Bridge Daughter

by Jim Nelson

  While Maureen admired the crane, Hanna studied her closer. The hollow under Maureen’s throat was deep and round and bluish-gray, like a moon crater. Maureen’s upright posture and the careful, direct way she spoke seemed practiced to Hanna and unnatural. Hanna never considered Maureen frail, but she had the characteristics of a dry twig, a judgment Hanna felt ashamed to entertain.

  Hanna told herself to stop staring. “Are you meeting someone here?” she asked.

  “Your aunt,” Maureen said. “I came to see her.”

  “You’re friends?”

  “I’ve known Azami for six years now,” Maureen said. “She’s a very sweet person.”

  Aunt Azami joined them. “Are you two having a good time?”

  Hanna nodded several times. Maureen murmured, “Of course.”

  “You two should talk,” she said to Maureen before gliding away. “Really talk.”

  Maureen took a slight sip from her tumbler of cola. She only used the straws to stir. The maraschino cherry remained in her glass, unthinkable to Hanna, who devoured them as soon as Azami presented her a fresh drink.

  “Your aunt tells me you’re a bridge daughter,” Maureen said.

  Hanna shrunk in the stool. She nodded once.

  “I am too,” Maureen said.

  Hanna furrowed her brow and looked closer. Maureen was elfin and slight, yes, but she had the distinct face of an adult, a woman in her twenties, albeit a wan and gray one. She simply could not be thirteen years old.

  “I had a procedure,” Maureen said. She spoke guardedly, although the baseball game and the occasional cheers from the other end of the bar muffled their conversation. “Two months before my finality, I had my pons anno halted. It’s called an intrauterine bi-graft. Have you heard of it?”

  “I’ve heard about abortion,” Hanna said slowly.

  Maureen drew her lips in, acknowledging the weight of the word. “I don’t see my bi-graft as an abortion,” she said, voice remaining low. “But a lot of people do.”

  “I don’t understand. Everyone tells me—“

  “Everyone will tell you lots of things,” Maureen said. It was the first time she interrupted Hanna, and it felt sharp. “They’re not telling you all the facts.”

  Maureen turned on the stool toward Hanna. Facing each other in the corner of the bar, this afforded some privacy. She took Hanna’s hand and placed it on her own belly. Through her loose blouse Hanna’s splayed fingers touched Maureen’s prominent ribs. In her palm Hanna felt a rigid tension the size and shape of a shallow ice cream bowl. Hanna placed her other hand on her own tight bowl to compare.

  “The fetus is still inside me,” Maureen said. “Its development has been arrested. I’ll never give birth.”

  “How old are you?”

  Maureen gingerly released Hanna’s hand. “I’m twenty-four,” she said, chin raised. “I have a full-time job. I work at a supermarket. I pay all my bills and rent, and on time.”

  College libraries and dorm room bull sessions, thesis committees and horticulture degrees. Hanna would set all those dreams aside just to lead Maureen’s life of bagging groceries and visiting her bartender friend every few nights.

  Hanna fell forward and hugged Maureen. Maureen, surprised, returned the hug. Finally Hanna released her. She stretched her sweater sleeves over her hands, making improvised mittens to wipe the moisture from her face.

  “I’m not telling you what to do,” Maureen said to her. “You deserve to know your options.”

  “I want to do it.”

  “You need to really think it over,” Maureen said.

  “Where do I get it done?”

  “I don’t know,” Maureen said. “I had it done ten years ago. I’ve never seen that doctor since. You’ll have to find one on your own. And Hanna—“ She took Hanna’s hand again, holding it between her two icy palms. “You’ll never see your family again. You have to leave home. You can never look back.”

  “You’re not from San Francisco?” Hanna said.

  “I can’t tell you where I’m from,” Maureen said. “I can’t tell anyone. But it’s far away from here. And you would have to run far away too.”

  “Why?”

  “Bi-grafts are illegal,” Maureen said.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Hanna,” Maureen said, “you would be taking your parents’ child away from them. You would be attacking some very basic instincts within them.”

  “But they would have me. I’m their child.”

  Maureen squeezed Hanna’s hand tighter. “Your mother wants the child you’re carrying. That’s the motherly instinct, one of the strongest instincts in the world. I’ve never heard of a mother seeing it any other way.”

  Twelve

  Aunt Azami glided over around ten-thirty with another sweetened Coke for Hanna. “I got someone to take over for me,” she said. “We’ll get out of here in about half an hour. Are you hungry?”

  “A little,” Hanna said, still drained from her talk with Maureen.

  “There’s a good pizza place around the corner.”

  “Pizza!” Hanna sat straight up.

  Azami’s relief arrived ten minutes later, an older woman with bright blond hair in a ponytail. Aunt Azami told Uncle Rick to help out, which he did, bleary-eyed and full of whiskey and beer. He hauled buckets of ice from the back room to the metal tub under the bar counter, then carried out six-packs of beer to restock the reach-in fridge. Aunt Azami counted money from the till and explained the situation to her relief, in particular who owed how much money, who was paid up, and who didn’t need any more alcohol.

  Then Aunt Azami began counting the tip money stored in a brown glazed honey pot beside the cash register. Her hands came out with leaves of loose green cash, one fistful after another. She straightened and squared the thick stack of bills and pocketed it.

  The three of them departed the bar after eleven, Uncle Rick stumbling along and Hanna holding Aunt Azami’s hand. Azami was now clad from neck to knees in a black wool overcoat, straight and stern with doorknob buttons down the front.

  Hanna had never visited a by-the-slice pizza counter, and she eyed the wondrously large pies displayed under heat lamps. Unlike her family’s visit to the parlors in Concord, where Hanna never had any input on the toppings, Aunt Azami invited Hanna to pick out the exact pizza she wanted. Hanna asked for a slice of vegetarian pizza on whole wheat crust, while Uncle Rick got a pepperoni slice and Aunt Azami ordered one with pesto.

  The gigantic slice was too much for Hanna. She moaned she was full. Without a word, Uncle Rick reached across the stand-up counter and took the remainder. He was drinking a beer with his pizza, eyelids drooping and his bulk swaying. Aunt Azami couldn’t finish her pizza either, and Uncle Rick confiscated her remains as well.

  “Where does Maureen live?” Hanna asked Aunt Azami.

  “In the Richmond,” she said. “It’s a short bus ride from here.”

  “Can I see her tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so,” Aunt Azami said. “Your parents will be here in the morning.”

  Hanna had already forgotten that. She was ready to move in with Aunt Azami and Uncle Rick and start a new life on Geary Street.

  “Remember,” Uncle Rick said, mouth full of pesto and cheese and chewed-up crust, “don’t breathe a word of this to your mom.”

  *

  Uncle Rick unlocked the door, stumbled lead-footed across the apartment, and fell onto the bed face-first. Within a minute, the buzz saw of his snoring consumed the apartment.

  Aunt Azami, unprepared for Hanna’s visit, hurried around the apartment tidying up. Other than the kitchen nook and bathroom, the apartment was a single-room deal, with a couch, coffee table, and a television set on one side and a queen-sized bed wedged into the opposite corner. Makeshift drapes hung around the bed created a sense of privacy.

  Aunt Azami started the shower. She helped Hanna out of her outer layers of clothes. When steam was rolling out the door of the tiny bathro
om, Hanna went inside, finished disrobing, and stepped into the shower. The trip down Geary Street had injected another chill into her. Now the hot water soothed and relaxed. She scrubbed herself thinking of Maureen’s revelations. It seemed improbable she would find a way to have a—what was it called?—an intrauterine bi-graft…especially if it was illegal.

  Swabbing the cake of soap across her distended belly, she asked herself if she could muster the will to hurt the child inside her. When she dreamed of college and career and marriage, no one was hurt. Would she hurt her parents’ child? Before, in her dreams, she wanted the child to simply disappear, taking with it her problem. The sore tightness in her, a mosquito bite abnormally swollen—Maureen had shown her the child was something she would have to live with, bi-graft or otherwise.

  She peeked out the bathroom. Uncle Rick’s snoring continued. “Is it safe?” she said to Aunt Azami.

  “He’s out,” Aunt Azami said. “He won’t see you.”

  With a towel wrapped around her from armpits to knees, she trod barefoot across the carpet to Aunt Azami. The hissing steam radiator made the room nice and warm, even with a window cracked open for fresh air. Aunt Azami put a square orange pillow on the floor, huge with a giant button in the middle. Hanna sat on it cross-legged, careful to cover herself with the towel. Aunt Azami sat behind her. She began carefully pulling a brush through Hanna’s brown hair.

  “Maureen is super nice,” Hanna said.

  “She’s my favorite person in the world,” Aunt Azami said. “She’s very strong.” Then, “Do you want to see the Flower Mart tomorrow?”

  Hanna turned around, causing a sharp tug on her hair. “Can I?”

  “I’m going to call your parents early in the morning. I’ll ask if they want to meet us there.”

  Hanna, elated, turned back so Aunt Azami could resume brushing.

  Aunt Azami said, “Why did you come here?”

  If Aunt Azami had asked the question earlier, Hanna probably would’ve blurted out the story in a wet, breathless flurry of details, sobbing about everything being unfair and scared stiff of the punishment she faced. Now, after all the heady events at the bar, Hanna explained the story in a more level manner.

  That afternoon at the Oakland hospital, after the ultrasound, the doctor told Hanna to step out to the hallway while he gave his conclusions to her mother, just as Dr. Mayhew would. Hanna had no idea if it was good or bad news, but she certainly wanted to know. Her mother, however, had warned her on the drive to Oakland not to step out of line. She did not want more rudeness or another interruption in front of the doctor. They would discuss the doctor’s findings a day or two after the visit.

  For the first time in her life, Hanna could tell her mother was lying to her. She was counting on Hanna forgetting to later ask. Even if Hanna did remember, she sensed her mother wasn’t going to be completely truthful. Was it good news or bad?

  After visiting Mrs. Vannberg and meeting the new Cheryl, Hanna now felt all news was bad news when it came to her pregnancy. Each stage of pons anno was just one more milestone closing in on her own mortality. No more hospital visits, she told herself. No more adults probing her insides and sending her out of the room to discuss her health with her mother. Hanna was more than a milk carton, she was more than a hen warming another hen’s eggs. Hagar ran. Hanna could run too. And she did.

  Unattended in the hallway, with no plan but to flee, Hanna hurried to the stairs. She might have to wait precious seconds for an elevator car, so she descended the wide staircase. The hospital was in an old building, one with old-fashioned porcelain drinking fountains built into the walls and transoms over the doors. The oak staircase took her down four flights to the lobby. Walking past the receptionists’ station, she resisted the urge to look anyone in the eye, fearing it would reveal her guilt. She was out on the Oakland downtown street in under two minutes. If they’d not discovered her missing by then, they would quite soon. She bounded down the block and descended another set of stairs to an underground train station. Less than thirty minutes later, she was in San Francisco.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Hanna confessed to Azami. “I think I just wanted to talk to someone.”

  “Your uncle?” Aunt Azami said, smiling.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Hanna said. “I don’t want to go home.”

  Aunt Azami, for the first time Hanna had known her, looked saddened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do I have to go?”

  “Your parents are worried sick, Hanna.”

  “I want to get a bi-graft,” Hanna said firmly. “Like Maureen.”

  “I can’t help you with that,” Aunt Azami said.

  Something inside her collapsed. “You can’t?“ The walk home from the bar, she’d started to count on Aunt Azami’s help, thinking she was an ally. She thought Aunt Azami introduced Maureen to her specifically to learn about bi-grafts.

  “Hanna,” Aunt Azami said, “I can’t get between you and your parents. I mean, taking you to the bar tonight, that was one thing. They’ll probably never forgive me—“

  “Where can I get it?” Hanna said, meaning a bi-graft. “Where do I go?”

  Aunt Azami said, “I don’t even know where to look. And, really, I shouldn’t be talking to you about it. Like I said, your mother…”

  Uncle Rick’s snoring deepened and grew louder. He slept on his belly, face smooshed against the wool blanket. Hanna put her hand over her mouth to hide her laugh. Aunt Azami stifled a laugh too.

  “Your uncle has stolen more hours of sleep from me than you can imagine,” she said. “Here, let’s get you dressed for bed.”

  Aunt Azami dug through a dresser and came up with one of Uncle Rick’s old Jefferson Airplane T-shirts. On Hanna, it hung straight to her knees like a go-go dress. Then Hanna and Azami took to the couch. They sat cross-legged facing one other and sharing a blanket.

  “Why does Uncle Rick drink so much?”

  “He says it’s the only thing he’s good at,” Aunt Azami said reluctantly. “I don’t believe that, though.”

  With the barrier dropping between them, Hanna ventured closer.

  “Why don’t you have children?” she asked. Would you raise me? Hanna wanted to ask.

  Aunt Azami spoke even more reluctantly about children than about Rick’s drinking. “Your uncle and I don’t feel like we want any.”

  “Why not?”

  Aunt Azami grimaced. Hanna rushed to take it back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I guess that’s personal.”

  “I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know,” Aunt Azami said. “Do you know how much older your uncle is than your mother?”

  Uncle Rick felt younger than her mother, from the way he talked and the way he seemed to find fun—or alcohol—in everything he did. Aunt Azami too, although she was much more stoic than Uncle Rick.

  “He’s six years older than your mom,” Aunt Azami said. “Think about that for a minute. That means your mother’s bridge mother was almost eight when he was born. All Rick’s young life, there was this older girl taking care of him. They went on walks, she made him lunch, she even changed his diapers.”

  “He remembers diapers?”

  “No, but I’m saying she was a second mother to him. They would sing songs and dance in circles in your grandmother’s farm house. She cooked all his meals and taught him the alphabet. Your grandmother was busy with her gardening and her photography. She expected a lot from her bridge daughters.”

  Ma Cynthia loved being outdoors, especially tending her garden, but Hanna knew other things about her. She refused to enroll her mother or Uncle Rick in public school, homeschooling them part-time and having them work the farm the remaining daylight hours. The “farm” as Hanna’s father put it, holding his fingers up in the shape of quotation marks, as Ma Cynthia’s “farm” had no livestock or fields. Ma Cynthia’s house was a cabin on the edge of the woods of Marin County with a garden that produced table vegetables and trees that yi
elded canning fruit. The remainder of their diet came from a farmer’s co-op in Sonoma County. Hanna never met her grandfather, but a slip at the dinner table years earlier suggested that her mother and Uncle Rick had different fathers, men Ma Cynthia never married.

  Ma Cynthia had kept a picture on the fireplace mantle. Hanna loved it dearly. It was her mother and Uncle Rick as children, both in overalls and no shirts and no shoes, hair long and frazzled wild, with a black Labrador named Debs panting at their feet. Ma Cynthia took the photo with an old-fashioned Brownie camera. She developed it in the ramshackle chicken house, which served as her photo lab and painting studio. She hand-tinted it to give the children rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes. Over the intervening years, the tint had bleached away, making the photo looked overexposed and weathered, ancient.

  “Understand something,” Aunt Azami said. “Your uncle loves your mother. There’s nothing that gets between them. They’re as close as any two people can be. Okay?”

  Her mother and Uncle Rick seemed to argue a lot, and her mother seemed dismissive of Uncle Rick’s career path, using a tone of voice that suggested he had none. But the way her mother called him Ritchie when no one else could, and the way she kissed him on the cheek whenever he arrived at their house…Hanna could see what Aunt Azami meant about their relationship being close. It was so evident it was easy to overlook.

  “As much as Rick loves your mother,” Aunt Azami continued, “he never got over his bridge sister, the girl who raised him. She was named Dian too, you know. She died giving birth and her baby grew up to look just like her. It tears him apart to talk about his bridge sister. It tears him apart that no one will talk about her.”

  “Even Ma Cynthia?”

  “Especially Ma Cynthia,” Aunt Azami said. “She never spoke of her bridge daughters. She was a strong and stubborn woman, but she was traditional in her own ways. Do you know that she delivered your uncle and your mother? She didn’t take her bridge daughters to a hospital. She led the labor right there at the farm.”

  “Like a doctor?”

  “More like a midwife. In that farm house out in the woods, she midwifed both her children. No painkillers, no medicine, nothing but hot water and warm towels. She had a special curved knife for cutting the funiculus. She used it for Rick’s birth and the second time for your mother’s. She used that knife twice. Two cuts. Then she mounted it on the wall in her kitchen.”