The Mothers: A Novel

by Jennifer Gilmore

  I went to the island by our dollhouse kitchen and poured her coffee in the china cups I’d set out. Once they had been my grandmother’s. “Would you like some banana bread?” I unsheathed it from the tinfoil and Saran wrap I’d swaddled it in last night so it would retain its freshness. I wished I’d had the wherewithal to bake that morning so that now the smell of sugar and cinnamon—the smell of motherhood—would permeate the room, warming it on this rainy early-spring day.

  She shook her head and looked up. “Just coffee.”

  My heart fell. I looked at Ramon, who had not moved from his position in front of the mantel, but was now starting to shift his limbs, as if his batteries had warmed up.

  “None for me,” he said. “Not now.” Ramon looked at me and shrugged.

  “We got your application, and I’ve read it, and you seem like such wonderful people.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Ramon said.

  “This is really a time for me to get to know you.” We all leaned in around the table. “It should not be stressful at all. I’ll just go over the forms—the employment history, your family information, the autobiography—and this will serve as a starting point for our discussion. Then I will quickly look around the place so I can draw a map of it for your home study document. We do not go through your drawers or open closets. It’s really just to see how you live and if it would be appropriate for a child.”

  “Great,” Ramon and I said.

  He reached for my hand, and I took it.

  Lydia saw this and smiled. “I am an advocate for you,” she said. “I just want to get it all right. I hope you can see it this way.”

  _______

  Over the course of four hours we discussed our lives with Lydia. We went over it all again. What our parents did and didn’t do, what they wanted for us and what they got and did not get for us. We discussed our jobs and why we wanted to adopt. How we came to adoption. It was an enjoyable conversation, talking about our lives together. It felt natural, helpful even.

  Until the word came up.

  “Let me just ask you about the cancer. It’s a word that frightens many people.”

  I laughed. “With good reason,” I said. “As it says on my physical forms, I have been cancer-free for almost fifteen years.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Lydia sipped her coffee from my grandmother’s teacup.

  “Would you like some banana bread now?” I asked. I had also bought a very beautiful hand-churned local farm butter at the farmer’s market over the weekend, which I’d hoped to put out with an olive-wood knife I’d purchased in Italy several years before, made solely for the purpose of spreading soft butter.

  She shook her head and continued on.

  “Ramon?” I asked.

  He also shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  I could not believe the betrayal.

  “Now, to religion,” Lydia said. “I understand that, Jessica, you’re from a Jewish family, and you’re from a Christian background, Ramon. What are your plans for raising children?”

  “We’re not religious,” Ramon told her.

  I imagined Paola, stealing our child away in the middle of the night to be baptized in the church where I’d seen Ramon’s cousins’ children, held up to the golden icons, dripping in oil. “But we plan to expose our child to both traditions.” I cleared my throat. I knew I had interrupted.

  “We did meet in a church though,” Ramon said, turning to me.

  “Well, yes, but I was just visiting one. As a tourist, I mean.”

  Lydia nodded, her pencil on her yellow pad moving with comic speed.

  “My father loves Christmas,” I offered.

  Lydia cocked her head at me.

  I shrugged. “I know. But he does. And, as Ramon’s mother is so far away, we spend Christmas with my family. Chrismakah, we call it.”

  She nodded at the paper and continued to write.

  Ramon shot me a sideways look. Was that wrong? I thought. Did that somehow dilute both religions? Was it disrespectful? I thought of my father setting poinsettias along the fireplace and hanging mistletoe. Who’s going to kiss me? he’d scream, and Lucy and I would squeal away as my mother ran to stand beneath it, exaggeratedly puckering her lips.

  “It’s nice to make your own family traditions,” I continued. “We went to temple at the high holidays too, of course, but I hope Ramon and I can find creative ways to integrate our upbringings, both religiously and culturally.”

  “Yes,” Ramon said. “My mother took us to church, and I have that religious training, if you will, but I plan to be less rigid about this.”

  Lydia looked up at Ramon and smiled encouragingly. Every time my husband spoke he got some kind of golden star.

  “You talk a good deal about your mother, Ramon.” She leafed through her papers. “And I see your father lives in Indonesia. What is your relationship with him like? And yours?” She turned to me.

  Cancer, religion, and now Ramon’s father. We are going to fail the home study! I thought. Do not panic, I thought. Do. Not.

  “My father married another woman, a local, and he stayed there. Because he sort of left the family, we don’t have a lot of contact with him. Just e-mail and the occasional phone call.”

  “When did this happen? Do you have stepsiblings?”

  “About twelve years ago. And no,” Ramon said. “I remain an only child.”

  That word. Only. Lonely.

  “Have you met Ramon’s father?” Lydia asked me.

  I shook my head. “No.” I said. “Unfortunately I have not.”

  “Look,” Lydia said, and as she did so I realized that it is the social worker’s practice to offer comfort. Not to judge, but to understand. Even though Lydia was not, for some reason, eating my banana bread—was this some kind of a mandate? Do not eat the food of the people in the homes you visit?—she was not being critical. In fact I found her encouraging. Or, I thought, watching her search for the right words, perhaps this is a trick! It’s a scheme to suck us in, allow us to reveal our lives openly and honestly, and then, because we are so clearly insane, revoke our rights to a child. “Families are very complicated. We all understand this.”

  I nodded. But Ramon Sr.’s story disarmed me: someone who could just walk away like that, and not look back. Is that passed on from father to son? And how does that get passed on? Nature or nurture? Perhaps Ramon too would one day just bolt.

  Ramon looked down at his hands.

  “Let’s talk about your choice of child. Is this correct, you are requesting the placement of a healthy infant of either gender, aged zero to six months, of Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American, or Middle Eastern descent, or of any combination of Caucasian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian, Pacific Islander, East Indian, African-American, or Native American descents?”

  It was dizzying. “Yes,” I said.

  “Now, am I correct that you also prefer the placement of a healthy child?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You might want to consider a child with special needs,” Lydia said. “You will get a child more quickly, if you are as open as you can be.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t mean to interrupt you, but we are not equipped to raise a child with special needs. We just are not.”

  We were not here to save the world. Unfortunately we were only here to save ourselves.

  Lydia bobbed her head as she wrote. “Well, it’s something to think about. I do see that you are open to a child with a family history of mild mental illness, and a child whose birthmother has used alcohol or other substances in the first trimester of her pregnancy.”

  Ramon looked at me. I had not yet mentioned how I had gone up after the meeting all those months ago and changed the form, another deception.

  I nodded. “We were told that even if a birthmother had gone to counseling just once, about being pregnant even, this would constitute mild mental illness, and if we didn’t check ‘mild mental illness’ we woul
d be precluded from that child. And that even if she had a beer, say, before she knew she was pregnant, this would constitute drinking in the first trimester, according to our agency’s criteria. So.”

  Ramon sat back and crossed his arms. I willed him to be silent.

  “This is correct,” Lydia said. “I think you are making the right decision. You can always say no to a situation. And I can send you some reports we’ve been gathering—drugs are a lot less detrimental to a fetus than alcohol. Heroin does not enter the placenta. Smoking cigarettes is the worst,” she said.

  Ramon closed his eyes for a moment longer than a blink. I admit I did not care what he was thinking.

  “Great!” Lydia said, both hands gripping the glass table. “So. Do you mind if I have a look around?”

  _______

  Lydia made her way—tentatively and yet with authority—into the kitchen and along the living room and dining room, and then, as if to acknowledge the terrible awkwardness of the situation, she walked quickly through our bedroom. My closet/office was last.

  “This will be the baby’s room?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, “we’re not sure. I work in there now. For the first year we thought we’d have the baby in the bedroom with us.”

  “Babies come with a lot of stuff. You’ll be a lot happier if you make that the baby’s room,” she said. “It’s not a requirement, but I’m telling you, I don’t see how else you’ll do it.”

  Where will I go? I thought. Where will I work? “That makes sense,” I said. “I have an office at school.” I would never work there. I had tried it recently, when Ramon started working in the dining room. But the glare of the lights, and my colleagues with their student meetings, their phone calls, their typing—I found it impossible to concentrate.

  “Okay!” Lydia said when she was done. It took her a grand total of three minutes to get through the rooms of our estate. She sat down again and began to draw a crude map of our apartment. “We work with your agency a lot. They are always so confused by New York apartments. I have to explain how not having a baby’s room, say, or a playroom, is typical of all New Yorkers.”

  Ramon looked at her blueprint of our apartment. He cocked his head as she moved her pencil and I know what he was thinking: Why didn’t I become an architect?

  “Thanks so much for sharing your life with me this morning.” Lydia glanced outside onto our fire escape. It was still raining in great sheets. “Ugh,” she said.

  “Wait! Let me give you some banana bread for the road.” I got up and cut a hunk off and wrapped it in wax paper. Then I put it in a sandwich bag, which I sealed tight. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.” I handed the package to her.

  “Yes.” Ramon stood. “Really. And when can we expect to get the home study document? I imagine you are busy and these take a while to write up.”

  “Too true,” Lydia said. “But I understand that time is passing. I know everyone’s anxious to get their profiles up and running and available. I should have this in a few weeks, maximum. I’ll do my best to get it to you sooner.”

  I turned to get her raincoat and heard a squeal.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Lydia said.

  Harriet went cowering into a corner, and Ramon headed over to pet her.

  “I didn’t see her,” Lydia said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “She can get underfoot.”

  Lydia stuffed the banana bread into her bag and went to leave.

  “Let me walk you out,” Ramon said, opening the door.

  I heard Ramon chatting easily with Lydia as he sent her out into the rain. Would she throw my banana bread away, or would she eat it, enjoy it even, back at the office? Would it be moist and sweet and delicious? Would it change everything?

  Seeing Lydia made me think, as I often had, about Lisa. Whether she and that hideous Danny were fostering a child now, and if they were, would they be able to keep the child. Forever. I could not bear to picture gaunt, timorous Lisa, her hands marked by the attenuated, welt-like bones of her fingers, gripped tight around a steering wheel, driving her child back to social services. Honestly, I could not.

  I wondered what happened to many of those people whom we’d talked with up in White Plains. I was curious about the ones in Raleigh, too. Unless we scanned the couples on the agency’s site, constantly watching for who had been matched—an activity I could not do for the stress it caused me—we had no news of anyone but Anita and Paula.

  I am moving closer to you, I thought. And then Harriet walked over, wagging her tail. “Pea,” I said. “Poor Pea.” Mutterly love, I thought, kissing her and receiving several licks in return. I remembered bringing Harriet home from the vet after she’d been spayed; her belly was shaved, and stitches bisected her abdomen, not unlike my own.

  Dogs could be enough, I thought as Ramon came back in, shutting the door quietly behind him. I imagined, not for the first or second or third time, giving up this ridiculous idea of New York City, the hum of the fluorescent light in my shared office, the apartment that affords such gifts as roaches, belly-up, when it rains, the scratch and shit of mice when the weather is cool and dry. I saw hills and grass and a backyard filled with dogs. But I could not picture children playing there.

  “Weren’t we going to start with the best-case scenario? Mental illness?” he said. “Drugs and alcohol use?”

  I rubbed Harriet’s ears and stood up. I turned to face my husband. Dogs running free and wild in my own backyard. They jumped out of the hair-filled car, leapt with joy from it, when we went for weekend hikes. The seasons were changing. “Yes,” I said, crossing my arms. Suddenly none of this felt like it was Ramon’s choice to make. “Bring it on.”

  17

  __

  Just after classes ended in mid-May, and before our annual trip to Italy, our home study was approved. The letter stated: We are very pleased to recommend Ms. Weintraub and Mr. Aragon as adoptive parents and believe that any child placed with them would receive the benefits of a stable and loving home life. They meet the standards of this agency and the preadoption requirements of the State of New York to be adoptive parents.

  On a Post-it attached to the document, Lydia wrote: The banana bread was delicious!

  It could have been what did it, I thought, tearing the note from the document. My banana bread.

  _______

  In Terracina, just as we were recovering from the jet lag that made us sleep too late, waking up groggy, dehydrated, and hungry, I grimly turned thirty-nine.

  The day was not unusual for us. We stepped into the kitchen, where our fresh-squeezed orange juice awaited us, the tops of our glasses covered in tinfoil to keep out bugs and germs and microbes. As I removed this protective cap, the story of the agony of the oranges began. They had to be picked from the trees; they had to be hand pressed; it was not easy, not at Paola’s age. Look! These calluses from so much work. Then there were the farm eggs fried in olive oil and topped with a farmer’s cheese, served with fresh bread, each with its own tale of woe in how far the special bakery only the locals knew of was from Paola’s house, and how the eggs from the farmers are very special, practically gold. Liquid gold, I thought, as I pierced the bright orange yoke, and I agreed then that these were special eggs, very very special eggs indeed.

  Ramon and Paola fought as usual on my birthday. Today Paola wanted her blood pressure taken at the special pharmacy, where her friend worked, before 10 A.M.—10 A.M. was the cutoff—and Ramon did not want to make that trip, not that morning. I finished my breakfast—delicious, yes, but what’s the point of it when there is no talking, no discussion, no conversation while consuming it?—and made my way out of the kitchen.

  I could still hear Paola screaming in Italian, accusing Ramon, even I could tell, of trying to kill her, of wanting her to die so that he could inherit all this—there was silence as I imagined her arm sweeping over her small kitchen. He was refusing to help her with her blood pressure before the designated deadline so tha
t he could also inherit her art, her mahogany furniture, and the two sets of ivory tusks, illegally bought and sent here from West Africa, now wrapped and stacked in the basement. You want all this because your job is no good! she said in English. Why did you not become an architect? Why oh why, Paola began to wail, and I heard Ramon thump the table with his hand and tell her: Mama! Ho già abbastanza preoccupazioni. Enough is enough. This, I understood.

  In the bedroom, I gathered up my purse, my laptop, and my book on why there would never be women artists, an anthology from the seventies I was using to write a new paper for a conference in early fall. Still we slept across from Paola’s bedroom and her altar to the past, her rosaries laid out like clothes for a child, her candles floating in oil, and her incense sticks, for spells. I changed into a skirt, because God forbid I go to town looking like the American strumpet I so clearly was and had been accused of being by Paola on more than one occasion when I left, in the stifling midday heat, in shorts. Even though many Italians wore shorts and jeans in the village, I paid heed.

  I headed down the marble stairs to the gate, creaking it open, and then out—free!—onto the dirt road and then the paved one that led into town, to the café at which I had been sitting summer morning after summer morning since I’d met Ramon, where I could read a Herald-Tribune, check my e-mail, and, today, look at how many people had wished me well. I took a seat at an outside table that looked out onto the ancient piazza still waking, light illuminating the old stones, famous for having been taken from the Roman Forum. My parents, in their usual effusive way, screamed happy birthday out of my computer. They sent off-center, low resolution, barely readable photos of Harriet. And, despite the early hour in the States, several friends had already sent notes.

  Also in this mix was an e-mail from a friend who regularly fostered dogs. Every week she housed what seemed like at least fifteen of them in her Upper West side Apartment, and she spent much of her waking life trying to find these animals good homes. Today she sent an image of a collie-spaniel mix, just to me. A sibling for Madame Harriet? she wrote.