Authors: Han Nolan
The rabbi holds me and lets me cry on him. Then he re-leases me. "Eleanor, you're being paged," the rabbi says.
I stop crying and listen. "Eleanor Crowe, please report to the information desk on the first floor," a voice says.
"That's my parents. I've got to go. Thank you. I'm sorry I got your shirt wet. Thanks for talking to me." I stand, and so does the rabbi.
"You've got a good head on your shoulders, Eleanor. Your heart is ruling right now, and that makes it hard to see what you need to do, but you know. Deep inside you know what's best."
"I guess I do."
"God bless you, Eleanor."
"Yeah, I wish he or she would."
MY PARENTS didn't want me to see Emma Rose again. "It will only hurt you, Elly," my mother said, and she was right, but I knew not saying goodbye would hurt more.
The social worker from the agency arrives, and she waits with us for the nurse to bring me Emma Rose. The woman's tiny, like me, with red hair that hangs all the way down to her butt. She tells me that I have ten days to change my mind. I don't need ten days, because my mind is exactly the same as it was the first second I set eyes on Emma Rose: I want her; I love her! But wanting her and being able to take care of her, as my parents and everybody keep pointing out to me, are two different things.
My mother sees the tears forming in my eyes as I prepare myself to say goodbye, and she turns to the social worker. "This is the right decision, isn't it?" she says. "Maybe you can help Eleanor understand. She's so stubborn. A nice couple will adopt her, won't they? People who will love her and who can provide for her."
"Mom, I don't want to hear it. Okay? I've heard it all before."
"Actually," the social worker says, "except for your daughter's lack of a job and a place to live, she would make an excellent parent for Emma Rose."
"What?" the three of us say in unison.
I lift my head and wait for this woman to explain.
"I know she's very young and perhaps naive about what it's going to take to raise a Down syndrome child, but of course until we have a child of our own, we're all a bit naive. I'm sure you had a certain fantasy about how it was going to be raising Eleanor. It's never quite as we picture it."
My parents both blush when she says this, and I imagine they had a nice rosy picture of how it was going to be raising me. And then came the reality.
"As you've said to me a couple of times over the past few days, Mrs. Crowe, Eleanor is very stubborn. Emma Rose is going to need someone stubborn to be an advocate for her in the schools and with the medical professionals and in any activity Emma Rose may choose to pursue. From the things you told me when we talked earlier, Mr. Crowe, Eleanor has a lot of energy, which she will need in abundance if she were to raise Emma Rose. You said she's intelligent, and that helps. She
is
the child's mother, and she loves and wants her. With a child like Emma Rose, love obviously won't solve all her problems, but it will sure go a long way."
"But she's only sixteen! She's inexperienced. She needs to finish high school and go to college," Mom says, looking apoplectic.
"Of course, I know this," the woman says. "And single parents in general have a lower socioeconomic status than a two-parent family. No, it's not ideal. And it's certainly possible that we'll find a loving home for Emma Rose, but there are no guarantees. I just want you all to understand this. I want you all to consider both sides of the equation. There can be a lot of guilt feelings that crop up later when a child is given up for adoption, not just with the birth parents, but with the grandparents as well. I don't want you to let go without understanding this, because guilt can be seriously destructive." The woman takes a deep breath, and I think my dad's about to say something, but then the social worker speaks again.
"I know you've said that you have plans to return to Kenya, Mr. and Mrs. Crowe, but perhaps you'd reconsider and stay home to help Eleanor raise Emma Rose."
Okay, I cannot believe what I'm hearing. Someone on my side. A social worker on my side. "Thank you," I say, and I go over and shake her hand.
"You have ten days; just think about it," the woman says, looking over my head to my parents.
"I won't get Elly's hopes up like that," my mother says, her face turning ever-deepening shades of red as she speaks. "We've explained to her that we just do not feel equipped to deal with a Down syndrome child."
"We expect Eleanor to return to Kenya with usâjust Eleanor."
Now I'm apoplectic!
"If we took both Elly and the baby in with us, we would end up becoming full-time parents of Emma Rose," my father says. "I believe we know Elly a bit better than you do."
"No! No, you don't," I say, and I'm fuming. "You just think you do. You've always thought you had me all figured out, but it's never who I am at all. You don't know me. You don't know that I love caring for other people. I'm good at it. I found that out this summer. I was always so jealous of you and those AIDS babies, I never went near them. But now I know I'm good with kids. I'm good at something. And it feels good having to think about someone other than myself all the time."
"Eleanor, let's not go into this now, all right?" my mother says. "If you need something to care for, you'll have plenty of opportunities in Kenya."
"But there's a child who needs me right here! How can I abandon her when I know exactly what that feels like?"
Before they can answer me, the nurse walks into the room and looks around at our angry faces, and the smile on her own face dissolves.
I rush over to Emma Rose and take her out of the nurse's arms. My mother says something; I don't know what because I'm not paying attention to any of them anymore. Then everybody leaves the room, and I'm alone with my baby one last time. I kiss her face and her arms and hands. I hold her tiny body close and smell her sweet head. My little sugar cookie. My Emma Rose.
I seriously consider running away with her, but where would I run? Nobody's taking her against my will. I can keep her, but what would I do with her? How would I keep her? That's what Rabbi Yosef asked, and the answer is, not very well without a job and a place to live.
I play with her hands and feet for the last time, and I talk to her and tell her I won't forget her, ever. I smooth down the little blond hairs that stick straight up on her head and kiss both of her cheeks again.
"You're going to grow up to be happy and smart and beautiful. Your new parents are going to love you and give you everything your heart desires. You're going to be loved by everybody who ever meets you. But remember, I loved you first, and I'll love you always."
I kiss her nose, and she makes this gurgling noise, then starts to cry like she knows I'm about to leave her. My breasts leak at the sound of her cry and it reminds me that we're bonded forever, no matter what happens.
It seems as if I have only five seconds with Emma Rose before my parents and the nurse return. The nurse lifts Emma Rose out of my arms, and I feel my body trembling all over. I wait until Emma Rose is out of the room because I don't want her to hear me cry, but when she's gone I break down. "My baby. How can this be happening? Please. Mom, Dad, please. Please help me. Please! Please!"
Mom and Dad hold me and shush me and pat my head. Mom speaks softly in my ear. "It's going to be all right, shhh. We are helping you, Elly."
"No, you're not," I cry. "You're killing me. Don't you see? This is killing me."
Dad speaks in my other ear. "We're doing the best thing for everybody. In a few more years, you'll understand this. Shhh, it's going to be okay, pumpkin. Shhh."
I'm inconsolable. I want to die. It's all just too much. The hospital gives me some pills to calm me down and gives my parents some extra to take with them. Then with me still crying and hiccupping, and my parents shoving a bottle of water at me, trying to get me to drink it, they pile me into the back seat of the car and speed off.
***
We're on our way back to the hotel, and my parents are already talking to me about returning with them to Kenya. There's nothing keeping me here, they say, and time and distance will help with the healing. I don't think so. Nothing will help. A part of me has been torn away; just torn off of me. There is this big gaping hole that will never be filled or repairedâever.
We pull into the hotel parking lot, and as we're getting out of the car, I see Leo coming out of the hotel.
"Leo?"
"Eleanor? Are you okay?"
I know I must look like a complete wreck, because I feel like one. The pills are working, though, so although I cry, I'm not the blathering, slobbering crazy person I was just a while ago. I tell him what happened, and I tell him about Ziggy, and he says how really sorry he is. He looks like he can barely keep from crying himself, and I wonder what it's like for him, since someone must have given him away. Does it help for him to know how much I want to keep this baby? How much I love her?
"I wish I could find you a job," he says. "I'm living in a dorm with two roommates or I'd..."
"I know, Leo." I hug him. "It's okay. It's over. I'm sure I would have made a terrible mother, anyway."
"You know that's not true," he says, and I can see he means it. This comforts me.
Leo invites me to the awards night and talent show, and I say I'm not up for it, but he convinces me because it's the last night of camp and the kids are all asking about me and they want me to be there.
"Okay," I say. "I need to tell them all goodbye, anyway, and I have to clear out the rest of my stuff. I'm going to miss those kids. They kind of grow on you, don't they?" I think about all the campers, all their different personalities, and my girls in cabin seven. I'm glad I got to play at being a cabin counselor for a while. I liked it a lot.
I sleep the whole afternoon and go out to dinner with my parents at the Bethel Inn Resort, this giant yellow clapboard inn in the center of town. Then we drive up to the camp. Just like the night before, a bunch of campers come up to greet me, and a couple of the little ones take my hand and drag me along to the main cabin. The place is decorated with the campers' artworkâdrawings and paintings, and on tables around the room are their crafts, the little boats, the scarves and blankets or knitted things that will someday become scarves and blankets, the dulcimers, the clay bowls and mugs, and the necklaces.
I notice the campers are enjoying seeing their work on display. Lots of them have their parents with them, and I see them smiling as they lift something their child has made and examine it closer. I notice even my parents are enjoying the show. I feel good that I suggested this. The display was my idea. I wish I had Emma Rose with me. I'd carry her in my arms and talk to her. I'd tell her about each camper as we looked at the artwork. I want to show her. I want her here to see everything. I want to be around when she sees the new world she's entered, and when she learns how to speak and how to walk. I want to hear her call me Mama.
"Looks like they put just anybody's crap on display, don't it?"
I turn around to see who said this, and it's who else but the old bat sitting in her wheelchair holding up a lopsided mug one of the campers had made.
"Oh, yeah? And who made you judge and jury?" I say, totally irritated. "I think this mug has lots of personality."
"You do, do ya?" The lady sets the mug on the table and crosses her arms.
"Yeah. Perfection is overrated, if you ask me," I say.
"Ha!" the lady says, but before she can say anything else, my dad comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder. "This reminds me of all the art shows you and your sister were involved in at school, remember?"
"Yeah, and you could actually recognize all of Sarah's art, unlike mine." I notice my dulcimer isn't on display and I'm grateful, especially with that old bat behind me making judgments. Now I see where the MIL gets her personality.
I see the lady wheel off toward the refreshment table. I look around for Ziggy, but I don't see him. I don't see Lam, either.
Mr. Lothrop gets up onstage and speaks into the microphone, asking everyone to find a seat. Once we're seated and sort of quiet, he announces that they'll be handing out badges and awards first, then we'll have the talent show.
Leo had warned me that the talent show wasn't going to be all that long, because a lot of kids dropped out after Banner died. "But we'll do it again next year and have it on a separate day from the awards. The Lothrops liked your idea."
The badges and awards take a while, but it's fun for me to see what the campers had been up to when they weren't in the crafts hut or in my dance class. After the serious awards, there are the goofy awards, like Camper Most Likely to Actually Cook and Eat Mashed Cauliflower at Home, and Camper with the Hottest New Body.
Then Elizabeth, one of the unholy four, goes up onstage. "Now for the counselor awards," she says. These are goofy, too. Lam gets Hottest Counselor Award, but he's not there to accept it, and Jen gets the Walk, Don't Run Award. Gren gets the Boy, Am I Embarrassed Award, and as usual, her face is bright red when she gets up to accept it. Leo gets Favorite Counselor Award for like the hundredth time, and Ziggy gets Counselor Most Likely to Be Seen in Hollywood. Ziggy goes up to accept the award, and when he climbs onstage he pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and puts them on. He takes the award and makes the peace sign and hops off again.
I wonder how he can be so cute and happy and all that when he has just destroyed my whole life. I bite down hard on my lips to keep from crying. I wonder what Emma Rose is doing right now. Where is she? Who has her? I can't stand to think of it.
Stop it. Stop thinking of her. Just stop!
I'm yelling at myself in my head, and then I hear my name called and I sit up.
"Eleanor Crowe, for Most Original Dulcimer!" Elizabeth announces.
Abby on the front row passes my dulcimer to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth holds it up. Everybody cheers and laughs, and I go to the stage to accept my award. When I get up close, I see that campers have autographed it. There are signatures all over, including Banner's. I'm so surprised. I take my misshapen dulcimer, and Elizabeth says, "To remember us by."