A Mother's Goodbye

After several taut seconds Amy wrenches open her door and slouches out of her room, her expression managing to be both indifferent and defiant. ‘What?’

I stare at her face. ‘Were you wearing that much make-up at school?’ Because she definitely wasn’t when she left for school this morning.

Amy just shrugs. She’s wearing heavy pancake foundation and thick dark eyeliner, blood-red lipstick. She looks like a slutty vampire.

‘You know you’re not allowed to wear that much make-up,’ I say, although I don’t know why I bother. Amy won’t bother replying, and what am I going to do about it? I ball my fists. ‘Don’t call your sister names, especially swear words.’

Amy flicks a scornful glance at Lucy and folds her arms, still saying nothing. Silence is her best weapon, and suddenly it enrages me.

‘You speak respectfully,’ I shriek, and for once I get a response. Amy’s eyes widen a fraction and her lip curls.

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Why did you call Lucy such a rude name?’ Except that isn’t the question I wanted to ask, because it doesn’t matter why. There’s no reason good enough.

‘Because she’s so annoying.’

Lucy lets out a little shriek of protest and fury floods through me again. ‘Amy! You can’t – you can’t say things like that.’

Amy arches an eyebrow that is too dark and sculpted to look remotely real. Where does she get all this make-up, anyway? She doesn’t have the money, and no one else in the house wears this kind of stuff. I certainly don’t. ‘Why not?’ she challenges me, sounding almost smug. ‘It’s true.’

‘That’s it.’ My temper snaps with an almost audible sound; I feel it thrumming through my head. ‘I’m taking away your phone.’

Amy looks furious for a second, as furious as I am, and then she shrugs. She slips her hand into her pocket and takes out the Nokia brick that is all we can afford. ‘Fine. Take it. It’s a crap phone, anyway.’ She throws it at me, right at my face, and I dodge, too surprised to attempt to catch it. The phone clatters to the floor as Amy disappears back into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her loud enough that I feel it vibrate through my body.

‘Mommy,’ Lucy says, her voice a whine in my ear. ‘She didn’t say sorry.’

As I start making dinner, Lucy moping, Amy silent, and Emma doing her homework as quietly as she can in the living room, I feel guilt start to sour my stomach and worse, doubt fogs my mind. Is Stacy right? Have I been obsessed? Has it hurt my girls?

I reject the thought instinctively, thrust it away from me like it’s something dirty and wrong – because it is. I gave up Isaac

because of the girls, for their sakes, so they could have a better life, more opportunities. So Amy wouldn’t have to wear broken shoes, and Emma could dream of college, and Lucy could get braces. All of it, everything – it was for them. The idea that it might have hurt them in the end is inconceivable. I won’t let myself think of it; I can’t.

Later, after dinner, when the girls have drifted to their bedrooms and Kevin is parked in front of the TV, I log onto the computer that sits on a desk in the corner of the living room, then I wait as it hums to life.

I type open adoption legal options into the search box and hold my breath. It takes me a while to wade through all the legalese I don’t understand. I may have got my GED but this stuff is dense, and I’m biased, skimming paragraphs, looking only for reassurance. I want something in print to promise me that I can call the law on Grace and make her stick to the agreement we outlined seven years ago, when my body was still aching and empty.

I think of that afternoon now; I remember the sunlight streaming through the window, the perfect spring day outside, the papers in front of me. Three days after Isaac’s birth, I still could barely get out of bed.

Grace was wearing a business suit, as was her lawyer, a silver-haired woman who used official terms and made me feel like a thing, not a person. Biological mother. As if my connection to my son was only biological, not emotional or intimate or real. Just a matter of nature or science, something easily severed and dismissed.

Kevin stood behind me, hands in his pockets, gaze distant, the only way I knew he could get through it. When I’d told him I wanted an open adoption, he’d stared at me.

‘Do you really think that’s a good idea, Heather?’ He sounded tired.

‘Why not?’ I was rebellious, restless, fingers picking at the cotton sheet, wanting to move, to act. ‘This is our son, Kevin. I know we can’t care for him the way we want to but we can still have some part, some small part, in his life. And I think it would be good for him. Good for us. We’re not just signing off, forever.’

Kev shook his head. ‘I kind of thought that’s what adoption was.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’ I heard my voice getting stronger, more sure. I could picture how it would work, feel it. ‘Not in this day and age. It can be different. Everything’s more open these days. It’s healthier.’

Kevin sighed and raked a hand through his hair. He’d been taking care of the girls around the clock for three days, while I was in the hospital, and he was tired and I knew his back hurt. Stacy hadn’t been able to help as much as she’d wanted to; my mom had had one of her turns. ‘Do whatever you want,’ he said, and it sounded like defeat. ‘I know you will, anyway.’

I didn’t think that was fair but I didn’t argue. I’d won, and that’s all I’d wanted.

But now, as I sit in front of the computer, I wonder if I’d really won all those years ago. If I had, I didn’t win much. I think of the vacation we took to Disney World last year, the huge, huge hopes I had for that week. I’d wanted Grace to let Isaac come on his own, but of course she didn’t, and I understood that, even if I didn’t want to. He was little, and he didn’t know us all that well. But even with her there, especially with her there, I wanted us to bond. To get along in a way we never have been able to. I wanted Grace to understand and accept that I was a part of her son’s life. An important part. That definitely didn’t happen.

Kevin couldn’t go on the rides because of his back, and Amy found it all boring and kept trying to lose us in the park so she could go flirt with boys, and Lucy whined and Isaac kept clinging to Grace. That was what hurt me the most. It was as if he was stuck in an elevator with strangers, just enduring the awkwardness. It was a relief to get home, away from the constant cycle of expectation and disappointment.