Make It Nice

by Dorinda Medley

  And then she looked at me. She looked at me with eyes that held the history of everything and the potential of everything, full of familiarity and expectancy. Parting her lips, she exhaled on my chin. Her breath smelled like a dream I had never thought to dream. Her face was like a memory that got lost in time, a story that you need someone to retell in order to remember. I know you. You know me. We know each other. You’re Hannah.

  There was also an overwhelming sense of power that came over me in that moment. Like, the first time someone told me the story about the woman who lifted a two-ton car to save her baby, it had kind of felt like a joke to me. Now I suddenly got it. I could lift a car for Hannah. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for this nine-pound person. If I had thrown my arms up in that moment, wings would have literally sprung from them like in those Egyptian pictures of Isis. I might have made Hannah, but she had also made me.

  As I held Hannah for the first time, I thought of my mother. I missed her more than ever, and my connection to her deepened. It felt like I had become a link in a long chain of women that stretched back to my mother and my grandmother and now through to Hannah. My grandmother died shortly after Hannah’s birth, and looking back, there was something kind of mystical about the timing. It was almost as though Hannah’s arrival had signaled to my grandmother that she could let go.

  Ralph was beside himself in love. A couple of minutes into doing “skin to skin” (when they have the baby lie on the woman’s chest), I looked over at Ralph, who was undoing the top buttons of his collared shirt, in an open declaration that he would also be doing skin to skin, even though there was no real precedent for fathers doing that. In many ways, Ralph and I had already begun to grow apart, but there was something about Hannah’s birth that trivialized any worry I had had about our marriage. We just loved her so much. Hannah’s presence was a fertilizer that made love grow wherever she was. Our love for Hannah bonded us forever, and it’s the reason why we were truly able to raise her together.

  We took her home, and even though I was often tired, it was absolute heaven. I can remember actually missing Hannah when she would go to sleep. She was an easy baby, so long as I didn’t stray too far. Whenever I left the room she would lose it, which meant we were pretty much together all the time.

  One day when Hannah was a few months old, I invited a couple of my friends over to see the baby. I put Hannah in a bouncer right by my chair and as usual bounced her gently to sleep, with her staring at me as I did it. About thirty minutes later, I was putting the kettle on to make some tea when one of my friends screamed! I knew immediately that something had happened to Hannah. My heart sank. In a millisecond, fear swallowed me whole. When I turned to look, her skin was blue and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth. I went to pick her up. She’d stopped breathing. I started frantically patting her back, repeating over and over, “Hannah.… Come on, Hannah.… Hannah, please.… Hannah! Hannah!” She opened her lips and started to cry. Then I started to cry. I grabbed a blanket and we rushed to the hospital. I called Ralph in hysterics and soon after he arrived dripping with sweat because he’d run half the way to beat traffic.

  They put a little oxygen mask on Hannah. According to the nurses, everything was fine. She was breathing normally and her heart rate was normal. Ralph and I were relieved, but we also knew there was something they weren’t telling us, and we were right. When the doctor came in, he said in the most matter-of-fact way, “We suspect it’s apnea.”

  The doctor explained that apnea was a sleep disorder where you go into such a deep sleep that you stop breathing and that he was going to perform a test to confirm his diagnosis. He took Hannah and put her on this leathery table with crunchy paper that just looked so unbearably cold and uncozy to me. She was screaming hysterically. The combination of the crunchy sound and the sound of her wailing tortured me. But I held back, because I trusted it was the right thing to do.

  Then two nurses came in. “Hold her down,” one said.

  Apparently, they had to hold her down so they could pour water down her throat to see if she could catch her breath in distress.

  I freaked out. “Nope! No way, no how, no. No, that is too aggressive and I’m not having it; she’s too little!”

  “Mr. Lynch, please get control of your wife.”

  I can’t even remember what happened after that, because I pretty much blacked out. Worse, I redded out. I saw red. I picked Hannah up and placed her on the top of my thigh so she could sit up straight and catch her breath. We put the oxygen mask back on her when she’d calmed down and Ralph eventually took her to his chest, walking around the room to comfort her. I walked behind them to make sure the mask didn’t get tangled and watched Hannah’s little face droop on Ralph’s shoulder as she fell asleep.

  “I literally won’t make it, Ralph.” I didn’t need to say it for Ralph to understand what I meant: If she dies, I won’t make it.

  At this point, it was the middle of the night, so we waited a couple hours in the hospital in case she stopped breathing again, and then we went straight to a specialist.

  The pediatric hospital we went to was just outside London. It was the grayest place I had ever seen, and going there was like entering a universe that had never known color. But it was the best, and it was where Hannah needed to be. After seeing the doctor, we were informed that Hannah would have to stay the night for observation. The nurse walked us down the hall to a glass window full of flat-bottom cribs with high bars lined up in neat rows. Like a prison.

  I handed Hannah off and asked where the parents slept.

  “Oh no, Mrs. Lynch,” the nurse responded. “Mummies and daddies go home for the evening and can return at seven a.m.”

  As you can imagine, that one went over like a lead balloon. Ralph went home and I decided to get in the crib with Hannah. I coiled my body around her like a snake with her eggs. The truth is, I probably did it as much for me as I did it for her. In the previous eight hours I had heard the acronym “SIDS” (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) more times than any new mother ever should, and just hearing it was enough to make me believe it could happen. What if I left and this was it? What if she went into a seizure and died alone? What if someone kidnapped her? I was so scared.

  The next day they put Hannah on a breathing monitor and sent her home. It was a nightmare. Leaving her to go to work was torture for Ralph. Watching her suffer was torture for me. Every four hours I would have to take off the EKG wires and replace them with new ones. I stopped sleeping. The fear I had in the hospital stayed with me always. I would lie in bed while she slept and think, What if I go to sleep and this is the last time I ever see her? Luckily, the monitor had an alarm, but to be honest, it didn’t really help. Ralph’s parents and grandparents lived in Scotland and came down to assist, which was great, but it wasn’t until my mother arrived that I really got a good night’s sleep. I remember my mother came to London on a Friday and for the first time I handed Hannah off. After that, I slept and slept and slept, knowing Hannah was safe and looked after.

  After a couple months, they told me Hannah no longer had to wear her breathing monitor, which floored me. It was like they had randomly picked a date on a calendar to take it off. It freaked me out to be honest. Hannah went from being my biggest worry to being my joy and purpose. She filled up every void that had been in my life. I didn’t feel lonely anymore because I had this little pal to take care of whom I just adored.

  Hannah wasn’t a difficult baby, so long as certain conditions were met. The second too many people came into the house, she would go nuts. She was a constant observer and always looked like she was in a deep state of thought. She had this stare that made you feel like she really saw things and internalized them. When the world got too big for Hannah she couldn’t handle it and would have a fit.

  At six o’clock in the morning, I’d hear Hannah’s noises on the baby monitor. She didn’t cry. She sounded more like a monster: “Ra ra ra.” I’d go into her room and she’d be sitting in the co
rner of her crib looking at me with her huge eyes. Her eyes would light up like she couldn’t believe I had shown up again. It was the best feeling in the world. This became a double-edged sword, though, because she would get herself in a panic every time I left her alone. I couldn’t let her get too hysterical because I was always afraid about her losing her breath. It was too much at times. I couldn’t even take a bath anymore. I would literally have to stick her bouncy in the bathroom with me and she would wave at me the whole time.

  Motherhood was the biggest commitment I had ever made, and it wasn’t always easy. At times it felt monotonous and isolating. Every day was the same thing, and it was difficult with Ralph being at work so often. Even though I loved her so much, I needed to see an end to our long days together, so I was very strict about Hannah’s sleeping schedule. Bedtime was at 6:30 p.m. no matter what. Even if I was in the middle of winning the lottery, I would put her to bed at 6:30. Having that to look forward to kept me sane.

  Friends became an extremely important part of my life in London. One was Caroline. Every day, I would put Hannah in her pram and take a walk to the local church. I thought the fresh air would be good for her and that the prayers and lit candles would be good for us both. I had seen Caroline a couple times before, but it wasn’t until I happened upon her son’s baptism that we connected. She was the most elegant person I had ever seen. She had big blue eyes, blond hair, and was incredibly soft-spoken. I desperately needed friends and she probably felt bad for me on some level after seeing Hannah in her oxygen mask, so we ended up exchanging information.

  Soon after, I received a letter at my door: Dear Dorinda, I was wondering if you’re available for tea at 4 p.m. on February 16th—which, by the way, was almost a month away at the time. She had introduced herself as Caroline, but the name on the card was something different. Lady MacTaggart. It felt like I had just been informed that the white horse I had met was in fact a unicorn. I couldn’t just call her back to RSVP; the protocol in London was totally different. Ralph informed me that the correct thing to do was to have stationery made and return the letter. So, that’s exactly what I did. Caroline was formal and somewhat guarded, but she was cheeky and I liked that. It was a relationship that I knew would take time to cultivate, but I enjoyed her company and she had a son who was Hannah’s age. Over time, the water in the moat between us drained. She went from being the Lady down the street to being my girlfriend, and she still is to this day.

  Having Hannah became a way for me to make friends with other mothers. My life became play dates, birthday parties, and suppers with other moms. I started going away for long weekends at their country houses, and Ralph didn’t want to go because he felt awkward. He didn’t know my new friends, and they didn’t really know him either. They came to know me independently, as a woman named Dorinda with a husband named Ralph. My friend group in London was like family to me. It consisted of a real mix of people: American bankers, British artists and designers, and other mothers. Mothers raised their kids as a community in England. We did everything together, and it was great because it made up for the space that Ralph left by being at work all the time.

  When Hannah was about a year old, we moved neighborhoods, from the Boltons to the Little Boltons because it was finally time to get a more family-friendly home. The Little Boltons had a huge garden, a big kitchen, a more formal dining and sitting area, and a quaint red front door.

  About once a month, Ralph and I would go to Scotland. His family lived in a small town just outside Glasgow where the weather, like in the rest of Scotland, was gloomy. They didn’t seem to mind, though. The house was often kept at a low temperature, but they were such hearty people that they barely noticed. When we’d bring Hannah up, it would light up their world. I came to look forward to my stays in Scotland. I loved that Hannah had an extended family. The Scots were so different from the Londoners I knew—more colorful and quirky and, quite frankly, more accepting in a lot of ways. I enjoyed the great mince dinners, and the visits to Great-Gran’s House for Jell-O and Hobnobs. An American in Scotland was a welcomed oddity.

  It was during my time in Scotland that I started my first business. When we first began going there, it was always so chilly that I was in constant search of the perfect sweater. There were two options if you wanted a cashmere sweater. Cheap, thick, and shapeless or expensive, thin, and impractical. Why did everything have to be a twin set or a pullover? Why were the arms so big? Why were the cuts so unflattering?

  I started using my weekends to visit Scottish cashmere factories with my friend Belinda Robertson. I was mesmerized by the manufacturing process. I watched a sweater being put together like it was an episode of Law & Order. I still love watching how things are made. On some level, the behind-the-scenes action has always been more interesting to me than what’s onstage.

  The Scottish factories were actually old millhouses where the same families had worked for generations. They were spotlessly clean and totally enchanting. After perusing with Belinda, I bought a bunch of cashmere garments and started making my own prototypes. I’d take a sweater, for example, and tailor it in a new way, a way that made it look sexier and more fun. I created cardigans with loose arms, and big chunky turtlenecks that you could wear with riding pants and boots to replace the horrendous dark green jackets with the corduroy collars that everyone wore. I added elements for extra flair to everyday pieces. I made robes with huge satin cuffs and thick sashes. I made baby blankets with fun trim and giant throw blankets in every color imaginable. I was making what I wanted to wear, which was what I assumed other women my age would want to wear, too. And thankfully, they did.

  I knew I was onto something with designing the sexier cuts, but the details were trickier. Different women would want different color combinations and different fabric embellishments. I also knew that everyone back then wanted to be a designer. With all this in mind, I came up with a business model—one that would incorporate the desires of cashmere-loving women. I would start by presenting the customer with a basic piece, like a cardigan, for example, in a variety of styles and base colors. The customer could choose her color, her own style, and her own buttons. She could make all the buttons the same or she could go nuts and choose a bunch of different buttons for the same cardigan. Then she’d choose the trim. Did she want velvet? Fur? No trim? I would write all of her choices down on an order form and send it away. Then, six weeks later, a box would arrive at her house. My customers loved having a hand in what they made, and I enjoyed helping them bring their vision to life.

  I loved what I did and selling it was easy. Instead of opening a shop, I’d host these fabulous tea parties at our house in the Little Boltons. The concept worked. The process was creative and fun. And the other great thing about this business model was that I never needed to carry stock. Everything was made to order. The pieces sold themselves. All I needed was for my clients to wear them so that their friends would ask, “Where did you get that?” Marketing was like a chain reaction or like a bouncing ball, going from one woman to another to another. Princess Diana became one of my clients because we had friends in common, and I thought this was amazing. The whole thing was amazing. I was making my own money and becoming known for what I created rather than whose wife I was. I was being introduced at parties as Dorinda, the woman with the clothing company. I chose a simple name for the brand. DCL Cashmere. And I have to say, the classic logo I came up with was on point.

  I felt like I’d been given the keys to the kingdom that was my own, and I was never giving them back. The girl who’d woken up early in the morning to iron her husband’s shirts was now long gone. I had taken a step out into the world, and I loved it. Having Hannah had given me purpose, and in a strange, paradoxical way it inspired me to become more independent and social. I adored London, and I also adored having a daughter who spoke to me in a British accent and called me Mummy. I had a housekeeper, Marietta, who helped take care of Hannah, but I was a very hands-on mom. Or mummy.

  Ove
r time, it became clear that Ralph and I were living different lives. I loved being with my friends, who now knew more about my everyday life than my husband did. Ralph was still working fifteen hours a day, and when he got home he didn’t have the energy to go out dancing at Annabel’s. He just wanted to be home with Hannah. Looking back, I don’t really blame him. He just wanted to enjoy his daughter and rest.

  I think before endings happen we can feel them coming on some level. We might not acknowledge them right away, but we can feel them. It was like that with Ralph. There was the sense of an ending that loomed over everything. We loved each other, but that wasn’t enough. We stayed together for as long as we believed we could change each other. But the truth was we couldn’t. I wanted Ralph to become someone who wasn’t Ralph, and he wanted me to become someone who wasn’t me. Loving someone isn’t enough in a marriage. We loved each other, but in the end, we were too different.

  One night, we had a literal ships-in-the-night moment. I was going out as he was coming home from work. We passed by each other in the long hallway—and got into a fight.

  “You’re going out again?”

  “Well, why not?”

  Suddenly we were screaming. Ralph and I never fought, but this was a big one. Hannah was crying her eyes out. And it just hit us. This was not working anymore. Something had to change.

  It wasn’t a bad breakup. It was the opposite—incredibly amicable. Ralph and I didn’t hate each other. We just didn’t have compatible lives anymore. The thing we had in common was Hannah, but it wasn’t right to stay married for a child.

  I might have stayed with Ralph if he’d wanted to have more kids, but he didn’t. He barely had enough time to spend with Hannah as it was, and this was something that made him feel terribly guilty. I still wanted to have more children, and at that point I thought it would be easy. I’d just divorce Ralph and meet someone else and have more kids with the new husband.