Jumping Off Swings (17 page)

It’s too late for her to touch me now. It’s too late for her to be my mother.

She steps back a little.

“The nurses said you can come home soon,” my father says. “Maybe the day after tomorrow. They said things look good.” Then his shoulders begin to shake, and he starts to cry. He turns away and walks over to the window.

My mother doesn’t go to him. She stares across my bed, over me, at his back.

I close my eyes and wait for her to leave. But instead she sinks down onto the chair next to my bed. I listen to her breathe and then start to cry. I keep my eyes shut tightly to lock my own tears inside. But they leak out anyway.

When her hand touches mine, I let it stay there. She rests it lightly on top of mine, then more firmly. Slowly, our hands start to warm each other.

Finally, I turn my palm over and open it to hers. Then I carefully open my eyes and look into her sad face.

The corners of her mouth turn up just slightly, even though she’s still crying. This time, she doesn’t turn away. She keeps hold of my hand and doesn’t let go.

T
HERE’S A ROW OF BABIES
in clear plastic bed things lined up to face the window. They look strange, all wrapped up like mummies so you can’t see their arms or legs, and those little caps so all you can see is their squishy faces.

I stand here staring at them, thinking eventually one of them will open their eyes. And I’ll know. Somehow I’ll know that’s the one.

The nurses give me looks from the other side of the glass. They must think I’m a big brother, or an uncle or something. They smile at me, as if to say,
How sweet, a boy his age looking at babies.

I turn away from them.

A man and woman come out of a room holding hands. The woman’s wearing a bathrobe and still looks like she’s pregnant. The man helps her hobble over to the window next to me and they peer in.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” the woman asks.

The man puts his arm around her and pulls her to him. “Just like her mom.”

I watch their reflections in the glass. The woman’s hair is all over the place like she just woke up. The man needs a shave. I try to figure out which baby they’re looking at, but they all look the same.

“I never thought —” the man starts to say, but he gets all choked up and starts to cry.

The woman laughs. “You’d be so emotional?”

He laughs, too. “Something like that.”

They stare quietly after that. Being the perfect parents. Not noticing me.

“Let’s have the nurse bring her back to the room,” the wife says.

“You need your rest, honey,” the husband answers.

She rests her head on his shoulder. “I know. But it’s so hard to leave her.”

I study the babies and notice the small labels at the foot of their little beds that list their names. I try to read the names on the tags, but they’re hard to make out. Baby Finnegan. Baby Hirokane. Baby Jacobson. I don’t see Ellie’s last name. Maybe they wouldn’t even use it. The bed on the end is turned in a way so you can’t see the name from the window. Maybe they don’t want anyone to see. Maybe this could be the one. I knew my chances of seeing the baby were pretty slim. I figured the adoptive parents would take the baby right away and disappear to their happy anonymous home. But maybe I had it wrong. I could have everything wrong.

My heart pounds in my chest as I walk around the man and woman to get closer. The baby is sound asleep. Somehow it managed to get a hand out of the tight-fitting blanket, and its tiny fist hangs out. Even though the baby’s asleep, that tight little fist makes it look angry.

Without realizing, I’ve made fists with my own hands. I look down at them, then back at the baby’s.

A nurse walks over to the baby and checks something from a file attached to the end of the plastic bed. She tucks the hand back into the blanket, gently pats the baby’s head, then moves on to the next one.

But her touch wakes the baby up and the little fist escapes again. I tap gently on the glass. The nurse looks up at me, as if I was trying to get her attention.
Not you,
I want to say. But I pull my hand away from the glass. The baby doesn’t see me.

“It’ll be a while before he learns to wave,” the man says to me, like I’m an idiot. “He can’t even see beyond a few inches now.”

I don’t say anything back. I just look at the baby again.

I guess the guy’s right. It must be a boy, since the little cap on his head is blue.

“C’mon, honey. You should be resting.” The man guides the woman away.

I stand alone, staring at the baby’s crinkled face, his tiny, angry fist. He closes his eyes again, and his hand seems to relax a little. I flatten my own hand against the glass.

Good-bye, baby. Good luck.

I turn and slowly walk down the long hallway, past the waiting room filled with excited relatives, past the admissions desk, past the lobby where I sat for hours before I got the courage to try and see, and into the hot afternoon sun.

I walk all the way home. All three miles. I walk and think about that tiny, bundled-up baby I’ll never know. I think about that face as long as I can so I won’t forget it.

When I reach the driveway, I hear music coming from the house. It’s my dad practicing. He thinks I’m still at Caleb’s. I walk up the driveway slowly. Listening. He’s not so much singing but humming. The sound is vaguely familiar. Like a lullaby.

I stand in the doorway and keep listening. Rosie sits in front of him while he plays. He messes up a few times, but he keeps going. When he finishes, Rosie notices me standing in the doorway and comes over to lick my hand.

My dad jumps when he sees me and looks embarrassed. He puts the guitar next to him on the couch and nods at me.

“I used to play that for you when you were little. Remember? It was the only way your mom and I could get you to go to sleep.”

“Yeah,” I lie. I wish I could remember. I wish I could remember him singing to me. Loving me. I wonder how often he sits here alone, playing these old lullabies to the dog.

My dad sighs, and Rosie jogs back over to him and puts her head in his lap.

I stay in the doorway. After walking so long in the bright sunlight, I feel like I’m stepping into a dark cave.

“You OK, bud?”

I nod. The sun shines hot on my back.

Only a few seconds go by, but it seems like longer.

My dad and Rosie both wait, watching me.

But I can’t go in there.

“You sure you’re all right, son?” my dad asks. He stands up. Rosie wags her tail.

The sun beats down on my shoulders as I take a step back.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I just — need to take a walk.”

My dad takes a step toward me. “You want company?”

My throat tightens. I swallow to keep myself together.

“Nah,” I say, only it sort of sounds like a croak. “You should stay and keep playing. It sounds — nice.”

When our eyes meet, I feel my heart start to crack.

“Really,” I say.

I push the door closed and nod at him through the screen. “Thanks for the offer, though,” I manage.

I start down the driveway, not sure where to go.

The truth is, I feel like I could walk forever. Like I could walk down to the end of the driveway and keep going.

Too bad there’s nowhere for me to end up but right back here.

I walk anyway. Just walk and walk. Past all the things I know. All these ugly parts of town. When I get near my dad’s garage, I don’t want to look at it, but I have to. At the grease-stained pavement and the cracked window patched with duct tape so it crosses out the black-and-orange cardboard
OPEN
sign hanging inside, making it read O
EN.
At the long row of cars and trucks waiting to be fixed and tuned and detailed and set free. At the Coke machine flickering in the sun with half its choices showing
EMPTY.

I turn away from it all and keep walking. Faster. I’m like one of those crazy speed walkers, only I’m not swinging my arms back and forth. Cars whiz by me. I smell their exhaust and the hot tar from the road. I walk all the way back to town again.

My feet are sweaty and slippery inside my sneakers. My shirt is wet against my back. My face prickles with sweat.

I keep my pace, though. All the way to the nursing home. I only slow down when I get to the entrance. I haven’t been here since my mom first got the job and dragged me over for a tour and to meet all her nosy co-workers, who, of course, asked why she hadn’t brought Hal along, even though I’m sure they knew the answer, those bastards.

I push the handicapped button and the door swings open. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so pissed off. But I walk straight up to the reception desk and — and stall. What the hell am I doing here?

“Can I help you?” A youngish-looking guy behind the desk looks at me curiously. I’m sure I look like a raging psycho by now and, to be honest, I feel like one.

“I need to see my mother,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows. “Her name?”

“Uh, Jennifer. Jennifer Sawyer.”

“One minute.” He picks up the phone and turns away from me. I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.

“She’ll be right down.”

A few minutes later, the elevator on the far wall dings and the door opens. My mom rushes out. My eyes start to well up as soon as I see her.

“Josh?” She rushes toward me. “Are you OK?”

All the breath comes out of me. I start to sag. She takes hold of my arm.

“Honey?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She leads me outside to an empty group of picnic tables and sits me down. She sits across from me but right away reaches over for my hands and looks at me with worried eyes.

“What is it, honey? Tell me what’s the matter.”

“It’s over,” I say, squeezing her hands harder, even though mine are sweaty and gross.

“Oh, Josh,” she says.

“I — I went to try to see him,” I say. “I think I saw my baby, and —” But I can’t say anything else because I’m sobbing big, heaving sobs. I can’t tell her that I think I might go crazy not knowing if that baby behind the glass was mine. My mom lets go of my hands and comes around to my side of the table and holds me. She hugs me tight while I cry it all out of me. Until I’m empty.

When I can speak, I tell her about the night I talked with my dad. How I know I was a mistake. I tell her I don’t understand why she can’t be near us anymore. How sometimes I wish I could disappear, or that I’d never been born. I tell her how Ellie and I were only together once and that I tried to do everything right but I did everything wrong. That I didn’t mean to hurt her. But I’d ruined her life. And I wasn’t sure I could live knowing that.

And all the time I tell her these things, she just listens and holds me like she did when I was little. She looks off at the trees on the other side of the table and runs her fingers over the top of my head in this soothing way she used to do when I was a kid and had a fever and couldn’t sleep.

“I’m here now,” she tells me in a quiet voice. “I’m here. I’m going to help you get through this, Joshy. I promise.”

I let her hold me. I squeeze my eyes shut and let her hang on as long as she can. But as hard as I want to believe her, I don’t think she can really help me. No more than I can help her.

W
HEN MY MOM CAME
to tell us it was over and that Ellie was OK, I just stood there. I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t feel relieved. I just felt sad.

Corinne wobbled a little next to me as my mom gave us the details. Ellie was fine. The procedure went well. The baby was a healthy boy. As I stood next to Corinne, I could feel her unravel. I reached for her small hand. She pressed her thin arm against mine, and I held her up. After my mom left to go back and check on Ellie, we walked outside into the bright sun and found a bench to sit on. Corinne started crying. I wrapped my arms around her and let her cry into my chest while she told me what an awful friend she thought she’d been. I tried to tell her she was wrong, but she just shook her head. The whole time, I kept thinking about Josh and how I felt like I’d let him down, too. How I hadn’t done enough to see things from his point of view. I should have talked to him more and told him I understood. I should have driven him to the hospital or asked Ellie if he could see the baby since I know Josh would never ask himself. I should have helped him find out what his rights were, so he could see the baby, maybe even hold him if he wanted to. But I didn’t. And he cared too much about not hurting Ellie any more than he already had, to ask.