A Mother's Goodbye

Emma looks suspicious, but I don’t explain anything more. I don’t want to cause ripples by mentioning Grace and Isaac. Not yet, not until I’ve sorted things out in my mind.

The next hour is spent dealing with all the mess and irritation, and then getting Lucy to bed. Amy is out, and she doesn’t come home until after ten, which is against our rules but neither Kevin nor I say anything. At nearly sixteen, she is becoming out of our control, although we haven’t said anything about that, either. If we don’t say anything, if we don’t acknowledge it to each other, perhaps it isn’t really happening, or maybe it will at least go away soon.

By eleven I’m getting ready for bed; Kevin is already lying in bed, two pillows stuffed behind his head. He eyes me in a slightly hostile way. ‘So what was the deal tonight, you out like that?’

My back is to him as I answer. ‘Grace asked me to pick up Isaac.’

‘Grace?’ He sounds disbelieving. ‘In the city?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ Now he sounds even more disbelieving.

I take a deep breath as I shake out my hair. Then I turn around. ‘Kev, she has cancer.’

He is silent for a long moment, and I can’t tell anything from his expression. ‘Is it bad?’

‘Bad? Of course it’s bad. It’s cancer.’ But I know what he means. ‘She’s having chemo now. She looked terrible.’

‘Is she going to survive?’ Kevin asks baldly, and I flinch a little at the unfeeling starkness of the question, even though I’ve been wondering the same thing.

‘Surely it’s way too early to ask something like that. She’s only been doing the chemo for a couple of weeks, I think.’

He shrugs. ‘Still.’

‘Breast cancer has a pretty good survival rate.’ I’d Googled it, although why exactly I’m not sure. My feelings are so tangled, and I’m afraid to examine them too closely. Afraid what it will reveal about me.

‘Why did she call you, though?’

I stiffen. ‘Why not?’

‘Come on, Heather. It’s not like you and Grace are best buddies. Not by a long shot.’

‘I know, but…’ I struggle to moderate my tone. I know what he’s saying, and even I felt surprised when Grace called me. Asked me. ‘I know Isaac.’

‘Doesn’t she have friends? A nanny?’

‘The nanny was out for the day.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s just kind of weird.’

‘I don’t think it’s that weird.’ I try not to sound defensive as I get into bed.

Kev pats his pillows down as he gets ready to go to sleep. ‘Face it, babe, you’re the last person Grace would want to ask for a favor.’

That stings, even though I have to agree with him. After I turn out the light I lie in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, wondering why my relationship with Grace has had to be so strained, so antagonistic even as we have always pretended to get along. Was it just because I asked for the adoption to be open, or was there something more, something that was always there, from the moment I first looked at her profile, saw that slightly superior smile, and chose her for the mother of my child? I didn’t even know what I was doing back then. I was acting out of a fear that made me so dizzy I couldn’t even think. But, looking back, I think there was some sense of superiority that motivated me, along with everything else; I couldn’t compete with Grace’s money, but she was single. It evened it all up somehow; yet as I think this, I know it’s wrong. It’s not the way I should have been thinking at all.

Now I wonder, if I’d chosen one of those smug couples, would things have been better – or worse? Would it have felt like less of a c

ompetition, a power struggle? And which one of us has made it that way? Maybe we’re both guilty, both at fault.

Over the next few weeks I wait for Grace to call. Every time my cell rings I snatch it up, hoping it’s her. I’ve convinced myself that she needs me, but she obviously doesn’t. Maybe a pick-up when everyone else is out of town and her nanny is off duty, but real life? The day-to-day? She seems to be managing fine. And then it turns out I’m not.

It starts with the meeting with Lucy’s teacher that I forgot about, so it had to be rescheduled. I’m already feeling like a bad mom when her teacher starts our conversation by asking, ‘Did you know Lucy has trouble reading?’

Kev’s not here, of course. He never comes to meetings like these. ‘What do you mean by trouble?’

Mrs. Bryant puts on reading glasses and takes Lucy’s test, pinched between two fingers, like it’s Exhibit A from some courtroom drama. ‘According to the tests I’ve done this year,’ she informs me in a cool tone, ‘Lucy has the reading level of a seven-year-old, if that.’