by Nicole Baart
I didn’t know what to say. It all came down to pity? Michael’s thoughtfulness, the way he treated me like an equal, his offering the afternoon he showed me a summer snow? This was worse than his anger. This was far, far worse than watching him go and spending the rest of my life wondering what was behind the tiny seed of our purported friendship. At least then I could dream that maybe it could have been more if the timing were different. It crushed me.
My fingers felt unattached to my body as I reached for my bag, the remnants of food I had sampled and discarded. Without looking again at Michael, I placed my hands beside me to push myself off the peeling bench.
But he grabbed my wrist.
Surprised, I spun to glance at his hand. He held me fast; his tanned, calloused fingers wrapped clean around the narrow bones of my pale arm. Michael’s arm was browned by the sun, and flecks of dark hair peeked from beneath the white long-sleeved shirt that he had casually cuffed twice. He just held me, waiting, as I watched the inexplicable embrace of his fingers. I slowly, bit by bit, dared myself to look at his face.
Michael was smiling tentatively at me. “Hey, don’t think that’s the only reason I’m kind to you. I don’t like you because I have some deep down desire to reach out to unwed mothers. I’m not running a charity house here.” He laughed a little at his own attempt at a joke but abandoned his mirth when he saw the look on my face.
“I don’t understand,” I said quietly.
Michael sighed. “Julia, I like you because I like you. Can’t it be that simple? I think you’re funny and intelligent. I admire you for your gentleness. I like your easy smile, even when it looks like the last thing you want to do is smile.” He paused, and I could see the dispute unravel across his face as he decided whether or not to say one last thing. He gave in. “And I think you’re incredibly brave for doing what you’re doing. But that has nothing to do with my mother.”
I stared at him for what felt like a full minute. Michael stared back, holding my hesitant eyes in his own warm gaze and bidding me with his open smile to believe the uncomplicated truth he offered. It was that simple. He liked me for me. Why was that so hard to believe?
“But I’m …”
“Pregnant?” Michael asked. “So what? You think that changes who you are?”
We sat in silence, listening to the rush of the wind through the alfalfa and what I believed to be the distant rumblings of the storm on the edge of the horizon. I wanted to argue with Michael, to inform him that he was acting in a manner completely counter-cultural and beyond my own comprehension. I didn’t know how to deal with his offer of friendship, his easy acceptance of who I was, or his apparent ability to see me for who I someday could be. Would be? He saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself.
I didn’t know what to say. But finally, because I couldn’t stand to look at him for another moment and because something had to be said, I choked out, “Thank you.”
Michael appeared to think that I could have said nothing finer. “You’re welcome,” he said back. And then with a subtle, unassuming gesture that asked for nothing in return, he pulled my wrist toward him and held my hand lightly in his own. He considered it for a moment, turning it over so that the back of my hand rested in his, my palm exposed to the air. I watched the intersecting lines of my translucent skin, wondering what Michael was looking for and hoping he would find it.
He did. In one unhurried movement, Michael brought my hand to his face and brushed his lips against the thin, blue vein that pulsed in the inside of my wrist, just beneath the skin.
Surprises
IT WASN’T A ROMANTIC KISS. Nor was it merely friendly. It was an affirmation, a tender acknowledgment of Julia Anne DeSmit as a person. A woman. Valuable. Significant. Maybe even lovely. But it was also not enough.
In the moment that Michael released my hand and led me back into the chill air of Value Foods, I knew that there was nothing he could do to be enough of what I needed. He could have swept me into his arms, kissed my mouth in a fit of passion, and begged me to be his bride, and whatever deep thirst I had hidden in the heart of me still would not be slaked. Amazing, unfathomable man that he was, I had hoped that he could breathe life into me. It took the touch of his lips to convince me that he was only a man.
True, he stirred something in me—sweetly, tenderly, even graciously— but when his kindness brushed up against my soul, it did not begin to ease the ache of the seemingly bottomless fissure that still gaped. The realization leveled me.
What then? Oh, God, what then?
Did my peace rest in making a decision about the baby? Should I keep him? let him go?
Or maybe satisfaction could be found in Janice. Maybe, like Grandma had said so long ago, it was all a matter of forgiveness. Of love? What if I called Janice “Mother” and pleaded with her to put Ben out of her mind, to start over?
But then again, what could I build with the strength of my own wounded hands?
I was no more aware of what I should do than I was sure of Michael’s motives. But though I wanted to bury my head in my arms and cry, retreat from the world and the imminent decisions that crept closer with every day, immobility had never been an option. I gathered up Michael’s words, his almost brotherly kiss, and tucked them somewhere that they would never be forgotten. I moved on.
And time was gracious to me. Though my due date tiptoed ever nearer, nothing happened. Though I caught Janice in the middle of yet another furtive telephone call, she stayed. I tutored Simon, went to work, talked with Grandma, allowed myself to dream a little about Michael. Life went on as it had all summer long, and if we were on the brink of falling apart, we kept our composure admirably.
As if verifying the solidarity of our unspoken pact to exist and be happy, Grandma celebrated her seventy-eighth birthday a few days after Michael’s enigmatic gesture.
Simon helped me bake a golden yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting, from a box and a jar respectively, and we decorated the house with pink and white streamers. I even let him use a chair to climb on the countertop and affix numerous ends of the gauzy paper to the tops of the oak cupboards, in spite of the fact that it was against my better judgment.
“I won’t fall,” Simon chided me, as if I was the one who had suggested something ridiculous. He had the handle of a cupboard door in one hand and was pushing pink strands of paper out of his face with the other.
“Make sure you don’t,” I retorted. Although my heart clenched to see him so high, so vulnerable and unwitting when he turned his back, I stood directly behind him, ready to catch him should he stumble.
We had gone earlier to pick out a birthday present and some cards, and Simon insisted on scrutinizing every single possibility in the birthday section before settling on what he considered to be good enough for Grandma Nellie. He had a very particular idea of what he wanted the card to look like and say, and nothing but his carefully imagined perfection would do. A rosy card with pale yellow flowers came close, and because I was more than ready to call it a day, I snatched it out of Simon’s hands and tried to hurry him down the aisle before he could be distracted by more sappy couplets and doe-eyed birds.
But just before we rounded the corner, he saw it: the one. It was a pale green card with a cluster of intricate birdhouses along the left edge. They were bordered by an abundant flower garden that sprawled roses, gladiolas, and wispy ivy with purple flowers across the bottom and up the opposite side. The paper was laser cut so the flowers cast a looping shadow on the blue interior beneath.
“‘Happy birthday,’” Simon read. He flipped the card open with an almost peculiar intensity and continued very slowly, precisely: “‘I hope your birthday is as love … love-lee’?”
I peered over his shoulder. “You got it right: lovely.”
“‘I hope your birthday is as lovely as you are.’” Simon wrinkled his nose. “What does lovely mean?”
“Pretty,” I said. “Beautiful.” But somehow that didn’t quite encompass it. “I do
n’t know, soft somehow and gentle.… The word lovely makes me think of a lady. And love, I suppose. There’s something lovable in it.”
“Grandma’s a lady,” Simon breathed. “And I love her. It’s perfect. Look, it even has a garden—and birdhouses!”
“It is perfect,” I agreed, thinking of the birdhouse we had bought only an hour ago. One of our neighbors, a retired farmer who should have been a woodworker, had recently begun setting his little projects by the road with a For Sale sign stuck in the ground nearby. There was a pair of Adirondack chairs, a painted lighthouse, a long, low planter’s bench, and three tall, white birdhouses on beveled poles. Simon chose the smallest one because it was the most detailed: the birdhouse was fashioned to look like a white, two-story Victorian complete with a wraparound porch and turreted tower. There was even a tiny painted sign affixed to the right of the circular door: The Wild Rose Inn.
But the card made me think of other things too. Of Graham’s sweet praise and Michael’s chaste kiss. Of seeing things in myself that I hadn’t previously seen. I took Simon’s hand, holding his card in the other, and hoped that I would find whatever it was inside me that made them think me lovely.
Grandma acted surprised when she came home from delivering Meals on Wheels, though we knew that she knew we were planning a party. She stepped through the door, taking in the streamers, the layered cake swathed in folds of chocolate, and her haphazard family blowing absurdly on children’s noisemakers. They had been Simon’s idea. I thought they made us look a bit silly, but from the other side of the room it seemed as though Grandma’s eyes misted over a little.
“Happy birthday!” Simon yelled. He gave his noisemaker one last, triumphant wheeze, then skittered across the kitchen floor to hug my grandmother around the middle. She was radiant in her joy.
“Thank you, Simon,” Grandma said, hugging him back. “Did you do this? Did you decorate and make that—that amazing cake?”
“Yup, but Julia helped. And she let me climb on the counter.”
“Simon!” I yelped.
“Julia!” Grandma cried.
“He was fine,” I stated quickly. I glanced at Janice, afraid that she would be furious with me, but she was busy with the pizza boxes, opening them and laying them out on the counter now that Grandma was home.
“We ordered pizza,” Simon told Grandma, ushering her to her chair. “We didn’t want you to think about cooking or cleaning or anything!”
“We thought it would be relaxing,” I added, dropping a kiss on my grandmother’s cheek. “Happy birthday.”
She touched my hand as it lay on her shoulder. “Thank you, Julia. This is so sweet. So fun.”
“That’s the idea.”
“We have everything for a party. There’s cake,” Simon enthused, needlessly pointing out the dessert that graced the center of the table, “and cards and presents.…” He swept his arms over the little pile by Grandma’s plate. “And Julia said we could probably play a game later.”
I winked at him. “It’s up to Grandma, remember? Whatever she wants to play.”
“Well,” Grandma said slowly, “I think I could take you on in a game of Yahtzee.”
Even Janice laughed at Simon’s whoop.
We ate slowly and lingered over root beer floats, and though Janice was quiet, she wasn’t unpleasant. The conversation darted around her, taking off in a million different directions as Simon’s imagination was sparked. He even got Grandma to tell us stories about when she was a little girl, and her account of helping her mother make homemade laundry detergent and scrubbing their clothes on a washboard on the front porch made everyone’s jaw drop.
“But we have washing machines,” Simon remarked, confused.
“We didn’t back then,” Grandma told him.
Simon still looked like he was at a loss. “But, Grandma, you’re not that old.” He pulled his knees underneath him and stretched impulsively across the table, grabbing Grandma’s hand where it rested beside her plate. Simon turned her hand over in his fingers, studying the lines with as much concentration as Michael had considered mine. Grandma’s fingers looked gnarled in Simon’s small, dark hands. They seemed much older when embraced by his straight bones and smooth skin.
“You’re right,” Grandma said eventually, giving Simon’s hands a loving squeeze. “I’m not that old at all.”
My oversensitive spirit was sobered by the obvious untruth of such a statement, but Simon was already on to something else. “We have a present for you!” he exclaimed. “And a card!”
The card was significant, and I tried to release my anxiety as Simon reached for the pebble green envelope. We had decided that the time was right for his little revelation, for Grandma and Janice to finally discover what we had been secretly working on for months. Like he’d hoped, Simon was indeed able to read at least a bit, and though I could really take no credit for his learning, nearly everything he had managed to pick up had come from our morning sessions. It was true that a number of words he simply had memorized, but still I was proud of him in a way that I couldn’t really understand. When I heard him read, when I watched his thoughtful forefinger follow words across a page, I was overcome with a gentle elation that rose up and up until I found myself grinning and wishing big things for Simon that went far beyond stringing together his ABC’s.
“Here.” Simon scooted out of his chair and went around the table to hand Grandma the card. The second she touched the envelope he changed his mind, snatching it back quickly and ripping it open. “I can do it for you.”
“Okay.” Grandma giggled.
“Look.” Simon showed her the card. “It’s a garden—just like yours. And it says, ‘Happy birthday.’”
Grandma smiled at Simon, but he was looking at the card. She caught my eye, giving me a funny look.
I shook my head, casting off her attention and nodding back at the little boy who stood with his arm just touching hers.
“And on the inside—” Simon opened the card—“it says, ‘I hope your birthday is as lovely as you are. Love, Simon.’”
He had written his name at the bottom, each letter round and neat, painstakingly drawn and perfected as he chewed his tongue. “Look there, Grandma.” He pointed. “I wrote my name. And I read this whole card.”
“You did?” she asked, a grin lighting up her face.
“I did,” Simon said gravely. “Julia taught me how.”
“Surprise.” I waved my hands sheepishly.
“I know how to read!” Simon threw his arms in the air and yelled again, “Happy birthday, Grandma!”
Laughing, Grandma caught him in another hug. “That’s a wonderful surprise. What a great birthday present.”
“It’s kind of for all of us,” Simon said earnestly.
“Oh, of course,” Grandma responded, equally serious. “I wouldn’t want to keep something like that to myself.”
I tore my eyes away from them to see Janice’s reaction. Clearly she knew that Simon had learned his letters in preschool, but wasn’t she impressed that he was able to thread at least some of them together? that he was able to read? Simon had, in fact, done it for her. He had wanted to amaze his mother, make her proud.
But when my gaze found Janice, the look in her eyes was resigned, as if she was steeling herself to follow through with a decision that had already been made. She sat across from them, watching my grandmother rub a gentle hand across her son’s back. Their heads were bowed together over the special card, and Simon’s lips moved a mile a minute, explaining enthusiastically. Grandma wasn’t looking at the card. She was studying Simon, a mixture of love and pride battling cheerfully across her face. Janice observed them with a tired smile tugging at the downturn of her lips.
Stop! I wanted to yell. You don’t understand!
It was like watching a train wreck unfold: I could see the engine, barreling down and oblivious, and Janice, on the middle of the tracks, trapped in the glare of the headlights, panic-stricken and pale. But it was
all a misunderstanding. A mistake. Janice was supposed to be Simon’s mother; he was supposed to be her son. Yet I could tell by the look on her face that she was regretting the decision she had made nearly six years ago.
Watching Simon interact with my grandmother, easily, openly, as if it was the most comfortable and natural thing in the world, I could see that Janice was berating herself for her own self-perceived weakness. In her mind at least, Simon would have been happier in a more stable family. In a family where a woman like my grandmother called him “Son.” Where there was a devoted father, maybe even siblings, a dog. It was why she wanted me to give my baby up for adoption so desperately.
In an instant, I knew that Janice was hating herself for not having the strength to let Simon go when she had the chance. She was trying to figure out how to make it right.
“Simon,” I said suddenly, my voice high and uneven, “why don’t you show your mom how you can read?”
The little boy yanked the card away from Grandma and bounded around the table to bring it to Janice.
See? I longed to say. He loves you.
Janice opened her arms for him and lifted Simon’s slight frame onto her lap. She rested her chin on his shoulder and watched as he opened the card and read it yet again. “Great job,” Janice murmured when he was finished. She kissed the side of his head, breathing in his little boy smell. “You are so smart.”
“I know,” Simon quipped back. Then he slipped off her lap and came to tug on my arm, telling me it was time for cake.
Although everyone seemed happy and light, I rose to get the cake knife with a deep sense of dread pinching my chest. What would Janice do with these feelings, these beliefs that were written across her face as plain as day? I knew she considered herself a failure as a mother. I knew she regretted many of the decisions that she had made regarding Simon and, I suppose, regarding me. But what was she going to do to right her mistakes? I hoped that I didn’t know Janice as well as I thought I did.
