Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  Laurel had left them, and now it would be Sarah. How much abandonment was he willing to let his daughters suffer?

  But Sarah wouldn’t be leaving them, Len protested to himself. She just wouldn’t be their babysitter anymore. She would be his . . . his . . . Girlfriend was too trite a word for what she would be to him. He would get to have Sarah, but only if he made his daughters give her up. Unless . . . But he would not let his mind even form the thought. It might not go anywhere, she had said.

  But—it might. It might! God forgive him. He couldn’t help the hope that surged through him. Because what if . . . ? Maybe the girls wouldn’t lose her after all.

  We are not meant to be happy. Those were the words that had come to him when Laurel had told him she was pregnant, when he had thought that Laurel would be his lot in life. How false they sounded now. He didn’t, he couldn’t believe that now, not when happiness seemed to offer itself to him, so that he had only to reach out and grasp it, pull it toward him and cling to it with all his might.

  Leonard was a father; wasn’t he supposed to put his children’s happiness before his own? But who was he to judge what would make his children happy? Even if he gave this up, it would be no guarantee of his daughters’ happiness. Sarah might leave them anyway; already she had said that she couldn’t go on the way they were. And even if she didn’t . . . Even if she stayed on for another year, another two . . . Eventually she would leave and they would lose her. He would lose her.

  No, he could not give her up. How could he give it up—this chance at joy? Even as he argued with himself, he knew how it would go. He burned with the shame of it. For it was shameful, this selfishness. He couldn’t help it: he would put himself first. He was a father, true, but wasn’t he also human? Wasn’t he also a man? He would clutch after happiness despite himself, despite the loss it would mean for his girls. For what else could he do? He felt that it was hard-wired in him, this need to love and be loved, this drive to scrabble and strive for happiness, whatever the cost.

  “It might not go anywhere,” he repeated, meeting her eyes at last. “But that means it might, too. I think . . .” He paused, studying her face. “I think we should at least give it a shot, don’t you?”

  “Do you think I would do this to those girls if I didn’t think so?”

  Without dropping his gaze, she reached for her seatbelt; he heard the click of the mechanism as the buckle released. In another instant, she was in his arms. It was awkward and perfect, the way her lithe body reached out for him across the console. He held her and held her, his cheek against her hair, breathing in the scent of her. She smelled of shampoo and apples and sunshine. She smelled right. Something settled in him.

  He held her until he heard Jessie stirring in the backseat. Then he pulled away and eased the car back onto the road.

  Jessie woke up a few minutes later. She gazed out at the trees sleepily.

  “Are the trees on fire, Daddy?”

  “No, Jess. It’s just the light.”

  She was silent a moment, considering.

  “Are we home yet, Daddy?” she said at last.

  He beamed at her in the rearview mirror. “Not yet, sweetheart. But soon.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Three Years Later

  Sarah

  Sarah awoke early one morning in May with a rock of anxiety in her belly. She immediately listened for her son’s cries, thinking it was he who had woken her. A week ago, she had been up several times a night, trying to soothe the cough that had wracked his small lungs and kept her constantly on edge. Now she listened hard but heard only the rush of air from the air-conditioning vent above her. Then the thermostat clicked off, the fan stopped, and from behind the closed windows came the muted calls of sparrows from a tree out in the yard.

  Around the edges of the blinds, the morning light was bright. A jolt of nerves shot through her. Immediately, her eyes sought out the clock on her bedside table: it was not yet six. Letting out her breath, she closed her eyes. Please go back to sleep, she willed herself, knowing it was futile. She would never sleep now that she had woken, now that she had remembered.

  Today was Saturday. Three weeks ago, Sarah had circled the date on the calendar and marked the square with two faintly penciled letters, LW. She had not dared to write Laurel’s name. Jessie, at six, read anything she could. And although Sarah knew her daughter would have to be told soon enough, she had not trusted Laurel not to change her mind. Every time the phone rang, Sarah’s heart leaped to her throat.

  Secretly, Sarah had hoped that Laurel would cancel. It had been nearly two and a half years since she and Len had moved to Bakersfield with Emma and Jessie. Two and a half years in which Laurel had not been seen by any one of them, not even once. And each day that had passed with no word from Laurel, no mention nor hint that any visit was to come, Sarah had felt equal parts relief and trepidation—relief that their lives had been allowed to proceed with such clear simplicity, and a mounting, intractable fear that such simplicity could not last.

  Laurel’s lack of interest in seeing the girls both baffled and infuriated Sarah. Her own son, Jay, was nineteen months old, and there were times Sarah’s love for him came over her so ferociously she felt her teeth clench like an animal’s. She would put her nose against the sweet-smelling silk of his head and her love for him would surge in her, so fierce that her jaw ached.

  It was almost terrifying, this love. Never, even at her most passionate, had Sarah felt more bestial. More than once, a picture she had seen years ago in an old National Geographic came to mind. In the photograph, a mother croc stood with her mouth ajar; her baby, perched inside, peered out from between her jagged teeth. If motherhood had a picture, Sarah thought, that was it.

  For me, Sarah corrected herself. That’s motherhood for me. Because if Laurel had felt the same way, how could she possibly have given up the girls? Back then, Emma had been only slightly younger than Jay was now. Sarah could not understand how Laurel had been able to endure even a day of that arrangement, never mind the years that had now passed.

  Sarah shifted in the bed, pulling the light comforter around her. Len was on his back beside her, snoring softly. She moved her leg under the sheet so that it rested against his, and her thoughts turned to Emma. Would Emma even remember Laurel today? It seemed impossible. Emma was barely four; she had spent the greatest part of her life not with Laurel, but with her.

  Sarah gave a small groan of frustration. As soon as they were married, Sarah had suggested to Len that she adopt the girls outright. Already they had begun to call her Mommy. With Laurel almost completely out of touch, she had felt herself to be all the mother that they had. And what if, God forbid, something happened to Len? She would have no claim to them at all.

  But Laurel had been outraged in her refusal, accusing Len of trying to strip her of the only thing she had left of motherhood. How could he? Wasn’t it enough that he had taken her daughters?

  Oh, how indignant Sarah had been. Laurel’s daughters, Laurel’s motherhood? Sarah had seen firsthand what that motherhood looked like, and, frankly, the girls were better off without it. But there had been nothing they could do, and with time, Sarah’s sense of urgency about the matter had eased. The first year had passed with barely a word from Laurel. She had sent a gift for each girl at Christmas, but that was all. Sarah had written her a thank-you card on the girls’ behalf, but her polite words belied the turmoil of her emotions. For she hardly knew whether to rage against Laurel for abandoning her daughters or to thank God that this was all they might expect from her: that Laurel would keep her distance and Sarah would keep her girls.

  Sarah knew, or guessed, that most stepmothers did not feel this way. But most stepmothers were not like her! They had not cared for their children as she had. Her thoughts drifted back to her early days with Emma, when she had been nothing more than the nanny. She could remember clearly the moment she first saw Emma. As soon as Sarah arrived at their door, Jessie had taken her hand, pulling her
to the edge of the bassinet where the newborn baby lay.

  “My baby,” Jessie had said proprietarily, pointing at the swaddled lump, and Laurel and Sarah had both laughed.

  Sarah had not been prepared for the longing the newborn raised in her. For the first few months of Emma’s life, Sarah had pretended—without admitting it even to herself—that Emma was her own. And then one afternoon, when Sarah handed Emma back to Laurel, the baby had begun to cry. Perhaps Emma had objected to nothing more than the momentary interruption of her comfort, the cool air that had come against her skin. But it had been all Sarah could do not to snatch her back and comfort her. Her baby needed her.

  After that, she was more cautious. What before she had felt as love, she reframed as longing. Not this is my baby but I want a baby.

  “I want a baby,” she had told her boyfriend Pete pleadingly, pretending not to see the fear that had leapt to his eyes.

  “Whoa,” he had said. “Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?”

  Sarah had felt chastised, ashamed. After all, she was so young; there was so much time.

  What about their dreams? Pete had said playfully, wielding the cliché to hide how serious he was. Pete did not dream about having babies.

  “I meant someday,” she had hedged. “Someday I’d like to have a baby.”

  But the dissembling had changed her toward him. The chisel had found its notch, so that what began as hardly a crease between them became a crack and then a fissure and then a breach so great they both knew there was no hope. They had parted without rancor, but on the day he left, Sarah had felt a bubble of despair rise to her throat, that Pete was so much closer to his dreams now, and she so much further from her own.

  At Laurel’s house, too, Sarah had felt herself change. Outwardly, she was the same affectionate nanny as always; only Sarah knew how deeply she had withdrawn her heart. It was not until she finally allowed herself to fall in love with Len that the girls had become her children, too. It was ironic, really, how she had insisted that Len find another sitter when so soon afterwards she would become the girls’ mother. Sarah grimaced, remembering. She had known, even then, how cruel it was to them.

  Sarah knew she had gambled on their happiness, hers and Len’s, and she had won. Still, the memory of it—“No, Sarah, no!” Jessie had wailed, clinging to her legs. “I want you!”—made her mind swim with guilt. But hadn’t it been for the best in the long run? She and Len had each other now. And their happiness—surely the girls were better off for that, too?

  Sarah shifted on the bed so that her side rested against Len’s. He stirred, but did not wake, and Sarah felt a rush of tenderness for him. She smiled to herself, thinking of how Len used to hold her tight against him, his nose pressed against her hair.

  “You just smell so right,” he would say, as if the vastness of his love for her could be reduced to that single kernel of truth, a visceral knowledge of belonging that left no room for doubt.

  Perhaps Len simply “smelled right” to Sarah, too, and yet she knew her choice had been about something more than that. It had been the dawning realization that here it was: a man she loved, the life she wanted. She would have been a fool to pass it up.

  Sarah was a fool, her mother had said.

  “Life gets messy enough on its own, Sarah. You don’t have to go looking for it.”

  “I wasn’t looking for it,” Sarah had protested. “It just happened.”

  “Sarah, there are plenty of men out there. Men who aren’t divorced. Men who don’t have two children by some crazy, promiscuous—”

  “Mom, please,” Sarah said, silently berating herself for ever having confided in her mother.

  “Look, Sarah. You’re young. You have plenty of time. There’s no need to rush into this.”

  “I’m not rushing, Mom. It’s what I want.”

  “There’s a difference between wanting something and liking the way it feels to be needed.”

  Sarah was silent. She had known Len didn’t exactly need her: he was managing fine with the girls on his own. And yet, there was something to what her mother said after all. Len just seemed so grateful—like her presence in his life was hardly short of miraculous. It did make her feel needed. Was that so bad?

  “Jessie and Emma,” she had said, turning the conversation. “Those girls need . . . They should have a mother.”

  “Sarah, they’re not orphans. They already have a mother.”

  They need a different kind of mother, Sarah thought, but she didn’t say so.

  Instead she said, “I love Len, Mom. And I love those girls. They’re my family.”

  Her mother sighed. “You’ll never really be their mother, Sarah. Just you wait and see. It will be different when you have a child of your own.”

  Sarah had said good-bye through gritted teeth, not even trying to hide her irritation. What could her mother possibly know about it? Of course Sarah would be their mother! And hadn’t she proved herself right, after all? She had become a mother to the girls. With Laurel’s persistent absence, and the girls’ hunger for a mother’s love, it had been like wading into water so warm you didn’t know where your skin ended and the water began. She loved Jessie and Emma like her own flesh and blood.

  Only when Sarah became pregnant did she begin to worry, remembering her mother’s words. What did Sarah know of flesh and blood, after all? What if the love she bore her daughters turned out to be but a pallid thing, compared to the love she would feel for this new child?

  She needn’t have worried. That was the thing about love: you didn’t have to carve it up. Yes, her love for her newborn son was a corporeal passion that could take her breath away. But then, he was an infant, wasn’t he? He came from her body; he nursed at her breast. It was just different, that was all. It didn’t mean she didn’t love her girls. Watching the three of them in the bath together, or seated around the kitchen table, she felt like a mother hen with her brood, and her heart swelled with love for each of them.

  Sarah’s body jerked suddenly, startling her back from the edge of sleep. Immediately, her thoughts turned to the day ahead, and the rock returned to her gut. She dreaded Laurel seeing the home that she and Len had built here; Laurel had a knack for belittling whatever was most dear to others. But even more than that, Sarah dreaded handing her two little girls over to Laurel—Laurel who would claim them as her own. Laurel, who believed that blood and breast were all it took to make a mother.

  Sarah sighed and swung her legs out of bed. She glanced at the clock, surprised to see how little time had passed since she had first awoken. There were still more than two hours to get through until Laurel arrived at nine to pick up the girls. Now that the day was here at last, Sarah simply wanted to get it over with. Gently, she pulled the covers over Len’s shoulders and rose from the bed.

  At quarter to nine, the girls were ready. Sarah had ironed their best dresses and polished their best shoes. She had carefully braided their long hair, tying matching ribbons around the end of each braid. At last, she was finished. She took a step back to look at them. They stared back at her, serious looks on their scrubbed faces.

  “Do we look good?” Jessie asked. “Will she like us, do you think?”

  Tears sprang to Sarah’s eyes inexplicably. She had to turn her face away.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, her voice unnaturally high. “She’ll be amazed at how beautiful you are.”

  “Who will?” Emma wanted to know. “Who’ll be amazed?” She pulled at her braids. “They’re too tight, Mommy.”

  “Oh, Emma. Let them be. They’ll loosen up soon.”

  “But why do I have to wear them? Can’t I just have a ponytail?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Sarah said cheerily. “I want you to look nice. Laurel’s coming to visit today. Laurel—” she hesitated. “Your biological mother.”

  Emma narrowed her eyes at her. “But you’re our mother,” she said.

  “Yes, sweetness,” Sarah answered, her heart lurching. “B
ut Laurel gave birth to you. She carried you in her belly before you were born.”

  “You mean, like you did? Like you did with Jay?” Jessie asked.

  Sarah nodded.

  “I was in your belly, too,” Emma said, her brow furrowed. “I don’t have a ’logical mother.”

  Sarah took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Em, but you do. I just don’t think you remember her.”

  She took the girls by the hand then, and led them to the living room, where Len’s old photo albums were stacked on a bookshelf in the corner. She took one down and flipped through it quickly, then pulled a photo from behind the plastic and showed it to them. It was a Christmas picture. Jessie, as a toddler, was tearing into a wrapped parcel, while Laurel looked on, baby Emma in her arms.

  Jessie studied it carefully. “I think I remember her,” she said.

  “I don’t,” Emma said, and she leaned a little into Sarah’s leg.

  Sarah sent the girls to Jessie’s room to play, telling them she would call for them as soon as Laurel arrived. But by nine-thirty, there was still no Laurel, nor had she called to say she would be late. Sarah called the hotel where Laurel had said they would be staying, but no one picked up when they put her call through to the room.

  At ten forty-five, there was still no sign of Laurel. Sarah let the girls go outside to play in the yard, making them promise to keep their dresses clean. She watched them for a moment through the window, the bright sun shimmering on their hair. From a distance, and with both in braids, Emma looked like a smaller version of her older sister; the girls shared the same slim build and strong legs. It was only when you were closer that it was easy to see how different they were. Jessie’s hair was darker, her skin less fair. In the Bakersfield sun, Emma’s round face was perpetually freckled, her hair streaked with blonde.

  Sarah still couldn’t help being amazed by how much sun there was here. When, soon after they were married, Len had first applied for the professorship in theoretical mathematics at California State in Bakersfield, Sarah had been skeptical. Who but a farmer would move to Bakersfield? But Len had grown weary of Arcata’s rain and fog; that there would be sun was enticement enough for him. And he had been right, Sarah thought. So much sun had seemed to add a brightness to their lives.