Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey (9 page)

Then one day, Gregory’s receptionist was rushed to the ER with a burst appendix and my stepfather asked me if I would mind filling in for her behind the front desk. My mother remarked that I shouldn’t have any trouble taking time away from my “retail career” since she was sure there were plenty of sixteen-year-old Gap employees without college educations who would be willing to cover my shifts.

Dr. Greg’s practice was a thriving one, and so my first day there was busy. The waiting room was packed with elderly women awaiting consultations for hip replacement surgery, and little kids and teenagers with various broken bones and other orthopedic complaints.

Toward the end of the day a man in his mid-twenties walked in. Actually, he sauntered in. He had a confidence about him that bordered on cockiness, which I figured stemmed from the fact that he was (as we said back in the nineties) a total babe.

The next thing I knew every kid in the office had rushed to this handsome newcomer. Kids hobbled over on crutches, just to get a closer look. He was signing casts and shaking hands, and every so often he’d look up from the mob, catch my eye, and smile.

I smiled back, but for the life of me I had no idea why people would be flocking to this man and asking for his autograph. I squinted at him, trying to place his face. Was he that guy from the TV show
L.A. Law
? No. The meteorologist from Channel 9? I didn’t think so.

When the commotion subsided, the total babe approached my desk. My heart actually fluttered.

“Hi, I’m here to see Dr. Dixon. He’s expecting me.” He smiled warmly, expectantly, and I had the feeling he was waiting for me to ask him for an autograph.

So I did. I slid a prescription pad across the desk, and he signed his name with a flourish:
John Kennish
.

Still couldn’t place him.

Furthermore, his name was not on the appointment list. But when I buzzed Dr. Greg, he told me to send this Kennish fellow right back to his private office.

When his unscheduled visit was finished, John Kennish (who I now thought might be a member of one those new grunge rock bands out of Seattle) stopped at my desk.

“I hope this doesn’t sound forward,” he said, smooth as silk, “but would you like to have dinner with me tonight? It’ll have to be a late one. I’m working.”

Naturally, I was flattered, and I felt my cheeks turn red. “I’d love to,” I said truthfully, “but I can’t. I have plans.” Which I did. I’d agreed just that morning to join Trevor for one of our friendly default get-togethers. (Although they were becoming more frequent, and on the last one Trevor had actually kissed me good night. But the last thing I wanted to think about while looking into this John Kennish’s big brown eyes was kissing Trevor Anderson.)

“Big date?” John asked, flirting shamelessly.

“No, not at all!” I answered, too quickly. “I’m just going out with an old friend. He’s taking me to the Royals game.”

At this, John burst out laughing, although I couldn’t begin to imagine why. I did know I liked the sound of it.

“Good seats?” he asked when he finally quit cracking up.

“Right behind third base, I think. So I guess they’re pretty good. My friend won them. The tickets, I mean. He was caller number fifteen in a radio call-in contest and …” I was rambling, which indicated to me just how attracted I was to this guy.

“Well, your friend is a lucky guy,” John informed me, then grinned. “You enjoy the game, beautiful.”

I think I actually giggled. And then he left.

Do I have to tell you that halfway through the first inning, the third baseman turned around and scanned the bleachers until he found me, and when our eyes met, he tipped his hat and winked?

And is it necessary for me to report that after the game I politely told Trevor to go on home without me and I waited for John (feeling deliciously reckless and a little bit naughty) like some kind of groupie outside the clubhouse door?

And you probably wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that
he
wasn’t at all surprised to find me waiting there, and that we went out for drinks and halfway through my third glass of Chardonnay I knew I no longer needed to bide my time at The Gap, because I now knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. In a matter of a few short hours I had fallen completely and totally in love with John Kennish. Trevor was genuinely disappointed when I broke the news that our quasi-courtship was over. He told me that, matrimonially speaking, a professional athlete was a bad bet, and my mother agreed.

But I didn’t care what they thought. I was meant to meet John Kennish. I’m certain of it. So many forces combined to see to it, that I can only assume the universe deemed it necessary. And if I believe that, then I must also believe that I was meant to give birth to one baby and bring home another.

Because despite the confusion, and the disruption and the general weirdness of it all, I know I wouldn’t trade one minute of the time I’ve had with Bay and Daphne, or the times still yet to come.

It’s pointless to second-guess the universe.

Fatherhood: Easy enough to achieve, difficult to perfect.

John, though, took to it like a duck to water (or like a big-league third baseman to the car wash business). Which is to say, naturally. To be perfectly honest, I was a little surprised at first. I always knew he’d be a
good
father, I just never dreamed that he would love it—
love it
—as much as he did. He was a man’s man, after all, a “big ol’ lug” as they might say in an old movie. He was a jock, for God’s sake!

But when Toby came into the world, my big ol’ lug morphed into a big ol’ creampuff. He sang lullabies, he changed diapers, he cradled our infant son in the crook of his throwing arm and read to him from
Peter Rabbit
and
The Little Prince
and
Sports Illustrated
.

Ladies, is there anything sexier than a man holding a baby? I think not.

So Toby pretty much ran the place. Like most first-time parents, we were willing slaves to that powdery little bundle of baby-boy-ness. He set the pace, made the rules, lorded over us with a drooly, toothless grin, and John and I couldn’t have been happier to do his bidding.

When John traveled with the team, he made me promise to sit his son in front of the television and let him watch the games. It was silly, I knew, but I did it. I loved watching my husband play ball, and as I fed Toby his organic strained carrots, I’d provide color commentary, a running play-by-play of the game:

“
Daddy just tagged that bad man who was trying to steal third base,” I’d report proudly, and Toby would gurgle with joy.

“And what do we think of those icky old New York Yankees?
”
I’d prompt, and Toby would respond with a loud, wet raspberry, spewing orange mush all over the place.

When Toby turned four, John Kennish was the first father in line for Tee Ball sign-ups. In suburban communities like ours Tee Ball is a preschool rite of passage. Toby, in all modesty, was a natural. His swing was level and packed a fair amount of power for such a little tyke. On Saturdays when John wasn’t playing out of town, he’d take Toby outside to “have a catch,” and by third grade my son was shagging flies and fielding grounders like a champ. Rumor had it the local Little League coaches were all vying to have Toby on their team roster.

And that’s when things started to go south.

Because as good as he was, Toby just didn’t love it. He liked the father-son time, and he loved making John and me proud on game day. The problem was that given the choice Toby would much rather be sitting at the baby grand piano in our living room than in the garage oiling his mitt. Music came as easily to him as baseball did. He could play by ear, and when he started guitar lessons his teachers were blown away by the speed with which he picked it up.

If John was disappointed by this turn of extracurricular events, he did everything he could not to show it. I knew he missed those weekend afternoons coaching Toby in the yard; I’d often see him throw a yearning glance out the window toward the corner of the yard where they used to hold batting practice, but I think he knew there was no point in pushing it.

Sports are optional; love is unconditional.

And then Daphne arrived and she had “Varsity” written all over her. I was so happy for John. Watching him play that first game of HORSE with Daphne in the driveway was a moment that was filled with tenderness. She not only had his physical grace and keen eye, she had his competitive spirit as well. It was as though he were at last being validated, as though everything he knew about himself was being reflected back to him in the best possible way. I would stand at the kitchen sink, sudsing a roasting pan, and I’d hear the thump of the basketball against the pavement and the squealing of sneaker soles as one them broke for the basket.

It was one of the most rewarding sounds I’d ever heard.

But if there was a negative aspect to John and Daphne bonding over “hoops,” it was watching Bay adjust to it.

It’s no secret that Bay was not a jock. Even at a young age she was bright and creative; she was not weird, she was unconventional. But according to John (and rightfully so), even unconventional kids require exercise.

I couldn’t argue with that, and besides that, I loved sports. I had been captain of the Wofford College women’s tennis team and still enjoyed the occasional mixed doubles game at the country club. I saw nothing but good things coming from Bay taking part in some manner of organized sports. So Bay was herded off to youth soccer.

It was an unqualified disaster.

I watched from the bleachers as my poor little girl got trounced by a swarm of other little girls in ponytails and matching jerseys.

When soccer was over, Bay climbed into the SUV looking not humiliated (as I had dreaded she would) but utterly bewildered and more than a little bit pissed off.

“Why did you make me do that?” she demanded.

“Don’t worry, kiddo,” John said in that confident “I can fix this” tone of his. “We’ll work on it as soon as we get home.”

“I’d rather just paint,” Bay informed him. (She’d picked up her first brush the year before, when she was five, and had fallen in love with the activity of painting.)

But there would be no painting that day. There would be dribbling drills and stop-and-kick drills and a crash course in the proper running technique. I stood there watching her struggle—and watching
him
struggle to teach her how
not
to struggle—for what seemed like forever.

By dinnertime, Bay had had it.

And John knew it.

“I’m sorry I’m so bad at this,” she grumbled. “I get it if you don’t like me anymore.”

Half an hour later, John summoned us to the garage, where he had an enormous canvas propped against the wall, a six-by-six-foot square of snowy white unconditional love. He’d already opened several large paint cans. Then he handed Bay the hated soccer ball. It took her a minute to grasp his purpose, but when she did, her chubby little face (still smeared with dirt from the day’s athletic exertions) lit up with a huge grin.

John and I watched as she dipped the ball carefully into the yellow paint. Then she hurled it as hard as she could at the blank canvas. It wasn’t a graceful throw but it did hit its mark, leaving a soccer ball–textured yellow splotch on the white field. The wet paint began to drip in uneven trickles.

“Now, that’s what I call dribbling,” John joked.

Then John grabbed a tennis ball, dipped it into the red paint, and followed suit.

Then Bay created some amazing designs by shaking purple paint off the netted head of a lacrosse stick. I drop-kicked a pink-dipped football and nearly broke the garage window, but all in all it was the best art lesson I’d ever witnessed.

Bay gained the knowledge that no matter what she chose to do, her father would find a way to support her in it.

And then came Danny McMullen.

Because even quirky, enigmatic little girls fall in love, and Danny McMullen was Bay’s first crush. This was in second grade. She came home after the first day of school and announced to us that Danny McMullen had blue eyes and a Pokémon backpack, and she was going to marry him.

Toby immediately launched into a chorus of “
Bay and Danny sittin’ in a tree
.” I smiled and told her I thought it was a lovely idea and floated the idea of a wedding gown with a sleek silhouette and understated beading.

But John said nothing, nothing at all. That was how I knew that in his mind this Danny McMullen character had just become Public Enemy Number One.

As you know, second-grade romance has a very short shelf life. Two days later, Bay came home in tears, heartbroken because Danny McMullen had told Ethan Feldman to tell Emily Pendleton to tell Bay Kennish that he didn’t like her anymore; his feelings had shifted, and the new object of his affection was Brianna Winslow, a third-grader.

John took the news badly. Worse than Bay in fact. After a triple scoop of Chunky Monkey, Bay was over it. But John … not so much.

“He dumped her for a third-grader? What is this Brianna, some kind of an elementary school cougar?”

“A cougar cub,” I quipped.

But John wasn’t having it. “Doesn’t this McMullen punk know how lucky he is that Bay even looked in his direction in the first place?”