Pregnant Pause

by Han Nolan

  "We expect Eleanor to return to Kenya with us—just Eleanor."

  Now I'm apoplectic!

  "If we took both Elly and the baby in with us, we would end up becoming full-time parents of Emma Rose," my father says. "I believe we know Elly a bit better than you do."

  "No! No, you don't," I say, and I'm fuming. "You just think you do. You've always thought you had me all figured out, but it's never who I am at all. You don't know me. You don't know that I love caring for other people. I'm good at it. I found that out this summer. I was always so jealous of you and those AIDS babies, I never went near them. But now I know I'm good with kids. I'm good at something. And it feels good having to think about someone other than myself all the time."

  "Eleanor, let's not go into this now, all right?" my mother says. "If you need something to care for, you'll have plenty of opportunities in Kenya."

  "But there's a child who needs me right here! How can I abandon her when I know exactly what that feels like?"

  Before they can answer me, the nurse walks into the room and looks around at our angry faces, and the smile on her own face dissolves.

  I rush over to Emma Rose and take her out of the nurse's arms. My mother says something; I don't know what because I'm not paying attention to any of them anymore. Then everybody leaves the room, and I'm alone with my baby one last time. I kiss her face and her arms and hands. I hold her tiny body close and smell her sweet head. My little sugar cookie. My Emma Rose.

  I seriously consider running away with her, but where would I run? Nobody's taking her against my will. I can keep her, but what would I do with her? How would I keep her? That's what Rabbi Yosef asked, and the answer is, not very well without a job and a place to live.

  I play with her hands and feet for the last time, and I talk to her and tell her I won't forget her, ever. I smooth down the little blond hairs that stick straight up on her head and kiss both of her cheeks again.

  "You're going to grow up to be happy and smart and beautiful. Your new parents are going to love you and give you everything your heart desires. You're going to be loved by everybody who ever meets you. But remember, I loved you first, and I'll love you always."

  I kiss her nose, and she makes this gurgling noise, then starts to cry like she knows I'm about to leave her. My breasts leak at the sound of her cry and it reminds me that we're bonded forever, no matter what happens.

  It seems as if I have only five seconds with Emma Rose before my parents and the nurse return. The nurse lifts Emma Rose out of my arms, and I feel my body trembling all over. I wait until Emma Rose is out of the room because I don't want her to hear me cry, but when she's gone I break down. "My baby. How can this be happening? Please. Mom, Dad, please. Please help me. Please! Please!"

  Mom and Dad hold me and shush me and pat my head. Mom speaks softly in my ear. "It's going to be all right, shhh. We are helping you, Elly."

  "No, you're not," I cry. "You're killing me. Don't you see? This is killing me."

  Dad speaks in my other ear. "We're doing the best thing for everybody. In a few more years, you'll understand this. Shhh, it's going to be okay, pumpkin. Shhh."

  I'm inconsolable. I want to die. It's all just too much. The hospital gives me some pills to calm me down and gives my parents some extra to take with them. Then with me still crying and hiccupping, and my parents shoving a bottle of water at me, trying to get me to drink it, they pile me into the back seat of the car and speed off.

  ***

  We're on our way back to the hotel, and my parents are already talking to me about returning with them to Kenya. There's nothing keeping me here, they say, and time and distance will help with the healing. I don't think so. Nothing will help. A part of me has been torn away; just torn off of me. There is this big gaping hole that will never be filled or repaired—ever.

  We pull into the hotel parking lot, and as we're getting out of the car, I see Leo coming out of the hotel.

  "Leo?"

  "Eleanor? Are you okay?"

  I know I must look like a complete wreck, because I feel like one. The pills are working, though, so although I cry, I'm not the blathering, slobbering crazy person I was just a while ago. I tell him what happened, and I tell him about Ziggy, and he says how really sorry he is. He looks like he can barely keep from crying himself, and I wonder what it's like for him, since someone must have given him away. Does it help for him to know how much I want to keep this baby? How much I love her?

  "I wish I could find you a job," he says. "I'm living in a dorm with two roommates or I'd..."

  "I know, Leo." I hug him. "It's okay. It's over. I'm sure I would have made a terrible mother, anyway."

  "You know that's not true," he says, and I can see he means it. This comforts me.

  Leo invites me to the awards night and talent show, and I say I'm not up for it, but he convinces me because it's the last night of camp and the kids are all asking about me and they want me to be there.

  "Okay," I say. "I need to tell them all goodbye, anyway, and I have to clear out the rest of my stuff. I'm going to miss those kids. They kind of grow on you, don't they?" I think about all the campers, all their different personalities, and my girls in cabin seven. I'm glad I got to play at being a cabin counselor for a while. I liked it a lot.

  I sleep the whole afternoon and go out to dinner with my parents at the Bethel Inn Resort, this giant yellow clapboard inn in the center of town. Then we drive up to the camp. Just like the night before, a bunch of campers come up to greet me, and a couple of the little ones take my hand and drag me along to the main cabin. The place is decorated with the campers' artwork—drawings and paintings, and on tables around the room are their crafts, the little boats, the scarves and blankets or knitted things that will someday become scarves and blankets, the dulcimers, the clay bowls and mugs, and the necklaces.

  I notice the campers are enjoying seeing their work on display. Lots of them have their parents with them, and I see them smiling as they lift something their child has made and examine it closer. I notice even my parents are enjoying the show. I feel good that I suggested this. The display was my idea. I wish I had Emma Rose with me. I'd carry her in my arms and talk to her. I'd tell her about each camper as we looked at the artwork. I want to show her. I want her here to see everything. I want to be around when she sees the new world she's entered, and when she learns how to speak and how to walk. I want to hear her call me Mama.

  "Looks like they put just anybody's crap on display, don't it?"

  I turn around to see who said this, and it's who else but the old bat sitting in her wheelchair holding up a lopsided mug one of the campers had made.

  "Oh, yeah? And who made you judge and jury?" I say, totally irritated. "I think this mug has lots of personality."

  "You do, do ya?" The lady sets the mug on the table and crosses her arms.

  "Yeah. Perfection is overrated, if you ask me," I say.

  "Ha!" the lady says, but before she can say anything else, my dad comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder. "This reminds me of all the art shows you and your sister were involved in at school, remember?"

  "Yeah, and you could actually recognize all of Sarah's art, unlike mine." I notice my dulcimer isn't on display and I'm grateful, especially with that old bat behind me making judgments. Now I see where the MIL gets her personality.

  I see the lady wheel off toward the refreshment table. I look around for Ziggy, but I don't see him. I don't see Lam, either.

  Mr. Lothrop gets up onstage and speaks into the microphone, asking everyone to find a seat. Once we're seated and sort of quiet, he announces that they'll be handing out badges and awards first, then we'll have the talent show.

  Leo had warned me that the talent show wasn't going to be all that long, because a lot of kids dropped out after Banner died. "But we'll do it again next year and have it on a separate day from the awards. The Lothrops liked your idea."

  The badges and awards take a while, but it's fun
for me to see what the campers had been up to when they weren't in the crafts hut or in my dance class. After the serious awards, there are the goofy awards, like Camper Most Likely to Actually Cook and Eat Mashed Cauliflower at Home, and Camper with the Hottest New Body.

  Then Elizabeth, one of the unholy four, goes up onstage. "Now for the counselor awards," she says. These are goofy, too. Lam gets Hottest Counselor Award, but he's not there to accept it, and Jen gets the Walk, Don't Run Award. Gren gets the Boy, Am I Embarrassed Award, and as usual, her face is bright red when she gets up to accept it. Leo gets Favorite Counselor Award for like the hundredth time, and Ziggy gets Counselor Most Likely to Be Seen in Hollywood. Ziggy goes up to accept the award, and when he climbs onstage he pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and puts them on. He takes the award and makes the peace sign and hops off again.

  I wonder how he can be so cute and happy and all that when he has just destroyed my whole life. I bite down hard on my lips to keep from crying. I wonder what Emma Rose is doing right now. Where is she? Who has her? I can't stand to think of it.

  Stop it. Stop thinking of her. Just stop!

  I'm yelling at myself in my head, and then I hear my name called and I sit up.

  "Eleanor Crowe, for Most Original Dulcimer!" Elizabeth announces.

  Abby on the front row passes my dulcimer to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth holds it up. Everybody cheers and laughs, and I go to the stage to accept my award. When I get up close, I see that campers have autographed it. There are signatures all over, including Banner's. I'm so surprised. I take my misshapen dulcimer, and Elizabeth says, "To remember us by."

  "Thanks," I say. I turn to leave, and Elizabeth tells me to wait.

  "We have one more award for you," she says into the microphone. She holds up a handmade plaque. For Eleanor Crowe, the Counselor Most Like Our Mothers (But in a Good Way) Award."

  She hands me the plaque while everybody cheers, and then when the cheers die down, a group of girls from the back sing out, "Yes, Mother!" and everybody laughs. I head back to my seat, and another group calls out, "We love you, Elly!" and I'm so touched and embarrassed and happy and miserable at the same time. I wave and laugh to show them I'm grateful, but really, of all the awards to get on the day I give my baby away. If they only knew. I sit down, and my parents and the kids behind me all pat me on the back.

  I want Emma Rose. I want to be her mother. I should be her mother. I am her mother.

  The talent show is lots of fun. Most of the performances are funny skits or singing, and of course, there are my dancers. I'm so proud of them. They look really good up there. They look so pulled together. In class they'd argue about whose idea they should use, and who gets to be in front for this part, and who gets to be in front for that part, but onstage they're all together, dancing like the whole thing came to them so easily. Of course I'm thinking about Banner, because her dance was special, and I wish again that everyone could see her. I feel for her necklace around my neck and hold the clay thumbprint with the heart on it in my hand. I press my thumb into the heart.

  When the talent show is over, I think we're through, but then Leo gets onstage and announces that for the grand finale, as with every year, he will play the video montage.

  The lights in the cabin are turned off, and everyone is talking and excited. The montage opens with the Camp WeightAway sign and Mr. and Mrs. Lothrop greeting the campers. Then we see kids falling out of canoes at the lake, and parts of a swim meet, and Bo Winkler doing a belly flop—ouch! We see kids playing softball. Everybody in the lodge cheers at one point because there are like six shots in a row of Joe Trumbell missing the ball and finally he hits one. Joe stands up in the audience and raises his fists in the air. We see kids taking a shortcut through the woods in the morning running class, and in the cooking class Leo catches kids sneaking bites of food when the Lothrops aren't looking. There are scenes from cabin life, the weigh-ins, and a food fight in the dining hall, and shots of disgusting-looking globs of food. We see sick kids at the nurse's cabin, and all the different sports and classes, including my dance class. Leo has strung together several shots of me saying, "Who's going next?" over and over, and there's even a bit of footage where the MIL is standing behind the old bat in her wheelchair just outside the open doorway of the dance hut watching me with the girls. I don't remember them being there. I never saw them. I was so into what the girls were doing with their new dances that I never saw them. It makes me wonder how many other times those two were spying on me that I didn't know about. Leo captures me with my arm around little Bruce Whelan in the crafts hut, and sitting out on the porch of the hut talking with a group of knitters, and me working on my dulcimer, and I have my tongue stuck out to the side like a goofball. There's even one with Banner and me. Leo is shooting from behind us, and we're walking away with our arms around each other's waist. I don't remember that time, either. Then the screen goes blank, and I'm grateful that Leo didn't show the film he took of Emma Rose and me. I couldn't bear it. Not now. We all start to clap and cheer, but then the screen lights up and we see a shot inside the main cabin. There is Banner standing on the stage. Everybody gets really quiet.

  Banner takes position in the middle of the room and poses as if she's about to dance. She's got her arms folded across her chest and she's facing sideways and her back is rounded and she's looking at the ground. She has one leg crossed behind the other, her foot pointed, and the top of it resting on the floor. Her leg is bent. "Okay, I'm ready," she says. Then we hear the music, this tragic Madame Butterfly music that Ziggy had made a copy of for her. Banner starts to move, but then she stops. She looks into the camera. "Wait," she says. "I forgot my dedication."

  "Oh, right," Leo says. We don't see him; we just hear his voice.

  Banner giggles and wipes at her eye with the back of her hand. "Okay, so, um, this is dedicated to Eleanor Crowe, because she's the best counselor ever, and I love her." She pauses. "Did I sound okay? I sounded stupid, didn't I? I should do it again."

  "Banner, you're doing great. I know everyone would love to see you perform this for the talent show if we have one."

  "I can't do it live. People will laugh at me. They always do. Anyway, I'm too fat to really dance." She pauses again and looks down for a minute. Then she looks back into the camera. "Eleanor is going to be so disappointed in me, isn't she? I should have done this for class, but I just couldn't." She bites down on her lip.

  "She's proud of you. She thinks you're a good dancer. She told me so, and I know she would want everybody to see your dance, but she'll understand if you choose not to do it in front of everyone."

  Banner nods and just stands there looking lost in thought.

  "From the top?" Leo says, and she nods again and gets into position.

  Yeah, I'm crying again, but so is everybody else. The whole audience is in tears, and the dance is so—so sad, her hurt comes right through the camera at us. She's just so tragic dancing around the room, but she's good, too. I mean you can't stop watching her. The expression in her eyes and her arm movements just hold you in a trance. She grabs at the air and you feel yourself being pulled into her neediness. She pushes away and you feel her anger. Her arms curve around her body and you feel her sorrow. I can see by the looks on the other campers' faces seated around me that they are feeling it, too. She lunges and turns and wraps her arms around herself, then reaches out to us as if she's begging for something, grasping, straining until it's too much and she falls to the floor. Then slowly she pulls herself up again, and she's spinning and flinging herself to the four corners of the room, searching for something, pausing in each corner, standing on tiptoe suspended, waiting, then falling back and spinning off in another direction, but none of them satisfy her, and she spins herself into the center and winds down until she's on the floor again all tucked and wrapped up inside herself.

  The music fades and it's wicked quiet in the room, and I'm so touched by her dance and her dedication. Dear Banner. Poor, dear Banner. She
really could have been a dancer when she grew up. I know she could have. What a waste of a beautiful life. What a loss for us all. I think this, and I think of myself. I don't want to waste my life. I want to make something of it. She dedicated the dance to me. I was important in her life. I'm not sure I've ever felt important to anybody. My parents have always made me feel that the AIDS orphans in Kenya are more impor tant than I am. I've always felt guilty for even needing them at all when they have so many other kids needing them. But Banner, and some of the other campers, they needed me. I've been important to them. And I'm important to Emma Rose. Or I could be. I should be. I'm her mother. I created her. I want to make her the most important person in my life.

  I stand up, and I feel my mother's hand on my back. I turn around. "I'll be back. I just have to—to get a breath of fresh air. I've just got to..."

  I don't finish. I leave before the lights come back on.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I GET OUTSIDE and I take several deep breaths. It's cool out and the air smells clean and icy and it reminds me of a winter's day snowboarding in the mountains. It's so pure and cool. There's a good breeze, and after a few minutes I get to feeling chilled. I decide to go for a walk. I step off the porch of the main cabin. I hear all the voices behind me, all those campers' voices, and all the counselors' voices. I love this place. I love living on the mountain, and the view to the lake, and all the pine trees, and the stone paths everywhere, and the cabins dotted about here and there, and all the kids, even the snotty and bratty ones. I never expected this. I never gave it a thought. All I thought about was myself and Lam. I hardly even thought about Emma Rose. Not until I met her. But now, as I walk along one of the paths, I feel like a whole world has opened up to me—a world beyond just myself. And I like it. It's better than just being me, and just thinking about who I am, and whether or not I'm being cool, and if Lam loves me.