by John Nelson
Jean gazed into Anna’s eyes and was transfixed for a moment. She looked over at Maggie. “I just had an image of myself in another era, possibly in Italy, with a bevy of young children.” She handed Anna back to her mother. “What’s with this daughter of yours, and her affect on me?” This seemed like a rhetorical question, and so Maggie didn’t answer.
Jean stood up. “We’re late, or I’m late.” She paused for a moment. “I think we’re finished at the office, so I’ll just drive by the south entrance to Route 85 and you can take it from there.” She stepped over and gave Maggie and Anna a sideways hug.
Maggie thought they still had things to sort out, but didn’t say anything. Jean had had a powerful reaction to Anna and her spiritual energies, and it was best that she let the woman sort this out without further stimulation. “Actually, I’m going to drive north on 280 and take the mountain road to Half Moon Bay and head back from there on Route 1. Anna so liked the coast drive up to Monterey; I thought I’d treat her.”
Jean smiled. “My favorite spot in the whole area.” She went inside to retrieve her briefcase, locked up the house, and walked them to their car. “I so enjoyed this, Maggie… and Anna,” she added, holding out her little finger that Anna grabbed. “So, when you’ve made the editorial changes, I’ll have the final manuscript copyedited and email a file for you to go over.”
“And the covers Barry was mocking up?”
“Oh, that’s right. Well, maybe…”
“Jean, just email me jpegs and I’ll give you my feedback.” Jean appeared discombobulated by this oversight, but got in her car without further word and waited for Maggie to back out of the driveway, and on the street she pulled around her and they drove off together.
The drive over the mountains and then down the coast from Half Moon Bay was spectacular, and Anna stayed awake all the way to Monterey. While Maggie stared at the ocean out the window, she thought about how much her daughter’s energies affected people and that she needed to be more cognizant of this influence. She must have a very strong aura, Maggie thought, and as she grew older would need to pull it in closer to her body when they were out in public. She would take this up with her once they established a communication.
Chapter 5
Maggie had kept her teacher’s health insurance and paid the premiums after her dismissal, and so she could follow up with her pediatrician about Anna’s supposed nervous disorder. At Anna’s six-month checkup with Dr. Martin, she expressed her concerns.
“What signs did you note?”
“Well, sometimes she closes her eyes and just shakes, and you can see her eyes moving behind her eyelids as if she were in REM.”
“Infants do spend eighty percent of their sleep in REM.”
“But she’s fully awake when this occurs,” Maggie added.
“How long do these episodes last?”
“They vary, often just a few minutes, but they seem to be getting longer and I’m concerned.”
“Well, cerebral palsy, or CP, is usually caused by prenatal brain damage, and since this was a home birth, let’s be cautious.” He paused a moment and looked at Anna. “Have you noticed any muscle control or coordination problems?” he asked.
“No, nothing like that. She seems perfectly normal and healthy, outside of these episodes.”
“Well, let me test her reflexes and coordination, and check her posture, which are early symptoms.”
Dr. Martin ran a few simple tests that Maggie observed, which all resulted in normal healthy responses. “There’s nothing that I can detect. If these ‘episodes’ continue, I can refer you to a neurologist and they can do an MRI, but I wouldn’t suggest doing that yet. Let’s just keep a close eye on her development. A CP diagnosis is rarely done before two years of age.”
“Okay. Believe me, last thing I want is to expose her to any invasive technology, but her welfare is my prime consideration.”
It occurred to Maggie in the weeks ahead, as she observed her baby’s gentle swaying motion during these episodes, that there might be a spiritual explanation for them—Ma hi’ Ma’s trance states were an example of that. She didn’t want to ask Guru, so she read biographies of several Hindu and Buddhist saints and was particularly heartened by reading about the ecstatic trance states of Ramakrishna and more recently Anandamayi Ma who passed in 1982. She ordered a book about the life of this famed Hindu saint replete with photos of her as a young girl in samadhi, and wondered if her daughter as an infant was experiencing euphoric states similar to hers. This was an exciting as well as a daunting prospect. She doubted that kindergarten class would allow ecstatic-trance breaks for the highly evolved. It occurred to Maggie that she might have to homeschool Anna, and while that consideration was years away, she would check out the state requirements and see if she needed to get a broader teaching certificate to qualify.
Maggie and Jean had decided on a cover for Lisa’s Lifelines, and advance galleys were sent out that summer. Jean was overjoyed by the response and was assured of stellar reviews, but what was equally encouraging were the advance orders from Barnes and Noble, the last big national bookstore chain, and from a slew of independent bookstores specializing in children’s books. Jean had talked to Maggie about her publicity obligations, but she didn’t realize that in the fall it would require her to do a book tour starting in Northern California and then flying to several major cities around the country. This presented a problem. Could she take her then ten-month-old infant with her? Jean assured her that the tour would be much too tasking to bring Anna. Maggie realized that the only alternative was to allow her parents to take care of her for the two-week sprint in late October. While her parents had visited her twice since her daughter’s birth, Maggie decided to spend a weekend with them in early August to test the waters, as it were, before asking them to watch her while she toured.
The occasion or excuse was the galley release of her book. Maggie figured if the visit turned into a disaster, she would have plenty of time to figure out an alternative plan, like hiring a nanny to travel with them and stay with Anna in hotel rooms for media events, or sit with her at bookstore signings. Grace was thrilled by the proposed visit and her father, who had published a half-dozen books in his field, was eager to welcome another author into the family. He did insist she return on the book’s publication for a signing at Chaucer’s Bookstore, where he himself had had several signings and which had a large children’s department. She copied the email to Jean, who said her publicity gal would set it up. Maggie had a galley sent directly to her parents from the publisher. Her mother immediately responded; she loved the artwork and the story was “very imaginative.” Her father, an academic, was less enthusiastic, or so she assumed since he didn’t respond.
Maggie had been gradually introducing solid food into Anna’s diet at six months while continuing to breastfeed her; she would do both until Anna was ready to handle a strictly solid-food diet. She bought both vegan and regular baby food, and discovered that Anna definitely preferred the vegan brand. Maggie found a vegan soya milk formula that she seemed to like, and her mother could bottle-feed her while she was away, interspersed with meals of baby food. She was concerned that her father as a meat eater might try to interfere and insist that her daughter be introduced to meat or diary, which was the only source of complete protein. Again, one of the reasons for this visit was to test their resistance to the established order of Anna’s life and Maggie’s preferences. If her daughter wanted to eat meat, it would be fine with her, but at this point she wouldn’t even take formula made with cow’s milk, so she figured that Ma hi’ Ma’s injunction was prescient in this regard.
The appointed time for the visit arrived, and Maggie placed Anna in her infant car seat and put her stroller and a supply of vegan formula and baby food in the trunk. She drove down Highway 101, which was an inland road until it merged with Route 1 on the coast just north of Santa Barbara, much to Anna’s delight. Her parents actually lived in Goleta where the university was located
but only a few miles from the city proper. It was Saturday, which she chose since her father would be home for the weekend. She drove up to their ranch-style house with its blue-shingled exterior in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, and her parents came out to greet them. Grace unhooked Anna from the car seat and lifted her up into her arms.
“I fixed your old room up with a crib.”
Maggie looked at her in amazement as she was unloading their bags from the trunk. “You don’t still have ours?”
“Dear me, no. A young couple on the block lent us theirs. Her son has outgrown it.”
“Here, let me help you,” her father said, as she handed him the luggage bags. Maggie removed a small box of baby food jars. “What’s that?”
“It’s Anna’s vegan baby food.” He rolled his eyes. “Okay, Dad. Let’s not make this an issue.” He shook his head, swung the bags over his shoulder and hand-carried the box into the house.
“He promised me, but you know your father,” Grace said, then added, “A box? You’re just staying for the weekend, right?”
“Thought I might store some here for future visits.”
Grace nodded her head, and they walked through the house to the patio, its table and chairs under an umbrella cover, with a spectacular view of the mountains. Maggie breastfed Anna while her mother updated her on their life and what was happening with her sister Jill, who was having a rough patch with her husband.
“Well, I don’t know how partners can get along with each other without a spiritual foundation to their relationship; in time it all comes down to ego battles,” Maggie added.
Her mother sighed deeply. “It does take perseverance.” She smiled. “Speaking of which, have you informed Anna’s father about her birth?”
“I got a postcard from him asking how I was doing. Since I never gave him my address, I’m sure word got back to him along with my contact info through the yogi grapevine, and while he asked about the baby, I didn’t reply.” Actually Maggie had wondered if Ma hi’ Ma hadn’t initiated this contact hoping to use Thomas to make a claim on Anna, since she had not been in touch with her guru since last Christmas. If this was the only reason for his outreach, she was rather perturbed by his late weakhearted inquiry. Fortunately, she had not taken her father’s advice to name him on the birth certificate as the father. Of course he could at some point insist on a DNA paternity test, but she sensed that Thomas would not force the issue or be so easily manipulated.
“Don’t you think he has a right to know that he’s the father?” Grace asked.
“A one-night stand with no follow-up until a year and a half later doesn’t in my mind give him any rights.”
Suddenly Anna gummed her breast rather hard. Maggie glanced down at her daughter and wondered if this was a response to her exclusion of Thomas in their life, a reaction that was a bit unnerving.
“He may feel differently.”
“Well, he has our address and can come calling if he likes, and I’ll take it from there.”
Grace nodded her head. This was about as cooperative as she could hope on this issue from her willful daughter. “Well, Anna must be tired, or maybe both of you. You may want to take a nap before the afternoon barbecue?” Maggie gave her mother a questioning look. “Your father wants to show off his granddaughter to his friends and neighbors.”
Maggie was about to object but realized that she couldn’t control everything in regard to her daughter’s exposure to the outside world and would just have to allow the “isness” of life to bring what it will to their doorstep. “Yeah, I think I’ll put Anna down, and lie down myself.”
The lawn party was much as she had expected, about twenty people and a half-dozen children who ran about but mostly played in the pool. Maggie had dressed Anna in her best white outfit with a small sunbonnet, and she seemed to be delighted with all the attention and activity. Since there were no inquires about a husband or the child’s father, Maggie assumed that her mother had passed the word that the subject was verboten. The only real dispute was her not allowing others to hold her daughter, as much for their sake as Anna’s, and so she put the baby in the stroller and let her parents’ friends squat down to engage her or wheel her around the yard.
Sitting down at a table drinking a glass of iced tea and picking at the grilled vegetables her father had prepared for her, Maggie talked with a neighbor who had an eleven-month-old baby boy.
“Anna has the most pleasant disposition. Does she ever cry or carry on?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. She seems content about whatever happens around her. I even have to watch her feeding schedule, because she never cries when hungry.”
“Boy, are you lucky. My Andrew is a real terror and won’t give either of us a moment’s rest.” She noticed that they had not brought the baby to the outing. The woman answered Maggie’s questioning look. “His grandmother has him for the afternoon. I didn’t want to inflict him on others.” She thought, with that kind of attitude, no wonder he’s an angry child.
Later on, while holding Anna and just watching everybody, Maggie could tell that this was about as quiet and laidback a gathering of her parents’ friends as she could imagine. She remembered such parties growing up in which this was not always the case. Finally her mother came over and sat down next to them.
“Everybody seems to be on their best behavior today, and we’re going to have plenty of beer left over. It’s must be Anna; she seems so genteel that they don’t want to disturb her equanimity.”
Maggie smiled, but said nothing.
Chapter 6
On Sunday morning Maggie had placed Anna on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor while she read the newspaper. Grace walked in with a cup of coffee and sat down in a chair and watched her granddaughter sitting there ignoring the baby toys they had bought for her visit, just being happy and content. After a while Anna began to sway her head and seemed to shiver. Immediately Grace stood up to retrieve a small baby blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Anna soon fluffed it off as her grandmother sat there and stared at the child.
“Maggie, if she’s not cold, what is she doing?”
She put down the paper and watched Anna for a long moment. “Yeah, I noticed that myself and thought she may have cerebral palsy, but Dr. Martin checked her out and said she was perfectly normal.”
“Then, what is it?” she asked with concern.
Mark came into the room and plopped down next to Maggie on the sofa and picked up the front section of the Sunday paper. Noticing his wife and daughter watching the baby, he turned his attention to her.
“What’s going on with her? Is she cold or something?” Mark asked.
Maggie had been reluctant to share her speculation about Anna’s ecstatic states with her parents, but didn’t know any other option or any cogent white lie that would suffice. “My erstwhile guru Ma hi’ Ma claims Anna is an advanced soul, and I figure it’s some kind of ecstatic state.”
Her father laughed. “You mean like Indian yogis?”
She turned to him and replied in a straightforward, serious tone. “Yes. I did some research and this is not unusual for spiritually precocious children.”
Mark shook his head. “You’ve been hanging out with the New Agers for too long. You need to get the baby checked out.”
“As I told mom, I had her pediatrician examine Anna and he found her perfectly healthy.”
“Well, if you think that’s healthy behavior, both of you need to have your heads examined,” he said in a huff, then stood up and charged out of the room.
Grace was pained by her husband’s reaction. “Please, forgive your father. He always looks for rational explanations.”
“I know, Mom. I grew up in this household.” Maggie smiled at her mother and went back to reading the newspaper, but she decided to take Anna with her on the book tour, and just hoped the money would be available for her to hire a nanny to travel with them.
Her publisher was not at all pleased with Maggi
e’s decision, but she was adamant and would not leave Anna with anybody else. Since the schedule was already fixed, there was nothing Jean could do but go along with her stubborn author.
“You know I can’t afford to send anybody along with you, or pay for other accommodations,” she had told Maggie on the phone.
“I understand. I’m hiring a nanny to come with us, and she’ll just stay in the same room.”
“Well, at least I can get Betty to change the room reservations to double occupancies, and since infants fly for free, I’ll just have her book a second adult, but you’ll have to reimburse us.”
“That’s fine.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. The advance sales on the book were quite good, and Jean wanted to be reasonable. “Look, I’ll take the added expense out of your first royalty check.”
“Jean, that’s very kind of you,” she said, especially since the book would have to earn back its advance before a royalty was due.
Maggie spread the word in the community that she was inquiring about a nanny to accompany her and Anna on a book tour. Her midwife, Megan Fairchild, called and said she’d love to go along with them. They worked out a fair compensation rate for her time. Megan had gotten the schedule first and asked if she could visit her parents in Chicago on the stop there, and agreed that this stopover would be part of the payment. As the date approached, Maggie received the ashram’s fall newsletter and found that her children’s book was featured along with her tour schedule, with Ma hi’ Ma personally requesting devotees across the country to show up at the signings and buy a book.
And then the first box of books arrived at her apartment, and Maggie tore into it to retrieve her copy. The color printing was exquisite from the covers to the illustrations, and she couldn’t be more pleased with it. Like most first-time authors, she felt a certain amount of validation, and not only for herself but for her spiritually precocious child. She was making a subtle statement about Anna’s connection to the greater whole of life, and would see how the book’s surrogate main character was received. Maggie immediately sat Anna on her lap and read the book to her. Maybe it was just her imagination, but the baby seemed delighted with the story as it unfolded and appeared to wave her hands at the appropriate times. This was a bit more cognizance than Maggie had anticipated, and had to wonder about the true nature of her child’s development and what lay in store for them in the future.