by Unknown
“But how did the bad man give you the baby?” he kept asking me, even after Dan and I had tried twice to vaguely explain that the father of the baby wasn’t Dan.
“It doesn’t matter how he did it. It just matters that Daddy didn’t give it to her,” Katie snapped, surprising Dan and me with her abruptness.
In any case, it satisfied Spencer for the moment.
“So what are we supposed to do with the baby?” he asked next.
Although Dan and I had never talked specifically about giving the baby up for adoption, we both knew that it seemed like the only option we could both live with.
“If I don’t have any trouble, and the baby is born okay, then we will find a good home for it,” I said, shaking a little as I said it. “There are many people who want very much to have children and can’t.”
“Why can’t they?” Spencer asked, ever the inquisitor.
“Stop asking so many questions, Spencer!” Katie snapped, again. I could tell I was going to have to spend some time alone with her. She was terribly angry.
“So it’s not going to be our baby?” he continued.
“They don’t want it. Can’t you understand anything?” Katie exclaimed, glaring at her little brother. She was slipping into as dark a mood as I had ever seen her in. It scared me. It also occurred to me that we weren’t “doing it right.”
“Look, kids,” Dan ventured. “Your mom has had lots of trouble with her pregnancies. She may have trouble with this one, and then it won’t matter.”
“But what if she doesn’t?” Katie retorted. “What if she doesn’t have trouble?”
Dan was quiet for a moment and then he shared something from the depths of his aching heart that I hoped Katie and Spencer would always remember.
“Kate, you and Spencer mean the world to me,” he began. “I would walk through fire for you. I would do anything to keep you safe. That’s how much I love you both. I have loved you like this since before you were born, since the day Mom and I knew she was expecting. Every child deserves a love like that from his or her father. Every child.”
He was close to tears, and Katie was crying freely. Spencer had climbed into my lap, and as he rested his head on my shoulder, my own tears fell onto his blond curls.
“But why can’t you love this baby?” Katie said, her voice softening. “I could.”
I think I could too, floated across my brain, but I did not say it.
Dan wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Do you remember the night when the policeman came to our house?” he said. Katie and Spencer both nodded their heads.
“I told you when I left for the hospital that Mommy had been hurt but that she was going to be okay. Do you remember that?”
They nodded their heads, but I was hearing this for the first time.
“But I didn’t know if she was going to be okay,” he said, and his eyes filled with fresh tears, his voice beginning to tremble. “The policeman wouldn’t tell me. I kept asking, ‘Is she okay? Is she okay?’ but he wouldn’t answer me. He kept saying I would need to ask the doctor at the hospital. He wouldn’t answer me.”
Dan wiped his eyes again, and we all did the same.
“So when I got to the hospital, I thought they were going to tell me Mommy was...that she was in heaven,” he continued, acutely aware of Spencer’s wide-eyed stare. “Nobody would tell me anything. So I thought, that’s it. She’s gone. I don’t have my best friend anymore. I don’t have my wife. My kids don’t have their mother.”
I could hardly bear to hear this. I had no idea this had happened to Dan. I felt so bad about all the times I had been short with him the past few months. No wonder he acted and felt the way he did. It was all making sense.
“When the doctor finally came out to talk to me, he didn’t smile. He didn’t look happy. And I was so scared,” Dan said, choking back a sob. “He made me sit down and he wouldn’t say right away if Mommy was still alive. He started telling me where she had been hurt and how badly, and it seemed like a long time before he said she wasn’t dead.”
Dan stopped for a moment and gathered his thoughts. There wasn’t a sound in the room except an occasional snap from the wood in the fireplace and the wind outside.
“So when I think of how scared I was,” he finally said, “and how close I was to losing Mommy, how much I already had begun to miss her, I know I cannot love a baby given to her by a man who hurt her so badly she almost died.”
He was completely spent, and I don’t think he could have uttered another word if he had wanted to.
Katie said nothing, but her face was wet with tears, and she no longer looked angry. Spencer put his arms around me.
The four of us huddled together on the couch for what seemed like hours. The fire dwindled away to nothing, and the swirling wind threw yesterday’s snowfall against the window-panes, but nobody seemed to notice or care.
11
After we told Katie and Spencer about the baby, the circle of those who knew the truth widened further to include my brother Matt, Dan’s parents, his sister Karin, and her husband, Kent.
None of them knew quite what to say to me or to Dan, and since we told them by phone, I couldn’t judge their reactions by their faces. It was silly of me to think this, but I felt like I had brought a sense of disgrace to Dan’s side of the family. I was itching to have the whole thing behind me.
About a week later, Becky came by the house with a big cardboard box. She had gathered maternity clothes for me from women in the church. The clothes had all been freshly washed and ironed and smelled faintly of Downy. I had kept none of my maternity clothes after Dan’s vasectomy and had no desire to shop for new ones. Becky didn’t make a big deal about the clothes, which I was grateful for. She just brought the box in, set it on the floor, and told me when I was done with them, just to give the box back to her and she would get the clothes back to those who owned them.
Later, as we sat in the kitchen enjoying a cup of late-morning coffee, Becky asked me if Dan and I had contacted an adoption agency. She and Nick both knew we weren’t going to keep the baby. I wasn’t thinking much beyond one day at a time. I told her no.
“There’s a couple that some friends of ours know. They’re American missionaries to Ecuador,” Becky said. “From what I hear, they’re wonderful people, Claire. And they’ve never been able to have children.”
I was a little unprepared to have this conversation, so I just sat there playing with the handle of my coffee mug as Becky continued.
“They tried adopting a little girl from Argentina once, but it fell through. They lost a lot of money, and I’m told it broke their hearts. They had wanted that little girl very much. I think they would give this baby a loving home, Claire—just the kind you have been telling me you want for it.”
I took a deep breath. Talking about handing over my child made my head ache and my throat feel funny.
“How do you know they would want this baby?” I asked.
“Because I called them last night,” Becky said simply. “I got their number from my friends in Wisconsin and called them.”
“What? You called them in Ecuador?” I said, laughing a little.
“No, I called them in Duluth. They have family near there and are on furlough for a year. Claire, they want to talk to you and Dan.”
It seemed to be happening way too fast.
“I think it’s a little early for that,” I managed. “A lot could happen in the next month or two.”
“I know,” Becky said, but she was really saying, “But what if nothing goes wrong?”
I took a sip of my coffee. What if nothing did?
“Who are they? What are their names?” I asked.
“Ed and Rosemary Prentiss.”
“They sound old,” I said quickly, hardly thinking.
“They aren’t that much older than us. He just turned forty-five. She’s forty-two. She’s only five years older than you, Claire.”
I didn’t wa
nt to talk about it anymore.
“I’ll think about it.” I finally said.
“Talk to Dan,” she said, picking up her coffee cup and taking it to the sink.
“I will,” I said, but I must not have sounded very convincing.
“It would take a tremendous burden off of you, Claire, knowing there’s a family waiting to raise this child. You wouldn’t have to give it another thought.”
I didn’t know how to tell her that was precisely what troubled me. I was terrified of being expected not to give this child another thought. How could I not give it another thought? How would I ever be able to forget I had borne a child I wasn’t supposed to love and couldn’t hate?
Several days passed before I finally asked Dan about it. I had seen Becky at church and, sure enough, she asked me what Dan had thought. I told her I would ask him that day. When the kids went sledding with some friends in the afternoon, I took advantage of the time alone to tell him.
I should have guessed Dan would think it was a great idea. I knew he didn’t love this child, but I also knew he didn’t want it to suffer or be harmed in any way. He wanted it to have a good home to grow up in. And the little I knew of the Prentisses, he liked.
“Let’s call them up,” he said.
“Can we wait until at least the fifth month is over? They’ve been disappointed before,” I said.
He thought about it and then agreed.
We decided to hold out until the first of March. If there was no change in my condition, then we would get the phone number from Becky and call them.
*
The last two weeks of February passed quietly and without incident. Katie was still moody and quiet, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was due to her own puberty and how much was due to my pregnancy.
She was aloof around me, detached in a way that I recognized as a tool to protect herself from hurt. I imagine that watching my abdomen swell with a baby she would have loved to have welcomed home—but would not be able to—was hard on her. So she kept her distance. I let her and prayed to God that was the right thing to do.
I saw Dr. Whitestone on the last day of February. The ultrasound revealed a growing baby and a placenta that had not budged up or down. It was still low, but not causing any trouble. I was beginning my seventh month; the last trimester.
I knew that when I told Dan this, he would want to call Ed and Rosemary and begin making the legal arrangements. I hated making the call. Not because I didn’t think they would make great parents. For some reason I was sure they would. I just didn’t want to put the wheels in motion. I knew it was the beginning of saying goodbye, and I dreaded it.
Rosemary Prentiss was kind and composed when I called her the next day. It was almost as if she knew I would call her, as if she had been expecting it. She told me she and Ed would love to drive down so we could meet them. She suggested the following Saturday. Dan and I decided to arrange for the kids to spend the day with his parents—they lived an hour away—so that we could talk openly with Ed and Rosemary. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, and we knew the kids loved riding with their grandpa on his snowmobile. An overnight trip to go snowmobiling would be a real treat for them. Spencer didn’t think twice about it, but Katie seemed suspicious that we were purposely getting them out of the house. I hoped she would forget about it. I found out later that she didn’t.
We took them to Red Wing the night before and enjoyed a nice meal with Dan’s family. I couldn’t help but notice that Dan’s mother used her everyday stoneware, not the china she usually used when we were all together for a meal. And there was absolutely no sign of the gravy boat. I wondered what Dan had done with it.
After supper, Katie and her eleven-year-old cousin, Allison— Karin and Kent’s oldest—disappeared into the TV room. Spencer and Jennifer, Allison’s younger sister, followed them, were chased out, and finally ended up with Dan’s dad at the kitchen table playing Chinese checkers.
We said goodbye, and Nina, Dan’s mom, walked out to the van with us. Dan told her the little we knew about Ed and Rosemary.
“They sound like nice people,” Nina said as we hugged goodbye. “I hope they’re the right family. I really do.”
I could only nod and thank her for a wonderful evening.
Dan had asked Ed and Rosemary to meet us at our house at eleven that Saturday, then he wanted us all to go to lunch. I just let him call all the shots. It was easier for me that way.
Our doorbell rang at five to eleven, and I found myself strangely nervous, as if I were the one about to come under inspection. Dan welcomed Ed and Rosemary into the house and brought them into the living room, where I was waiting.
My first impression was not what I had been expecting. They were such charming people, so relaxed and friendly. I guess I had expected them to be anxious and overly eager to please. But they were calm and collected, and it wasn’t but a few minutes that they felt like old friends.
They both bore the marks of people who had spent years in the sun, though six months in Minnesota had caused their South American tans to fade a bit. Rosemary’s long brown hair was French braided at the back and fell past her waist. Strands of gray covered the crown of her head like a tiara. She had an easy smile, the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and delicate hands. She was slim, a little shorter than me, and looked the picture of health. Ed was tall, a little overweight, and nearly bald. But he had a full, silvery-brown beard and sparkling gray eyes. His eyebrows were still very dark, and I imagined that when he was younger, he had been strikingly handsome. He reminded me of Stuart for some reason, and that immediately relaxed me.
After we talked about their drive down, the weather, and Katie and Spence—they were both disappointed the kids weren’t there—Dan decided it was time to talk about the real reason they had driven two and half hours to see us.
“This has been a difficult time for my wife and me,” Dan began. “And we both want this next step to be as painless as possible for everyone. We both want this child to have a home like this one to grow up in, with a mother and father who will love this child.”
“Of course you do,” Rosemary said softly, which Dan drew strength from, I could tell.
“We just want to know this child will grow up wanted,” he continued.
Ed and Rosemary then told us about their work in South America, how they had spent the past twenty years teaching Ecuadorian children to read and write and how to blossom despite difficult circumstances. They also assured us that a child they raised as their own would grow up in a home where God was honored, where love abounded, and where faith was lived out. Hearing this had a soothing effect on me.
Yet I felt Ed and Rosemary should know why Philip Wells had done what he did, that although he was not a madman, he was still a despicable brute who had killed for money. So I told them. I told them a greedy, violent man who had murdered his wife had fathered the baby. It was the first time I had actually said it out loud like that. It made me shudder.
Ed looked down for a moment, and at first I thought he was weighing what I had just said, but he was really weighing how best to say what he would say next.
“Without talking to Mr. Wells, it’s hard to know why he did what he did,” Ed said. “I know it was technically for money, but surely there were other things at work. It takes more than just ordinary greed for a man to do such horrific things.”
He paused for a moment and then continued. “I believe that when God says he can make all things new, that includes people with hearts as dark as Mr. Wells’. I don’t think virtue or the lack of it is hereditary. Actually, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Mr. Wells grew up thinking he wasn’t worth anything, so he sought to prove his worth his own way, a horrible way. On the other hand, a child who is loved without condition and who is sure of his or her incalculable worth has nothing to prove. I don’t know how much genes play a role. I do know how much love does.”
I suddenly felt a tremendous rush of allegiance to the child,
and with it came a powerful compulsion to make certain that this baby—my baby—would be loved unconditionally and lavishly. I also felt the tiniest inkling of disappointment that Dan could not love the child like this—like he loved Katie and Spencer—but I pushed it away because I didn’t like thinking about it. It seemed purposeless to dream about what it might be like to keep this child. I knew it was hopeless. The baby could never be ours. Could never be mine.
We enjoyed a nice lunch later at a restaurant, but I couldn’t concentrate on the small talk. Rosemary sensed this and found little ways to let me know she understood. She would squeeze my hand, or look at me a certain way, and I would know she knew. She knew the mother part of me was already aching.
We had told Ed and Rosemary before leaving for the restaurant that I had miscarried before and that it was possible I might miscarry again. Just talking about that possibility made me uneasy, so I had withdrawn from the conversation. I think Rosemary somehow knew I was no longer fearful that I wouldn’t miscarry, but that I was now fearful I would.
And I loved it. Her.
I loved her.
12
Although Ed and Rosemary had met our every expectation, they insisted we pray about the adoption over the next week. They would do the same. I had no doubt God wanted them to raise my child. I knew Dan felt the same way.
Even after knowing them for only a short while, it was hard to say goodbye that afternoon. Part of me wished for more time just to be with them, and part of me wondered if the next time I saw them would be when I’d be giving them a piece of my very soul. As it turned out, I saw them on two other occasions over the next couple of months.
As we stood in the restaurant parking lot, Dan and Ed began discussing the legal documents that would have to be drawn up. I heard Dan tell Ed he would contact our lawyer and the county courthouse. I turned away. I wanted nothing to do with the logistics of this transaction. Rosemary put her arm around me and steered me away from their conversation.