Dear Carolina (16 page)

RUNNING YOUR KNEE INTO A TRAILER HITCH

When it's getting to be rhubarb season, and you're thinking 'bout putting it up, you gotta do it quick as you can. Them first cuttings is the right time to freeze. Wait too late and all you got is a fibrous old stalk, tougher than nails.

After I said out loud that maybe I oughta give you up, I thought I'd just give it a little time, figure out if I could make it through without drinking again. But I could just hear my grandma's voice in my head, talkin' about that rhubarb. And I knew if I was gonna do it, it had to be right soon.

But deciding to give up your child is damn near like having to choose whether to cut off your hand or your foot. Don't matter what you pick, you ain't never gonna be whole again.

I don't know who said time heals all wounds, but they ain't right. 'Cause don't matter what I do, I won't never get over giving you up. That's why growin' up is so hard. You can know right clear in your heart that you did the right thing. But that don't
keep it from hurtin' like running your knee into a trailer hitch, all day, every day, over and over and over again.

Buddy and me, we decided the last night of our trip we would be fancy and go out to dinner. His treat—seeing as how I had four bucks to my name. I was real sad that night, tryin' to figure out what I was gonna do, but already knowing the right thing, like you always do. I wanted so bad to be the momma you needed—without drinkin' myself into the common ground at the trailer park.

So Buddy was just drivin' along, and I said, “You know what, I don't care what my daddy said. I'm gonna get on welfare, keep my baby, and pray real hard to stay clean and sober.”

I don't know if it were a coincidence or a sign from God but right in that same dag dern minute I saw a tiny girl, probably not more than eighteen months old, outta the corner a' my eye. Her house was damn near falling down, weren't nobody watching her, she weren't wearing nothing but a diaper that looked like it hadn't been changed since Bush was president, and she jumped right in a puddle of God only knows what. I was fixing to tell Buddy to do something, but he was already on the phone with the police.

I was getting outta that truck, saying, “We cain't just leave her there!”

But the sheriff pulled up, and I got to crying instead a' helping.

“It's okay,” Buddy said. “The police will handle it.”

And that's when I knew.

I shook my head and through my tears said, “No, Buddy. That's what I'm talking 'bout. That could be Carolina out there.”

“What d'ya mean?” he asked, taking his hand off the steering wheel to rub my shoulder.

“That momma in there, she's probably all right when you get
right down to it. But she ain't got no clue her kid's out here in the cold, worse'n a orphan 'cause she's passed out.”

Buddy waved his hand and said, “Naw. She probably just slipped out the door in a second like kids do.”

That minute you was born and I saw that pretty face, I swore to heaven that I'd protect you forever. I couldn't near imagine any momma not feeling that way. But I didn't say any of that to Buddy because he wouldn't have understood anyhow.

“Oh, Jodi, just give it time. I'm sure it gets easier.”

I stared out the windshield into the black night, the stars twinkling above my head, feeling as lost down here as I would up there. “That's the thing,” I said. “Being a momma ain't supposed to be about what's easy.”

THE EVIL WITCH

My design column in
House Beautiful
was the first opportunity I had to elevate my career from ordinary to A-list. I'd grown up writing stories and reading magazines, and when my boss, Anna, mentioned that she could get me a meeting, I knew I could nail the interview and land myself on a national platform that would make my career. The night before that interview, I couldn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned like a psychiatric patient wiggling free from a straitjacket knowing that this one event had the power to transform my life.

That night was exactly, to a
T
, the same as the night before we came home from New York. I ran over and over in my head what I would say to your birth momma, how I would ask her for the ultimate gift, how I would convince her that it was the right thing without insinuating that she was a bad mother or an incapable one.

I had that same thick shell my momma did, but inside, I wasn't
as confident as I appeared. So, as soon as I woke up, I called the boldest, brashest woman I knew.

“Good morning, my love,” Bunny said.

Bunny, who had started as a client but quickly become one of my best friends in the city, was always an early riser. Tall, broad, and lean but boxy, she was born to be an athlete just like I was born to be a mother. She satisfied her inner Flo-Jo by taking a long run every morning before her three children woke up and her husband went to work.

“May I come over?” I asked, simply.

“Are you here?” Bunny asked, enthusiasm rising in her voice. “Why didn't you call me before?”

I bit my lip, feeling guilty that I had been so wrapped up in you I hadn't even seen one of the people in my life who had always been the best to me. But Bunny was one of those great, low-maintenance friends who didn't ruminate over trivial things like a missed visit. So, without apologizing, I said, “I'm here. And I need your advice.”

“Okay,” Bunny said, her voice laced with a teacher's authoritativeness. “Can we meet at Le Pan Quotidien? I'm dying for a soft-boiled egg.”

I laughed. It was that classic Bunny decisiveness that I needed. Thirty minutes later we were sitting across a rustic farm table, coffee in hand, eating delicious, fresh-baked organic bread with soft-boiled eggs on top. “Mmmm,” I said.

“Everything is simply better when you do as the French,” Bunny said, her golf ball–sized diamond sparkling in the low lighting, making her creamy, milk chocolate skin look even more luscious. She peered at me across the table, and, lowering her voice, as we were sharing the table with three newspaper-wielding men, she said, “You're pregnant, aren't you?”

I sighed. I took a sip of my coffee and said, “No. I'm not
pregnant. But I'm trying to figure out a tactful way to ask Graham's cousin if we can adopt her baby.”

Bunny laughed that bawdy, uninhibited laugh that was one of the things I loved best about her. “Oh, honey, why? Take it from a batshit-crazy woman, only children are amazing.”

I gave her a look that wordlessly said she was being neither sensitive nor helpful.

“Okay, fine, fine. Can't you offer her money?”

I shook my head. “Isn't that against the law?”

Bunny readjusted her sleek ponytail and said, “Law, schmaw. Who's going to turn you in?”

“Bunny, come on. I need real help here. We can pay for her medical bills, baby-related expenses, and the living expenses she accrued during her pregnancy, but she isn't like that anyway. What do I do?”

Bunny took a sip of coffee. “You just ask. What's the worst that can happen?”

I looked up over my egg and said, “I'm afraid that if I ask, I'll push her away, and then she won't even let me keep Carolina while she's at work anymore.” I paused, staring into my coffee cup. “I can't bear the thought of not being in Carolina's life at all—or Jodi's.”

Bunny shrugged. “That won't happen.”

I rolled my eyes. “So that's your sage advice? That's why I walked all the way over here? If you can't do better than that, you can pay for your own breakfast.”

Bunny brightened like that $6.95 was all that was standing between her and a new jet.

“I didn't know you were paying. In that case, I would ask her to think about her little girl, to consider the advantages she could have living in a family like yours. And make sure you give her the choice of whether she wants to be involved in her life or not.”

I gasped. “What if she says yes? I mean, is that okay?”

Bunny nodded like she was a child psychologist specializing in adoptions and said, “Oh, yes. I remember reading in
Vogue
that adopted children actually thrive when they are able to know and grow up with their birth parents.” She took another bite, and, so I could see the yellow yolk bursting in her mouth like a paintball, said, “Open adoption is the way to go.”

“Isn't that kind of confusing?” I asked, wondering why I had spent so many of those dreaded low-carb years denying myself the utter deliciousness of fresh bread.

Bunny shook her head. “It's better for you, really. Then, when she's pissed that she's in time-out, she doesn't have fantasies about her birth mother being a princess who's coming to save her from the evil witch”—she paused, wiped her glossy mouth, and pointed across the table—“i.e., you.”

Back at the apartment, where Graham, amazing husband that he was, was trying to pack while watching two children, I burst through the door. He kissed me like I'd just returned from hiking Mount Everest. “What?” I laughed.

He kissed me again. “If I ever make a comment about your job not being as hard as mine, please remind me of this day. Alex has pulled every garment that I was trying to pack out of the suitcases, and Carolina keeps crying, and I don't know why.”

I ignored him and said, “Do we want to let her be involved in Carolina's life?”

Graham looked around. “Who?”

I threw a pink blanket at him and said, “Jodi, of course.”

He smiled. “Sweetheart, I told you before that you have to get yourself prepared for the fact that she'll probably say no to your little proposition.”

I gathered all of my toiletries, tossed them in my suitcase, and said, “I know, I know, low expectations, blah, blah, blah. Is it
okay for her to be in Carolina's life? Would it be too hard or confusing?”

“You know, babydoll, I think if she does us the amazing honor of allowing us to raise her child, we should leave that decision up to her.” Graham zipped his suitcase shut.

I nodded. A shiver of fear zipped through me too. What if Jodi was always possessive over you? What if she felt entitled to mother you even if she let us adopt you? I sat down, cross-legged on the floor, reached over to where you were kicking contentedly on a blanket, and put you in my lap. You blew a little spit bubble, and I smiled, my heart on fire with love for you.

“Mommy,” Alex said, running in. “Carolina pooped earlier and it came all out her diaper!”

I turned to Graham. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “The man is correct,” he said, grabbing Alex by the waist and tossing him into the air. Alex giggled, and I was reminded of how terrified I had been about how another man would be a father to him and how, when Graham had walked back into my life, that fear disappeared. Maybe the same thing would happen with Jodi. I prayed silently that God would give us both that quiet calm and peaceful knowledge of the right thing. And, without any warning whatsoever, the questions that had been zooming like cars at the Indy 500 stopped, and I had the clearest thought: You can never have too many people who love you.