by Kate Hewitt
‘I didn’t like her.’ She hurls herself at me, throwing herself into my arms, and I hold her close, stroking her hair, my chin resting on top of her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Because she didn’t like us.’
A chill steals through me at that stark statement. She sounds so certain. ‘Why do you say that, Amy?’
‘Because.’ Amy burrows closer, making me wince. ‘She just didn’t. She kept looking like she thought everything was yucky.’
Tears blur my eyes and I clench them shut. I think of Grace’s luxurious apartment, the carpet that was so deep I sank into it up to my ankles. It even smelled expensive, like lemon and leather. She must have thought our house was the crappiest of crap. And even Amy noticed. How come I didn’t? Or did I just not want to see?
‘It doesn’t matter, Amy,’ I say, wanting to mean it. This is our home, and we’re a family. That’s what matters. ‘Grace is going to take good care of the baby, and I know she already loves her so much.’ I think of Grace’s hand on my belly, the little kick into her palm. She loves this little girl, but so do I. ‘That’s all that matters, sweetheart.’
Amy twists away from me, angry again. Of all the girls, she’s taken this the hardest: fighting it, fighting me. Emma’s just been silent and Lucy doesn’t really understand. But Amy… Amy has tested me, taunted me. She’s either hurling an insult or trying my patience, saying the cruelest things because she knows they cut the deepest.
Yesterday she called Lucy retarded, just because she doesn’t know her letters yet. I yanked Amy over to the sink and threatened to squirt dish soap into her mouth.
‘Don’t use words like that,’ I snapped, surprised and shamed by my own sudden rage, ‘or I’ll make you drink this whole bottle.’
‘I hate you,’ Amy screamed, twisting away from me, and I let her go. I knew where her anger came from, but where was mine boiling up from? I had to control it. I might have been hurting, but her pain mattered more.
‘I don’t want her to have the baby,’ Amy yells now, and then she runs into her bedroom and slams the door so hard it feels as if the whole house shakes.
I start running the bath for the girls, trying not to let her words hurt, even though they’ve already cut me to the quick, so I am raw and bleeding. I want to savor these children I do have, because I love them so much, even when they’re angry. I want to absorb their confusion and grief and anger, because I understand why they feel it. I feel it too.
And so I pour half a bottle of shampoo into the running water for a bubbly treat, and then call the girls for their bath.
Lucy fights me as I take off her clothes, but the sight of her toddler belly with its sticky-out belly button makes me smile. Amy, her anger forgotten for the moment, struts around our tiny bathroom, doing rock star poses stark naked, which probably should alarm me, but doesn’t. She’s got so much confidence, and I just hope she’s able to hang onto it, make her way in this world in a way I never did.
Emma, I notice with a pang, is getting too old to take shared baths with her sisters –there is a fuzz of hair between her legs and she crosses her arms protectively over her barely-there breasts. How can my big girl be growing up?
I feel the baby kick, and I place one hand on my belly as I hold a wet and squirming Lucy with the other, trying to wash her hair.
Half an hour later the girls are all clean, their hair in damp, dark blonde ringlets, their faces freshly scrubbed, dressed in their pajamas, my favorite time of day. They run into the living room in search of Daddy, and Kevin pretends to be surprised by the sight of them and then gives them all a tickle so they scream with laughter, which makes my heart swell with love and gratitude. I have so much. Far too often I feel like I have too little, but right now I think of Grace, alone in her big, empty apartment, and I know I’m lucky. I’m blessed.
Of course it doesn’t last. Amy knocks Lucy over by accident and she starts wailing, and then Amy flounces off, refusing to apologize because that’s just how she is. Emma slips away like a shadow and gets her library book, burying her nose in it. I give in to Lucy’s wailing and put on a Paw Patrol DVD, which Kevin complains about because he was, he says, about to watch the baseball game, even though it isn’t an important one.
‘Just for five minutes, before bed,’ I plead, wondering why I have to beg for something like this, and then I go into the kitchen and see all the dirty dishes piled up in the sink from dinner. The baby kicks again, hard, right into my pelvis, a flash of pain. I turn on the tap. At least I had that moment.
The next few weeks slide by in a tired haze. Now that I’m firmly in the third trimester I’m uncomfortable and emotional, and I’m also very, very pregnant. My bump precedes me into a room, and it feels so overwhelming, so obvious, like the biggest thing about me.
Normally around this time I’d be getting excited. I’d have brought out the baby clothes, washed and ironed them, put them in a drawer. Kev would have found the old infant car seat in the basement, probably covered in mildew because we wouldn’t have cleaned it properly before putting it away. I always mean to, but I never do. I would have washed it in the backyard with the hose, spraying the girls as they played around me. Everyone would have been excited, hopeful.
Now this baby feels like a ticking time bomb that everyone can hear. No one talks about when it will come, but I think about it all the time. Will I hold her, or will I just ask the nurse to take her away? Will I look into her face? Do I want to? Can I bear not to?
When I am thirty-four weeks Tina calls me to discuss the birth plan. ‘Would you like Grace to be there?’
I picture Grace standing by my bed, her arms folded, tapping her foot as I writhe and scream and push. Or will she be leaning forward, eager for that first glimpse of my baby, her daughter? Which possibility feels worse?
‘I don’t know. Does she want to be there?’
‘I haven’t asked her yet, because I wanted to talk to you first. Will Kevin be with you?’ The question sounds careful, and that annoys me.
‘Yes,’ I say firmly. ‘He will be.’ He was there for the other three, but that was before he hurt his back. Stacy can watch the girls, and yet… I can’t quite picture Kev there. Will he find it harder to give this baby up if he sees her? Some guilty impulse in me feels like I should do this alone, hand this baby off to Grace and then go home as if nothing has happened. Nothing has changed. My secret sin, my scarlet letter, to bear alone.
But it doesn’t need to be like that. I’ve read the stories on the internet – the parties in the hospital room, popping open the champagne, birth and adoptive parents all celebrating. I’ve read about the birth mother being the godmother, the adoptive parents keeping a blog of photos and updates, family dinners and Christmases because it really does take a village, or at least more than one family. I don’t want all that, I don’t think I could stand it, but why can’t this be just a little easier? Why does it always feel like a fight, even when we’re getting along?
‘Well, in terms of Grace being there,’ Tina says, ‘there’s still time to decide. You can think about it.’
‘Okay,’ I say, and my voice wobbles a little.
‘Heather…’ Tina pauses. ‘If you’re not sure about this…’ She lets it hang there, waiting for me to what? Admit that I’m not? Assure her I am? I stay silent, because I have no idea what to say, what to feel, and I don’t want to start blubbering on the phone. ‘It would be okay,’ she finishes quietly.
I wonder if it’s in her job description, to give me an out, just as Grace did. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’m just ready for this to be over. Move on, you know?’
‘Yes,’ Tina says gently. ‘I know.’
A couple of nights later I wake up in the middle of the night, hot and uncomfortable, the baby kicking at my insides like she’s desperate to leave me. Kevin isn’t lying next to me, and so I slip out of bed, and pad quietly into the living room. He’s not there either, to my surprise. I thought he would have fallen asleep in
his chair. I look around our tiny house but I can’t see him anywhere, and then I notice the front door is ajar. My heart lurches and I walk to the door. Kevin is sitting on our front stoop, elbows braced on his knees as he stares into the darkness.
‘Kev,’ I speak softly, not wanting to startle him or wake the girls, ‘what are you doing out here?’ It’s a warm night for early April, but not that warm, and he’s in only a t-shirt and boxers. I shiver, my arms wrapped around me, goosebumps rising.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Is it your back…?’
‘No.’
The definitive answer pulls me up short. Cautiously, I open the door wider and slip outside. Everything is eerily silent – no cars, no barking dogs, no doors slamming or the tinny sound of our neighbors’ TV on constant ESPN. ‘Why, then?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘Don’t know. Just thinking about stuff.’
I ease down next to him, one hand on my ever-growing belly. ‘Stuff?’
‘Remember when Emma was born? You screamed the whole way down the hallway. I’d never heard you so loud.’
I smile at the memory. Emma was born a month early, and she came fast. They were still prepping the room as I pushed her out on the stretcher in the hall, and looked down at her, a red, screaming scrap of a baby.
‘Yes, I remember. I think the other patients thought I was being killed.’
‘I thought you were.’ He lets out a little huff of laughter. ‘It was amazing, though.’ He shakes his head. ‘I was scared shitless. No idea what I was supposed to be doing.’
‘We were little more than kids ourselves.’
‘I know.’ A faint smile curves his mouth as he stares into the night. ‘And then Amy came late, didn’t she?’
‘Two weeks late and thirty-six hours of labor. It didn’t seem fair, after Emma.’
‘Typical Amy, making an entrance.’ We both laugh, the sound soft in the darkness. ‘And little Lucy, right on time,’ Kev continues. ‘I felt like I had some experience, then.’ He pauses, his gaze fixed ahead. ‘What do you think it will be like this time?’
‘I don’t know.’ We are both silent, but it doesn’t feel tense. It rolls out between us, like a stretch of still water. ‘I can’t imagine it,’ I whisper. ‘How it’s all going to happen.’
‘Me neither.’ Kev reaches for my hand and laces his fingers through mine. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to feel, when the time comes,’ he says in a low voice, a confession.
‘I don’t, either.’ A lump is forming in my throat and I have to speak around it. I squeeze his hand, finding strength in his grip. ‘Do you want to be there?’
He glances at me sharply. ‘I’ve always been there.’
‘I know, but…’ The lump is getting bigger. ‘It might be harder, you know…’
‘I’m not letting you go through this alone.’ He lets out a ragged breath and rakes a hand through his hair. ‘I know I haven’t been great about this so far.’
A tear trickles down my cheek; I can’t speak, for love and grief.
‘I just felt so guilty, Heather. I still do. Like this is all my fault.’
‘It isn’t, Kev—’
‘But if I’d kept my job, if I’d found another one—’
‘You have found another one.’
He lets out a hard huff of breath. ‘And I make piss all. You know that. This isn’t what you agreed to when you married me.’
‘I agreed to better or worse, Kevin McCleary.’ Now my voice is strong, despite the tears. ‘No matter what.’
He’s silent, struggling, because he knows I’m right but it doesn’t make much difference. ‘Still,’ he says finally.
‘Yes, still.’ I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. ‘I love you, Kev.’ It’s been a long time since I’ve said it. Since I’ve felt it.
‘I love you, too.’ Kev’s voice is gruff and he squeezes my hand. ‘It’s going to get better for us,’ he says, his voice a little louder now, more sure. ‘We’ll get over this. Grace will give this baby a good life, and we’ll give our girls good lives. I’ll get more work. Maybe we can rent a bigger house. We’ll take the girls to Disney World when Lucy’s bigger.’
He’s painting a picture I desperately want to be real, to make it all worthwhile, but right now it’s enough that he’s saying it. ‘Yes,’ I say, clinging to him, nestling into him. ‘Yes, that’s exactly how it’s going to be.’
The next day I call Tina to tell her Grace can be at the birth. It feels like the right thing to do, even though part of me, a large, frightened part, resists. I don’t really want her to see me in the bloody throes of labor. And I don’t want to see her hold my baby when she is tiny and new, fresh from my womb. But I agree to it because it seems unfair to Grace to keep her from it. Tina is warmly approving when I tell her.
‘I know Grace will be thrilled.’
I don’t reply.
A few days later I am on one of the night shifts at an office in Newark, heaving a bucket of dirty water onto my cleaning trolley, having finished the worst part of the evening, the men’s bathroom, when I feel a pop low down, and then a gush of water.
I stare in shock at the fluid darkening the industrial carpet around my feet. It’s way too early, well over the month it was with Emma. I stand there, my mind going blank with shock and then panic as I feel the tightening bands of a contraction around my stomach. A real contraction, not just the Braxton Hicks I’ve become used to. I’m in labor. I’m thirty-four weeks and I’m in labor.
I fumble for my cell phone to call Kev, but the phone just rings and rings. Maybe he’s left his cell somewhere, or maybe he’s just that dead asleep. I disconnect the call without leaving a message, and call Stacy instead. The phone rings and rings and I remember that it’s three o’clock in the morning and she keeps her phone charging in the kitchen.
My belly tightens again, and it hurts. I take a deep breath, trying to keep calm, to figure out what to do. I need to go to the hospital, but I want Kevin, or at least Stacy, someone there with me. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Not even in my worst imaginings was it like this, me alone in an empty office building in the middle of the night.
‘Okay?’ Aneta, one of the Polish women I work with, stands in front of me and gestures to the puddle at my feet: ‘Baby?’
I nod, biting my lip. ‘It’s too soon, though,’ I say, and my voice sounds strained and high. ‘It’s too soon to have the baby.’ Emma was a month early, and that was scary. It’s six weeks until my due date this time.
Aneta nods, although I’m not sure she understands. ‘I drive?’ she asks, miming holding a steering wheel. ‘To…’
She frowns and I fill in shakily, ‘The hospital.’
Aneta brightens and nods. ‘Yes. That.’
‘Okay,’ I say, and as she gives me a reassuring smile I try to keep the panic back. I didn’t want it to be like this, on my own, panicked and scared. Aneta reaches for my hand, and I try to smile back at her. I tell myself it’s going to be okay. That this baby – my baby – is going to be fine. It isn’t until we’re on our way to the hospital that I even think about Grace, and then only for a second.
Twelve
GRACE
The new partnerships are due to be announced in mid-April. Bruce has as good as told me I made partner. So I celebrate before the partners are set to meet by buying a five-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne and drinking it all myself, while sitting in the glider in my daughter’s pristine nursery.
Everything is ready and waiting and perfect – the white Stokke crib, the matching changing table. The walls are a fresh, minty green with stenciled elephants cavorting along the picture rail. White gauzy curtains frame the window overlooking the park, with gray velvet sashes. A green polka-dot cushion rests behind me in the chair, and there is one framed print on the wall, a watercolor of a young girl in a field of daisies. A photo of my father holding me as a baby smiles from a sterling silver frame on top of the dresser.
I’ve
sat in this room a lot lately. I find it very calming, because when I go in this room the baby feels real to me, as if I could scoop her up from the crib and hold her to my chest. When I’m in this room, I’m happy.
Right now I am more than a little bit drunk. My head lolls back and I reach for my phone to check for messages. Bruce hasn’t called yet but I know he will. I’ve given my lifeblood to this company. I’ve given them my time, my energy, my passion. I’m forty next month and I deserve to be made partner. I will be.
Lying there in a bit of a drunken doze, I picture myself in this room, with my baby girl, in less than two months’ time. I picture myself holding her, cradling her into my chest, inhaling her warm baby smell. I scrunch my eyes shut, willing it to become real. To feel it.
But reality intrudes – I need to pee, and I am remembering a recent conversation with Jill, after one of our workouts, when she discovered I was planning to adopt. It happened stupidly; we’d finished working out and we were checking our phones as we waited for our protein shakes. When they came, I laid my phone on the counter, and it was open to MetroMom, a website for urban mothers that has an adoption forum. I’d taken to reading the posts rather obsessively, gobbling up stories of bringing home newborns, the bottle feeds and bonding, the wonderful reality of it, the incredulous joy other parents felt contagious. I hadn’t yet dared to post anything myself.
Eagle-eyed Jill, of course, saw what was on there before I’d managed to swipe the screen.
‘Grace,’ she said, her eyes wide with shock and, I feared, a kind of awful fascination. ‘Are you thinking of adopting?’
I hesitated, my instinct to deny it, because Jill and I didn’t share much personal stuff, and I still hadn’t told anyone at work. But denying it felt wrong, like denying myself, my baby. And so I lifted my chin and tried for an insouciant shrug.
‘Yes, actually, I am.’
‘You’re adopting a baby?’ Her eyes were like dinner plates.