Rescuing Julia Twice (18 page)

The first whiffs of fall are upon us. The air is crisper, the sky is bluer. The streets are busy again with postsummer seriousness. Riverside Park is not as crowded. My playgroup has been meeting a little less frequently. I'm relieved, because even though it provided structure and filled time, being around this group of nice mothers, a group I built, has been causing me pain and ambivalence. The more time I spend with them, the lonelier I become. The version of motherhood I witness contradicts everything I experience. I'm in some parallel universe feeling alienated, even angry. Last night Ricky asked me if I was still going to playgroup. I told him I was losing interest. He said he understood, but I didn't know if he really could.

It is 9:00
PM
on Thursday, November 27. It is Thanksgiving Day, or at least it was when we left New York. We've come to London to spend four days with Leah and Brian and their two children, Maddy and Josh. At first it seemed sacrilegious when Ricky suggested Thanksgiving away from home and family, but I thought about it and it made sense. I'm barely speaking with my parents. They have not formed a bond with Julia. The same can be said about Ricky's family. So here we are, on a whim, at Heathrow Airport.

“There he is,” I yell, squinting to see the name on the placard.

We hasten our step. Ricky is holding Julia in one arm and pulling our luggage with the other. I'm carrying lighter bags and clutching Julia's jacket. Her eyes are big round saucers, drinking in the commotion of humanity. I wave at the skinny man in the ill-fitting suit and floppy driver's cap.

“Hi, we're the Tannenbaums. Leah sent you, yes?”

“That's right,” he says. “Can I give you a hand with your baggage, sir?” he asks, bending down before Ricky has a chance to answer.

He lifts the small suitcase with a grunt and says, “Wait o'er 'ere, love. I'll bring the car around.”

Leah and I met when I lived in London from 1981 through 1987. Even now with an ocean between us, I think of her as the friend who understands me best.

Leah is waiting outside in a misty drizzle when we drive up along the shiny curb next to her house. Her blonde hair is blonder, cropped. She's wrapped in a gray wool cape, hunched slightly forward to shield the damp. She walks to the driver's window and leans in.

“Go ahead and put that on my account.”

She straightens up and hugs Ricky as he exits the car.

“You've made it,” she says, air kissing.

“Good to see you.”

She pokes her head into the car.

“Hello, gorgeous,” she says to me.

I want to hug her, but I've got Julia on my lap.

“Shall I take her from you?” she asks.

“Please do.”

Julia hasn't slept since we left New York ten hours ago. She could not settle down on the plane. Up and down she went in her seat, manically playing I spy with the people in the row behind us.

Leah tugs Julia sideways from my lap. She holds her with one arm, like a Frenchman clasping a baguette, and then extends her other hand to fish me out of the car.

“Out you git, old girl,” she says. We hug.

We walk through a gate inside a high stone wall and snake through a warren of rooms. Ricky tramps behind like an agreeable mule.

“Brian's back tomorrow night,” Leah says. “The kids are already asleep. Why don't you settle in and we'll have a nosh. Dirty diapers go there. I've left some things in the fridge. Yogurts and such. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Let me change Julia,” Ricky says, while she wriggles fiercely to get out of his arms. “I'll get her in pajamas. Maybe she'll go down after that.”

“God, I hope so,” I say.

I flop onto a bed with a fluffy white down comforter and curl into a fetal position. My lids are heavy, and my throat is dry from the stale plane air. I faintly hear Ricky puttering about with Julia. I know how lucky I am to have a husband who is so involved in raising our child, though sometimes I wonder if he's like that because I fall short.

I'm startled when Ricky nudges me.

“Do you want me to let you sleep?” he says softly.

“No, no, sorry, I'll get up. Leah's waiting for us. How long was I sleeping?”

“About twenty minutes. Julia's down in the crib. Went to sleep right away.”

The blue sky is rinsed with streaky white clouds, nice for a London morning in November. Leah's house is a beehive of activity. Maddy, Leah's six-year-old, watches television. Josh, a cherubic boy with coiled blond curls trailing to his bare shoulders, zips around the living room in his diaper on a plastic truck, making
vroom vroom
noises. Ricky feeds Julia in a high chair at the dining room table. Leah gives instructions to a tanned young women who's nodding dutifully. The table is filled with juice, jam, breads, muesli, and empty teacups.

“Hello, sleeping beauty. Help yourself,” Leah says. “Maddy, you have to eat before school.”

“I don't want to,” she hisses.

“I know, darling, but you must. Come have a piece of toast. Make Mummy happy.”

“I don't want to,” she whines louder.

“Tina, this is Katya,” Leah says. “She's our nanny.”

Katya holds out a hand to shake mine.

“Lovely to meet you,” she says.

“And you,” I say.

“I'm taking Maddy to school in twenty minutes. We'll leave for Kenwood around 11:00
AM.”

The morning chill is refreshing. North London splays before us from Kenwood, a historic hillside estate with a grand house and manicured grounds. Ricky pushes Julia in a borrowed stroller, Leah pushes Josh, and I walk in the middle of my two favorite people. We cover all the familiar topics: my relationship with my parents, Leah's family, my work, the rock bands Brian manages, updates on people we both know.

We park Ricky at a table with the two strollers and the babies.

“Be right back. We'll get some sandwiches.” Leah loops her arm through mine. We are alone for the first time. “How's motherhood?”

“Not exactly what I was expecting.”

Leah nods in a way that tells me I don't have to say any more. I also know I can say what I think without feeling judged.

“You look tired, thin,” she says. “Is Julia a bad sleeper?”

“No, not at all. It's not that. I'm just, I don't know, overwhelmed. I'm not, how can I say this, feeling the joy. Does that make sense? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Julia and I realize how blessed we are, but I am exhausted and I have stomachaches all the time.”

“Why don't you think about getting a part-time nanny, someone reliable, so you'll have separate time to work and you'll feel more present when you're with Julia?” she suggests. “I know how it is. It's very hard to plunge into motherhood after forty. I mean, come on, you had a whole life before, and then suddenly, it's hijacked.”

“You're right. It has been a really difficult transition, but it's more than just how different things were before Julia got here. The whole experience feels, I don't know, like I'm not in my own skin. It feels like the most unnatural thing I've ever done, which is the last thing I expected to feel about motherhood, you know?”

“I think you need to balance things up. I know how hard you work, and you need to delineate your time. Think about it. I couldn't live without Katya. She's a lifesaver.”

I nod but say nothing. I fantasize what a day might look like if I had a nanny like Katya, and it sends an exhilarating tingle up my spine. Then I see myself handing Julia off to a stranger and I feel guilty.

Since becoming a mother, I have been caught in a revolving-door conversation with myself. Would everything be different if Julia had been a birth child? Of course it would. Would I have had a nanny lined up from the start, knowing I had to work? Probably. The idea of bonding with my child would have been a given or at least a strong assumption. Do I owe it to Julia to be her full-time caretaker? Do I owe her this because of what she's lost? I'm in a surreal corn maze with no sense of direction.

We carry sandwiches back to the table. I pull out a yogurt for Julia, and she gobbles it down. I cut strawberries and hand her tiny pieces.

Leah hovers over Josh waving a piece of cheese. The baby thrashes, volleying his pinched-up face from side to side, spitting.

“C'mon Joshy,” Leah says. “C'mon, be a good boy.”

“Does he want a yogurt?” Ricky says. “We have an extra in the bag.”

“No,” Leah says, furrowing her brow. “It's not that. He won't let me feed him. He wants Katya. He thinks she's his mother.”

“What?” I say, surprised.

“It's true. He spends most of his time with her. We haven't formed a true bond yet.”

Her words nearly knock me off my seat. I rest my sandwich. “What? What did you just say?”

“I don't think we're really bonded yet. He doesn't seem to think I'm his mum.”

Leah says this without any kind of pained expression on her face.

In that moment, I feel an odd feeling of satisfaction. One of the women I admire most in the world has not bonded with her baby, and
she's not drowning in despair. She simply accepts that her eleven-month-old son, at least for now, is more attached to his nanny, but that over time, he'll love her. Her confidence is not in shambles. She's not beating herself up.