A Theory of Expanded Love

by Hicks, Caitlin;

  With each usual procedure, the nurses and the doctors became more and more the authority I was used to obeying. Instead, when a nurse escorted me to the waiting room, I meekly followed her. I sat down next to the one dad there, who was barely able to keep his head up, holding a pack of cigars in his lap.

  I sat there for about ten seconds watching the guy drool onto the lapel of his suit. I knew in my heart that my promise to Clara was the only thing left about me that was still true. I snuck back down the hall to the labor room when no one was looking, and I managed to stay there for a long time, wincing whenever Clara moaned or gritted her teeth or screamed.

  “Don’t you tie me to this bed!” More sounds of struggle, then Clara was quiet for a minute.

  Finally, they were all telling her to push. I looked through the crack, but it was still the backs of the white coats. Clara was grunting and moaning and then I heard a baby crying. I peeked through the crack again. A doctor with a mask over his face held a baby upside down and whacked it across the bottom. The baby started to cry. All I could see was the baby’s torso. I stood back from the door. They were going to come out soon with the baby bundled up and take it to the nursery, and I couldn’t be seen.

  “It’s a girl,” I heard someone say. More whispering among the white coated nurses and doctors, and the baby quieted down.

  “The Mother’s coming to, now,” someone said. “She won’t remember anything.”

  “You can’t let her see the baby.”

  At last I could do something useful. I would make sure I kept my eyes on that baby. I waited a safe distance from the door so that no one could tell me I was in the wrong place. Sure enough, a nurse came out with the baby bundled up in her arms. She raced over to the nursery. I could hear Clara crying out.

  “No, no, no!” she cried. “And then she was sobbing. “Give me back my baby! I don’t care! It’s my baby!” There was nothing I could do for Clara right now but stand guard over her baby. Maybe she would get some sleep.

  I stood outside the big window, like I had when Lily was presented to her adoptive parents. This time the nursery wasn’t so crowded. There were seven babies altogether. The nurse unwrapped Clara’s baby and I was shocked to see that her hair was red. It stood straight up and gave the baby a surprised look like it had a headful of exclamation points. When the nurse opened the blanket, I could see the little hands balled up in a fist, jerking around at the air like she was in a boxing ring.

  I pulled up a chair. I stared at Clara’s baby until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I loved that baby so much already, and I hadn’t even touched it yet. But it was late. Luckily I had to pee and that kept me awake. I knew the washroom was close by, just around a corner. I looked again at Baby Girl Shea, who was sleeping now. The nurse sat quietly to the side, folding diapers. I ran down the hall. I peed as fast as I could and washed my hands quickly and opened the door.

  I heard voices.

  “What do you mean Clara has to sign a death certificate?”

  It was Mother’s voice. When did she get here? I shrank around the corner, out of sight, feeling shame for the way I spoke to her in her bedroom when I last saw her. But mostly, I didn’t want her taking me home with her until I was sure that Baby Girl Shea was safely in Clara’s arms.

  “But Mrs. Shea,” the nurse was saying, “you signed the papers, giving Clara over to the care of the Sisters.”

  “How did the baby die?” Mother demanded. “What are they saying is the cause of death?”

  How did the baby die? That’s impossible! A baby can’t die in the time it takes me to run to the bathroom and pee.

  “The official cause of death is cerebral hypoxia,” the nurse said.

  Oh, my God, is Clara’s baby dead? I thought in disbelief. How could the Blessed Mother have let her die?

  “What happens in the case of hypoxia is,” the nurse was saying, “the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck. Usually, it’s in the birth canal for a long time like that. When it’s born, it’s already dead.”

  “I know what hypoxia is! Did Clara get to hold her baby?” Mother demanded.

  “You don’t understand, Mrs. Shea. You signed the paper saying you gave Clara and her child to the care of the Sisters of Saint Isabella.” But Mother wasn’t listening.

  “Did my daughter hold her baby?”

  The nurse didn’t answer. Now Mother sounded angry.

  “Did she hold her baby before you took it from her?”

  “Your daughter wrote explicit instructions not to adopt the baby. You and your husband were pretty clear about what was best for your daughter. Legally, we don’t have any other choice than to record the cause of death as hypoxia.”

  “What do you mean ‘you don’t have any other choice’? You just asked my daughter to sign a death certificate for her newborn baby! Do you understand what you are doing?” I have never seen Mother storming angry like that. Usually she withdraws and stops speaking to you when she’s mad. This time Mother was spitting when she spoke.

  I felt dizzy. What was going on here? How could Clara’s baby have died? I saw her come out of the labor room. She was crying and she was breathing and now she’s sleeping. I ran back to the nursery. Baby Girl Shea was still sleeping, in the same little crib.

  I ran back to the hallway.

  “There’s no simple way of saying this,” the nurse said to my mother. “We already have parents who have agreed to adopt that baby.”

  “Mother!” I said. Something totally weird was going on here. Mother was trembling like that chihuahua on the bus. When she saw me, she had a look in her eyes, like she didn’t quite recognize me.

  “Mother!” I said again. I ran up to her and hugged her. My head came up to her chest, right below her chin. I just fit right in there. Mother put her hand over my face, gently. She started patting my back like I was a baby and she was burping me. It felt so good for her to hold me.

  “Annie! I was worried sick about you.” She held me so tight and she rocked me back and forth. The feeling was so magic and familiar, from far away. I started to cry.

  “Clara’s baby,” she said. “We have to help Clara.”

  I pulled away.

  “Mom,” I said. The nurse stood off to the side, with a form in her hand. She was looking down at the floor. “You can’t let Clara sign anything here. They’re going to steal her baby.”

  “She already signed it,” the nurse said.

  Maybe it was because I was really hungry by then, or exhausted, or because it was so wrong that anyone would take away Clara’s baby. Or because I realized that anyone will do anything, no matter what they say. I moved quickly. I grabbed the form. I tore it in half. And then I tore the halves in half, and the quarters in half until there were little pieces of confetti on the floor.

  “Clara’s baby isn’t dead, Mom,” I said, tearing the paper. “Clara’s baby is alive,” I looked at the nurse, straight in the eyes. “That’s the truth of it. She’s not dead at all. And you know it.”

  “Clara’s baby is right there,” I continued, pointing to the nursery. “She wasn’t dead when she was born. I heard her cry; I saw her breathe. I stood outside the labor room right when she was born. She has red hair!” Now Mother was confused. She looked at me like she was coming to, after fainting, and instead of finding herself in heaven, or in church, she found herself in a strange world of deep-sea monsters. It is a strange world, I thought; we’re just not used to looking at it like it really is.

  “She has red hair, Mom,” I said, as if that would be enough. I pulled on Mother’s hand and dragged her towards the nursery. “Red hair!” I kept saying. Two of us, red heads, scurrying to claim our kin. My niece. Mother’s grandchild. Clara’s daughter.

  When we got there, I pointed out the little girl who was obviously the one. The only one with red hair. Mother opened the door to the nursery. I stood in the doorway. The nurse stood up,

  “I’m sorry, you can’t come in here,” she said. But
Mother walked right past her over to the little crib where Baby Girl Shea was sleeping.

  “I’m here,” Mother said. “I’m here to see my granddaughter.”

  Chapter 34

  green plaid couch

  Mother said we should sit in the waiting room and give Clara some time with her new baby. Clara was trying to nurse the baby, but her breasts were humongous, and the baby’s lips were really tiny. Clara could have been Mrs. Jolly Green Giant, and her watermelon breasts would have made sense. This was the first time I had seen a naked breast besides my own. It was shocking that breasts can be small enough to look like swollen mosquito bites (like mine) and someday grow into boulders bigger than the baby’s head. The baby was brand new, so she didn’t know exactly what she was trying to do. Eating is pretty important to a baby, but I couldn’t imagine how the baby was going to accomplish what was required.

  Anyway, the baby was doing my favorite thing that newborn babies do. Her mouth wanders towards your finger if you lightly touch her cheek. You just dab your finger near its mouth, and the mouth goes in that direction, with the tiny lips trying to nibble on your finger. Then you touch the other cheek, just to see if it works over there.

  But it was difficult to leave the room. Every time a nurse came in I looked in her eyes to see if she was plotting some way to get the baby. I didn’t know what scheming would look like, but everyone was suspect now. Even Nice Nurse, if she had shown up in the room, might have been part of the plot. My own Mother had been part of it; her signature on the papers meant that the Sisters of Saint Isabella had control over Clara in the hospital. Because Clara was still underage. At least now Mother talked the nurse into bringing the bassinet on wheels from the nursery into Clara’s room, right next to her bed. The nurse risked losing her job over this, but Mother just wouldn’t take no for an answer. So Clara settled in for the night, holding her treasure with the wandering lips.

  The waiting room had a square couch covered with a green and yellow plaid design. There was a clock right above our heads, and it said 4:10 when we got there. In the morning. I didn’t notice anything else because I wanted to lie down all of a sudden. I gladly sat on the cushion next to Mother and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, my head was in Mother’s lap, and I was drooling onto her dress and I could just feel that some time had passed. I looked at the clock. It now said 6:45.

  I couldn’t believe how special this made me feel. Not the drooling, not the time. The fact that it was just me and Mom and absolutely nobody else. No threat of Jeannie barging in, or Daddy coming home from work, no having to listen to tattling, or whining over lost pajamas. I didn’t have to call Mom through the bathroom door or listen to the undignified sound of her tinkle. It was just Mom and me.

  Then Mother shifted her weight and started to push me off her lap.

  As I sat up, I realized I needed to apologize to her for what I said in her bedroom the last time I saw her. Luckily all of us have had a lot of practice apologizing—to each other, to the priests in confession every week. It’s always embarrassing, but you know from doing it so often that you can get through it, and the sooner you do it, the sooner it will be over.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” I said, hoping that one humiliating “I’m sorry” would be enough.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked, sounding groggy. I think she was just waking up, too.

  “For talking to you that way in your bedroom. Will you please forgive me?” I looked over at her, and the nap feeling descended on me: groggy, cottonmouth and cranky, everything too bright, empty despair, like the world is going to end. Maybe Mother was feeling the same way; she looked exhausted, her face tight and full of tension, like she was going to cry. “I shouldn’t have said anything about the baby in the photograph,” I added, “I shouldn’t have kept the photograph from you.” Her face crumbled, and she started to cry.

  “Mother, please don’t cry,” I begged her. “Clara gets to keep her baby. You have a grandchild. This is Happily Ever After, isn’t it?” But Mother didn’t hear me.

  I knew I was witnessing something so extraordinary as to be written on a plaque in front of a statue. How could I have imagined I’d ever be in a room with my mother like this? She didn’t seem like my mother right then; she seemed like someone wounded in a war, afraid of the pain she was feeling and full of emotion. It was awkward and frightening. Up until now Mother knew all the answers: how to feel, what to say, what clothes to wear, and what not to do, and more importantly, if you screwed up, who to pray to. She knew what everyone wanted and needed. For Christmas, Easter, birthdays. She had band-aids and emergency phone numbers and a stash of new things in her cupboards at all times, an assortment of stuff she got on sale throughout the year, purchased with each and every one of us in mind. She always knew what we were having for supper and how to fix it so there was enough to go around. But here she was, like one of the little kids left in their crib to cry themselves to sleep, desolate and despairing after having sobbed for two hours with no one even noticing. It seemed like she needed someone to touch her, so I reached up and put my hand right square in the middle of her back, and patted her gently, like I was burping a baby. Usually she brushes me off, but this time, she let me.

  “It’s okay, Mom. It’s going to be okay.” We both sat there in the strange buzzing silence of that room, smelling the stale cigarettes in the metal-stand ashtray over there, with the round glass dish in the middle, full of tan cigarette butts and gray ashes.

  “The baby in that photograph, Annie,” she said, “I lost the baby when it was born.”

  “Oh, Mom,” I whispered, feeling an intense sadness, accompanied by an insatiable curiosity. I couldn’t imagine what would have made that baby die. The tiny hand had looked perfectly normal. I kept my touch on her back, trying to gather the courage to ask her.

  “It was the baby who was going to save my life,” she said, very, very quietly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her. When she opened her mouth to speak, the words almost didn’t come out. She hadn’t ever said these words to anybody; that’s what it felt like.

  “My husband was killed when I was five months pregnant. But he left me this baby. I don’t mean to feel sorry for myself. A lot of widows were desolate because of the war. But this baby.” She stopped and took a breath.

  “This baby, what, Mom?”

  “Was going to be a joy. For everyone. It was not only going to be an antidote to Clifford’s death, but also to everyone killed in the war. The baby was life.” Even more than what she was saying, my surprise came on the heels of the fact that Mother was stroking my hair. Gently pushing it back over my shoulders. I got this soft feeling in my stomach. My scalp relaxed, my skin felt tingly, I could feel my shoulders let go. Her voice was tired and soft.

  “When the baby’s head came out, the cord was wrapped around his neck. And when he was finally born, he was blue. They couldn’t get him to breathe.” She was watching over to her left, like she could see it happening again. “They had him over there, they were doing everything they could. But he died right in front of us.” Her hand continued to absently touch my hair.

  The poor baby, I thought, but I would have sat there forever, as long as she kept touching me.

  Finally she looked at me, like she was Mom once more. Her voice was steadier. She had a few responsibilities again and she pulled her hands back to herself. “When God closes a door, He opens a window, Annie. He never gives you more than you can handle.”

  “What did you name him?”

  “I named him after his father, Clifford.”

  “Clifford Adamson.”

  “Junior.”

  “Clifford Mary Adamson?” I asked, feeling a particular insider connection with my half-brother, even though he was dead.

  “Junior.”

  “Did you baptize him?”

  Mother tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  I didn’t know what else to say. The sacraments are ceremonies we understand. I was ju
st trying to get her to talk about something that could comfort her.

  “My best friend, Edie, had come to the hospital with me,” she finally said. “She and the nurse knew each other from college. Edie came right in after the baby was born and made a case for taking one photograph. Because I had lost Clifford. Because he had given up his life for the war effort. But right after the photograph, they took the baby away. I should have said, ‘Baptize him first.’”

  Involuntarily, I said “Oh!” And thought: She didn’t baptize the baby? That’s not good at all.

  “You didn’t know!” I said instantly, trying to cover up my shock. Maybe God would make an exception. Surely He wouldn’t keep that particular baby out of heaven just because it wasn’t baptized. There had to be a special dispensation for soldiers who have given their lives for their country, and the babies who are born without their daddies.

  “No, I don’t know what they did with him at all.” She stared at the floor, her eyes fixed on a whole world somewhere else. “After nine months of awaiting him while he was growing inside my body, I held him for maybe 50 seconds. I could feel his little soul right through his body; we were still so connected to each other, even though he wasn’t breathing. But they thought it might be better for me not to see him, not to hold him.” She was shaking her head absently from side to side.

  “That’s what they did in those days,” her voice trailed.

  “Mom,” I said, pushing her hair away from her eyes.

  “My husband was buried in France. I haven’t been able to visit his grave. To say goodbye to him.” We sat there on the edge of the green plaid couch, Mother and me, knees touching, the sound of intercom static around the corner. “At least I had the photograph,” she added. “I could remember the weight of his body in my arms. I could see his little hand.”

  Chapter 35

  bless me father

  December 8 – The morning after Emma was born, Mother drove all the red heads back in the VW bus from the hospital. We had to get back right away because there was no one there to look after the kids, except Daddy. I really felt part of something special. Before, I felt like I stuck out. But that morning I was proud of sticking out. Even though I was exhausted from staying up all night, I felt wide awake with a new kind of excitement that wouldn’t stop. I got to hold the baby for a few minutes while Clara had a break and nodded off. We were driving past the ocean, and the day was as sparkly and new on every wave and car bumper as it had been the first time with Madcap and Aaron Solomon. I was sitting in the back seat, with Mother’s window partly open, and it felt so refreshing where the breeze touched my skin and blew my hair.