A Mother's Goodbye

Prologue

Morning light slants through the hospital window as slowly I come through the door of the nursery, my body aching with both fatigue and fear. My heart is beating in a painful staccato as I approach the plastic bassinet. I am swathed in scrubs and latex, due to the possibility of infection, but my arms ache with the need to reach and hold, and then to never let go. But I can’t; I know I can’t.

A nurse smiles at me sympathetically and gestures to the bassinet, as if granting me permission to approach, or perhaps simply pointing out the right baby. But of course I know you, my child.

My child. The words buoy me inside as if I am filled with lightness, with air, so I feel as if I am floating. My child. How could I not know it? How could I not feel it? It inhabits every fiber of my being, every cell. I pulse with the knowledge, the fragile joy. Incredulously, I smile.

And there you are – small, so small, swathed in a white flannel blanket, a tuft of light brown hair under a little knitted cap, your fists by your face like flowers, your lips pursed like a tiny rosebud, cheeks soft and round. Perfect. I know every mother thinks the same, of course she does, but no one feels it like me. No one.

I stand in front of your bassinet, battling both tears and euphoria, because it’s too soon to feel this way, or maybe it’s too late. I reach out one hand and rest it on the plastic crib, longing to touch your soft, pink skin, your round cheek, already knowing how smooth it will feel. I love you. I will do anything for you.

I didn’t expect to feel it so strongly, flooding me with both need and purpose. I’d separated myself somehow, over the last few harrowing months, because I had to. Because it felt safer and stronger, a necessary element of this whole torturous process, to keep myself a little bit distant. But now…

Now everything has changed. Everything. I lean forward, willing your tiny eyes with their sparse, golden lashes to open. To see me for myself, a mother.

And then they do, and I fall into their deep blue depths. I fall and fall, everything in me swelling with love as my heart starts to break.

Part One

One

HEATHER

Six months earlier

‘Kev… I’m pregnant.’

Maybe I shouldn’t have said it like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it at all. But it’s his problem too. And I know that’s what it is – a problem. As much as I wish it was something else, something that it should be. A surprise, a blessing, a miracle. The normal things. The right ones.

‘What?’ Kevin stares at me blankly, slumped in the La-z-Boy with the threadbare arms and the stuffing come out of the bottom. I hate that thing. Especially since Kev’s been sitting in it for the last three years.

I know it’s not his fault. It was an accident. Hurting his back at work and now this baby. Two problems, two accidents that have torpedoed our little lives, exploding right into the middle of them so everything feels wrecked.

‘Do you mind if I turn off the TV?’ I reach for the remote resting on the arm of the chair. Kev grabs it instinctively, and I fold my arms and wait. He hesitates, and then, with a big drawn-out sigh, he puts the TV on mute.

Now maybe we can finally have a conversation, except I don’t know what to say besides what I already have. Kev’s gaze keeps flicking toward the screen. Doesn’t he realize how important this is? We’re going to have a baby. Another one.

‘How can you be pregnant?’ he finally demands. This probably wasn’t the best time to talk, at the end of a long, pain-filled day, one spent in front of the TV, and then a tense phone call from the union lawyer. There’s a hearing coming up but Kev didn’t tell me about the call. I just heard his low voice, like a growl, and I knew it couldn’t be great news.

But I think I’m at least twelve weeks along and we need to talk. I hadn’t paid attention to the signs that now suddenly seem obvious. The sore breasts, the tiredness, the nausea, the nasty taste in my mouth. I told myself it was the usual PMS, but this morning I looked in the mirror and saw my thickened waist, my rounded belly, and realization clanged through me, an almighty alarm bell. I had to tell Kevin.

It had to be when the girls were in bed, because the last thing I need is Lucy demanding in her high, piping voice what I’m talking about, or Amy triumphantly informing her how babies are made – something she learned on the playground a few weeks ago – in terms I would never use or want her to hear. I also needed to tell Kev before he took his pain meds, since he’s out for the count about twenty minutes after he pops them. Although maybe this conversation won’t even take twenty minutes. What else is there to say?

‘I think you know how it happened. The usual way.’ I slump onto the sofa, too tired to stay on my feet. Last night I worked the night shift, cleaning an office building in Newark until three in the morning, and then grabbing a few hours of sleep before getting up for the girls, seeing them off to school through a haze of exhaustion. The thought of another baby, another need, makes everything in me churn with fear because I don’t know how I can do it.

This is the thought that keeps blaring through me like a car horn, palm flat on it, since I finally acknowledged to myself that I was pregnant: I can’t have this baby. We can’t afford it, not the space, not the time, and of course not the money. I need to start work full-time; that was the plan when Lucy went to kindergarten. We can’t make it without that money. I can’t have this baby. But I can’t see any way not to.

‘But…’ Kev narrows his eyes. His hair is rumpled, his face unshaven. He doesn’t see the point any more, and I understand why. He’s been out of work for two years and nine months. Lucy doesn’t even remember when Daddy had a job. When life was normal, when the electricity didn’t get

cut off on a regular basis, when my bank card didn’t get rejected at Stop & Shop and I fumbled through an excuse about changed pins while the cashier looked on in either pity or impatience. When Kevin wasn’t sprawled in that chair every hour of the day, staring bleary-eyed at the TV, the life sucked out of him. This is Lucy’s normal, and I hate that.

As for a baby… ‘It’s not like we do it that often,’ Kevin grumbles, and I don’t know whether to laugh or groan. What is this, a tenth grade sex-ed lesson? Or did he miss that, because we were busy cutting classes and making out behind the storage sheds; two shy quiet kids who broke the rules for each other? And look how that went. Pregnant at seventeen, Kev a year older, married three months later, happy for a while, and here we are.

I remember those hungry, hopeful kisses, pressed up against the concrete block of the shed wall, my hands fisted in Kev’s shirt. Feeling so excited, so happy, like anything was possible as long as I had him. I’d never had a boyfriend before Kev. I’d drifted through high school, keeping my head down, trying not to get noticed, and he was the same. We lit each other up, like we had candles inside. Fireworks. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that, all fizzy inside. It was a long, long time ago.

‘It only takes one time, Kev,’ I say, trying for a smile. ‘Remember?’ Emma was a one-time baby, both of us too shy and uncertain to attempt the mess of it again until we were married. We fumbled through everything, a hurried half hour in Kev’s basement, zippers sticking, noses bumping, soft laughter in the dark, embarrassment rushing through us along with the dizzying lust.

As for more recently… not so different, really. A drunken fumble on the sofa, wanting to feel just a little bit of that connection again. And now this.

‘Yeah, I know, but…’ Kev shakes his head again, making me think of a sleepy bear. One who’s thinking about getting angry. Because since the accident, I never know when Kevin is going to get angry. He can be so sweet sometimes, playing Guess Who or Connect Four with Amy, listening to Emma read her silly pony books, slipping his arm around my waist, surprising me.

Then all of a sudden he’ll lash out, pushing the book or game away, demanding dark and quiet, which usually means beer and TV and sometimes cigarettes, the smoke snaking through the rooms of our little house, staining the ceiling.

I try to be patient. I do. I take deep breaths, I keep my voice mild, I let it all roll over me. But this? A baby? This is meant to be our problem, even though I hate that it’s a problem in the first place. It’s a baby. Our baby, already curled up inside me, heart beating hard. I’m not seventeen anymore, tearful and uncertain, except that’s how I feel a little bit, inside. Like I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, or if Kev’s going to be there for me. For us. For this baby.