She had read somewhere that teenagers often give birth early, had expressed that fear to the OB/GYN the last time she took Emily in, but had been reassured that everything was looking great.
The phone call is brief. Andi flies around Emily’s bedroom, putting together clean clothes, toiletries, her favorite blanket. She has nothing for the baby, she thinks with dismay, having expected to hand the baby straight to the adopting couple. There is no adopting couple yet, Emily thus far vetoing everyone Andi has picked since the disastrous meeting with Adeline and Greg.
Emily sits on the sofa, quietly crying, white with fear, as Sophia sits next to her, holding her hand and whispering how Emily should be so excited, the Bean is coming! Emily, when not shaking with fear, manages to acknowledge her.
“It’s going to be fine,” Andi reassures her each time she flies past, arms filled with things. “You’re a brave girl, and we’re going to be fine.”
When Emily is strapped into the car, Andi runs next door to Drew, explains what’s happening, urges him not to say anything to Ethan, and hands over Sophia.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t come?” Sophia asks, her eyes searching out Emily in the car. “I’d like to.”
“I know, sweetie,” she tells Sophia. “We don’t know whether it’s happening now. We’re just going to the hospital to check her out.”
There is no way Ethan would want Sophia at the hospital. He doesn’t even know she knows.
“The baby’s not coming now?” There is disappointment in her voice.
“Hopefully not,” Andi lies encouragingly. “We’ll call you later.”
* * *
“Do you feel any contractions?” Andi asks, driving carefully.
“No.” Emily shakes her head. “That must mean it’s okay, right? If I was in labor, I’d be having contractions, wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” Andi says. “We’ll ask the doctor,” and she turns just in time to see Emily’s face crease up in pain. “What was that?”
“A stomach cramp. It’s nothing. It’s gone now.”
“How many have you had?”
“I don’t know. Just a couple.”
“Are they five minutes apart, or ten? Roughly?” Andi’s voice is now urgent.
“I don’t know. Why? Are they contractions?” Emily’s voice is filled with fear.
“I think so, Emily. I don’t know for sure, but I think so.”
“Oh, shit.” Emily leans her head back on the seat. “I am so not ready for this.”
“I don’t know that anyone is ever ready for this,” Andi says.
Emily closes her eyes and rests her hands on her stomach. Turning her head, she blinks, gazing at Andi, who looks over and smiles, reaching out and squeezing her hand reassuringly. When Andi thinks about withdrawing her hand, Emily holds it tighter. She won’t let go.
Andi looks at her. “We have to phone the adoption agency. We have to figure out what to do when the baby is born. They may have a … foster home or something.” She swallows hard, pushing aside her pain, knowing she has to be strong for Emily.
“Andi?” Emily looks straight ahead, her voice quiet. “I’m going to keep the baby.”
“What?” Andi feigns shock, but in truth she is not surprised. Emily had mentioned this before, but after Ethan’s furious reaction, hadn’t said it again. Ethan thought she had changed her mind, but Andi suspected differently.
Once upon a time, it might have made her happy. It might not be her baby, but it would still be a baby around the house, for where else will Emily go if not home? How will she support herself? How will they live? If she keeps the baby, she will have no choice but to stay at home. With them.
Instead of filling her with joy, it fills her with dismay.
If Emily keeps the baby, they get the baby, but they also get Emily. The pattern will continue. The screaming tantrums, which leave Andi discombobulated and terrified, interspersed with moments of loving calm, during which Andi feels a wave of love for her stepdaughter, a hope this signifies the beginning of a permanent change.
Andi feels a sinking in her stomach. Adopting Emily’s baby was her last chance, the perfect solution. Andi would be a mother, and Emily would have her life back. She could go to college, go traveling, live the life she was meant to live instead of being tied down by a baby she doesn’t want in a town she doesn’t like.
It would have set Emily free and given them what Andi has always wanted, but keeping the baby now means the cord will never be cut.
Plus ça change, Plus c’est la même, she thinks, aching with sadness as she navigates the sunny streets to the hospital.
The more that changes, the more that stays the same.
* * *
“I’m scared.” Emily sobs, breaking Andi’s heart as Emily clutches her hand to stop her from leaving the room while the nurse snaps on gloves to perform an internal exam.
“Ssssh. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt, I promise. I’ll be right outside the door, then I’ll come straight back.” Andi brushes Emily’s hair off her face, wondering again how it is possible that this child is having a child.
“Don’t go,” Emily cries.
The nurse looks up and smiles. “It’s fine, Mom,” she says. “You can stay right in here with your daughter.”
This time, Emily doesn’t correct her, doesn’t scream that it’s her stepmother, and she hates her. She just clutches Andi’s hand tighter as Andi crouches, looking deep into Emily’s eyes and whispering that it’s all going to be fine, continuing to stroke Emily’s hair back with her other hand, ssshing her and soothing her, and doing everything she can to let her know that Emily will be okay.
“You’re just about ten centimeters dilated!” the nurse says cheerfully. “That means baby’s about ready to come. Have you discussed what drugs you’d like to take, or whether this is natural childbirth?”
“Drugs!” Emily shouts, now in the midst of a stronger contraction. “Get me drugs.”
“Let me get everything started for an epidural. We have to be quick and get it done before you start pushing. Don’t worry. We’re going to be fine,” she reassures them as Emily’s eyes widen with fear.
Andi continues stroking Emily’s hair as Emily begs her not to leave, not for a second.
“Of course,” she says. “But … I have to phone your dad.”
“I don’t want my dad here.” Emily bursts into tears, but not the histrionics Andi is so used to. Quiet, genuine tears. “I know how ashamed he is of me.”
Andi’s heart breaks. “He’s not ashamed of you, sweetie,” she says. “He loves you more than anything. He doesn’t know how to deal with any of this, that’s all. He’ll … get used to it. We have to let him know you’re going to give birth.”
“Okay.” Emily nods reluctantly, knowing that Andi is right. “Call him.”
* * *
Ethan is walking around a small garden in Sausalito when the call comes in. He has spent more time outside the past few days, hoping to find some solace in nature, for that was where he always found it before.
This time, it hasn’t worked. He feels empty, and doesn’t know how he will ever change that if Andi leaves him. He cannot believe he has let it go this far. He has a horrible feeling there is absolutely nothing he can do to stop his life from spinning out of control, and powerlessness is not a familiar or a comfortable feeling.
He and Andi circle each other like actors. They pretend to be husband and wife in front of the children, have conversations that might sound like the ordinary conversations of a married couple if you were to listen as an outsider, but there is no connection there, no warmth.
The intimacy that has always characterized their relationship has flown out the window, leaving two empty shells who are adept at going through the motions, who can fake the feelings when other people are around but who don’t feel anything at all.
Except Ethan does feel. He feels lost. Confused. Terrified. Bewildered. He kisses his wife good night eve
ry evening, but not on the lips, not the long, warm smooches of evenings gone by, kisses delivered in bed as one of them rolls over and turns off their bedside light, but instead light pecks on her proffered cheek, for she turns her head now; a cheek is all he can hope for.
He pads down the corridor to the spare room, which is cold and unwelcoming. It is beautifully decorated in blues and whites, but it is not home: as much as he is a stranger in his own bedroom, he is starting to feel like a stranger in his home.
Every evening, when he walks through the front door, Andi is in the kitchen making dinner. They sit at the dinner table, forcing small talk, with none of the easy conversation that has always flowed between them.
“How was work today?” Andi will ask. He will tell stories about his jobs, fill the silences with desperate stories because anything is better than silence.
“How about you?” he will offer when he has run out of anything else to talk about. “How was yours?”
Their time together is finite. Andi has been clear: they will reassess when the baby is dealt with, when life is back to normal. But what does that mean? That he has a few weeks to convince her to stay? A few weeks to fix something that right now feels as if it doesn’t have a chance of being anything other than broken?
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, expecting it to be yet another client wanting something from him. Usually, he loves his job. He loves people. He takes enormous pride in being of service to his clients; there is nothing he loves more than walking around someone’s garden and chatting about plantings and design ideas.
Not anymore. Now he is tired, too tired to chat lightly with anyone, but he looks cursorily at the phone, seeing it is Andi. He takes the call.
“Emily’s gone into labor,” she says quietly. “We’re at the hospital.”
Ethan starts to shake. “But … she’s not due for another five weeks.”
“I know. Her water broke. She’s fine, but you should come now.”
“But … the adoption,” he sputters. “We haven’t found anyone. What do we do?”
Andi is quiet. Should she tell him what Emily just told her? Should she share the news that is now weighing her down and bringing her to the brink of tears as she hears her husband’s voice?
“Let’s worry about it later,” she says. “Let’s just make sure this baby comes safely into the world.”
* * *
Emily is pushing with all her might as the doctor and midwives urge her on. Andi sits at her head, encouraging her, and Ethan is pacing nervously up and down the hallway outside.
“I can’t push anymore,” Emily whimpers, her eyes crossed with exhaustion. “I’m too tired. I can’t do it.”
“One more!” the cheerful nurse says. “You’re doing a great job! One more push.”
“We see the head!” the nurse yelps. “You’re almost there! Good girl! One more push!”
* * *
And then, slickly, suddenly, a purplish red tiny being, glossy with mucus and blood, is in the room, squawling angrily as Emily sinks her head back on the pillow.
“It’s a boy!” the doctor exclaims, bringing the baby over to show Emily.
“It can’t be,” Emily mumbles, exhausted. “It’s a girl.”
“No.” The doctor laughs. “That’s very definitely a boy. Do you want to hold him?”
“Later,” Emily says as Andi finally remembers to breathe.
“May I?” Andi’s voice is an awed whisper. Emily nods as Andi’s arms reach out for the baby. The tightly wrapped bundle is placed in her arms as Ethan walks in, seeing Andi, her face filled with joy and wonder, gazing at the tiny features, unwrapping the blanket slightly to see the tiny fingers and toes.
Ethan kneels next to her, putting his arms around her, and neither of them notices that Emily’s head is turned to the wall and her eyes are tightly closed.
* * *
“I don’t know what to say,” Ethan says. “How can she keep the baby? She just turned eighteen. She has her whole life ahead of her.”
“I agree. I agree with all of it. She’s irresponsible; she’s still a child. How can she keep the baby?” Andi stands next to Ethan outside the glass wall of the nursery, both of them unable to tear their eyes away from the perfect baby boy who is inside the room.
“But…” she turns to him slowly. “How can she not?”
Ethan shakes his head. “That’s not Emily speaking. That’s you. This isn’t our baby, Andi.” He looks at her, seeing the expression on her face when she held the baby moments after he was born; the pain she had truly gone through in finding out the perimenopause had made it so unlikely for her to have a child, and just what he had withheld from her by refusing to adopt, refusing to keep the baby.
He understands it all, and as he stands there, looking at his wife, he wishes, with all his heart, that this were their baby, that there wouldn’t be a choice to make. But there is, and they can’t, and it’s too late.
“It’s your grandson,” Andi pleads.
“I know. But Emily is the mother, and she’s simply not equipped to take care of a baby.” He’s saying what he said before, except this time he doesn’t mean it in quite the same way. This time he is wondering whether they might be able to make it work.
“We would help. We could do it.”
Ethan turns to her bitterly. “You haven’t even decided whether you’re staying or leaving. How can you commit to help raising a child when you don’t even know if you’re going to be around?”
“You’re right,” she says, not knowing what else to say, for her confusion has never been greater. She was definitely leaving. She wanted to forgive Ethan, but the resentment was too great. She’d made the decision, ever more clear when Emily told her she was keeping the baby. Keeping the baby means keeping Emily. An untenable marriage of four.
But the baby! Holding that baby in her arms, Andi felt a rush of love she had never expected. She had heard of grandparents feeling that same rush of love, but Andi was not biologically a grand-anything, so where did this all-encompassing love come from?
Even now, she can’t walk away from the nursery. Neither she nor Ethan has talked about leaving—standing outside the picture windows for two hours, gazing at the baby, waiting for him to be fed, hoping they can go in and hold him again.
He is dressed now, in a white cotton onesie with a tiny knitted cap on his head. Even when he sleeps, he jerks and twitches, moving his limbs. Andi wants to run in and scoop him up, hold him close to her breast, and never let him go.
“He’s amazing, isn’t he,” she whispers, gazing in the nursery, feeling something shift between her and Ethan, feeling suddenly a warm ray of hope. “You’re right about my not knowing what the future holds, but this might be the only thing I have clarity about right now. You can’t give him up. Emily can’t give him up. Whatever is supposed to be will be, but we have to bring him home.” She isn’t pleading anymore. She is calm. It isn’t a question; it’s a statement: this is the only way.
Ethan is quiet. “I just … I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Andi says. “If Emily refuses to sign the adoption papers, there is nothing we can do.”
“She’s a minor. We can override.”
“Ethan, she just turned eighteen. She isn’t a minor anymore.”
“Oh, God.” He sighs dejectedly.
“You can talk to her as much as you like, but she is adamant. She wants to keep this baby.”
Ethan leans his forehead against the cool glass and closes his eyes. “I just don’t believe this,” he says. “I don’t believe what is happening in my life.”
“I don’t, either,” Andi says. “None of this is what we wanted. But … we have it now. We have to deal with it.”
Ethan turns to her. “Together?”
She looks at him and nods, reaching down for his hand and squeezing it lightly before dropping it almost as quickly as she picked it up, unaware of how, in that seco
nd, Ethan’s heart had lifted.
Turning to walk back down to Emily’s room, Ethan isn’t at all sure whether that just really happened, or whether it was merely a figment of his imagination.
Twenty-nine
“He’s beautiful.” Andi pulls a chair closer to my bed as I reach behind me to push the pillows up a bit so I can sit.
“I want to see him.” I’m curious as to what he looks like. I want to hold him, to know what it’s like. I want to feel the overwhelming love that I felt for the B … well, the baby girl I thought was inside my stomach.
The thing is—I know this sounds awful—I was so sure it was a girl. I was so sure it was Bean, and I connected with Bean, not with this boy baby that I don’t know, and I don’t feel any of that overwhelming love I felt when I was pregnant.
I just feel … kind of numb.
But I haven’t even held my baby, and I’m sure that’s what it is; I know those feelings will come. When I’m holding him in my arms and he’s gazing up into my eyes, we’ll feel it, and I will love him just as much as Bean. More, probably.
“I’ll tell the nurse,” Andi says as a frown crosses her face.
“Are you still feeling you want to keep him?” she asks carefully. “The adoption agency has been leaving messages. They would be willing to take him and foster him until they find a permanent family.”
She looks at me expectantly, and I shake my head vigorously. There is no way in hell I would let my baby go off with strangers. To a foster home? Are they nuts?
“No way,” I shake my head again. “He’s mine.”
And I swear, Andi looks even more relieved than I feel.
* * *
The nurse comes in holding this tiny bundle, and she places it in my arms, showing me how to cradle him, and to make sure I always have one hand holding the back of his head to protect his neck muscles.
I sit there with this tiny baby in my arms, just staring at him. I can’t believe this … human!… this baby came out of my stomach. I cannot believe that this is mine! I grew him inside me! I lift my other hand and stroke his cheek. It feels soft and furry. He stirs, then opens his mouth in a giant yawn, and it makes me laugh.