A Necessary End (7 page)

T
he kids have spring fever. By this time in the year, they've got the routines down; they know how to work in small groups. But today, they keep chattering loudly, squawking and squabbling. I'm presiding over a barnyard.

I flick the light switch. “Lights off, head down. I'm in no mood for this.” I believe in transparency with the kids. They need to know I'm a person, too.

I hear some of the bossier kids repeating after me: “Mrs. T's in no mood.”

“I'm not in the mood to be repeated either. I can speak for myself.”

In the darkness, I glance over at my desk, where my cell phone lies silent and luminescent, my most recent texts unanswered. Where is he? What's he doing?

The kids simmer down. I stew.

Normally, I'm crazy about my kids. All of them, even the little freaks and terrors and attention whores. I love their rampant humanity, how it can be so concentrated and so exterior. Their whole lives are one big game of show-and-tell. They're still mostly naïve
and deeply inquisitive. At the beginning of the year, they need constant direction, and redirection. By April, they're at their best: more mature and independent and opinionated. They broadcast their emotions shamelessly.

Each year presents its own challenges in terms of how to merge all the different learning styles and behavior issues (not to mention managing the expectations of the parents who want to make their job yours). Sometimes you have a tough kid who triggers everyone else; sometimes there are clusters of kids who hijack a room. They're so impressionable that they can easily act on each other, a ceaseless game of marbles. So it's marbles for them but chess for me, as I figure out what to do about it all. Generally, I like that.

But not today.

Why isn't he texting me?

I hadn't realized it would be worse for me once the kids got calm. Their cacophony was drowning out some of the noise in my head.

It's not that I think he's doing anything wrong. She's a kid herself. A pregnant kid. Pregnant with
our
kid, mine and Gabe's. It's that I don't like to be ignored, and Gabe knows that better than anyone.

“I'm going to turn the lights back on,” I announce, “and I want you all to remember the way you feel right now. The calm. Hold on to that, okay? We're going back to our small groups and you need to
work
. Five, four, three, two, one.”

It's amazing how quickly our eyes adjust to the darkness and how glaring the light can seem. The kids blink and look around. For a second, it's like they've never seen the room before. I recently decorated for spring, with lots of blooming and budding. In the corner is our unit on metamorphosis: the Eric Carle type, not Franz Kafka's. The students have painted pictures of their interpretation of
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
. We have 3-D replicas of the various stages of development from caterpillar to butterfly. There are little plastic cocoons that the kids can hold in their hands and, in more rambunctious moments, chuck at one another. We have a field trip planned to see butterflies.

WTF, Gabe?

My students are now doing what they're supposed to, and I sit back down at my desk. I scan the room, wondering which of these kids will look most like my kid and what his temperament will be. I'm a big believer in temperament. I don't think anyone who works with kids on a regular basis can deny it. I'm hoping for one who's outspoken yet sweet, like Michaela; I hope he looks like Cody, because Cody is a dead ringer for Gabe.

Our baby's almost here. If I close my eyes, I can so easily imagine the weight of him in my arms, my lips grazing his forehead. I'll never get to breast-feed, of course, and that pains me. But Leah won't breast-feed either. Not on my watch.

My fingers itch to text again, but there's no point. I'm sure he saw the last one. Another would only look desperate, and desperation does not increase one's attractiveness. He's just in the middle of something, that's all.

What could he possibly be in the middle of? It's not even noon. They wouldn't have gone to see a movie; they're out sightseeing. Sightseeing should make someone eminently available.

The next half hour passes in a vacillating haze of baby fantasies and agitation over Gabe's failure to respond. The kids are remarkably self-contained. Not a single argument, or a raised hand, or a “Mrs. T . . .” Once you're inessential, you realize how much you want to be needed.

“Lunchtime, Mrs. T.” Angie points at the hands of the clock. She sounds proud. It takes her a lot longer than the other kids to pick up skills and once she does, she likes to demonstrate them. With her red hair and off-center pigtails, she's got a certain Pippi Longstocking quality. It's hard not to love Angie.

I smile at her. “You're right, Angie. It is.”

That means lunch for me, too, though my stomach says otherwise. After I make sure the kids are safely to the cafeteria, I head for the break room, phone firmly in hand.

The break room is windowless, with each wall painted a different
color (green, blue, yellow, red). It's like eating inside a Rubik's Cube.

Mel is already there, at our usual table, eating one of those salads that have so much cheese and dressing it might as well be a Big Mac. We greet each other and she launches into a story about her fifth graders' morning antics.

“Hello?” Mel's voice is as bright as the walls. “Are you in there?”

Mel's my best friend at work—my best female friend period—and she knows about the fertility clinic and the adoption process. But she doesn't know what happened with Patty, and she doesn't know about Leah. I've always thought sharing is overrated. Even as a little girl, I was no good at sleepovers. I was in it for the junk food and the movies and maybe a little Ouija board; screw the rest. I opened up to Patty, and see where that got me.

“Rough morning,” I say.

“Dominic?” She smiles sympathetically. The good thing about Mel is that she'll fill in any blank you leave.

Mr. Woodhouse is at the table next to us, reading a book and eating a meatball sub. It's stinking up the joint, and it's not even the worst of his smells. I know we're colleagues, I should call him Larry, but I prefer to maintain formality. Keep a little distance between me and Mr. Woodhouse, a.k.a. the Stink Bomb.

“Not Dominic.” He's a loudmouth, but that doesn't rattle me. I'm good at my job because not a lot rattles me.

Now, Leah—she rattles me. But I'm not about to say that to Mel. I haven't even admitted it to Gabe.

Mel envies me in a charmingly transparent, self-deprecating way, and she worships Gabe. I wish she could find one of her own. I've come this close to offering her a makeover or calling in the
What Not to Wear
team. They could film her from the bushes in her shapeless cardigans and calf-length skirts, and we could screen the footage in the cafeteria. Everyone would cheer when the gay man/snarky woman duo offered her an all-expenses-paid trip to New York and a new wardrobe, and she'd say yes, her chins aquiver. She has a pretty
face, Mel, but then, that's what you always say about overweight people. Somehow, it always seems to be true. She's not tragically overweight, but the Bay Area singles market is pitiless.

I glance at my phone, in case it failed to audibly alert me to a new text message.

“Did you hear from a birth mother?” Mel asks.

“No,” I say. “Why would you think that?” It comes out loud and strange enough to attract Mr. Woodhouse's attention.

Mel scoots her chair closer to me. She always smells clean and comforting, like vanilla and nutmeg, like pumpkin pie. “What's going on, really?”

Leah's only been in our lives a few days, but I already feel like I don't know where to start.

Gabe's too honest. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, since he's a car salesman, but he really can be honest to a fault. He could have blown this whole thing by now. Maybe he's not texting because he's doing damage control.

Or he's already backed out without even telling me. He's driving her back to SFO right now.

“Adrienne?”

I look up and it's Principal Jorgenson. Shit. I didn't even hear her come into the room, let alone pad up to our table on her little cat feet. She's not even five feet tall, and her hair is mousy brown and shaped like a mushroom. The last principal loved me, but she retired this past June.

Principal Jorgenson gestures toward my neckline. Cleavage. She warned me about the cleavage.

“They're seven years old,” I tell her. “They've seen it all before.”

She's not amused.

Well, try to force me out. I'm a good teacher, but most important, I have seniority and my union's stronger than she is.

I readjust my V-neck. “It's always slipping,” I say. I give her a faux-friendly smile.

She's not falling for it. I hate people like her, the kind who use
the word “appropriate” in every third sentence. I have great tits. Deal with it.

“Melanie,” Principal Jorgenson says, “I'll need to speak with you later.” Woodhouse is eavesdropping, again.

“Can you tell me what it's regarding?” Mel sounds like she's taking a phone message for her mother. She's easily cowed by authority. It's the other reason I'd love to see her in a pair of thigh-high boots. Clothes are powerful.

“I can meet with you right after school. We'll discuss it then. Are you available?”

Mel nods, and Principal Jorgenson whispers off.

Mel moves so that she's practically in my lap. “I bet Blake's mom called about that recess thing,” she says.

I can't recall the recess thing. I don't always listen to every single anecdote of Mel's; there are so many of them. “You'll be fine.”

“I've only been here two years.” The subtext is that she's not like me, she can't just stand up to the principal with impunity. She could get a pink slip at the end of the year, though more than likely, she'd be rehired over the summer. (It's one of the budget tricks to look like the district is saving money.) “And I don't have a husband to pay my rent.”

Speaking of my husband, where is he?

“You'll be fine,” I say again, turning up the volume on the conviction and the sympathy. It works. Mel's torso relaxes.

I don't know what compels me, but then it's out of my mouth. “We're getting a baby.”

Mel leaps up and hugs me. Her happiness is so instant and genuine that I wish I was a better listener, a better friend. I envy the ease of her joy. I've always had trouble being glad for others. I believe there's a finite amount of good luck in the world, and one person's fortune is always to another's detriment. The universe is about balance, with equal parts joy and suffering, and you always have to be vigilant about which side of the scale you're on.

Mel would never think that way. She doesn't think that my having Gabe means she won't find anyone, or that my getting a baby relegates her to childlessness. I hope she's right, but I fear I am.

She resettles herself next to me. “Tell me all about it. Every detail.” Her eyes are round and blue and guileless. They remind me of the Cabbage Patch Kid I had when I was a little girl. Tamara Beth, that was the name on the ersatz birth certificate.

“Well,” I say, “it's happening soon. The birth mother is thirty-four weeks along.”

“That's amazing! You're practically a mom.”

Woodhouse's fingers have stilled on the pages. He's probably debating whether it's ruder to congratulate me, thus admitting his eavesdropping, or to ignore my big news.

“I am,” I say. “I'm practically a mom.” I let the pleasure rise up from my toes and warm my legs and then my stomach. I let it saturate me.

Finally, the text comes in. “At Lands End,” Gabe has written. “Beautiful day.”

I exhale. So he hasn't blown it. I never should have doubted him. He's a salesman, a born closer. I'll find out later what was so beautiful about it.

I
should feel bad that I didn't tell Adrienne. Strangely, though, I'm okay with it. For one thing, it's not my secret to tell. Not my life story. Leah needs to decide when (if) she's ready to share it with Adrienne. So I can call it a principled stance, keeping it from Adrienne.

Underneath that is something else. A desire to have the upper hand for once, maybe, to be the one with the secret. Yeah, I've got resentments. Everyone does in a relationship as long as ours. This is just a small way of evening the score, and it's not like it hurts anybody.

It is a little painful, though, watching the two of them interact. Leah and Adrienne are nicey-niceing each other to death. “No, after you.” “No, you.” “Yes, please.” “Thank you.” “Thank
you
!” They're both so much more than nice. I feel like Leah started to show me the rest of her, and I like it. I think Adrienne would, too. And vice versa. If Adrienne acted like herself, I bet she and Leah could turn into sisters.

But Adrienne doesn't want Leah for her sister. Adrienne thinks she's only got room for the baby, like there's a love quota and Leah
would send her over. Or she thinks that the baby will only have so much love to give, so she needs to get Leah out of the picture ASAP. Caring for Leah would only complicate Adrienne's mission.

There's plenty of time for Adrienne to change her mind, though. Leah's made sure of that.

“This is meant to be,” Adrienne whispered tonight, half-asleep, snuggled against me.

I'm thinking she could be right, maybe it was preordained. We could be the answer to a prayer for Leah, and that baby is the answer to Adrienne's prayer. And me, I don't really pray.

Since when do I have thoughts like that? I guess I'm growing up. I'm becoming a dad.

Jesus.

That's as religious as I get.

H
al—that's Hal Grayson III, Esquire—is eyeballing us each in turn. “I've never seen this done before,” he says, “and I've been in the adoption business a long time.”

“I thought you were in the legal business,” Leah says.

He lifts one side of his mouth in a smile, as if to say he likes a sassy young thing, but that's in his personal life, and this is, indeed, business.

He's your prototypical silver fox. In his late fifties, he wears expensive suits and no tie. He always looks freshly ironed. There's a picture on his desk of a comely woman twenty years his junior, and beyond him, a wall of windows overlooking downtown San Francisco. His furniture is clean and modern, chrome and glass, the chairs artistic and uncomfortable.

And he clearly thinks all three of us are nuts.

“I told you on the phone that this was what we're planning to do,” Adrienne says, not hiding her impatience. In this office, time is money, quite literally.

The other side of Hal's mouth joins in. He likes Adrienne's sass, too, and she's more of his target demographic, if that photo is any indication.

It's kind of funny, watching Leah and Adrienne tag-teaming, especially given all their careful conversations and polite distance to this point.

“Just let me make my case,” Hal says, “to all of you.” He looks at Leah first. “You've never had a baby before.”

“And you have?”

“I've worked with plenty of young women in your position. Too much contact immediately after the birth just confuses the situation.” Meaning, it might make Leah likely to take the baby back. His bow is pointed at Leah, but that arrow's meant for Adrienne. “You've decided that you want your baby to be raised by Adrienne and Gabe. It's best to let them start as soon as possible, without interference.”

“You don't know me,” Leah says. “I'm not going to interfere, and I won't get confused.”

“Hormones can play tricks. The maternal instinct—”

“Is a myth,” Adrienne cuts in sharply. “Every woman doesn't necessarily have it, just by virtue of being female, or because she gave birth. Have you ever watched the Summer Jackson show? Last week, there was a story about a woman who killed her three-year-old and hid her body in the freezer for weeks. Where was her maternal instinct?”

I glance at Leah to see how she'll take that. From her face, she thinks Adrienne is sticking up for her, that they're on the same side.

“We should at least consider what Hal's saying,” I tell them. “He's more experienced than any of us.” Adrienne and Leah give me eerily identical looks, like I'm a traitor. They really could be sisters. In some ways, Adrienne's still a kid herself. If you tell her not to do something, she redoubles her efforts. She wants to prove Hal wrong, to show that we can be the exception. But we don't yet know the reasons for the rule.

“Thanks, Gabe,” Hal says. He's not used to having to fight for
the floor. “Listen, I'm just looking out for all concerned. Let me tell you, an arrangement like this is not going to be good for Leah. She'll be in a fragile emotional state after giving birth, and separating immediately seems painful but it's the best way. Just rip the Band-Aid off and she can start grieving right away. Delayed grief is the worst.”

“Now he's in the psychology business,” Leah says to Adrienne. Then to Hal, “I appreciate your concern.” Her tone conveys the opposite. She doesn't think Hal has her best interests in mind, and she's right. Adrienne and I are the ones paying him; we're his clients. We've bought his allegiance.

“Ask any psychologist,” he rejoins. “A clean break is better.”

“But it's an open adoption. It's not a clean break anyway.” Leah's got him there.

“Open adoptions have certain parameters. There are boundaries. Once you move in with the adoptive family, for an entire year, those go out the window. What are you going to do, act like a nanny?” His face is a mask of incredulity. “It's nuts.” I never expected him to actually spell it out.

“I'm not nuts,” Leah says.

“I'm not saying you're nuts. But the idea's nuts.”

Adrienne reaches across me and lightly touches Leah's leg. “We can go to a different lawyer if we need to.”

Hal looks at me like I might be the last bastion of sanity. “I'll write up any contract you want. It's not my life. But you're making this more complicated than it needs to be, and believe me, it's already complicated. Two mothers and two fathers—”

“There's only one father,” Leah interrupts. “Gabe's the only father.”

“Has the biological father signed his rights away?”

“No, but he will.”

Hal makes a note on his legal pad. “So we'll have to take care of that, too.” He looks up at me, almost imploringly. “Reconsider. This is about to get messy.”

“We're all adults,” Adrienne says with finality. “We've decided that this is the best arrangement for us. Not for everyone, but for us. We want to help Leah get her life in order, and that's what she'll spend the year doing.”

“My life's not out of order,” Leah says.

“That came out wrong.” Adrienne touches Leah again, on the hand this time. “I just mean, you're young. We're going to help you make a fresh start.”

A fresh start? There it is again, that un-Adrienne-like language. The nicey-nice.

“And what about the baby?” Hal asks. “Have you thought about what kind of a start in life this arrangement gives her?”

“Him,” Adrienne says. “And I resent your implication. I do nothing but think of him.”

“I know you're going to love him.” Hal looks at Leah meaningfully. “But Leah will, too. Mark my words. It's going to get messy.”

“Adrienne's going to be his mother.” But Leah's voice, now drained of snark, is much less audible. “I'm just going to be down the hall.”

Adrienne seems satisfied with that answer.

Hal isn't. “This might seem like a delicate subject but I'd be remiss if I didn't bring it up. What about breast-feeding?”

“No breast-feeding,” Adrienne says, as Leah shakes her head vigorously.

“Breast-feeding is best for a baby. Breast milk is better than formula on every level. It encourages the immune system, and he'll learn problem-solving.”

Leah cocks her head, as in, Seriously?
Problem-solving?

“So now your business is medicine,” Adrienne says, bright with irony. Leah scoffs with her. But I'm finding him persuasive.

Undeterred, he continues. “Read the research. It's the best thing. But it's also the best for bonding. And when a child bonds to a mother, the mother bonds to the child. That's a hard bond to break. The hardest. Do you get what I'm saying?”

“I'm not breast-feeding,” Leah says sulkily. “So it's not an issue.”

“There are tons of issues. If you're in the home, there will be a never-ending, multiplying, escalating series of issues. You'll want to give your child the best start, won't you? So since you're going to be around anyway, you might want to rethink the breast-feeding.”

Leah's eyes flash with anger. “Oh, as long as I'm there, I might as well get
milked
ten times a day? That's what you're saying?”

“As long as you're there”—his tone becomes gentle, paternal even—“you'll want to give that baby the best you have. That's what I'm saying. The maternal instinct is strong, and it's real. You think women lift cars off their babies because they ate their Wheaties that morning?” He scans the three of us. “You're all messing with something you can't begin to understand yet, because it's something you don't yet feel. But you will, and then what?”

“Once the contract is written,” I say quietly, “can either party break it?”

Hal laughs. “I don't write contracts that you can easily break. If I did, why would anyone pay me?” He looks at me hard. “We're going to try to prepare for contingencies, but if you sign, you'd better be ready for what comes next. Which could be anything.”

Adrienne and Leah are watching me. I see that somehow, miraculously, nothing Hal has said has made a dent in either of their resolves. That means that this actually is the right decision, or wrong as they come.