Five Days Left

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  When was she going to admit they were victims here, too?

  Their daughter was dying.

  Mara looked at her own daughter and felt the familiar burning pain of incomprehensible loss sear through her body, from her core to the ends of her fingers and toes. How could she have spent her last few days consumed by the scorching agony of facing her last moments with her own child, and not have spent one second acknowledging that her parents had been shrouded in the same pain? She was not the only parent at this table who was losing her baby.

  Mara took her mother’s hand and Neerja, assuming her daughter’s gesture was the start of grace, dutifully took her granddaughter’s.

  “Only Susan’s family doesn’t hold hands,” Laks said, but she reached for her father’s hand nonetheless, and he reached for Pori’s.

  Pori took Mara’s, then smiled at his granddaughter. “We won’t tell her.”

  As the others bowed their heads and Pori said a few words about love and family and new ballet shoes, Mara swiveled her head slowly around the table, letting her eyes rest for a few seconds on each bent head.

  Then she closed her eyes, bent her own head and made a silent wish that she had a god to believe in, like Susan’s family did. It would be a comfort to think there was something, someplace, after this. That there was a reason for her illness, that it wasn’t merely the result of a random lottery drawing she’d lost at birth. That there would be some lesson in it all for Laks.

  And, she thought, even if believing didn’t bring her comfort, at least it would be nice to have someone to blame.

  26.

  Scott

  Wednesday, April 6 @ 11:47 p.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  This has been great, LaksMama. Thanks for staying up to message me.

  I was trying to remember when the last time was that we did this for so long. Seven months ago? When we’d gotten bad IVF results and I was starting to broach the subject of adoption with my wife. There was a window in there where she seemed keen on the baby adoption route and you were the best resource we had about it all. To this day, when I mention you, she gets this smile on her face. I’m surprised she hasn’t suggested naming the baby “LaksMom.” ;) She wanted you to write a book, remember?

  Wednesday, April 6 @ 11:49 p.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  I do. I actually considered it, briefly. But then, as they say, life happened . . .

  Wednesday, April 6 @ 11:50 p.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  It always does.

  So. We’ve been talking about me for too long. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of me. Your turn. What’s keeping you up these nights?

  Wednesday, April 6 @ 11:51 p.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  Honestly, I’m in my own head so much these days I’ve been happy for the chance to get out of it for a while. Can we chalk it up to middle-aged insomnia and move on?

  I’m not sick of you at all. I’ve been thinking so much about you, and feeling bad. I’m not able to help nearly as much as I want to. I wish there was something more I could do. Something more meaningful than PMs.

  Wednesday, April 6 @ 11:54 p.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  Believe me, this past hour has been exactly what I needed. Sometimes, things that seem small end up being the most meaningful, you know?

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:01 a.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  I absolutely do know that.

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:03 a.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  Hey, here’s something we’ve sort of danced around a little tonight, but haven’t hit right on:

  In terms of my lying awake tonight, worrying about how LMan’s doing with the sudden turn of events, do you think it’s possible he’s not as busted up as I am, because as close as we are, he’s still got this invisible but unbreakable thread pulling him toward his mom?

  Does the bio relationship trump all, do you think?

  I’m hoping that’s a fair question to ask an adoptive mom, and not a 2boys-type question. If I’m wrong, tell me to F off and we can change the subject.

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:05 a.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  LOL. You could never ask a 2boys question—you have tact. He has none. ;)

  It’s a perfectly fair question—to me, anyway. Not sure how other adoptive parents feel, but this is something I think about all the time.

  I don’t know if you’ll love or loathe my latest conclusion, but what I’ve come to believe is that as much as adults are capable of loving someone else’s child as though they were our own, children don’t have quite the same ability. They’ll always feel the strongest pull toward their biological parents.

  I bristled at this in the beginning. Who wants to think that our children aren’t as attached to us as we are to them? I wanted to believe what so many adoption advocates say, what so much of the literature claims: an adoptive relationship can be as complete as a biological one. It was heart-wrenching for me, to be honest, to think that after five years of raising my daughter from infancy, giving her every ounce of love in my body, she could possibly have a drop of affection left inside her that she’s not directing toward me.

  I’m sure the adoption advocates would take me to task for reaching this conclusion. But as my friend Steph would say, “Fuck ’em.” ;) Plus, you’ve seen all the Oprah episodes, just like I have: kid is given up for adoption at one day old. Kid lives with adoptive parents for 18 years and they do every single thing for her. Kid turns 18 and presto! Kid is on journey to find her bio mom. No one can deny the reality—the bio pull is like those high-powered magnets they use at NASA.

  But I have come to love this reality instead of bristling at it. It means losing me won’t be as hard on my daughter as losing her will be on me. She won’t miss me as much, or for as long, as if I were her bio mom. It means if my husband were to remarry, she’d be quicker to accept his new wife as “Mom,” quicker to bond with her, because she wouldn’t be a non-bio mom trying to replace a real one; she’d just be a newer, likely younger, version of non-bio me.

  I hope the thought will comfort you, too. As broken apart as you are about being without your LMan, perhaps it can be a solace to you to know that all year, he was broken apart about being without his real mother. He’s been feeling the pull toward her all this time. Now that he’s with her again, he’s no longer fractured.

  Of course he misses you. But none of us wants our children to feel sad, right? The fact that he may not feel quite as sad as you do, given the lack of shared DNA, will maybe make it easier for you to sleep. Yes?

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:06 a.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  Wait! Back up! What do you mean, “losing you”?! Why is your daughter losing you?!

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:13 a.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  Oh, I meant hypothetically of course. I’m a professional imagineer of bad things happening. How will my client get screwed in this contract? How will my client get pummeled in this lawsuit? How will my husband and daughter survive if I crash my car en route home from the office? It’s the gift of lawyers and mothers—we worry not only about the things that are and the things that will be, but also the things that might potentially possibly occur, no matter how low the probability, how slim the chance . . . you get the point. Sorry to alarm you.

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:16 a.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  Don’t scare a guy like that, please! Now that my heart has resumed beating, let me reread what you wrote.

  . . .

  Okay, got it. And yes, it makes me feel better, and I can see how it would for you, too, in t
he event your low-probability, highly doubtful and pretty-much-crazy hypothetical car crash were to occur.

  We’re as tied to them, emotionally, as if they were our own. But no matter how open they are to receiving our love, there’s some small part of them that they don’t fully give to us. They reserve it for their real parents. So when something terrible happens—they get yanked out of our houses a few days early, or we pretend-crash our pretend cars in our insane heads ;)—they don’t mourn us like we do them.

  Helps. You’re right—I don’t want the kid to be a fraction as sad about losing me as I am about losing him.

  But let me ask you. I know you were adopted yourself. And maybe this one really does cross the line into 2boys territory: Does everything you’ve said mean you don’t view your adoptive mom as a “real” mom? You’ve been holding back all these years, wishing you could find your bio mom?

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:18 a.m.

  LaksMom sent this private message:

  What I’ve told myself is that I’m more attached to my adoptive mother than my daughter is to me because mine was home with me full-time. As long as my daughter’s been with us, she’s spent as much time with my parents as she has with me. This used to break me up a little—working mom guilt and all that—but now (when I’m running through my car accident hypo) I find it a relief. Even if she might’ve gotten as attached to me as I did to my mom, the logistics of our family life never permitted it to happen.

  So, same on this end—she won’t be a fraction as sad to lose me as I would be to lose her.

  Thursday, April 7 @ 12:19 a.m.

  MotorCity sent this private message:

  Only, your kid is NOT losing you, thank God. Except in the crazy recesses of your mind, which would likely think more rationally if your whining friend would stop his sniveling and let you get to bed.

  G’night, LMama. And thanks.

  PART III

  Thursday, April 7

  THREE DAYS LEFT

  27.

  Mara

  Mara woke to the beeping of her running watch hidden under her pillow. A glance at her bedside clock showed the alarm had been turned off. Tom. In the bathroom, she stripped off her paper underwear and shoved them into a plastic shopping bag, then another, and finally a third bag before she’d pressed them all down into the bottom of the wastebasket. She made a face at the new pair and pulled it on fast, wrapping a towel around her waist quickly in case Tom walked in.

  She put on a skirt and top—bright fuchsia this time and as far outside her comfort zone as the bright purple one she’d worn yesterday. Steph would be impressed with this one, too, another step on what she assumed was Mara’s long-awaited foray into the world of stylish dressing. She ran a hand through her hair, splashed water on her face and compared her reflection to the one she’d seen in the picture frame yesterday morning, the one that had her daughter curling her lip and worrying about what the kids on the bus would think. “Better,” she breathed, before following the sounds of talking into the kitchen. Tom was leaning against the counter, listening attentively as Laks chatted to him from her tall stool across from him, a bowl of cereal before her.

  “Good morning!” Mara said.

  “Mama!” Laks climbed down and threw milky hands around her mother while Mara wondered how Tom had failed to notice the girl was eating cereal with her fingers.

  “Only three more days!” Laks said, hugging her mother’s legs.

  In a second, ice filled Mara’s veins and she staggered backward, out of the girl’s grasp. Had they found the sticky note under her laptop? She stole a furtive glance at Tom, but his back was turned to them as he put away the milk and cereal. But if they’d found her note, why would Laks be so cheerful?

  “What are you talking about?” Mara asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “Till your birthday!” Laks said, clapping. “Only three more days till your birthday!”

  “Oh, that!” Mara said, her body warming with relief. “Yes, of course.”

  And before her relief could change to guilt about what she had planned for that day, Laks was speaking again. “Are you walking me out to the curb today?”

  “I absolutely am,” Mara said, happy for the change of subject.

  “Yay! And then you’re coming to library class later, right? Because it’s your turn to be the parent helper this week, remember?”

  She had signed up weeks ago, at Laks’s request, but she’d assumed the girl wouldn’t want her there after the reaction she drew from her yesterday morning. But now the little face tilted up at her expectantly. “You want me to go?” Mara asked.

  The child squinted as though the question had been posed in Latin.

  “What a treat, having Mama available for things like this, huh?” Tom was facing them now. His question was directed at his daughter but his eyes were trained on his wife, silently reminding her what he’d told her the night of her retirement dinner, when she had sobbed about how without the law, her life would have so much less meaning. How she would add such less value to the world, to their family.

  “I completely disagree,” he had said. “You’re going to add a lot more value. Think of what it’s going to mean to Laks to have you available during the day. You’ll be able to go on field trips, help with class parties, be the library lady. Those things are so much more important to our family than a second income. And they’re so much more important to our little girl than having a big-shot litigator for a mom. Retirement doesn’t have to feel good to you—I’m not saying it should. But one person’s loss is another’s gain, as the saying goes, and I can’t think of a better illustration of that than Lakshmi Nichols having her retired mother around during the day.”

  Mara kissed her daughter before lifting a strand of hair out of the little face and tucking it behind her ear. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I’m coming to library class today.”

  Laks hopped back onto her stool. “Happy is a library lady mom!”

  Mara and Tom laughed. Mara had read Happiness Is a Warm Puppy to Laks at bedtime a few weeks earlier, and the girl had been announcing the things that made her happy ever since, although she hadn’t managed to get the phrasing quite right. Happy is when Mama reads an extra book to me! Happy is noodles and sauce for dinner! They had given up trying to get her to say it properly—it seemed at cross-purposes to correct a child when she was talking about happiness.

  Mara headed for the coffeemaker and Tom trapped her in his arms as she reached past him for a mug. “Notice how excited she is to have you walk her to the bus?” he whispered. “Yesterday morning was only—”

  “I know. I overreacted. I’m sorry, darling.” She held her mug out to him. He poured it half full, and she thrust it toward him again.

  “You’re cutting down, remember?” But he poured a little more and motioned for her to sit at the table, where he delivered the coffee to her. “How late were you up last night?”

  “Not too late. Relatively speaking.”

  “On the forum? Or reconsidering that juicer?”

  She laughed. “Forum. I’ve decided the juicer’s not for us after all.”

  They both turned to look at Laks, who was occupied with squeezing pieces of cereal between her thumb and forefinger. Tom reached an arm out and held his daughter’s wrist. “All right, Miss Messykins, enough of that. Two more bites—with a spoon—then it’s time to wash those goopy hands, brush your teeth and walk out to the curb with this week’s extra- special library helper.”

  • • •

  As soon as Mara heard the garage door lower after Tom pulled out, she lifted her laptop and peeled off her to-do list. She spent two hours dictating e-mails to a few more friends from undergrad and calling three more classmates from law school, striking a pen stroke through each name as she went. She studied the rest of her shrinking list and smiled. Three days left, and she had go
tten it down to a manageable length.

  When Harry arrived an hour later, Mara was waiting for him at the window, and opened the door before he could ring the bell.

  “Mornin’, Mrs. Nichols.”

  “Harry, please. It’s Mara.”

  “A woman who’s ready early. Not sure I’ve ever seen such a creature.” He extended his arm and they moved slowly together toward the cab.

  They walked without talking and, glancing sideways at him, Mara asked herself how it could be that after a lifetime of practically biting the head off anyone who had ever offered help, here she was, so naturally taking the arm of this man. Thanking him, rather than barking at him, when he held out his arm to her, opened doors for her, put out a hand to protect her head as she lowered herself into his cab. She hadn’t yet known him for a week and already this denim-and-plaid-clad man with his southern drawl and his own secrets had managed to make her see that it wasn’t always so terrible, after all, to let people help.

  She had never been sure what to believe in terms of higher powers. Her parents weren’t religious, as last night’s hesitation about what to say for grace had demonstrated, and Tom’s Catholic upbringing, which he wasn’t particularly good at discerning from his alcoholic upbringing, had turned him off church for good. But the idea of a higher being of some kind, whether a deity or a grander scheme of the universe, had always held some appeal for her.

  For over twenty years, she had described meeting Tom as something dictated by some omniscient force, never conceding something so significant could have been solely the result of chance: she was hiding from the rain in the lobby of a building she had no classes in; he was on his way to interview for a volunteer position in the health center and, distracted, stepped inside the wrong door. Someone, or something, had wanted them to meet. She was sure of it.