Her smile has a visible shiver to it, her lower lip quivering. Instantly, I ache for her and feel the urge to pull her into my arms, but I shake her hand instead. I’m not sure if the dampness I feel between our palms is from her hand or mine.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she says. “I got totally turned around somehow. I’ve never driven in San Diego by myself before.”
“No problem,” I say, taking her arm, turning her toward our table. Aidan stands as we near him. His smile doesn’t betray his nerves, not one bit.
“Sienna,” he says warmly, taking her hand in both of his. “It’s wonderful to meet you.” He pulls out a chair for her.
“I’m so sorry about before,” she says as she awkwardly lowers herself into the chair. Her stomach brushes the table. She is hugely pregnant and I have to force my eyes away from that beautiful round belly.
“No problem,” Aidan says.
“You’ve had a very tough decision to make,” I add.
She nods with a small roll of her eyes. “It’s been so hard,” she agrees. “I don’t have a single friend who thinks I’m doing the right thing.”
“You must be a really strong person to be able to stand up to them,” I say.
“I don’t know how strong I am,” she says with a rueful smile. “I let them talk me out of adoption once already. I’d still be planning to keep the baby if I didn’t have Kate at the agency to talk to.”
Thank you, Kate, I think.
Aidan and I had talked about how to structure our conversation with Sienna. We’d start out light, we’d decided. Learn about her and let her learn about us before getting into the nuts and bolts of the adoption.
“Tell us about your friends,” I say. “Do you still see your old friends from before you moved into that classroom?”
“No,” she says, “and I miss them a lot. That’s part of why I’m choosing adoption.” Her words come out quickly, a little breathlessly, her anxiety showing. I study her face as she speaks. She looks nothing like Julia Stiles. She’s quite pretty, her cheeks round, her shoulder-length hair a rich brown. The overhead light picks up strands of red in her hair, and she wears glasses the same red color. Behind them her eyes are as deep and chocolaty as Aidan’s and I think, Is this what our daughter will look like? She grows more beautiful to me by the second.
“I miss my friends and my old life,” she says. “Does that sound really selfish?”
Aidan and I shake our heads in unison. “It makes sense,” Aidan says.
I’m relieved when the waiter arrives and we give him our orders. I think all three of us need to take a few deep breaths.
We ask her about her family and she tells us that her father has “moved on” and has a new family. “My mom is great, though. She’s totally behind the adoption.”
I know a little about Sienna’s mother. Zoe told me she’d wanted to join us at lunch today, but that Sienna pleaded to let her have this first meeting with us on her own.
“She doesn’t want me to mess up my education and everything,” she says. “My little brother’s excited about being an uncle, though. He can’t wait to see the baby.”
I know Aidan is watching my face to see how I react to the news that Sienna’s little brother apparently plans to be in our baby’s life. I keep my expression impassive.
“I had kind of a lame childhood,” she says. “No father around, so I really wanted a couple that had a good marriage and yours seemed really good.”
“It is,” Aidan reassures her.
“It’s solid,” I say, smiling at my husband.
“We never did anything fun growing up,” Sienna continues. “My mom works all the time—she works at this car place—and we never go anywhere fun. So when I saw all the pictures of the things you do, I could imagine my baby growing up getting to do things and be active and everything. It was a no-brainer.”
I am dying to ask her how we beat out the couple with the little girl and the dog, but don’t want to bring that family up if she’s forgotten about them. The waiter delivers our food. Sienna ordered vegetarian quesadillas and I wonder briefly if she gets enough protein in her diet. I will not ask. For now, her baby is her baby. I have to remember that.
“Are you into music?” she asks as she cuts a small bite of quesadilla on her plate. “Because I really am and I hope my baby will be, too.”
“We love music,” I say honestly, although I’m thinking, Doesn’t everybody?
“Do you play an instrument?” Aidan asks.
“Guitar, a little. Though it’s gotten hard to do with this.” She pats her stomach.
Aidan asks her about her favorite musical artists and then he begins talking about the musicians he loved when he was her age and I cringe inside. He sounds like an old man she’ll never be able to relate to. She’s never heard of Depeche Mode or the Smiths or Morrissey, but Aidan sings a little as he tries to convince her how awesome they are, and soon she’s laughing, and then she sings something by Lady Gaga until she realizes that other diners are turning to look in our direction. She stops singing abruptly and the three of us crack up and I can hardly believe how comfortable this is becoming. I like her so much.
Our conversation stays light until we’re nearly finished with our meals. As we watch Sienna take the last bite of her quesadilla, Aidan and I exchange a look: Time to get serious.
I take in a breath. “You’re about seven months now, right?” I ask her.
“Thirty weeks, almost exactly,” she says, putting down her fork. “I’m getting nervous,” she admits.
“What can you tell us about the baby’s father?” Aidan asks. “Dillon, is it?” I’ve never heard him speak so gently.
Sienna drops her gaze to the table. “I…” she begins. “He…” She lets out a sigh. Lifts her eyes to mine, then Aidan’s. “He wasn’t who I thought he was,” she says.
“How long were you going out with him?” I ask.
“Just a month,” she says. “But I’ve been in love with him since, like, freshman year. And things were really good, but then he broke up with me. But he came over to talk and I thought maybe if we had sex…” She realizes her voice has gotten loud and lowers it. “I thought maybe I could get him back. Which I know is stupid. I knew it even then. And the other stupid thing is that I didn’t think you could get pregnant the first time. But you can.”
The first time. Poor kid.
“We understand that Dillon’s okay with relinquishing his parental rights?” Aidan asks.
“More than okay,” she says. “He wants nothing to do with her. When I told him I was pregnant, he said he’d give me money for an abortion. I almost did it—I made the appointment and everything, but then I realized I was doing it to please him. As usual. But I was afraid if I went through with it, it would upset me for the rest of my life. So I canceled the appointment and then I had to tell my mother and Dillon got really mad at me because my parents told his parents and … it was just a giant mess.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that,” I say. I truly am sorry. There but for the grace of God … I think. We will need to meet Dillon at some point, I know. If we’re going to have an open adoption, whatever form that takes, it will have to be open to our baby’s father as well as her mother. But I’m afraid to say that now. I don’t want to say anything that might scare Sienna off.
“Anyhow,” Sienna says, “Dillon would have been as crappy a father as my own father. I hate both of them. I want my baby to have a father she can love.” She looks at Aidan and I am certain she sees in my husband’s face the same thing I see—a man who knows how to love.
Aidan gives a nod and clears his throat, and I know he’s a little choked up. His cheeks are pink.
“Let’s talk about our expectations—yours and ours—for your involvement after the baby is adopted,” Aidan says once he’s recovered his composure. “I think it’s important that we work out an agreement we’re all comfortable with. It might change over time, but—”
He stops speaking as he feels my foot against his shin beneath the table. He looks at me and I nod in Sienna’s direction, and only then does he realize her eyes have filled with tears.
“Sienna”—I lean toward her—“where are those tears coming from?”
She takes off her glasses and sets them on the table, then presses her fingertips to her eyes. Aidan and I look at each other and I bite my lip as we wait. Finally she lowers her hands. Her eyes are red.
“This is the part I’m afraid of,” she says in a near whisper.
“What are you afraid of?” I match the tone of my voice to hers.
“My mother’s best friend. This woman, Joan. She keeps calling and e-mailing me, telling me how she gave up her baby eighteen years ago and she never knew what happened to him. She’s tried to find him and can’t and she worries about him every single day of her life and wishes she hadn’t given him up.” She pauses to pull in a breath. “So she keeps trying to talk me out of adoption,” she says. “My mom tells her it would be an open adoption, but Joan says you can make all these promises to me now and then once you have my baby, forget about them. And I can’t stand the thought of not knowing how my baby is or ever getting to see her or anything.”
Aidan and I exchange a glance. I nod for him to speak. “This is why we’d make a very clear agreement, Sienna,” he says. “So all of us would know exactly what our open adoption would look like.”
“I hope as you get to know us better, you’ll know we won’t break a promise to you,” I say.
She looks down at her empty plate. One fat teardrop falls from her eyelashes to the table.
“In a perfect world,” I say, “what sort of contact would you like to have with your daughter?” I can’t believe I’ve asked such an open-ended question about a topic that’s giving me at least as much angst as it appears to be giving her.
Sienna licks her lips thoughtfully, then looks at me. “Could you send me pictures of her every month? And could I see her a couple of times a year?”
That’s all she wants?
“Absolutely,” I say.
“And she’ll know I’m her mother? I mean, her birth mother?”
“Of course,” Aidan says. “And you know what would be cool?” he adds. “You could make her a scrapbook about you and your family, if you like. Something she could always have and treasure.”
“She’ll know her roots,” I add. “We want her to know her roots, Sienna.”
Sienna smiles. “Cool,” she says.
“You think about this,” I say. I feel enormous relief that she’s not asking us for more than I’m prepared to give. “Talk it over with Kate and your mom. Then sometime before the baby is born, we’ll draw up an agreement so all three of us are very clear what ‘open adoption’ means in our case.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Excellent.” Aidan takes a final swallow of his water. “So, is there anything else we need to discuss today?” He looks from me to Sienna.
“Well, Kate said we have to talk about the hospital,” Sienna says shyly. “The, you know, the delivery and everything.”
Zoe had told us to wait for her to bring this up and I feel proud of Sienna for addressing it so soon. I hold my breath. I have terribly mixed feelings about this. I want more than anything to see our daughter come into the world, and yet, it feels wrong somehow. The baby will be Sienna’s at that moment. She should have that private, sacred time with her without us hovering nearby, hungry to hold our daughter in our arms.
“How do you feel about it?” I ask.
“I just don’t think…” She wrinkles her nose. “I just want my mom in there with me,” she says.
I nod, disappointed in spite of myself. “That’s your choice and of course we’ll respect it,” I say. Once the baby is ours, Sienna’s choices will be so few. I would never argue with her over this one.
I look at her again and I’m struck by her strength, the thought she’s put into the decision to place her baby for adoption, the way she’s bucked her friends, the hurt she’s endured from her baby’s father. I put my hand on hers.
“We’re here for you, Sienna,” I say. “Even if you change your mind again. Even if you decide to keep your baby. We’ll be here for you.”
I know Aidan is watching me. Later, he’ll probably tell me I’ve gone too far, but I don’t care. This girl needs our support.
“We’ll help you in any way we can,” I continue. I’m speaking clearly, as though I’m talking to someone much younger or much less bright than Sienna. I hear the lawyer in my voice. “We’ll help you emotionally and we’ll help you financially. I know money is tight for you and your mom.” Zoe told us their medical insurance isn’t the best. “We’ll pay what your insurance won’t cover. But … here’s the thing. No matter how much we contribute to you financially or emotionally or in any other way at all, you do not owe us your baby.” I look hard into her eyes. “I want to be sure you understand that.”
Her brown eyes are glossy again behind her glasses. She nods. “I know all that,” she says, “but I’m not going to change my mind. You don’t have to worry.”
* * *
In front of the restaurant, Sienna hugs each of us. I feel the bulge of her belly against my body.
“You two are the first people I’ve met who are actually happy that I’m pregnant.” She laughs.
We give her directions to get out of Old Town and watch as she heads for her car. Aidan and I are quiet as we walk hand in hand in the opposite direction to our own car. We don’t speak until we’re seated inside, seat belts fastened. He looks at me.
“Wow.” He smiles.
“I know.” I smile back.
“I do worry,” he says gently, “that in your effort to be sure that she’s sure, you’re going to scare her away.”
“How would I do that?” I ask.
“Just … your intensity.” He smiles again, letting me know that, in general, he likes my intensity. It’s only in this situation that it worries him.
“I want to be sure she knows her rights,” I say. “If she places her baby with us, I want to be sure it’s with her whole heart and—”
“It will never be with her whole heart,” he says. “You could feel her pain. There’s always going to be pain.”
“Nine tenths of her heart then.”
He reaches across the gearshift to take my hand.
“I think you missed your calling, babe,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“The way you talked to her.” He runs his thumb over the back of my hand. “The way you drew her out. Supported her. I’ve really never seen that side of you before. You should have been a counselor,” he says. “You could have been a therapist like your father.”
The smile I give him is weak, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He lets go of my hand and turns the key in the ignition, and by the time he pulls the car into the street, my eyes are burning.
He can’t know how much his words disturb me.
39
Swannanoa
In my world, grown-ups were honest, and—except for the occasional drunken pushing of my father off a pavilion—good. So I was totally shocked when I got to Stacy’s house and discovered that her mother planned to spend the night at the apartment of the man she was seeing. Stacy and I would have her house to ourselves for the entire night.
“Don’t tell your mom,” Stacy’s mother said with a wink as she got ready to leave. She combed her black hair, which was only slightly less shiny than Stacy’s, in the hallway mirror and applied her ruby-colored lipstick. I was standing next to Stacy inside the front door, my backpack over my shoulder, still in shock at the realization that she was leaving us alone for the night.
“What your mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Stacy’s mother added. “She sounds like one of those mothers who hovers, is she?”
“Yes,” I said. Did she hover? I didn’t think I’d really describe her that way.
“I believ
e in trusting my kids,” Stacy’s mother continued as she picked up her purse from the table by the front door. “It helps them grow up, having to make choices for themselves instead of me making them for them,” she said. “That’s the way I’ve always done it and they’re all still alive, right?” She smiled at me, and I could see where Stacy got her prettiness from. “None of them has ever been arrested or flunked out of school, so I think I’m doing a fine job.”
Stacy rolled her eyes at me.
“Bye, now,” her mother said with a wave. She pecked Stacy on the cheek. “Be good!”
We watched her walk out the front door, and neither of us said a word until we heard her car door slam. Then Stacy let out a whoop. She spread her arms wide, and tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “Freedom!” she shouted. “Woo-hoo!”
I smiled. “This is going to be so amazing!” I said, but my hand slipped into my shorts pocket and circled my palm stone before I even realized what I was doing.
* * *
We sat in Stacy’s room listening to Step by Step as we put on our makeup. “I talked to Bryan once I realized we’d have the house to ourselves,” Stacy said. “They’re bringing pizza over. He said they can stay all night if we want them to.” She gave me a knowing look in the mirror. “Like we wouldn’t want them to.” She laughed.
Oh my God, I thought, as I applied mascara to my lashes with a trembling hand. What was wrong with me? I wished I could have been as calm as Stacy. I was a nervous wreck.
We had the music pumped up in the living room when Chris and Bryan showed up around nine-thirty. I’d taken my glasses off but even blurry Chris looked hotter than I remembered. His blond hair had grown a little and it curled over the tops of his ears and at the nape of his neck, and his dimples—there were actually two of them—were so deep and sexy, I didn’t know how I’d missed them the first time I met him. Bryan pulled Stacy into a long, deep kiss, but the kiss Chris gave me was sweet and tender and I liked that. I liked that he seemed to know me that well already.
They’d brought two pizzas with them and a six-pack of beer they’d somehow been able to get and we sat in the kitchen eating and talking. I remembered Stacy saying she’d never drink because of her father being an alcoholic, but she was first to pull a bottle from the six-pack. I sipped the beer. I didn’t like the taste at all but I was determined to get it down.