Slowly We Trust (26 page)

Eddie picked me up just at the edge of campus, at a bus stop. He was actually smiling when I got in the car.

“I bought her a present,” he said, pointing to the backseat where a giant pink bear was strapped in with the seatbelt. There were also three pink helium balloons.

“Wow.” I hadn’t even thought of that. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I should bring her something.

“Is it too much? I didn’t know if it was too much.”

“No, I’m sure she’ll love it.” I had no idea if she’d love it. I didn’t know anything about her. I knew nothing about my daughter.

“Do you mind if we stop somewhere? I need to get something,” I said. I couldn’t show up now without a gift.

“Sure, absolutely.”

He pulled away from the curb and turned on the radio.

“Have you told anyone about her?” I asked.

“Like, my family? No. I didn’t think they’d want to know.” They sounded like my family.

“What did your parents say when you told them?” he asked me, turning the music down.

We had a long drive and a lot to talk about.

“They said that there was no way I was having an abortion. I’d gotten pregnant and they wouldn’t let me take the easy way out.” They thought that. My parents thought abortion was an easy decision.

“Wow. I never knew they were like that. You never really talked about them much. You never really talked at all, actually.”

“I’m shy,” I said, but that wasn’t exactly the case. It wasn’t shyness that made me reluctant to talk to people. It was the fear that someone would treat me like my parents did. Or that they wouldn’t approve of me.

“You don’t seem shy now. This is weird, isn’t it? You and me, going to meet our daughter?”

“The weirdest.”

The drive to Maria’s house in New Hampshire took a few hours, along with a stop at a small gift shop along the highway to get a present for Emily. I wandered through the store, trying to think about what she might like. I finally found a little stuffed lion that played “Clair de lune” when you pulled its tail.

“Do you think she’ll like it?” I asked Eddie before I bought it.

“I’m sure she will,” he said.

We talked a lot along the way, about really intimate details of our lives. I’d had a crush on him in high school, but it was one of those distant things where you just liked somebody for no particular reason. He’d been an object I’d fixated on for a while. I hadn’t known much about him. On the surface, he seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t care about much but getting drunk and being with as many girls as possible. But I learned that he loved his younger sister, and he played the trumpet, but only in secret.

I told him about my Harry Potter obsession. And then we got to Will.

“So you’re seeing that guy you were with at the party?”

“Yes. We’ve been officially together for a few weeks, but it’s been a long time coming. It feels like we’ve been together for much longer.”

“Does he know?” He turned where the robotic GPS voice instructed him to.

“No. And I’m going to keep it that way,” I said.

“Really? Why wouldn’t you tell him?”

“Because I just can’t, all right? I just don’t want him to know.”

“Whoa, okay, okay. I’m not going to say anything. This is going to stay between us,” Eddie said, sensing my panic. I couldn’t help but panic at the idea of Will finding out.

Speaking of Will, I sent him a text message asking how he was. An answer came back a few minutes later. It was a picture of Will lying in my bed, sleeping. Lottie must be taking care of him. Good. I was glad she was there. I’d seen Will when he had a cold, and he definitely got pretty dramatic about the whole thing.

“Okay, here we are,” he said, pulling into a lovely yellow home with a porch and a little melting snowman family next to the swing set in the yard. There were also two cars in the driveway. If I could have picked the perfect home for my daughter to be in, this was it. The curtains fluttered in the window as Eddie stopped the car and turned it off.

“Okay, I’m freaking out. Are you freaking out?” He gripped the steering wheel and I thought he was going to throw up. I didn’t feel anything. As if I’d left my body and was looking down on myself.

The front door opened and someone came out.

“That’s Maria,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. The click somehow brought me back to reality.

The last time I’d seen Emily, she’d still been connected to my body. I put my hand on my stomach, remembering what it was like to feel her under my skin. I didn’t gain much weight when I was pregnant, but I always knew she was there. She was a constant mover and I wondered if, when she was born, she’d be an active child.

“Let’s go,” Eddie said, taking my hand and squeezing it briefly before getting out of the car.

Maria walked toward me, a smile on her face. When she got within a few feet of me, she threw her arms out.

“There’s my girl.” I let myself be folded into her embrace and hugged her back. I couldn’t even remember the last time my mom had hugged me. But Maria hugged me hard and didn’t let go.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she said in my ear before she squeezed me one more time and let go.

“And you must be Eddie, we spoke on the phone.” Eddie stared at Maria, his hands in his pockets.

“Well, come on, get over here. I’m a hugger.” She hugged him, too, even though he was taller than she was. He froze for a moment and then hugged her back.

“How was the drive? Was it good?” she said as we walked back toward the house. This was it.

“Good,” I said and Eddie nodded. We stopped right in front of the door.

“Are you ready?” Maria said, her arm around me.

“No,” I said, being honest.

“It’s okay. You can do this. You ready, Eddie?”

“Shi-shoot, I forgot the presents in the car. Hold on a second.” He ran back to the car and got the giant bear, the balloons and then the bag with my present in it.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Maria said. “But she loves balloons. I have to buy them for her all the time. She always has a fit when they lose the helium and then they sink to the floor. You’d think we’d tortured her.” She stared at the balloons for a moment, watching them as they bobbed in the wind.

“Anyway, come on in.”

She opened the door and I stepped inside.

“I’m dying,” I moaned.

“No you’re not, you gigantic baby. My God, what it is with men and being sick? You all regress to infants. Here, finish your soup.” She held the bowl in front of my face. I very much did not want to eat the rest of it, but I’d rather feed myself than have Lottie forcibly pour it down my throat, which she wouldn’t hesitate to do.

I finished my soup while Lottie put a damp towel in the microwave to warm it and then started rubbing VapoRub on my chest. Disgusting, that stuff. It burned my nostrils with the smell, but protesting would only make it worse.

Lottie had obviously picked up on everything Mom did when we were sick. I knew the list too, since she’d done it for us so many times. Lottie and I shared a lot of things, and one of those was germs. It was inevitable that if I got sick, she would too and vice-versa.

“You know, all this taking care of you has given me so much mom practice. Now when I get sick, you’d better do all this for me.” She pulled the now-steaming towel out and laid it on my chest. Then she wiped the rest of the VapoRub from her hands onto the soles of my feet and began rubbing them. Oh, that felt good.

“Why don’t you get Zan to do it?”

“Because he doesn’t know how to do it like Mom. You do. I guess I could teach him. But I’m still a little reluctant to have my boyfriend see me puking in a bucket and being all gross. I can’t put that off forever, but I’m scared he’ll see me like that and then not want to have sex with me anymore. Shut up, I know it’s stupid.” I’d opened my mouth to tell her just that, but she beat me to it.

“You could puke all over that boy and he’d quote poetry and ask you to do it again,” I said and she made a disgusted face.

“Anyway. I’m predicting the creeping crud you have will hit me around Tuesday, so you might want to go shopping now and be ready. I’ll have everything else set up at my place.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to choke on the VapoRub fumes as Lottie kept rubbing my feet.

Her phone went off and she got up to get it.

“Hey,” she said, and by the tone of her voice I knew it was Zan. “No, he’s fine. I’m fine . . . No, you don’t have to do that . . . You’re so sweet, but I’ve got this . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe tonight? Okay . . . Okay . . . Love you, too. Bye.”

“How’s the boyfriend?” I kept my eyes closed. It was easier that way. The hot soup had made its way down to my stomach, where I hoped it would stay without coming up again.

“He’s fine. Asked if I needed any help. Said to tell you he said hello and get better.”

“Thanks.” She started moving around the room, cleaning things up.

“Why don’t you try and sleep again? I’m going to clean and disinfect everything.”

I nodded and let my body drift off into a sick and exhausted sleep.

My heart pounded so loud as I walked into the house that I thought everyone could hear it. The entryway was cluttered with shoes and toys and small coats.

“Sorry, it’s usually controlled chaos around here,” Maria said, steering us to the left and into a small living room.

“If you just want to sit, I’ll go get her. She just had a nap.”

“Oh, don’t wake her if she’s sleeping,” I said.

Maria shook her head and started up the stairs.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” She jogged up the stairs and I sat down on one of the couches. The armrest had marks on it that looked like they’d been drawn with marker by little hands. Eddie kept taking deep breaths and shifting in his seat.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” he blurted out.

“She will.” There were no guarantees. We were both strangers to her.

Maria came down the stairs carrying a little girl with black curls, who had both her hands in fists, rubbing her eyes.

“Here we are,” Maria said in a soft voice. “I had Leo take the other kids to the park so it would be just us.” She sat down on a chair across from me and moved Emily’s hands from her face.

It was like looking at a picture of myself as a child. With the exception of the curls, she was a mirror image of how I’d looked at her age.

“Can you say hi to Audrey?” She shook her head and buried her face in Maria’s shoulder.

“Sorry, she’s a little shy.” A lump formed in my throat and I knew that I was teetering on the edge of losing it. Nothing could have prepared me for this. There weren’t even words for the feelings clamoring inside me right now.

“Audrey came to visit you and so did Eddie and they brought you presents. Wasn’t that nice of them?” At the mention of presents, she lifted her head and stared from me to Eddie. The second she saw the balloons, her face split into a smile and she made a grabbing motion at them.

“Boon! Boon!”

Maria laughed.

“She can’t quite say balloon yet. It’s a hard word, isn’t it? Do you want to see the balloons? Can you ask nice?”

“Pwease?” That word, said in her little voice broke something in me. I almost got up and had to run to the car, but I stayed frozen in my chair as Eddie got up and brought the bundle of balloons over to Emily, pulling the strings taught so the balloons were down at her eye level.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Eddie said. Emily just stared at him, a little knot of concentration on her forehead, as if she was trying to figure out who this man was who had brought her the balloons.

“Do you like them?” he asked her.

“Boon!” she said again, laughing and trying to grab one of the balloons to hug it.

“Yeah, balloon.” His voice stuttered a bit and I could tell he was crying. “It’s so nice to meet you, Emily.”

“Do you want to hold her?” Maria said. She’d been quiet as Eddie and Emily talked, watching them both.

“I think Audrey should first.” I couldn’t move as they all looked at me. Well, except Emily, who was still captivated by the balloons.

“Do you want to hold her?” Maria got up and Emily protested being removed from the proximity of the balloons, but Eddie brought them back to her and they all walked over to where I sat on the couch.

“I don’t know . . .” I said. What if she got in my lap and started crying? What if she hated me?

“It’ll be okay, I promise,” Maria said, leaning down and placing Emily in my arms. Emily turned her attention from the balloons and looked up at my face, studying me like she’d studied Eddie, only this time for longer. One chubby hand reached out and gently grabbed onto my nose.

“Hi, Emily,” I said. “I’m Audrey.”

“A-wee.” My name from her mouth made me smile for the first time since I’d walked into the house.

“Yeah, that’s right.” She stroked my cheek and smiled.

“A-wee.”

We stayed with them for three hours, and Maria told me more about Emily and the specific type of cancer she had and the treatments. She’d been right when she’d said that Emily didn’t seem sick. She looked healthy and toddled around like a completely normal kid.

My daughter.

Maria and I watched as Eddie played peekaboo with the giant bear he’d brought, making Emily giggle uncontrollably. I pulled out my phone and recorded the sound of her laugh.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Maria said, giving me another crushing hug. “I knew you weren’t ready when you had her, and I kept away because that was what you wanted, but I always knew someday you’d be ready. I have something for you.” She got up and went to a bookcase and pulled an album off the shelf.

“I had this made for you and I’ve been adding to it as she’s grown. I’m a little obsessed with taking pictures of my kids, but I guess most parents are. I can’t help it, she’s just so entertaining.” She opened the album and it was a record of Emily’s life, up until now. Her first birthday and baths and steps and everything in-between. There was even a little dark curl, tied with a ribbon and tucked in a little clear window.

“From her first haircut. She seems to have inherited your hair, except hers is curly.”

“Mine was when I was little,” Eddie said, looking up. “Her hair’s curly like mine. But she looks more like you, I think. She’s definitely got your eyes.” She did.

“She’s a joy, Audrey, honestly. Our family feels complete with her. You know how they say things are meant to be? That’s what this feels like.” I nodded. It didn’t feel that way at the time. Not even close. Everything had been wrong.

Now, in this moment, things fell together. I didn’t really believe in fate, but I knew when something felt right. Meeting Will felt right. Telling I loved him felt right. And this. This was right.

When Emily got tired from all the excitement, Maria put her down for a nap and then made Eddie and me lunch.

“I’m sorry, I tend to treat everyone like my kids. It’s a reflex,” she said, laughing as she made ham and cheese sandwiches.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been in contact,” I said, but Maria waved that off.

“What’s in the past is in the past. You’re here now and Emily’s going to know who you are. We’re going to be very open with her about where she comes from and who her parents are. It’s even better because now we know who her father is, so she’ll know everything. Eddie, sometime down the line, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a family medical history, I would really appreciate it.”

“Uh, yeah, I can do that,” Eddie said, taking the plate that Maria handed him. “This is surreal.”

“I bet it is,” Maria said, handing me a plate and we all sat down in the dining room with our sandwiches and chips and juice boxes.

“I’m so glad that the two of you are here. I know my sister hasn’t been as supportive as she should be,” Maria said to me.

“No, she isn’t supportive. But I think I’ve finally realized that I don’t need her anymore. She’s never going to be there for me, so I’m going to stop looking for her love and approval.” I looked down at my sandwich. I didn’t mean to say all that out loud.

Maria sighed and shook her head.

“I love her, but she’s got some screwed up priorities. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t cut ties with her as well. But you can’t choose your family.”

That reminded me of what Will said.

“Sometimes you can. You chose Emily.”

Maria smiled.

“True. I wasn’t sure, at first, about taking her, what with having the other two already, but then I saw her and I knew.”