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I looked down at the newspaper and read some more, squinting at the small type. Open Heart Adoptions. Make a family happy today.
I felt as if a fist had reached inside and squeezed my heart. It hurt. And yet with that pain was something I hadn’t felt in so long I barely remembered the sensation: a treacherous little flicker of hope, even as I cringed with guilt. I couldn’t really be thinking about this.
‘Sweetie?’ my mother called from the living room. ‘Could you get me a Crystal Light?’ My mother drank the stuff by the gallon, peach iced tea, double-strength.
‘Sure, Mom.’ I put the paper back on the table, so the classified ads were face down. I felt dirty, as if I’d been looking at porn.
I made up a pitcher of Crystal Light and poured my mother a glass, my heart beating hard. I told myself to forget about that stupid ad, even if it felt like someone had thrown open a window and I was suddenly breathing fresh air, taking it in by the glorious lungful.
Because the last sentence on the little ad was the one I remembered, the one I can still see now, dancing in my head, bold-faced, black type: All Maternity Costs Covered.
And so now I’m here, sitting in this overheated, pastel-decorated office, wearing a dress I last wore at my cousin’s wedding. It strains across my belly and under my armpits. Bad choice, but this feels like an interview and I don’t have anything else.
‘What has led you to consider this avenue, Heather?’ Tina looks maternal, a little overweight; comfortable in herself, dressed in loose clothing in various shades of beige. Her eyes and smile are soft but it feels like an act, her persona for the poor women who have been driven to come here. Women like me. I decide to talk straight.
‘I’m married and I have three kids already. Girls. My husband injured himself at work and the workman’s comp ends in a couple of months. We can’t afford another baby.’ I blurt out each sentence like a bullet, machine-gunning her with the facts. But then my tough act disintegrates and my stomach heaves.
‘Sorry,’ I mutter as I double over, cold sweat prickling my back. ‘Is there a bathroom…?’
‘Of course.’ For a large woman Tina springs up from her chair pretty fast. ‘Right down the hall.’
Somehow I make it down the hall and into the bathroom stall, where I throw up my breakfast. I kneel on the cold, tiled floor, my cheek resting on the rim of the toilet bowl, feeling awful in all sorts of ways.
I shouldn’t have come. I was desperate, and I tried to convince myself this could work, but it can’t. Of course it can’t. I can’t just give away my baby like something extra I don’t need or want, especially when I have three girls already to watch me do it. What on earth would they think? What on earth could I tell them that would make any sort of sense?
And yet what else can I do?
Yesterday morning we got our first eviction warning. We have to pay the rent in the next week or they’ll start proceedings. We could be out of the house by the end of the month. A
nd where would we go? My parents don’t have space for us, and neither does my sister. The social housing has a waiting list longer than my arm, and it would be months if not years before we could get a place big enough for us. I picture us huddled in a homeless shelter, barely surviving, and the worst thing is, I know it could happen. It could happen soon. Is that what I want to bring a baby into, someone innocent and trusting, with only me and Kev to depend on? I close my eyes as another wave of nausea rolls through me.
‘Heather?’ Tina opens the door to the bathroom, her voice full of concern. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ I ease up from the floor, my head still spinning, trying to recover from this moment even though I know I can’t. ‘Sorry, morning sickness.’
‘Of course.’ She is standing behind me, and I wish she’d leave. I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. But she doesn’t move, and so I get up and go to the sink, wash my face and hands and rinse out my mouth, all while Tina watches. Judging, maybe, although she must have seen this before.
‘You know,’ she says as I’m drying my hands, ‘there are other options.’
‘I know.’ Although I wonder if Tina really gets how few options there are for someone like me. How this feels like the best one, despite all my doubts, the endless guilt. If I’m able to give all four of my children better lives, then surely I can live with a little guilt? Or even a lot of it.
‘Do you want to continue talking, or would you like to come back another time?’
I don’t want to have to come back. It was hard enough to get here in the first place. I dry my hands with a paper towel. ‘I’ll keep talking.’
Back in the room Tina waits while I sit down and smooth my crumpled skirt. I catch a whiff of vomit and I wince.
‘How does your husband feel about this possibility, Heather?’
I think of Kev’s seeming indifference over the last few weeks. It’s like he doesn’t care, and yet I know instinctively how angry he would feel about this, how hurt. But like me I hope he’d realize there aren’t any better options. ‘He’s on board with it,’ I say as firmly as I can.
Tina nods slowly. ‘We’d need to see both of you before we moved ahead. If the father is involved, he needs to sign all the documentation as well, make sure we’re all in this together. It’s a big, difficult decision to make, and of course you need to take your time with it.’
‘Right.’ Does she think I don’t know that? That I haven’t held my girls as we all cuddle on the sofa, stroked their fine hair, felt Lucy’s petal-soft baby skin, and wondered what the hell I’m doing? How I can even think of doing it?
Last night I sat in the girls’ bedroom while they slept – Emma curled up in a tight little ball, Amy flung out, arms and legs sprawled in a star shape, and Lucy all twisted in the sheets. My girls. I thought of the baby inside me: girl or boy, tiny and waiting. I pictured myself holding it, bringing it to my breast. And then I stopped, because I was just torturing myself, and what was the point?
I looked at my girls again, all three of them, all depending on me for just about everything. They were the ones I needed to think about now. Emma, eleven years old, shy and quiet; eight-year-old Amy, always getting into trouble; Lucy, who seems clingier than most four-year-olds. They need me. This baby just needs a mother. That’s the way I have to think, no matter how much it hurts.
