From Here To Maternity: A Second ChancePromoted to MomOn Angel's Wings

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  I DROVE AROUND for an hour or so, my mind racing in circles. I pulled into the parking lot of the health club where I was a member, grabbed my workout bag from the back of the car, went inside and got on a treadmill. I ran for an hour, shoes pounding, pushing the limits of my endurance. The exertion felt good, as if I could burn away the frustration inside me. When I finished, I took a shower in the women’s locker room. Standing under the streaming water, I closed my eyes, Emma’s sweet face an instant image in my mind.

  I turned my face up to the nozzle, let the spray blend with my tears, my shoulders shaking with silent weeping.

  Here, I allowed myself this indulgence without worrying that Clay would see me. That I would deepen his sorrow with a glimpse of mine. It was just one of the awful things about what had happened to us. The way the love for our daughter was no longer something we shared, but had to exist in its own lonely place inside each of us. She had been the most wonderful expression of our love, as if her birth gave it new and redefined life. But she was gone now. And with her, nearly everything of who we were.

  I turned off the shower, limp now with resignation for this place from which Clay and I could not manage to extricate ourselves.

  Less than a year ago, I had told him I wanted to adopt. It felt to me like something we could do together, something that would not only allow the two of us to live again, but give a child without a family all the love we had. And at first, he had gone along, our home study complete before he told me he couldn’t go through with it. And that was that. Door closed.

  I left the club and drove home, letting myself into the house with a quiet defeat that was in direct contrast to the fury marking my earlier departure. In the kitchen, I found Clay sitting at the table exactly where I left him, his coffee cup full in front of him, as if he had not touched it.

  But the picture of Sasha now lay in front of him, his thumb resting at the edge.

  He glanced up at me, silent for a few moments, and then said, “If this is something you have to do, I’ll go along. But don’t expect me to be here 24-7. There’s no way I can do that.”

  He got up, put his cup in the sink and left the kitchen. I stood there long after he went upstairs, not sure if I had won or lost.

  AT JUST AFTER NINE, I called Cathy and told her we would host Sasha. Sounding both relieved and thrilled, she said, “Thank you, Rachel. This is wonderful. We’ll need to update your paperwork, of course. Everything is pretty much the same, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so, except for an increase in income.”

  “Great. Fax me your W-2s, and I’ll get our social worker to take care of it.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “We’ll be meeting the children at Dulles Monday at 1:00 p.m. I’ll e-mail you the gate information.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, and I forgot to mention that Sasha speaks some English from being here last summer.”

  “That’s great,” I said, surprised by this and at the same time realizing I hadn’t thought about the language barrier being a problem. I wondered if there were other potential issues I hadn’t thought through and felt a pang of doubt for my haste in this decision. “Will she know we’re not in a position to adopt?”

  “The children are here for a summer camp experience,” Cathy said. “Because of what happened last year, Sasha knows adoption is a possibility, but we will make sure she knows you are only helping us out because the original family could not participate. And that way, hopefully, we will have done our best not to raise expectations.”

  “I see,” I said, suddenly subdued.

  “The first week, just do whatever you think will be fun for her. The second week, she’ll need to attend a camp of your choice.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Cathy said. “And, Rachel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m hoping this will be good for all of you.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  I spent the rest of the weekend arranging to take the next two weeks off. The other doctors in my practice seemed shocked at first, but then each offered to take some of my patients when I explained why. Their compassionate understanding reduced me to tears more than once for it was clear that they had made the connection between my desire to do this and the loss of my daughter.

  I got the house ready, changed the bed in the guest room, ran out to Target for a couple of age-appropriate videos and a portable CD player.

  Through it all, Clay was noticeably absent, working the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday. But I couldn’t say anything, knowing I had forced his hand.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Clay got ready for work, drank his orange juice at the sink as he always did. I asked him if he would meet me at the airport for Sasha’s arrival. He would try, he said, but he had a full day.

  At the airport, the host families, all couples except for me and two single mothers, along with representatives from the adoption agency, gathered outside the scheduled arrival terminal. The air nearly crackled with excitement and anticipation. Many of the parents held balloons and stuffed animals. I wished I had thought of this and already felt somehow lacking in this role I’d agreed to take on, as if I had failed Sasha before ever meeting her.

  Cathy arrived late, running up to greet me, breathless and glowing in a linen sundress the color of kiwi. “I’m sorry I’m just getting here,” she said, pulling me into a quick hug. “Tyler lost his pet rabbit. After we combed the neighborhood, we found her under his bed.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, my smile stiff under a pang of envy for the absence of such upsets in my own life.

  Cathy spoke to the other parents and representatives from her agency, her manner warm and welcoming. She came back over to stand beside me. “Is Clay coming?” she asked.

  I put my gaze just to the left of hers. “He said he would try.”

  I caught the flash of sympathy on Cathy’s face which she quickly erased with a smile. “I met Sasha last year during the program,” she said. “I think you’re going to like her very much.”

  “Can you tell me anything else about her?” I asked, realizing suddenly how little I knew.

  “She’s lived in an orphanage in Siberia since she was four. Her mother died of cancer, and apparently, she had no relatives who were able to take care of her.”

  “Oh,” I said, my heart dropping with the bleakness of the child’s situation. It was hard for me to imagine it, and I thought again about those blinders I had been wearing these past three years, refusing to let myself see anyone else’s pain, too focused on my own.

  I checked my watch every few minutes, and then finally stopped looking. Clay wasn’t coming. Why had I let myself pretend he might?

  When the gate door opened, and passengers began to stream through, I stood with a knot in my throat, my arms crossed tightly against my chest. Cathy stepped forward to direct the host families to the appropriate child.

  Sasha was the last of the children to come through, and I recognized her instantly. She stopped at the edge of the happy throng, looking completely lost. Her blond hair hung in the same braids she had worn in the picture, and she was much smaller than I expected. Shockingly so, as if her body had not had everything it needed to grow. Her clothes looked worn, but clean, and for a moment, I couldn’t move. I finally forced myself to step forward, stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Rachel Foster. You’re Sasha?”

  The girl nodded, glanced at the other families and then back at me. “Oh,” I said, “my husband, he’s working. You’ll meet him later.”

  Disappointment clouded her eyes. Acceptance quickly replaced it.

  Cathy came over, hugged Sasha and said, “You’ve met my friend Rachel. You two are going to have such fun together.”

  The children were clearly exhausted, and the agency representatives encouraged everyone to get them home. Cathy explained to Sasha where she would be going. Sasha asked some questions in very accurate English, her accent
lovely. Cathy promised to call me later. I led Sasha out to the parking garage, and we drove for a while without talking, the quiet roar of the Volvo taking up the space between us.

  “You speak English amazingly well,” I said.

  Sasha looked out the window. “When they tell me I have chance to come back this summer, I study every day after school with my teacher who speaks English. She help me to learn.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, hearing the underlying note of determination in the girl’s voice. I admired her diligence.

  “You speak Russian?” Sasha asked.

  “No,” I said, wishing suddenly that I did or had at least tried to learn a few words.

  At the house, we went inside, and I showed Sasha the kitchen, the rarely used pool out back, the room upstairs I had prepared for her. Sasha’s eyes lit up at the Walkman on the bed, and when I explained that it was for her, she thanked me in a shy voice. I asked her if she would like to take a shower and then come downstairs for a snack.

  She appeared relieved at the suggestion, walking into the kitchen a little later smelling of the lemon-scented shampoo and conditioner I had put in the bathroom for her. She ate the grilled cheese sandwich I made her and drank her milk with an appreciation that put a knot in my throat.

  We talked a bit. I told her I was a doctor for children. I could see she was visibly intrigued by this. She wanted to be a doctor, too, when she grew up, but for animals. I asked about the place where she lived, and she answered directly.

  “It is not a bad place,” she said. “The women who take care of me, they are nice, but not my mother.”

  I blinked hard, my throat tight. “Do you remember her? Your mother?”

  “Yes,” she said, solemn. “But the memories, they fade. I am afraid they will go for good. I am sad because it is all I have of her.”

  She sounded much older than her age, and I wondered if her life experience had honed this maturity in her before its natural time. In my practice, I had seen it before, children forced to face incredibly hard things too young. I wanted to say I understood, tell her that I worried my own memories of Emma would eventually fade altogether, but just the thought left me unable to speak. I left the table, carrying some of our dishes to the sink. Sasha helped me, rinsing the plates and stacking them neatly on the counter.

  “Thank you,” I said when we were done.

  “You are welcome,” she said, her eyes heavy with fatigue.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a nap?” I suggested.

  She nodded, again looking relieved.

  Once she left, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. For so long, this house had been nothing more than a place to sleep. Even though my cooking skills were rusty at best, I decided to fix a special dinner and searched through some recipes, settling on Chicken Cordon Bleu with mashed potatoes and a chocolate torte.

  I called Clay and left a message on his voice mail asking if he could be home at six-thirty.

  It was six forty-five before Sasha came back downstairs, pink-cheeked and refreshed. I put the dinner on the table, and at seven when Clay still wasn’t home, the two of us sat down to eat. I apologized, unable to make an excuse for him since I could think of none that would begin to justify his not being here.

  Sasha’s disappointment played clear across her face. She again ate her food with an appreciation I had never before witnessed in a child. Her compliments were sincere, and I heard Emma’s voice in my memory, “Mommy, will you make this again tomorrow night, please? It’s my favorite.”

  Clay arrived home around eight o’clock, just as we finished up the dishes in the kitchen. I turned to find him standing in the doorway, staring at Sasha as if he had seen a ghost.

  “Clay, this is Sasha. Sasha, this is my husband, Clay.”

  Sasha stayed close to my side and said hello in a mild voice. Clay’s greeting was short and cool, and the child visibly wilted beneath it.

  When he went upstairs to change clothes, I took her to her room to get ready for bed. Quiet, she slipped on the mermaid pajamas I had bought her, brushing her teeth in the bathroom, then getting under the covers. She turned onto her side, facing the wall, away from me. I touched her shoulder briefly, then left the room.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Clay stood by the sink with a glass of water. A hard knot of fury sat in the center of my chest. Not only for his behavior this evening, but for how clearly unreachable he had become to me. “Would it have been so difficult to be kind to her?” I asked in a low, barely controlled voice.

  He remained silent for a long moment, and then said evenly, “This is what you wanted, Rachel. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t want any part of it.”

  Stunned by his bluntness, I reached for words. “I have no idea who you are anymore. You are so determined to shut out everyone and everything in your life. Is that what you want? To be alone?” The questions were out before I could stop them, harsh, angry.

  Clay held my gaze for a long time, then said, “Sometimes I think it would be the best thing for us both.”

  There.

  How long had I been waiting for him to say exactly this? We had once been inseparable, two halves of the same whole. He started a sentence, I completed it. But the loss of Emma had left a hole in our lives, and through it drained the connection we once shared.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, lead in my voice. “Maybe there’s just nothing left here for us.”

  He shook his head, a wrenching pain in his eyes. He started to say something, then stopped.

  My heart dropped when he failed to deny what I had said. “Can you stay until Sasha leaves, Clay? Can you at least do that?”

  I heard a sound and glanced up to find the child standing in the doorway. She looked at us both, then turned and ran back down the hall and up the stairs.

  I lay in bed that night, Clay on the other side, completely lost to me even though mere inches separated us.

  Over the past three years, I had existed in a state of quiet despair. Losing Emma, realizing once and for all that she was never coming back, that nothing I did would change that, I had thought I would as soon give up my hold on reality as accept it. The only thing that had gotten me through it all was Clay. He had always been my rock, the one consistent thing in my life.

  In the beginning, we had stood together in our grief, hands entwined against the awful blackness of it. But somewhere along the way, our grip on each other had loosened, until we stood apart, alone in our sadness. The gulf between us had widened to the point that we could no longer reach each other. And worst of all, I knew deep down that Clay did not want to be reached. By me or anyone else.

  I LAY AWAKE a long time, listening to his even breathing beside me. It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when something woke me. I tried to put definition to the sound, and then bolted from the bed, running as fast as I could down the hall to Sasha’s room.

  The door was cracked, and I stood with my forehead pressed against the frame.

  It was a terrifying sound, her crying. Bottomless. No beginning, no end.

  I walked into the room, some part of me reluctant now, my heart thudding hard. How could I even begin to address this little girl’s pain?

  I eased onto the edge of the bed, flicking on the lamp. She lay on her side, facing the wall, her slim shoulders shaking, deep, heart-wrenching sobs the only break in the silence. I put a hand on her arm. “Sasha?”

  She didn’t answer. The weeping continued, and it took me a moment to realize that she was asleep. “Sasha?” I said again, this time turning her toward me. She came awake with a start, sat up, her face wet with tears.

  “Shh,” I said. “You must have been having a bad dream.”

  She stared at me, confusion narrowing her eyes as if she couldn’t place me. Her shoulders collapsed suddenly, the sobs pouring out of her nearly unbearable to hear.

  I pulled her into my arms, rubbed her back in awkward reassurance, any mothering skills I might have once possessed
long unused. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.

  She said something in Russian then that I didn’t understand, except for a single word. Mama.

  Something inside me contracted at the sound of it, and I tightened my arms about her. I was not her mother, but I wished in the deepest part of myself for the ability to take away her grief.

  We sat this way for a long, long time. The alarm clock on the nightstand ticked, loud and insistent. After a while, she began to speak again, English with a few Russian words here and there, but not so much that I couldn’t understand her. And as the snapshot of her life came into focus, I almost wished that I did not understand at all.

  “After Mama become sick,” she said, “we never have enough food. Neighbors bring what they can, but they have little. Mama cannot take care of me. I am four. I do not remember everything. But I remember the day she die. She cannot get out of bed. I am scared to leave her. It is many days before someone comes.”

  For moments, I could not find a single word to respond. “You waited with her that whole time?” I finally asked, the words like gravel in my throat, my voice barely audible.

  “I keep thinking she will wake. And I do not want her to be alone.”

  I pictured this child as she must have been at age four, saw her sitting at the side of a sleeping woman who would never wake again. If anyone had asked me before, I would have said I understood every possible facet there could be to grief. I had lived it inside out. But I realized now that I had no idea what it would be like to lose my mother as Sasha had lost hers, to be taken away from everything I knew, to no longer have a home or family.

  And at age nine…even this…being brought to a strange country, introduced to people she did not know.

  “Is everything all right?”

  I looked up. Clay stood in the doorway, his hair sleep-tousled, concern in his eyes. “She had a bad dream,” I said, wondering how to explain everything I had just realized about this young girl. Looking at my husband, I knew I had done an awful thing. This child, this precious, broken child had come here looking for hope.