap phone, anyway.’ She throws it at me, right at my face, and I dodge, too surprised to attempt to catch it. The phone clatters to the floor as Amy disappears back into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her loud enough that I feel it vibrate through my body.

  ‘Mommy,’ Lucy says, her voice a whine in my ear. ‘She didn’t say sorry.’

  As I start making dinner, Lucy moping, Amy silent, and Emma doing her homework as quietly as she can in the living room, I feel guilt start to sour my stomach and worse, doubt fogs my mind. Is Stacy right? Have I been obsessed? Has it hurt my girls?

  I reject the thought instinctively, thrust it away from me like it’s something dirty and wrong – because it is. I gave up Isaac
because of the girls, for their sakes, so they could have a better life, more opportunities. So Amy wouldn’t have to wear broken shoes, and Emma could dream of college, and Lucy could get braces. All of it, everything – it was for them. The idea that it might have hurt them in the end is inconceivable. I won’t let myself think of it; I can’t.

  Later, after dinner, when the girls have drifted to their bedrooms and Kevin is parked in front of the TV, I log onto the computer that sits on a desk in the corner of the living room, then I wait as it hums to life.

  I type open adoption legal options into the search box and hold my breath. It takes me a while to wade through all the legalese I don’t understand. I may have got my GED but this stuff is dense, and I’m biased, skimming paragraphs, looking only for reassurance. I want something in print to promise me that I can call the law on Grace and make her stick to the agreement we outlined seven years ago, when my body was still aching and empty.

  I think of that afternoon now; I remember the sunlight streaming through the window, the perfect spring day outside, the papers in front of me. Three days after Isaac’s birth, I still could barely get out of bed.

  Grace was wearing a business suit, as was her lawyer, a silver-haired woman who used official terms and made me feel like a thing, not a person. Biological mother. As if my connection to my son was only biological, not emotional or intimate or real. Just a matter of nature or science, something easily severed and dismissed.

  Kevin stood behind me, hands in his pockets, gaze distant, the only way I knew he could get through it. When I’d told him I wanted an open adoption, he’d stared at me.

  ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea, Heather?’ He sounded tired.

  ‘Why not?’ I was rebellious, restless, fingers picking at the cotton sheet, wanting to move, to act. ‘This is our son, Kevin. I know we can’t care for him the way we want to but we can still have some part, some small part, in his life. And I think it would be good for him. Good for us. We’re not just signing off, forever.’