by Kate Hewitt
A few minutes later we’re settled in a plush booth with large menus hiding our faces. While Heather is studying hers with a rather endearing intensity, I scroll through the messages on my phone. Nothing too urgent, thank God. I can spare another half an hour, at least.
‘So,’ I say, once we’ve ordered and the waitress has taken the menus. ‘How are you finding all this?’ I give her a frank look, determined to be honest, maintain the tone we set before. ‘Is it… is it very hard?’
Heather stirs her iced tea slowly, her gaze lowered. ‘I haven’t told my kids yet. Or my friends. Only Kev and my sister know I’m pregnant.’
That surprises me. She looks pregnant, at least to me. ‘You’re going to tell them sometime, though,’ I remark, not quite making it a question. ‘Sometime soon.’
‘I know.’ She smiles wryly. ‘You’d think they’d guess, right? But it’s winter, and when I’m outside, I wear a big coat.’ She sighs and pushes her drink a little bit away. ‘I don’t know, I just don’t want to deal with the fallout, you know? Everyone’s going to have an opinion.’
‘Yes.’ I can only imagine. Although actually, I can’t. Her life, her family, her friends are all outside my realm of experience. And now that I think about it, I haven’t told anyone I’m adopting, so we’re basically in the same boat.
‘But let’s not talk about all that.’ Heather waves a hand. ‘Sometimes I feel like it’s all I think about. This baby. Giving it away.’
Her confession alarms and moves me in equal measures. I picture Heather lying in bed, unable to sleep, wondering what the right thing to do is, and whether she’s strong enough to do it.
‘Okay. Let’s talk about something else.’
Cue silence as we struggle to think of what to say, how to unite our experiences. Heather laughs, the sound bubbling up, and then I’m laughing too, although I’m not sure about what. Maybe just the oddity of the situation, the awkward intimacy of it.
‘Have you seen any good movies?’ I finally ask, and she shakes her head.
‘We never go out.’ A pause as she slurps from her straw. ‘Have you?’
‘Nope.’
And then we start laughing again, and something inside me lightens. It seems we do have something in common, however small.
Our salads arrive then, and I watch as Heather picks through hers, taking out all the walnuts and bits of blue cheese. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. ‘I didn’t think it would be so fancy.’
I wave her apology aside. ‘I’m not a fan of blue cheese, either. And it’s not supposed to be good for pregnant women.’ I feel proud of my little trivia.
‘It’s not?’ Heather looks blanks as she shrugs. ‘Have you thought of names?’ And so we’re back to talking about babies.
‘A few.’ I haven’t quite wanted to dare that far. To hope that much.
‘And have you told your family?’
I shake my head, my throat turning tight even after all these months. ‘I don’t have any family.’
Heather’s expression softens. ‘You told me about your dad, but…’
‘There’s no one.’
Heather looks surprised; she’s probably surrounded by family; aunts and uncles and cousins, sisters and brothers. A big, happy Irish Catholic family, with massive Thanksgivings, the table bowed under the weight of the food, the conversation lively and boisterous, everyone vying to get a word in edgewise. For a second I am envious, utterly envious, of what she has and I never will, even with this baby. My daughter.
‘My mother died when I was a teenager,’ I explain. ‘And you know about my dad. My mother was an only child, and my dad’s brother died five years ago. He never had children, so it really is just me.’
‘When did your dad die?’ Heather asks quietly.
‘Three months ago.’ I stare down at my salad. Why does this have to be so hard, still?
‘I’m sorry.’ I feel Heather’s hand skim my own, the lightest of touches. ‘You said you were close.’
‘Really close. Maybe too close.’
‘What do you mean?’
I shrug, my throat still tight. ‘Maybe if I hadn’t depended on my dad so much, I would have made time for other people. A boyfriend or a best friend, someone who could be here for me now.’ Too late I realize how revealing this all is, how pathetic I must sound. I try to rally. ‘I’m a solitary kind of person, mostly. I’m not…’ I can’t finish that sentence. ‘What about you? You’ve got Kevin and your girls, I know…’
‘My parents live in Elizabeth too, and my sister Stacy and her husband and their two kids. Plus cousins, aunts, uncles.’ She smiles, shrugs. ‘I can’t get away from them.’ It’s just as I imagined, and again I feel that painful pang of envy.
‘That must be nice.’
‘Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s a pain.’
‘Yes.’ The weight of my loneliness suddenly hits me again, full force, as I try to envision a life where I am surrounded by family – brothers, sisters, cousins. Parents and grandparents. It seems like an inconceivable luxury. Heather must see some of that in my face because she hurries on,
‘But I am grateful. For everyone, all of it. They’ve been there for me. My sister, especially. And Kev,’ she adds quickly.
‘I’m glad you’ve had the support,’ I say, even as I wonder where my support will come from. Yes, I’ll have a nanny, and a baby nurse, and whomever else I hire to help. But what about people I don’t have to employ? What about the network of family and friends so many people take for granted, everyone pulling together when life gets tough, offering help, hugs, a meal, a listening ear? Where are those people? Will I find them after my baby’s born? Or will I still be alone?
I think of my father in his hospital bed, how I held his hand, the fragile bones beneath my fingers; that last, vital connection that linked us together bound me to the only family I’ve known.
Who will hold my hand in the hospital, when the doctor says my body is shutting down? Who will offer me that desperate comfort, hear my last words, and speak into that awful silence?
Heather touches my hand, letting her fingers rest on mine for a moment. ‘It will be okay,’ she says, and I feel as if I’ve voiced my fears out loud.
‘You’re lucky,’ I say, and despite or perhaps because of everything, I truly mean it.
Heather lets out a soft laugh. ‘Yeah,’ she says, her voice full of wonder. ‘I guess I am.’
After lunch I insist on putting Heather in a cab, and as I peel off a couple of twenties to pay for it, I slip in another few hundred bucks. ‘For expenses,’ I say firmly. ‘Treat yourself.’
She looks surprised, but she takes the money. I stand on the sidewalk and watch as the cab cruises forward, joining a sea of others. I have a pang of something almost like homesickness; I realize I miss her. I had fun today, and more than that, I had companionship.
That evening after work I stop by the Barnes & Noble on Eighty-Sixth and Lexington and stock up on baby books, feeling both furtive and excited, hoping I don’t bump into anyone I know, even as part of me wishes I would, so I could share some of my excitement. My joy.
I don’t see anyone, though, and the multi-pierced teen at the checkout looks bored by my book choices. I clutch them to my chest all the way home, and then back at my apartment I curl up on the sofa with a large glass of wine and an order of sushi, the books scattered all around me. I feel as if I’m about to open Christmas presents. I want to learn all this stuff; I want to become an expert in this new, unexpected field.
I pick up the first book, First Days with Your Newborn. I study the pictures of the babies on the front; they are wide-eyed and skinny-limbed, and they remind me a little bit of humanoid aliens. I haven’t held a baby since I was a teenager, babysitting for some neighbors. I haven’t talked to a toddler in twenty years. I’m entering a whole new universe, going where no woman has gone before, at least none I know, and I am determined to do it.
I take a sip of wine and flip to the opening chapter, sk
ipping the cutesy intro for the factual details I need. Like, how do you actually hold a newborn baby? Or put on a diaper? Or feed them a bottle?
As I read more of the book, and then skim through the others, I realize how completely unprepared I am. Cradle cap, colic, night feeds, RSV, gas, fever, baby acne… I never even knew such things existed. But I’ll learn.
Restless now, I rise from the sofa and take my wine to my study. When the baby comes, she’ll have this room and I’ll have to move my study to the little maid’s room off the kitchen, which is currently filled with boxes of stuff from my dad’s condo. Going through the photos, the mementoes, the sweaters that still smelled of him, holding his reading glasses and breathing in his aftershave… it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I boxed up what mattered and brought it back here.
I walk slowly around my study, looking at all the photos. Dad and me when I was a gap-toothed seven-year-old, grinning wildly at the camera on a fishing trip. My mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before, and Dad stepped right up, taking over all the little duties as well as the big ones. Doing everything for me, being everyone to me.
I pause in front of a photo of my mom from her college days, her hair a dark cloud around her face, her expression dreamy. Sometimes I feel like the cancer kept me from getting to know her properly. I loved my mom, but I think I miss the idea of her more than the real person, because I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t sick.
Throughout my childhood, she was always in and out of the hospital, pale and sick, needing chemo treatments, wanting to hug me, too tired to talk. Her death wasn’t the devastation my father’s was, and that makes me feel both sad and guilty.
I look at another picture, this one of Dad and me at my graduation from Tufts. My cap is at a rakish angle, and my smile is a little smug. I’d already been accepted into a two-year competitive internship in the city, with a deferred entry to Harvard’s MBA program. Next to me Dad looks proud and happy, with his salt and pepper buzz-cut, his bright blue eyes, his slight paunch that he used to joke about. My beer belly, he’d say, even though he never drank beer.
I picture myself telling my daughter about my dad, sharing the stories that now only matter to me. It can be lonely, being an only child, especially when your parents die. No one else feels the way you do. Absolutely no one else is bearing the grief you feel in that moment.
Of course, this daughter of mine will be an only child too. It will be the two of us against the world, just like Dad and me. A team, a partnership, an unbreakable bond. I’ll just have to do a better job of preparing her for when I’m gone.
A week later, Joanne, my best friend from my MBA days, calls to tell me she’s in the city for work and asks if I’m free for dinner. We meet at Ocean Prime on West Fifty-Second, near her hotel. Joanne looks just as sharp and savvy as she did a year or so ago, when I last saw her. We do a quick air kiss and sit down, reaching for menus. Even this feels like a business meeting, as we prepare to exchange the relevant data about our lives.
‘So, how are you?’ she asks, her gaze sweeping down the list of seafood appetizers. ‘Are we doing three courses?’
‘Why not?’ I feel expansive. I want to tell her about my adoption plans, but I don’t know how she’ll react. We order our drinks and then Joanne sits back, her eyes narrowed as she inspects me.
‘You look different.’
‘Older.’ I roll my eyes and take a sip of the restaurant’s signature cocktail, whiskey, honey water, and lemon and orange. My dad would tell me it was a waste of Gentleman Jack; he liked his neat.
‘Well, yes, we both are,’ Joanne says as she sips her wine. ‘But you look… I don’t know. Are you seeing someone?’
‘No.’ I’m amazed that she can sense something is different, and yet of course something huge has happened. In the last week, I’ve cleared out my study and bought paint samples. Paint samples, me. No pink for this baby girl. I picked a fresh, minty green with an antique white trim.
I could have hired someone to paint the room, to decorate the whole thing, and I admit, I was a little bit tempted, because time is something I don’t have a lot of. But I decided to do it myself because I want to own this. And with every dab of paint, every throw pillow or sleepsuit I buy, I feel like I am putting down a deposit to make this more real.
‘What, then?’ Joanne asks. ‘Because you look like you’re dying to tell me something.’
‘Not dying… but something has changed.’ I take a deep breath, plunge. ‘I’m adopting a baby. A little girl.’
Joanne’s eyebrows arc toward her hairline. ‘Seriously? What about work?’
I take a sip of my cocktail, trying to mask my hurt. Couldn’t she have just said congratulations? ‘What about it?’
‘You’re going to be Mommy-tracked.’ She shakes her head. ‘Don’t you want to make partner?’
‘Yes, and I think it’s going to happen soon.’ There’s a meeting of all the partners in mid-April, and I’m fully expecting Bruce to tell me the good news afterward. ‘Besides, I haven’t actually told anyone at work about this.’ Suddenly that seems absurd. I’m adopting a child and I’m going to keep it from everyone at work, which is basically everyone I know? Why should I keep something so exciting, so important, a secret?
Joanne stares at me for a good thirty seconds. ‘I understand why you haven’t,’ she says finally. ‘But you’re going to have to sometime, aren’t you? I mean, kids always mean time off. They’re sick, the nanny cancels, they have some show at school you’ve got to attend. Parent meetings…’
‘I won’t have to go to those for a while.’
‘But you know what I mean.’
‘Yes.’ I take a sip of my drink. ‘I’ll tell them after I make partner.’ Once I have that security, everything will feel simpler. I’ll celebrate, then. I’ll bring in a cake.
Joanne sits back. ‘I’m surprised,’ she says after a moment. ‘I thought you didn’t have that biological clock.’
‘I’m not sure I do.’
‘Then…?’
‘It’s deeper than that. Bigger. You know about my dad…’ I’d texted her after the funeral, and Joanne had sent flowers, a beautiful, big bouquet.
‘I know. I’m sorry, Grace.’
‘I want a family. I want to give a child something of what my dad gave to me.’
‘That’s very noble.’
‘Not really.’ I try for a laugh. ‘It just feels… compelling. And right. I need to do this.’
She sighs, the sound of someone washing their hands after having given their advice. ‘If this is what you really want, then I say go for it. But is it what you want? Because, to me, you just sound lonely.’
I am lonely, but that isn’t the whole story.
‘Maybe you just want a boyfriend?’ Joanne suggests. ‘Or a dog?’
I try for another laugh; they’re hard to come by. ‘Those are two very different things.’
‘But they serve the same purpose,’ she answers with a smile. ‘It’s just that a kid is a big investment, you know? Lifetime commitment, and all that. And if you decide in a couple of months or a year or whatever that you weren’t actually up for this parenting thing…’
‘I wouldn’t.’ My face burns; does she think I’m that shallow, that selfish? That I’d hand my child back? ‘Look, I’m being honest here. I know I’m not maternal, not really. I barely remember my own mom, at least before she got sick.’ My throat is tight again and I take a long swallow of whiskey, savoring the burn of alcohol at the back of my throat. ‘But I’ve thought a lot about this. I don’t want to just live for my work any more, or even just for myself. And I’ve done the research. I want this baby.’
Joanne nods slowly. ‘So you have one in mind? How does it even work?’
I explain to her about Open Hearts and Heather. ‘The baby’s due in May,’ I finish, my voice filled with pride. ‘A little girl.’
‘And she can’t change her mind? You read about that, you kn
ow? It’s so sad for the adoptive parents. They just get this baby they’ve loved and cared for yanked away from them without, like, a second’s warning.’
‘She can change her mind,’ I say, ‘but she won’t.’ I think of Tina warning me about this delicate situation, of Heather at the ultrasound, trying on clothes, the sad, pensive look she gets on her face sometimes. ‘She won’t,’ I say again and this time I sound like I am trying to convince myself.
Nine
HEATHER
In the middle of February, when I am twenty-four weeks pregnant, I decide it’s time to tell everybody. My belly has started to pop, and I can feel the baby move, real kicks that I savor even though I feel like I shouldn’t, each little flutter a reminder. I’m here. I’m yours. Except she’s not, and everybody needs to realize that, including me.
That afternoon at that swanky boutique felt like a turning point, from the what-if to the inevitable. When Grace handed me three hundred dollars in cash, it felt as if we’d shaken hands on a business deal. There was no going back, even if, somewhere in the foggy reaches of my mind, I had imagined there was. If Kev got a job. If we found a new house, or a pot of gold, something. That tempting, treacherous if.
Taking that money stomped it right out, which was a good thing. There’s no point thinking in ifs. Not anymore.
When I got back home Kevin was out for once, at a meeting with the union lawyer, to see if he could claim unemployment while he looked for a job. I laid out all the fancy maternity clothes on the bed, making sure their price tags were showing, and then I took photos. Within an hour, before the girls had got home from school and with Lucy tuned into PBS Kids, I had them up on eBay and the bidding had already started. In the end I got nine hundred dollars for everything but the jeans and lacy top that I kept, just in case Grace expected to see me in something she’d bought. I also kept the yoga pants, because of all the stuff, I might actually wear them. And I tried not to feel guilty, because nine hundred dollars will pay our rent for another month. I need that a lot more than I need a fancy shirt with a big bow on it.