Susan Meissner - Why the Sky Is Blue

by Unknown

  I nodded. So he knew.

  “Do you want to know?” he asked.

  There didn’t seem to be any point in not knowing. This was not like being pregnant with Katie and Spence or even Sarah—the child I miscarried and we named. I thought for a second that perhaps it would be helpful for Ed and Rosemary to know. Maybe it mattered to them. I quickly dismissed that thought. I knew it would not matter to them. It would not matter to them if the child was male or female, one-legged, blind, or anything else. “Yes, I do,” I said.

  “It’s a girl,” he said and turned away from me so I could process this information privately.

  “You’re sure?”

  He turned around and smiled just a little. “Ninety-nine percent sure,” he said.

  So was I.

  I left with instructions to take it easy. Keep stair-climbing to a minimum. No jogging or jumping, neither of which I had done in years. Dr. Whitestone also wanted to see me in two weeks, not four, to see if there had been any change.

  I didn’t want to go home right away. It was early in the day yet, and the kids wouldn’t be home from school for a few hours. I stopped for lunch at a Taco Bell and then drove to the nearest Target. It was the Thursday before Easter, and the department store was decked out in pastel colors from floor to ceiling.

  I shouldn’t have done it, but I purposely strolled over to the baby section, and for a long time I just stood there and stared at the display of Easter dresses for baby girls. I was overcome with a tide of memories of dressing Katie in frilly pink and purple dresses, of stuffing her chubby baby legs into white tights with ruffles on the seat, and trying to keep a bonnet festooned with ribbons and rosebuds on her head. It didn’t seem that long ago that she spent most of her waking hours in my arms. A peculiar sense of longing crept over me as I stood there in a sea of rosy pink, lavender, and pale yellow.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough to attract attention, I suppose. I came out of my reverie to the sound of a woman asking me if she could help me find something. Her tone suggested she had already asked me several times and had gotten no answer.

  “No, no,” I stammered.

  I attempted a smile, thanked her, and walked away. I headed back to my van and drove home, wildly frustrated and wishing I still had boxes of old Christmas cards to sort through.

  Instead I called my mother.

  She wasn’t home, but I poured out my heart to Stuart, unaware that the kids had come in through the kitchen door and that Katie had probably heard everything I said. Stu told me he would have my mom call the minute she got in.

  When I hung up, I saw Katie standing there, arms folded across her chest and leaning against the arched doorway between the living room where I was, and the dining room.

  I felt foolish for not having looked at the clock before making the call and for being so absorbed in it I didn’t hear the kids come inside.

  “Katie. You’re home.” A really dumb thing to say, but I was completely taken by surprise at seeing her.

  “It’s a girl,” she said to me in a tone of resignation that didn’t suit her but was becoming commonplace for her.

  “Yes,” I said. I didn’t take my eyes off her.

  She stood there for a few more seconds and then headed up the stairs, slowly, one at a time and with no lift in her step.

  I found Spencer in the kitchen eating Oreos and watching cartoons on the little television on the breakfast bar. He appeared to have heard nothing.

  “Hey, Spencer. How’s it going?” I said as cheerfully as I could. “Did you have a good day?”

  “Yep,” he said, twisting open a cookie and scraping off the filling with his front teeth.

  I grabbed some cookies, poured a glass of milk, and headed up the stairs myself. I knocked on Katie’s door and waited for her to answer.

  “What?” she said.

  “May I come in?” I said.

  There was a pause.

  “Yeah.”

  She was on her bed looking at a catalog, her head propped up on an elbow.

  “I brought you a snack,” I said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll want it later.” I set the cookies and milk on her dresser. She said nothing and turned a page in her catalog.

  “Katie, can we talk about this?” I asked.

  She was silent for a moment. I could tell she was considering my request, but she turned another page in the catalog in a way to suggest she wasn’t.

  “Talking about it isn’t going to change anything,” she finally said.

  “No, it won’t,” I said as I sat down next to her. “But not talking about it is changing us. Can’t you feel it?”

  “I don’t feel anything,” she said softly.

  I stroked her head and she amazed me by letting me.

  “Sometimes I don’t feel anything, either,” I said. “And sometimes I feel way too much.”

  She looked up at me, surprised, I think, that she hadn’t shocked me by saying that she felt nothing. If she didn’t want to tell me what was going through her head, then I was going to tell her what was going through mine.

  “After my doctor’s appointment,” I said to her, “I went to Target and just stood in the baby-girl section, looking at all the dresses and bonnets and thinking how wonderful it is to be your mother. I was remembering when you were a baby and how much fun it was dressing you up at Easter. One year you wouldn’t keep your bonnet on. Not even for one picture. You were sixteen months old, and in all the photos we have of you, you’re holding your bonnet in your chubby little hands.”

  We both smiled—me at the memory, she at the image.

  “I just don’t see why we can’t keep her,” she finally said.

  I knew she needed something grand and persuasive to get her through this, just like I did. I prayed a quick prayer for wisdom and charged ahead with what I hoped made sense.

  “This baby is not a possession we can keep, like an heirloom or even a precious stone. She is a person, and she didn’t choose her circumstances any more than I did,” I said. “Most of the time I think I could love her just like I love you, but the truth is, Kate, I’m unsure. And your dad...well, he is sure he cannot.”

  “But what if he’s wrong. What if he can and he just doesn’t know it?”

  Katie had unknowingly asked the one question that pestered me daily. I knew there was a possibility that Dan’s feelings for the child could change. But we both knew it was too much of a risk with the child’s emotional welfare at stake.

  “But if he is right, and he cannot love her, it could destroy this little girl and probably the four of us as well,” I said. “That would be worse than this.”

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  “I don’t want her going to Ecuador,” Katie said.

  “I really don’t either, Kate,” I said. “But where she lives won’t be up to us.”

  It was several long minutes before I rose from her bed and left Kate alone with her thoughts. And feelings she said she didn’t have.

  With Katie’s aversion to the baby’s living in Ecuador, I was afraid Ed and Rosemary would find her unapproachable on Saturday. But to my surprise, she was polite, though not overly friendly. Rosemary and Ed would think she was just shy, I thought. Actually Rosemary was able to sense Katie’s displeasure for exactly what it was. At one point on Saturday afternoon the two of them disappeared. I learned later that they had sat on the deck even though it was forty degrees outside, talking about choices, circumstances, and trust.

  I could tell that Spencer liked Ed and Rosemary very much. I heard him tell Ed that if they ever needed help in Ecuador, he could come over and lend a hand. He was serious. Ed smiled and said how wonderful that would be. I knew he was serious too.

  I had told Dan earlier that when he wanted to talk legal matters over with Ed, I wanted to be out of the room. I could tell he was a little startled, but he said nothing.

  I hated the mountain of paperwor
k we were already wading through. Private adoptions weren’t legal in Minnesota. Since Ed and Rosemary weren’t blood relatives, we had to get connected with a licensed child-placement agency so that the adoption would have state oversight. I had nothing against the agency Dan found; the people were more than kind—to us and to Ed and Rosemary. But the legalities felt like a dehumanization of my predicament. The adoption would take place inside a county courthouse in front of a judge, a complete stranger. Legally that’s how the adoption would appear to take place. But it wouldn’t be that way for me. The surrender of my child would take place inside my very soul.

  Dan took advantage of the time I was preparing supper to go over with Ed a few details our lawyer had advised Dan about. Rosemary came into the kitchen to help me and told me she had spent some time alone with Katie. Actually it was more like a confession.

  Rosemary was worried she had overstepped her bounds by speaking to Katie about the adoption without Dan or me there.

  I told her I trusted her with Kate. And it was true. I did.

  “Did you have a good talk with her?” I said.

  “I think so,” Rosemary replied as she tore up romaine lettuce for a salad. “I feel badly we’ll be living so far away. I think maybe Katie was hoping she would be able to watch the baby grow up.”

  “Maybe it’s better this way,” I said absently.

  “Maybe. It is hard to know, isn’t it?” Rosemary said.

  “Very,” I agreed, then added, “Did Katie tell you it’s a girl?” I could not help smiling as I said it.

  “Yes, she did,” Rosemary said, smiling herself. “But she told me not to say anything in case you wanted to be the one to tell me. She was looking out for you. She loves you very much.”

  I smiled again.

  We finished supper preparations and then enjoyed a nice meal featuring my mom’s stroganoff recipe. It occurred to me that I should have invited my parents. They would have flown out if I had asked them. I hoped there would be another time.

  We passed the evening by looking at slides from our family vacations and just getting to know one another better.

  On Sunday morning, Rosemary and I hid eggs all over the downstairs for Kate and Spencer—there was still some snow on the ground—while Ed and Dan made French toast.

  After church, it was time to say goodbye again.

  “Call me anytime,” Rosemary said as we hugged goodbye. She had called me twice in the three weeks we had been apart. It was nice to be invited to do the same.

  We had Easter dinner at Dan’s parents’ house with Karin, Kent, and the cousins. Nina used her good china and served the gravy for the ham in a soup bowl.

  14

  April was one of the wettest months in years, and it seemed that spring would never come. The changing season—or lack of it—really didn’t make a difference to me. I didn’t feel the eager expectancy that long Minnesota winters typically create for those who must bear them. I was already keenly aware that new life waited just around the bend; I didn’t need the spring thaw or protruding tulip tips to remind me of that.

  My mid-April doctor’s appointment was encouraging, at least from the standpoint of labor and delivery. I wasn’t looking forward to either one, especially since there would be no joyful homecoming to follow. But I didn’t want to have the baby delivered by Cesarean. I wanted to physically recover from this as quickly as possible. I wanted no stitches, no searing after-pain, no scar. Dr. Whitestone said the placenta seemed to be inching its way upward, but he still wanted me to watch my physical activity. He didn’t want me going into labor—or worse, starting to bleed— this early and at this stage.

  So I did what came natural to me. I went to the library and checked out piles of books. I also dug around in the house for old favorites, especially my volume of Tennyson’s poetry, which I read twice.

  Spending so much time taking it easy at home actually provided me with a good reason not to be out and about, exposing myself as pregnant. It also gave me time to find new reasons for loving Tennyson, like the neurologist had advised me to do seven months before, which I did.

  On one day in the middle of that wet and dreary month, Dan came home early from work with a manila envelope in his hands and a childish smile on his face. He was up to something.

  “Claire, I have something I want to show you,” he said, coming to sit by me on the living room couch. He swept away the books and magazines I had on the coffee table and set the envelope on the bare surface. He reached in and pulled out half a dozen color photographs. One was of a white, two-story house with a porch and gabled windows. Another was of a barn—red with white trim. A third was of a ravine with a brook running through it. The rest were interior shots of a house, presumably the white one. The rooms were spacious and empty. Hardwood floors. Cherry fireplace. Kitchen cabinets painted sky blue.

  “What do you think?” Dan said, excitedly.

  “I think they’re pictures,” I said, a little dumbfounded. Was he thinking what I thought he was thinking?

  “But what do you think of them?”

  I looked at the photos, picked up a couple, and declared it looked like a nice place.

  “I think we should buy it,” he said, almost breathlessly.

  “You mean buy it to live in?”

  “It would be great! Look at all the room. And there’s a barn. We can finally get the kids some pets. Maybe a horse or something. At least a dog. Do you know how weird it is to be a veterinarian who has no pets?”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, my head spinning. I could tell this was what he had been ‘working on’ when he had been thinking about our immediate future. This was what he’d had at the top of his list. He wanted us out of Minneapolis.

  “I think we should move,” he said, locking his eyes onto mine. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Even before you got hurt, I was thinking about it. I’m tired of fighting traffic, tired of city life, tired of spending my days spaying cats and clipping dog ears.”

  And then he said what was really motivating him to do this.

  “And I think it would be good for us to have a fresh start. We both know there will be questions when you come home from the hospital without a baby. I don’t want you or the kids to have to deal with that. We could begin a new life without the past haunting us at every turn.”

  I didn’t know what to think. It felt like we would be running away. I told Dan this. He said indeed we would be running away; we would be running away from congested city life, high crime rates, long commutes, a hectic pace, and, first and foremost, too many painful memories. We would be running to a simpler life, with a new beginning and a new home free of a painful past.

  I looked at the pictures again. It looked like a charming place, but it also looked very foreign to me. I had never lived anywhere but in a city. City life was what I knew. This place looked like it could be almost anywhere, but definitely not in the Twin Cities suburbs.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “It’s a couple miles outside a town called Blue Prairie, about two hours south of here.”

  Two hours away. What Dan was suggesting was extreme. It would mean changing jobs, schools, our church. Everything.

  “What about your practice?” I asked.

  “This is the best part,” he said, breaking into a wide smile. “Remember Wes Gerrity? He was a year ahead of me at the U? He has a practice there with four other veterinarians. One of them is retiring, and he wants me to join them. He specifically asked me to join them, Claire. I didn’t even have to go looking. And I will finally have a chance to do more than just take care of overweight dogs and cats. It’s a big practice. They handle cattle, dairy herds, swine, sheep—the works. It would be a great career move for me.”

  He was practically there already. I was still trying to imagine a life other than the one I knew.

  “You’re afraid of the big animals,” I said meekly, trying to buy time and come up with a real response.

  Dan
laughed. “Not afraid. Just inexperienced.”

  “But what about our friends? And my job at the school?” I said.

  “We’ll make new friends,” he said confidently. Then he pointed out that Blue Prairie had a high school, too. He also reminded me that neither one of us had cartloads of friends we would miss. I had a few acquaintances in the English department at the high school where I taught, but I hadn’t seen them since Christmas and hadn’t even missed them. And Becky, my closest non-work-related friend, was a friend to countless others. It was her nature to be on emotionally intimate terms with dozens of other women in the church. She was the personification of the perfect pastor’s wife.

  “Did you already tell Wes you would come?” I asked.

  “I told him I wanted the job. He knows I need to talk to you first.”

  “And this house?” I said, picking up the photo of the white house.

  “It’s half the price we’ll get for the house we’re living in right now, Claire. And it includes four acres and three outbuildings. It’s been on the market for nearly a year. The owners are anxious to sell.”

  “Is there a white picket fence around it?” I said, partly in jest and partly not. I was weary of the burdens I was carrying, figuratively and actually. I wanted the fairy tale ending. I wanted us to live happily ever after.

  “There will be if you want there to be,” he said, drawing me into his embrace.

  He took the stillness of that moment as a “yes.”

  A few minutes before the kids got home from school, Dan called the real estate agent, and the two of them made arrangements for us to come down and look at the house that Saturday.

  I dreaded telling the kids what we were considering. Well, actually, I dreaded telling Katie. The circumstances that had fallen on us as a family were already testing the limits of her blossoming adulthood. This would come as another blow. I imagined her storming upstairs to her room and refusing to speak to us after we told her what we were thinking of doing. I began mentally preparing myself for accusations of how unfair we were.

  But Katie surprised me by her response. She barely said anything. Spence loved the thought of living on a little farm and finally getting a big dog. He couldn’t wait for Saturday to come so we could go see the place. Katie sat there absorbing it all but giving no indication of how she really felt. I actually found myself wishing she had exploded. That would have been normal. Her disinterest didn’t seem appropriate.