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Of course she’s still haunted by that time in her life. Wouldn’t I be?
I dropped out of school because I couldn’t pay for it on my own. I left the dorms and moved into Julian’s apartment. I kept my job at the bank for my entire pregnancy and worked my last shift two days before you were born. We brought you home from the hospital, and nobody came to visit. My family wouldn’t answer my calls. Julian’s family lived across the country. I had already lost touch with most of my friends from school. In these past two and a half years, it feels like I’ve barely interacted with anyone besides you and your father.
It’s better now that you’re older. We walk to the park on nice days, and of course we run errands and have your check-ups and things like that. But mostly we’re here in this apartment, playing with the same toys and watching the same cartoons. Sometimes I zone out, completely lost in thought about how my life went so off-track, and when I come to, I realize that you’re watching me with this uncertain, almost frightened look on your face. Or I’ll register the fact that you’re talking to me and try to start listening, but I lose focus and end up not responding at all.
You are so precocious, always exploring, always seeking to learn something new. I don’t miss the disappointment in your eyes when I fail to engage with you yet again. I know that you deserve more than this, but I also know that I cannot give it to you.
I stroke a wrinkled spot under the word “deserve”. A drop of water? Maybe a tear?
After a lot of reflection—two years of it, starting very soon after you were born—this is the conclusion I’ve come to: I was meant to bring you into this world, but not to guide you through it. Most people would say I’m selfish, a mother leaving her child like this, and I guess they would be right. But I’m leaving you with a father who loves you much more than he ever loved me. I know that he will take care of you and give you a good life.
The bottom line is this: you’re going to be okay if I leave, but I’m not sure I’ll be okay if I stay.
If there’s one thing I wish for you, it’s that you are never in a situation where you have to make a choice like this. But if you ever are, I hope that you choose yourself and your own happiness like I am doing now.
Mama
(I was never sure I wanted to be one, but I think I might miss hearing your little voice say it.)
It’s the signature—and the addition under it—that breaks me. A sob tears from my throat, and I hold the letter in my lap even as a tear drips off the end of my chin and splashes onto the paper. Here is proof that, at one time in my life, I had a mother. Someone I called ‘mama’. Someone I loved. Someone who, although she couldn’t stay—although she couldn’t even bring herself to write it down—loved me back.
I spare a thought to wonder if Marie has found any of the happiness she was looking for, and then I let it drift away. She made it clear that my getting this letter would be the end of our involvement. We are not going to be in each other’s lives, and I am not going to spend one more second worrying and wondering about her life and her choices. Those were hers to make, and she’s the one who needs to reckon with them. It’s time for me to focus on my own life. My own happiness.
And like Marie when she wrote this letter, I know exactly what choosing happiness means for me today.
Epilogue
Azalea
Thesunislowin the sky when I get home from clinicals, and as I step out of my car, I pull my jacket tighter against the brisk autumn wind. It’s been a long, crazy day. My feet hurt, and the hair at the back of my neck is matted with sweat. All I want to do is take a shower and curl up on the couch with my family.
I push open the front door of the small house we rent. Their voices drift out to me from the kitchen.
“I think Mama’s home,” says Maverick. “Go give her your first present.”
I blink, trying to figure out what he’s talking about. And then I realize that today is my twenty-sixth birthday, and I’ve completely forgotten about it.
Addie emerges from the kitchen a few seconds later. She just turned three a few months ago, and she is a ball of endless energy and sunshine. I smile at the sight of her: fine brown hair in two pigtails, dancing blue eyes, flour all over her yellow dress. In her arms, she holds a bouquet of flowers almost as big as she is. “Mama!” she screeches, rushing toward me. “Me and Daddy got you this!”
“Oh my goodness, they’re so pretty,” I gush, bending down to give her a hug. I put the flowers to my nose and inhale. “I love them.”
She beams, pleased with herself. At a glance, she's the spitting image of her father, but that smile—and the dimple that accompanies it— is all me. “And we’re making you a cake!”
As exhausted as I am, her enthusiasm is contagious, and I’m filled with the familiar joy that comes from being with Maverick and Addie in this home we’ve made together. “You are?” I ask, setting the flowers in the crook of one arm so I can use the opposite hand to smooth down her hair. “Can I see?”
Nodding vigorously, Addie takes off, heading back toward the kitchen. “I’ll show you! Let’s go!”
AddieisshortforAddison, which is the name of a street that crosses in front of Wrigley Field. This was Maverick’s idea, of course, and I vetoed it immediately; however, once he pointed out that our first Cubs game together also led us to our first kiss, it started to seem like the obvious choice.
Her middle name is Laney.
Although we have never regretted our decision to bring her into our lives, having her at the time we did was incredibly difficult. I did end up choosing the pharmacy program at the University of Iowa, and Maverick, who graduated right alongside me, got a job at a nearby nonprofit supporting cancer patients and their families.
We moved to Iowa City the day after graduation. Even though it was only a two-hour trip, my dad cried as he handed me up into the moving truck, and then I sobbed the entire drive. Maverick held my hand as he drove and, at one point, asked if I wanted to turn around. Looking into his eyes, I knew that if I said the word, he really would take me back to Des Moines, back to my dad, and we’d figure out another way to make this all work.
But I also knew, deep down, that it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Maverick had worked so hard to graduate on time, to ensure that he would be able to support our family. He had lost sleep trying to find a job in Iowa City so that I could go to school. We were starting a life together. Just us. And as much as I already missed my dad, I knew that I wanted my future with Maverick more.
So I shook my head, and he kissed my knuckles, then stroked the back of my hand until we arrived at the tiny house we could barely afford to rent.
