In Search of Eden (2 page)

“Hey there,” Wanda said gently, approaching the side of the bed. She leaned over and smiled. Her back gave another twinge, but she barely noticed.

The girl opened her eyes, and Wanda saw them light with recognition and then fill with tears. The girl turned her face away, looking ashamed.

“It's okay,” Wanda said. She took the girl's hand and stroked it, and that seemed to open the floodgates. Wanda put down the rail and sat on the side of the bed and opened her arms. The girl let herself be gathered in close, as close as she could get with her fresh incision, and she cried against Wanda's chest for quite a while. The shoulder of Wanda's scrubs got wet, but she didn't care. She hugged the thin shoulders and kissed the thick, slick hair and murmured, “Hush, now. It'll be all right. It's okay,” just as she did to her own daughter, but somehow those crises seemed minuscule compared to this.

After five minutes or so the little mother seemed to have cried herself out. Wanda handed her the box of tissues and then rose up and filled the plastic pitcher with water, feeling another little spurt of irritation at the nurses on the floor. This child was just a few hours postpartum, postsurgery, and no one seemed to be paying much attention to her. But even as she thought these things, she knew they weren't true. They would be monitoring her closely. In fact, someone would be coming in to check her any minute. She knew her irritation wasn't really toward the nursing staff but toward the situation in general.

“Here, drink this,” Wanda said, holding down a plastic cup of water and bending the straw so the girl wouldn't have to raise herself up.

The girl took a sip. Then another. After a minute she moistened her lips and spoke. “I never got to see my baby. They
wouldn't even tell me if it was a boy or a girl.”

She looked at Wanda with a question in her eyes, and Wanda felt torn between hospital policy and her tender heart.

She was opening her mouth to speak when she heard the patient's mother. She couldn't make out the words, but she could tell from the tone that she was complaining about something. She caught “left me sitting out there in the waiting room” and “went downstairs for some food and took the wrong elevator.” The door opened and in she came with a whoosh.

“There you are,” she said, her presence, if not her slight frame, filling up the room. Her tone was accusing, as if her daughter had done something wrong. Well, perhaps she had, but Wanda thought this was not exactly the time for blaming and shaming.

“Hey, Mama,” the girl said weakly, her voice containing more misery than Wanda could stand to think about.

The woman gave Wanda an accusing look, as well, though she had no way of knowing Wanda really had no official business here. Wanda patted the small hand, now trembling slightly, and left the room. She waited at the nurses' station, feigning nonchalance, talking and sipping coffee until she saw the woman leave.

“There's a piece of work,” the charge nurse said, shaking her head in the new grandmother's direction.

Wanda nodded and waited for more. She was not disappointed.

“Adoptive parents are on their way. They're taking the baby home today.” Wanda and the nurse both watched Grandma march toward the elevator, heard her heels clicking on the polished floor, saw her cross her arms and wait impatiently, tapping the button several times before the elevator arrived and she stepped inside. The doors slid shut. So she had left without even saying hello and good-bye to her grandbaby. Wanda shook her head and exchanged another glance with the charge nurse, who shrugged, grabbed up a chart, and headed toward the other end of the hallway, leaving Wanda alone.

Wanda hesitated just a moment and then went straight to the nursery, not letting herself think too much about what she was doing. Not thinking about the fact that this could mean the loss of her job, just knowing what she would want someone to do for her if she were in the same situation. She punched in her code, then stepped inside the nursery doors. The attendant was Martha Green, nearing retirement, too. In fact, Wanda had gone to nursing school with Martha back in the dark ages. Martha was busy bathing and weighing a new arrival, the father helping, all thumbs and elbows. She gave Wanda a quick smile and a nod before going back to her task.

Wanda looked across the cluster of Isolettes and found the one she was looking for. Oh my. What a sweet, beautiful baby. Pink cheeks, dark hair, and a tiny pursed mouth. But then, they were all precious. The baby was wrapped in an anonymous white blanket, and she remembered the charge nurse's words:
“Adoptive parents are on their way.”

She had only a minute. She picked up the tiny bundle, opened the door, and headed back across the hall, moving quickly and holding her head high. Acting as if she were on official hospital business and had every right to be doing what she was doing, not as if she were breaking hospital policy and maybe even the law. She went down the hall toward the girl's room and pushed open the door, pulling it closed behind her.

The girl looked up, then dropped her mouth in shock. “Oh,” she said before tearing up again. “Oh, thank you!”

Wanda helped her sit up, put the baby in her arms, then went to the door and cracked it slightly. So far, so good. She flicked her eyes back and forth between the scene on the bed and the hallway outside. The girl held the baby gingerly and was saying something too quietly for Wanda to hear. She reached down to touch one tiny hand, bent her mouth to brush the baby's cheek.

Wanda checked her watch and moved to the bedside. She didn't want to interrupt the sweet scene, but she put a hand on the young mother's head and another on the baby's. “Lord Jesus,”
she prayed aloud, “your heart is loving and forgiving. You said just as a mother would never forget her child, so you would never forget us, for you have engraved us on the palms of your hands. I pray now for these two, that somehow, someday, your love would bring them back together and that in the meantime you would guard and keep them. In Jesus' name. Amen.”

The little mother wept and wiped her eyes on the back of one hand, the baby gripped with the other. A noise from the hallway jerked Wanda's attention away. She went to the door and looked out. Someone was coming out of the elevator. It was Dr. Herbert with a couple who looked so excited they could only be the adoptive parents. Oh dear.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “but I've got to get the baby back to the nursery. Now.”

The girl didn't fight her, but she didn't hand over the baby, either. Wanda gently pried the child out of her hands, and the mother began to cry again. Wanda didn't look backward, slipped out into the hallway, and cut through the medication room just as Herbert and company were rounding the corner. She put the baby back in the Isolette and then, for no reason except sheer panic, went to the sink and began washing her hands. They were shaking so badly she could barely manage the simple task. Dr. Herbert and the adoptive parents came in just then, and there was such a joyful buzz that no one noticed when she slipped out. She went to the nurses' lounge and just sat there, waiting for her heart to stop pounding, thinking about the possible repercussions of what she'd done and trying to calm herself.

The new little family was checking the baby out of the hospital when she passed them in the hallway on her way out. The adoptive mother was a pretty blond woman and in tears herself. She was clutching the baby as if someone might try to take it away from her. The father was beaming, his arm around both of them protectively. What a pleasant-looking man he was! Warm skin and eyes and a soft brown beard. He reminded Wanda of the way some people painted Jesus, and her heart softened a little
toward them. Perhaps it would be all right. The baby was obviously going to a good home. That was the important thing.

Still, her heart ached again as she passed room 510 on her way out. She slowed for a moment but didn't go inside this time. She felt cowardly and ashamed, but the truth was, she didn't think she could stand it. Even though she could see that one person's heartache and loss was another's blessing, it hurt too much. It was all just too sad.

chapter
2

DECEMBER 14, 2006 MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

D
orrie didn't have the heart for making things up and playing games. Not today. It was better when this day fell on a Saturday or a Sunday, because then she could go off by herself, away from prying eyes. She could hide until it was no longer December fourteenth. Although the pain never went away completely, it was better on the fifteenth. More like a dull ache than a sharp, breathtaking drill bearing down on the exposed nerve of her heart.

But today there was no hiding. Today would be sandpaper rubbed across that nerve. The problem was her current job at Good Shepherd Lutheran School. Normally she was the crossing guard and playground attendant. She usually loved being here and dressing in her silly outfits to entertain the children. One day she was Pippi Longstocking with pipe cleaners twisted into her hair to make her braids stand out. Another time she'd been Tinker Bell. The clown was the old standby. Then there was the pirate, the astronaut, the firefighter, the nurse. The children liked to see who she would be each day, and she smiled a little now as she looked out the classroom window and watched them chase one another.

She glanced down at the plain jumper and blouse she wore today. The only thing silly was her Cinderella watch. And her shoes. They were patchwork with an assortment of buttons and bows, and she had bought them just because the children would like them. She checked the time, for today she was not playground supervisor or crossing guard. Today, due to the desperation of the tiny school, and the fact that they weren't governed by the same regulations as public schools, she was pretending to be a teacher. She was pretending to be someone who had set a goal and accomplished it. Someone who had made something of her life.

A nasty flu bug had made the school desperate for teachers. They'd already been hiring substitutes for the substitutes when the kindergarten teacher's children had caught the virus. So she'd been put in charge. Temporarily, of course, and ordinarily she would be thrilled. Ordinarily she would be pinching herself and wondering when they would realize they had made a huge mistake. Ordinarily she would be heartsore that tomorrow was Friday and that on Monday their teacher would return. But today was no ordinary day. Today would be the most painful of places to be on this most painful of days.

The bell rang and the children came in from recess. They hung up their coats with the noisy confusion that was as close to organization as they came, then semiquietly arranged themselves in an uneven half circle with legs crossed and hands on their laps. Crisscross applesauce, the way she'd taught them.

“We're not going to do our story today,” Dorrie said brightly in a falsely cheery tone, holding up the fairy-tale book. “I'm going to read to you instead.” She hoped the children didn't ask why.

As they received the news that there would be no new installment of Hero, the talking blue jay, their small eager faces were slashed with disappointment they were powerless to hide. And, of course, her own heart wrenched. They were so vulnerable, children.
So at the mercy of what the powerful ones decided to do with them. To them.

“We tried to be good, teacher.” Roger earnestly pushed back his tortoiseshell glasses and leaned forward, as if the weight of all his noble deeds rested heavily on his back. His small face was knit into a frown of concern. It undid her.

“You
have
been good. Oh, my goodness, there
never has been
a group of children more cooperative and well-behaved!”

Their faces lit with hope, and she, as always, plunged toward it despite her intention to do otherwise. “As Hero was telling me the other day, not all children are as lucky as you are.”

Their faces shone with happiness, hope barely saved from being dashed on the rocks, and her own heart eased. They cupped chins in hands, sprawled down more comfortably on their resting mats, and Dorrie grasped something and pulled it down from the air—a gift, as all stories were.

She paused, groping for a plot, catching one from the whirring in her mind. “There was one little girl Hero knew in a town far, far away who wandered away one day and couldn't find her way back home.”

A slight rustle, a shift of warm bodies. She heard their quiet breathing, felt the warmth of their bodies and their love, and her heart eased.

It was nearly three-thirty before the classroom was empty. Roger, her favorite, although she tried hard to hide that fact, was the last one to leave. His mother was barely out of her teens, and Dorrie had been suspicious of her immediately. Today she arrived late, in a flurry of hair and exposed midriff under a black leather jacket. Dorrie stood at the doorway and continued to hold Roger's small hand in her own, not realizing what she was doing until she became aware that both Roger and his mother were
looking at her in puzzlement. She released him and took a step backward.