Life Intended (9781476754178)

by Kristin Harmel

  It’s not until we’re in a cab headed home and the laughter has died down that the shame moves in. There’s nothing wrong with Dan. He’s the same man he’s always been. It’s just that I can’t keep living two versions of the same life forever. And the truth is, this isn’t the version I’d choose.

  On the night before my mother arrives, I head to St. Paula’s for my third sign language class with Andrew. I’m looking forward to it more than I expected, and I’m oddly proud of the fact that I’ve spent my spare time in the last few days looking up signs I wanted to know. I’ve learned to say, Good job, Now try this, piano, keyboard, guitar, maracas, sing, notes, and music, and I’ve grown eager to work with the kids again. I’m hoping to talk to Andrew after class about scheduling another visit with Molly and Riajah as well as a first visit with the other girl he mentioned.

  I’m sitting in my folding chair in the church basement, waiting for Andrew to arrive, when Vivian bustles in and sits down next to me. I look up from the file I’m reviewing on a new client named Simon and smile at her.

  “Do you have the time?” she asks, pointing to her wrist.

  I check my watch and tell her it’s two minutes to seven, and she whoops loudly.

  “I can’t believe I’ve actually made it before class started for once!” she crows, and for the first time, I realize her accent is British. “Andrew isn’t here yet, is he?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Double score!” she cries, pumping her fist in the air. “Usually, I’m that complete slacker student who bounds in late and interrupts the teacher at work. You know, like last time. And the time before. But huzzah! An on-time arrival! Surely the world is spinning crookedly on its axis as we speak.”

  I laugh. “Have you taken many classes like this?”

  “Oh, my dear, I take them all the time!” she says as she unzips the raincoat she’s inexplicably wearing and wriggles out of it. “The last class I took was on origami. Before that, it was computer programming. I’m sixty-eight years young, and you want to know my secret? If you’re continuously learning, you never get old.”

  “Well, that’s a good philosophy,” I say as she folds her raincoat over the back of her chair. “What made you decide to take an ASL course?”

  “I’ve already taken seventeen other language courses, including British sign language, which is completely different,” she says with a shrug. “I like to know a little bit of everything. ASL has been on my list for a while, but I just hadn’t found a class that appealed to me. Then I heard about this one from a friend. So what about you?” she continues, barely pausing for breath. “What brings you here? Why are you taking this class? Who are you learning for?”

  “My daughter,” I say, then I clap my hand over my mouth. I can’t believe I just admitted aloud to taking this class for the benefit of a child who doesn’t exist.

  “Oh, how lovely,” Vivian says, but she looks confused. “Now, help me to understand this. Why now? Did your daughter just go deaf?”

  I look at my lap. “No. I just found her recently,” I mumble.

  “Found her?”

  I realize I’m sounding crazier by the second, so I quickly amend that to the most logical explanation I can think of. “Adopted her, I mean. I just adopted her recently.”

  “Oh my!” Vivian says, her hands flying to her cheeks as she beams at me. “Kate, that’s just lovely!”

  “Oh. Yeah, thanks,” I mumble. I’ve now dug myself even deeper into the crazy hole.

  “You know, I truly believe adoption is one of the greatest unheralded blessings in the world,” she continues, her expression turning earnest. “Think how beautiful it is to give a child a home and to become a family because you choose to! Maybe that’s the best way to make a family, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I say weakly.

  “So,” she says, clapping her hands. “Tell me about this daughter of yours. What’s her name?”

  “Um,” I begin, but fortunately, I’m saved from answering when Andrew hurries through the door to the basement, his arms full of books and paperwork.

  “Sorry I’m a little late, guys!” he says, dumping everything on the table at the front of the makeshift classroom.

  There’s a mumbled chorus of forgiveness, then Andrew asks if any of us have been practicing signing on our own.

  “Raise your hand if you’ve been working on ASL signs independently, outside of class,” he says. Amy’s hand shoots up as Vivian and I exchange amused glances and raise our hands too.

  “Terrific,” Andrew says. “Amy, I saw your hand first. Did you learn something new that you’d like to share with the rest of us?” When she nods, Andrew says, “Do you want to show us?”

  I’m sitting behind Amy today, so I can’t see exactly what she’s doing with her hands, but I’m close enough that I notice her ears turning red. I lean forward to see what she’s signing, and I can feel my eyebrows rising when I catch the words meal—all five fingers pinched together, moving twice toward the mouth—and with me.

  Andrew looks confused for a minute, but then his face brightens. “Amy, that’s wonderful. You’ve learned how to say, Do you want to have a meal with me?”

  Amy’s face flames. “Right.”

  Andrew either completely misses the point or chooses to ignore the question, which is almost certainly directed his way, because he just grins and says, “You know, that’s a wonderful and extremely useful phrase to have learned. You put me to shame that I didn’t think to teach it to the class myself. You guys, let’s go ahead and learn the phrase together. Amy, can you show it to us again? Here, stand up and face everyone.”

  Amy looks crestfallen as she stands up and repeats the signs again. Andrew puts his right hand on hers to show her—and us—how to more accurately sign want, which is two upward-­facing palms, fingers spread, mimicking pulling something toward one’s body, almost like opening a drawer. Amy jerks away like she’s been burned when he touches her, which seems to startle him—and that’s the moment that he understands that she wasn’t just learning a phrase; she was asking him out.

  His face turns a little red, and he glances at me before clearing his throat. “Wonderful job, Amy, just wonderful,” he says quickly. “The rest of you, that’s a phrase worth practicing at home.”

  He moves quickly away from Amy and gestures for her to sit down. When he’s back at the front of the small room, he says, “Vivian, Kate? You also learned phrases?”

  Vivian tells him that she’s learned, I take my tea with the Queen, which makes us all laugh, and after she proudly demonstrates, he turns to me.

  “Kate? What do you have for us this evening?” he asks.

  “I learned how to say, I’m very glad to be here with you,” I tell him, picking a relatively innocuous phrase, although I’ve learned it so that I can say it to Hannah when I see her again. If I see her again.

  “Great.” Andrew smiles warmly at me. “Let’s see it.”

  I point to myself, then I try to sign the rest of the sentence fluidly. Very is two peace signs touching and then moving apart from each other; glad is two open-palmed upward flicks to the center of the chest; here is a couple of upward motions with open, upturned palms; with you is touching the fingers of two closed fists together and then pointing.

  “Wonderful,” Andrew murmurs when I finish, then he puts his two palms up facing out and pats the air. “That’s the sign for wonderful,” he adds. “Kate, you could even say, It’s wonderful to be here with you.”

  I nod, repeat his motion, and finish with to be here with you. He nods enthusiastically and says, “That’s exactly it! Now, class, let’s try both phrases and thanks, Kate, for bringing them up.”

  As the class mimics Andrew’s more skillful repetition of my phrases, Amy turns and mouths, Teacher’s pet. She’s smiling, but the mirth doesn’t reach her eyes.

  An hour
later, after we’ve learned two dozen new sentences, thirty common words, and a bit of history about ASL, Andrew looks at his watch again and says, “Well, folks, looks like we’re out of time. Thanks again for being here, practice your signs this week, and I’ll see you next Wednesday.” We begin to gather our things, and Andrew adds, “Kate, could you stay after class for a few minutes? There’s something I want to ask you.”

  This earns me a full-out glare from Amy, but I nod and wait for the other people to filter out of the room before approaching Andrew’s desk, which he’s currently shuffling papers on.

  “Great work today. And I owe you an apology for not touching base sooner about the kids. Think you’d be up for another visit with Molly and Riajah soon?” he asks. “What does your schedule look like next week?”

  “Actually, tomorrow works for me if it works for you.”

  He looks surprised. “Wow, your schedule must be a lot more flexible than mine.”

  “No, it’s just that my mom’s coming to town, so I took the day off to get her from the airport. Seeing the kids tomorrow would be perfect.”

  “You don’t want to hang out with your mom then?” he asks.

  “She’s having dinner with my sister and her kids tomorrow night. She likes to see us separately, which is weird.” I roll my eyes and add, “I think she tries to get dirt on us from each other. So believe me when I say I’d rather see Molly and Riajah than sit at home and wonder what my mom and sister are gossiping about.”

  “Only if you’re sure,” he says with a smile. “I was thinking maybe we could do two more short at-home sessions with the girls like last time. I should be able to clear their schedule with Sheila.”

  “And the other girl you mentioned? Do you want me to see her too?”

  “You know what? Yeah.” He frowns in concentration for a moment. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to see if we can set something up with her for Friday. Maybe I could bring her by your office. Would that work? So you don’t have to make two trips out to Queens this week?”

  “Sure,” I say. “My assistant can schedule something. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  “Ah, you have an assistant,” he says. “You’re very fancy-pants, I see.”

  “The fanciest,” I say, which makes him laugh. “Although I have to admit, I share her with the other three therapists in my office.”

  “So really only upscale-casual-pants, then,” he says with a straight face, and I laugh.

  We agree that we’ll meet in his office at four o’clock tomorrow for the short walk over to Molly’s and Riajah’s foster home.

  “Hey, I also wanted to apologize,” he adds as I turn to go.

  “Apologize? For what?”

  “For unloading on you about my brother. I haven’t done that in years.” He pauses. “I know I should probably be past it by now.”

  “First of all, you should never apologize for talking about something like that. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Really?”

  I nod. “And losing someone, well, it leaves you with a hole in your life. I get it. I don’t think you ever get past that kind of loss. But I do think you get through it.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He smiles as I head for the door. “Oh, and Kate?” he calls after me.

  I turn around. “Yeah?”

  Andrew meets my gaze, smiles, and slowly signs something to me, ending with his right thumb and index finger pulling his left index finger up toward his chin. “See you tomorrow,” he adds.

  It takes me until I’m in the church above us, heading for the door, to realize that what he’d signed to me was, You are very special.

  Seventeen

  “You’re putting on weight” is the first thing my mother says to me when I meet her by baggage claim at JFK after a long ride out to the airport on the E train.

  “It’s nice to see you too,” I say with a sigh, giving her a hug. “I see you’ve been sticking with yoga.” Her hair, dyed light brown with honey highlights, looks freshly blown out, and her figure is slender and toned. Admittedly, I’m a little jealous; she’s twenty-five years my senior and looks better than I do.

  “We’ll have to get you to a studio, darling,” she chirps. “Susan’s been going to a place on the Upper East, and she just loves it. It’ll be just the thing to get you into shape before you get married!”

  We wait for her suitcases, two overstuffed Atlantic rollers, to come out on the conveyor belt, and when we’re finally in a cab, she asks me, “So how are you, really?”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I say without looking at her.

  She’s silent for a moment. “Susan told me about what happened at the bridal store.”

  I shake my head and look out the window so she can’t read my face. “It was nothing. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

  “A girl you were dreaming about? Honey, that doesn’t sound normal.”

  I stare out the window for a moment at the outskirts of the city rolling by. Right now, I wish I could be walking somewhere among all those soaring buildings, on a street where no one knows my name.

  “Do you think it’s just nerves?” my mother ventures after the silence gets uncomfortable. “Prewedding butterflies?”

  “Sure,” I tell her. “Probably.”

  “I thought so,” she says, leaning back in her seat and nodding knowingly. “Susan was very worried about you, but I said, ‘Susan, she’s fine. She’s just getting used to the idea of being married.’ Susan didn’t understand how that feels, being that she’s been married to Robert for such a long time, but you and me, we single girls get it, right?”

  I glance at her. “I’m widowed, Mom. Not single. So are you.”

  “Well, of course,” she says quickly. “But it’s all in the perspective. I’m choosing not to dwell on your father’s death. You know, you could choose not to dwell on Patrick’s.”

  As my mother turns to look out the window, I study her profile and feel a pang of sadness. Within a year of my dad’s death, my mom had moved to Florida and gotten herself a boyfriend. “It’s just her way of dealing with it,” Susan said when I expressed concern at the time. But I think she moved on so quickly because my parents had outgrown their relationship long before he died. I can’t imagine ever having outgrown Patrick. I’m afraid that what my parents had was perhaps the norm and that what I had with Patrick was the exception, which makes me doubt even more that I’m supposed to find that kind of love again.

  “So in these dreams,” my mother begins. I blink a few times and refocus on her as she continues, “Do you see Patrick? Or just this imaginary deaf child you apparently had with Patrick?”

  “Both,” I say softly.

  “Well,” she says, brightening after a minute, “maybe it’s just your mind’s way of telling you you’re ready for children. I mean, I would think you’d be dreaming of Dan, but who can know how the brain works, right?” She nudges me and adds, “Maybe this is just a sign that it’s time to give me a grandbaby before I get too old.”

  I stare at her for a minute. “Susan didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Mom, I can’t have kids,” I say flatly.

  My mother stares at me for what feels like a full minute. Then, her face crumples, and she says softly, “Oh, Katie, I didn’t know. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” I try to keep the edge out of my voice. “It’s just—it’s just the way it is, I guess.” I quickly recap the doctor’s visit, leaving out the technical terms because my mother won’t understand them any better than I do.

  “So Dan, he’s okay with this?” she asks tentatively.

  I nod. “Turns out having kids isn’t that important to him.”

  “Oh.” She pauses. “Well, I guess that’s good. Life goes on as usual, right?” She nudges me again and gives me a sunny smile, bu
t I know my mom well enough to see my own sadness reflected in her eyes. “I mean, I’m disappointed, of course,” she adds. “But you enjoy being unattached, don’t you? Think of all the things you’ll be able to do in life without children.”

  The words are meant to be a comfort, but they feel like a slap in the face. “Right, Mom,” I say. I intend to leave it at that, but then I hear myself add, “We could adopt, though, you know.”

  “Adopt?”

  I nod.

  My mother blinks a few times. “Of course. Why yes, you could. That’s just an awfully big decision, honey. You don’t want to rush into something you can’t take back.”

  “But a second ago, you were ready to rush me into having a baby,” I point out.

  She purses her lips. “That’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  “Semantics, my dear,” she says, and although I don’t know what she means and am fairly sure she doesn’t either, I let it go.

  I get my mother checked into the Ritz-Carlton, where she has insisted upon staying despite the fact that both Susan and I have offered her our guest rooms. As we wait for Susan in the hotel’s Auden Bistro, my mother orders flutes of champagne for both of us, and when they arrive, she raises hers and says, “To forgetting all about these dreams and getting on with your real life—and your lovely wedding, dear.”

  I force a smile and clink glasses with her, but I don’t say anything aloud for fear of somehow jinxing the return of the dreams.

  “I’m so happy for you, Kate,” my mother says after she’s taken her first sip. “Your father and I were both so worried that you’d never find anyone to be happy with after Patrick.”

  “I was worried about that too,” I admit.

  “But Dan, he fits the bill, doesn’t he?” she continues. “He’s such a nice man. I’m so glad you’ve found someone so perfect for you.”