Mourning Becomes Cassandra (45 page)

“You would choose me to take the baby,” I said, quiet as you please.

“I would choose you to take the baby,” she said again, her eyes never wavering.

“You wouldn’t want the baby to have a father? Brothers or sisters? A mother with a reliable income?” My questions sounded strangely
pro forma
, as if I were reading down a checklist and this had nothing to do with me.

“You’re old, but you’re not dead,” said Nadina with equal calm. “The baby might one day have a father or brothers or sisters. You might one day get a real job.”

Some detached part of my brain was shaking itself awake. You, Cass? Take a baby? You swore off babies, after Min. You wouldn’t even consider babies, when James asked you.
James
! What would James say? Where would you live, since you’d have to move out of the Palace? What would everyone say? Remember the last time you felt as certain of something—it led to the worst year of your life!

But it remained a detached part of my brain, squeaking and rattling in the face of what felt unaccountably like a certainty. That strange calm. Knowing.

“This isn’t a decision to be made in a day,” I said finally. Bemused, I realized I was referring only to her decision, and not to my own. “Sleep on it. Think about it.”

“You’re not saying no, are you?” Nadina remarked. I wondered if she felt that strange rightness in the air. “Didn’t you say no more babies?”

“I did,” I replied, giving a short laugh. “More than once. And I meant it.”

We were quiet when I dropped her at the school bus stop. She got out, waving at me, and I drove away. Without conscious thought, I found myself heading for the church, rather than back home. The sanctuary was empty—no school choirs rehearsing or people setting up for an evening activity. Sitting in one of the back pews, shadowed by the balcony, I sat down, resting my chin on my arms along the back of the pew in front of me.

Peace that passed understanding. That little part of my brain kept trying to speak up, but the rest of me refused to get agitated. It was going to happen. Nadina would have that baby, come what may, and I would take it from there, come what may. Why this should be so—why I should be so receptive and unruffled at the idea of adopting the baby of a messed-up teenager who had subsisted on coffee and sweets since the moment she got pregnant—was a mystery. I, who fought the very idea of even having another baby by the traditional route. I suspected it had everything to do with my revelation of that afternoon: that, contrary to my fears these past few months, my life mattered utterly to God. I was not a cosmic, unresolved plotline in the Story of Life; the Storyteller was skilled; every character had a role. He could be trusted.

I had fought that trust every way I could, putting up barriers and shields. If I never had a husband again, if I never had a child again, I would never again be so vulnerable. If God were going to give me things, just to take them away, I would just make sure I didn’t have anything I couldn’t live without. Slowly, slowly—imperceptibly—He had, over the past months, pried my hands open. Not so He could take something out of them, but so that He could put something back in them.

Opening my hands, I stared at them.

Your life matters
.

Who knew that confronting a hostile, secretly distraught teenager over her unwanted pregnancy and agreeing to adopt her child was actually the easy part? As I guessed, additional days of sleeping on it didn’t change Nadina’s mind, and I ended up needing every ounce and shred of the supernatural peace I experienced to survive that week’s emotional, Bataan Death March of Telling Other People.

“Have you lost your mind?” shrilled Joanie, pacing feverishly back and forth in front of Phyl and me. “Are you completely nuts?”

“Maybe,” I responded, having prepared myself for this. “I didn’t expect it either. It feels right.” Phyl reached for my hand and clutched it, wordless and shocked.

“It ‘feels right’?” Joanie echoed incredulously. “Adopting the baby of some thieving little toilet-cleaning drug addict and his fifteen-year-old girlfriend? Nadina’s a mess! The baby’s probably got that fetal alcohol syndrome, if it even has all its arms and legs. How can you do this to yourself? Tell me you’re not going to do this, Cass…It took months and months before I could say ‘date’ around you without you biting my head off, and then when you finally do start dating a great guy, you wig out because he wants to marry you and have kids with you, and now, instead of doing something logical, you decide you want to become some single, welfare mom?”

“Joanie…” Phyl remonstrated.

I winced when she mentioned James. There was the rub. “It isn’t logical, I know, Joanie. Do you…do you think James won’t want to marry me anymore?”

Joanie stopped short and wedged her behind between mine and Phyl’s on the couch, her vivid blue eyes locking with mine. “Cass—if you do this, it’s over. Can you blame him? You tell him a week ago you can’t even think about marriage or having children and then—oh, scratch that—what you really meant is that you can’t stand the thought of him and his children, but you’ve got no problem with someone else’s
crack
baby
.” Phyl gasped and climbed over Joanie to sit on my other side.

“That’s not it,” I objected. “I told you on the way to Portland that I was warming to the idea of marrying him—”

“Well go ahead and unwarm,” Joanie interrupted curtly. “Forget that idea. Crap almighty! How can this be happening? You don’t have a job, you don’t have a husband—and you’ll never get one if you’re saddled with this kid—and you won’t be able to afford to live anywhere except California with your parents.”

“Does she have the gift of encouragement, or what?” I asked Phyl wryly.

Joanie wasn’t in a humorous mood. “Speak to her, Phyl. She won’t listen to me—clearly.”

Phyl fidgeted uncomfortably, being the least confrontational of the three of us. “Cass, we will love you and be your friends no matter what you do, and if it were up to us, that baby could just move into the Palace and be part of our— ”

“Never mind, Phyl!” groaned Joanie, “This isn’t time to be supportive—it’s time to slap her around.” She turned on me again. “I can see by your face it’s no use. All I can hope for is that Nadina has a miscarriage or changes her mind and gives the kid to someone else.”

“She won’t,” I said. “Do either. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. Come on, Joanie. If my doom is inevitable, won’t you love me anyway? You don’t want me to move to California, do you?”

“No, you idiot,” she cried passionately, “I want to keep on living here just like we’re living here, forever and ever. I’d even put up with the crack baby if I thought Daniel would ever go for it. Why do you have to go and ruin everything?”

“And you call me an idiot,” I reproached her. “It couldn’t last forever, crack baby or no. At the very least, Phyl would say yes to Wayne eventually, and you would pick someone—anyone—and get married too.”

“I’m not going to get married,” said Joanie unexpectedly in a low voice.

I stared at her, sidetracked. “What, are you joining a convent or something?”

Avoiding my eyes she picked at an unraveling thread on the sofa arm. “No, I just—I’ve decided I’ll never get married. I don’t like the guys who like me, and the guy I like isn’t interested, so that’s that.”

“You’re not talking about Roy, are you?” I said uneasily. Joanie’s scoffing sound answered my question. “Joanie, look at me. You’re talking about Perry.”

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Joanie, “I knew you guessed. I didn’t even know myself until we saw him last weekend for that stupid musical. He’s not even my type and his divorce isn’t final and—worst of all—he doesn’t think of me that way.”

“Joanie,” I said bracingly, “you know I love you like a sister, but you and
Perry
? He’s never had a real job in his life—that would drive you crazy. Even if he fell for you, you’d get sick of him just like Betsy did, and I don’t want his heart broken again. He needs to marry some independently wealthy, older woman who wants to keep him as a boy toy.”

“You think he could fall for me?” she asked, perking up.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, probably. Isn’t that how it works with you and Daniel? Either one of you could most likely get anyone you really wanted. I’m asking you—don’t break Perry’s heart.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m asking you not to adopt Nadina’s baby, but are you going to listen to me? No, you’ll move to California to sponge off your parents, and I’ll never see Perry or you again. Life sucks.”

It wasn’t the end of the conversation. No,
that
went on for another hour or two of that day and continued every time thereafter that Joanie found me alone. Phyl, thank heavens, decided to leave Joanie and me to go at it in single combat, but Joanie was enough. She seemed convinced that the only way she could persuade me would be through unrelenting, no-holds-barred badgering and second-guessing. Many things were said in those days—very many—but you get the idea.

My parents greeted my news with stunned silence. I forced them both to get on the line so I wouldn’t have to do this twice. What could they say? I was an adult—a deluded and deranged one, perhaps, but an adult nonetheless. Mom made soft, bubbly choking sounds, as if someone were holding her under tapioca pudding.

Dad recovered first. “Tell me about this certainty you had when you talked to her.” Joanie absolutely refused to credit this part of the story, but my father always had a quiet streak of deep feeling. He could hear Spirit talking to spirit.

There was another silence when I finished my account—even Mom must have crawled ashore out of the tapioca because I couldn’t hear her anymore—and then Dad said, “Cassandra, this will be tough. But your mother and I love you and support your choices 100%. You have to do what you have to do.”

“Larry,” chided Mom, finding her voice at last, “Larry, that’s all very well, but someone’s got to connect the dots here. Cass, where are you going to live? That Daniel is very nice, but he doesn’t seem the type of man interested in running a day care.”

“I wouldn’t ask him to,” I answered hastily. “I’ll have to move, but I’ve got a while yet. I’m getting Nadina in to the doctor this week, but we figure she’s only about two or three months along. I think I’ll have until around mid-September to get my ducks in a row.”

“How will you live in the same town as Nadina?” she pressed. “You can’t show up to mentor her every week with her own baby in tow.”

“I don’t know how everything will work,” I said again, aware of spirals and loops of panic in my gut.

“You could always come here,” Mom pursued. “Dad and I will want to help you and our—our grandchild.”

My throat closed suddenly. I hadn’t thought of that—that whatever child I adopted would have a claim on my family. It would have grandparents and an uncle, besides a mother. Children made it with less.

“Mom, Dad,” I murmured. “You two are the best. Thank you thank you thank you. I’ll keep you in the loop. Just give me a little time to figure things out, Mom, okay?”

After telling Joanie and my parents, the next person I wanted to talk to was Mark Henneman, but Nadina wouldn’t hear of it yet. “I don’t want everyone friggin’ looking at my stomach, and since I’m having the kid, why do they need to know?”

But it ate at me: would it strike people as shady—the mentor who adopted the student’s baby? As if I had exploited her, wanted to get close to her for that purpose. And it seemed to me the longer we waited to speak to Mark Henneman, the shadier I would appear.

Nor would Nadina consent to telling her mother. “You’re still on her medical insurance,” I pointed out. “She’s going to wonder when she gets the statement from the Ob/Gyn.”

“Mike first,” Nadina insisted. But if I asked when she would break it to Mike, she waffled and put me off. Not that I blamed her—I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to tell James.

These days I was spending a lot of time in my closet, praying. In normal size houses, a bedroom felt intimate enough for prayer, but not in the Palace. In order not to feel adrift in the universe, I preferred to sit on the floor of my closet, leaning against the wall under my folded and stacked sweaters, lights out. By Saturday, after a week of Joanie’s hounding and chasing my tail with Nadina and getting increasingly anxious about James’ reaction, I went straight into the closet after breakfast and sat there for at least an hour. Psalm 61 came to mind and stuck: “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
My heart is overwhelmed. Remind me that you’re with me. Remind me that you love me and Nadina and the baby, and our lives are in your hand.

By this point I was no longer sitting up; I was flat on my back on the floor, looking up unseeingly to where the ceiling would be, if I had the light on. I might have dozed a little, having not slept well for the last few nights. In any case I began to think that any positive effects of prayer would soon be counteracted by oxygen depletion if I didn’t come out soon, so reluctantly I rose and emerged into the glare of late winter sunshine filling my room.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I blinked to see Daniel standing by my desk, turned in surprise toward me, something in his hand. It was the picture of Troy holding Min: they were both grinning, and little one-year-old Min had one plump little hand clutching her father’s shirt and the other reaching out to me, as I held the camera. That picture had spent months in my desk drawer, face down, but recently I had pulled it out again and set it next to my computer monitor.

“Excuse me,” Daniel said quickly, half-dropping the picture so that it hit the desk with a rattling sound. I wasn’t used to seeing him clumsy or ill-at-ease and only looked at him questioningly. “I was…going to write you a note,” he continued, pointing vaguely at a pen and paper lying on the desk. “I thought you weren’t home. Didn’t expect you to spring out of the closet.”