Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  “Smile, you’re going to get a baby out of this, Mrs. Rothman,” the nurse said, and for a moment, out of habit, Sara looked at her mother, the only Mrs. Rothman she knew.

  Next door, someone was screaming, wild shrieks splashing into the room, making Abby blanch and Jack look down at his sneakers. A new nurse wrapped a monitor belt about her belly, a fat band of white, a clumsy plastic buckle. A machine whirred and beeped next to her, a green line forked up and down on the screen at each contraction.

  “Do your breathing,” the nurse admonished. The scream tore into the room again and Sara was so frightened, her breath stopped. “Breathe, I told you,” the nurse repeated.

  The woman next door shrieked again. “Is she dying?” Sara asked.

  The nurse tightened the monitor belt. “That woman’s Orthodox Jewish and she won’t take any medication.”

  “What medication? Give me some medication!” Sara screamed, a wire of pain cutting across her belly. The Orthodox woman screamed in harmony.

  The nurse took a blood pressure cuff and wrapped it calmly around Sara’s arm. “The doctor will be here any second. Now you breathe.”

  Sara panicked. Her mind was so fogged with fear and pain, she had forgotten everything she knew. The breathing Eva had helped her with. The lucky charm George had given her to keep in her pocket, a small silvery angel she loved. Where was the charm? Where were they? She needed them. She looked desperately at the door.

  “Concentrate, Sara,” Abby said. “Every time you get a contraction, focus on me.”

  The nurse glanced at Sara and then, resigned, she gripped Sara’s hand. “Purse your lips,” she ordered. “Pant. Hoo-hoo hee-hee.” Sara tried it, but the nurse’s face was smooth and calm, and Sara’s felt as if it were crumpled like a ball of paper. “Hoo-hoo,” panted Abby encouragingly. Jack leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, defeated, and then there was a new fist of pain, and Sara bolted up. “Hoo-hoo, hee-hee,” the nurse urged.

  “Get her an epidural!” Abby said, her voice growing insistent. The nurse ignored Abby. “Get her something! What’s the matter with you!” Abby said, and the nurse looked at the monitor again and her face turned soft, sympathetic. “It’s too late,” the nurse said.

  Abby moved closer to Sara, brushing back Sara’s wet hair. “I’m right here,” Abby said to Sara. She made low, soothing noises, clucks of her tongue. “I’m right here.”

  The nurse glanced at Sara’s chart, frowning. Then she looked evenly at Jack and Abby. “So. You’re going in the delivery room? You’re the adoptive parents?”

  “We’re the real parents,” Abby said. “Sara’s real parents.” She held Sara’s hand.

  A doctor Sara didn’t know whisked in, six younger people behind him, all of them in green scrubs. “Where’s my doctor?” Sara said. Her doctor was a woman, young and sympathetic. This doctor was male and older and had a blue Band-Aid on his nose, a bad omen if she ever saw one.

  “In delivery. I’m Dr. Chasen. Don’t you worry, I’ve delivered hundreds of babies.”

  “No, no,” Sara cried. She didn’t trust this doctor, didn’t like the way he was beckoning the other people forward. “Check the centimeters,” he said to them, and Sara locked her legs as another pain shot through her. “What’s going on?” Abby said. “Who are all these people?”

  “This is a teaching hospital,” Dr. Chasen said quietly. He put his hands on Sara’s legs. “Don’t worry. You won’t even notice them. You’re going to be so busy, a flying saucer could land in here with us and you wouldn’t notice that either.” The students laughed, a sparkling of sound, and then Dr. Chasen parted Sara’s legs and quickly, before she could protest, thrust his hand up inside of her and drew it out. Humiliated, she jerked away. “You’re going to have your baby now,” he said, then he turned to the nurse. “Get my girl into delivery,” he said, and Sara shivered because she didn’t feel like anyone’s girl, not his, not her parents’, not Danny’s anymore, either. He whisked out of the room, the students trailing.

  “It’s going to be okay, honey,” Abby said.

  “Where’s Eva and George?” Sara screamed and Jack drew back.

  Abby was purposefully putting on a long green gown, tying on a mask. Someone was pushing Sara’s hair into a cap. Hands and bodies were about her. “It’s showtime, folks,” said the nurse, undoing Sara’s monitor. The gurney was wheeled back in. The nurse lifted Sara onto it. A wire of pain tightened across Sara’s belly. It owned her now.

  “I can’t do this!” Sara shouted, and then she was settled on the gurney and as soon as it moved, she felt something pound within her, deep and insistent, and stunned, she searched for help. She’d apologize for anything, she’d do anything, be anything, if only this pain would stop. Please, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. Oh God, please, and then, zooming into the room was Eva, in a blue summer dress, her long, pale hair flying about her in a silken sheet. There was George, tall and bald and all in black, with a silver bolo tie. He was holding Eva’s hand and Sara felt so relieved she started to cry.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—traffic was so horrible!” Eva cried.

  “We’re here now,” George said, “we’re here!” He dropped Eva’s hand and took Sara’s. His hands were big and warm, covering hers, and Sara burst into fresh tears.

  “Don’t cry, don’t cry. It’s all going to be wonderful.” Eva leaned down. She glowed like a pearl. “How do you feel? What’s happening?” Eva asked, bending toward Sara.

  “She’s going into delivery, that’s what’s happening,” Abby said sharply, and Eva looked at Abby and Jack for the first time.

  “Abby. Jack,” Eva said, nodding. Jack nodded back.

  “Let’s go, let’s go—” the nurse said. “Get into scrubs if you’re coming,” she said to Eva and George. “Looks like it’s going to be a full house.”

  “I’ll be in the waiting room, honey.” Jack touched Sara’s shoulder awkwardly.

  “Daddy—” she said, panicking.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said, but his voice sounded unsure to her. It made her more panicky.

  “Daddy—” she repeated, but when she looked up, he was gone.

  The nurse handed Eva and George scrubs. She began wheeling the gurney, out of the room, down the hall. Abby was keeping pace, stroking Sara’s hair, her shoulders, murmuring something that Sara couldn’t hear. Sara heard the nurse’s voice, but she couldn’t make out what she was saying, either. She heard the Orthodox woman screaming again. How could anyone scream like that and not be torn in two? And then Sara noticed another sound, like a thousand angry bees humming about her head. She felt the air thickening, heating up around her. She looked up and saw two new doors. Abby was beside her again, scooping up one of Sara’s hands, holding it tight. “I won’t leave you,” Abby said. “We’ll get through this together,” and the bees grew louder, angrier, until they seemed to be screaming, too, and Sara, terrified, jerked her hand from her mother’s and screamed, “I just want Eva!”

  “I’m here, I’m here!” Eva, in green scrubs, was running, catching up with Sara. She waved her hand at George, stopping him in his tracks.

  Abby froze. “Honey—” she said. “This is crazy—”

  Abby looked like a statue to her, like Lot’s wife, who had turned into salt the moment she had looked for something she shouldn’t have, so sad and hurt, it made Sara ache. “Mommy?” she said, and then her gurney pushed through the double doors, and the thought disappeared in a bolt of pain, and she flung a hand out and grabbed Eva’s, holding on as if her life depended upon it.

  Everything in the delivery room seemed to be bathed in blue light. Sara was lifted up onto a table, her feet put in stirrups. Masked faces lowered toward her, peering. Frantic, she searched for Eva. “Right here,” Eva said. Sara locked eyes and gripped Eva’s hand. “It’s okay,” Eva breathed to her. “Do like we practiced. Remember?” Sara tried to remember. Tried to put herself back in Eva’s sun-splashed house, in Eva’s yello
w living room where they had sat and talked and planned, in Eva’s big backyard where they had lounged on chaises and sipped peppermint tea and measured Sara’s belly as it grew.

  “Push!” the doctor ordered. She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t look at the students peering down at her. “Good girl,” the doctor said, “now push again. A better one this time.” Where was her doctor? Why was she the one to get stuck with this stranger?

  “Get mad at the baby!” he shouted at her. “Push that baby out! Get mad! Get even!”

  Eva leaned down so close to Sara she could whisper in her ear. “You can do it.”

  “Sara, you’re not getting mad enough,” the doctor said, “I need you to push.”

  She pushed, dissolving.

  “Push, goddammit!” the doctor said. Something was being torn from her body, and then Sara was suddenly flying away, leaving her body, floating up. She was moving deeper and deeper into a white-hot core. So this is how you do this, she thought, this is how you die. And then she felt something boring out of her, she felt herself spinning back down into her body, and what was pushing out of her was as big as the scream she couldn’t contain, and then she pushed and wept and screamed and the baby was born.

  Dr. Chasen held the baby up, white and cheesy, dotted with blood. He whisked it away and brought it back, placing it on her belly. “Just for a minute,” he said. It didn’t look or feel or seem like any of the babies she had ever carried. She was about to stroke the baby’s face, to touch its nose, and then Eva bent over her and took the baby from her, bursting into happy tears. “My little one,” she breathed.

  “Baby’s name?” someone said.

  “Roseann,” Sara said, the name popping into her mind. Little Roseann. Sara remembered sitting on Eva’s couch, making up lists with her and George. Each of them would take a turn. Alice. Clarisse. Names so beautiful they hurt you just to hear them. “Here we are,” Eva whispered, “Anne Cheryl Rivers,” and for a moment Sara thought, Whose name is that? Where had those names come from and when had that been decided? Wait, she tried to say, but her lips were too heavy to move even into a sigh.

  “Thank you,” Eva breathed. “Thank you, Sara.” And then Sara closed her eyes.

  Sara woke: Something is wrong. For a moment, she thought she was with her boyfriend Danny, in his basement, lying on the red plaid pullout couch, tense and awkward and naked, dizzy with need and desire, waiting for Danny to come downstairs to her. He liked finding her naked. “Surprise me,” he used to say. She used to kiss the tip of his nose because she didn’t know what else to kiss, because she was so shy.

  “Danny,” she said. Her voice sounded strange and hoarse in the room. She blinked and the room turned white. Danny was gone. She heard coughing and laughter and she twisted her head and there was another woman in a fussy white nightgown in the bed next to her, surrounded by flowers and wrapped gifts and two other women, whose faces were bright with excitement. “We saw your Tom. He’s so thrilled!”

  “He wants five more,” Sara’s roommate said, and everyone laughed.

  “Everyone at work misses you like crazy,” one of the women said.

  Sara felt herself growing smaller and smaller. She used to have friends, too. And then the bigger she had become, the more she had withdrawn and the less often her friends had called her, the less they had to say to her, too. And now, they didn’t call at all. “Come on, Mom. Let’s take a walk so you can show us off to your daughter,” one of the women said.

  “Mom!” the other woman said, tickled. The women all stood up. One of them looked over at Sara, and then quickly looked away. She knew that look. She had seen it on the faces of the nurses. They glanced and then looked briskly away. Only a candy striper had dared to ask, “What are you doing here?” as if it were a mistake. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen,” Sara said and the girl looked shocked.

  “Quit your kidding,” she said. “Get out of here.”

  Sara lay in bed, her hands on her belly. It was big and pouchy, as if she were still full of baby, but she felt this strange, terrible loss. “Soon it’ll be over,” Abby had said. And some of it had been. “How can I be anyone’s father?” Danny had asked her when she had dared to tell him she was pregnant.

  A nurse carrying two yellow plastic pitchers came into the room. She came closer to Sara. “There weren’t any private rooms. I’m sorry,” she said. She patted Sara’s arm and Sara looked up at her, confused.

  “You’re doing a brave thing,” the nurse told her, reassuringly. “I have two adopted kids of my own.”

  “Where’s my baby?” Sara said and the nurse gave her a long, careful look.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want, honey? Most birth mothers find—”

  “I can see my baby,” Sara interrupted, her voice rising. “It’s an open adoption.”

  The nurse put the pitchers down. She started to say something and then her mouth closed, and she left the room. Sara slunk down in bed, turning her face to the window, but moments later, there was the sound of wheels skittering along the floor. “Here she is,” said the nurse, and Sara got out of bed. “I’ll be back for her in a while,” the nurse said.

  She stared hard at the baby, her toes curling on the cold of the floor. The baby was as small as a minute, swaddled in a striped rainbow blanket just like a surprise package, her head half covered with a tiny knit cap with “I got my first hug at St. Elizabeth’s” embroidered across the brim, making Sara think wistfully: Who else has hugged Anne? Sara bent lower toward the baby, who smelled of powder and soap and something Sara couldn’t recognize. Anne’s eyes were open and slate grey and they held a strange, mischievous expression, as if she knew something no one else did. Sara had read that new mothers studied their babies to make sure they had all ten fingers and toes, that every limb was in place, but Sara studied Anne looking not for perfection but for Danny’s green eyes, for his strong nose and full mouth, but this baby didn’t look anything like him, or anything like Sara, either, for that matter, and a wave of sadness coursed through her. Gently, she took off the baby’s cap, and a soft fuzz of red hair sprang up, just like her own. “Oh!” Sara said, delighted, and the baby’s eyes fastened on Sara’s, and then Sara couldn’t help herself. Bending, she picked up the baby, a warm, soft presence, like a little cat. “Anne,” she said out loud, as if she were test-driving the name. She brought her carefully over to the bed and lay down with her. She felt as if she were all glass inside, breaking apart deep within her. Gently, she started to open the swaddling, to catch glimpses of her daughter’s toes, her knees, her belly, and then she heard footsteps outside, a burst of laughter. Quickly, she swaddled Anne, she held her and waited, expectant.

  Flowers came into the room first, two big bundles of golds and pinks, and then she saw George’s face behind them. She saw Eva following, carrying a huge silver package. As soon as they saw the baby, they stopped. “Oh! Isn’t she beautiful!” Eva cried. She put the packages on the bed, she reached for the baby, taking her easily from Sara’s hands, and as soon as she did, Sara felt empty. She tucked her hands under the sheet.

  “There’s our girl!” Eva said and Sara half-smiled before she realized Eva wasn’t talking about her. Eva rocked Anne in her arms, and then George bent low over the baby, his face bright and expectant. “Look at that red hair!” he said. “Isn’t that funny!” He looked from the baby to Sara. “Not your mouth, though.”

  “I swear she has my mouth,” Eva said. She turned to Sara, and for a minute Sara thought Eva was going to ask her if she wanted to hold the baby again, which she ached to, but instead, Eva’s smile grew. “You look terrific,” Eva said. “You were astonishing.”

  “I was?” Sara said.

  Eva nodded at the package on the bed. “Open your present,” she said, gleefully.

  Sara unpeeled the tissue. Pale pink, a soft satiny nightgown flowing like cool lake water through her hands. “Why shouldn’t you look beautiful?” Eva said. Sara flushed. No one had called h
er beautiful in a very long while. “Hold it up against you,” Eva urged, but when Sara lifted her arms, her breasts hurt. All this morning she had listened in on the lesson a nurse gave her roommate on breast-feeding. She had heard the woman wince. “You have jaws like a barracuda!” the woman told her baby, and then she had told her friends how she planned to bring a pump to work and let anyone dare to stop her.

  Sara drew her johnny tighter against her chest. They were giving Sara a drug to dry up her milk because Eva wanted to use formula right from the start.

  Sara studied her flowers, the only ones she had. She opened the card. There was Eva’s delicate schoolteacher script. “Perfect baby! Perfect you! Love, Eva and George.” Sara traced the words with one finger. Perfect, she was perfect. “Thank you,” she said.

  George took out a camera and clicked Eva holding the baby. He turned and took a picture of Sara. She blinked at the flash. Then he turned to the baby. “My turn,” he said and lifted Anne up. He studied her mouth. “She’s going to have great teeth,” he decided.

  George was a dentist, something Sara had hoped might bond him to Abby, but instead it made Abby angrier. “He should know better,” she said wearily, but Sara didn’t know what that meant except that there was probably a lecture in it for her if she dared to ask.

  George swayed the baby in a kind of dance. He hummed something, so low and sweet-sounding, it just about broke Sara’s heart. She watched him, and yawned. “You poor thing,” Eva said. “I bet you’re exhausted. Don’t mind us, you can sleep.”

  Sara struggled to stay awake. Her lids floated down, her breath evened. She was half-dreaming, and then she heard the door push open. Her roommate, Sara thought. Her roommate’s friends. Her roommate’s baby. She opened her eyes, just a hair, just enough to see Eva. “You little beauty!” Eva said, kissing the baby gently, just as Jack and Abby came into the room. As soon as they saw Eva and George and the baby, all the air in the room froze.