Dancing on Broken Glass

by Ka Hancock

  When medication failed to lift me, Gleason sent me to a support group sponsored by the hospital. He made my attendance a condition of being able to walk to the nursery. So, because the privilege of seeing my daughter was all that got me through the day, I dragged myself out of bed and went. I pulled up a chair in the circle of sad people all dealing with their own losses, hung my head, and refused to participate. But I couldn’t help but hear someone smarter than me describe exactly what I was feeling. She had lost her two children in a boating accident, and you could hear her soul bleeding. She said the most profound thing: that her grief was bottomless and that every minute of every day she was falling deeper and deeper into her loss.

  That was exactly how I felt. I lifted my head and watched her. She was maybe Lucy’s age, but the grief had ravaged her. She wore her pain so deep it distorted the very shape of her muscles. Her haunted look was keenly familiar to me; I had seen it in the mirror. When the meeting concluded, I walked over to her and she greeted me like the kindred spirit I was. I had no words, and neither did she, but she held her arms out to me anyway and for a few minutes we wept each other’s tears.

  I took her analogy to Gleason the next day, having been unable to get it out of my mind. “There is nothing for me to land on,” I said. “Just endless sadness. I hear Lucy’s voice in my mind, and I fall. I remember a particular time that she touched me, or laughed at me, or pulled a face, and I’m falling further. It’s true; it’s bottomless.”

  Gleason shook his head, his eyes filled with compassion. “Mickey, my friend. It feels that way now because you’re in pain. But life will go on around you, and without you even realizing it, a floor will have formed, a floor where your grief can finally land. It will get easier, I promise you. And just as Lucy planned, you have your daughter to see you through until that happens.”

  “I don’t have my daughter, Gleason. Ron and Lily have my daughter.”

  “Because you don’t want to be her father.”

  “Because I have no right to be her father! Not when they’re healthy, stable, good, kind, wonderful people. They have adopted her. End of story. It’s what Lucy wanted.”

  Gleason leaned back and tapped a pencil lightly on his chin. “Michael, you know Lucy only wanted that by default. You worked so hard to convince her of your inabilities that she had no choice. But that’s not what she wanted. Lucy gave her life to that baby upstairs so she could leave her in your hands. She left you a daughter to give you a reason to get up and conquer the day. That’s what children do for us.”

  “I don’t know what she was thinking, but she was wrong,” I groused.

  “Was she, Michael?” Gleason’s tone changed enough that I wondered what I’d missed. “What else was she wrong about?” he prodded.

  “What?”

  He stared hard at me. “I just can’t think of another time that Lucy was actually wrong about something this big. Was she wrong to love you? Was she wrong to marry you? I shudder to think, my friend, of who you would be today if you had not met that girl. Lucy loved you by choice. She became your wife because she could not find a reason not to. She stayed with you because she couldn’t imagine a finer man. This was the life she chose, and in my opinion, if you were good enough for that amazing woman, you’re good enough for her daughter.”

  “But I’m a mess!” I rasped over the stone in my throat. “Look at me.”

  Gleason pulled his chair close to mine. “Yes, you’re flawed, Mic, but so is every parent on the planet. You know your disorder inside out. You know exactly what it takes to stay even. You know all the signs of an episode, and what to do about them.”

  “So?”

  Gleason sighed. “So settle down, Mickey. I don’t particularly care where your daughter lives. But I do care that she knows you’re her father, not some visitor who can only show up if all the stars are aligned.”

  thirty-four

  I thought about what Gleason had said, but I didn’t buy it. Still, Abby was my refuge. As heavy and unwieldy as my pain was, she was my anesthetic. I couldn’t sit with her without thinking of her mother. But my baby daughter made it all manageable somehow, gave me respite for a few minutes. I relished the few times I found her unattended. I didn’t like hiding from Lily, but I didn’t like sharing Abby more. So I usually waited until after Lily had gone home. But then Lily started staying into the night, and I found I couldn’t avoid her.

  I had not told my sister-in-law about my conversation with Gleason. There was no point. Nothing had changed. The adoption was in place, and there was not a doubt in my mind that it was right. Lily had slipped into motherhood with surprising ease. She worried like a mom and crooned like a mom and hovered like a mom. It was hard to watch. Ron wasn’t quite so in my face with his adoration of Abby, and I think it was because he saw something in me—an extra ache I’d been unsuccessful at hiding beneath my grief and depression. I’d catch him eyeing me as I watched Lily and wonder if I was being obvious.

  It happened one night as I sat with them in the Newborn Step-Down—a sort of relaxed intensive care for babies no longer clinging to life, but who still needed close monitoring. When I got there, Abby was alone, but I’d barely sat down before Ron and Lily showed up. I could see Lily felt the same way I did—a little jealous of her private time with the baby. But her smile didn’t let on that she was bothered by my presence, nor did the little sideways hug she gave me. As I watched her, I could see the purity of her love for Abby and I could not begrudge her; I wouldn’t. I stood up. “It’s time for my medication, so I’ll be shoving off.”

  “You sure? You haven’t been here that long.”

  “I’ll come back later.” I leaned over to brush my lips against Abby’s soft forehead. Her eyes were open and I swear she was looking right at me—right into my wreckage. I hung there a beat longer, long enough that Lily got concerned.

  “You okay, Mic?”

  “Yeah. Just something Dr. Sweeny told me.”

  “What?”

  “She just said that Abby knows who I am—that I’m her father—and it made me feel good.” I turned then to find a look of pained surprise on Lily’s face, and because I’m an idiot and didn’t have a clue what to do to fix the situation, I just stared at her discomfort for a second and shrugged. “I’ll catch you guys later.”

  “See you, buddy,” Ron said with no indication that he’d caught any of Lily’s reaction. Lily smiled a pretend smile that didn’t linger as she dropped her gaze to Abby, who had fallen back asleep.

  “Hey, Mic,” Ron called as I turned to leave. “We’ve been talking and we have a proposition for you.”

  I paused.

  “We want you to plan on coming home with us when you’re discharged. I mean, it just makes sense, you know. Until you’re ready to go home.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” Ron insisted. “It’s the holidays. Let’s just get through them, and then when you feel ready, we’ll just help you ease into it.”

  I walked back over to shake his hand, which he ignored, opting instead for a big hug. His generosity humbled me, and Lily had tears in her eyes as she nodded her agreement.

  “Really, Lil?”

  “Definitely. We’re your family. We want you with us.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I may take you up on it,” I said, knowing there was no question. Of course I would go. That’s where my daughter would be.

  Abby was in the hospital three weeks. I was there for twenty-nine days. Not a record by any means, but plenty long. As was the plan, I went home with Ron and Lily. However, what seemed like a good idea at the time turned out to be a mistake. Within a few days, I felt like an intruder in their home. They hadn’t done a single thing to make me feel unwelcome, far from it. I just felt apart, somehow—as if my face were pressed up against the window of their new life, their new family. It was completely obvious how much they adored Abby, who was thriving under the glow of their dauntless attention. Lily was as kind to me as she had alway
s been, Ron more so. And because of their grace, it was hard to define what was happening. But something was going on, something just beneath the surface of all our good manners.

  I felt it especially with Lily. She wasn’t exactly selfish with Abby, but it was almost as if I had to pry the baby out of her arms if I needed a fix. She was always hovering nearby, waiting for me to drop Abby on her head. But that was probably my fault, because at the hospital Lily never saw that I knew exactly what a football hold was, or how to wrap a tiny baby like a mummy so she thought she was still in the womb. I’d given Lily no choice but to assume that I didn’t know what I was doing. And frankly, the first time Abby quieted for me, Lily seemed genuinely shocked and a little hurt.

  One night when the baby was particularly fussy and had been all afternoon, Lily was at her wit’s end but would not admit it. She’d had a deep crease between her eyes for hours, and she’d snapped at Ron when he tried to help, so at first I just kept my distance. But as Abby got more upset and Lily got more tense, I grew increasingly antsy to hold my daughter. You wouldn’t think a tiny pair of lungs could push everyone over the edge, but they can, and they were. So, without thinking, I stood up from the kitchen table and lifted our crying baby out of Lily’s arms, folding her against my chest. Then I walked up to the nursery, crooning in her ear.

  As so often happened when I held her, the world shrunk to just me and my daughter. It may have been my voice or my heartbeat in her ear, but she calmed down almost instantly, and I held her a little closer and kissed her head. I sat down in the antique rocker Lily had Ron bring home from Ghosts and just rocked her until she fell asleep. In the dim light that illuminated the rosy walls of the nursery, I just drank her in, this little miniature of Lucy.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I glanced up, Lily and Ron were standing in the doorway. An unreadable expression was on Lily’s face, and I was suddenly self-conscious. Lily didn’t say anything to me, she just tried to smile past the pain in her eyes. When she realized she couldn’t hide her feelings, she gave up and walked away, leaving Ron to apologize for her.

  “She’s just tired,” he said, walking into the room.

  “I know.”

  “Boy, Mic. You’ve really got the touch. She’s sound asleep.”

  “Yeah, well, that’ll only last until I put her down.”

  Ron chuckled.

  I stared at Abby for a few minutes, not sure what else to say.

  “You know, Lily will be all right,” Ron said, sounding incredibly tired.

  I looked up at him. “If you say so. But I’m sorry, Ron.”

  “What for?”

  “Everything. I need to go home so you guys can get on with your lives.”

  “You’ll stay until you’re ready, however long that takes.”

  I shook my head. “Ron, you know I’m never going to be ready to walk into that house by myself.” I looked down at my baby. “So I think I’ll head out this weekend. Saturday.”

  Ron kind of coughed out a laugh as if I were fooling around. But I wasn’t.

  “That’s Christmas Eve,” he said. “You can’t do that.”

  “Yeah, I can. I won’t lie, it will be hard, but I’ve got to do it.”

  “Why? Why does it need to be Christmas Eve?”

  “Because Lucy loved Christmas Eve. Really loved it,” I said as the memories flooded back. “I think that’s the first time I met everyone. We were just starting to get serious, and she invited me to her Christmas Eve party. That’s when I fell in love with her world. I thought it was so cool that her mom started that tradition, way back when they were all kids. Having the whole neighborhood over to fill up that little house. I think Lu loved it more than Christmas Day.”

  Ron nodded. “Yeah, it was always a big shindig.”

  “So I figure if I can go home then, walk through that door on that night, it will never be that hard again. But I gotta tell you”—I stared down at Abby—“I can hardly imagine leaving her. In my wildest dreams, Ron, I never thought I’d feel this way. I just didn’t see it coming.” The nothing weight of Abby’s tiny body in my arms made my chest throb. “But Lucy did,” I rasped. “She knew me so well.”

  Ron was quiet, and when I looked up at him, he was staring at me. “Mic, are you sure you’re okay . . . with the way things are?”

  Ron knew my answer; it was mirrored in the sad intelligence of his eyes. “Of course. It’s the only way. You and Lil are wonderful. Abby will always be safe with you.”

  Ron’s look was sad and insistent. “She would be safe with you, too, Mickey. You’ve never hurt anyone in your life. You’ve got to cut yourself a little slack.”

  I slid my finger beneath Abby’s tiny hand until her fingers were resting in a loose grip. “Well, I would never hurt her on purpose, that’s for sure.”

  “Mickey, I know what it feels like to lose a baby, to have one and then lose him. It’s hell. It’s hard to believe you’ll ever survive.”

  I looked up at my quiet friend standing there in a T-shirt and flannel pants, ready for bed. He was completely vulnerable. “But you did survive? Right?”

  “I guess that’s what we did. But I don’t know if it’s really survival if you still think about him, imagining what he would look like now, now that he’s thirteen. Imagining when the phone rings that it might be him, all grown-up, asking if I’m Ronald Jerome Bates, and did I remember that for a while I used to have a baby boy.” Ron shrugged and looked at the floor. “He’s out there, Mic, and I always wonder if I’ve passed him on the sidewalk or stood in line next to him. It never goes away.”

  I looked at Ron, amazed that he had walked around every day with this pain that he had never talked about.

  “I’d just never wish that on anybody, Mic. Least of all you.”

  Later that night, I heard Lily crying. The walls are thin in their house, and though I could not decipher the words, the emotion was undeniable. I had not left the nursery. When Ron said good night, I told him I was right behind him, but I hadn’t left, and now I felt as if I could not move. They weren’t arguing. There was no shouting, just the soft weeping of a woman and a man doing his best to comfort her. Abby stretched in my arms and was soon whimpering. I shifted her to my shoulder and rubbed her back, which did nothing but make her mad. I lay her on the changing table and fished around for a diaper, but that wasn’t it either. Annoyed whimpers soon turned to angry, red-faced howls. I was just about to head downstairs to mix the formula when Lily walked in with a bottle. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she smiled anyway. “It’s like she’s on a timer,” she said. “You could set your watch by her.”

  “Sorry we woke you. I’m a little slow on the uptake.”

  “You didn’t wake me, Mickey.”

  “Lil . . .” I reached for her with my free hand, but she backed away.

  “Mickey, don’t. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry this is so hard, Lily.”

  She bit her lip. “Don’t be sorry. It’s just me getting used to everything.”

  We gazed down at Abby, that safe place where the two of us could hide our awkwardness. “Well,” she said, “it looks like you have things under control here. I guess I’ll go back to bed.”

  “Why don’t you feed her, Lil? My back is a little stiff.”

  Lily smiled at me as tears again surfaced in her eyes. She looked at me for a moment, sizing up my offer, then leaned up to kiss my cheek. “Thanks, Mickey.”

  I placed Abby in her arms and watched as this time our fickle baby quieted for Lil. Lily shrugged. “Looks like she has us both wrapped around her finger.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” I said, handing Lily back the bottle.

  I did not sleep well that night, and the next day I called Gleason’s office for an appointment. He didn’t have an opening but he had a lunch hour, so I met him at the Crab Shack in Woodbury. When he saw me, he did what he always does: He gave me a hug. Nothing major, just the kind of thing a father w
ould do for a son who was having a hard time. “Thanks for meeting me,” I said.

  “You know I can’t refuse a free lunch. So, what’s happening?”

  I sat down and ran both hands through my hair. “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m in love with my baby and I can’t stand being at Ron and Lily’s and every day this situation that’s supposed to be getting easier is getting harder.”

  “Take a breath, Mic.”

  I looked at him. “It was easier when I thought I couldn’t love her.”

  “Your daughter? You can say it, Mickey.” His eyes bored into mine.

  “My daughter.” But then, shaking my head, I took it back. “No. No. You’re not going to do that to me. She belongs to Ron and Lily, and I’m buying you lunch so you’ll tell me how to get my head back on that track.”

  “Well, then, let’s at least start with honesty. You love her.”

  “Yes, I love her.”

  “And Lily and Ron will raise her because you love her.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly why.”

  “It’s very noble, Mickey. And where do you fit in?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’re her father. You should know.”

  Over the next three days, I worked up the courage to leave. I meant what I’d told Ron—it was Christmas Eve or bust. But when I thought too hard about actually going home, it felt like a bust. I was terrified of being by myself. Being alone meant nothing was between me and the abyss.

  That said, I had to get out of Lily’s house, and soon, because I could feel my daughter becoming the ground beneath me. And Lily could see it happening.

  It didn’t seem to matter if I was changing Abby or fixing her bath or talking her down from one of her tantrums. Lily was always watching, and it left me feeling like I was trespassing.

  The final straw came Friday night when Lily was feeding her. Abby forgot to breathe, and when she did, she sucked milk into the wrong place and started to choke. The sound was awful, more a croak than a cough, so ominous it stopped my heart. Lily panicked. I think she even screamed, and for me the whole terrible thing unfolded in slow motion. The bottle dropping from Lily’s hand to bounce on the tile floor. Abby turning red. Then blue. Lily’s completely ineffective “Oh, God, oh, God.” Hands that seemed independent of me reaching for my daughter, tipping her upside down, slapping her back. The cough, the cry, her dinner dripping down my arm. The humiliation in Lily’s eyes that morphed into anger.