There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (40 page)

“Say what you want to your dad, and say it now.”

She put the phone up to his ear and I said: “I love you, Dad. And I’ve always been proud you were my father. Please don’t be scared.”

According to Cristiana, Dad moved his toes.

That was the last time I would ever talk to him. He passed away that afternoon shortly after we were on the phone. We had already chosen a first name for the baby, Rowan, and I decided Dad’s first name would be her middle name. She was to be Rowan Francis Henchy.

I phoned my mother to tell her that Dad had died, and she began to cry, repeating, “Oh, Brookie, oh, Brookie.”

We had not really discussed my dad’s illness. Through her lonely tears she asked me if he had said anything about her to me.

“
What?!
”

“Did he mention me?”

“
No
,
Mom
, he did not mention you. How could you ask me that right at this moment? No, he did not talk about
you
!”

I knew that was being cruel but I said it anyway.

I sobbed the entire plane ride to New York City.

I went to term.

Chapter Sixteen

I Know Your Kind

I
was eight months pregnant and a good friend of ours from California was throwing me a coed baby shower in our newly acquired SoHo loft. All my life I’d lived on the Upper East Side, but moving downtown was the best decision we ever made. It felt like a fresh start. It was a bit grittier than the Upper East Side but more forgiving and varied. We decided not to cancel the shower because of my father’s death but to instead try to celebrate his life as well as the one growing inside of me. I was incredibly sad that my dad would never meet my children, but I tried to forget the reality of the loss.

I had not seen my mom in a while and I was very nervous because I was pretty emotional and didn’t want her to cause any trouble. But when she arrived she was surprisingly happy and not even sneaking alcohol. It was a beautiful and intimate shower, even if it was slightly bittersweet. I was shocked, amazed, and unbelievably relieved that Mom did not drink, and probably would have lost my mind if she had. Maybe somewhere in her subconscious she sensed that, but I doubt it. I just got lucky.

Three weeks later, in mid-May, my water broke. It was 5:00
A.M.
, at
the crack of dawn, and I had gotten up to use the bathroom. It was a few days before her due date and two days before my father’s birthday. I had hoped she would be born on my dad’s birthday. But Rowan was breech and chose to turn the night before my water broke. I’m sure she did it on purpose just to make sure I knew she was her own person.

When my water broke I did not go right to the hospital or call anybody. I called out to Chris, who had been up all night celebrating at the upfronts, which is when networks present their new shows to advertisers and affiliates. I yelled to him from the bathroom and asked him to check the
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
book to see what to do when your water breaks. He waited a few moments and then said that the book said to go back to bed. I brought a towel to bed, went back to sleep, and had an amazing two-hour nap. I had a blowout scheduled for 9:00
A.M.
so I figured I could go to the hospital with smooth hair. I hoped I would not go into labor until after the blowout was done.

I awoke and called my stepsister, Diana. I casually mentioned that my water had broken and she screamed at me, “Why are you not at the hospital?”

“Because I’m not having contractions and they’d probably just send me home.”

“Oh my God, no, that is not right. Go to the hospital now. You can get an infection if your water breaks and you don’t tend to it.”

I lunged at Chris and asked him to tell me, again, what the book had said.

“What book?”

“Oh my God, you didn’t even look at the book when I asked you! The baby may get an infection or I might because my water broke and I did nothing. Get me to the hospital
now
!”

Once safely at the hospital, we began phoning relatives and some close friends. I did not get an infection and I ended up needing to be induced. However, after being on Pitocin for twenty-four hours with practically no dilation, I needed an emergency C-section.

Mom and Chris’s parents had all arrived at the hospital. As I was being wheeled into the OR, I saw Mom from my lying-down position on the gurney and I had such a strange feeling inside. I knew she was going to kiss me either on the lips or the forehead and I was instantly sick to my stomach at the thought that she might have cold, slightly clammy lips. I was sure she was nervous because only Chris was allowed to be in the OR with me.

I also resisted yelling out to her to tell me I was going to be OK. I suddenly felt like I could never ask her that question ever again. I knew for the first real time that she could not possibly know the answer to this question that I had been asking her since she was able to make it rain. I sometimes weaken and ask Chris this question. Sometimes you just want to hear someone say, “Yes, it’s all going to be fine,” even if you know that they couldn’t possibly know the truth.

The delivery was horrendous. I was conscious and had had an
epidural but I was very aware that things were not going smoothly. First of all, I heard the doctor yell, “Cord wrapped, cord wrapped!”

Evidently, when Rowan turned the night before, she had wrapped the umbilical cord around her body and neck in three places. Thank God I did not push.

My uterus had herniated and I had lost a tremendous amount of blood. Another doctor was called in to assist. The baby was fine, fortunately, but the doctor had to concentrate on trying to keep me alive. The nurses took her away and I told Chris to go with them.

“Go with the baby, go with her.”

I had heard that babies got switched sometimes and I was paranoid.

Once I was alone with the team of doctors and nurses, the terror set in. I was terrified of dying. I suddenly did want my mommy to tell me I was going to be OK after all. I had just had a baby, but I felt more like a baby than I have ever felt in my life. “Mommy, where are you?” was ringing in my ears. The doctor was able to assure me that the worst that would happen was a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy. I couldn’t have cared less about losing my uterus. I wanted to live.

I also instantly got jealous of Chris for being alive and with our baby and hated my mother for being so careless with her own life by abusing her health with alcohol. And here I was split down the middle and fanned out like an opened minibox of cereal! It all came out as feelings of abandonment. I was sad and miserable—I couldn’t believe how cold the OR suddenly felt. I got stitched back together and was allowed to own my uterus for another twenty-four hours. Ooh, goody! They were going to watch me, and if the bleeding stopped, I would not need the hysterectomy. I had always been fascinated by the fact that the word
hysterectomy
was born out of the word
hysteria
and was designed to fix women who were acting crazy during menstruation. It made sense to me now.

Once I was back in my room, they brought Rowan to me to
breast-feed. My mother had never breast-fed me and, while watching the nurse hold my newborn baby up to my chest, had the strangest look on her face. Mom kept herself tucked in between the side table and the side of my bed and draped her left arm over the back headboard of the hospital bed. I felt crowded but also strangely glad she was quiet, while making her best attempt to be near me without trying to control something she knew nothing about. She was shockingly still sober. Maybe she was deeply afraid something was going to happen to me.

I was exhausted and beginning to really struggle. I was beginning to feel stranger and sadder than I had ever felt in my life. I felt like I didn’t recognize anyone around me. I knew who they were, but I felt they were all on a shore celebrating while I was underwater trying not to drown. I have pictures of the nurse holding Rowan up to my breast and I have fear all over my face. My mother was quiet and noncommunicative. She looked like she was in shock.

Chris’s family and some friends were milling around and all focusing on the baby. Chris held her practically the entire time. I don’t remember ever asking to hold Rowan myself. I had seen so many photos of friends and relatives from their hospital beds holding their newborns and looking at them with utter devotion and loving awe. I am sitting bare breasted and hooked up to machines, looking at almost everybody else except Rowan. I had this overriding feeling that she already did not like me.

This was obviously the beginning of severe postpartum depression. None of us knew what it was yet, but it would last much longer and cause damage to all of us in different ways. Thank God Rowan would remain unscathed. I eventually wrote a book about this experience,
Down Came the Rain
, but at the moment I had to concentrate on avoiding both a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy. My twenty-four hours of being watched were not yet over. I was not out of
the woods yet and I could not seem to focus on anything other than my health and my own life.

People who wanted to see the happy mother and child came and went, and I kept a close eye on my mom. She seemed so out of sorts and slightly sad. I kind of felt like shaking her, but I didn’t know what I would say. She seemed to want to be needed but she was so uncomfortable. It was as if she felt like she did not belong. She was as much related to this baby as Chris’s parents, and yet she seemed to be receding into the background. In a surreal way, we both were but for different reasons. We were both out of sorts, equally at risk of not surviving. Mom dealt by being eerily quiet and I, too, chose reticence as a way to stay afloat.

It was time for Rowan and me to rest. Mom and Lila went to P. J. Clarke’s to eat and I slept. Rowan was in a crib next to my bed and was attached to a light to help build up her bilirubin. She was a bit jaundiced and needed the vitamin D. She looked like a little alien on a mini wooden stretcher. I can’t remember when Mom and Lila returned but I recall them coming back separately. Lila came in first and was mumbling something about how Mom had not wanted to leave the restaurant.

Chris had set up chairs in a kind of circle in the middle of my room and inclined toward my bed. He knew many people would be coming and going and want to hold the baby. Mom arrived after Lila and she walked into the room totally hammered and ready to fight. A male nurse, with whom she was overtly flirting, was guiding her into the room. We got the feeling that Mom had been in the building for a little while and had inappropriately made her presence known. She may or may not have pinched or slapped him on the butt but he ushered her into the room and then made a quick exit. I had an inkling that because she was my mom they were stretching their tolerance.

Mom came in the room as the family members were passing Rowan around to be held. They all took turns, and when it was Mom’s turn, she reached out to hold the swaddled newborn, only to almost drop her in the process. Rowan only weighed seven and a half pounds, but Mom fumbled her and the baby almost fell to the floor. I could tell she was drunk, but I could not even speak. I was mute and exhausted and felt like I was out of my body and hovering unnoticed. I watched in stilled horror and felt as if I had just been forced to ride a terrifying Ferris wheel for a second time. As if the operator would not let me get off.

Chris leapt up, grabbed the baby from her hands, and got right up in my mother’s face. He told her that she was not allowed to hold Rowan in her condition. He took a strong stance and told her she was drunk and could do whatever the hell she wanted to herself, but was not allowed to jeopardize our baby. His face was red with anger, and he said, in fact, he would like her to leave this room right now.

Nobody else said a word. I don’t even remember Rowan uttering a peep. Chris followed my mother to the doorway to make sure she didn’t do anything sudden. She turned face-to-face with him in the doorway, pointing at him and tapping her forefinger on his chest in a threatening way.