Mom's the Word

by Marilynn Griffith

  “You can pass it naturally, but I don’t think you should. There could be infection. I’ll have to have you come in each week and check your hormone levels to be sure that everything is gone.”

  Neal had fought with her about it, but in the end they were both glad that Dyanne had chosen to go home and let the losing go on. She realized now that what had happened to her mother—to her parents—hadn’t just been the miscarriages, but this never-ending losing. On television, it looked so simple, the way women fell off horses and crashed their cars and “lost” their babies. In real life, it wasn’t that simple.

  All they had left now was the memory of the positive test, the memory of the doctor letting Neal put the stethoscope to Dyanne’s stomach to hear the heart too young to be seen on the ultrasound. At the hospital, they’d asked to do a final scan, but Dyanne had declined that, too. She’d been waiting to see the beating heart, the forming limbs…. She couldn’t take the finality of the empty sac the machine would reveal. What she’d seen and felt had been enough to tell her all she needed to know—her baby was gone.

  Worse yet was the wardrobe of maternity clothes that Dyanne had bought the week before. Though her pregnancy had started quietly, growing beneath her flat stomach without her knowledge, her clothes were getting tight in places and she’d had a nightmare about showing up at one of Fallon’s tour stops in Neal’s T-shirt and shorts. A trip to Governor’s Square Mall’s only maternity store had fixed that. She’d even gotten a bathing suit.

  Now she was folding it all and packing it up, the way widows did with the ironed, starched shirts of their husbands who had left for work some morning and never come home. Dyanne hadn’t been happy about the baby at first, but she’d come to love her. In her mind, it had been a girl, with Mia’s hair and Ryan’s heart. Anya Christine. The name had come to her in a dream on the day of Ryan’s party, minutes before she woke up to her worst nightmare.

  Neal and Fallon had let up a little on hovering over her. She’d gone to church this morning to hear the sermon that her father had been supposed to preach the Sunday before. Neal had begged him to go and even tried to drive him to the church, but Dyanne’s father wouldn’t budge.

  “I’m only leaving the room because she’s your wife and the two of you deserve some privacy. There’s no way I’m leaving this hospital. No way.”

  And he hadn’t left. He and Fallon had been there, both at the hospital and now. They’d continued working on the book while she was at the hospital and had even faxed pages to Steve Chaise which had earned a hearty approval. Ryan had come each day with muffins, books, cards and finally this morning, another copy of the book his mother had given him for his birthday appeared.

  Dyanne set aside the maternity jumper she’d been folding and picked up the book again. Indigo Dawn. She liked the title and knew Ryan had, too, though the boy liked his titles long and wordy.

  The doorbell rang downstairs, disturbing her thoughts. The bell rang often now, bringing scores of strangers from the church and houses down the next road. It amazed Dyanne that people she barely knew could care so much about what happened to her family. Well, to her and Neal. It didn’t seem like they really qualified to be called a family. Not anymore.

  Still, she usually listened to see who it was and upon not recognizing the voice, shut the door to her room just loud enough for Neal to hear. He had a whole speech worked out now, smiles, apologies and all. This time, however, it was a familiar voice. Karol’s voice. Dyanne stood and walked to the door, but she didn’t close it.

  Company was the last thing Dyanne wanted, but for some reason, she felt Karol had earned the right to come and sit between the stacks of unused maternity clothes. Though they’d started off on the wrong foot, she and Karol had a lot more in common now than they had at first: Ryan, for one thing. Motherhood, for another, however short-lived Dyanne’s membership to the mommy club had been. Karol had brought her papaya for morning sickness and special wrist bands for vertigo. She’d answered all of the midnight questions that didn’t warrant bothering the doctor. She’d been just happy enough when hearing the news to make Dyanne feel happy, too, instead of guilty. And now, she looked just sad enough to make Dyanne start crying. Again.

  And Karol didn’t try to stop her from crying. Instead, she walked inside with arms flung wide and tears streaming down her own face. There weren’t any words spoken in that moment, yet Dyanne said everything she hadn’t been able to say to her husband, her father, to Fallon.

  The words came out in sobs instead of syllables, but Karol seemed to understand each one.

  “I know.”

  Dyanne paused waiting for her to say “God knows” like Fallon had been saying every other minute since they’d come home from the hospital, but Karol didn’t say it. Though Dyanne knew there was truth in the phrase, she was glad not to hear it again. Not today. Not now.

  Karol held Dyanne tight and then let her go. She smoothed back Dyanne’s tousled hair and kissed her forehead. She looked into Dyanne’s eyes and said what no one else had dared to.

  “It’s not your fault. Really. It isn’t. There’s nothing you could have done to change it.”

  Dyanne buried her face in her hands. How had she known? Did it show that easily? She wiped her eyes and took a step back, supporting herself on the bed.

  “What if it was my fault? I was ungrateful. I didn’t want her. I wasn’t happy. Maybe she knew that somehow, you know? Babies know things. At least I think they do. I tried to, you know, talk to her about it. To tell her I was sorry, but maybe she was already gone. I just wish—”

  “Don’t.” Karol was on her again, in a crushing, yet gentle hug. “Honey, don’t do this to yourself. Please. Believe me, motherhood has guilt enough on its own, don’t go looking for more. You’re a mother. It’s just in you. Me? I have three kids and I’m still figuring it out. Ryan has learned so much from you. From Neal, too. I know this is hard, but don’t let yourself slip into the pit. It’s too hard to get out of. Ask me how I know.”

  Karol did know. Dyanne could see it in her eyes. She’d said things that needed to be said, too. Without meaning to, Dyanne had been blaming herself, questioning if she could ever be a mother. She’d even considered getting her tubes tied and forgetting the whole thing. She had an appointment. The only thing stopping her was the desperate look on Neal’s face whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. He wanted a child. Their child. Dyanne just didn’t know whether her body or her heart could go through what it would take to give birth to one.

  “I don’t think I can do this, Karol. Keep losing and losing. I don’t know how my mother did it. I thought that she was weak, but she wasn’t. I am. I think I’m done. Just done with it all—”

  “Don’t try to figure it all out. Just deal with now. Today,” Karol said, placing the stacked clothes into the plastic bin at the foot of the bed. With finality, she closed the lid.

  “It’s so hard not to,” Dyanne said, dropping back onto the bed.

  “I know, but you can’t try and figure it all out. You’ll drive yourself crazy. And you can’t afford to be crazy. You have a handsome husband, a great job, a new house and lots of people who love you.”

  Her job. Dyanne hadn’t given much thought to it in the past week except maybe to resent it. She’d put her work first so many times in her life, over Neal, and finally over her baby. During that first day in the hospital, she’d even considered quitting, only she had no idea what else she could do. She obviously wasn’t very good at having babies. Instead, she’d just ignored it altogether, despite the deadlines looming just days away, like Fallon’s book tour. Not even Neal had dared to mention it.

  Karol had no such problems bringing it up. “Now that those clothes are put away, we can get you packed for the tour. Ryan has told me about your legendary lists. I’m sure you have one for packing. Hand it over and I’ll get started. Do you want to do clothes or toiletries?”

  Neither. “I’m not going, Karol. I have an appointment tomorrow a
nd lots of grieving and groveling to do. Lots of ice cream to eat. I’m not coming out until winter.”

  Karol scanned the room and picked up a large binder labeled Master Planner. She flipped to the tab for travel. “Yes, you are going, Dee. You’ve spent months planning this and if Fallon didn’t need you, they wouldn’t be paying you. You are the director of your department. You’re past the worst of it now and if you need the appointment you can go when you get back. You can do this. You have done this. You will do this.” She started pulling out drawers in Dyanne’s dresser.

  Dyanne stared at her neighbor in shock. A scream rose to her mouth and thundered through her lips. She stomped her feet like a frustrated child. “Get out. Right now. You don’t know me well enough to talk to me like this. I said I’m not going. You don’t understand. Nobody does. I’m going to stay here, in this room and—”

  “And what? Die, too? You can’t. I won’t let you. Look, I know you don’t know me well, but you know that I just had a meltdown and have spent pretty much the past three weeks trying to be something other than what I am—a mother. You know that I’ve lost babies and had postpartum depression and all the other fun stuff that comes with the pink package. You are trying to be something other than what you are—a powerful, smart, businesswoman who has had a very bad thing happen to her.

  “You watched my kids without even knowing me. Go on this trip with Fallon and I’ll do the same for you. I’ll water your plants, feed your husband, check your mail and clean your house. Whatever. And when you get back, I’ll do it a little longer while you climb in this bed in those pajamas and cry your eyes out. Because you’re going to do that. A lot. But it doesn’t have to be all you do. Okay?”

  Dyanne was breathless, though it had been Karol doing the talking. All her excuses, all her pain had been ripped open, but cleansed, too. It hurt, but it felt good. She rolled over to her belly for the first time since she’d been home. It still wasn’t flat, but it wasn’t quite as round, either. That’s what hurt more than anything, this limbo feeling of being somewhere between pregnant and not pregnant. Between a rock and a hard place.

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  Karol dropped down on the bed beside Dyanne. “Good. That speech was the big guns. If you hadn’t gone for that, I had nothing left.”

  The two women laughed so hard that Neal ran into the room to see if everything was okay. When he saw his wife laughing, he froze, looking both pleased and afraid.

  Dyanne turned to her husband and smiled. For the first time in what seemed forever, everything was okay.

  “We’re fine, babe,” she said. “Just fine. Come on in.”

  Her father knocked lightly at the door, but Dyanne wasn’t sleeping. Nor was she still so upset that no one could talk to her.

  “Come in, Daddy.”

  The doorknob turned slowly. Her father paused before coming in. “So the reports are true. Dee Dee is up and at ’em. Glad to hear it. You all packed?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  “I suppose. You know me. I pack pretty light. There’s always a washing machine around. Or a Wal-Mart.”

  Dyanne frowned but this was no time for them to start a debate about shopping. And her father had a point, she’d stopped there a few times herself on the road. “Right. Well, we’ll figure it out. Fallon seems pretty pleased that you’re going.”

  “Weren’t you going to ask Ryan to go, too? For his birthday?”

  That had been the plan, but like everything else plans changed. “I was going to ask, but I heard Rob say something about their kids only going out of town with family members and I felt sort of stupid. We haven’t lived here that long and we don’t have kids of our own. No matter how much they like us, I doubt Karol and Rob would send their son off with me.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. I guess you don’t know since you were at the hospital and all, but it turns out that Karol and Fallon are related. Sort of.”

  Why couldn’t things ever be simple? “Sort of? How can you be sort of related? Either you are or you aren’t, right?”

  Her father smiled. “What about you and Norman, your stepfather? Are you related?”

  Oh…that kind of related. “Sort of. I get it now. Well, not really but I get what kind of not-so-related they might be. So was Karol’s father Fallon’s one love? If so, that’s so tripped out.”

  The reverend cleared his throat. “I don’t know if she’d still call him that now. I hope not.”

  Oh, boy. She’d been avoiding this discussion, the one about her father and Fallon. They were obviously a couple now and though she loved them both and they were far past the age of needing her consent or anyone else’s, it was still, well, weird. Neal, of course, found it charming, but what else was new?

  “Speaking of your mother. Have you called her yet?”

  Huh? “Um, Dad. We weren’t ‘speaking of my mother.’ We were talking about Fallon and some other dude and my neighbor, their almost love child. Obviously you are avoiding the Fallon conversation, too, so I’ll go with the Mom thread. No, I haven’t talked to Mom. I need to. I want to. She has called several times. She even offered to come down.”

  “But you told her not to?”

  “Basically.”

  “Which you didn’t really mean and secretly hoped she’d come anyway because of her undying love for you, but she has no way of knowing that?”

  She chuckled. “You know me pretty well, huh?”

  Another smile. “Sort of.”

  The two shared a brief hug before Dyanne’s father slipped a copy of Karol’s book into Dyanne’s carry on bag.

  “I have one already.”

  “Read it,” he demanded.

  “That good?”

  “Better. Good enough to be published. It won’t fit the new line, but I think someone at Wallace should see it. Even Fallon thinks so. God set you up good down this dirt road, sugar. You’re surrounded by writers.”

  Dyanne took a deep breath and lifted her curtain to look down on the house next door. The children were planting seedlings they’d gotten from Fallon. Karol waved up from where she sat looking on. Ryan turned and blew her a kiss. She held a hand to her cheek as if she’d caught it.

  Her father was right. God had put her in just the right place at just the right time. It was what happened from here that worried her.

  Behind her, Dyanne could hear her father dialing the phone. She closed her eyes, knowing who would soon answer. Her mother.

  “Sorry, kiddo. Just giving things a push,” her father said, lifting the phone to his ear.

  “Hello? Hey! Yes. I’m here with her now. She’s getting around. In fact, we’re heading out of town if you can believe it. No, I’ll watch out for her. I’m going, too. Make her stay home? Good luck with that. I’ll let you tell her yourself.” He handed the phone to Dyanne. “Be nice,” he whispered.

  He didn’t have to worry. After experiencing once what her mother had gone through many, many times, Dyanne wouldn’t dare be anything but nice. It was the other times, other things she’d said in the past that worried her now.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. It’s me. I’ve been so worried. I’ve called about tickets two or three times. Your father says you’re going out of town? So soon? I don’t think you should. I don’t know, though. Maybe it’s best to keep busy. At least at first…” Her voice faded, leaving nothing to fill the silence.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Dyanne said, biting the edge of her nail, long overdue for a fill.

  “Sorry? For what? For not calling? Oh, I understand. You’re so busy and now, well, sometimes you just don’t feel like talking. It’s not as simple as people make it out to be.”

  Dyanne nodded. “I know. And that’s why I’m sorry. All those times, when I was younger, I thought you were weak. I wanted you to get up and get over it, to see that you still had me and that meant something. I thought that you all just wanted a boy and that I wasn’t enough. Now, though, I see that things aren’t as cut and
dried as that. Marriage, trying to be a mother…It’s hard.”

  “Yes.” Her mother sniffed twice, but said nothing more.

  “Pray for me while I’m gone, would you? I’ll call along the road. Maybe we can get together in Chicago or Detroit. Oh, and in case we do meet up, I’ll warn you that Dad is seeing someone.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. The author I’m touring with. Neither of them has said anything to me, but it’s obvious that they are very close. She’s a great person. I think you’ll like her.”

  “I’m sure I will. Your father is a good man. I’m glad for him. And for you. I was so worried, but it sounds like you must have some friends there who really care about you.”

  Dyanne looked toward her curtains again. “I do.”

  “Good. I won’t hold you. Thanks so much for calling. Well, thank your father, I guess. And thank you, for what you said. I’m so sorry that you felt that way. I guess I was too caught up in my grief to really understand what you were feeling. You are more than enough, my sweet. I think maybe I hoped that if I had a boy, he and I could be as close as you and your father are—were.”

  “Are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, goodbye.”

  Dyanne said her goodbyes and hung up the phone, glad that her father had left the room. Though he’d seen her cry many times, there were some tears meant to be seen by God alone.

  Reign Drops

  They spoke the words like

  So much rain, soaking into

  My dry soul like the

  Best prayer.

  Drops became sheets

  Hail and hurt

  What had quenched once

  Now overflowed into

  My neighbor’s yard.

  And yet, there is

  No amen or selah

  Fit to finish the

  Grave and beautiful

  Truth. To You,

  There can be no

  End, only another