As She Grows

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  “Can I have my math book too?” I ask, annoyed at her assumption that I’m nothing more than a pregnant belly.

  “Of course!” she says, obviously impressed with my interest. She goes into her office and returns with some algebra sheets. She tells me she’ll need a day to get the rest of my work organized. “So why don’t you work on the package for now?”

  At first I’m resentful, as if our lives are made to stop now that we are pregnant. I stare back at my photocopied package. I flippantly tick off lists, scratch in fill-in-the-blanks, and invert my true or false. A woman loses a tooth for every baby she has: true, of course. When asked about my child’s values, I reject the suggested adjectives—controlled, restrained, self-disciplined—and create my own: slutty, bitchy, catty. I get back the first unit with a big red F on the top-right corner. Miss Lucy tells me that I can make up the mark by completing a supplementary writing assignment and puts it down on the table. “A minimum of three pages,” she says.

  I’m excited to accept the challenge of failure. My vengeful pen ready, I flip the page.

  A good mother is . . .

  I am wordless. Feel slapped in the face. No thoughts come to my mind, not even rude ones. I sit for what seems like hours, trying to think of something to say, something funny or stupid— or thoughtful. But I stay wordless, watch the second hand coast around in circles, listen to Miss Lucy in her office on the phone, talking to her dry cleaners, then a teacher, then Rogers Cable. I doodle on the page, flowers and stars, and just when I think I’m about to go nuts, I add one word to her incomplete sentence and it’s like a door opens in my head.

  A good mother is . . . NOT . . . someone who borrows her daughter’s bathrobe and returns it with cum stains. A good mother is not someone who lets her child stay up all night to watch TV or just laughs when an eight-year-old tells the grocery clerk to fuck off. A good mother is not someone who leaves condoms in an unflushed toilet or bad milk in the fridge. A good mother doesn’t let her boyfriend smash her head in and then say afterward it’s okay because it was her fault.

  I have so much more to say, I fill up four pages, both sides. At the end I write, A good mother is not mine. I staple it and leave it on Miss Lucy’s desk. In class the next day she gives me back the paper, a large purple A with the words “good detail” scribbled beside it. “I thought your piece was very insightful, Snow,” she says as she passes by my desk. “I like the twist. Knowing what a good mother is not is as important as knowing what a good mother is.” I feel her warm hand rest on my shoulder. “Good job.”

  I make a point of working on the parenting booklet after that. I continue to tick off lists and match definitions and then, after a while, it’s like I can’t really even bring myself to do my math or geography. I compare breast- and bottle-feeding, write paragraphs on disciplining, and list ten ways to childproof a home. I create logical consequences, set appropriate limits, copy a list of factors that affect the healthy development of the fetus. I read about Erik Erikson’s theory of personalities. I fill out charts on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and learn that I have no self-actualization in my life. I read about a study on rats that somehow proves close contact with the baby once it’s born is important. Then I stare out the window and wonder how in the world rats can tell us anything about the behaviour of people.

  Every girl gets an individual meeting with the supervisor, Ms. Crawl, during her first few days, but since she’s been on vacation I’ll meet her my third week at Beverley. Ms. Crawl has been here thirty years and Sky says she runs the place with an iron fist. Sky says that when Ms. Crawl walks into the room, everybody loses her smile, even the youth workers. On the day of my meeting, Sky sits on the end of my bed and preps me for what she calls “the initiation into hell.” She explains the best way to handle it is just to remain quiet, and if I think I’m going to lose it on her, I should just start counting the pencils in the jug on her desk. “The others think she’s out for blood,” she says. “They think it has something to do with abortion guilt. But I think she just needs a good fuck.” Then she makes a tight fist and forces her finger into the hole to demonstrate. “You know, she’s all tight and rigid.”

  I sit in Ms. Crawl’s spacious office, to the right of the house entrance, and wait for her. The large wooden desk is spotless. Papers are neatly highlighted with yellow and pink stripes. Even the sticky notes are placed with precision.

  “Good morning, Miss Snow,” Ms. Crawl says as she enters the room. She looks exactly the way I had imagined. Pointy nose and chin, bony knuckles, as if she even considered flesh to be excessive. She begins by asking me questions about my pregnancy and about Elsie. She pretends to listen to my answers, but she’s not like Eric who listens to me in a way that makes me believe he cares. Eric lets me have my own opinions and doesn’t force his on me. Ms. Crawl, on the other hand, is the kind of woman who has an agenda. I am one-dimensional to her. I am a pregnant teenager.

  In the middle of the meeting, she gets up to close the door, her shoes squeaking like sick mice. “You seem like a very smart girl, Snow. I feel as if I can be straight with you.” She sits on the edge of her desk, so that I’m staring up into her nostrils. Her pointy tits poke through her camisole and her satiny blouse. I find this deeply disturbing because for some reason she strikes me as a woman who shouldn’t have nipples. “We sometimes encourage girls in your circumstance to consider adoption. There are so many kind, loving adults who’d like to offer a baby, like yours, a home.”

  “Like mine?” I say, confused.

  Ms. Crawl clears her throat. She reaches out a scrawny hand and smooths invisible creases on her skirt.

  “Do you know what it’s like to be given away?” I ask her. “You know what happens to those people? They become fuck-ups, like me. That’s what happens.”

  “You know what happens to babies born to fifteen-year-old girls?” she asks me. “They become fifteen-year-old girls with babies.” She holds out her hand, presenting me as her evidence. Resting her case.

  I shake my head, disagreeing.

  “How old was your mother?” she asks, going for blood. Sky was right.

  “So what?” I say, disappointed in myself because that was the best I could come up with. And, really, I don’t need to speak. There’s comfort in being a statistic. To know there’s lots of us out there. At least we have those high-risk factors to defend our actions. I don’t even need to explain myself to Ms. Crawl. She knew me the moment she opened my file. I suppose all families have their heirlooms: fine china, portrait paintings, teenage pregnancies.

  Ms. Crawl stares straight at me, prepared for this. “I didn’t create this society, Snow. And believe me, if I could change it, I would. I devote my life to helping girls like you. But the reality is, teenage mothers just aren’t given a lot of breaks. You get money from the government, but it sure isn’t much, and there are a lot of wonderful women out there who would provide great opportunities your child will never see. It’s a harsh reality, but you need to think of someone other than yourself now.” She gestures to my stomach, as if I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  She gives me pamphlets and makes me sit through a fifteen-minute video on adoption. When she flicks on the light and opens the door to release me, I ask if there are any videos on keeping your baby. “Of course. You’ll be participating in many groups on mothering. And ultimately, Snow, it’s entirely your choice and we’ll support you either way. I promise you that. You just need to be aware of the consequences. Sometimes that can get lost in here.”

  21

  People are afraid I won’t know how to love you. They don’t say it exactly, but it’s in the worried way they look at me. At school they give me books and articles and assignments on how to love my child. As if the way I love is wrong. But I never knew there was a right way. I bet most people don’t. I bet there are people all over the place, loving the wrong kind of way, but I don’t see any fingers pointing at them, say, in the middle of a crowded subway, to the fat
her in the blue suit with a bruised right fist: You, yes, you—the way you love is wrong.

  “You already are a mother. You’re loving already. Think of what you’re creating. That’s the best kind of love,” says Eric, thinking he’s comforting me. But inside my body I love you perfectly only because I have no say in it. Under my silent direction, you will come out flawless. But it’s when you are in my hands and you are crying and I don’t know what to do that I worry about. How will I love you then?

  How do you describe love, good love, to someone who has never known it? It’s like describing snow to someone who’s never seen it. How can you describe something that’s beautiful and ugly all at once? Something you can both appreciate and resent. Something that’s cold but can feel so warm. How do you describe that love’s all about balance? Too little and it will melt away, too much and it will break you. Now, how do you describe all this if you yourself have never seen snow?

  “You don’t describe love,” says Eric. “You give it.”

  Once, about two years ago, Elsie told me she loved me. But she didn’t mean it, not really. It was in the afternoon sometime. I had walked in on her in the bathroom. She was naked in the tub, but there was no water in it, only powdery pink grains of bubble bath on the bottom. The radio was plugged in, above the sink. It was on some stupid classical music station.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, disgusted at her nakedness.

  “Having a bath.” She leaned back into the tub and closed her eyes. Made a motion with her hand as if she were swishing the water. I was too shocked to comment on the absurdity of this. Her body looked much older naked, her skin layered and breasts low. I quickly closed the door and she called my name.

  “Snow?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Open the door.” I cautiously poked my head in. “I love you,” she said, for the first time I could ever remember.

  “Me too,” I said without thinking. And shut the door.

  I remember going to lie down on my bed and staring at the ceiling after that. My mind in a fog, no real thoughts coming through. I was unsure if she was tripping out or just being weird. Then I considered if it made a difference. It bothered me that I said me too; another obligatory phrase, like sorry, demanding a response. Half an hour later, the door opened and Elsie came out, still naked, her head wrapped in a towel. She walked down the hall, bath crystals on her flabby bum as if she’d sat in pink sand.

  “It’s all yours,” she said happily, and disappeared into the living room.

  It’s Barb, Elsie’s worker, who calls me at Beverley after the hospital had called her. Elsie has fallen down the front stairs of her building. She has broken her arm, a few ribs, and fractured her skull. “It’s not an emergency—she was only in overnight—but I thought you’d want to know,” Barb says, but the concern in her voice tells me it was more than this. The thoughts run through my head: Was she wasted? Did she really just fall? Did she do this on purpose to get me to feel sorry for her? Was she pushed?

  I ask the first question.

  “Well, she wasn’t drunk. We know that, but the tests did indicate drugs in the system. Perhaps a mix of codeine and Valium, I’m not certain, I’d have to check her file.”

  “Don’t bother,” I say, and then try to think of a way to end the call. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Snow?” she says, trying to catch me before I hang up. “She wants you to call her. She told me to tell you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and quickly hang up.

  Beverley House doesn’t like my decision to go see Elsie. They get all serious about it and call a meeting with Ms. Crawl on a Friday morning. I arrive at her office five minutes late, carrying a piece of toast with peanut butter in my hand. I am surprised to see they have gathered the troops. Barb, Ms. Crawl, and Karyn are all circled around the table, thick yellow pads of paper in front of them. I plop down on the couch at the far end of the room with a heavy sigh.

  “I’m just going for a night. What’s the big deal?” I say, after they tell me why we’re meeting. I look for a place to throw my crusts and resign myself to just resting them on the convenient shelf of my belly.

  Staff tell me they’re concerned about me going. About the state I’m in now both physically and mentally. They think this might be too much for me.

  “She’s my grandmother. Of course I’m going to go.” I surprise even myself with these words of devotion, but I don’t let on. Instead, I just allow my mouth to keep flapping. “I mean, I know she hasn’t been the greatest, but she’s”—the reluctant word falls from my mouth—“family.”

  “I don’t understand,” Karyn says, her face scrunched up, as if she were trying to read between my lines. After all I’ve said to her about hating Elsie, I can’t blame her for not being able to figure me out. But there are some people you just have the right to love. There are some people you just have the right to hate. And sometimes I wonder if it’s all just the same emotion existing in a different state, like water and ice.

  Barb leans in toward me, placing her clasped hands on the table. “We just don’t want you to think this is your obligation.”

  “I don’t.”

  She leans in farther. “We just don’t want to put you, and your baby, at risk.” And that’s when I realize it’s not about me. It’s about the fucking baby. They don’t care if I go back and screw up my life, they just want to make sure I don’t take the baby down with me.

  “What do you think’s gonna happen?”

  “Elsie’s not well.”

  “I could have told you that,” I say.

  “If she’s a danger to herself, she could be a danger to you, and the baby. We could arrange something else.”

  I sigh deeply, start breathing heavily through my nostrils. My mouth clenched. I am getting tired of this scenario. Tired of total strangers who know nothing about me and Elsie’s life, sitting there passing judgement. As if their lives were perfect. As if they had a right to tell me what to do.

  “I’m going,” I reaffirm. “You can’t stop me.”

  Hours later, as I approach the apartment, I begin to consider turning back. I haven’t seen Elsie since the day I sat in her kitchen and she tried to explain about my mother. I stop at the parking lot to have a smoke and calm my shaking hands. Like a strong wind, the I-told-you-so of Staff presses at my back. To turn back now would require too much effort. Too much explanation. It amazes me how many things I do only because I’m told I’m not allowed to.

  “Come to poison the invalid?” Elsie yells when she hears me come in the door. “Suffocate me in my sleep?” I know she is only half joking. She is lying on the couch in the living room, a half-says, and I beam like a eaten bowl of chicken noodle soup on the coffee table in front of her. The bright white cast on her left arm looks too clean for the rest of her body.

  The living room reeks of sweat and shit and mint. “What’s that stink?” I say as I approach the couch, holding my hand up to my nose.

  “Oh, that’s the cream they gave me. Got nothing to do with my arm. Sandra, my nurse, just gave me it for rough skin. It’s peppermint, eh?” Sometimes I think Elsie actually likes going into the hospital. Like it’s a little spa for her, where she’s served tea in bed and gets massages for her sore feet. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, but then quickly raises her body off the couch: “Jesus Christ, you’re huge!”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “My God,” she says, staring at me, her jaw hanging open. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “What did you think? It wouldn’t show?”

  “Jesus,” she says, still stunned, “you’re enormous.”

  “Get over it,” I snap. “What about you? You look like shit,” I say, moving in closer to her face. Her right cheek is puffy and swollen and a yellowish purple colour. Just beside her half-opened eye are four black stitches tied like little sloppy knots of thread. Without thinking, I reach out to touch them but Elsie pulls away.

  “Well, I wasn�
��t planning no beauty contests.” She licks her dry lips. For a split second I feel bad for her, seeing her all broken like that.

  “I’m only staying tonight,” I say, snapping myself out of this pitiful moment. I waddle into the kitchen to get to work. I open the cupboards that are mostly empty, except for a few cans of tomatoes, some old packages of chicken broth, and some spaghetti.

  “What do you eat?” I yell, not expecting an answer.

  “Got no energy to shop!” she yells from the living room. “All these painkillers, eh?”

  Everything feels so normal. Like I never left. Like I’m not pregnant. Like that conversation outside the grocery store never happened. It’s as if I stepped back in time, drank some magical forget potion, and I’m back to the simple life of cleaning up after Elsie.

  I decide to start with the kitchen, then the living room, then the bathroom and bedroom. I pile empties by the kitchen door and use a spoon to scrape brown syrupy sludge from the bottoms of mugs. I mop the kitchen floor three times before it begins to look clean, and if I didn’t have a bowling ball for a stomach, I’d get on my hands and knees and scrub each square tile. In the bathroom, black algae surrounds the faucets and gobs of hardened green hork in the sink are almost impossible for me to scrape off, even with Elsie’s toothbrush. I almost gag at the collection of black pubic hairs under the toilet seat. I open the medicine cabinet and gasp at the mix of pill bottles, some even with other people’s names on them.

  “Don’t touch any of that, eh!” Elsie yells out, her ears remarkably tuned to the dull chink-chink of pills in a plastic bottle. “I’ll know if you do!”

  The bedroom is the last room to tackle. I figure it will be the easiest. I open the door and the waft of air clogs my throat. I stop breathing. It’s a familiar smell of sweat and booze and cheap cologne. It’s the smell of Mitch. I suddenly feel the need to escape. My heart thumps in my ears. I listen for voices, but only hear Elsie moving around in the kitchen, her feet shuffling on the linoleum. I tiptoe out and poke my head around the doorway.