Summer Snow (29 page)

“I can't do that,” I said, even though some small sliver of me wished that I could.

“Yes, you can.”

“The baby is due in six weeks.”

“Think of the joy you would give some family. They wouldn't even have to wait for their baby.”

Their
baby. No. He was
my
baby. And yet underneath the burning resentment of my possessiveness, there was the icy reality of what my jealousy would mean for my son: He would grow up without a father. Like I grew up without a mother. Somewhere inside my chest the truth thudded painfully.

“Tell me you'll think about it,” Janice pleaded.

“I have thought about it.”

“Think about it some more. Please. You don't understand.”

“I
do
understand. I can do this,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “You're a single mom; why do you think I can't pull it  off ?”

Janice looked stricken. “I know you can do it. But don't you get it? Keeping the baby is the easy thing to do. I'm asking you to do the impossible. Do what I couldn't do: Be strong. Be selfless.” She fumbled for more words, sighing and groaning. But the task of conveying all that she was feeling was either beyond her or simply too painful, and finally Janice finished feebly, “I love Simon, but what kind of life have I given him?” The dim glow of the streetlamp was a fine, reflected point of light in the tears collecting along her lower lashes. “Julia, believe me, you don't really have a choice. This is no way to live.”

I should have pitied her, but I had a hard time relating or even understanding. Maybe Janice had forgotten that I, too, was her child. Maybe she couldn't stand back far enough to see that she had experienced it both ways: she had left and she had stayed. Neither solution was perfect, but at least Simon knew that his mother loved him. At least he would grow up knowing that he was worth holding on to.

If she ever expected me to breathe again, Janice had to know that I could not possibly let my baby go. But as we sat in the darkness, the front doors of the hospital slid open and the rest of the childbirth class spilled out into the night, laughing animatedly and waving good-bye to each other. The couples held hands on the way to their cars, and I watched them from our patch of earth, feeling like an invisible spectator peering into some impossibly perfect universe. Had I been happy only twenty-four hours ago? Had the world seemed full, maybe even limitless?

I watched them all disappear into the night, each half completing the whole, and felt that I could not possibly be more alone.

Life Without

W
EEKS AGO,
I
HAD
torn up the postcard that Mrs. Walker had given me and left it to litter the grove. I never intended to give it a second thought. But though I tried to forget, though I tried to force it far, far away when Janice breathed new life into the possibility, I remembered the name of the adoption agency anyway: All His Children.

I typed the name into Google late one night when everyone was in bed and found the Web site almost too easily. The agency was the very first search result, and I stared at the description for a moment before gathering up enough nerve to click on the blue-lettered link. Our Internet connection was dial-up, and the site itself loaded painstakingly slowly. Holding my breath prisoner in my rigid throat, I watched as a relaxing sage and honey background gradually melted into view. The tabs were done in a willowy font along the left edge of the home page, and a large picture frame materialized front and center. A few minutes later, an unhurried parade of potential adoptive families faded in and out of view in the middle of the computer screen, each taking a turn to try and grab my attention.

“We are athletic and outdoorsy,” one caption announced. The couple was perched on a boulder with a rugged swath of snowcapped mountains in the background. Their faces were tanned and their legs were lean and muscled, their feet planted firmly in khaki hiking boots. “We can't wait to share our love of creation with a son or a daughter. Your baby will see the world!”

Next, an older couple filled the black-rimmed frame. “Mature, stable, financially secure,” the caption proclaimed. “We long for a baby to make our home complete.”

Then there was a family of six with a robust-looking father and a slim, redheaded mother whose four children looked like miniature copies of her. “Big families mean lots of love. Your child will grow up with adoring brothers and sisters on our large acreage in the country. We laugh hard, work hard, and play hard.”

They marched across the screen one at a time: twenty-something  and nearing the end of middle age, childless and teeming with an entourage of other kids. Multiracial families. Obviously wealthy families. Every shape, every size families. Each  photograph and description was a different life, a different future that  would open unforeseeable doors for my baby. He could live in any locale throughout the country with one of a myriad of unique families that all promised to love him as if he were their own.

I didn't doubt their ability to love. One look at the eager faces, the willing, open set of their eyes, and I knew my son would be a treasure to any of the couples in the handsome photographs. I wanted to be selfless enough to see a specific picture and know,
Here they are. This is the family.

As I tried to be receptive to the possibilities, I went so far as to envision a sleeping blue bundle in the arms of a woman who inexplicably reminded me of myself. She was petite with razor-cut blonde hair that just skimmed the curve of her shoulders, and she had enormous blue eyes. We looked nothing alike. But the similarity I saw had nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with her expression. She was a contradiction in terms: timid but hopeful, defiant yet afraid, weary and somehow eager. Her emotions clashed in her eyes, but I felt like I understood her. I had seen the exact same look months ago in the visage of the dark-eyed woman on TV.
That's me
, I thought.
That's what I look like
.

And then, with an abrupt swell of understanding, I knew that I could give the blonde woman what she needed. I could end the anxious war in her face. But try as I might to imagine what it would feel like to release my baby into her arms, I couldn't do it. My insides snaked. I put a protective hand over my belly and clicked the computer off.

If earlier I had felt like I was finally getting somewhere, after the childbirth class it seemed as though someone had pushed pause on my life. Michael and I entered a holding pattern; he was kind but made no indication whatsoever that our afternoon ride had touched him in any way. For her part, Janice retreated somewhat in her pursuit of a relationship with me. And I found myself at a complete standstill. August loomed like a shadow obliterating the sun, and any answers I thought I had claimed faded into obscurity against the opaque backdrop of doubt.

Grandma and Simon knew nothing of my conversation with Janice on the hospital lawn. They had no idea of the turmoil that Janice had stirred up, though in her uncannily perceptive way I could tell that Grandma suspected the hospital orientation had been less than fabulous. But she didn't ask and I didn't tell. We carried on exactly as we had before, talking about the baby as if he was already a part of our makeshift family. I didn't have the courage to say anything to the contrary, to let her in on the battle that raged between what I
wanted
to do and what I felt I
should
do.

Days turned into weeks and nothing changed at all. I circled the possibilities and impossibilities of my life with increasing restlessness and uncertainty until one morning I woke up and looked at the calendar. July 14. Thomas and Francesca's wedding.

Thankfully, they had not asked me to do anything during the ceremony or at the reception. I had been fearful that in an act of friendship that would feel like condescension—to prove to himself that we were fine, that everything between us had ended amicably, happily even—Thomas would insist that I sit by the guest book or hand out small envelopes of birdseed to toss at the couple as they ran to their getaway car. But enduring Thomas's wedding would require nothing more of me than sitting politely during the ceremony and appearing to enjoy myself at the catered reception. I figured that even in my muddled state I could at least pull that off.

The wedding was in the middle of a particularly balmy Saturday afternoon. It was a scorching day; the humidity and the temperature were twins, both hovering right at ninety on Grandma's multiipurpose thermometer that hung beside the garage door. I went outside to enjoy some alone time on the porch before breakfast in the morning and almost immediately turned around and went straight back into the house. I was actually glad that my afternoon and evening would be spent in the nearly frigid air-conditioning of the church and then the Glendale Golf and Country Club. And though I held no grudges against either Thomas or Francesca, though the thought of their wedding didn't make my heart thump painfully, I had to repress a little surge of glee when I thought of the bridal party sweating through outdoor wedding pictures on such a blistering day.

Janice and Simon had also been invited to the wedding, but Janice declined politely, telling Mrs. Walker that they already had plans and then confiding in Grandma and me that it felt like a pity invite. Janice assured us that she had no desire to try to fit in at a wedding where she would hardly know a soul.

Instead of joining us in wedding preparations, after lunch Janice surprised Simon by hauling out a packed picnic basket and beach bag and informing him that they were going to drive to the lake for the afternoon. He hooted in delight and skipped around the house for five whole minutes while his mother loaded the cooler with ice packs and juice boxes. I shot a regretful look at my black dress hanging in the doorway to the bathroom and decided that air-conditioned buildings ran a distant second to cooling myself in the lake. Though I wouldn't put on a swimming suit, it would be fun to wade in with Simon. But it wasn't like I had a choice.

When the screen door slammed behind them, Grandma turned and gave me a slow, gentle smile. “The house to ourselves …,” she said with a glimmer in her eye. “Why don't you take a nice, long shower, honey? When you're done, I'll paint your toenails for you and take you out for an iced latte before the wedding.”

I tried to look at my toenails and found that I had to step my foot to the side in order to accomplish the task. “Pretty bad, huh?”

“Not so bad,” Grandma protested with a laugh. “I just know that you can't do it yourself right now. I thought it would be nice since we're getting dressed up.”

“It's very nice,” I assured her, leaning over to give her cheek a quick kiss. “I'd love to have my toenails painted. Are you sure you don't mind?”

“I want to.”

Grandma put some old records on while I was showering, and we took our time getting ready. For a few hours it felt like we lived alone again—there was no stomp and shuffle of Simon racing around the house and no Janice, sad-mouthed and somnolent, lurking in the rooms we frequented. I reveled in the opportunity to have my grandmother all to myself, and more than once I was on the verge of telling her about those happy families, the ones that promised to make my son their own. But the peace of the afternoon was tenuous and rare, and I was loath to disrupt it with such weighty, bewildering things.

Not only did she paint my toenails, but Grandma also gave me a full foot massage and pedicure while we chatted on the couch. I sat on one end of the overstuffed piece of furniture, and she sat on the other with first my right and then my left foot in her lap. It was restorative to let her words wash over me, and I leaned my head back to close my eyes as she kneaded my feet. I hadn't even realized how much they ached.

Although she knew that I had been burdened for weeks, Grandma didn't press me and instead kept the conversation easy and light as we prepared ourselves for Thomas's wedding. We spoke of the garden, funny things that Simon had said, the incredibly hot weather. I was struck again by the gracious, selfless way my grandmother lived and her ability to know what I needed in nearly every situation.

By the time we stepped into the car—both of us scented and powdered and pretty—I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time, even though I was wearing the expensive black dress I had received from Janice. I felt ready to watch Thomas get married.

It turned out that we didn't have time for a latte stop before the ceremony, but I didn't mind. Grandma had equipped me for the day, given me the tools I needed to watch yet another display of the things I didn't—and feared I would never—have. I was simply ready to get it over with. And as we pulled into the church parking lot and I caught sight of the white stretch limo, I was even able to earnestly wish Thomas well. Thomas was an amazing man. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to drive off into his own sunset, Franny in hand.