by Kate Hewitt
I’d just bundled the clothes away when Emma and Amy came running in from the bus, complaining they were hungry, as always, and Amy whining that the strap on her other shoe had broken. I stared at those battered, duct-taped shoes and for once I smiled.
‘You know what we’re going to do, Amy?’
Amy looked at me warily. ‘What?’
‘We’re going to get you a new pair from Payless.’
Emma looked up, surprised and a little bit indignant. ‘Can I get a new pair, too?’
‘You got a new pair in September. But you can have an ice cream at the mall.’
Both girls looked at me suspiciously, because since when did I offer ice cream? My smile got bigger, spreading across my face. I wasn’t going to blow through this cash, no way, but my girls needed a little treat. And watching them enjoy their ice creams, licking the last drops from their cones, faces covered in chocolate, would be a big treat for me.
Kev didn’t even question the new shoes or the ice creams; the girls swarmed him the minute they came through the door with chocolate-smeared faces, hyped up on sugar. He patted their backs and half-listened to their excited gibbering before turning back to the TV, not asking about any of it – the shoes, the ice cream, the rent being paid.
I wiped each of their faces in turn, smiling as they squirmed and resisted the firm swipe of the wet cloth. I felt like I had a double dose of patience and goodwill, thanks to the money in my sock drawer. I also had a surprising measure of peace that I hadn’t expected; I truly felt, deep down, like I was doing the right thing, for the baby, for my girls. For me and Kevin.
And so that’s why I’m here, sitting on my parents’ saggy sofa while my father reluctantly mutes the television and my mother twitches in her wheelchair, looking both concerned and impatient. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and air freshener, and even though I’m past those awful days of morning sickness, my stomach churns from both the smell and sheer nerves at telling them what I’m planning to do. Disappointing them again.
I’ve never shaken the feeling that I’m the daughter who messed up. Pregnant before I graduated high school – my father never said anything, but I felt his disapproval, and worse, his disappointment. A lot can be communicated with a sigh or a silence.
When my mother was adjusting my veil right before my rushed wedding, and I was five months pregnant and definitely starting to show, she said sadly, ‘This wasn’t what I imagined for you.’ It hurt worse than anything else she could have said.
But Kev and I worked hard to be a family, to get by. When we started out, Kev at the container company on little more than a minimum wage and me cleaning part-time until I got too big, we managed. Only just, in a two-room apartment with stained ceilings and carpets, barely money for groceries, but still. We survived.
And then I had Emma a month early. She was in NICU for a week and after that I didn’t work any more. We struggled on, but we were happy. Happier, perhaps, than we are now.
‘What is it you’ve got to say, Heather?’ my mother asks. ‘You look awfully serious. You’re not sick, are you? It’s not cancer?’
‘No, it’s not cancer, Mom.’ That has always been my mom’s biggest fear, although I don’t know why since nobody in the family has died of cancer. My grandfather had a heart attack when he was sixty-five, and my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. Mom has MS, Dad high blood pressure. But for some reason cancer is the big fear she has, the bogeyman she’s always afraid is going to jump out of the closet.
‘Actually…’ I feel like I’m about to take a flying leap onto jagged rocks. Who hurls themselves out like that, bracing for the fall? But I know I have no choice. So I say the words. ‘I’m pregnant.’
The silence stretches on. My father is glancing back at the TV, drawn in by the news presenter babes on Fox News, with their shellacked hair and tight shift dresses. I’m not sure he’s heard me, but my mother obviously has. Her mouth drops open a little, and her eyes widen.
‘Oh, Heather…’ Her voice is full of sympathy and sorrow. Everybody knows this isn’t good news for us and even now, after everything, that stings.
‘It’s okay,’ I say quickly, because I need to get this part over with, knowing they won’t understand. Not enough, anyway. ‘As you probably know, we can’t afford another baby, not with Kevin…’ I stop, because I don’t want to make this just about Kevin. ‘With everything the way it is. So we’ve decided the best thing to do, for this baby and for us, is to give it – her – up for adoption.’
My dad jerks back from the TV. My mother’s mouth drops open fully. They both stare at me for a long, shocked moment, looking horrified, and then, as the news sinks in, they look sad. That, I discover, is even worse than disappointment. I look away.
‘Heather,’ my mom says again. My dad just shakes his head.
‘I know it sounds strange,’ I say steadily. ‘And… I don’t know… heartless, maybe, like we don’t care about this baby.’ I feel a lump forming in my throat but I push past it. ‘But it’s not like that. I know this baby is a part of me, of us, and I’ve given this a lot of thought. Kev and I aren’t making this decision lightly, I promise.’
‘I know you aren’t.’ My mom sniffs and then reaches for her cane. She relies on her wheelchair most of the time but she’ll walk when she can, and now she struggles up to standing while I watch her miserably. ‘I’m going to get us a drink. Who wants a drink?’ It’s as if she can’t bear to look at me.
‘Mom…’
She doesn’t answer me, just hobbles into the kitchen. My dad looks at me, and then at the TV. I have no idea what he’s thinking. He was a plumber before he retired, the kind of man who is happy working or kicking back and having a beer, and doesn’t ask for much else in life. We never doubted he loved us, but we never thought he loved us the way Mom did.
‘You sure about this, Heather?’ he asks gruffly, not looking at me.
‘Yes,’ I say, and I really am. There’s no going back, and it feels like a relief.
Mom comes back in, leaning heavily on her cane, looking older than when she went out. ‘I made a pitcher of Crystal Light,’ she says as she sinks heavily into her chair. ‘If you don’t mind getting it.’
‘Of course not.’ I fetch the plastic pitcher of double-strength peach iced tea and a couple of glasses. I pour us a glass each, even though I can’t stand the stuff.
‘If it’s a question of money…’ Mom begins when the silence has stretched to breaking point. My dad stiffens, looking tense. I know they don’t have a lot of money, or even enough for themselves. Dad lost most of his pension when the stock market went bust in 2008, and Mom’s never been able to work. What little they have left over Dad spends at Meadowlands. I can’t blame him, not really, not when so much of life is so hard.
‘Mom, it isn’t. Not just that, anyway. And you can’t afford to prop us up.’
‘Kevin wouldn’t want that, Janice,’ Dad says. ‘You know that.’
‘No, but a baby…’ My mom looks agonized. ‘Our own flesh and blood.’
I suppress the stab of hurt, as if she’s thinking something I haven’t. As if I haven’t agonized over this, again and again. ‘I know, Mom.’ I take a deep breath. ‘But we’ve made this decision and we’re sticking to it. I didn’t come over here to ask you for anything, or think about possibilities, I’m telling you what we’re doing.’
My mom blinks, looking like I’ve slapped her. I almost apologize, but then I don’t. No one’s walked in my faded, worn-out shoes. No one knows what it’s like to feel this trapped and cornered, fighting your way out. And no one can make this decision but me and Kevin.
‘All I’m asking,’ I say, my voice thickening a little, ‘is that you support us. Emotionally. Because I know there will be people – neighbors, friends – who won’t understand what we’re doing. Who will judge. And we’re going to need our family around us.’
‘Oh, Heather. Oh, honey.’ My mother holds out her arms and with a sniff I walk over to he
r. She smells like cigarette smoke and artificial sweetener and her arms are thin and ropey as they wrap around me. I press my cheek against her shoulder and breathe her in.
‘You know we’ll be there for you, Heather,’ my dad says gruffly, his gaze still on the TV, after I’ve returned to the sofa. ‘You’ve sure as hell been there for us.’
Later that night, buoyed by my parents’ acceptance, I sit the girls down to tell them. They look at me so innocently, eyes wide, lined up on the sofa, their hair damp from the bath, wearing their matching pink nighties. Kevin is in the La-z-Boy as usual, but at least he’s turned the TV off and he’s half-turned toward us.
‘So,’ I begin, trying to frame the words in my mind, ‘Daddy and I wanted to tell you about something that’s happened, a decision we’ve made.’ Blink. Blink. Blink. I can see Emma starting to look worried, chewing a strand of her hair. Amy is intrigued, eyes narrowed, and Lucy is picking her nose.
My love for them surges up, squeezing me, making it hard to speak. How can I explain this so they understand? So they’re not afraid?
‘I’m going to have a baby,’ I continue, gazing at each of them in turn, ‘but we’re not going to keep this baby even though we love her. We’re going to let someone else adopt her, a very nice lady who would like to have a child of her own.’
More blinking. Lucy kicks her legs, bored now. Amy’s eyes narrow to slits. Emma just stares.
‘What do you mean,’ Amy asks, ‘you’re not keeping a baby? Why wouldn’t you keep it? How can you just give it away?’
‘Well…’ I glance at Kevin, whose gaze is fixed beyond us, on the wall, ‘because it wouldn’t be… fair to the baby. Or to any of you.’
‘Fair?’ Amy looks incredulous. Not fair is someone getting two scoops of ice cream when she only gets one.
‘What Mommy is trying to say,’ Kevin interjects, surprising me with his steady tone, ‘is that we love you all so much and we want to give you the best opportunities that we can. And we won’t be able to do that if we have another baby.’
Emma’s eyes go even rounder. ‘Why not?’
‘I have a baby,’ Lucy announces. ‘I have a pink baby named Susie.’
‘Yes, you do, Lucy, and she’s very nice.’ A doll that cries and burps, a present from my parents a couple of years ago that makes me tense every time I hear its shrill bleat.
Amy makes a sound of disgust. ‘They’re not talking about that kind of baby, stupid.’
‘Amy—’
‘You mean a real baby, don’t you?’ Emma asks. She sounds so confused, and it makes me ache. Even though she’s two years older she’s far less streetwise than Amy. ‘You mean you have one in your tummy.’
‘Babies aren’t actually in tummies,’ Amy informs her. ‘They’re in ut-er-usses. I learned that at school.’
‘Yes, I do have a baby.’ I rest one hand on my bump and all three girls stare at it, noticing it for the first time.
‘I thought you were just getting fat,’ Amy says, and from the steely glint in her eyes I know she’s trying to hurt me, because she’s hurt. That’s how Amy works, and the news that we’re giving up her little sister for adoption is hurtful. Of course it is. I can’t take away the pain, maybe only blunt it a little.
‘Your mom is beautiful,’ Kevin says, and my heart swells with love. Despite the pain-glazed eyes and set jaw, he seems more like he used to be right now than he has in a long time, and I need that reminder. I crave it, this hint of who we once were, who we could be again. ‘She’ll always be beautiful. And we’re doing this, Amy and all of you, because we love you so much. The truth is since my back got hurt there hasn’t been a lot of money.’ Kev presses his lips together, and I know how hard, how shaming, it is for him to admit this to his own children, his little girls. ‘And we can’t afford to have another baby, not if we want to provide for you the way we do. So that’s why we’re doing this. For you, and for all of us, even though it seems strange and it’s hard.’
‘Would you ever give me away?’ Amy asks, jutting her lip out, and even though it’s totally unfair, I feel like shaking her. She knows we wouldn’t give her away. I can tell by the calculating look on her face, the angry challenge in her eyes. She’s acting up, and of course it stirs up Emma and Lucy.
‘Give us away?’ Emma cries, her lower lip wobbling, and Lucy launches herself at me and burrows herself into my belly, making me wince.
‘No one’s giving anyone away,’ Kev says, and he picks up the remote control, done with being sensitive. ‘Now go get ready for bed.’
‘We are ready for bed,’ Amy says, but he isn’t listening.
‘Come on, girls.’ I rise from the sofa, taking them with me. ‘We’ll have stories on my bed.’
The next few days are just as hard. I go to Stop & Shop and run into a mom of a girl in Amy’s class. She looks at my belly and then at my face, uncertainty flashing across hers, and then she keeps walking.
We’re not friends, so I don’t need to feel offended, but before all this I would have expected a hello, maybe a few minutes of chitchat. Not now, obviously. Now no one knows what to say to me, and so they choose to pretend I’m invisible.
And it continues with just about everyone I meet – the mailman, the lady across the street, Lucy’s preschool teacher. The news has filtered out just as I knew it would, and I can’t avoid the stares, the whispers.
‘People aren’t judging you,’ one of my friends, Annie, says when I work up the courage to ask her what people are saying. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Oh, great.’
‘It’s just no one knows what to say. To think.’
Even you? I want to ask, but I don’t. Annie gave birth to her son Jaden a year after I had Emma, and when they were little we were a lot closer. We’d hang out at each other’s houses, with Teletubbies blaring in the background and plenty of coffee to get us through those endless days and sleepless nights. But then the kids started school, and Jaden turned out to be a rough boy’s boy and Emma was a dreamy girl, and it was obvious they were never going to be anything close to friends. Annie and I drifted apart, although I still see her around, and I usually make the guest list if she’s having a girls’ night out or something like that, even if I don’t go because of work or not having the money or just plain tiredness.
But right now, as I stand in Annie’s kitchen, my hands cradled around a cup of coffee, I don’t know what she thinks, and I’m not brave enough to ask. I don’t want to hear the truth, and I can’t stand the thought of seeing through her lies.
‘I guess it’s too much to ask people to mind their own business,’ I say, and Annie shrugs.
‘Probably.’
‘Do you think they will get used to it?’
‘They’ll have to, won’t they?’ Annie smiles. ‘And after all, you won’t be pregnant forever.’
I nod slowly. Yes, people will forget once I’m not pregnant any more, or at least not remember quite so much. But will I?
As my belly grows and this baby kicks I am confronted by that question every day, every moment – by my round reflection in the mirror when I step out of the shower; by my hand on my belly as I lie in bed and feel her squirm. When I walk past the baby aisle in Stop & Shop, and then go back and stand in front of the packs of newborn diapers, simply staring. The stack of baby albums in the hall closet, photos peeling at the corners. One afternoon I take them all out and look at them, torturing myself with images of Emma’s drooly smile, Amy’s frizzy hair, wondering about this little one, trying not to, unable to keep myself from it.
One rainy afternoon in March, I’m waiting outside St Timothy’s for Amy to come out of her first communion class and a woman I only sort of recognize from school comes over. She doesn’t say anything, just grabs my hand and squeezes hard. Her eyes are full of compassion, and suddenly my chest feels tight. I don’t know who she is, but I know she realizes my situation and understands.
We stare at each other for a few heartrending seconds and then with
a final squeeze and smile she moves on. I feel energized by the strange, silent exchange, like someone injected me with hope, with courage. In that moment I believe I can do this. I can get through it, because I am not alone.
Ten
GRACE
The invitation from Heather in early April surprises me. Dinner? At her house? I feel an uncertain wariness, a flicker of curiosity and even pleasure. I want to meet her family, and yet at the same time I don’t.
‘Sure,’ I say brightly when she calls my cell while I’m at work. I forgot I gave her my number. ‘That’s so kind of you. When were you thinking?’
‘Friday?’ Heather suggests hesitantly. ‘At six?’
‘Great.’ I’ll have to leave work hours early to make that, but I don’t feel I can suggest an alternative. I haven’t seen or talked to Heather in six weeks, which feels like a long time, especially after the fun we had shopping, but Tina has kept me updated and I suppose a little distance might be a good thing.
But it’s getting close now, and I’ve gone ahead with my plans: decorating the nursery, hiring the nanny, a Jamaican woman named Dorothy who has had six grown-up kids herself and seems so wonderfully relaxed and self-assured compared to my own high-octane brand of crazy that after I hired her, I wanted to hug her.
I’ve booked two weeks off at the end of May, and am praying that the baby comes on time. I’ve bought clothes, white and mint-green and some pink, fuzzy sleepsuits and tiny onesies and booties.
Most of all, I’m getting excited; it’s a freight train of feeling that makes me want to jump out of its way, because it’s so intense and I’m not used to feeling this much. Wanting this much. It leaves you vulnerable, open to disappointment and pain. And I know that one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding Heather is because the more we’ve come to know each other, the more complicated our relationship has felt.
And this already feels like a pretty complicated situation, never mind delicate.