Daughters for a Time (6 page)

I refolded the letter and wiped the tears from my face. Looked at Claire to see how she was doing. Saw a single tear easing down her cheek. I exhaled noisily, blew my nose, and packed away the letters.

That night, while Tim was in the exercise room, I slipped into the bathroom with two pregnancy tests. I read the directions carefully, though by now I was a pro. I locked the door, spread out the contents, and peed into a cup. I dropped the urine into the test area and then waited. A few minutes later, I had the results. One lonely pink line. One very definite negative sign. I held up the tests at different angles, looked at them in different lights, squinted. Maybe it was too early to tell. I waited another five minutes but nothing changed. The negative sign hadn’t miraculously turned positive; one line hadn’t turned to two. I threw the tests away, buried them in the garbage. Five minutes later, I dug them out, just in case the results had changed. They hadn’t. This time I wrapped the remnants in a brown paper
bag, crumpled it, and shoved it to the bottom of the garbage under tissues and dental floss so I wouldn’t be tempted to look again.

I waited for the tears to come, but interestingly, they didn’t. An eerie stoicism had taken their place. Could it be that I was all cried out, that my water supply had dried up? Or maybe, could it be that the adoption idea was starting to settle in me? Was it finally sinking in that my infertility might be related to whatever had eventually led to Mom’s ovarian cancer, that my body just wasn’t capable of doing what I wanted it to do? Was it time to admit that I was the end of my line, the last bead to drop from a withered strand of DNA?

In the bedroom, I walked to the dresser, put my hand on the stack of adoption papers, and took a deep breath.

June rolled in, then July. My period continued to earn perfect attendance, showing up every twenty-eight days.
We may not do much
, my slacker eggs seemed to be saying,
but we’re still here.

In a quiet moment, I finally acquiesced and opened the adoption packet, read it through. Then I went onto the adoption agency website, read, and scrolled through the photos. The site described the children: orphaned, abandoned, vulnerable, waiting for a home. There was one photo in particular—a string of glossy-haired toddlers lined up against a cinderblock wall, holding hands and offering pick-me grins. They were so adorable and perfect. I just stared into their eyes, thinking neither she nor she nor she had ever felt the safety of a mother’s arms, had ever nuzzled into a father’s neck, had ever fallen asleep bookended by two people who would move heaven and earth for her.

It hit me hard. At once, I wanted to be someone to one of these girls.

The tears came, tears made of the same sadness that I had cried for the baby I couldn’t have. I cried—no, I blubbered—freely, as one does in the company of only herself. I read, scrolled, and traced the cursor over the photos. I cried, blew my nose, scrolled some more. Before I knew it, an hour had passed. During that span of time, my pile of Kleenex had
grown into a mountain, and the strangest thing had happened. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I had cried a year’s worth of tears. It was undeniable: I had been touched, my heart warmed by an entire society of abandoned baby girls from China.
I could do this
, I thought.
Maybe I could do this.
Before Tim got home from the restaurant, I had already drafted our essay for the application.

But my openness to adoption was tempered only a week later, when I felt a twinge in my ovary that suggested that my disappointing eggs were trying to twist and claw their way back into my good graces.
Don’t forget about us
, they seemed to be calling.
We’ve let you down before…but give us another chance. Maybe we’ll make something of ourselves this time.
And since a mother never loses faith in her children, I once again allowed my burning desire to have a baby kindle hopes in my heart and mind. I called the doctor, asked him about a new medication I had read about that seemed highly effective at stimulating ovulation.

“Helen,” he said, his weariness with me audible over the phone. “I’ll prescribe it to you, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“My hopes are not up,” I said. “In fact, we’re looking into adoption. But there’s no harm in trying a few more times.”

As I hung up, I placed my hand over my left ovary, gave it a pat, and told it that this was its last chance. Hail Mary time.

A few weeks later, my cell phone rang and it was Tim, saying that he’d be home early for once—by seven o’clock. Tim was never home that early, so I took it as a sign. Today happened to be Day Sixteen of my cycle, and according to my temperature rise and ovulation kit, tonight would be a good night to try. With Tim coming home early, we could put some real effort into it, rather than the usual routine of Tim getting home at midnight, me waking up from a deep sleep, and trying to
get things going. This would be our last try, I negotiated with myself. If it didn’t work this month, I’d give in to the adoption.

I decided to reward Tim for coming home early—and butter him up for a good effort tonight with a batch of cream puffs, his favorite. I went into the kitchen and began pulling out ingredients. Once the pastry batter was out of the saucepan and cooling in a bowl, I preheated the oven and baking sheet. Then I prepared the custard and set it aside. Next, I piped onto the baking sheet twenty-four circular mounds. Once they were in the oven, I melted chocolate in a double boiler.

While the puffs were baking, I ran upstairs to freshen up. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, dabbed some foundation under my eyes and around my mouth, swiped some mascara over my lashes, and smeared a layer of pink gloss onto my lips. I pulled on some clean yoga pants and a tank top, throwing my oversized T-shirt and jeans into the laundry basket.

Back in the kitchen, I removed the puffs from the oven, and while they cooled, I opened a bottle of Cabernet Franc, Tim’s favorite, and let it breathe. Then I piped the custard filling into the center of the cream puffs, closed them up, and dipped the tops in chocolate. I popped one into my mouth and smiled, thinking about how excited Tim would be when he saw a plate of these. I poured a glass of wine, took a long sip, and closed my eyes as the notes of cherry warmed their way down my throat. My last glass, I reasoned. Just in case.

At six thirty, I went into the family room, fluffed the pillows, folded the afghan, and started a Coltrane CD that Tim liked. At seven o’clock, I heard Tim pull up. I went to the window and saw that Tim’s car was there, but so was another car behind him—a minivan. I watched as Tim waited while a man, woman, and baby got out of their car. Tim offered to carry a bag. As they got closer, I saw that it was Danny Meyer,
Tim’s friend from school, and his wife, Ellen. And, of course, their gurgling adopted baby from China.

I squeezed my eyes tightly and gritted my teeth until my face shook. Damn you, Tim! Bringing home the faithful to proselytize.

I plastered on a fake smile, met them at the door. “Hello,” I said. “This is a surprise! Good to see you guys.” I had met Danny and Ellen a couple of times years ago.

“I happened to be talking to Danny today,” Tim said. “And we thought that it would be a good idea for you to talk to them about Sasha, their new daughter.”

“Great,” I said, fuming inside, thinking that if I had Tim alone right now, I’d throttle him and then make him watch me flush his cream puffs down the toilet.

Ellen looked at me with a nervous face. “Sorry for just popping in like this.”

“Oh, please,” I said, waving away her concern. “Come on in. I just opened a bottle of wine and made a batch of cream puffs. Please, help yourself.”

“Another benefit to adoption,” Ellen said. “You can drink through the entire process.”

Adoption buffs were always saying stuff like that: You can drink the whole time! No morning sickness! No need for those awful maternity clothes! Never mind that I fantasized about paneled denim, imagining my protruding belly, my supportive hand on my hip as I backed my way onto the sofa.

I laughed, smiled, and when Danny and Ellen hovered over Sasha, I sent Tim a look that told him that he was in serious trouble. He shrugged at me like I wasn’t too scary.

We settled in the family room and spread out a blanket for Sasha. I stared at her while Ellen rambled on about the logistics, the paperwork, and the travel. How waiting for the INS approval was the hardest part. How Danny’s fingerprints got
confused with a petty thief’s doing time in Georgia. How once there was an error in the file, it was like moving mountains to fix it.

At some point, I stopped listening and began to wonder, tried to conjure up an image of a little Chinese baby, rattling around in a crib with others just like her. What would it be like to hold a baby who had never been held by a mother or father who adored her? I thought of Maura, how she had been welcomed into this world in a warm hospital, nestled at her mother’s breast, swaddled tightly in soft blankets. How wildly her start differed from the scenario that Tim was proposing: adopting a baby born…where? On the dirt floor of a hut in rural China, her parents disgusted when they saw that she was a girl? An old saying described Chinese females as “grass born to be stepped on.” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t read
The Good Earth
, and the entire collection of Amy Tan books. I knew how girls were treated there. I knew that it was only the lucky ones who were abandoned in open marketplaces or on the road leading up to the orphanage.

“With children, you write on a blank slate,” Claire always said. But if I acquiesced, if I gave into an adoption, we’d be getting a baby whose slate was anything but blank. A year in an orphanage could certainly mar one’s slate, if not warp, crack, or break it altogether. Not to mention the shoddy, possibly nonexistent, prenatal care that the birth mother had likely received. Smoking, drinking, drugs, poor nutrition, disease—who knew what a baby’s nine months in the womb were like, without even considering what the following months brought.

While a baby like Maura was having love lavished upon her by two parents who wanted a child more than anything in the world, I was being asked to consider loving an orphan who might not love me back. And while I was fully cognizant that being a parent meant being selfless, meant giving
of myself in exchange for nothing in return, I wasn’t ready to strike that deal in such bleak terms. I needed what Maura gave to Claire: bright smiles, uninhibited displays of devotion, velvety cuddles. I needed the pure adoration, little possum hands hooked onto my shirt, endless strings of kisses. I wasn’t strong like families I’d seen on the news, adopting ten special-needs kids, shaking off praise as if it were nothing. I stood in awe of those parents, but it wasn’t me. I needed to acknowledge my limitations.

I needed my daughter to love me back.

Here’s the thing, peanut
, I’d say to my prospective daughter.
I’ll love you until you cry uncle. You won’t know what to do with the amount of love that I’ll have for you. But it’s vital, it’s essential, that you love me back. Because you see, we’re the same. I have a hole in my heart, too. I’ll fill yours. But I’m counting on you to fill mine. Do we have a deal? Pinky swear?

But what if the answer was no? What if the answer was maybe? Not now? Perhaps in a few years? What if it was never? What if all the nurturing in the world could not restore what was robbed from the baby I got? What if the separation from her birth mother caused irreparable damage to her ability to trust? Who was I to think that I had the ability, talent, patience, capacity to care for a child like that? What evidence did I have that I was strong enough? I hadn’t exactly healed well after Mom died. I hadn’t exactly fared well during my failures with infertility. I wasn’t Claire.

Having a biological child seemed easier. I would know where she was coming from. There would be no mysteries about scarred hearts or pain or longing. Having a biological child seemed doable, like making pancakes or biscuits. But adopting a child seemed much more difficult, excessively difficult, like layering paper-thin pastry dough in order to make a perfectly flaky phyllo.

I sat down on the floor next to Sasha, held out my finger for her to grab, and made silly, googly faces at her. She smiled and clapped and squeaked the cutest sound. When she looked at me, my heart issued a percussive beat, and I felt compelled to look away, as if I knew that looking at her for too long was as dangerous as staring directly into the sun. She was beautiful, and if her start had been a rocky one, I certainly couldn’t tell. Was it possible that she had made it through her beginnings unscathed? Was being adopted a magical tonic that granted these girls a do-over, erasing any trace of hurt?

Sasha looked at me as if to say,
I’m loveable, don’t you think? You can find a space in your heart for a baby like me, couldn’t you?

Maybe
, I thought.