I'll See You Again

by Jackie Hance

  Friends still stopped by regularly, and our house was often packed with people when Warren came home from work. He usually slipped quickly through the living room, often giving Kasey a quick kiss, before disappearing for the night. One night, Warren got home and barely said hello. A few minutes later, he sent me a text: “Can you bring Kasey upstairs without anyone noticing?”

  Without asking him why, I gently took the baby from the neighbor who was rocking her and headed to our bedroom.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Warren.

  “There were so many people, and I didn’t feel like talking,” he said. “But I wanted to see her.”

  I put Kasey on the bed next to him and lay down, too. The three of us stretched side by side—a small and slightly awkward family gathering on a big comfy bed. Kasey’s sparkly dress shone in the light, and she looked irresistible.

  Warren cooed and cuddled for a few minutes, then handed her back to me. “Okay, thanks,” he said. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep.”

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “You can’t just get home from work and go to bed anymore. The day’s not over. We have a baby who needs us. You have to spend time with her.”

  “You don’t really need me,” he said. “There’s always someone to take care of her.”

  “But you’re her father,” I said. “I don’t want to do this alone.”

  Warren looked despairing. “I know, Jackie. I’m going to try, I really am. I just can’t do it tonight.”

  I shook my head. How could I ask Warren to share my timetable for recovery? He had coped with my abject misery, and now I should be respectful of his need to adjust. But it was tough. For two years, I had cried and screamed and raged and stared down my hopelessness. Now with Kasey, I wanted to inch forward to the future. But Warren had spent that same time trying to be stoic and denying the pain. He closed down at the end of the workday and tried to keep grief from edging its way into his consciousness.

  I suppose he thought if he could shut out the memories, he wouldn’t hurt so much.

  But he couldn’t shut out Kasey.

  Looking at his little baby girl, he saw again in full living color the faces of her sisters, and he wasn’t prepared for the deluge of emotions that holding her raised. Along with the affection and love and need to protect came the agony, grief, wretchedness, and torment that he had been trying to avoid.

  “There’s dinner in the kitchen,” I said, thinking that practical matters provided the safest ground.

  “Did you cook?” he asked hopefully.

  “Don’t press your luck,” I said with a laugh to lighten the mood. Neighbors continued to drop off home-cooked meals and take-out extravaganzas. My amazing support network was stepping forward in every way possible to help us raise a happy and healthy baby—and to make sure that Warren didn’t go hungry. But cooking had always been both a favorite hobby and a way I showed love. Kasey would be ready for solid food soon, and even if I couldn’t whip up cakes and soufflés just yet, I needed to do better than power bars and diet soda.

  A few days later, feeling particularly brave, I put Kasey into a cute outfit and bundled her up to go outside. As we stepped out the door, Warren called on my cell phone just to check in. Isabelle often teased that despite our fights, Warren and I remained as close as high school sweethearts joined at the hip.

  “What are you doing?” Warren asked, not expecting any groundbreaking answer.

  “I’m going to the grocery store,” I said casually, as if going to the local grocery store were as much a nonevent for me as it would be for most moms. “We need bread and milk.”

  “The grocery store?” Warren asked. He sounded so shocked that I might as well have said I was heading to a strip club to learn pole dancing. “Are you ready for that?”

  “Yup!” I said. “It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. Better to do it fast and get it over with.”

  The visit to the store was uneventful. I popped bread and milk and a few other things into my cart and headed to the checkout. I still recognized the ladies at the registers, and they knew me, too. They clucked and cooed over my pretty baby, did the transaction, and that was that.

  No big deal.

  A few days later, I took Kasey to the big supermarket and emerged equally fine—grocery bags in hand and emotions unscathed. One dark place gone from my life.

  • • •

  I reminded myself regularly that all I could do was try my best and make myself overcome other uncertainties. As with the grocery store, I worried about taking Kasey for a walk by myself. Being seen in public with my baby unnerved me. What would people say? It was time to find out. I put Kasey in her stroller and ventured outside, just the two of us, walking through town. By now, most people in Floral Park recognized me and many stopped to talk.

  One woman I’d never met came up and introduced herself, gushed over Kasey, and then took my hand. “I’m so glad you have a new baby,” she said simply. “But I want you to know that I still pray for Emma, Alyson, and Katie.”

  “Thank you,” I said, tears of gratitude filling my eyes. What could be better? She admired my pretty baby but saw Kasey as one part of a larger family of sisters, all equally beloved. This stranger had struck the magic formula.

  I continued the walk and realized I felt fine strolling with my baby.

  Just like any mom.

  I made little faces at Kasey as we walked, acting as silly as every new mother who gets thoroughly entranced trying to make her baby smile. Kasey looked so sweet and she deserved a happy life.

  When we got back home, I called Isabelle. “I think I may like her,” I said.

  “Like who?” she asked.

  “Kasey.”

  Isabelle laughed. “That’s good to hear.”

  “No, I mean it. I don’t love her yet, but I’m starting to like her.” I paused, even that admission causing a tinge of guilt.

  “I still miss Katie’s hugs,” I added quickly. “I wish Kasey could hug me like Katie did or smile at me like Aly.”

  “She will,” said Isabelle. “Give her time.”

  One day, I stood with Kasey and contemplated the pictures of Emma, Alyson, and Katie on the wall.

  The girls had been real, my flesh and blood, my beloveds. But now they had vanished, and Kasey would have things they never did. Emma had yearned to go to Disneyland, and I promised her a family trip when she turned ten and Katie would be old enough to enjoy it, too. But putting it off meant none of them ever got to go. I wouldn’t wait to take Kasey to the Magic Kingdom. Carpe diem. But would taking her be a way to honor the girls’ memory—or seem simply unfair?

  Holding Kasey as I walked around the room, I rocked back on my heels in confusion.

  BA—Before the Accident—my life had been happy and busy and filled with children and love. AA—After the Accident—had been sad and miserable and lonely. Now I had unwittingly stumbled into a third stage, which included parts of each and memories of both. I struggled to understand the jumbled mix of BA happiness and AA sorrow that I now experienced every day. In this new stage—AAA? After After the Accident?—the disparate pieces of my life started to merge into a coherent whole.

  A couple of days later, a friend came over and wanted to see Kasey.

  “She’s in the girls’ room,” I said, gesturing toward the upstairs. And I realized that the whole was beginning to form. Kasey’s crib and toys and clothes graced the bedroom that Emma and Alyson had shared, once and always “the girls’ room.” Many of Emma’s and Alyson’s favorite belongings remained there, and their old treasures mingled easily with Kasey’s new ones. Instead of being eerie, the combination seemed just right. The “girls’ room”—maybe now more than ever. Kasey was one of the girls. Instead of thinking I shouldn’t delight in my new baby, I needed to incorporate her experiences with those of her sisters, and vice versa.

  In the first weeks, while other people had coddled and kissed Kasey, I had cared for her quietly. I hadn’t talked to her on the c
hanging table. I had fed her dutifully. But now we chatted all the time, and I told her about her sisters. One day, as I changed her diaper, I started singing a little song. I thought I made it up as I went along, but the words must have been in my heart since the day she was born.

  K is for Katie

  A is Aly

  S is for Sisters

  E is for Emma

  Y is for YOU!

  I sang the little tune, and Kasey gurgled happily. Before long, that became our special song. I sang it as she lay looking up at me on the changing table, or when I rocked her in my arms to put her to sleep. The song became a magic ditty that soothed her from any distress. Or maybe the words calmed me down, and Kasey felt that ease. Whatever the case, the song said that Kasey fit into a whole family and a bigger story. She had sisters who loved her even if they couldn’t hold her. But she was more than an addendum to a tragic tale. She gleamed as a precious girl on her own, a little bundle of hope and possibility who existed both as part of a continuum and as a distinctive soul. Her sisters contributed to her name and identity, but the Y—the You!—had to be allowed to shine as brightly and boldly as the other letters.

  Twenty-eight

  I bonded to Kasey and liked taking care of her, but guilt still hung over me like a black cloak. I tried to push it aside. I needed to love this baby. In TV commercials and sappy family movies, the mother looks into her baby’s eyes, the music rises, and her face softens in a haze of tenderness. Joy and happily-ever-after are sure to follow.

  Or maybe real life, with all its heartbreak and tragedy, would follow instead. I feared giving my heart to a baby, knowing the risk of having it broken. So many other friends and family members already loved Kasey unconditionally. Why couldn’t I? I kept remembering the exact moments when I fell in love with each of the other girls, and I wondered when—or if—that would happen with Kasey.

  With Emma, I had gone back to work after two months. Having found a wonderful babysitter in Salvina, I didn’t worry about being away from her. Little did I know. The first day back on my job seemed to last forever, and as I raced home to pick up Emma, I was almost hysterical to see her again. I rang Salvina’s door impatiently. The moment she opened it, I rushed into the house and scooped Emma into my arms, a rush of devotion surging through me.

  Wow, I really love this baby, I had thought.

  I smiled at Salvina, who touched my cheek, reading the ardor in my eyes. “You love your little bambino,” she had said.

  With Alyson, I had the love epiphany at seven weeks, when she smiled at me. Alyson had a big, fat smile that embraced the whole world. The first time she flashed it at me, I knew I would do anything for her. And that feeling never went away.

  Katie was just six weeks old when I took her for a regular checkup and the doctor thought she might have a problem that required a neurosurgeon. I couldn’t get an appointment for a couple of weeks. Beside myself with worry, I spent the time reading everything I could find about cranial stenosis, a condition where the soft spot closes too fast and there is no room for the brain to grow. The surgeon has to cut the skull open, and after surgery the vulnerable baby wears a helmet as protection. For two weeks, I had a lump in my throat. The thought of my baby needing surgery was overwhelming because I loved her so much. Katie turned out to be perfectly healthy, and my fears slipped away, but the love never left. Neither did the desire to protect her and keep her from suffering.

  Three girls. Three moments of falling in love.

  And now Kasey, my fourth girl.

  Early on, infants have endless needs, and all they give back in exchange for a mother’s exhausted efforts is an aura of helplessness and a fragrant smell of baby powder, warm milk, and purity. Eventually, that changes.

  One day when she was nine weeks old, Kasey slept all the way through the night. I got up at 4:30 a.m. for my usual run, and when I peeked at her, she was off in some happy dreamland. I left, knowing Warren was home, and when I came back an hour or so later, Kasey hadn’t stirred. Feeling my usual postrun energy high, I wanted to feed her and change her and get the day started, so I nudged her gently in her crib to wake her up. She opened her eyes as I picked her up—and she smiled at me.

  I felt my heart melt.

  “Seriously? You’re smiling?” I asked, starting to laugh. “I just woke you up! What kind of perfect baby are you, anyway?”

  She smiled again.

  I smiled back at her.

  I felt the rush of baby-love that I remembered so well, the stirrings of deep affection rousing my heart. I fed Kasey and played with her for a while, and then I realized she was still tired. No early-morning runs for this baby! I put her back down in her crib and she fell asleep. I stood there for a long time watching her, feeling an odd mix of pride and satisfaction and relief. I knew my baby. I knew what she wanted and needed. As I pulled a blanket over her, I realized my glow was coming from more than a renewed sense of competence.

  I love her. I feel like her mom, I thought. I love her.

  For a moment, I wanted to stop myself and tell Emma, Alyson, and Katie that I still loved them, too. But I didn’t need to. They knew.

  • • •

  Everyone asked what I would do for Kasey’s first Christmas, and my answer was—nothing. A three-month-old doesn’t need Santa, and however far I had come, I wasn’t quite ready to celebrate. Jeannine and Isabelle offered to make holiday cards for me with a family picture but I declined. I didn’t need them to help me with cards or gifts or decorations—I liked all that stuff. And I’d do it next year.

  But once again, our friends wouldn’t let the holiday pass unnoticed. The previous year, our friend John had placed a graceful white fir tree on our front lawn and Isabelle and company left a basket of ornaments on a table with a notebook, a pen, and a picture of the girls. Friends, neighbors, and people passing by stopped at our house to tie a decoration on the tree and leave their good wishes. It looked so pretty that I couldn’t help feeling some holiday cheer. Isabelle had put a note on the door asking people to respect our privacy, but I took it down, horrified. How could I not welcome well-wishers inside? The house was filled with people and noise and laughter—and, as happened so often, the silence crushed me when they left.

  That wouldn’t happen this year. With Kasey, the curse of quietude had ended. Silence no longer choked us.

  On Christmas morning, our friends came over for my now-traditional (three years running!) holiday breakfast spread. John had left another tree outside that the neighborhood children could decorate. Warren and I took Kasey outside and watched together as the children draped ribbons and ornaments on the green branches. People stayed longer than we’d expected, eating and talking and enjoying the good feeling. When they finally left, a different kind of panic descended. I had too much to do. I wanted to visit the girls at the cemetery, and I needed to fit that in fast because we were planning to drive out to New Jersey for Christmas dinner with my brother Stephen and his family. I hadn’t been to Stephen’s house since before the accident, and I had steeled myself to restart the tradition that the girls had loved. Families should be together, and Stephen’s three children had been hurt by our absence.

  “The kids miss their aunt Jackie,” my brother had said to me one day.

  “Their aunt Jackie’s not here anymore,” I had said sadly. The carefree, fun-loving person who adored nieces Isabelle and Marguerite and nephew Spencer seemed to be gone for good.

  But maybe Aunt Jackie could come back to the fold. With Kasey, I finally felt strong enough to handle being part of the family again. I eagerly anticipated introducing Kasey to her cousins.

  The only problem: time was not on my side.

  “I’m not dressed and the baby’s not dressed and we still have to get to the cemetery!” I shouted at Warren. “Tell my brother we can’t come! We have to visit the girls!”

  Warren checked his watch. Sure enough, we didn’t have time for everything. But with my extended family waiting for us in New Jersey, a
nd a Christmas ham ready to slice, he had a different list of priorities.

  “Let’s skip the cemetery and get to your brother’s,” Warren suggested. “We’ll visit the cemetery another day.”

  “Are you kidding? How could I not see the girls on Christmas?”

  “Jackie, you don’t have to go there to see them. They know,” he said.

  “We have to fit everything in,” I persisted. “We can’t leave the girls out and we can’t leave out Kasey. Let’s see, you go to the cemetery and I’ll go to my brother’s with the baby. Or, no, I’ll go to the cemetery and you go to my brother’s. Or maybe—”

  “Calm down,” Warren said, interrupting my tirade.

  I glared at him, my mind spinning plans.

  “Jackie, we have to live in the present,” Warren said firmly. “And that means all of us going to your brother’s together and celebrating Christmas. The girls are with us wherever we go.”

  I’m not sure why his good sense penetrated this time, but it did. I put Kasey in her special red plaid taffeta Christmas dress and pulled myself together faster than usual. We got to New Jersey, and I walked into my brother’s house, still shaken, but holding the baby in my arms. Some relatives who hadn’t seen Kasey yet gathered around, and my cousin Michele, who lives in the same two-family house as my mom, started crying.

  “Stop it, Michele,” I said, smiling even as I felt tears popping into my own eyes. “No crying on Christmas.”

  “Oh, Jackie, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,” she said. “I’m trying not to. But she’s so beautiful.”

  I looked down at my little bundle and smiled. My brother’s holiday tree twinkled in the corner, and suddenly, Christmas took on a new and unexpected meaning. In both religion and life, a new baby can be a savior, giving hope where there has been none.

  Kasey, my personal savior. My beautiful baby.

  • • •

  A few days before New Year’s, I left Kasey with a babysitter so I could spend some time at the cemetery. I felt bad that we had missed Christmas, but maybe it was best that I hadn’t come and spoiled the day for Kasey and Warren.