The Other Mother

Still, I obsess in other ways. I can’t bring myself to buy a pregnancy magazine, but I surf the Internet constantly. I find so many websites, more than I’d ever imagined, because I’ve never allowed myself to indulge this way. I’ve never had so much hope. I read about the development of the fetus, and I wish I knew exactly how far along Alex is. I didn’t even ask her the due date.

I also find message boards for adoptive parents. I resist these at first, because there is a part of me that doesn’t want to admit that’s what I am. If I hold my child the day she is born, the minute she’s born, how can I be an adoptive parent? It’s just a matter of genetics, really, and a little pain.

Yet as the week goes on and I don’t hear from Alex I finally break down and read the message boards one evening after work. I’m horrified, and yet I can’t stop. There is story after story after story of canceled adoptions, heartbroken parents who now won’t be parents. I read about a birth mother who met the parents and loved them and shared Christmas cards and barbecues and then the day after the baby was born she changed her mind and sent a social worker to tell them.

I read a story where parents took their son home and had him for six weeks. Six weeks, and then a social worker came and took the baby away and they never saw him again. Their son.

“Hey.” Rob sits down next to me on the sofa, puts an arm around my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

I quickly close the browser window. My fingers tremble and I feel sick.

“Adoption forums?” he says, frowning.

“Just reading some different stories,” I say lightly and Rob squeezes my shoulder.

“Don’t get your information from the Internet.”

“I’m not sure where to get it from at this point.”

“I know.” He’s silent, and so am I, because this is so big and strange and neither of us knows how to deal with it. “Sometimes I wonder if this is a good idea,” he says slowly, and I freeze, fighting a frustration at his typically flip-flopping attitude. What happened to not wanting to fuck this up?

“Of course it’s a good idea,” I snap, and he sighs.

“Eight months is a long time, Martha.” We both know what he’s really saying. “I wish we could just fast forward through everything,” Rob continues quietly. “Till the moment the baby’s ours.. Everything signed and sealed.”

I nod, my throat tight. I know how he feels, and yet I also feel cheated. If this is the closest to pregnancy I’m ever going to get, I’d like to enjoy it. I’d like to feel the wonder of the first kick, the ultrasound photo, all of it, without the ever-present fear.

“I mean, you hear about adoptions falling through all the time, don’t you?” Rob asks, and, since I’ve just read of dozens, I have to agree with him, even though I don’t want to. I want to hear the good stories, the happy stories, the stories where the birth mother handed the baby to the adoptive parents with a teary smile and then—

And then what? Disappeared?

I close my laptop and lean my head against the sofa.

Rob rubs my shoulder, my arm. “There’s another part of me,” he says, “that wants to start getting excited now. I mean, that’s the normal thing, right? You tell your families, you buy the nursery furniture, you pick out names. You get excited, that’s part of it, you know?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I know.”

“I want to be excited. Now that it could be real…” He stops and I look away. I feel that churning of guilt and fear, as if I’m the one who’s got to make this happen. It was my idea; I’m the one who is forcing this through. Rob might get excited about it, he might want this baby, but he’s still going to be laid-back about it. I’m going to be the one to manage everything, to make it work.

It’s always been that way between us, and I’ve never minded because we know we’re different, and we play to our strengths. But right now part of me wants Rob to man up and tell me everything’s going to be okay, that he’ll make sure it is.

Rob stares into space for a moment before he asks the question neither of us dared say aloud before. “Do you think Alex is going to change her mind?”

“She can’t,” I answer automatically, even though I know she can. “She can’t take care of a baby,” I amend because I think that much is true.

“She can, Martha. Plenty of women are single moms with no money or health insurance.”

“I know that but surely she wants more for—” I stop suddenly, because it has occurred to me that Alex can give her child more. Her parents are, if not wealthy, then certainly well off. They could afford to supplement Alex’s income, to support her and her child. If she really wanted to have this child, she could.

But she doesn’’t, I tell myself. She agreed to this. She wants this for us, for her. But another inner voice, sly and yet so logical, tells me that she’s only seven or eight weeks along, it’s still so early, and she’s still shocked and confused. She’s got a whole pregnancy to reevaluate her decision, even to meet someone and decide she wants a family. And what about Matt? He’s a good guy. Maybe he’ll decide to step up and be a dad.

“If she changes her mind,” Rob says after a long moment of silence, “we’ll support her the best we can. I know it will be hard, but…” He tails off, and I say nothing.

How could I possibly support the woman who will have ripped out my heart? Rob turns to me with a lopsided smile. “It’ll probably all be fine,” he says, and I know he’s feeding himself his usual line. He needs to believe it. “But if it isn’t,” he continues, “she’s still your friend. Our friend.”

And that is the difference—one of them, anyway—between Rob and me. He would support Alex. He’d even be happy for her. He’d make himself see the damned bright side of things.

As for me? I’d dwell in the darkness and pain. I wouldn’t support Alex; I wouldn’t be able to speak to her if she decided to keep my child, even if Rob obviously would.

Chapter 10

ALEX

Camp fills up my time and thoughts, and I’m glad for the distraction of kids and art and craziness. I’m tired of being inside my own head, of constantly thinking about this baby and what will happen in about seven months. Ramon lights up when he sees me, and tackles my knees. I hug him, smoothing his silky dark hair, feeling that strange tug of longing and love that scares me with its sudden intensity.

I’ve enjoyed most of the kids I work with, although some have been complete pains in the ass. But even with the sweet ones I’ve been happy to leave them at the door, to forget them almost completely when I’m out of the classroom. To let them go, which I do, easily, freely.

A few have touched me, but it’s only now that I realize I’ve always kept a little distance, been a little aloof, Martha-style. Or maybe it’s my style. I can’t think of too many people I’ve let close in my life; even my parents and sister are distant. But maybe that’s them.

In any case Ramon draws me in. Makes me want something nebulous I’m afraid to name and almost resent. I don’t want to feel this much. I don’t want to wonder.

That afternoon he’s picked up by his mother rather than his older brother, and she looks about five years younger than me. She’s wearing a sundress of cheap cotton, her dark hair pulled back in a long ponytail, and her face is tight and pinched. She nods tersely at me as I say goodbye to Ramon, and he hugs my knees again.

She clucks, kind of bemusedly impatient, and I smile. “Ramon loves to draw.”

She glances at me, completely nonplussed, and then reaches for Ramon’s hand. “Vamonos, Ramon.”

He follows her obediently, his little hand in hers, and something twists inside me. I don’t know her circumstances, but I know enough about the demographics of the kids here to guess that she is probably low income, without insurance, living in a tenement. Just like me. And she has at least two kids. She did it; why can’t I?

I’m totally different from that woman, I tell myself. I have more choices, and I chose this. Adoption. Martha and Rob as parents, me making them happy. Me being happy because motherhood is not part of my life, my plan.

Except I’ve never really had a plan.

And watching her I can’t quite ignore the little kernel of envy I feel burrow down inside me. Of resentment. I feel as if I wasn’t given a chance to try to be different, to come up with a plan. I didn’t give myself one, and it’s too late now.

That evening my friend Liza calls me and asks me to go out. I say yes even though I’m still tired and nauseous, because I want just a little of my old life, my old self, back.

We meet at a bar on Hester Street, a dark cave of a place in the basement of a restaurant, with throbbing music and flashing lights. I have a headache within minutes of my arrival. Liza is there along with a couple of other mutual friends, people I know from art showings and yoga classes, dance festivals and the 4th Street Food Coop. They’re all like me, working several jobs to feed their passion, happy and rootless.

Except I’m not like that any more.

I force the thought away because for one night, for a few hours, I want to forget about it all, and just be me again.

Except just minutes into the evening, I realize I don’t know who that is any more. I listen to them talk about vacations on Fire Island and an art installation in Thompson Square Park, a new restaurant in Chelsea, some performance art on Mulberry Street. It’s my world, the world I loved and lived in, and now it feels as foreign to me as the moon, as barren as a lunar landscape. And I hate that, because I don’t want to change. I don’t want to feel dissatisfied with a life that once made me so happy.

At least I think it did.

And yet already I am changing; I fight it, but still it happens.

Liza goes for drinks and she raises her eyebrows when I say I just want orange juice. She comes back with some lurid-colored girly drink for herself and hands me my juice.

“Pushing the boat out tonight, huh?”

I just smile. She narrows her eyes. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

I almost choke. “What?”

“No alcohol, you look like shit—sorry.” She shrugs. “What am I supposed to think?”

“Come on, Liza. Jump to a few conclusions, why don’t you?” I take a sip of juice and look away.

“You are,” she says, and even with the blaring techno music I can hear the quiet certainty in her tone. “If you weren’t, you would have totally laughed it off. But you didn’t.”

And I know she’s right. I handled that completely wrong, at least if I intended on keeping it a secret. But I don’t know if I really want to any more.

She leans forward. “What are you going to do? You’re keeping it, obviously.”

“Obviously?”

“If you’re not drinking.”

“Right.”

She leans back, a little smile on her lips. “So…Mommy.”

I flinch. I can’t help it. And I’m not prepared for the lightning shaft of pain that slices through me, leaves me breathless. Mommy.

No, that’s not me. That will never be me.

And as Liza looks at me curiously I try to feel the relief that thought should give me. It doesn’t come.

Chapter 11

MARTHA

When I finally call Alex, I make sure to sound upbeat and casual. She sounds alarmingly subdued.

“So, how are you feeling?”

“Tired. Nauseous.” She sighs and I resist the urge to offer more advice.

“Have you been to the OB?” I ask and she hesitates, so I know she hasn’t.

“I will,” she says. “There’s not much point yet, really.”

“Isn’t there?” Immediately I know I sound too sharp. I take a breath, release it slowly. “How far along are you, anyway? I forgot to ask.”

“About eight weeks.” She still sounds subdued, and it irritates me.

“Well, let me know when you make an appointment and I’ll go with you,” I say, as lightly as I can, and it’s only after the words are out of my mouth that I realize maybe she doesn’t want me to go with her.

“Okay,” she says after a moment, but she doesn’t sound enthused and I force some more small talk before we finally both call it quits.

Afterwards I sit at my desk, alternating between anger and fear. Are all our conversations going to be this awkward? I hate feeling as if I have to tiptoe around her and yet I’m too afraid not to. But this is going to be my child, and I want some say in her pregnancy decisions. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? It certainly feels reasonable to me.

That evening I wait for my friend Maggie in Bryant Park. She’s running late so I surf the Internet on my smartphone, and end up, as usual, on one of the many pregnancy websites that chart fetal development.

At nine weeks, your baby measures 2.3 cm in length and weighs less than 2 grams. Earlobes are visible, as are fingers and toes.

2.3 centimeters. That’s what, an inch? An inch of infant, of life, waiting for me. My fingers clench around the phone. I feel a throb of longing, a surge of fear. A single inch and I am desperate.

“Hey, Martha.” Maggie comes up behind me, and her sharp glance takes in my phone’s screen before I can shut it off. “Baby Bump dot com? Are you serious?”

I click my phone off. “Hey to you too.” I smile, tightly. Maggie raises her eyebrows.

“I know you can’t be pregnant.”

And bizarrely, this hurts. The absolute certainty she has, because I know it too. I can’’t be pregnant. It’s been five years since Rob and I started trying, four years since they found the scarring on my Fallopian tubes caused by undiagnosed PCOS. Three years since the first IVF attempt, when I still felt keyed up with hope and determination, both leaching away with each further attempt.

And now? Now I feel hope again, and it terrifies me.

“I’m not,” I say lightly. “But a friend is.” Maggie just looks at me, her eyes slightly narrowed, and I know she’s wondering why I’d be scrolling through fetal development for a friend. It’s definitely not my style, but I don’t feel like getting into the uncertain complexities of what’s going on with Alex.

“This baby thing has hit you pretty hard, hasn’t it?” she finally says and I tense. Great, now she feels sorry for me.

“Let’s go,” I say, and we head towards the gym on Eighth Avenue where we work out together three times a week.

This baby thing. I know Maggie doesn’t understand it, doesn’t feel it as I do. We’re the same age, but she’s defiantly single, still enjoying the club scene, the carousel of boyfriends. I’m secretly sneaking glances at pregnancy magazines at the newsstand.

I’m not sure I totally understand the baby thing either. I had a plan; I’ve always had a plan. Rob and I started dating in college, were engaged at twenty-six, married at twenty-seven. When the ring was on my finger I mapped out our lives: pregnant at thirty-two, another at thirty-four, family complete and back to work full-time at thirty-five. Perfect. Except of course it didn’t happen that way, and the more life veered from the plan the more I wanted it, needed it, and having a baby became a way to prove myself, almost an obsession.

As it is now.

Maggie doesn’t mention babies while we work out, side by side on treadmills and then fifteen minutes with free weights. We shower and head up to the café on the second floor, take two stools at the bar and order our usual protein shakes.

Maggie talks for a while, and I try to listen. I usually like hearing about her cases, her colleagues, the cut-throat atmosphere that energizes me. And I like to reciprocate, talking about multimillion-dollar ad campaigns, my pitches and longed-for clients, the whole thing. Yet today I can barely summon the will to listen and Maggie notices.

“What is up with you, Martha?” she asks, and she sounds faintly annoyed.

“Sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

She frowns. “Is it still the baby thing?”

I can tell from her tone that she feels I should have been so over ‘the baby thing’ ages ago. Years ago.

“Actually, it is,” I say, and then because I need to tell someone, I need to relieve this awful, aching pressure that is building and building inside me, I say, “My friend who’s pregnant? She’s going to let us adopt the baby.”

Maggie stares at me for a moment, her eyes widening, and then she blinks. “What friend is this?” she asks, and there is something so skeptical in her tone I almost wince.

“You don’t know her. She’s a friend from high school.”

“And she’s willing to give you her baby?”

“She’s not in a position to keep it.”

“So she has an abortion.”

“Maggie.” My throat is tight. “We want this baby. And she wants to give it to us. People do this all the time, you know. Private adoptions.” I speak firmly, as if I believe it. Maybe if I say it enough I will.

“Well, all I can say is, you’ve got a really good friend there.” She drains her shake, and I am left silent, spinning, because the question ricocheting through my brain is: do I?

Do I have a really good friend? That good?

I don’t know the answer.

Chapter 12

ALEX

The second to last day of camp Ramon runs right to me as soon as he comes in the doors of the gym. I crouch down, give him my biggest smile. He’s opened up these last few days, smiling more, laughing a little, his eyes lighting before his long, curly lashes sweep downwards. Today though he hugs me almost fiercely, burying his head in my shoulder. I can feel the tension in his little body and I ease away.

“Hey…hey. You okay, buddy?” I realize I shouldn’t have asked, because his expression irons out and he turns away from me. I feel a twinge of concern, a lurch of fear.

I don’t think much more about Ramon until he comes in for his art session towards the end of the day. I’m so busy, cranking out class after class of boisterous kids, trying to keep them focused and interested and the paint off the walls or each other. Camp is coming to an end so they’re more hyper than usual, and several times jokes turn into fights and I’m wading right into the middle, separating them with heavy hands on shoulders, even as part of me longs to curl inward and protect the vulnerable barely-there curve of my belly. Even now, I think of it. Always, I think of it.

Ramon sits by himself during art, his bent arm hiding his paper. He lowers his head, his silky hair obscuring his face, everything hidden, protected, just as it was the first day, and I wonder what is going on and if his mother knows. If she worries. Motherhood is such a leap into the unknown, into the exposed emotions like peeled-back skin, and I’m glad I won’t have to feel all that. That will be Martha’s job.

But will I feel it? Will I not be able to resist? I already feel it, a little bit, with Ramon, and it hurts.

“Hey, buddy.” I come closer, touch his head just lightly because there are always rules about touching. I’ve broken too many by allowing him to hug me when he arrived. “What are you drawing?” I ask and crane my neck to see but he moves his arm and shows me anyway.

And that’s when I see it. Not the drawing, which I barely glance at, but the perfectly round circle, red and livid, on his inner elbow. It looks—and in my job I’ve seen them before—like a cigarette-burn mark.

Everything in me sinks with dread. I manage to say something about his drawing even as my brain buzzes.

As a teacher, I am legally required to report suspected child abuse. I make a call to Child Protective Services and within forty-eight hours I must file a written report. My part then is essentially done, and they take over. They might remove Ramon from his home, put him in temporary foster care. They might contact the police, if it appears the abuse is not from a family member. There could, in rare instances, be a court case, and I might be called to testify. But the likelihood is I’ll never see Ramon again and I’ll never even know what happens to him.

I’m cold, so cold, as I walk through the art room, murmuring encouragement and praise. I don’t want to call CPS. I never do, because it’s awful and ugly and yet so often necessary. I’ve done it twice before, and both cases were most certainly warranted. I don’t know what happened to either of the children involved, but already I feel more invested in this—in Ramon—than I ever did before.

I’m thinking about Ramon, but I’m also thinking about his mom. I remember how she smiled at him when she picked him up. How tired and pinched she looked, and part of me thinks, She’’s doing her best. Isn’’t that all any of us can do?

And after all, it’s one little mark. It might not be a cigarette burn. Hell, it could be anything. A birthmark. An accident. Anything at all.

I drift through the rest of the day, and when Ramon’s mother comes to collect him I move forward impulsively, smile at her even as I search her face for clues, her body for bruises.

“Hi, I just wanted to let you know how much I’m enjoying having Ramon at camp. He’s a budding artist, really takes his time with things.”

She stares at me, a little surprised, a little wary, and says nothing. She tugs at Ramon’s hand and says something to him in Spanish. And then they’re walking out of the gym, and I just stand there, undecided. Undecided about so much.

I decide not to call today. I’ll see Ramon tomorrow, get a better look at the mark. I know I’m rationalizing, at least a little, but I also know what it could be like with a low-income Hispanic woman. She might not even have a chance.

Still I feel as if I’m hiding something as I help clean and lock up the center. Normally I would tell Jim, the director of the camp, about my suspicions. But really, what is there to say? I barely know Ramon, and I didn’t get a good look at that mark. Even so, everything in me churns with fear for Ramon, sympathy for his mother.

I push it all out of my mind, or try to. It’s a beautiful day, a light breeze keeping it from being too hot, and I stop by the farmers’ market at Union Square. I love walking by all the stalls, the mounds of grapes and punnets of juicy red strawberries, soaps and honey from farms upstate. I buy three perfectly ripe peaches and a punnet of strawberries, my mouth watering at the thought of them.

Back in my apartment I wash and slice up all the fruit and put it in a bowl. I sit on my futon with the window open and the breeze blowing over me, and eat it for dinner. Such a simple act, and yet with it something in me loosens, lightens. This is me, I think. This is the me I’ve been missing, the me who enjoys the simple sweetness of fruit, my independence, the freedom and joy found in this moment.

I go to bed happier than I’ve been in a long time, since I first took that pregnancy test. And the next morning when I come to the community center Ramon doesn’t show up.

At first I don’t notice because I assume he’s just late. And then I’m busy with classes and kids and chaos, and I don’t think about it again until his class troops in for art, sweaty and rambunctious after a running-around game in the gym. I set them up all finishing the paintings they’re going to take home to their families, making sure the paint pots with their spill-proof lids are accessible to every pair of grubby hands, that everyone has a paintbrush and is actually putting paint to paper rather than to something else.

I pause, look around, tense. No Ramon. I think back quickly through the day, trying to remember if I saw him. When I saw him, because I want to have seen him even as I accept, the knowledge like a stone inside me, that I didn’t.

Somehow I get through the class, my mind numb, the kids around me a blur. The camp ends at lunch time on the last day and for the last hour we have a party in the gym with families invited, and as I circulate through the hyper kids and the tables with platters of supermarket cookies and watery red fruit punch I keep looking for Ramon. Thinking that maybe he will show up for the party, at least. He doesn’t.