If I Had You

by Deborah Bedford

  A dozen feet extended into the air. “One-two-three!” Someone counted aloud. A dozen ankles began popping and twisting, gyrating like the waterweed that grew in the shallows of Cubbyhole Creek. They giggled. “Next foot!” They switched, giggled more.

  “Could you speak a little bit about getting the babies on a regular cycle?” asked a girl with blue-and-pink retro daisies on her pillow. Obviously she was more talented than the rest of them because she could both talk and flail her ankle at the same time. “You know, about getting them to sleep through the night?”

  “You don’t even know what type of baby you’ll have,” Mrs. Whitsitt assured them. “Some babies are mild-mannered babies. Other babies have fiery tempers; these are more spirited babies. It’s difficult to know what to do with them until you know who they are.”

  That opened a floodgate of questions. One by one, ankles went down.

  “Why do babies look cross-eyed at the beginning?”

  “One of my breasts is bigger than the other one. Will I still be able to nurse?”

  “How soon do we have to name the baby? It’s a huge thing, a name.”

  “They’ll put a note on the form and let you go home without a name,” Mrs. Whitsitt said. “They’ll give you five days.”

  And Tess asked, “Can I name my baby if I’m giving it away?”

  The room fell silent. The person who had insisted he come along to be her birth partner leaned forward and took her hand. “I’m Ben Crabtree, her dad,” he said, all hearty, filling the quiet. “I’m her labor support.” And when the murmur started, they knew everyone in the room was impressed by how they were handling it.

  “I’m sure she can name the baby. But I can’t promise the adoptive parents will keep the same one. They’ll probably want their own, you know.” Mrs. Whitsitt began fumbling at a pile of papers cradled in her arm. She went on to explain how to take advantage of the baby’s quiet-alert state, how to watch for jaundice, and how to prevent cradle cap. “Now, I want all of you to be careful driving home.” She handed out a sheet of paper to everyone. “Here are the items you are going to need.”

  From Best Beginnings Clinic, Janet Whitsitt, R.N. What to Pack in Your Hospital Bag

  The average hospital stay for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery is 24 to 48 hours; for a cesarean delivery, 3 to 4 days. The mother will need:

  • one or two nightgowns

  • underwear

  • toothpaste and toothbrush

  • slippers

  • robe

  • nursing bra

  • hard candy

  • lip moisturizer

  • hairbrush/comb

  • shampoo

  • camera

  • personal items

  • phone numbers of those to call

  • clothes for the mother to go home in

  • clothes for the baby to go home in (according to the weather)

  It took a while for everyone to read over the list.

  “Of course, your items won’t be exactly the same.” Mrs. Whitsett wrapped a light arm around Tess. “You won’t bring a nursing bra. You won’t bring clothes for the baby to come home in because someone else will be bringing those.”

  AT STITCH ’N TIME, Nora aligned bolts of fabric and arranged spools of ribbon. She sorted the buttons according to color and restocked the threads. Whenever Babs Stanton called her to the cash register to ring up a sale, she cringed. Every time she measured and cut lengths of cloth or rang up piles of buttons and patterns and threads, she couldn’t dodge the questions and condolences. They came at her as fast as bullets.

  “Oh, Nora. I’m so sorry she’s gotten herself into trouble again.”

  “You know the Hendersons are looking for a baby, don’t you? They’re paying some lawyer a fortune down in Fort Worth to find them one.”

  “You’ve got to let us know what we can do.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Nora felt whipped every time she couldn’t answer.

  It’s in your hands, Lord, not mine. If she doesn’t cost me my heart this time, I can survive it.

  “I heard they’re hiring at the Bootlegger. If she stays with you this long, why doesn’t she get a job?”

  “There’s a state-wide adoption registry you ought to look into. It would be a good way to find the baby a decent home.”

  “Is she seeing Dr. Strouth?”

  “Does she need to borrow maternity clothes?”

  “Is your daughter still an addict?”

  “I’m praying for all three of you, Nora. Heaven knows, you aren’t taking the easy way out.”

  She steeled herself, knowing that no matter how she measured her words, no matter how she tried to say the right thing to people, she would end up sounding wrong.

  That night after Ben had taken Tess to her first childbirth class, Nora had as many questions to ask as the others had asked her.

  Had they found out if a mother could be a birth partner?

  Did anyone teach Tess deep-breathing techniques, which had been the thing to help Nora get through labor?

  Could they expect the adoptive parents to pay any of the bills?

  Nora knew that the moment she opened her mouth, Tess would close up as tight as a zipper. So she said nothing at all. Nora kept quiet while Ben checked the window thermometer, shook the folds out of his leather jacket and hung it on a peg. She didn’t say a word while Tess plopped on the sofa, worked her sandals off her heels, propped her feet on the coffee table, and pointed the remote at the TV. She asked no questions as Ben sifted through the mail and sent an assortment of bills sliding across the tabletop. She said nothing while Tess chose a digital music channel that pelted them with hip-hop, yanked a comb out of her pocket, and examined the split ends of her hair the same way she’d examine a dog for fleas. And all the while Tess stayed silent, Nora’s heart kept yearning, Please tell me what you’re thinking, now that we’re doing this. Please don’t cut me out.

  Finally she couldn’t bear it any longer. She said the words very meekly: “So, what did you do there?”

  “Where?” Ben asked.

  “At childbirth class.”

  Tess’s head sank into the couch pillow and Ben punched something on the remote, overriding the hip-hop channel. Ben said, “We had snacks.”

  Nora glanced at Tess right then. By the way Tess suddenly stopped and placed her hand on her belly, Nora knew that Tess must have gone a month or two by now, feeling the baby move.

  That feeling, as if a butterfly had lifted its wings inside of your middle, a thumping and kicking that grew until you couldn’t sleep at night. How Nora longed to be invited to share her own experiences, too. “Tess,” she said with a hopeful smile, “what do you think?”

  Tess lifted her chin in defiance. “About what?”

  “That’s something you and I can share, you know. I understand what it’s like to feel a baby move. I remember how I enjoyed feeling you.”

  Maybe the retort came because Tess wanted to protect her own territory. Maybe it came because the teenager was terrified that her mother could read her feelings so well.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Tess cut her off. “It’s bad enough that I’m here. Just don’t watch me all the time.”

  “I’m not watching you,” Nora lied, and she felt unfathomable sorrow, as predictable and sure as the windmill turning, as the water that ran into Miles Butler’s old cattle trough.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The house on Bunyan Street in South Dallas had seen better days. For one thing, no one had seen fit to give it a decent paint job in at least two dozen years. The clapboards had cured to a flat grey. For another, the grass hadn’t been watered or weeded in so long that it had died away, to be replaced by vicious Johnson grass and sunflowers and burrs.

  For a third thing—and a big deal this third thing—Cootie had changed his truck tires last winter; some friend of his had traded him a massive set of monster treads for a sweet little Mazda he’d m
anaged to hotwire out of a 7-11 parking lot. He’d ditched all four of the old, slick tires right there. Nobody made it to the front door without having to step around one of them.

  Neighbors had phoned the police often during the past three years, complaining that they lived next door to a drug house. But the police couldn’t prove anything except that a bunch of kids used the place to chill. Nobody remembered who owned it anymore; somebody’s father who’d divorced and run off to Minnesota held the title. It served its purpose, the officers explained to the neighbors, kept these homeless kids—a few whites and Latinos, mostly—with a roof over their heads and off the streets.

  “You know,” Cootie said as he leaned forward and brushed wood shavings from the carving he’d been working on from his knees. “I never thought she’d do it.”

  “What?”

  “Leave this place and not come back.”

  “You’re the one pushed her to do it,” Jimmy Ray said.

  Cootie shrugged.

  “Thing is, since she’s not back, you know what it means, don’t you? Means you gonna be a dad.”

  “Yeah,” Cootie humphed. “Right. What makes you think it would be mine?”

  “Tess cared plenty about you. You’re the one trying to make it seem like nothing.”

  Cootie spit in the dirt and denied it. “It is nothing.”

  “Sure.” Jimmy Ray just kept looking at him, trying to read his mind. “You miss her a lot, huh?”

  “Stop poking your nose in my business.”

  “Not poking my nose, Cootie.” Jimmy Ray made a show of pantomiming, his finger folded and hidden on the other side so it made him look like he’d pushed it up his nostril. “Picking my nose.”

  Cootie bent down and chucked a rock at Jimmy Ray. There were plenty of those in the front yard, too. It glanced off Jimmy’s left shoulder and Jimmy kicked off a string of curses.

  If Cootie had been whittling anything in particular, he gave up on it right then. “Just want to make sure she’s okay, is all.” He began digging his knife into the wood and thumbing off thin, fragrant curls. He kept going until he had a pile beside his dirty, sandaled toes and a thin stick left in his hand. A sparrow hopped toward him on the sidewalk, cocked her head at him, as if daring him to tell Jimmy Ray the truth. They did have their code of honor, after all. They were the men of this house.

  Jimmy Ray was still rubbing his shoulder. He broke into a thread of freestyle rap. “Once that girl left, I felt bereft. Driving down the road with the picture I’d kept—”

  “You know as well as I do that a kid wouldn’t make it on Bunyan Street.”

  Cootie stared just over Jimmy’s head at the tall spire of Reunion Tower and, in the distance way beyond that, to the Magnolia Building. On the day Cootie’s mom had put him on the Greyhound bus a dozen years ago to send him to his grandma’s to live, she’d said, “See the red horse on top of that building, Connor? See how it leaps into the air with its red-light wings spread out to fly? Well, that’s what Mama’s gotta do, too.”

  “How come I can’t go?” he remembered asking, staring at the toe of his sneaker, scrubbing it in the dust. He would have died rather than let her see him cry.

  “That’s the hard part to understand.” She’d laid a heavy hand on his shoulder the last time she touched him, as if she could hold him down to earth. “It’s just that, well, there’s this guy I met at the Clearwater Club and he’s nice, real nice. This is my chance to start over, honey. He don’t know about you. You’re just gonna stay with Grandma for a while until I see how things turn out. Got to be somebody different for him, Connor, or I won’t be anybody at all.”

  She’d walked away from him, just like that. He’d never seen his mother again. He hoped everything had worked out okay for her with that man from the Clearwater Club. He didn’t know to this day whether she was alive or dead.

  Funny, now, how his grandma hadn’t been able to keep him very long after that, how she hadn’t even known he was coming, how fast he’d been out on his own. And then he’d found a bed in this house on Bunyan Street. The horse still loomed in the sky; it wasn’t on the tallest building anymore. He always had to look to find it, searching for a few minutes like he did when he wanted to find certain stars. And then, always, there it was. His mother’s dream, glinting in the sun, prancing as it did now just over Jimmy Ray’s left shoulder.

  “Maybe Tess don’t belong with you, Cootie. She grew up different than we did. She’s got family. A reason to get out of this place, not to have to look over her shoulder.”

  “No.” Cootie had left the chair and gotten comfortable squatting, his knees wide, his elbow propped on his thigh. In honor of cooler weather, he’d donned a threadbare red shirt over the tank top. The red shirt flapped open when he rummaged in his pocket. “She doesn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s different ways of having your mother leave you. Tess told me all about it.”

  Jimmy Ray started peeling his thumbnail, working out the day’s grime.

  “Her mother’s ashamed of her.”

  “Well, hanging out here, maybe I’d be ashamed of her, too.”

  “It isn’t us. Tess says it’s been ever since she was a little girl. As long as she can remember. Tess says that every time she catches her mother looking at her, she sees guilt in her mother’s face. That even when she was a little girl trying to do the right thing, everything she did made her mother sad.”

  Jimmy Ray rifled in his jeans for a cigarette. “Here. Have a smoke.”

  Cootie ignored the offer. “And you know how that is. People see that you expect the worst out of them and, eventually, they’ll give it to you.”

  He’d told Tess about the red horse once. How it always hung there over his head beckoning him, how there was no way not to look at it. And how, at night when the sun was sinking, the red horse seemed like it had broken free of its wire cables and was surging forward in the sky.

  “Its name is Pegasus,” she’d told him. “There’s a constellation named that, too.”

  “Smarty pants. I thought you dropped out of school.”

  “Well.” When she shook her head, her hair poked out like porcupine quills around her ears. “There’s some things I do know.”

  “My story’s very important to me.”

  “Yeah, Coot.” And he remembered how she’d yanked off his tan sweater cap (the one that made everybody tease him and call him Cone Head) and knuckle-scrubbed his dark hair. “I know all about you.”

  He supposed that’s why he couldn’t stop thinking about what it had been like when Tess was here. She was the first person who knew all about him, and had said that she would stay.

  TESS’S EYES had turned red from reading through Internet sites. When she closed them, her lids felt rough with fatigue.

  She’d done every search she could think of during the past eight hours. Adoptionforum.com. Theinfantplanet.com. Rockabye.com. Inyourarms.com. Perfectdecision.com. Just when she thought she’d found all the information there was to find about adoptive families, she’d find even more. Bright, happy photographs with pictures of a man and a woman standing in the middle of a manicured lawn. Beribboned pets. Lavishly designed bedrooms that would rival anything on the pages of Parenting magazine. All of this to be shared with a new baby. All of this to be doled out with so much gratitude and love that Tess felt she might die of it. The hopeful mommies and daddies in the pictures were all so beautiful, they didn’t look real.

  In Tess’s mind, the pleading of one voice had turned into the pleading of hundreds. This had been a mistake, seeing so many people at once. As long as she’d been talking only to Mrs. Whitsitt, she hadn’t been frightened. But the voices, these faces and beautiful houses and lists of hobbies was too much.

  Had anyone told her this would be easy? No. If anyone had, they’d have been telling her one big fat stinking rotten lie.

  The whole time she’d sat reading in the chair, the baby had been alive with mot
ion, flipping beneath her bellybutton, and the acrobatics made her laugh. A couple of times she’d gotten so annoyed, she’d pushed it back.

  What would Cootie be doing right now? Laughing, too, because she had to pee all the time.

  “We love sailing,” one of the couples had written in a Dear Birthmother letter. What if they let the baby fall off a boat? “We have two little dachshunds,” another wrote. What if the baby got a dog bite? “We live in a family-oriented neighborhood in a lovely brick colonial home.” “We have a strong faith and a good marriage.” “We are nurturing, friendly, hard-working, compassionate, patient, and responsible.” It felt so frightening, it was enough to make her want to cry.

  Tess sensed the moment someone walked in the room behind her. “You’ve been on the computer a long time,” her mother said. “Aren’t you getting tired?”

  “They all say the same thing.”

  “You remember what Mrs. Whitsitt said, that you might get overwhelmed by this. Maybe you ought to turn it off.”

  “They all say, ‘We have a perfect house. We have the perfect life. Our nieces and nephews adore us. We love to read. We want to share our enthusiasm for gardening with our child.’ If there were just five or ten of them to pick from, it might be different. But there are hundreds. All the same. Like someone’s told them what they ought to say to me.”

  “They are all the same.” And Tess heard the unbearable melancholy in her mother’s voice yet again. “They’re desperate. Don’t you know that?”

  Tess palmed the mouse, moved the arrow to the Start icon, and logged off. The computer took precious seconds before the song rang out and the screen went blank. Both she and her mother stared into the emptiness.

  Nora cleared her throat. “I want to make the baby a gift, you know. Something to send along with it, to have from our family.”

  “I don’t want you to do that.”

  “We have flannel at The Stitch in so many baby colors. Would you pick out something you like? I thought if I made a little receiving blanket—”