Daisy (12 page)
December wanted to nurse, but her colostrum hadn’t even come in yet, and Tennyson—Lance gave up arguing about names when he saw December in labor—was so small that he struggled to even take a bottle. The doctors had to put him on a feeding tube. December cried about that, too. She’d worked so hard to come up with a birth plan that reflected all her goals and expectations, but it had unraveled completely. She couldn’t see her baby until she was well enough, and she was still sick from the medication they’d pumped through her veins. Lance and I took turns rubbing her feet and bringing her glasses of water.
It was almost seven o’clock Sunday night when I presented myself at the NICU and washed up as though I were going to perform a surgery or something. I put on the gown then followed the nurse to the tiny Plexiglas box where my grandson lay, hooked up to tubes and wires. I was shocked to see him like that, and I stared for several seconds until a nurse approached me.
“Would you like to hold him?” she asked.
I looked up at her. “Can I?”
She indicated for me to pull up one of the many rocking chairs placed around the room. It took a few minutes for her to adjust Tennyson’s wires and tubes correctly, but then she handed me his tiny little body and helped me settle him on my chest. She put a blanket over both of us, and I adjusted our position until I could look into the swollen, scrunched up face.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the nurse said before pulling a curtain around us to give us some privacy.
I could feel the faintest heartbeat against my chest, and emotion filled me up from top to bottom. Tears rose in my eyes. “Hello there, Tennyson. I’m your grandma. Can you believe that?”
He puckered his lips, and I laughed, deciding to take that as an answer that it was hard for him to believe it too. “You sure know how to make an entrance,” I whispered, overcome by the spirit of this infant child. I went on to tell him about his mom and dad, as though I were his tour guide for this new adventure he’d undertaken. I talked about Stormy, about California, and all the fun things we would do when he came to visit. I told him about Paul and then . . . then I told him about my baby—his aunt or uncle—and struggled to wipe my eyes with my shoulder as I imagined holding my own child this same way in not too many months.
I could barely breathe with the understanding that filled me in that instant. I’d been taking a journey to accept this, tiptoeing closer, but suddenly, it was so
real.
I wasn’t simply carrying a baby—I was carrying
my
baby. And I would hold it soon, and love it, and nurse it, and raise it up into a whole person, like December and Stormy.
How terrifying. How exquisite.
In that instant, I felt like I was in the eye of a storm. I knew my journey wasn’t over, but for the first time, I felt a glimmer of excitement and positive anticipation. The fact that I was having a baby was as unbelievable as ever, but a different kind of unbelievable. This disbelieving moment was sweet and tender and somehow invigorating.
“We’d better put him back.”
I blinked up at the nurse, who was standing a few feet away. I hadn’t heard her approach but nodded my agreement. Again, returning Tennyson to his crib was a process that took a few minutes, but eventually I was looking through that Plexiglas box again, watching the little person who would now be a part of the rest of my life.
As I stared, the eye of the storm passed by, and my fears returned. I didn’t want this. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do it. But the moment of understanding I’d had helped ease some of my fears. Just knowing I
had
felt that assurance was something. Surely I would get there again, to stay. I could only hope.
Sunday became Monday, and after heading to the hospital in the morning, I spent three full hours in the cafeteria on the phone with my office, helping them find their way through the work I’d left on my desk. Year-end was not a good time to be a no-show, and I was reminded, twice, of the mandatory training meeting Thursday afternoon about upcoming procedure changes, effective January first. I could not miss it.
By two o’clock I was finally able to put aside the urgent work and tune back in to December. She was looking better, feeling better, and though she’d been able to go see Tennyson with Lance that morning, she was ready for another trip. I couldn’t believe she could walk already, but I stayed at her side and steadied her as we made the slow trek to the NICU.
“The nursery isn’t ready,” December said. “At the house. It’s not done.”
“I’ll work on it when I go back tonight,” I assured her. “It’ll be ready by the time you come home, I promise.”
“When do you have to go back home?”
My stomach sank. I wanted to stay so much, but I knew I couldn’t. “I need to be back by Thursday.”
December didn’t say anything, but a few moments later she sniffled, and I saw her wipe at her eyes with the sleeve of the new pajamas I’d bought her.
“Oh, sweetie,” I said, feeling tears come to my eyes too. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could stay longer.” I had tried to come up with any way I could make it work, but there were no options. There were things that needed to be done that only I could do. “I can probably come back out for Christmas.” I cringed at the expense, but was willing to swallow it. If I worked late and got ahead of my policies, instead of behind, I could probably take a few extra days for the holiday.
“I need to sit down,” December said as we passed a bench in the hallway. I helped her gingerly sit, and once I let go of her arm, she wiped at her eyes more completely. Her chin still trembled and for a moment she looked so much like the little girl she had once been.
“I can’t do this,” she said under her breath, bringing her hands to her face. “How can I do this? I’m not ready.”
“You’re doing wonderfully,” I told her, rubbing her back and stroking her hair. “You’re already up and walking, and you’re not as swollen as you were yesterday.”
She shook her head, and her shoulder-length brown hair fell forward. “He’s not coming home with me,” she squeaked. “They’re keeping him here. Lance has to work—he has to—and I can’t drive myself to the hospital until I’m off my medication.” She began to sob, then put a hand to her belly as though it hurt her.
I pulled her into my arms and held on as tight as I dared while trying to think of her options. I automatically thought back to the resources I’d grown up expecting to be there and make up the difference—church and family. But December didn’t have either of those things. I hadn’t raised her with a church, and she had no family here in Ohio.
“Do you have friends who could take turns bringing you to the hospital?” I asked.
She shrugged and was trying to stop crying as though embarrassed by the breakdown, but I felt horrible. I was supposed to be the person helping her right now, and I could stay only two more days. I had the crazy idea I should just quit my job and fix this. But there was Paul and Stormy to consider, bills to pay, and health insurance to keep. After another minute, December apologized, and I helped her walk the rest of the way to the NICU. The nurse led us to Tennyson’s isolette and asked if December wanted to hold him.
She unbuttoned the top buttons of her pajamas so he’d have more contact with her skin. The nurse said she’d come back in a minute to see if she could help December nurse. December seemed to lose all her tension and worry once Tennyson snuggled into her chest. She wrapped the sides of her pajama top around him, and then the nurse settled another blanket over the top of them, wrapping them together like a cocoon. December rocked slowly back and forth, closing her eyes as though soaking him up like the rays of the sun. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and looked at me. “Could Grandma come?”
“Grandma?” I repeated. Was she talking about me or . . . my mother? Here I’d been trying to find solutions and the obvious one hadn’t even been a consideration. I was equally quick to discount it. “She’s a long way away,” I said, but then felt bad. It
was
an option, and while my mother and I weren’t all that close, December had had a bond with her from the first few years of December’s life.
“I know, but when I talked to her last week, she said to let her know if I needed anything.” December’s eyes became a bit more pleading. “I could really use her help after you leave.”
“I’ll call her,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t even called to tell her about her great-grandson being born.
“Thanks, Mom,” December said, closing her eyes and looking more relaxed. Which is why I would call my mother and ask her to fill the role I couldn’t fill in my daughter’s life. Again.
Lance came to the hospital after he finished work. The poor boy looked exhausted, but I sensed they wanted to be alone so I kissed December and drove back to the house where I set to work cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and organizing the baby things December hadn’t expected to need for several weeks. Even the newborn clothes looked huge. Maybe I could find some more preemie outfits tomorrow. I couldn’t move the desk out of the nursery by myself, so I did everything else I could think of besides that.
My cell phone rang around eight o’clock. I took a deep breath when I saw it was my mother calling me back. When I’d talked to her earlier, she’d been abrupt with me, saying she’d see what she could do. I’d hung up the phone more tense than ever, realizing that one of my biggest stumbling blocks about being a mother was the relationship I had with my own. It had never been a good one, and even after raising two children, I feared my children would feel toward me the way I felt toward her. Except they didn’t. Not really.
“Hi,” I said when I answered the phone.
“Daisy, hi,” she said in her abrupt way. My mother
was
a nurturer, but if you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t guess it right off. She’d always been blunt and sharp at the same time, and I had to consciously keep myself from taking offense. “I’ve worked it out with your father and your sisters for me to come out tomorrow.”
“So soon?” I’d planned to fly home on Wednesday and hoped that maybe she and I would miss each other.
“Yes, yes, it all came together. I’ll be able to stay a week.”
“Wow, a whole week.” I knew I shouldn’t be jealous that she could stay longer than I could, but I was. “December will be so grateful.”
“The poor thing,” Mom said, though she still had that clipped tone that seemed at odds with her words. “Hard to start out motherhood this way.”
I clenched my jaw. How about it being hard to start out motherhood as a seventeen-year-old single mom? I’d never had sympathy from my mother for
my
start. But I was instantly embarrassed by my thoughts. What was wrong with me?
“She’s struggling,” I finally said. “It’s good of you to come.”
“Of course,” Mom said. “I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way.”
Like I was,
I thought, thinking of how I had to go back to work. “Do you know when you’ll be here?”
“I hope to get an early start, which should put me there in the afternoon.”
“You’re driving?”
“Certainly. I can’t afford to jump on a plane; plus, I’ll need transportation while I’m there. When does December come home from the hospital?”
“Wednesday morning,” I said. “My flight leaves that afternoon.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see all of you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, drive safe.”
“I will.”
I hung up and wanted to scream. I didn’t want her to come to December’s rescue. She hadn’t wanted me to even
keep
December. Did she ever think about that? Had she ever admitted she’d been wrong about me and my potential?
While straightening up the living room, I found a book about pregnancy and childbirth and sat down on the couch to read it, taking note of how little I had done to prepare. What if I wasn’t healthy enough for this? I had been sick and not eating well. What if that hurt the baby? I read until I was sufficiently overwhelmed, then put the book back where I’d found it. I still couldn’t believe this was happening.
Mom arrived around six o’clock Tuesday night. She came right to the hospital and organized December’s side table, forced Lance to have a meal that included vegetables, and asked a hundred questions of the NICU nurse that hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Basically, she made me look and feel like an idiot as she effortlessly took over. I retreated to the sidelines and let her run the show. She was efficient and smooth, and, based on December’s reaction, calming. December had been emotional all day, hating that tomorrow she would go home empty-handed. Now that Mom was here, though, she was taking it in stride. My insignificance seemed to know no bounds. We finally left the hospital around eight thirty, and I was glad to be alone in my rental car. It gave me time to prepare for being alone with Mom at the house.
“Well,” Mom said when we shut the front door of December’s house behind us. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” I said. “I had a sandwich at the hospital while you went to the NICU.”
“I was thinking of making some popcorn,” Mom said, heading into the kitchen. “Do you think December has some popcorn—preferably not microwavable? It’s good to end the day with fiber.”
“I have no idea if she has fiber or not,” I said, sitting down heavily and letting the couch cushions envelop me. I might never stand up again.
“You mean popcorn.”
“What?”
“You said you didn’t know if she had fiber or not. You meant popcorn, I think.”
I waved a hand through the air. “Popcorn. That’s what I meant.”
“I know. That’s what I said you meant.”
I stopped talking and just breathed deeply, leaning my head against the couch and trying not to think about my mom watching me, judging me, and juggling a hundred questions in her mind that she didn’t dare ask. I’d hoped Lance would have come home with us to diffuse the tension, but the doctors had Tennyson on a two-hour feeding schedule, and Lance wanted to be at the ten o’clock feeding with December.
I closed my eyes and must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I knew, a hand on my knee startled me awake. I blinked to see my mother’s face above me. She handed me a large pink mixing bowl.
“She had popcorn,” Mom said, taking a handful from the bowl. “And a Whirly Popper.” She smiled, causing a firework of wrinkles to appear beside both eyes. She’d stopped coloring her hair since I’d seen her last, and her gray curls were soft around her face. “I put extra butter on, just how you like it.”
She must have caught me off guard because I laughed, taking us both by surprise. “You’re the one who likes extra butter,” I said. “You only blame it on me.”
She smiled even wider and shrugged. “You like extra butter too, so we can share the blame.” She sat down next to me on the couch, and we munched in silence for a few minutes.
“How’s Stormy?” Mom asked. I felt myself bracing.
“Good.” I hadn’t told her that Stormy was living with Jared, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to. “She’s in the school play,
Phantom of the Opera.
It’ll run through the end of January.”
“Wonderful,” Mom said. “She’s a talented girl.”
“She is.”
“And how’s Paul?”
Guilt descended. I took another handful of popcorn. “Good,” I said. “Working hard.”
“Good,” Mom said.
We’d run out of things to talk about already. It was my turn to command the small talk. “How’s Dad?”
“Hanging in there,” Mom said. “His doctor thinks he needs a new hip. Maybe this summer—I don’t know.”
We worked through updates on my siblings, Mom’s sisters, and Dad’s mom, Grams, who was still alive and kicking at the age of ninety-one. Well, maybe not kicking.
“We should get a five-generation photo,” Mom said. “Hopefully Grams will hang on that long.”
“That would be fun,” I said. “Maybe we can all come to Virginia this summer, before Dad’s surgery.” As soon as I said it, though, I realized I might have a baby of my own by then. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Mom said, nodding.
Another silence descended. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“And how are you, Daisy-Day? Is everything all right with you?”
For some reason, her question initiated a wave of emotion I was desperate not to show. Nothing was all right with me, but my mother was not someone I would share that with. She never had been. For as long as I could remember I hadn’t trusted her with my emotions. I shrugged and stared into the popcorn bowl. “Fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
“I’ve been worried about you.”
I hated being worried about. It implied that I might need help from someone, that I might be incapable of handling whatever I needed to handle on my own. “I’m fine.”
Mom seemed to accept that. “He’s sure a beautiful baby, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” I said.
“Though the name is quite strange.”
“Alfred Lord Tennyson is December’s favorite British poet,” I said, feeling a little defensive and yet pleased to know this detail about my daughter. “It holds special significance for her.”
“Well, regardless, it’s wonderful to see her taking this step in her life, isn’t it? Babies are magical.”
“Magical?” I repeated, unable to block how unmagical it had been when I had brought my baby home. “Hmmm.”
Mom interpreted my response as a desire for explanation. “Well, they’re just amazing little souls fresh from God. They bring healing and happiness, joy and celebration with them. It’s remarkable, the spell they can cast on people. You can see it in December’s eyes when she looks at him; she’s instantly in love. It’s a beautiful thing seeing a mother and child together like that, especially this close to Christmas.”
I blinked at my mother and felt my anger boiling. I had a distinct memory of coming home from the hospital to a house decorated for Christmas. “You never said anything like that to me when I had a baby around Christmastime.”
“Well, your situation was never quite like December’s, was it? You never had this kind of stability.”
“So maybe only some babies are magical, then? If you’re not ready to be a mom, then the child is less valuable?”
I could feel her looking at me with her stoic stare; I looked straight ahead as she answered.
“That’s not what I said. This isn’t about you.”
I laughed without humor. “Of course it isn’t,” I said, standing and wishing I had taped my mouth shut.
“Why are you so angry all of a sudden?” she asked as I passed in front of her as though I had somewhere I could go to get away from her.
“Never mind,” I said, rubbing at my eyes and reconsidering the sleeping arrangements. Maybe I should go to a hotel. Obviously I couldn’t control myself very well right now. “I’m tired.”
“So am I,” Mom said. She rose and headed into the kitchen to rinse the cereal bowls Lance and I had left in the sink that morning.
I took off my shoes and eyed the couch that would be my bed. Mom had already set up the inflatable bed she’d brought with her in the nursery. She never missed a detail. The hotel was sounding better and better.
From the kitchen, Mom said, “I’d caution you to be careful comparing your situation to December’s. It’s not the same.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said in an almost offhand manner. “I’m the sinner. I forgot.”
Mom shook her head and turned to face me. “I did not come here to fight with you, Daisy.”
“I know. You came to help December because she’s done it the
right
way.”
Mom turned back to the sink, but she was out of dishes, so she wiped down the counter as a way to keep from having to look at me. “She
has
done it the right way. Don’t let your jealousy get in the way of her success.”
“It was thirty years ago.” I wasn’t sure who I was saying that for. Me or her? Shouldn’t I be over this thirty years later?
“You’re the one who brought it up, dear.”
She turned to face me but didn’t say anything else. I took that as a challenge. “I’m so tired of feeling judged.”
Mom shook her head and actually rolled her eyes before turning back to the sink where she wrung out the washcloth and laid it perfectly flat over the divider in the sink. “You
want
to feel judged.”
My eyebrows shot up. “I want to feel judged?”
“It makes you feel superior.”
I sputtered and could feel the heat in my face. “That makes no sense at all, Mom,” I said. “I have no need to feel superior, but I don’t deserve the censure, either.”
Mom’s shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath. “When have I censured you?” she asked. “When have I put you down or called you out on anything? You act as though I’m continually harping on you or being critical of your choices. When have I done it? Give me an example.”
My mind was reeling. “Only one?” I spat out, but I was stalling. Suddenly I couldn’t latch on to anything, so I went with the easiest one. “When I got pregnant with December, you wanted me to give her up for adoption. You had a prayer meeting for me, for heaven’s sake.”
“If Stormy were pregnant, wouldn’t you ask her to at least consider adoption?”
The calmness of her question only antagonized me more. “I wouldn’t tell her to do it.”
“Did I tell you to do it?”
“Yes!”
“When?”
I hunted my gray matter. I dug and searched for it, but now that I’d been called on the carpet, I didn’t know how to answer.
Had
she told me to give December up for adoption, or had it been only a suggestion, something to consider? I remembered going to Catholic Charities, where the nuns had talked to me about the blessing of a child being raised by parents who had covenanted with God and each other, but I didn’t remember why I’d gone there.
I was starting to feel confused by the fact that I knew—I
knew
—my mother was overbearing and blunt to the point of being rude, but she didn’t lie. She didn’t. But if she hadn’t made me feel forced somehow, why was I so angry?
Mom sighed and folded her arms. “Let me tell you a little bit about seventeen-year-old Daisy,” she said, her face absolutely serious. “She was beautiful and smart and talented—everyone loved her. She might not have been the most popular girl in the school, but I would be surprised if there was anyone who didn’t like her. She wanted to become a nurse. Do you remember that?”
I did, but it seemed so long ago that it didn’t feel real anymore.
“So, there she was, this smart, unpretentious, good-hearted girl. She started dating a boy her father and I didn’t approve of. We wanted you to be with people who would support the values we felt were so important. He wouldn’t do that. We knew it, yet you lit up when he entered the room. You had always been independent, but suddenly you weren’t coming home on time, you were lying about where you’d been, you didn’t want to go to Mass or youth group.”
“More judgments,” I cut in. “The fact that I didn’t believe what you believe put me on the outside as soon as I dared say it. It was unfair to judge me for having different beliefs than you did.”
“And you’re not judging me for believing different than you?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “Church can help us find God, and then it helps us stay close to Him. It’s a vehicle, Daisy, not a destination in and of itself. But you were suddenly not interested. In our experience, not wanting to worship means there is unrequited sin in need of confession, but you wouldn’t go. We were really starting to worry about where this boy might take you, when you came home one day to say you were pregnant. You weren’t tearful. You weren’t repentant. You saw it as a shortcut to a grown-up life.”
I felt a shudder rip through me as for a moment I was that seventeen-year-old girl again, telling my parents about the wonderful thing that had happened. It hadn’t been what I believed, exactly—I was terrified—but I had presented it to them completely different because I thought it would make me seem more mature, more capable. Strong.
Mom continued, but her words hit me differently now. “Your father and I spent hours on our knees seeking the Lord’s help with this. We did not see December as the end of you or your life, but we saw that your journey would be very different and that you had no idea what you were up against. You moved in with Scott. You promised us you would get married, and then, when you didn’t and instead moved back home, you didn’t even thank us for the help. You never did, really. I cared for December while you finished school. I took her to get her immunizations, I took her to the park to play, and I even stayed up with her when she was sick so that you could get your rest.”
I hadn’t thought about those things, but she was right. I felt sick.
“As soon as you had a good job, you were ready to leave, and you acted as if we’d somehow been holding you back, making things so hard for you. You were determined to prove that you could do this on your own. Even as we admired your spunk, we worried about you very much. You were a nineteen-year-old girl with a GED under your belt, barely a year of college, and a toddler in the backseat. I still watched December after you moved out, and though you were gracious enough, you still treated it like it was my job.
“Then you moved to California and disappeared completely from our lives. I was heartbroken. I realized that at least part of my being there to help you and December was due to the hope that it would get us to a point where you and I could be closer. If I helped you, surely you would soften toward us.” She shrugged. “But then you didn’t call. You didn’t visit. You just went on with your life, and through it all, you’ve treated the past as though
we
somehow damaged you, hurt you, treated you badly. When the fact is, Daisy-Day, we didn’t.”
Her voice had softened in direct proportion to my tension increasing.
“We loved you, and we worked hard to support you in a bad situation, but what you wanted was a celebration. You wanted to somehow be applauded for being a pregnant teenager. You wanted baby showers and accolades, and there was no way we could give you approval for something we didn’t see as a good thing for you. We love December, and we can’t imagine a life without her in it, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t justified in our disappointment. You were not ready to be a mother, and we were worried about your future. That you’ve done well is wonderful, and we are proud of you, but please don’t judge us so harshly. If you are truly honest with yourself and look at the situation from the perspective of a grown woman rather than a teenage girl, I think you’ll see a very different picture than the one you’ve chosen to paint in your head.”