Girls in Trouble (7 page)

Of course, there were times she worried. One night, when she and George were taking a walk in the neighborhood, using flashlights to show their way, Eva blurted, “Do you think we’re the only people she’s considermg?

“I don’t know. I guess we could ask,” George said.

“I’m afraid to hear the answer. What if she is? What if we’re second choice? What if she’s not going to choose us at all?” A door slammed shut and Eva shone her light at it.

“Well, we’re still taking calls, right?”

“What calls? We haven’t had a new one in weeks.” Eva glanced at the neighborhood. Her eyes were already adjusted to the dark and she shut her flashlight off. “I want this so much it’s making me crazy. Doesn’t it make you crazy, too?”

George shrugged. “She’s been pushed into things enough. Let’s just let her be.”

But Eva couldn’t let anything be. The next day, she went into town and bought a beautiful blue box. In it, she put all the initial flurry of exchanges. The letters and photos. And she shared the box with Sara. “You saved all my letters?” Sara asked.

“Every one,” Eva said, sifting through the box. She showed Sara the first letter Sara had sent them, the copy she had made of her and George’s
response. There was Eva’s wedding picture, and then another picture of Sara and Eva and George in the backyard. Eva glanced at Sara, who was frowning. “Is something wrong?” Eva asked.

Sara shook her head. “Why are you saving everything?”

“Maybe it will be a scrapbook for the baby,” Eva said.

“Maybe,” Sara said, and Eva winced because
maybe
could also mean
no
.

Eva didn’t tell Sara that sometimes, when she felt most unsure, when she worried that every time the phone rang it might be Sara telling them she had chosen someone else, Eva would get down that blue box. She’d reread all of Sara’s letters, she’d study the photographs, as if each one might be a talisman keeping their covenant.

One day, when Eva and Sara were just sitting out back on the chaise lounges, sipping iced tea, Sara talked about what it would be like to recuperate from giving birth, how it would feel to go back to school in the fall, and how anxious that made her. She talked about Danny, too, how much she had loved him, and how he had hurt her. Eva had to admit it was hard to listen to that because the girl was in such pain, it was hard to make the appropriate supportive noises about Danny getting back in touch when what she most hoped was that he’d disappear forever. But then, as Sara cried, all she could think about was how much this young girl was hurting, how awful a thing it must be to be sixteen and pregnant and abandoned to boot. She got up from her chair and leaned over and wrapped both arms about Sara and rocked her. Sara looked up at Eva, blinking. “My parents think I’m a fool for loving someone like that. They think I made the biggest mistake of my life,” Sara said.

“It’s never a mistake to love,” Eva said.

“The baby’s a mistake.”

“Oh, my God, absolutely not! How could you even think such a thing,” said Eva, rubbing Sara’s back. “This baby’s a miracle.” Impulsively, Eva kissed Sara’s hair. It smelled of maple and vanilla. “And you are, too. You’re the miracle in our life.”

“I am? Really, you think that?” Sara sat up, rubbing at her eyes, snuffling,
so that Eva dug in her pocket for a clean tissue and handed it to her.

“Every day I think that. I love having you here. I hope you love being here, too.”

Blowing her nose noisily, Sara looked off into the distance. “I do,” she said. “I really do.” She grew suddenly calm again. “I’ve decided something,” Sara said.

“What is it, honey?” said Eva alarmed, and Sara reached for her purse. For a moment, Eva wasn’t sure what she was doing and then Sara dug in her wallet and brought out a crumpled photo and handed it to Eva. It was Sara, in an Indian-print summer dress, standing next to a boy with brown hair, the two of them laughing.

“It this Danny?” Eva asked and Sara nodded. Eva tried to study the boy’s eyes, to see what he might be capable of, but no matter where she placed the picture, he wasn’t looking at her, but always at Sara, like one of those pictures with the eyes cut out that they always had in horror films. Eva handed the photo back and Sara waved her hand.

“You keep it,” Sara said. “For the blue box.”

“The box?”

“So the baby will know who its father was.”

“Sara?” Eva said. The air about her seemed to grow lighter.

“I think you should be my baby’s parents,” Sara said, and wept harder.

And that had been that. Sara began coming over every day. She helped Eva cook dinner, she played checkers with George. They all talked on the phone every night, they took so many pictures that the blue box began to bulge with them, and although Eva meant to get a scrapbook, she waited, superstitious, she kept filling up the blue box with more and more photos and letters. “After the baby is born, I’ll figure it out,” she told George.

Although Eva was dying to come, Abby wouldn’t allow Eva to go with them to the doctor’s appointments. Sara gave Eva copies of all her sonograms, pictures Eva pasted into an album and couldn’t help peeking at. Eva learned to read Sara like a barometer, tracking her progress by the glow in her cheeks, the swell and ripple of her belly, even by the new way she was walking. “Tell me what it feels like,” Eva kept asking her.

One day, Eva was lying on the couch, foot to foot with Sara. George was making dinner that night and Eva could hear him chopping vegetables
and meat for stew, the thwack of the cleaver against the cutting board. “Ugh, 1 feel so bloated,” Sara complained, and Eva rested her hand on her own flat belly. Absently, she stroked it.

“My parents won’t touch my belly,” Sara said.

“Can I?” Eva asked, and when Sara nodded, Eva put one hand over Sara’s belly. She felt a sudden snap under her fingers, making her draw back her hand in amazement. “Baby kicked,” Sara said. She took Eva’s hand and put it back on her belly. “You can listen if you want. The baby makes noises.”

Tentatively, Eva rested her head along Sara’s belly. There it was, that whooshing sound, and she bolted upright. “George!” she called. “George! Come now! Quick!”

“What’s wrong?” George rushed in.

Eva grabbed for his hand. “Listen,” she urged.

Gingerly, he crouched down. He rested his head. “Oh, my God,” he said, delighted.

Eva put her hand back on Sara’s belly and suddenly Sara’s belly seemed to roll toward her fingers. “Oh!” she said, astonished, lifting her hand, and the roll stopped. “The baby’s communicating with me!”

“What’s the baby saying?” Sara asked.

Eva grinned and looked at George. “That it’s never been so happy in its entire life.”

Oh, but she was the one who was so happy. Every time Sara walked into the room, Eva’s baby was walking into the room, too. But it wasn’t just that. Sometimes it seemed to Eva that Sara was the only one besides herself who was so bonded to the idea of open adoption. The only other one who was really in it together with her. Everyone else got so cautious it made her crazy. As if they couldn’t celebrate with her until it was a done deal! She couldn’t stop talking to George about feeling the baby kick, but she knew her George, she knew he was happy mostly because she was happy, that his big love was her. Even Christine—her best friend!—was hesitant when Eva told her, when she tried to explain how sometimes, eerie as it was, she felt as if she and Sara were connected on a deeper level than anyone could imagine. How amazing it was that they could talk for hours. How wonderful that they truly liked and respected each other, that
they considered each other family. “Sara is great,” she told Christine, “and the baby! The baby’s a real presence. It’s like we’re Pyramus and Thisbe,” she said excitedly. “I swear we’re talking! I touched one side of Sara’s belly and the baby came rolling toward me!”

“Did you hear what you said? Pyramus and Thisbe. Sara’s the wall,” Christine said.

“No, no, she’s not the wall! There’s no wall! We love Sara,” Eva said excitedly. “We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect situation, a more perfect girl.” She looked around the kitchen, imagining where she’d dry the baby bottles, where she’d put a high chair.

And then, Eva had seen the baby being born, standing there, gripping Sara’s hand so tightly it was as if the experience were being transfused right into Eva’s veins. She had sweated along with Sara. When Sara screamed, Eva screamed and gripped her hand harder.

And now Anne was here, right in this house. Now people were crowded around them, and now, glory be, they were finally beginning to leave.

“You call if you need anything,” Nora said. “Remember, I’m right next door.”

Christine hugged her. “You’re going to be a natural! You must be so thrilled!”

“Of course she’s thrilled,” someone said. “Look at that smile.”

“Let me do those dishes,” Nora said, gathering plates.

“Don’t be silly, you’re here to visit, not to work,” Eva said.

Nora put the plates down. “They say when you have a newborn, you should go to the doctor so he can give you tranquilizers!” She laughed.

Eva’s smile began to feel pasted to her face.

“Are you springing for a baby nurse?” Nora asked.

“Nah. We want to do it all ourselves. And Sara will be here.”

“Sara? The birth mom? You’re kidding, right?”

You sound like Jack and Abby,
Eva thought. “A baby needs all the love possible,” Eva said evenly. “And Sara’s a part of our family.”

There was a silence. “How nice,” said Nora.

Lynne Matson, who had six cats and lived down the block, touched
Eva’s arm. “Listen, I know exactly what to get the baby. One of those red and black and white mobiles they say stimulates their mind. I just wanted to wait before I bought it. To make sure everything was going to be fine. Who needs to deal with returns, right?” Lynne said.

Eva’s smile tightened. She bet any gift from Lynne would be covered with cat hair.

“Best of luck to all of you,” Lynne said, and headed for the door, waving.

When the house was empty again, Eva peered anxiously into Anne’s bassinet. She couldn’t help feeling that this baby was somehow on loan.

“Let her snooze,” George said. “She’s had a busy day.”

George and Eva began to clean up, collecting the dishes, putting the gifts on the table to open the next day, when they weren’t so tired. “I should have let Nora help,” she told George, and he shrugged. “Next time,” he told her.

Eva stretched. Who could imagine that such a tiny little thing would generate so many diapers, so many wipes? Every five minutes it seemed she was reaching for a drool cloth. Every ten minutes she had to change the baby’s clothes—or her own because Anne had spit up on her. And every two hours, Anne ate, which meant scrubbing and boiling and drying bottles. Already Eva’s whole body ached.

She wanted to be held. She heard George clattering in the kitchen, and she suddenly thought of all the times he used to surprise her, showing up at her school to take her to lunch and driving her to a fancy hotel instead. They’d make love the whole lunch hour, and she’d come back to school flushed and happy, her hair a little awry, and an hour later she’d be starving because she had never gotten around to eating. Their old life, before Anne, pulsed inside her. They hadn’t made love once since they had brought her home.

She rubbed her neck, lifted up her hair as if to cool herself, and even though George was a room away, she felt a flare of desire so strong, it nearly toppled her over.

Eva stopped straightening the living room. Everything could wait. She went to the bedroom and put on a new sheer black nightgown. She stood in front of the mirror, admiring it. One of her friends had told her that
after she had had her son Reggie, she hadn’t wanted sex for a year. “Hemorrhoids! Sore, leaky breasts!” her friend had joked.

Eva had a baby now, but she hadn’t given birth. Her hormones were intact, her desire spiking. She brushed her hair and daubed perfume on all her pulse points. She felt as if electric current were shimmering off her. She left her feet bare and padded to the kitchen to find George. The room was empty. Everything was cleared up. “George?” she said.

She checked the kitchen, and then she saw Anne’s door was ajar. She touched the door with a fingertip, opening it more. Anne was sleeping, her rosy little mouth an O. George was in the rocker, half dozing, too.

“Hey,” he said with a sleepy smile. He touched her nightgown. “Look at you.”

She smiled back at him. He hinged up on his elbows and then got up. She trailed two fingers up along his spine, so he turned and draped his arm about her. She didn’t know what it was about him—but all she had to do was look at him and she wanted him. He led her to their room, falling with her onto the bed. She touched the constellation of freckles along his shoulder. He cupped her face in his hands. He pulled off her nightgown, his shirt, his pants, letting them all puddle to the floor. He shut his eyes. He was just about to kiss her when Anne suddenly cried, a newborn mewl that made Eva think of one of Lynne’s cats, and then the moment died. Anne’s cries grew louder, more frantic, and they both bolted up, grabbing their robes, their slippers kicked under the bed, and rushed to tend her.

“I’ll get the bottle,” George said, and then Eva lifted Anne up and sat in the rocker with her. Anne’s eyes squinched tightly shut, her mouth opened like a drawstring purse. There was that mewl again.

“Nineteen eighty-seven. A very good year,” George said, coming into the room, presenting the bottle. Latching on, Anne sucked greedily, her small legs kicking against Eva’s.

“Who’s a hungry girl?” George said.

Anne fell asleep eating, and Eva gently put her back in the crib.

Eva went into the bathroom to wash her hands, to splash cool water on her face. She came into the nursery and there, in the rocker, was George, one hand slung on the crib, the other in his lap, his eyes rolling with dreams, sleeping.

“Come back to bed,” she whispered. His lids fluttered and opened. He stood heavily, and slung one arm about her shoulder and then yawned. She got him into their bed, and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was snoring faintly. Eva took George’s hand in hers. I’m so lucky, she thought. She had George, and Anne. She was looking forward to seeing Sara. And then she shut her eyes, and she slept, too.