Daughters for a Time (21 page)

Once in the pew, I slid down onto my knees, closed my eyes, and thanked God. Having Sam in my arms after years of disappointment seemed like a true miracle. The idea of adopting once had felt heavy and false, and now it felt light and right, like the mystery of thick sugar and viscous corn syrup combining to create a delicate crown of spun sugar.

After Mass, I kissed Sam good-bye and left her in the care of Tim and his parents. I was on my way to meet Claire at the cemetery to visit Mom’s grave.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come along?” Tim asked.

“Definitely,” I said. “I won’t be gone long. When I get home, we can have lunch, okay?”

Kisses and hugs, and then I was behind the wheel. It took me only a moment to notice that I couldn’t help checking the rearview mirror for split-second glances at Sam’s car seat. The maternal instincts that I once feared were trapped in my defective ovaries were thrumming, as alert as a school crossing guard.

Half an hour later, I pulled through the wrought iron entrance to Oak Creek Cemetery. I parked and started up the hill that led to Mom’s gravesite. As I crested the hill, I saw Claire, on her knees in front of Mom’s headstone. I watched as she doubled over, wiped her eyes, and shook her head as in disbelief.

I eased my way up, and careful not to startle her, I said in a soft voice, “Hi, Claire.”

“Oh!” she said, standing up, wiping her eyes. “You got here fast.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, searching her face.

“Definitely!”

“Why are you crying?”

“Oh, tears of joy,” she said. “You know, sometimes you’re just overwhelmed with gratitude.”

“Claire, seriously,” I said. “You’re upset. What’s going on?”

Claire wiped her face again. “Seriously, Helen, it’s Christmas! What on earth would I have to be upset about?”

“Is everything okay with Ross? Maura?”

“Of course,” she said. “That was part of this little tear-fest,” she said. “Maura wore this black velour dress to Mass this morning with these little high-heeled shoes, and I’m telling you, Helen, it nearly killed me. She looked so grown up. I just kept thinking, ‘Here we go…’”

“So you’re okay?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely,” she said. “Now let’s spend some time with Mom.”

Two weeks later, Davis and Delia were packing their suitcase, preparing to go back to North Carolina. I stood in the doorway with Sam on my hip. “Thank you so much for being here,” I said. “For helping me with Sam, for stocking the fridge, for all the cleaning and handiwork you’ve done around the house. It’s been a wonderful homecoming.”

“We’ll stay if you need us, dear,” Delia said, reaching for Sam, the new granddaughter she couldn’t get enough of.

“I’d love it,” I said. “But we’ll be fine. We need to get into a routine.”

That night, Tim cooked pork chops the way we had learned to do in the French countryside, dredged in flour, slow-cooked in milk, and served over a pile of creamy potatoes. The meal was delicious and we all ate slowly, savoring every morsel of food. We passed Sam around and savored her, too.

The next day, Sam and I waved good-bye to Davis and Delia, and then an hour later to Tim, who was eager to get back to the restaurant.

With Sam in my arms, we walked through the eerily quiet house.

“Now what?” I said.

Sam glanced at me, testing her eye contact, as if to say,
If I weren’t here, what would you do?

“That’s the thing, peanut,” I said, gently touching my finger to her nose. “Before you came along, I spent a lot of time sulking. I spent a lot of time in bed, watching soap operas and wanting what I couldn’t have. And when I ventured out, I often times landed in front of my father’s house. Maybe we’ll do that later,” I said. “Would you like to meet your other grandfather?” I tickled her tummy.

Sam smiled, showing her dimple. I took that as a yes.

“Before all that nonsense,” I told her, “I was a chef. A pastry chef, mostly. Dad and I own a restaurant, what do you think of that?”

Sam glanced at me again, pursed her lips.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “We need a routine.” I looked at the clock—ten o’clock in the morning. Sam was due to eat. I strapped her in the high chair and mixed a bottle of formula. Then I tossed a handful of cooked rice into the fry pan and cracked an egg on top, heated it for just a minute, and set it in the refrigerator to cool. I opened a jar of squash and sat down next to Sam. She took a few bites of the squash, ate the rice and egg in its entirety, and drank most of her bottle. Then I held
her and burped her, flipped up flashcards and called out their names, clapped when she smiled. Then I changed her diaper and dressed her in a fresh zipper-suit. When I looked at the clock, it was only eleven. This was going to be a long day.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “When you’re a little older, we’ll do lots of fun things. We’ll bake sugar cookies and have tea parties. You’ll be the only toddler in town who knows how to make snickerdoodles from scratch.

“And maybe, too,” I said, testing the words out loud, “maybe we’ll start the paperwork to get you a sister. Wouldn’t that be nice? A
mei mei
?”

Sam looked at me as if she recognized the word
sister
and kicked her happy legs.

“But you’d better be nice to her,” I said. “Being a big sister is a big responsibility. Your Aunt Claire was a little too bossy, if you ask me.”

I sat Sam on her blanket and started a Baby Einstein DVD, drank a cup of coffee, and read a few e-mails on my phone. Amy DePalma had written, sent a few photos of her girls and a link to an adoption website for me to check out. I was just hitting “send” on my reply to her when the doorbell rang, followed by the turn of the key and Claire’s singsong, “Yoo-hoo!”

“Hi!” I said, and hugged her. “I’m
so
happy to see you! I’m going out of my mind today with everyone gone. It’s so quiet and time is, like,
crawling
! Don’t get me wrong,” I rambled. “This is what I wanted, but seriously, Claire, I can see how moms lose their freaking minds being at home all day with a baby.” I covered my mouth with my hand in case Sam had heard. “I’ve only had her for a couple of weeks and I already think that I need more kids. I was kind of hoping for enough noise to fill the house,” I said. “Is that weird?”

“Of course not,” she said. “It sounds like you.”

“How so?” I asked, walking into the kitchen to get us a drink.

“You like activity, excitement,” Claire said. “You’re at your happiest when you’re busy, under fire, traveling around, cooking for a crowd, working against the clock.”

“What about you?”

“We’re different,” she said. “I kind of love being home with just Maura. You have to remember, I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to be in this position—being
still
. I went from taking care of Mom, to taking care of you, to working myself to the bone through college and grad school, then up the ranks at Goldman Sachs. I just want to sit back and enjoy my daughter and husband. But that’s just me.”

“That’s good,” I said, considering her point.

“Remember,” she said. “I’m six years older than you—an old lady compared to your youthful thirty-six.”

“Yeah, you’re ancient.”

“Anyway, I’m kind of glad that you’re bored right now because I might need some additional help from you. With Maura.” Claire strained her mouth into an odd smile.

I poured lemonade for us and then led Claire back into the family room. “What are you talking about?” I sat down on the floor next to Sam, hoisting her up higher on her pillow. “Is there a problem at her preschool?”

“Oh, Helen, this is going to be hard on you.”

“On me? What’s going to be hard on me?”

“Brace yourself, Helen,” Claire said.

“Wait! Could you keep an eye on Sam?” I heard the nervousness in my voice. “I’ve just got to run to the bathroom real quick.” I ran upstairs and into my bedroom and then into my bathroom, closed the door, and sat on the toilet seat. My heart thumped as a wave of nausea coursed through my stomach. When I squeezed my eyes shut, a kaleidoscope of colors
blurred and resolved into a scattering of dots.
No, no, no.
I opened my eyes, stared at the white wall, and shook my head back and forth as tears rose in my throat.

“Helen.” Claire knocked on the door. “Come out, okay?”

I shook my head no.

“Helen, come on.”

I stood, opened the door. Sam was on Claire’s hip, playing with my sister’s earring.

The three of us sat on the bed. Claire reached for my hands.

“What you’re about to say”—I was breathless—”it’s not good, right?”

“No, it’s not good.”

We looked at each other, breathed.

“Just say it.”

“I’ve got the cancer, Helen. I’ve got Mom’s cancer. Ovarian.”

“They’re wrong,” I insisted. “There’s got to be a mistake. There’s no way that you could. You’re checked all of the time!”

“I go in every year,” Claire said. “But you know there’s no real way for them to screen for it.”

“Did you get a second opinion? Those stupid doctors are wrong all of the time! Maybe they got your chart mixed up.”

Claire hugged me and I hugged her and our bodies shook in jolting sobs. I was shocked but not shocked; part of me had been expecting this bomb to drop every day of my life. And it felt exactly as I had imagined it would, as if I were drowning. When I was maybe ten years old, I jumped into a swimming pool with a T-shirt over my suit. As I drifted downward, my air bubbles floating to the top, I pulled the T-shirt over my head. As I did, the heavy fabric sucked against my face and I was unable to pull my uplifted arms through the armholes. For a few seconds, I was straight-jacketed. That was when I learned that I was in control of only so much, that I’d be fighting forces bigger than myself for my entire life.

“I’m going to fight it,” Claire said. “God knows I’ll fight it harder than anyone and I will win. I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave Maura alone in this world.”

“When did you find out?”

“I just found out. It was that pain in my side. I thought it was a muscle pull, but it was actually a
symptom.
The blood they drew the other day was tested and the count was all off. They called me back and did an ultrasound and found a lump.”

“But they can’t know exactly what it is until they operate,” I argued, even though I knew that ovarian cancer was one of the sneakiest thieves in town, robbing you blind before you even noticed it was there. Symptoms could just as easily be from indigestion or a pulled muscle as from the cancer.

“Next week. They’ll do a laparotomy and see if the mass is just on the ovary or if it’s spread elsewhere.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up, lifting Sam into my arms, and beginning to pace across the room. “We’ll just need to get you the absolute
best
doctors. We’ll go to Johns Hopkins. That’s the benefit of living in the nation’s capitol. We have great doctors. We just need the best, and you’ll be okay, right, Claire?”

“My doctors here are good,” Claire said. “At this point, it’s standard procedure. Maybe down the road…”

“What’s Ross say?”

“Ross is in denial, and he seems irritated with me that I didn’t recognize the symptoms in light of Mom. Like I should have known what ovarian cancer feels like. But the thing is, there weren’t symptoms, just a twist in my side that came and went. It ached like a pulled muscle. Now that I know, I guess I’ve been a little bloated, but who hasn’t had that every now and then?”

“What about Maura?” I asked. “Does she know anything?”

Maura was the type of kid who preferred her mother’s arms to television and toys, her mother’s mouth on her booboo
boo over a cartoon Band-Aid, her mother’s whisper at night over a CD lullaby.

At the sound of her daughter’s name, Claire slumped into the pillows on the bed like bread dough that had been punched down. “No, not yet.”

I lifted Sam higher on my shoulder, wrapped both arms around her. I looked at Claire and tried to convey with my eyes that I knew she was scared to death at the thought of leaving Maura, but for God’s sake,
I
needed her, too.

“What’s the plan?” I asked. This was Claire. There was always a plan.

Claire sat up with her back straight and folded her hands in her lap. “The plan is that I’ll be busy for a while with surgeries and appointments, probably chemo, then radiation. That’s why I need you. I’d like for Maura to spend more time with you and Sam, to create a routine that she begins to count on. She loves you and Tim so much. And she adores being a ‘big cousin’ to Sam. I know it’s a lot to ask, Helen, with you just getting home with Sam. But it would help if Maura spent more time with your family. I don’t know how much Ross will be able to do. Yes, he’ll tend to all of her needs. But she’ll need someone to fill in as mom. You know how much affection she requires.”

“I’ll do anything. I swear to you, Claire. I will do anything you need.”

“If we’re lucky, I’ll be through the worst part by summer and we can all get on with our lives.”

Six months, good. Claire had already defined her goal and set a timeline. With her day planner, a colorful pack of highlighters, and ironclad determination, Claire would set records with her recovery. This was my big sister, after all. The one who stayed when both Mom and Dad left.