Lainie waited for Mitch to answer that.
"Beautiful," he said. "Like my wife."
Lainie worked hard to keep the smile on her face. "We're Mitch and Lainie De Nardo."
"Hi there" came a loud shout from inside. "Sorry I'm late!" It was Judith Shea. Her pretty auburn hair was flying. Her alert round-faced baby girl was in a papoose carrier on her back, and in her arms she carried
her toddler daughter, whose chubby little legs were wrapped around her waist. "Say hi to everyone, girls," Judith urged.
For Barbara the explosive warmth was a welcome contrast to the nervous expressions of the others. "Two more little honeys for your group," Judith said, putting her daughter down, freeing her hands. "Judith Shea . . . inseminatee," she said with a laugh as she walked around to the others introducing herself.
Rick looked her over. Sexy as hell, a little thick around the middle, but then she'd just had two babies. Pretty little Jillian joined the group in the sandbox, and now that everyone had arrived, Barbara walked over and spoke to the toddlers.
"While all of you play with Dana, I'm going to go right inside that door with your mommies and daddies and Jillian's baby sister, and we're going to have some coffee and get to know one another better. So if you get lonely and want to come and say hello, you can just walk right in that door, and that's where we'll be until it's time for snack."
None of them even looked at her, but what she said seemed to register on their faces. The parents walked inside, where each of them sat on one of the toddler-size chairs she'd placed in a circle near a small table containing the electric percolator, which was now exuding the rich dark odor of freshly brewed coffee.
"I'd like to open by requesting that we get some larger furniture," Rick said, "since these chairs were obviously made for munchkins." The others laughed.
"I'll try to find bigger chairs by next time," Barbara said, looking around. Four families. Five little ones. It was a good start, she thought. Enough people to get some good talk going, and small enough to be intimate. "I want to welcome all of you. This is a very unique group, specifically designed for families with children
whose birth circumstances were unusual. I believe in the necessity for this group, because modern technology is creating, and our society is embracing, extraordinary and wonderful ways to bring babies into the world. No one knows that better than all of you. But because these babies are so special, they and their parents bring with them a special set of needs and problems for which there is no precedent.
"These needs create situations never faced before, and require answers which, if we find them in our group, will not only help these special children through their lives but maybe can serve as pathfinding information we can pass on to other families." Every now and then she could hear her voice sounding exactly like Gracie's. And for a minute she had the odd feeling that somewhere in the room, just outside her peripheral vision, Gracie was perched, smoking a cigarette and saying, "Well said, dear girl."
"Each of you has taken a risk to have a child in an unorthodox way. Now those children are growing and developing, and soon they'll be out in the world with other children, and they'll have questions about their origins. We're here to deal with your responsibilities to your children, and how much you're prepared to tell them about themselves. How you'll present the information, and how you'll talk about their specialness at different stages in their lives. We'll also work on the way your particular baby or babies came into the world and how that continues to affect you and your spouse, or significant other, and other members of your extended families, parents, siblings, et cetera.
"So when Sid and Rose Margaret and David and Jillian and even little baby Jody are asking, 'Where do I come from?,' we'll have prepared loving responses. Responses we'll figure out together. And I mean that literally, because I certainly don't know what they are
yet myself. But I think the important thing is to treat them and their questions in a way that helps these children to grow up feeling loved, loving, and confident."
"How can there be any answer to 'Where do I come from' besides the truth?" Rick asked.
Judith's baby was whimpering. Judith took her out of the carrier and rocked her against her shoulder. "I guess," she offered, "it depends on how comfortable you are with the truth. I don't particularly want to tell my daughters, 'Your dad was a number on a vial of sperm.' I'd like to make it sound better than that."
"Truthfulness for young children doesn't have to mean you tell them the whole story all at once. There are certain ways to give information that are more age appropriate than other ways, and you give them the information in stages. Broad strokes that are honest instead of details that they might not be able to handle," Barbara said. "And, Judith, I think wanting to let your daughters know that there was a living, breathing person who donated that sperm is a great idea. Because once they understand that they're a part of him, they'll want to think of him as someone special."
That made Lainie think about Jackie. About Mitch and Jackie, and she nearly jumped with surprise when she felt Mitch take her hand and hold it gently. Why is he holding my hand? Trying to make everyone think we're happy. Trying to make
me
think that.
"The method I used to get a baby was open adoption," Rick said. "David's birth mother actually lived in my house for the last few months of her pregnancy.''
"Does she still see the baby?" Lainie asked.
"She hasn't seen him since we left the hospital."
"Where is she?" Shelly asked.
"In Kansas."
"Nice and far away," Judith said.
"I have no problem with her being around David. I
think of her as his mother. He has her feisty ways, and her pink skin, and her blood flowing through his veins. And she's a terrific, bright human being. When he can understand, I want him to know she's his mother."
"You think that because you're single," Ruthie said. "If you had a wife who wanted to mother him, I'll bet things would be different."
"Maybe," Rick said.
"These are the kinds of complicated things we'll get into in this group," Barbara said. "I suspect that involvement with a birth parent can probably get touchy down the line. Particularly, Rick, if you chose to get married someday."
"No chance of that," Rick said.
"Are you gay?" Judith asked Rick.
"Not that I know of," Rick answered. "Want to step into the other room and find out?"
"Are you homophobic?" Ruthie asked Judith.
"Hell no," Judith said. "I was just wondering why an attractive single man is so adamant that he won't marry."
Ruthie changed the subject. "Do the two of you have any continuing relationship with the surrogate?" she asked, looking at Lainie and Mitch. Lainie's heart beat faster. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Barbara stiffen.
"No," Mitch said now in answer to Ruthie's question. "We have no communication with the surrogate. None."
Barbara's and Lainie's eyes met for a second, but Barbara's moved back to Rick. "How will you handle the fact that you have a little baby with the women you date?" Barbara asked him.
"I'll have them stop by at midnight and leave at six
A.M.
," he said in a teasing voice. "That way David will never know they're there."
"I knew I didn't like you the minute I laid eyes on you," Judith said to Rick, but it was in a kidding voice.
"Oh yes you did," Rick kidded back. "I'm still living on the fact that less than a minute ago you called me attractive." Judith laughed. "Listen, I'm not serious. I don't know what I'll do. I've temporarily sworn off dating, and maybe someday I will find the woman for me. Though it becomes more farfetched all the time. I usually find myself dating women I wouldn't want to involve with my child."
"Now there's a comment on your taste," Judith said.
"You're going to be trouble," Rick said, grinning at her.
The others laughed.
"Do you know the birth father of the baby too?" Mitch asked Rick.
"No, I have no idea who he is. The young girl who's David's mother won't tell me. Maybe she doesn't even know. But I think it's pretty safe to assume it was some high-school kid who threw her over," he said.
"And the two of you?" Barbara asked, looking closely at Shelly. He showed no apparent sign of being in less than perfect health. His arm was casually draped around the back of Ruthie's little chair. "Have you given any thought to what you'll tell Sid when the time comes for him to start asking?"
"I'll tell him to mind his own business," Shelly joked. The others laughed.
"That's funny and glib," Barbara said, "but it's not answering the question. I know you're a writer and comedy is your specialty, but I also know you had this baby for serious reasons. And I really wonder what you'll tell him."
"Well," Ruthie said, looking at Shelly, "we can certainly tell him how much we love each other, and that that's why we had him." Then to the others she
explained, "We're best friends. Shelly is gay, and Sid was a turkey-baster baby."
"And what if he asks you
how
you had him?" Judith asked.
"It'll be easier to describe than sex," Ruthie said.
Another laugh from the others.
"We don't know," Shelly said, "which I guess is why we're here."
"He's so smart it's extraordinary," Ruthie said, sitting tall in her chair, her happy thoughts of her son dancing across her face. "So verbal. With an amazing sense of humor. He's already talking like a much older child. I mean, I think he is, because people are always amazed at the things he says."
"Like the other day," Shelly said.
"I didn't mean that," Ruthie said, anger crossing her face.
"I know, but it's important. It's one of the reasons we're here."
Ruthie explained what Shelly meant in a way that made Barbara sense she was carefully holding her rage inside. "Sid was at some other little kid's house for a play date. Some little boy in the neighborhood. And he came home using a new word he'd learned there. The word was 'faggot.' " Ruthie and Shelly held each other's hands tightly. "We realize it's the beginning of a lifetime of explaining, and we want to explain it the best way we can."
"We don't want him to think we have separate bedrooms because I snore," Shelly said. "I want him to know that I'm gay, and that that's okay no matter what people outside our family and our home may tell him. That it doesn't make me any less his father, or our relationship less loving."
"He'll know you love each other and love him," Barbara said, "because he'll feel it, and I'll help you
work on the words you can say to him so you can express it to him verbally too." She was glad to see Ruthie and Shelly exchange a look of relief, and she said a secret prayer that she'd be able to do what she was promising.
"You see," Shelly said, musing, "I think if he doesn't know that right away, he'll never have any idea of who I was."
"Was? You sound as if you're not planning to be around for him to get to know you," Judith said.
Barbara heard Shelly's deep intake of breath and saw Ruthie look out the window at Sid. "None of us knows how long we'll be around," Barbara said gently. "But I think what we're hearing today is that our yardsticks for behavior are out the window when we try to use them against the new life-styles."
After a quiet moment the discussion moved into the group's mutual everyday parenting problems—pacifiers, temper tantrums—until they were interrupted by the cry of "Mommeeee" from the play yard. Ruthie, Lainie, and Judith all jumped to their feet and ran to the door. The cry had come from Sid, who had poured sand all over his own head. Ruthie picked him up and brushed him off tenderly.
"They're all getting hungry," Dana announced.
"Let's bring them in for clean diapers and snacks," Barbara said, and Lainie and Rick and Judith walked over to the sandbox to clean the sand from their little ones, too. As Barbara watched the parents interact with their babies, she felt shaky. Dear God, she thought. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. These are tough, complicated situations, being lived by smart people, and their problems aren't just about the future. They're about how to function day to day.
Rick Reisman may have finally bonded with his little boy during the illness, but he still feels incapable of
having a relationship with a woman. And Shelly Milton faces the possibility of AIDS every day of his life. He might look fine now, as he marches around the room with Sid on his shoulders, but there is the specter of the HIV virus always looming large in the lives of that family.
And the De Nardos. Does Mitch really still have some connection to the surrogate? That secret will have to come out soon too. Barbara looked at Mitch standing next to his wife, touching her back while she held little Rose on her lap and tied the baby's tiny shoes. If what Lainie suspected had any validity, there was plenty of pain ahead, not just for her and Mitch but most of all for little Rose.
"I don't want to be didactic about how the group will progress," Barbara said as she and Dana poured apple juice into dinosaur paper cups, "because in my experience I find the sessions usually take on a life of their own, and people talk about whatever's going on with them at the time. But I have some ideas for jumping-off points and directions we might want to take. For example, we might want to talk about how much we want to tell the children and when. How to create a support system, how to handle the unrealistic expectations of holidays. How to help them feel continuity with their birth families by stories and letters. Rick, you might want to make a photo album for David with pictures in it of his birth family and his adopted family, going back to grandparents. So David can be familiar with his origins."
There was more talk among them all, light and guarded, along with a snack of crackers, raisins, and cheese, then they all sang "Two Little Blackbirds Sitting on a Hill," "The Wheels on the Bus," "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider," and Barbara read to the children from
Spot Goes to the Farm
.