Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey (13 page)

I rolled my eyes, picturing Robbie in that hideous suit. “How did you guess?”

“Because my date wore the same thing.”

Now we both cracked up. The girls were looking at us like we were crazy, but for me, it was one of the first genuine “girlfriend” moments Regina and I had shared.

“Actually,” I said, putting down my coffee mug and heading toward the door that led to the attic, “I think it’s still in a box up here somewhere.”

Both girls were out of their seats like rockets.

“This I’ve gotta see,” Daphne signed to Bay.

“Totally,” Bay agreed.

We all ducked into the slanting storage attic and began the search. “It’ll be in a box marked ‘Kathryn’s Keepsakes,’” I told them.

Bay found the first box labeled in that manner and dug in. She held up my
Mork & Mindy
lunch box in one hand and my disco roller skates with the neon-pink wheels in the other. “Seriously?” she said.

“What’s this?” Daphne asked, tugging a white windbreaker with black trim out of another box.

“My tennis team jacket!” I cried with delight, touching the nylon warm-up lovingly. “From college. Look, I was team captain!” I showed her the black script on the right sleeve:
KT. CAPT.

Daphne turned the jacket around and showed Bay the large black letters embroidered in an arc across the back.

Bay scoffed. “You were the Terriers?”

“Woof,” said Daphne. It was their turn to crack up.

Then Regina was shouting, “Found it,” and there it was. A little wrinkled, a little faded, but there it was. My beautiful lacy, ruffly, peachy-pink Gunne Sax prom dress with its satin sash and high collar.

“It’s a freakin’ turtleneck!” cried Bay, laughing to the point of tears.

“Did you go to prom in a limo?” Regina joked. “Or a Conestoga wagon?”

Daphne took pity on me. “I like it,” she said. “It’s … vintage!”

I frowned. “Did you just call me vintage?”

“I called the
dress
vintage,” Daphne clarified, her eyes dancing. “I called
you
old.”

“Very funny!” I snatched the dress away and folded it neatly before returning it to the box.

“You saved everything,” Regina remarked, pulling out a handful of chunky plastic cartridges. “Do the eight-track police know about your stash?”

“Okay,” said Bay, “before we come across your
Charlie’s Angels
fan club membership, I’m out of here.”

“Yes,” Regina agreed, “too much nostalgia for me. This actually has me thinking about downloading the
Xanadu
soundtrack on my iPod.”

“Don’t bother, I probably have the eight-track,” I offered, grinning.

I had begun to follow them out when I noticed that Daphne was still holding my cherished Terriers windbreaker. A sense of warmth filled me that had nothing to do with the stifling conditions of the attic.

“Would you like that?” I asked her, signing along with my words. “You can have it. I mean, it’s still in good shape and besides that …” I narrowed my eyes and grinned, “it’s vintage.”

She gave me her sweetest smile. “I’d love to have it,” she said. “Thank you.”

I held the door for her, and when she left the attic, I glanced back at the boxes containing the best parts of my childhood.

In another world, I would have taken Daphne to the club for “Toddler Tennis”; I’d have bought her pretty little tennis dresses and matching hair ties, and I’d have taught her the secret of my mighty serve that had brought the Terriers so many victories all those years ago.

But none of that had happened. I think maybe that’s why she asked me for my jacket—as a way to make up for those lost moments.

Or maybe she just liked the idea that it was vintage and she’d get some laughs out of the whole Terrier thing.

I didn’t know and I didn’t care. It was a connection and I’d take it.

Gladly.

Clearly, “vintage” was “in.”

Later that day, Bay came to me in the kitchen and asked, with an utterly straight face, if she could have my Gunne Sax dress.

I did that sitcom thing where I placed my hand on her forehead, implying that she might be fatally ill for even thinking such a thing.

“You want to wear my pink dress to the prom?” I asked.

“Um, yeah, have you met me?” She shook her head. “No, Mother, I do not want to wear it.” She looked a little sheepish now. “Actually, I want to cut it up.”

That hurt. I loved that dress, or at least I did when I wore it and was named prom queen in it. (Mental note: Go back into attic to look for sash and tiara.) “Why?” I asked.

“I was thinking it could make something with it.” Bay’s eyes had that twinkle I’d long ago come to recognize as inspiration. “I was thinking I could use the pieces somehow. Maybe on canvas, maybe in some three-dimensional way, you know, like a sculpture.”

“Interesting,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal, but inside I was thrilled and flattered. I’d abandoned any dreams of Bay wanting to wear my prom dress or wedding gown years ago. That would have been sweet (albeit corny), but hearing that she wanted to use my humble pink Gunne Sax to express herself through her art was by far a bigger payoff.

“It’s all yours,” I said. “I can’t wait to see what you do with it.”

“There’s more,” she said, hesitantly.

I waited.

“Okay, so, remember when Regina told us about … you know …
knowing
?”

I nodded. Of course she was referring to Regina’s revelation about being aware of the switch for thirteen years. She’d even confessed that she’d occasionally follow us to steal a glimpse of Bay. I was getting over that; mostly, I could put it behind me, but being reminded of it still smarted a little.

“She mentioned coming to my piano recital,” Bay continued. “She said something about a little blue dress.”

Instantly I flashed back to the dress in question. A gorgeous little periwinkle pinafore with pretty puff sleeves, smocking on the bodice, and an oversized satin sash which I looped meticulously into a perfect bow at the back. If lace and frills were genetically transmitted, this dress could have been my prom gown’s baby sister.

“Do you still have it?” Bay asked.

I grinned. “Have
you
met
me
?”

“So that’s a yes?”

“In the attic,” I said on a sigh. “Big box, marked ‘Bay’s Baby Clothes.’”

“And you don’t mind if I use it for the sculpture? If I repurpose it.”

She was saying “repurpose” instead of “shred” or “decimate,” which was actually thoughtful of her. Again, the image of that dainty little frock, which held so many memories, being torn to pieces stung a little. But the idea of Bay wanting to put two special dresses together—one mine, one hers—to create something heartfelt and original was touching to me.

“I may have an old Members Only jacket of Daddy’s up there somewhere,” I tossed out. “In case you want to throw a little polyester into the mix.”

Bay shook her head. “No thanks. This one is just about us.” She grinned and plucked up a pair of heavy-duty scissors out of my utensil drawer.

As she headed off to the guesthouse attic, I closed my eyes and pictured her in that little blue dress, sitting nervously at the baby grand on the stage of the recital. Then I pictured myself standing before the full-length mirror in the bedroom of my childhood, as my mother stood behind me, looping the sash of my prom gown into a perfect bow.

Then I imagined those two dresses inspiring my little girl to create something that would link them and the memories they held forever. I smiled.

I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.

That night, I kept thinking about two things:

One was Robbie Dennison in that ridiculous blue tux and the fact that Regina’s date had worn the same thing. It was silly, really. If I had a dime for every misguided young man from that era who attended his senior prom in a tuxedo the color of baby booties, I’d … well I’d have enough ready cash to pay someone to convert my eight-tracks to CDs. But it was just one more incident where Regina and I had lived a common experience. Apart but, still, utterly connected.

And I also thought about all those boxes in the guesthouse attic. In a very real way, I had managed to pack up my past and put it somewhere where I would always have it; even if I didn’t remember exactly where certain items were stowed, they were there. Somewhere. My “memories,” in the form of lunch boxes, prom gowns, and team jackets, were saved in boxes, tucked away and stored for safekeeping.

I wondered if I’d saved other kinds of memories, more fleeting, diaphanous ones, not in boxes, but in the back of my mind. Maybe there was something hidden deep in my subconscious, like a box labeled “Keepsakes,” that could help me better understand the reality of the switch and all its consequences.

Again, I did not tell John what I was going to do, for fear he would forbid me to do it. Or worse, laugh at me for being gullible. Neither of those options appealed to me so I kept what I was about to attempt to myself.

A few years ago, when my friend Denise was going through her divorce, she took up smoking again. She’d quit back when she was pregnant and had remained nicotine-free for seventeen years, but the stress of the dissolution of her marriage had her lighting up again, and with far too much frequency. Denise is not the sort of girl who would willingly invite yellow teeth and premature wrinkles.

But quitting was simply too difficult on her own. So she went to a hypnotist.

A certified hypnotist, mind you, not some kook with a shabby storefront between a tattoo parlor and the local bounty hunter in a sketchy neighborhood. The guy Denise chose was, according to his ads, a well-respected member of the hypnotism community. Who knew?

The idea of tapping into lost memories intrigued me. If nothing else, I might at least be able to remember which of my friends had borrowed my favorite Williams-Sonoma pizza stone and never returned it.

So I went to the hypnotist’s office and told him I wanted to remember, with clarity, a day sixteen years ago. The day my daughter was born. I didn’t know if there was a code of ethics in the hypnotism community, and I did not know if, by sitting in the surprisingly handsome leather club chair in the corner of his spacious office, I was entitled to any sort of hypnotist-client privilege, so I decided not to tell him anything about the switch.

When he didn’t take out a pocket watch on a chain and begin swinging it before my eyes, chanting, “You are getting verrrry sleepy,” I relaxed.

His voice had a deep, resonating timbre as he spoke to me about deep breathing and letting go and walking slowly down a flight of imaginary steps, steps that led to my past.

I can’t describe in any real way how it felt to “go under,” but I knew when it happened. It was like shaking loose from the laws of gravity and floating within my own life. I felt calm and patient as the memory unfolded in my mind’s eye.

The hospital. October. That extra-dazzling autumn light is warming the window of my private room in the maternity ward. John has just left with Toby, who didn’t seem overly impressed with his new baby sister. He was wearing OshKosh B’Gosh overalls—denim—and Weebok sneakers, and he brought Baby Bay a present he’d picked out himself downstairs in the hospital gift shop. It is a little pink stuffed pig, nubbly-soft, with a curly tail and a white ribbon around its neck. The nurse allowed him to place it in Bay’s portable crib himself. (She still has Piggles, by the way, on a shelf in her room beside her 3-D papier-mâché rendering of Edvard Munch’s
The Scream
.)

I sensed that Toby was ready to nap, so I told John to take him home. My husband complied, but not until after he was stopped at the nurse’s station and asked to sign autographs for everyone’s husband or boyfriend or baseball-obsessed son.

I am alone.

A young nurse comes in and smiles at the addition of the pig to Bay’s crib, then she says she’s taking her back to the nursery.

Outside of the memory, far away in the hypnotist’s leather chair, sixteen years in this memory’s future, I am distantly aware of my palms beginning to perspire and my heart pounding. Could I have taken that moment to look just a little more closely at the pretty little baby in the plastic crib? To drink her in enough to know that she was not the little girl who should be receiving such a sweet, brotherly gift? Should I have questioned what I was being told?

No. Because nobody does that. I am not guilty. I am not to blame.

This thought comes to me as a truth that spans both time and consciousness.

Again, I relax, and I watch myself smile at the nurse as she wheels Bay out the door. Then I remember that the doctor wants me to get up and walk. He wants me to get my blood circulating and flex my muscles. That’s one of the most amusing aspects of the maternity ward—seeing all these exhausted new mommies pacing the halls. It’s like some weird slow-motion race that takes place in pajamas.

I put on the pink robe my mother sent (I received a blue one when Toby was born) and I stand up gingerly, feeling my body object. I recently expelled a six-pound human being from my body, through a very unforgiving portal, after all, and walking is going to be a bit of a challenge.