Before I Saw You

by Amy Sorrells

  “I know.” I sniff and chuckle at that and use one of the napkins to wipe my eyes.

  “You’re not crying over Bryan, are you? We oughta be celebrating that.”

  “No, no. That was long overdue.”

  “Somethin’ else bothering you then? I certainly didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I shake my head and straighten, aware of the high-maintenance mother and daughter approaching the register.

  The mother watches me punch the numbers into the register like she watched her daughter eat her breakfast. Her eyes settle on my middle. “So, when are you due?”

  Her words are loud. Too loud. The gleam in her eye is the same one I’ve seen a thousand times from the college students who watched me pay for groceries with Mama’s food stamps, shocked that the coupons actually exist and that folks use them, then a glance of pity, sometimes a smirk as Jayden slept, fastened in his car seat in the front of the cart. Feels the same as when a car full of them drives by, shouting “Townies!” and curse words, as if we’re a different breed of people altogether than the ones in the cozy suburbs they came from.

  I open my mouth knowing I’m supposed to give an answer to a customer’s question, but nothing comes out.

  “Well, spring babies are wonderful.” Her voice seems to boom across the diner as she slides a fifty-dollar bill across the counter. “My Anna Rose here is a late-spring baby.”

  I try to force a smile at Anna Rose, who looks panic-stricken, but tears spill from my eyes instead, so fresh on the surface from talking with Carla moments before.

  “Go ahead and keep the change, sweetheart,” the mother says, reaching across the counter to pat my hand.

  Sorry, Anna Rose mouths to me as she follows her mother out the door.

  I turn to the wall and the double coffeemaker behind me, my entire body hot with shame. I can’t look at Carla or Hersch. I can’t look across the dining room to see who else heard, even though I am sure every person in there did. I go through the motions of making a new batch of coffee for the one pot that’s empty: replace the liner, scoop in the grounds, rinse what’s left of the old coffee from the pot, set it on the burner, flip the switch.

  Fake it. Just keep faking it. Fake that you’re not pregnant. Fake that you’re fine. Fake that you’re asleep when one of Mama’s one-night stands or a junkie finds their way to your bedroom in the middle of the night. Fake that you’re fine when friends aren’t allowed to play at your house because it’s in a run-down trailer park. Fake that the bruises your boyfriend leaves don’t hurt. Fake that you’re fine when your boyfriend is sleeping around because at least he’s still sleeping with you. Fake it all so the hurt doesn’t have to be real.

  A black stream of coffee slowly begins to steam into the pot.

  Carla is next to me now, her hand on my arm. “Jaycee. Honey.”

  I shake my head, sure if I say a word or look at her I will fall completely apart.

  “I don’t know how I didn’t see this,” she says.

  The doorbell rings.

  A new customer.

  I smooth my apron down and grab the other pot that’s hot and full.

  I turn toward the counter and run right into Gabe’s chest.

  Coffee sloshes and stings as I jump back, but I keep ahold of the pot. I can’t drop it. It’ll break. But the coffee is burning. Stinging.

  The pot shatters on the ground and my hand is shaking now, pain shooting up my arm. The whole top of my hand glistens, and at first I think it’s wet with coffee until I realize several layers of skin are scalded.

  Hersch pulls the dish towel off the side of his pants and wraps it around my hand. The two men who’d just come in stand at the counter and gape as Carla shoos me into the back, Gabe following us and carrying a cardboard box.

  When did he get here? Did he hear too?

  One look in his eyes and I know he did.

  I sit in the chair at Carla’s desk and set my arm on the table we use for our breaks.

  “Let’s see the damage,” she says, gently unwrapping Hersch’s towel.

  Gabe sets his box on the edge of the desk. “Here. Let me.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from yelping as Carla moves aside and he unwraps the rest. If I hadn’t seen that the skin was gone already, I’d wonder if he was pulling my skin off with it.

  “Lord, have mercy,” Carla gasps.

  Gabe inhales sharply.

  The top of my hand looks like raw meat, the tissue where skin used to be white and pearly and streaked with blood.

  “Second, maybe third degree.” Gabe pulls a couple of packs of gauze and a first aid wrap out of the box. He doesn’t look at me, won’t look at me, as he runs his hand through his hair like he did when we were standing alongside the road staring at the redtail yesterday. “I brought these from the firehouse. Expired supplies. Thought you and your neighbor could use them.”

  “Good thing we have a resident paramedic here,” says Carla. She forces a smile which does nothing to lighten the mood.

  Gabe pulls a small bottle of liquid from the box, then kneels beside me. He lifts my arm from the table, arranges the towel, and sets my arm on it.

  Heat rushes through me, as much from him as from the throbbing pain of the burn.

  “I’m going to rinse it with this saline. It’ll be cool, but it shouldn’t hurt,” he says, and finally we lock eyes. “At least not any more than it already does.”

  He’s right. My whole arm is shaking from the pain. At first I jump at the shock of the sensation against the scalded wound, but then it feels okay. Cool. Welcome.

  “This is antibiotic ointment.” He pulls a small tube from the box. “You’ll want to clean and slather it with this until it’s scabbed over. These burns have a habit of getting infected quick.”

  He is so close I can smell the musky scent of the shampoo he used, his hair still damp from a shower. His temples pulse, tense, as he smooths the ointment across my hand, then covers it with gauze and secures it with tape. My stomach clenches and my whole body is aware of him as he lifts my arm again and wraps it with a long sports bandage.

  “Jaycee . . . ,” Carla says softly. Her eyes are full with concern, and I know it’s for far more than the burn.

  My eyes fall to my waist.

  Gabe returns my arm to the table again and stands, then backs away.

  I start to say something, I want to say something, but I realize looking at him, seeing the shock still lingering on Carla’s face, that hiding a truth can cause just as much hurt as letting it all out.

  Carla kneels in front of me in the spot where Gabe had been.

  “Does Bryan know?”

  I shake my head no and risk glancing at Gabe. He turns his head away. Heat rises in my chest, my face. I didn’t know how lonely I could feel with someone standing right next to me.

  “Okay . . . all right.” She grabs my free hand and holds it between hers. “We’ll figure this out. It’ll be all right. You’ll see. We’ll get through this. Together.”

  17

  * * *

  My hand throbs the rest of the day, and the next day, and the next, but that’s not half as bad as Gabe giving me the silent treatment. I can’t tell if he’s mad or hurt or disappointed, or all of those combined.

  Yesterday, he saw me pull into my usual parking space and drove on past the diner. He didn’t come back until I’d gotten out and gone inside. When I hand in an order, he passes it on to Hersch. If I’m coming to pick up a tray of orders, he turns back to the grill as soon as he sees me. And if I’m in the back room that also has the only staff bathroom in it, he avoids it as if it’s been quarantined.

  “Give him time,” Carla says when she finds me in the break room stewing over it all. She knows everything now, how I’m at least six, probably closer to seven months along, how I haven’t had any prenatal care, how Mama doesn’t know about the baby either, and how every day I am more terrified thinking about how this baby is going to have to come out of
me and I’m going to have to decide what to do. “I’ve known you for years and I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it all.”

  “But you don’t act like he does, like I have a disease.” I fuss and mess and pull my hair up into a bun on top of my head.

  “He’s taken a liking to you.”

  “Well, he must’ve figured out he shouldn’t have, that someone like him doesn’t deserve somebody like me, someone who got pregnant by a no-good, bottom-feeding, fist-wielding fool. I guess I deserve whatever’s coming to me for that.”

  Carla sits down next to me. “You don’t deserve anything bad because of this. We’ve all sinned, sugar. Some sins are just . . . well, more obvious than others.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. “This one’s obvious, all right.”

  “Gabe probably just wishes you would’ve told him up front, like I wish you would’ve told me, is all. He’ll come around.”

  “How was I supposed to tell him when I hadn’t even told you?”

  “Or Bryan.”

  “Or Bryan. Don’t remind me.” Elizabeth Blair’s pinched face comes to mind.

  Carla gives me a look I know means a lecture is coming. “Have you made a doctor’s appointment yet?”

  “No.”

  “You only have a handful of weeks left to work with.”

  “I know.” She’s offered to pay for the doctor visit. I have no excuse for not calling, except it’s one more thing I’m afraid of, one step closer to this baby being born. At least while he’s inside me he’s safe. I’m safe. My eyes fill with tears. “All this crying. I never cried about anything ’cept Jayden until the last few weeks.”

  “It’s the hormones, honey.”

  Gabe comes around the corner and nearly slides to a stop when he sees us sitting there. “Oh . . . um . . . sorry,” he mumbles, then turns back around and heads back to the dining room.

  “I sure hope he’s got a big bladder,” Carla says. “Could become a problem if he doesn’t.”

  That gets us laughing, and now I’ve got tears of frustration and hilarity spilling over. I wipe my face and shake my head. “I don’t know, Carla.” The baby turns inside me and I lay my hands across my middle. Since I’ve first felt him move, it seems like he moves more every day. “Sudie said I have a choice, that I can give this child a chance. I’ve been thinking about that, how this baby could have two parents. How he could grow up not knowing the things I know. How Reverend Payne said sometimes God can do more with what we give him than with what we hope he gives us.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the other choice I have is raising him myself.”

  She nods. “You were so good to Jayden.”

  “If I was so good to him, then why is he gone?”

  “Honey, that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Wasn’t it? I was all he had. And that wasn’t enough.”

  “You’re not your mama, Jaycee.”

  “Because I don’t do heroin? I’m like her in every other way. I can’t give this baby a house with a yard that I don’t have to worry about him stepping on a dirty needle. I have to work, so I can’t stay home with him. I can’t be sure he’s safe with somebody else watching him. And there’s not a chance I’d trust leaving him with Bryan or his family.”

  “Dear Lord, help me help this girl.” Carla directs her prayer to the ceiling.

  “Last night, I found a bunch of websites. Adoption agencies.” I’d been flipping through them on my phone. “Spent a good two hours reading profiles and visiting websites of couples wanting to adopt. Couples who promise care and nurturing, love and safety.”

  Carla turns serious. She leans toward me. Puts her hand on top of mine and gives it a squeeze. “I am here for you whatever you decide.”

  “I didn’t know there were so many ways of going about it. That I can pick the family if I want.”

  She nods. “I’ve heard there’s open adoptions and closed adoptions and everything in between.”

  The baby moves inside me again, and with each movement fear twists with love. Already he feels like he’s mine. He feels like a chance I’ve got to prove I’m not Lila Givens, or a fate that will prove that I am. He feels like the only thing I have in the world that’s ever been all my own. “I’m scared, Carla. Scared of keeping him, and scared of what it’d be like to let him go.”

  “I’m sure you are. But you’re not alone. I’ll see you through this. And Sudie. And Reverend Payne.”

  “That’s another thing. How am I supposed to show my face at church?”

  “Same way you have been. You go. You sit. You worship. Nothing’s changed about what the Lord thinks of you.”

  I dab at my eyes again. “I doubt that.”

  “You know the stories,” Carla says. “The woman at the well. The one who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. The bleeding woman who all she did was reach out and touch the edge of Jesus’ robe. It’s the folks who thought the Lord shouldn’t love them that he made a point to love on the most.”

  The woman at the well. I am thirsty.

  All you have to do is reach, the voice whispers to the place inside me that trembles. The voice that was with me when I was baptized. The voice I heard in my room the other night.

  “I just . . . I didn’t know I could love—and at the same time be afraid of—someone so much who I’ve never even met.”

  “I thought the same thing when I was carrying each of mine,” Carla says. “It’s hard to imagine they’re separate little humans when they feel like they are so much a part of us.”

  “The more I feel him move, the more I wonder how I could possibly give him away.”

  “Well, now, that’s one thing I know adoption isn’t—you’re not giving your child away. You’ll always have him with you, whether in your heart or in your arms. All mine are gone halfway across the country, but there isn’t a minute that ticks by that I’m not thinking of or praying for them. Adoption isn’t about giving your child away. It’s about giving your child life, Jaycee. Nothing will ever change the fact that you are his mother.”

  “I s’pose you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “But you got to raise your kids.”

  “I did. In that sense, I’ve got no right to compare myself to what you’re going through. But I can tell you this: motherhood’s one long grieving process. The only time you really have them is when they’re inside you. Once they leave the womb, it’s all about learning to let them go. When they take their first step, it’s away from you, and every one after that until you launch them from the nest. Way I look at it, adoption is just a way you’re trusting the Lord with him earlier than most. Took me a long time to realize that when I was kicking and screaming about letting my children go, what I was really fighting was trusting that God would take care of them. I had to learn to trust God with each of them, because holding on to them does nothing except cheat them out of the life they’re supposed to live. Sooner or later, every mother has to do the same.” She squeezes my hand again.

  I imagine Jochebed leaning over baby Moses, tucking the linen blanket under his chin, kissing his dimpled knuckles, rubbing his head like I used to rub Jayden’s until his eyes are too heavy to hold open and he sleeps, before she nudges the basket into the current of the river and lets the water take him. How in the world . . . ?

  “Listen, it’s not my place to tell you what to do. I’m here no matter what you decide. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off. I’ll finish up.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, and I stand and smooth my apron over my bump, which seems all the more obvious now.

  “It’s a Wednesday. You know Wednesdays are our slow day. Besides that, I insist.”

  Gabe rounds the corner again. It is clear he is in a near panic about getting to the bathroom, but I am standing right in his way.

  We’re forced with having to look at each other, but neither of us say a word.

  “Hooo-ey, it’s gonna be a long few weeks if yo
u two don’t figure this out,” Carla says.

  She winks at me, then leaves the two of us in there alone staring at each other, until finally I push past him and leave.

  I keep on walking right out the back door of the diner without looking back, and the heavy door slams shut. Only as I’m driving away do I chance taking a look in my rearview mirror to see if he followed me out.

  He didn’t.

  But what I do see in that mirror are my eyes, which for the first time look like a woman’s eyes, and not the scared girl who hid in her room from the junkies, or who drove Jayden to the hospital that horrific night, or who walked down Main Street with Bryan chasing in his car.

  Sudie’s right.

  I have a choice.

  And this baby deserves a chance.

  18

  * * *

  The redtail takes two steps to the left, then a few to the right as I approach his cage. After a visit to the local veterinarian for an X-ray, we learned that along with a good concussion, he suffered a simple fracture on one of his long wing bones, which was good news. The wing was splinted and taped to his side to heal. He’ll be spending a few weeks with us, well into spring at least.

  He tilts his head as if questioning every move I make, watching to see what I’m up to next as I unwrap the thawed hunk of roadkill, one of a few dozen pieces of meat Sudie had in her freezer for her patients.

  “It’s what they eat half the time anyway,” she explained when I thought I was going to be sick the first time I watched her give it.

  “Smartest of all the raptors,” Sudie often reminds me, and I’m careful to interact as little as possible so he doesn’t start to get attached to us. Redtails and deer, especially, are quick to bond with humans. And bonding doesn’t do them any favors in the wild. Bonding with a rescue animal is a good way to get it killed by a human who doesn’t know a tamed bird or fawn is coming at them to be friendly.

  We have to work with him just enough for him to trust us to feed him and know we’re not going to hurt him. But after that, we feed him and water him and leave him alone. He’s curious more than anything now, and mostly calm.