Pregnant Pause (26 page)

"What does guilt do for you? What does it do for Banner?"

"Guilt tells you you've done something wrong."

The rabbi nods. "Good. Good. Then what?"

"What do you mean?" I wish this guy would just talk plainly or just give me some advice and leave. My head is starting to hurt.

"Well, why carry the guilt around with you? Once it's served its purpose, what use is it?"

"It's a reminder. It's a reminder of what I did wrong, so I won't do it again," I guess.

"You think you will do it again? Do you think the next time someone asks you for help, you will be able to help that person better because you feel guilty?"

"No. I might be able to help because I had that experience with Banner."

"So it's the learning experience that you need to remember. And I would think you would like to remember Banner, your friend."

"Yeah. I guess I don't need to hold on to the guilt. That's what you're saying."

The rabbi nods.

"That's cool."

"Remember Banner," he says.

"I will, always."

"Good. That's good."

I feel better. I feel lots better. I smile. "I thought you were going to tell me that God will forgive me, no matter what."

"Ah. Do you need me to say that?"

"No. I hear that all the time. It's just—you didn't mention God once. Is that allowed? I mean, aren't you supposed to because you're a rabbi? Won't you get in trouble?"

The rabbi stands and puts his hands on his back and arches it. "I think I'm safe," he says. "I'm sorry, but I have to go now."

"Will you come back to see me? I mean, could you?" I ask. "There's my baby. I have questions about my baby, and I don't know what to do. Maybe you could help me with that, too? I'm here for today and tomorrow and maybe the next day."

"I'll be back." He holds out his hand and I take it, and we shake. "It's been good talking to you, Eleanor Crowe."

"Thank you. You, too."

The rabbi leaves, and I lie in bed just thinking about everything for a while, and it's funny, he never talked about God, but I feel as if God was here, as if maybe I had been talking to God all along.

THE POLICE come to see me and question me about Banner. I tell them the truth—the whole truth—because now that I have Emma Rose, I need to stop lying all the time. I'm scared and I'm crying, and I expect them to tell me that they're going to arrest me, but they don't. They just sit there and take notes, and then when I'm through telling them everything, they pat my hand and leave. The end. Then, before I can recover from their visit, the doctor finally shows up. A nurse had removed my bandage earlier, and now he checks my belly where he cut me open and says it looks good. I can leave it uncovered. Then he tells me Emma Rose had some trouble breathing last night but that she's fine now. They ran some tests on her, but everything checked out okay. All I want to know is when can I see her, and all he says is, "Soon." He pats my leg. "Let's get that catheter out first, okay? And I expect to see you up and walking the halls today. Go slowly, and if you're too dizzy, sit down." He pats my leg again, and he's gone. His whole visit lasted all of two minutes.

A nurse comes in to remove the catheter. Ahhh! Then she brings me Emma Rose. My Emma Rose. I'm extra glad because my breasts are so engorged and leaking—again. They want Emma. She puts her warm mouth on my breast and she tries to suckle, but she's not strong enough. I feed Emma Rose with a bottle, and then I burp her and feel her warm head. It feels so alive. She's so alive. I hug her and kiss her and play with her tiny hands and feet.

I'm left alone to play with Emma Rose. Oh, I just love her. I want to show her off. I want to show the world my baby. I can't wait to see Ziggy. We have so much to talk about. We're in love. We're so in love, and now we have Emma Rose. I want him to know this. I'm not sure he knows that we're keeping her. Oh, I can't wait for Ziggy to see her. When he sees her, he's going to sweep both of us into his arms and he's going to say, "Come with me to Boston. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you and Emma Rose."

I'm lying in bed with my baby in my arms, and I'm half awake and half asleep, dreaming of me and Ziggy and Emma Rose in a cute little apartment in Boston. My chest of drawers, the teal one with the painted flower bouquets and red glass knobs, is standing in the corner of our bedroom next to the crib. It's so wonderful and we're so happy.

Ziggy says something, but I don't quite hear him. "What?"

"You're beautiful," he says. I smile and open my eyes, but it's not Ziggy, it's Leo, and he's got his video camera and he's filming me.

I wave him away. "Leo, I look terrible. I just got my catheter out."

He turns the camera off for a second and smiles at me. "I'm not filming that end. Now, smile and show everybody Emma Rose." He lifts the camera again and turns it back on.

I remove the blanket from Emma Rose's head and lift her up. "This is my baby. This is my Emma Rose," I say. "Say hello, Emma Rose. Say hello to all the campers." I put her in my lap so she's sitting up, and I take her hand and wave it at the camera.

"You want to hold her?" I ask Leo.

"Sure."

"Be careful, though. She's brand-new. She's delicate."

"I've held plenty of babies before, Elly. Don't worry." He sets the camera on my bed and takes Emma Rose in his arms. She looks so teeny-tiny next to him.

"How have you held plenty of babies?" I ask. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and slowly stand up. I do feel a little dizzy, and my belly, where I was cut open, feels really heavy. I reach down and hold myself there, as if I still had a baby inside.

"I have eleven brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest."

"Eleven! That means your mother had twelve kids. Wow! Twelve kids. Poor lady. But no wonder you're so good with the campers. You're used to it."

"Not all of them were babies. We're all adopted. Some of my brothers and sisters we got when they were older, like three and four. But we've had some babies, too."

"I'd think you'd be so sick of kids by now."

Leo smiles at Emma Rose and puts her against his chest and pats her back. "Ay-uh, you'd think."

His fingers are long and slender, and his hand covers her whole back, practically.

"Isn't she tiny?" I ask, and he nods.

We decide to take a walk, but just as we get to the door, the nurse is back to take Emma Rose away again. I can't wait till it's just me and Emma Rose and Ziggy alone, with no nurses trying to take her away.

Leo and I go for a walk down the hall and out to where the waiting room is. He tells me a bit about his life on the farm with his parents and brothers and sisters. They grow blueberries and make maple syrup. "I love maple sugaring time. We get a lot of kids who come to the farm and want maple-syrup snow."

"Yeah, my parents and sister and I used to go to a farm for that. I loved how they'd pour the maple syrup on the snow and we'd scoop it up, and the syrup would be all thick and sugary."

We get silent after that, and I'm wondering where Ziggy is and where my parents are. Yesterday, before the baby was born, everybody was hovering around all over me, but now it's just Leo.

"So," I say, "do you think Ziggy will be by soon? And have you seen Lam? Have you spoken to him? What's he saying about everything?"

"Lam's gone. He took off."

"Took off where?"

Leo rubs his chin, and I notice he's growing a beard. It's coming in reddish brown. Funny I hadn't noticed earlier. "I don't know," he says about Lam. "Probably a friend's house."

"Why did he leave?"

"I don't know, Elly. I really don't know his business. Lam and I have never been close." Leo sounds irritated.

"Sorry," I say. I put my hand on his, and he takes my hand and squeezes it.

"No,
I'm
sorry. I didn't get much sleep last night. There's lots going on at the camp. The Lothrops are trying to keep business as usual these last days of camp, but lots of kids have gone home already. The mood is pretty down right now. The Lothrops are asking the parents to bring their kids back for the final night when we'll do the video and talent show and pass out awards and badges to the campers. It will be good to end on a high note. I think I've got some good footage, too." He lifts his camera.

The talent show—I had forgotten all about it. "I was really hoping Banner would be in the talent show. I really only came up with the idea because of her. I wanted everybody to see her dance."

Leo squeezes my hand again. "I know. I remember you telling me that. You did your best, Elly."

Then we're silent again, and again I think of Ziggy.

"So, have you talked to Ziggy?"

Leo studies a really ugly picture on the wall. It's supposed to be an autumn scene, but the colors are so muddy it's just depressing. "Yeah, I talked to him. He says he's got a really busy schedule today. He's got some campers to deal with who are still having trouble with Banner's death. He doesn't feel right leaving them." He looks at me now, and he looks embarrassed, like he's embarrassed for Ziggy not being here.

"Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm being selfish. I know I am. I just don't know what's going on—at the camp, and with Ziggy. I wish I could leave and go back there with you. Of course I have Emma Rose to think of now, too. I can't leave until she's ready."

"So you plan to keep her, then? Your mother was saying something about adoption."

I look down at my hands. My fingernails are dirty, and I wonder how they got that way. I hate that I touched Emma Rose with dirty hands. I need a bath.

"Yeah, Mom says adoption is the right thing to do. 'Cause I can't give the baby everything she's going to need, like doctors and special teachers and money to pay for everything. I'll be a single parent, and that's hard enough with a normal child, but Emma Rose will need special care all her life—blah, blah, blah."

"She has a point there," Leo says. "Emma Rose may never be able to grow up and live on her own. You don't know yet, but that's a possibility."

I get to my feet and hold on to my belly again. "Of course you'd say that. You were adopted. Of course you'd say that." I feel pissed.

Leo stands, too, and he looks pissed right back, which is a new one, because Leo never gets pissed. "For your information, I don't always think giving your child up for adoption is the best idea. Some of us get stuck in bad foster homes or horrible orphanages, and lots of kids never get adopted. It's not the perfect solution everyone thinks it is. And some of my brothers and sisters have problems, big problems, because of things that happened to them before my parents got them. And one of my brothers my parents got when he was three days old, and he's still messed up. So, no, I don't think just because I was adopted that you should put your baby up for adoption, too."

I touch Leo's arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm sorry, Leo."

He lets out his breath and forces a smile. "I know you are. It just gets me sometimes. No offense, Elly, but girls get pregnant and figure it's no sweat, they'll just give it away. They'll just give it up for adoption. They figure some nice happy couple's going to take them the very next day and everything's going to be beautiful. But adoptive couples get divorced just like other couples, or they turn out to be abusive, or a foster parent abuses them. It's not perfect. It's not a perfect solution."

I think of the parenting magazines with all the pretty people and the nice sane advice they give for even the craziest problems. It all sounds so easy in the magazines.

"Nothing's perfect. Nobody's perfect," I say, and I think that maybe I expect life to be perfect, and Sarah and my parents to be perfect, and me to be perfect, but I'm so far from perfect it makes me hate myself a thousand times a day. Emma Rose isn't perfect, but she is to me. She's special to me. I accept her as she is. Why can't I accept myself?

"We just have to accept that life is perfectly imperfect," Leo says.

"My parents say that life only looks imperfect, but that's because we can't see the whole picture. Only God sees the whole picture. We see through a glass darkly."

Just then my mom and dad come into the room. They look annoyed. "We've been looking all over for you," Dad says. Mom walks over and kisses my cheek.

"I'm supposed to walk around today so I don't get blood clots in my legs," I say. Then I introduce my parents to Leo, but they remind me that they've already met.

I wonder what my dad thinks of Leo, who's dressed in these goofball golf shorts made out of patchy material in all different colors. Also he's not wearing his Hawaiian shirt anymore, just the WeightAway shirt, with all the signatures on the back. I notice that he and my dad are the same height and build—real stringy with broad shoulders.

Dad acts happy to see him again and he shakes his hand, so I figure he likes him. That's a first for my parents, actually liking one of my friends. We all talk a little bit, and Leo explains the back of his shirt. "The last week of camp, I wear it uncovered so the campers can see all the names and point out their own. They get a kick out of it." Leo shrugs, and Dad and Mom think it's a great way to encourage good deeds—one of their favorite topics. I smile. I'm happy to see the three of them together talking like adults and not the way my parents always were with Lam—like he was just this evil dude trying to lure their daughter into sinful deeds. I'm glad they came back, and I think that maybe, after they've gotten used to the idea, they'll want to stay in the States and help me raise Emma Rose.

"So, where have you guys been?" I ask them during the lull in the conversation. "I thought you'd be here early this morning. It feels like everybody's deserting me." I laugh, kind of, but it does feel like that.

"We've been exploring options for your baby and talking to a social worker."

I frown. As far as I'm concerned, there are no other options. I'm going to raise Emma Rose. "So you're really going back to Kenya, then?"

Mom and Dad exchange glances, and I know of course they will. That's their life's work. I get that, only I guess I kind of wish I was their life's work.