A Mother's Goodbye

‘How wonderful,’ the technician murmurs, eyes on the screen, face carefully neutral.

The technician continues with her measurements and calculations, talking about the nuchal fold, the distance between the eyes, and I tune out a bit, intent on focusing on the way the baby on the screen is moving around, scrunching up its legs, waving its arms. It’s a person. A child. And it’s mine.

I feel that with such a sudden, solid certainty that it takes my breath away. I’ve had a lot of doubts, about me, about Heather, a lot of worries and fears, but right now I know. I might not be the most maternal woman out there, God knows I can admit that, but my arms are empty and my child is there.

‘Do you want to know the sex?’ the technician asks in a carefully diffident voice, and Heather gives me a quick, questioning glance, waiting for me to speak.

‘Yes, please,’ I say, and Heather confirms this with a quick nod.

‘Well…’ The technician leans forward, peering at the screen. ‘It’s hard to tell because Baby is moving around so much, but if I had to call it, I’d say you’re having a girl.’

‘Great.’ I hear relief in Heather’s voice, strong enough to surprise me. What if it had been a boy? Would that have changed anything, having Kevin’s son? Surely not. But in any case, it isn’t a boy, it’s a girl. My little girl. I can see her already, her pale blonde hair, her rosebud mouth.

I glance at Heather; she is sitting up, wiping the gel off with a rough paper towel. ‘I told you,’ she says with an attempt at a laugh, ‘Kev and I only make girls.’

‘I like girls.’ I have an urge to hug her, to thank her, but the words feel jumbled in my throat, a pressure in my chest. ‘Heather…’

‘Everyone tells me girls are terrible when they’re teenagers,’ she continues determinedly, ‘but we’re not there yet.’ She glances at the technician, a proud tilt to her chin. ‘I have three girls already.’

‘How nice.’ I wonder how many complicated situations the technician encounters in this darkened room; families made of disparate parts, jammed together any which way, trying so hard to fit.

Heather stands up, struggling a bit, and I take her arm again. She accepts it with a grateful smile, and I feel that sense of solidarity that I didn’t expect now but which we both need. For better or worse, we’re in this together.

Heather turns to me with a smile. ‘Now you can start shopping for baby clothes.’

‘Yes, that will be fun.’ I haven’t bought anything yet, haven’t dared. Now I think of all the wonderful things I can buy, the nursery I can decorate, the life I can plan. It’s really happening. I’m going to have a baby, a family. Finally, finally, I’m going to feel part of something – someone – again. I’m going to have everything I’ve wanted.

Seven

HEATHER

A week after the ultrasound Grace calls me and asks if I’d like to go shopping.

‘Shopping?’ I repeat, as if she’d spoken in a foreign language. These days the only shopping I do is with a fistful of coupons and my EBT card. I know the rules now. No hot food, no beer, no toiletries or paper products. I’m never going to make that kind of mistake again.

We’re managing so far, but only just. Less than one hundred dollars in our bank account, and Kev hasn’t found a job, not even a hint or hope of one. Lucy’s eczema has flared up again, all over her elbows and knees, red and sore and angry-looking. The only cream that helps isn’t covered by insurance, and so I spent twenty-six dollars on a tiny tube of cream, and then Emma mistook it for regular lotion and slathered it all over her hands. I actually had the desperate gall to wipe it off her and then try to force it back in the tube.

‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ Emma gulped, fighting tears.

‘It was a mistake, sweetie. Not your fault.’ Easy to say, not so easy to feel. We can’t afford another tube, and Lucy’s preschool sent home a note because her elbows were bleeding.

Yet even though money is as tight as ever, things feel good, or at least a little more settled, in my own mind and heart, and also between Kevin and me. I don’t feel like I’m fighting everyone any more, pushing against the tide that felt so relentless. We’ve given in, and sometimes that feels like a good thing. A relief.

When I got back from the ultrasound appointment, I told Kev it was a girl, and he nodded. We didn’t say anything else, but I think he felt the treacherous flicker of relief that I did, although I don’t know if either of us would admit it.

It feels wrong, but how could I hand over our only son? The boy I think every father must secretly long for? I picture Kevin playing football in the yard, wrestling in the living room while I look on, smiling. The two McCleary men. At least I’m not giving away that dream, although that’s all it would ever be, anyway. Kev can’t wrestle or play football, not with his back.

Still, seeing that screen made me remember with an ache what a newborn is like. The snuffling noises they make, the way they curl into you, the sweet, sleepy smell of them. The knowledge slammed into me that this baby is a part of me, a part of Kevin; a sister to my girls.

But then I watched Grace watch the screen, and I knew this little girl also belonged to her. I saw it in the way her eyes lit up, the tremulous smile that spread across her face. She’s so excited, and despite all the pain and regret and sadness I still feel, I’m happy for her, and I’m happy that I’m happy. It feels good, to want that. To feel it, even if just a little.

Grace will love this baby. She already does. I picture them hand in hand walking through Central Park, or playing together on that plush rug in Grace’s living room. Mother and daughter.

Now Grace wants to meet me at some swanky store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which will take me an hour on the PATH train plus the bus. I can’t make it there and back during the three government-paid hours of Lucy’s preschool, so I call Stacy and ask for a favor.

‘You want me to pick Lucy up? Why?’ She sounds suspicious, which she has since she found out I was pregnant. Suspicious and disapproving, even when she doesn’t say anything. After her blistering life-running-you-over comment, we’ve talked less than usual. I certainly haven’t asked her for any favors, because I don’t want the lecture that I know will come with them. I know Stacy means well, she always does, but I can’t handle her brand of sisterly advice right now. I just need some help.

‘I’m going into the city, to meet Grace, the adoptive mother.’