“That’s what I wanted to ask, about us. When Gavin was talking to Dani the night of the flood, it made me think about you, and how you’ve always believed in me, how you’ve helped me.”
“I care about you.”
“Me too. Can we try again? I finally understand what you were saying when Gavin was in the hospital, about not having to be perfect. I’m hopelessly imperfect.”
“Me too,” Marla says. “Come in here.”
He takes his shirt off and his belt, folding his clothes before he sits down in the water behind her so she can lean back on him.
“I want more you. I’d love to try again.”
Liam trails a finger down her stomach, down into the soapy water. She can feel that he’s hard, and she laughs, leaning forward, holding the edge of the tub to get up. Water runs off her body. “I just had a baby,” Marla says. She wraps a towel around herself, feeling kinda fat.
“Like I said, truly imperfect.”
“It’s a deal.” Marla smiles, then hurries to get dressed. As she bends to pick up her clothes, her milk lets down again, dripping on the floor. Such a waste.
Liam gets her a plastic sandwich bag from the kitchen, and she sits on her bed squeezing breast milk into it. The puppy yips at her feet. When she can’t stand it anymore, she tries the other side. The bag sloshes, a significant amount. Marla zips it shut and writes the date with permanent marker, then puts it in the freezer. It feels good to be doing something right.
Marla’s been purposely not calling them, not after the last time when she revealed herself to be not tough and kind of annoying. But when she sees the flowers on the doorstep on the fifth day, she picks up the phone.
“How are you, Marla?” Hannah says. “We’ve been thinking about you so much.”
“I’ve got all this frozen breast milk,” Marla says. “I can bring it over in a cooler.”
“Oh, honey,” Hannah says, and Marla can’t tell if Hannah’s mortified or full of pity. “That is such a generous thing to do.” Hannah starts crying. “We would love to have that.”
Marla braces herself against the wall. She’s going to see her baby. She takes the phone with her to the freezer to look at the heap of bags, then to the spare room to find the cooler, which is under the new notebooks Dave and Elise bought her. “It’s good for only so long in the freezer, and once you heat it, you can’t reuse it.”
“Marla, thank you. I’m so happy you thought of this. Maybe we could get together on the weekend and you can tell us all about it.”
Marla’s heart hits the floor. “The weekend?”
“Sure. Or next week sometime? It’s just that we have company right now, and then Beatrice’s doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Things are very busy.”
They don’t want it. Her baby has other plans. Hannah’s baby, Marla reminds herself. Not hers.
Marla hangs up the phone without really saying goodbye, just sort of grunting out a small ball of emotion that could very easily lead to something bigger. Now she wants the feelings, refuses to pretend it’s easy to give someone else a human being she made from her own meat.
She takes the baby things out of her closet one by one. The little onesies make her stomach squeeze up. They are impossibly small now, not just cute. Something her baby could wear this week and next, but not her baby: someone else’s baby. She was so excited when she opened them at the diner. How naïve. She throws the ‘Baby’s First Handprint’ kit at the wall, where it punches a triangular hole in the drywall. These are the kind of memories birth moms have, she thinks. Angry ones.
“Marla,” Gavin says behind her, and she clutches the baby bathtub to her chest as if he might take it away. He runs a finger down her back, tentative, then lays his hands on her shoulders, feeding strength into her with his touch. “I’m here,” he says, and it is enough.
Marla cries at the absurdity of clinging to a baby bathtub, at the awkwardness of its plastic contours and how unhuggable such a thing really is. It’s her baby she should be holding, and for a second she forgets and thinks perhaps her baby has died and she is alone. And then she remembers her baby is probably sleeping in a room full of brand-new furniture amidst a houseful of hushed grandparents and aunties and uncles bearing baby presents that are expensive and trendy and not at all like this box-store plastic bath tub. And Marla holds the tub a bit tighter, as if it had feelings of not being quite good enough either.
Gavin hugs her and the bathtub, keeping it with her as he leads her away from the baby things and into her bed, tucking the covers around her. He hums to her as she sobs, and she thinks it is probably the most mournful sound in the world, a deaf person singing. She loves Gavin even more for it.
“I’m getting milk on you,” she says.
“I don’t care.”
“Is it always going to be like this?” she asks, meaning crying in bed leaking milk. Holding the bathtub.
“Maybe,” Gavin tells her. “But we’ll always have each other.”
Marla does something she should have done years ago. She calls and talks for a long time. She takes the bus with Gavin, lets him lead her there. They knock on the door together.
Candace takes one look at Marla and falls into her arms. “It’s too late,” she wails. “Your baby’s gone.”
Marla holds on to Candace as tight as she can. She smells like cheap perfume and mint gum. Marla’s touched her mom planned to smell nice, that she wanted people to know she tried. “Mom,” she says, and finds herself crying. “I’m having a shitty day.”
“I know, baby. I tried to see you sooner, to tell you to keep him, but now it’s done.”
Marla wipes her eyes with the neck of her shirt. “Her. It’s a girl. Actually, they don’t file the papers until tomorrow.”
Candace pulls back and holds Marla by the shoulders, shaking her. “Then what are you doing, girl? Go get your baby.”
Marla glances at Gavin. Strong. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Then you’re going to spend your whole life crying, just like I did.”
Gavin’s voice fills the room. “I’ve never seen you cry.”
Candace looks at the floor. “I lost my children too,” she says. “I came to visit you in those supervised rooms and brought you candy and they threw it out.” She looks at Marla, then Gavin, her face pleading. “I always brushed your teeth, both of you. You know that, right?”
Marla tries to remember being eight in a supervised visit with Gavin. It’s easier to recall foster homes, and later Candace, who was always messed up and forgetting to send birthday cards. She remembers explaining to other kids that she didn’t have a real mom. “That was a long time ago,” Marla says.
“Not for me. I live with that right here,” Candace says, thumping her fist on her breastbone. It makes a thunking sound. There are tears in her eyes. “What you feel now, I feel it every day.”
Marla tells herself she did not make the wrong choice. Her baby is fine, happy, and being held, but she has a paralyzing thought—what if something goes wrong? What if it’s SIDS, and no one knows until morning, or she drowns when Hannah is answering the phone or someone else is looking after her or they’re on vacation? She looks at Candace. What if her baby hates her for her whole life, the same horrible pity-hate balling up in Marla’s stomach right now?
“If you knew what to do, why didn’t you do it?” Marla shouts, her face too close to Candace’s, but Marla doesn’t care. She pushes closer. “Why couldn’t you be there?”
Candace nods. “Tell it to me,” she says. “Get mad, baby.” She points her chin up like she’s expecting Marla to hit her, and then Marla does remember: late at night, crawling into Gavin’s bed because of the yelling. Wet thuds, a sort of barking cry. Sick moaning, the furniture being slammed around. Her mother being beat. Marla remembers wanting to rip whoever it was this time apart or run away or do anything except hide wi
th her sleeping brother who couldn’t hear a thing.
“Mom, no. I don’t want to be mad at you. I’m working on forgiving you.”
Candace shakes her hair off her face. “You’re better than me, Marla. Having a kid? You could do it.”
“I am doing it,” Marla says. It’s true. She’s been doing it for days, making breakfast and taking phone calls and making sure she has clean clothes.
“Don’t be like me,” she says, but Gavin shakes his head, signs strong. Candace makes the same sign back, tentative. “What’s it mean?”
“It means it’s okay, Mom. It’s going to be okay.” Marla thinks about the last time she came to her mom, when she was a teenager living on the street and fucked up on meth. Candace took one look at her and called the cops to take her home, back to Dave and Elise’s. “Here,” she says, and hands a photo to Candace.
Candace strokes it, tracing the baby’s cheeks and nose. “Beautiful,” she says, and hugs her, pulling Gavin in too. “I love you guys.”
Marla exhales a breath she realizes she was holding for most of her life. “I love you too, Mom.”
EPILOGUE: LATER
THEY LOOK NERVOUS for sure. Liam’s wearing cufflinks for breakfast. “Do I look good?” Liam’s signs are so much cleaner now. He’s really picked it up fast.
“Top notch,” Gavin says.
Marla pulls him aside. “You sure you don’t mind babysitting Kamon today?”
“Of course not—it’s Saturday. I don’t have to work.”
“I’m glad you’re talking to Dani.”
He is too. His counsellor has been helping him with the anger and his need for control, but it’s Dani he talks to more. They’ve been meeting for coffee after work, getting feelings out and sharing successes and failures. He’s realizing it’s a life project, not a checking it off a list thing, but a gradually doing things better most of the time thing. They encourage each other.
“Marla, let’s go.” Liam straightens his tie in the mirror.
“We’ll be early,” she says, and Gavin sees a hint of a different Marla. A more confident Marla.
“It’s okay,” Liam tells her. “Everything’s okay.” He takes Marla in his arms, drifting her into a slow waltz. They lean close, and Liam whispers into her ear until her body softens and a smile begins.
It’s monthly visit time, baby Beatrice is waiting, and so they go, waving to Gavin as they close the door. Gavin sits down and whistles with Kamon, teaching the little guy how.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to express my gratitude to the staff and students of the University of British Columbia Creative Writing MFA program, especially Joseph Boyden, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Annabel Lyon, Sara Graefe, and Merilyn Simonds. I learned not to be comfortable, and to ask better questions. Your voices inspire me daily.
Thank you to the tireless staff at Inanna Publications, who are kind and have incredible attention to detail.
I am lucky to have had many thoughtful readers, including Kim McCullough, Katie Wagner, and Christina Sheppard. Special thanks to Heidi Grogan, who opened my heart.
Thank you to all the birth and adoptive parents who shared their stories. You are incredible.
A round of appreciation for the ladies of the Husky Energy Land Department of 2002, who allowed me to be their pet and were tickled pink when I told them I would be a writer.
Much love to my family, who is always there for me, and my daughters, who write fiercely too. Lastly, James, who is everything from a creator of calming jingles to my soulmate.
Jennifer Spruit was born in Lloydminster, AB/SK, and now lives in Courtenay, B.C. She attended the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of British Columbia. Jennifer enjoys teaching kids, playing music, and paddling a blue canoe. Her work has appeared in Arc, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire Magazine, and Event Magazine, among others. This is her first novel.
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