by Nicole Baart
“It’s not too late,” Janice replied. She pushed herself up on her elbow.
I didn’t like her above me, and I sat up with difficulty. “I don’t want to give my baby up for adoption. I am his mother. Her mother,” I added quickly, hoping that Janice hadn’t noticed how accustomed I had become to the thought of a son.
Janice didn’t catch on. Instead, she groaned and sat up too. “I hate that phrase give up. It sounds so negative. Think of it as giving an incredible gift—an extravagant, expensive, priceless gift. It’s a gift to the adoptive parents; it’s a gift to your child.” She searched my face earnestly. “It’s a gift to you.”
Her words burned because I knew they were true. I had wrestled with my own thoughts along the exact same lines, and it shattered my world as I knew it to hear them voiced so clearly outside of my own mind. Mrs. Walker had offered her own suggestion, but it was easy to dismiss because I had never entertained such a thought before. Now, after the seeds had already been planted, I felt them grow as Janice watered them with her deliberate opinions.
“I can’t do that,” I said, even though some small sliver of me wished that I could.
“Yes, you can.”
“The baby is due in six weeks.”
“Think of the joy you would give some family. They wouldn’t even have to wait for their baby.”
Their baby. No. He was my baby. And yet underneath the burning resentment of my possessiveness, there was the icy reality of what my jealousy would mean for my son: He would grow up without a father. Like I grew up without a mother. Somewhere inside my chest the truth thudded painfully.
“Tell me you’ll think about it,” Janice pleaded.
“I have thought about it.”
“Think about it some more. Please. You don’t understand.”
“I do understand. I can do this,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “You’re a single mom; why do you think I can’t pull it off ?”
Janice looked stricken. “I know you can do it. But don’t you get it? Keeping the baby is the easy thing to do. I’m asking you to do the impossible. Do what I couldn’t do: Be strong. Be selfless.” She fumbled for more words, sighing and groaning. But the task of conveying all that she was feeling was either beyond her or simply too painful, and finally Janice finished feebly, “I love Simon, but what kind of life have I given him?” The dim glow of the streetlamp was a fine, reflected point of light in the tears collecting along her lower lashes. “Julia, believe me, you don’t really have a choice. This is no way to live.”
I should have pitied her, but I had a hard time relating or even understanding. Maybe Janice had forgotten that I, too, was her child. Maybe she couldn’t stand back far enough to see that she had experienced it both ways: she had left and she had stayed. Neither solution was perfect, but at least Simon knew that his mother loved him. At least he would grow up knowing that he was worth holding on to.
If she ever expected me to breathe again, Janice had to know that I could not possibly let my baby go. But as we sat in the darkness, the front doors of the hospital slid open and the rest of the childbirth class spilled out into the night, laughing animatedly and waving good-bye to each other. The couples held hands on the way to their cars, and I watched them from our patch of earth, feeling like an invisible spectator peering into some impossibly perfect universe. Had I been happy only twenty-four hours ago? Had the world seemed full, maybe even limitless?
I watched them all disappear into the night, each half completing the whole, and felt that I could not possibly be more alone.
Life Without
WEEKS AGO, I HAD torn up the postcard that Mrs. Walker had given me and left it to litter the grove. I never intended to give it a second thought. But though I tried to forget, though I tried to force it far, far away when Janice breathed new life into the possibility, I remembered the name of the adoption agency anyway: All His Children.
I typed the name into Google late one night when everyone was in bed and found the Web site almost too easily. The agency was the very first search result, and I stared at the description for a moment before gathering up enough nerve to click on the blue-lettered link. Our Internet connection was dial-up, and the site itself loaded painstakingly slowly. Holding my breath prisoner in my rigid throat, I watched as a relaxing sage and honey background gradually melted into view. The tabs were done in a willowy font along the left edge of the home page, and a large picture frame materialized front and center. A few minutes later, an unhurried parade of potential adoptive families faded in and out of view in the middle of the computer screen, each taking a turn to try and grab my attention.
“We are athletic and outdoorsy,” one caption announced. The couple was perched on a boulder with a rugged swath of snowcapped mountains in the background. Their faces were tanned and their legs were lean and muscled, their feet planted firmly in khaki hiking boots. “We can’t wait to share our love of creation with a son or a daughter. Your baby will see the world!”
Next, an older couple filled the black-rimmed frame. “Mature, stable, financially secure,” the caption proclaimed. “We long for a baby to make our home complete.”
Then there was a family of six with a robust-looking father and a slim, redheaded mother whose four children looked like miniature copies of her. “Big families mean lots of love. Your child will grow up with adoring brothers and sisters on our large acreage in the country. We laugh hard, work hard, and play hard.”
They marched across the screen one at a time: twenty-something and nearing the end of middle age, childless and teeming with an entourage of other kids. Multiracial families. Obviously wealthy families. Every shape, every size families. Each photograph and description was a different life, a different future that would open unforeseeable doors for my baby. He could live in any locale throughout the country with one of a myriad of unique families that all promised to love him as if he were their own.
I didn’t doubt their ability to love. One look at the eager faces, the willing, open set of their eyes, and I knew my son would be a treasure to any of the couples in the handsome photographs. I wanted to be selfless enough to see a specific picture and know, Here they are. This is the family.
As I tried to be receptive to the possibilities, I went so far as to envision a sleeping blue bundle in the arms of a woman who inexplicably reminded me of myself. She was petite with razor-cut blonde hair that just skimmed the curve of her shoulders, and she had enormous blue eyes. We looked nothing alike. But the similarity I saw had nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with her expression. She was a contradiction in terms: timid but hopeful, defiant yet afraid, weary and somehow eager. Her emotions clashed in her eyes, but I felt like I understood her. I had seen the exact same look months ago in the visage of the dark-eyed woman on TV. That’s me, I thought. That’s what I look like.
And then, with an abrupt swell of understanding, I knew that I could give the blonde woman what she needed. I could end the anxious war in her face. But try as I might to imagine what it would feel like to release my baby into her arms, I couldn’t do it. My insides snaked. I put a protective hand over my belly and clicked the computer off.
If earlier I had felt like I was finally getting somewhere, after the childbirth class it seemed as though someone had pushed pause on my life. Michael and I entered a holding pattern; he was kind but made no indication whatsoever that our afternoon ride had touched him in any way. For her part, Janice retreated somewhat in her pursuit of a relationship with me. And I found myself at a complete standstill. August loomed like a shadow obliterating the sun, and any answers I thought I had claimed faded into obscurity against the opaque backdrop of doubt.
Grandma and Simon knew nothing of my conversation with Janice on the hospital lawn. They had no idea of the turmoil that Janice had stirred up, though in her uncannily perceptive way I could tell that Grandma suspected the hospital orientation had been less than fabulous. But she didn’t ask and I didn’t tell. W
e carried on exactly as we had before, talking about the baby as if he was already a part of our makeshift family. I didn’t have the courage to say anything to the contrary, to let her in on the battle that raged between what I wanted to do and what I felt I should do.
Days turned into weeks and nothing changed at all. I circled the possibilities and impossibilities of my life with increasing restlessness and uncertainty until one morning I woke up and looked at the calendar. July 14. Thomas and Francesca’s wedding.
Thankfully, they had not asked me to do anything during the ceremony or at the reception. I had been fearful that in an act of friendship that would feel like condescension—to prove to himself that we were fine, that everything between us had ended amicably, happily even—Thomas would insist that I sit by the guest book or hand out small envelopes of birdseed to toss at the couple as they ran to their getaway car. But enduring Thomas’s wedding would require nothing more of me than sitting politely during the ceremony and appearing to enjoy myself at the catered reception. I figured that even in my muddled state I could at least pull that off.
The wedding was in the middle of a particularly balmy Saturday afternoon. It was a scorching day; the humidity and the temperature were twins, both hovering right at ninety on Grandma’s multiipurpose thermometer that hung beside the garage door. I went outside to enjoy some alone time on the porch before breakfast in the morning and almost immediately turned around and went straight back into the house. I was actually glad that my afternoon and evening would be spent in the nearly frigid air-conditioning of the church and then the Glendale Golf and Country Club. And though I held no grudges against either Thomas or Francesca, though the thought of their wedding didn’t make my heart thump painfully, I had to repress a little surge of glee when I thought of the bridal party sweating through outdoor wedding pictures on such a blistering day.
Janice and Simon had also been invited to the wedding, but Janice declined politely, telling Mrs. Walker that they already had plans and then confiding in Grandma and me that it felt like a pity invite. Janice assured us that she had no desire to try to fit in at a wedding where she would hardly know a soul.
Instead of joining us in wedding preparations, after lunch Janice surprised Simon by hauling out a packed picnic basket and beach bag and informing him that they were going to drive to the lake for the afternoon. He hooted in delight and skipped around the house for five whole minutes while his mother loaded the cooler with ice packs and juice boxes. I shot a regretful look at my black dress hanging in the doorway to the bathroom and decided that air-conditioned buildings ran a distant second to cooling myself in the lake. Though I wouldn’t put on a swimming suit, it would be fun to wade in with Simon. But it wasn’t like I had a choice.
When the screen door slammed behind them, Grandma turned and gave me a slow, gentle smile. “The house to ourselves …,” she said with a glimmer in her eye. “Why don’t you take a nice, long shower, honey? When you’re done, I’ll paint your toenails for you and take you out for an iced latte before the wedding.”
I tried to look at my toenails and found that I had to step my foot to the side in order to accomplish the task. “Pretty bad, huh?”
“Not so bad,” Grandma protested with a laugh. “I just know that you can’t do it yourself right now. I thought it would be nice since we’re getting dressed up.”
“It’s very nice,” I assured her, leaning over to give her cheek a quick kiss. “I’d love to have my toenails painted. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I want to.”
Grandma put some old records on while I was showering, and we took our time getting ready. For a few hours it felt like we lived alone again—there was no stomp and shuffle of Simon racing around the house and no Janice, sad-mouthed and somnolent, lurking in the rooms we frequented. I reveled in the opportunity to have my grandmother all to myself, and more than once I was on the verge of telling her about those happy families, the ones that promised to make my son their own. But the peace of the afternoon was tenuous and rare, and I was loath to disrupt it with such weighty, bewildering things.
Not only did she paint my toenails, but Grandma also gave me a full foot massage and pedicure while we chatted on the couch. I sat on one end of the overstuffed piece of furniture, and she sat on the other with first my right and then my left foot in her lap. It was restorative to let her words wash over me, and I leaned my head back to close my eyes as she kneaded my feet. I hadn’t even realized how much they ached.
Although she knew that I had been burdened for weeks, Grandma didn’t press me and instead kept the conversation easy and light as we prepared ourselves for Thomas’s wedding. We spoke of the garden, funny things that Simon had said, the incredibly hot weather. I was struck again by the gracious, selfless way my grandmother lived and her ability to know what I needed in nearly every situation.
By the time we stepped into the car—both of us scented and powdered and pretty—I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time, even though I was wearing the expensive black dress I had received from Janice. I felt ready to watch Thomas get married.
It turned out that we didn’t have time for a latte stop before the ceremony, but I didn’t mind. Grandma had equipped me for the day, given me the tools I needed to watch yet another display of the things I didn’t—and feared I would never—have. I was simply ready to get it over with. And as we pulled into the church parking lot and I caught sight of the white stretch limo, I was even able to earnestly wish Thomas well. Thomas was an amazing man. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to drive off into his own sunset, Franny in hand.
The church was richly decorated and dazzling with dozens of candles and massive urns that overflowed in cascades of green hydrangeas and bursts of perfect roses the color of strawberries and cream. A string quartet sent classical music spinning through the fragrant air, and well-dressed couples spoke quietly as they bent over the guest book and scrawled quick notes of blessing.
We weren’t late, but the pews were already nearly full and I noted without much surprise that Francesca’s side contained even more people than Thomas’s. Never mind that her relatives lived all over the country. I knew that Mr. Hernandez had offered to fly out anyone who wanted to come to Iowa for the wedding, and it seemed that the entire clan had taken him up on his generosity.
Grandma and I flowed wordlessly with the crowd and were just ready to join a short queue of people lining up before one of the aisles when I felt a hand on my arm. Someone spun me into a tight hug.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” Mrs. Walker gushed into my hair.
I pulled back and held her at arm’s length, smiling at her lacquered hair and professionally done face. “Bit of a crazy day?” I asked, knowing the answer by the harried look in her eyes. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Mrs. Walker groaned. And then, smoothing her dress, she shrugged almost shyly. “Do you think so?”
“Absolutely,” Grandma agreed, wrapping Mrs. Walker in a hug of her own. “And everything looks great.”
“I think they like it,” Mrs. Walker whispered, giving us a discreet thumbs-up. We didn’t have to ask who they were. “They are very nice,” she assured us. “Very nice. Why am I so nervous?”
“Probably because your son is getting married today,” Grandma said. “It’s a big day.”
Mrs. Walker sighed dramatically. “I know. I know. I’m a mess. I can’t imagine what I’ll be like when they tell me I’m going to be a grandma!”
I wasn’t offended, but suddenly Mrs. Walker glanced down at my belly, and beneath her dusty rouge her cheeks went white. “I’m sorry, Julia,” she said quietly.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said sincerely, but her horrified air made me feel like maybe I should be insulted.
“I didn’t mean—,” Mrs. Walker tried to continue but was interrupted by a frenzied Maggie bursting into our little group. She was wearing a soft pink dress with a chocolate
sash, and her hair was pulled up in a pile of curls on top of her head. I wanted to tell her that she looked lovely, but she barely glanced in my direction.
“Get behind the dividing wall, Mom!” Maggie barked, yanking her mother’s arm. “You’re not supposed to be seen yet! The seating of the parents won’t happen for another—” she glanced at the clock on the wall—“four minutes.” She huffed crossly. “And now people have seen me, too!”
Mrs. Walker rolled her eyes at Grandma and me and let herself be dragged away, mouthing something to us that I couldn’t make out. When they were a few paces away and she finally gave Maggie her full attention, I overheard her say, “It’s not like I’m the bride. Who cares if I’m seen?”
Grandma and I giggled a bit at the drama, but I couldn’t suppress a feeling of disappointment that Maggie had hardly even noticed me. We used to be so close, but ever since the night I teased her about having a boyfriend, her loyalties had slowly shifted from me to Francesca. I told myself it was better this way. After all, Francesca was going to be Maggie’s sister-in-law; I was merely the next-door neighbor. But that didn’t change the fact that I missed Maggie and I couldn’t help mourning the way things used to be. She had been right in her accusation all those nights ago: I had changed. Everything had changed.
Francesca walked down the aisle to a song I had never heard before. It wasn’t the traditional wedding march, but it was bright and joyful and so stunningly beautiful that I felt myself choke up, though I’d promised myself it was the last thing I would do. We stood for the bride’s entrance and she was a vision in white, a sparkling angel floating on the arm of her equally handsome father.
He will never walk me down the aisle, I thought with a raw stab of loss.
Strangely, it was one of the first things I had thought of when my dad passed away—that quintessential moment in the relationship between a father and his daughter, the act of giving your baby away—and I thought that I had dealt with it. But watching Francesca walk down the aisle with her dad made it seem very real and very new. I let myself cry.