A Mother's Goodbye

by Kate Hewitt

  I’m thinking of the impossible practicalities even as my mind skims back to that web page: Lisa and Drew and their sushi.

  ‘Mommy, my shoe broke today.’ Amy is snuggled in bed, eyes wide over the covers as she delivers this news.

  ‘What?’ I stare at her, my mind still on sushi, and she nods toward the shoes by her bed. New school shoes, bought from Payless less than two months ago for the start of third grade, and not all that cheap. ‘It should be called Paymore,’ Kevin joked when he saw the receipt.

  ‘My strap broke.’

  I bend down to look at her shoes. Just as she’d said, the strap has snapped on one, because she pulls them so tight. The other one, I see, is wearing thin.

  ‘We’ll use duct tape to fix it.’ Amy nods sullenly, knowing better than to argue even though I know she doesn’t want to limp to school with a duct-taped shoe. But as I stare at the strap I feel something harden inside me. Amy knows we can’t afford another pair of shoes, and I hate that. I hate that she knows not to ask. Not to expect. My smart-mouthed, sassy girl, accepting this silently, knowing there’s no point to protest, because the money simply isn’t there.

  I look at Emma curled up in her bed, and Lucy sprawled in hers, and my heart aches with fierce love for my three girls, girls who already have had a hard start in life thanks to Kev’s accident, who know not to expect new shoes or special treats, who don’t even ask for them any more. I want more for my girls. I want to be able to give them more, not less. And there is only one way I can do that.

  After I’ve tucked Amy in I head back to the computer. Kevin has dozed off and the TV blares a replay of a football game. If I turn it off, he might wake up, so I leave it on and click on another profile. And another. All these happy families. Except of course they’re not families. Not yet. I don’t want to give my baby to any of them.

  Then I see a photo of a woman by herself. She looks sharp and sleek, wearing a navy-blue skirt suit, arms folded, hair back, barely smiling. Her gaze is direct and a little challenging, and somehow I like that.

  I read her profile, which is full of business stuff I don’t understand, but there’s a picture of her apartment in Manhattan, with floor-to-ceiling views of Central Park. Grace Thomas is sitting on her sofa, looking stiff, legs folded to one side, her mouth curled in a faint smile as if she’s thinking of something else.

  I don’t know why I keep staring at her photograph. Maybe because she’s so different from me. Maybe because those lovey-dovey couples feel like such a slap in the face. They have everything I don’t, and I’m meant to give them more? I’m meant to hand over everything they’ve ever wanted, put the icing on their triple-layer cake?

  This woman, this Grace, has a lot. She’s obviously super-rich, and she could provide for this child way, way more than we could. But she’s not part of a smarmy couple; she’s not flaunting her happiness in my face. She’s clearly driven and independent, and I imagine how she’s made her way on her own, how she’s climbed to the top with her own two hands. My hands creep to my belly.

  I could give my baby to someone like this. Someone different and driven, someone smart and ambitious. Someone who will give this little one everything I can’t.

  I could do it, even if it would kill something inside me, even if I had to live with the guilt and the grief every day of my life. I could do it… and it might be the best thing for my baby, never mind me or my girls.

  Four

  GRACE

  ‘Grace, we might have a match.’

  In one quick movement, I rise from my desk and twitch closed the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the rest of the office floor. I take a deep breath and turn to the two other floor-to-ceiling windows, the ones overlooking the Hudson River. My corner office. Finally. A perk of that social media deal back in November, although it ended up not doing quite as well as I’d hoped.

  ‘We do?’ I say carefully. My heart is beating hard and I feel that tingle of excitement, a flare inside, like I do when I sense a good investment no one else has spotted. And this… this is the biggest investment of all.

  It’s been two months since my father’s funeral and the loneliness hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s become worse. And along with it has grown a need, a craving I feel with every fiber of my being, that I need someone to love. Maybe it’s my biological clock, maybe simply the human urge to live for something greater than myself. In any case, six weeks ago, I decided to begin the process to adopt a baby.

  I didn’t have time to find a man, marry, and start trying the old-fashioned way. That would take months, years, and it was sure to be complicated and messy. I’m thirty-nine; it’s already getting late. Besides, adoption felt right: a baby without a mother, a mother without a child. We’d fit, two interlocking puzzle pieces, holding tight together. We’d be a team, the two of us, just like my father and I used to be, needing nothing but each other.

  When I decide something, I do it, and that’s how it was with this. I bought the books, I found an agency, I went through all the loops and hoops, the home study and assessments, with single-minded determination. It gave me a focus, something I desperately needed after my father’s death, and more importantly, gave me hope.

  Even now, two months later, I’ll suddenly remember he’s gone and it’s startling, like I’ve heard it for the first time, the wave of grief breaking over me as fresh and cold as ever. The phone will ring, and I think it’s him. The words Hey, Dad are almost out of my mouth when I hear the telemarketer’s drone.

  So thinking about a baby, my baby, my family, has helped me. Grounded me. And now I might be taking the next step to making that a reality.

  ‘Yes, a couple have come forward to express interest,’ Tina, the woman who handles my case at the adoption agency, says, and my heart turns right over. ‘They specifically requested a closed adoption, just as you wanted. She’s due in the middle of May.’

  It’s early January now; the city is covered in dirty snow and the air is frigid, sharp and metallic. Christmas might as well not have happened. Dad and I always had Christmas together, over at his place, exchanging a gift each and sharing a bottle of wine. It was low-key but I loved it, because we weren’t trying to oversell the holiday or pretend everything was normal, without my mom, without the extended family most people take for granted. We just were, and that was always enough. It always had been.

  This year I simply pretended it wasn’t Christmas at all. I worked pretty much the whole time and on the actual day I holed up with a bottle of wine, takeout Chinese food, and Netflix.

  ‘And she – they – picked me?’ I can’t help but sound disbelieving. Me, the single, driven career woman who, I’m secretly afraid, doesn’t even look maternal?

  ‘Yes, they did.’ I hear a smile in Tina’s voice. ‘It does happen.’

  And yet I didn’t expect it to happen quite this quickly. Everyone yammers on about how adoption takes forever, at least on the internet forums I ventured onto one drunken night. The desperation seeped out of my laptop like some toxic gas, and the worst part was, I felt it too, like something being carved out of me. I clicked and clicked on message after message, read stories of adoptions that fell through, sometimes heartbreakingly late, and then of course the ones that never even happened. Couples waiting years, decades, longing only for a child to love. Just like me.

  ‘So who is she?’ I ask Tina.

  ‘Her name is Heather, and her husband is Kevin. They live in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He’s got a permanent injury and they have three children already. They’re not prepared to have a fourth. Grace…’ Tina pauses, and my fingers tighten on the phone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This might not be as simple as it first sounds.’

  I tense, because I don’t like the sound of that. But is any adoption simple? We’re talking about a human being, not a business transaction, as much as I sometimes would like this to resemble one. ‘What do you mean, Tina?’

  ‘It’s just… a fourth child,
a couple that’s together. It’s not the usual adoptive scenario.’

  ‘So you think there’s a risk of her changing her mind?’ I’m in finance mode, analyzing, assessing; deciding if this investment is worth the potential loss, even though I know it doesn’t work like that. It can’t.

  ‘There’s always a risk.’ Tina hesitates. ‘And, to tell you the truth, Heather has shown some definite uncertainty about the situation.’

  Definite uncertainty. Talk about an oxymoron, and yet this whole situation feels like one. Two mothers. One baby. Someone is losing out. ‘How much uncertainty?’ I ask, as if Tina can give me a percentage.

  ‘She says she’s decided, and she and her husband have both signed the paperwork, so I can’t really say. I just feel I have to warn you. It’s… a delicate situation.’

  ‘Why didn’t she get an abortion?’ As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize they sound callous, cold, but in this day and age, it seems like the obvious solution.

  ‘I’m not really sure. Maybe she realized later than she felt comfortable with for terminating a pregnancy, or there might be a… faith element. I believe she’s Catholic.’

  ‘Huh.’ I haven’t known any real Catholics. I know people who grew up Catholic, but they talk about it the way you talk about being Italian or from the Midwest. A part of you, yes, but not really relevant to who you are now or the decisions you make.

  ‘And,’ Tina adds, ‘it’s not an easy decision to make in the best of circumstances… every woman feels differently about these things.’

  ‘Of course.’ The last thing I want is for this Heather to get an abortion, which I suppose she could still get, legally anyway, if she’s due in May. This situation might be delicate, but it’s the only one I’ve got. I don’t want to be one of those tragic people on the internet forums, waiting years, the nursery gathering dust and mildew like something out of a horror film. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Heather and Kevin want to meet you. Soon, if possible.’

  ‘Okay.’ My mind races. I can squeeze in a lunch appointment this week, but evening would be better. Yet as I’m thinking this, I know I’m being utterly ridiculous. A baby is not an accessory to add to my life, or an appointment to squeeze in my calendar. I know this, and yet…

  ‘My schedule’s a little crazy this week. Could they do next week?’

  There is a tiny pause, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing. I feel it, along with a rush of shame. What am I thinking? This is the most important decision of my life, the most important deal I’ll ever make. Who cares if I annoy Bruce Felson or one of the other partners by taking a sudden personal day? ‘Of course I can meet them whenever it suits,’ I say quickly. ‘Any time at all. Do they want to come here, or should I go there? Wherever…’ I’m babbling, because whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I have to.

  ‘I’m not sure what they’d prefer, but I’ll call you back when I’ve spoken to them,’ Tina promises. After we’ve said our goodbyes I stand there, my phone in my hand, my heart beating hard as I stare out at the city.

  For the first time since I decided to go down this route I feel a tiny, treacherous flicker of doubt. Of fear. It surprises me, because I’ve moved forward with such decisiveness, such certainty, and yet now that it’s all happening, I I feel a little lost. I want to feel excited, and I do, of course I do, but I also feel afraid.

  I swallow and feel the stirrings of true panic. I’ve been having panic attacks since my dad’s funeral, usually at night, when I’m trying to go to sleep. I’ll be lying there about to drift into much-needed unconsciousness when all of a sudden it’s like a gun has gone off in the room, and every muscle tenses as my heart starts beating wildly and there is a metallic taste in my mouth.

  I feel so alone in those moments, the loneliness like a weight bearing down on me, and the more I think about it the worse it gets, until I feel as if the dark is suffocating me, strangling me, and my breath bursts out of me in ragged gasps that echo through the room.

  It stops after about an hour or so, usually with the help of alcohol or work or both, but it leaves me sweat-soaked, shaking and exhausted. I can’t have a panic attack now, at the office. I can’t lose it like that in the one place where I am most in control.

  ‘Grace?’ My assistant Sara knocks on my door. ‘You’ve got a meeting with Starling Corp in five.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’ I’m almost tempted to cancel the meeting, because they’re a tech company that looks good on paper but I suspect has some pretty big holes they’re trying to hide. Less than one percent of companies looking for venture capital get it, and at my level I still have to weed out the ones that won’t work. When I’m partner, something I’m hoping is very soon, I’ll be signing off on the deals, not searching through the dross looking for dubious gold.

  When I started at Harrow and Heath I hit the jackpot in my first year, finding All Natural, the organic everything company that went big at the start of the tech boom. It was lucky but it also set me up for an impossible task, to try to beat my record from the start. I got funneled into tech and emerging social media right away, the ultimate boys’ club, although Bruce Felson still keeps trying to steer me toward the make-up and style companies, because I’m the firm’s only female principal.

  In reality I don’t actually like either the tech or the style all that much. I pass a lot of the glamour companies on to Jill Martin, the only other woman who is near my level. I don’t think she likes them either, but I pull rank when I have to, and she started a year after me. We pretend to have a female solidarity thing going but we both know it’s pretty fake.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes, willing my heart rate to slow. I cannot have a panic attack now; I simply cannot. And I don’t want to back out of the adoption process because I’ve committed to it. This fear I feel right now will fade. And at the end I’ll have a baby. A family.

  I open my eyes and drop my hand to stare out at the choppy river, the steel-gray sky. When I make partner, I won’t have to work so hard. I’ll have stopped needing to prove myself, and so I will be able to take weekends off like Bruce does. I can go on vacation more than ten days a year; I can go home at seven and not ten or later. I can have a life.

  I can have a baby.

  For a second I let myself picture it – sitting on the sand at Cape Cod, where my dad and I always went for two wonderful weeks in summer, a chubby toddler with a bucket and shovel by my side. Strolling through the cobbled streets of Paris, my smart, switched-on son or daughter next to me, chattering a mile a minute. I picture Christmas in my apartment – presents and a tree, laughter and voices. We’ll start traditions, the two of us; we’ll cocoon ourselves with love. I want that. I want that so very much.

  Tina calls back that afternoon and says Heather and Kevin will meet me at my apartment tomorrow at ten in the morning. I decide to act as if I’m going out to scout a new contact. Venture capital can be a lonely business – often I’m working on my own, researching, networking, finding opportunities and leads. It doesn’t have the cut-throat camaraderie of investment banking, but it’s also less pressurizing. Supposedly.

  So at nine-thirty the next morning, on the pretext of meeting a mysterious new contact in midtown, I’m running around my apartment, tweaking the fresh flowers, which now seem ostentatious and showy. I’ve also bought some macaroons from a bakery on Madison, and they sit on a plate on the coffee table, looking too elegant to eat.

  I probably should have baked, had a plate of warm oatmeal cookies at the ready, but that’s just not who I am. I have herbal tea and fennel apple juice, both of which look and taste disgusting, but All Natural keeps shipping me free samples of their new products. It’s healthy, anyway, and that’s what moms are supposed to want, right? Except I don’t feel anything like a mom. Yet.

  The intercom buzzes at ten minutes after ten, and my nerves leap and jangle. ‘Tina and Heather to see you, Miss Thomas,’ Sergei the doorman’s voice comes through the speaker, and I
tell him to let them up.

  Two minutes later the doorbell rings, a discreet, melodious chime. I take a deep breath, check my reflection – I’ve worn my hair down, unusually for me, and have paired a crisp white blouse with tailored trousers. I thought about going more casual but I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t taking this seriously. So here I am, Grace Thomas, venture capitalist, mother-to-be. Maybe.

  I take another deep breath and open the door.

  The first thing I think is that Heather is not at all what I expected, and yet at the same time she completely is. Her hair is stringy and limp, her eyes faded, like life has worn her right out. I know from Tina that she’s only twenty-nine.

  Yet she’s also not how I thought she’d be, because there’s something in her expression that is alert and intelligent, although she is clearly nervous – as nervous as I am, although I think I hide it better. She’s dressed neatly, in jeans and a loose button-down shirt, and what really gets me is her smile, both hesitant and sincere. It transforms her face, makes her eyes crinkle, wiping the strain of years away for a breathtaking second.

  I don’t know how to feel about that smile, because it makes her seem so genuine and nice, but, meanly, I’m not actually sure if I want her to be either of those. I realize I don’t want her to be anything, beyond someone anonymous I can forget about later, which sounds awful but I can’t help it, it’s true. She’s an extra to my story, my family, and yet she’s also the most integral part. Yet another oxymoron about this delicate situation.

  ‘Heather. Hi, I’m Grace.’ I hold my hand out for her to shake, which she does rather limply. Then I step inside and usher her in, chatting about how nice it is to meet her, and was there traffic? I laugh lightly at something Tina says that isn’t all that funny, but ice breaking is something I know how to do, putting people at their ease even as I make a snap judgment. Right now I need to feel like I’m good at something.