The woman organized the money with her wrinkled fingertips and looked back up at me.
She offered me ten and asked if they were going to go to someone special.
I told her that they would go to you, my daughter, and that you were seven years old.
She told me how lucky you were and that I was a good mother for getting you some treats. She placed her hand on top of mine. I winced a little bit at the feeling of another person’s palms on mine and felt my eyes well up at this stranger’s words. “A good mother.” That’s all I ever wanted to be. And you were happy and had a nice home and that was what mattered.
I didn’t need Silas to know a thing about you. I had everything I needed, everything I wanted at home with you and your father.
I thanked her warmly, looking straight into her eyes. I blinked vigorously until my tears subsided and drew stick after stick from their jars until they formed a colorful bouquet of sticks.
She slid an extra honey stick my way with a wink. She told me little girls loved the cotton candy ones and that it’d be perfect for you. I thanked the woman again and then shoved the honey sticks into my purse. I decided I had gotten everything I had come for at the market and I marched back to my car and drove right back home to Connecticut and my real family.
Silas didn’t need to know a thing about you.
I’m sorry if it made a mess of things,
Mom.
* * *
And with that, Jane wrote a counterpart letter to Hazel.
Letter 5
Telling (or not telling) Silas about you
Jane
Dear Hazel,
The first time I said “I’m pregnant” out loud, I was on the phone making a doctor’s appointment. I felt dizzy when I did it. The woman on the other end of the phone congratulated me exuberantly. She was the first person to do so.
She instructed me to come right in because they had a cancellation.
The nurse was wearing bubblegum-pink scrubs and had a smile across her face when she greeted me and began preparing the sonogram machine.
She shared her name through an unwavering smile and explained that she would be prepping the room for my sonogram that day.
I hated everything about that room. The hard plastic on the machines. The frigid air wandering out of the vents. The smell of sterility. I had imagined soft light and tranquility. I had imagined warmth. What else was I supposed to expect from the moment of seeing you for the first time?
She asked if my husband would be joining us. I should have foreseen that question but I hadn’t. It caught me off guard.
I explained that he wouldn’t be, the words catching on my throat. The nurse smiled and nodded and went about her preparations on the other side of the room.
I winced at my own mini deception. Why did I lie like that? What was I trying to prove about myself and my life? What was I afraid that the nurse would think? I put my hands over my belly and inhaled.
I felt ashamed of not telling the whole story. I didn’t want to feel ashamed and the words kept busting out of me. I told her that I didn’t have a husband. I must have said it too loudly and too frantically because she just smiled even wider and nodded and then fiddled with the contraptions in the corner of the room.
I wondered what that smile meant. I replayed the response in my mind over and over again, searching for signs of judgment, disapproval, reproach, condescension. I laughed nervously and just kept going. I explained that it would be just me. And how fun I thought it would be. I couldn’t stop the spilling of words. I think I asked her who needed a man anyway. I’m a bit embarrassed the way I just let my insecurities pour out of me like that.
I pulled my lips together so I couldn’t talk anymore and lay back in my chair. I could feel my own heartbeat. The rising and falling of my chest.
Finally the nurse put an end to the madness when she told me the technician would be in soon. She exited the room pretty swiftly after that.
Surely these were social interactions I was going to have to tolerate for the rest of my life. Surely these were conversations I would be forced to have as my belly grew for the world to see.
The quiet of the room set in. The machines hummed around me and I thought of my mother. I wished she was there. I was mad that she wasn’t.
And then the door swung open again with a whoosh of air and another woman, this one taller and wearing glasses, took a seat right next to my chair.
The doctor eventually came in and introduced herself to me in an energetic and earnest tone. She explained the process of the ultrasound and how the gel would feel cold, but seeing the baby would be a thrill. The words flowed too easily from the doctor’s mouth as she scanned the room and the ultrasound machine, making sure everything was in place. I could tell it was a well-rehearsed introduction, but I still welcomed the soothing voice. She sounded like my mother to me.
The technician hovered the tube of gel over my belly. Then she, too, asked me if my husband was going to join.
I was much more prepared this time. I told her it was just me. I liked the sound of saying that. It would be just me. Just me, your mother.
As the cold gel hit my belly, my fingers curled. The transducer glided across my tummy and I looked up at the screen. Suddenly, the darkness of the screen was replaced with what could not be mistaken for anything but a little head. The sleeping head of a little, little baby. Her eyes and nose and cheeks and mouth filled the screen. It looked pale and ethereal. Like a ghost suspended, waiting to be.
The doctor asked if I wanted to know the sex of the baby.
I was barely breathing, barely thinking, as I nodded.
She told me I was having a little girl. I felt stunned and in love already.
I walked out of the doctor’s office with shaky legs and a printed sonogram in hand. I couldn’t help but think of my mother again. I got in my car and closed the door behind me. I sat behind my steering wheel and breathed and rubbed my belly and breathed and rubbed my belly and breathed some more.
I felt hot and angry in my loneliness there in the parking lot. I slammed my hands on the steering wheel. I slammed my hands and stomped my feet and yelled and screamed and shook my long hair all around. I felt rage and passion and hopelessness and excitement and confusion and loss and heat, but mostly love. Mostly, I just felt love. Love for my parents. Love for the baby girl inside me. Even love for Silas.
Everything at once became calm again. My heartbeat slowed and my ears cooled down and my legs and arms stilled.
I knew I shouldn’t be surprised at these violent contrasts stirring inside me. All of those things, all of those feelings, are just part of love. With this love, though, I felt in control. In charge of it all. The powerlessness of my old loves melted away in that moment. The loss of my parents. The loss of Silas. I vowed to love you completely and unambiguously. Mercilessly. Relentlessly.
I fixed the image of the sonogram below the rearview mirror and admired my little girl floating there. I pressed my lips into the shiny paper.
As I started the car, I looked down at the duplicate of the sonogram in my lap and thought about where this one belonged. And then I drove straight to the post office and mailed it to Silas. Before I slipped it in the envelope, I wrote on the back my favorite poem from memory. I think you’ll recognize it.
Sleep little baby, clean as a nut,
Your fingers uncurl and your eyes are shut...
No questions, no requests. Just a grainy picture of his baby, our baby, and that poem.
I didn’t have the courage to do it any other way.
I’m sorry if it made a mess of things,
Mom.
14
It was one of those days when Jane just wanted to melt into the couch and do nothing.
She wanted to get lost in a book or complete a movie uninterrupted or treat herself to a
glass of wine and a bowl of ice cream in silence. But Cam was working late tonight, so after a full day with the twins, Jane was left to cook and feed them dinner.
Getting them to eat on this particular day was a challenge. Any bit of food placed on the tray was swiped off by Griffin, which made Trevor cry, which made Griffin cry, which made Trevor cry louder, which made Griffin cry louder, which made Jane want to scream. If one began to calm down, the other riled him right back up. It was one of those days when the reality of motherhood was grating.
To get a moment alone, Jane walked into the living room, sank into the couch and pressed her palms over her face. As soon as she did, Griffin and Trevor let out simultaneous and piercing screams from the next room over, where they were left to play.
By instinct, Jane called out for help from her daughter. “Hazel, honey, can you come grab the boys for a bath...” Her voice trailed off into the quiet. There was no Hazel to help. In fact, there was no sign of Hazel at all for days.
Jane picked up her phone to check for text messages. Nothing. Just a stream of unanswered Thinking of you messages.
Jane needed Hazel. And not just for help with the boys. She needed her for her soul. Her heart.
Her thoughts were interrupted by another set of shrieks. But she wasn’t done with thinking about Hazel. She felt an intense pull back to Susie’s notebook.
So she did a thing she vowed to do only in dire circumstances, which was to remove the twins from their high chairs and, without even cleaning off their faces, place them right in front of the television. It worked like a charm. The boys were probably not full, but they were quiet. So Jane retrieved Susie’s book from the other room and returned to reading it.
Letter 3
The early years
Susie
Dear Eve,
I carried you in my belly a full nine months plus another eleven days. I told you to take your time if you wanted, as I rubbed my big swollen belly. I told you that you didn’t have to come out until you were ready. And you took my words to heart. It took thirty hours of labor before you made it into the world and into the doctor’s hands. You yelped under the bright lights of the delivery room. I burst into tears upon hearing the sound of your voice for the first time. I squeezed your father’s hand; he was looking down at you with a quiet shock in his face. You were our “miracle.”
The nurse placed you in your father’s arms first. As he rocked you back and forth and smiled so warmly, so knowingly, down at you, I felt in my heart that you were his daughter. It may sound surprising to you, but it didn’t even cross my mind that you were someone else’s for another half a decade. You felt so fully, truly and wholly ours. I knew that together, your father and I would give you the very, very best life.
And, I felt we did. When you were hungry, we fed you. When you required a new diaper, we changed you. When you were sleepy, we rocked you. When you were fussy, we walked you. And even when you needed nothing at all, we lay with you and kissed you and hugged you and played with you and read with you. Just because we wanted to. Just because we loved you. Just because we were your parents.
The feeling that I could give another human, you, everything you needed was by far the greatest honor I had ever felt. For the first year of your life, I held you nearly all day long. I didn’t want to let you go. I didn’t want to miss a single moment of your life. There were so many intoxicating moments of unbridled joy just simply observing you. At the littlest cough or hiccup or giggle, I would just explode with joy.
In those early years, I felt I knew everything about you.
But still, the person you would become felt like a great mystery to me. It’s going to sound odd to you, but I mourned the future version of you. I wanted to know everything about you forever, but I knew that it wouldn’t be possible.
I studied your reactions to things—whether you preferred chocolate or vanilla ice cream, a dress or shorts, your hair up or hair down, the color marker you picked up first, your favorite toy, or movie, or bedtime book. I wondered whether any of these things indicated what you would choose when you were six, or twelve, or twenty, or fifty years old. I wondered how every little choice you made today would change you.
I felt desperate to know who you would be in addition to who you already were.
At the time, I didn’t consider whether I felt this way because half of you, half of your genes and personality and preferences I suspected were alien to me. But upon writing this letter to you, I know this must have been a significant part of how I felt when I observed you, all those years ago. I suppose I also knew that the day you would meet your biological father would come eventually.
But I really, really didn’t want it to. I wanted you to be all mine, all ours, forever.
I’m sorry if it made a mess of things,
Mom.
* * *
And with that, Jane took out her journal and pen and wrote.
This entry, she knew, was going to hurt.
Letter 3
The early years
Jane
Dear Hazel,
When I walked through the door of our house with you in my arms for the first time, I felt it would be reasonable to panic, but I didn’t. I just exhaled slowly and tried to keep my thumping heart under control. It was just us now.
I placed the car seat gently onto the couch so as not to wake you and then lay back on the couch. My body was still aching and cramping from your birth. There was a mix of dull stinging and squeezing deep within my belly. Lying there with things quiet and slowed down made me acutely aware of all those throbbing feelings in my body. I pressed my eyes together even more tightly and exhaled slowly again. I felt a tear press up in my throat. I wished I could share these moments with someone that would remember them. I wished my mother and father were there. I even for a moment wished Silas were there. I felt helpless and alone. Scorched by all the things that had happened in my life before motherhood was a part of it.
Sleep came in like a tide and tried to tug me into a slumber. I didn’t know if I should let it happen. What if you were to wake up and need something? I thought about pulling my eyes open, but everything was so heavy and tired and sleep tugged some more. I wanted to give in to it. It seemed so sweet and luscious to be fueled back up by sleep. Even if it were just the littlest drop. I rolled over onto my side and brought more of the surface area of my body into contact with the couch cushions. And just as I prepared to give in fully, just as I was about to succumb to rest, my body jolted me awake. My baby! You couldn’t just be left alone! My entire torso sprung up into a seated position, my eyes stretched out big and wide, my heart raced but in a new way. I frantically turned my attention to the car seat you were sleeping in.
You didn’t appear to have moved or made a sound at all. You just lay there peacefully, angelically, in your car seat.
I shook out my body, dispelling any last traces of adrenaline. As my heartbeat slowed, and that dull ache in my belly returned, I was reminded that I was, in fact, supposed to sleep when you slept. I felt betrayed by my own body. This electric instinct to mother was more powerful than any of my own personal needs. I felt relieved and terrified all at once that I would be here at all hours of all days to take care of you. My body apparently wouldn’t have it any other way. But who would be there to take care of me?
I inspected your face. You were small and fleshy and alien-like. Your skin’s bluish hue at birth had turned to a splotchy pink. Your hair was dark and thick and two small pieces stuck up like a rogue patch of grass on the right side of your head. I felt an urge to pat it down and raised my hand to do it, but then something inside stopped me. Let her sleep, a voice spoke in my own head.
Looking down at you, I felt as if I had gone out and bought something too precious and too expensive. It was as if I had walked around a shop I knew I shouldn’t have been in and walked out with something I couldn’t affo
rd. Something I didn’t know how to integrate into my life. Now that I owned it, I felt I had no idea how to interact with something so delicate.
Was I allowed to touch this baby? Would it wake you up if I did?
And even if I did touch you, and even if I did wake you up, who would know?
My once fierce desire for the thing had now shriveled up into a pathetic fear of it. I was weak in the presence of you, my love. But I also felt somewhat in control.
I thought about returning to sleep, but preferred instead to keep looking down at you, my sleeping little girl.
You had your mouth open the slightest bit. A small bubble of drool formed on your lips and then popped. You squirmed in your chair, your left leg and then right kicking out. You let out a little coo. It melted my heart a little bit.
I felt an urge to pick you up. I knew I should just let you rest but I felt I needed you in my arms. I felt I needed you close to my body and my heart. I needed the weight of your little body against mine.
So I did it. I tucked my hands underneath your tiny back and lifted you into my arms. Your little body was so warm. I wiggled your delicate head into the crease of my elbow and rocked you slowly back and forth. Your screaming and crying upon my picking you up was far more anguished and primitive than any scream or cry I had heard you scream or cry yet.
I was too tired to feel alarmed but too new to this to be calm. I just existed in the surreal and primal state of what I now understood as motherhood.
I wondered to myself how this baby could have all of these things she needed in such close proximity and still feel so much agony? So much distress? How was I to care for you so constantly?
Still, I just rocked you back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, I felt you begin to relax. I could tell we were both relieved. Your gnarled fingers started to unwind. Your back started to sink into my arms. Your eyelids started drooping.
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