The Nine Lessons (22 page)

July 20, 2001—August is still moping about his (unfounded) belief that he won’t be a good dad. I don’t know how to convince him otherwise. Maybe I can’t. Perhaps it’s just something he’s going to have to discover on his own when the time comes. The sad thing is, I’ve known since I met him that he will be a terrific father.

Today I made a bet with him that before the baby’s first birthday he’ll be wondering why he ever doubted himself. He is so sure that he’ll be an inadequate father that he raised the stakes significantly beyond our usual dollar and kiss: If he wins, I owe him a back rub every night for a year. If I win, he’ll personally toss out all of my birth control products and help me try to get pregnant again. Imagine that! For me, this bet is a no-brainer. Here are just a few of the many reasons why I know he’ll be a terrific dad…

- August is a little kid at heart himself. How many grown men get up on Saturday mornings and watch cartoons while eating ice cream for breakfast? He will love having a little one around to share ice cream with.

- He truly cares for living things. I’ve seen him cuddle and care for sick puppies with more love and compassion than most men will ever possess. If he dotes on his own children even half as much as he cares for those ragged animals, he’ll be a splendid father.

- August is patient and forgiving, two important traits for fatherhood. Even when I really mess up, he always finds a way to continue loving me.

- He puts the needs of others before his own—especially my needs.

- Children love him, and he loves them right back, particularly the neighborhood kids. On Halloween every year they all flock to our house just for the pleasure of being scared by “the doggie Doc.”

- And finally, I know he’ll be a wonderful father simply by the fact that he’s worried he won’t be. A bad father wouldn’t care.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I’ve got this bet already won. Just you wait and see, dear!

Erin “Child-Number-Two-Is-in-the-Bag” Witte

P.S.—August, dear. If you accept defeat early, I’m more than willing to take an advance on my prize… the sooner you can get me another baby the better!

November 1, 2001—Dear Mrs. Witte,

My name is Magnolia. You know me as the Teenage Drama Queen.

First, let me apologize once more for stealing your purse. Before that night I’d never stolen anything in my life, and I never will again. It was a stupid idea my boyfriend came up with on a whim (boyfriend then, not now). He wanted us to raise money fast to pay for me to undo what we’d already stupidly done. On the night you and I met I was nearly four months pregnant, and hiding it well. Nobody knew but me. I’d already known for a couple months, but didn’t break the news to my boyfriend until a few hours before you showed up.

My jerk boyfriend made a few quick calls and found some sleazy “medical assistant” on the NY side of the lake who was willing to “make everything go away” for just a few hundred dollars cash. Your purse alone gave us about half that amount. I had another fifty dollars at home, and my ex stole the balance from his mom.

The guy in NY met us at the ferry dock. I was surprised to find out that my boyfriend had already used his unlisted services once before. Their plan was to drive me to an apartment a couple miles away and “kill it.” They talked so cruelly. It disgusted me. When my boyfriend started bragging that he was becoming this guy’s number-one customer, I ran back to the ferry as fast as I could. He tried to stop me, but a ferryman intervened, thankfully. On the ride back to Vermont I made up my mind that I was going to have this baby, no matter what.

I sent your purse back to you the very next day, with everything but your strange journal entries. I liked reading them—your optimism about your pregnancy helped carry me through mine. I’ve read them many times since we met in July. Mrs. Witte, when we talked on Church St., you were SO kind. I’m sure after we took your purse you thought my tears were all a big show, but I want you to know that they were real. I wasn’t crying for the reasons I said, but inside I hurt all the same. Your kindness was, in a word, motherly, and I desperately needed it at that moment. My boyfriend scolded me afterward for talking to you as long as I did, but I couldn’t help it—I didn’t want our conversation to end.

I’m not proud of anything I’ve done, but I’m trying to pick up the pieces and make things right, especially for my baby, which is why I’m writing this letter on your scorecards—I’m hoping that you’ll keep this card with your other memories. I came to a firm decision this morning that the best life for her will be with a family that can truly love and care for her right from the start, so I will be giving her up for adoption. I need to finish being a kid before I step into motherhood. I hope that doesn’t sound selfish, because in my heart it feels like an act of love.

I am writing this today—before my daughter arrives—because I know that if I wait until I see her it will be too hard. If you are reading this, then I have already delivered. My hope is that this letter, along with the rest of your cards, will get to you through Child Services soon after the baby is born.

From the things you wrote, and from our brief conversation before, I know you and your husband will be wonderful parents. I want my child to have a mom and dad like you. In fact… if you’d be willing, I’d like her to be a part of your family. I cannot give her everything that she needs right now. You can. Mrs. Witte, I know you want more kids… why wait?

I understand if you decline. I will probably never know either way. But in my mind I will always cling to the thought that my precious baby is being held and loved by you.

Lovingly, Maggie

Erin had tears in her eyes. “Has she already delivered?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. But soon.”

“I’m floored.” She put the cards down and looked at Nick, who was fussing for the first time in my arms. “Absolutely floored.”

“I know. Me, too.”

“How could we possibly?”

“Beats me.”

I handed the baby to Erin and she adjusted the tiny cap covering his head. She stared at her son while she spoke to me. “This is so insane—I don’t know what to think. Help me here. What’s your honest opinion? You didn’t even want to have this one.” She kissed Nick’s head softly. “What is your heart telling you, August?”

I chuckled softly. “After how I’ve behaved this past year, you’re still willing to trust my heart? That’s probably not too wise.”

She smiled and looked up. “You have a good heart, Mr. Witte.”

“I don’t know about that. I think my heart is a little confused.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the whole time you were reading those cards—while I was holding Nicklaus—my heart was saying I should probably go be with Maggie. She’s all alone down there. Plus I think it would be nice down the road if we could look back and say that at least one of us was there… when our daughter was born.”

The tears that previously filled my wife’s eyes now flowed freely down her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, even when they dripped from her chin onto Nick. “Does that mean I win the bet?”

I kissed her gently on the cheek and kissed Nicklaus on the forehead. “You win. I’ll go see about your prize.”

CHAPTER 24

Through years of experience I have found that air offers less resistance than dirt.

—Jack Nicklaus

I
t had been
nearly five hours since I left my father kneeling alone in the hospital chapel. He moved from the chapel to the main lobby not long after, and had been waiting there patiently for someone—anyone—to bring him word. When Erin was ready for guests, she sent me to fetch him.

I spotted London immediately when the elevator doors opened. He was sitting nervously on a sofa, still clutching the golf club tightly in one hand. There was someone else there, too, holding tight to his other hand.

“Delores?”

“Hello, August,” she replied.

Dad stood up and pulled Delores up with him. “How’s Erin?”

I smiled. “She’s great, Dad. She’s doing fantastic.”

Both London and Delores let out a little holler. “And the baby?”

Just to add a little extra drama to the moment, I wiped the smile from my face. “Yeah, about that. There is something you need to know about the baby. Something—happened. The nurses described it as ‘a development,’ ” I said, trying hard to keep a straight face. “But you really need to see it for yourself. It’s hard to put it into words.”

Both of their faces dropped. “I see,” said my father. “Well just know, Son, that no matter what, we’re here to help.”

He let go of Delores’s hand and gave me a giant hug. In his fatherly embrace, a strange thing happened. The last lingering remnants of resentment that I’d held against him for so long seemed to melt away.

“I really appreciate that,” I said, returning the hug. “Can I take you upstairs?”

“Lead the way.”

We made our way back to the elevator, which pulled us slowly on up to the fourth floor. Several hospital visitors and nursing staff looked questioningly at my father as he strode down the hallway toward Erin’s room swinging the club back and forth nervously. I stopped purposefully before opening the door so I could give the pair one final warning. “Please, whatever you do, don’t cry over what you’re about to see. It’s already very emotionally overwhelming for Erin.”

They nodded gravely, preparing themselves for the worst. I swung the door open and let them go in ahead of me. They passed around the end of the sliding curtain and stopped dead in their tracks. There, lying on the bed, with her back propped up on a pillow, was Erin, cradling a baby in each arm.

“What the bloody—” gasped my father, then turned back to look at me. “Twins!” It was a question as much as a statement. “How on earth?”

To steal my wife’s very accurate response when she first discovered she was pregnant, I smiled back, folded my hands as if to pray, and replied, “God works in mysterious ways.”

When the excitement settled down I was able to explain all that had happened since the end of my ninth golf lesson, and how it was that “baby Magnolia” was joining our family. “The hospital is working with Child Services to help hammer out all of the legalities,” I told them, “but it looks like we’ll get to take them both home on the same day.”

“Unbelievable,” said London, who was cradling Nicklaus in his arms. “Truly unbelievable.” When the baby started to cry, Grandpa London handed him back to Erin and then excused himself to retrieve something from the car. When he returned he was carrying one of his prized golf balls from the collection he kept on his mantel at home. It was mounted on a white wooden tee and enclosed in a glass case. “For you,” he said as he handed it to me. “It was the first ball of my collection.”

“Why are you giving it to me?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, smiling, “I made you a promise that as soon as your baby was born I would tell you why I cut you from the golf team.”

I took the thing in my hands. “I don’t understand.”

“This is the reason,” he continued. “Your mum gave it to me. ’Course, the ball and tee weren’t mounted together like this back then.”

“From the night she died?”

He smiled and stepped closer, peering through the glass. “You’ve read all of the scorecards I gave you, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, the ink has faded a lot over the years, but look closely on the back side of the tee and the ball, and tell me what you see.”

I turned it around in my hands and squinted, but even before I saw the words I knew what they would say. “The tee says L.W. and the ball has my name on it,” I replied quietly, reading the faint scribbles.

He lowered his eyes and sighed. “There was just one problem when she gave them to me—I didn’t know what she meant by it. I was so dull that I just assumed she was telling me that she wanted me to start teaching you to play golf. So I pushed you as hard as I bloody well could to turn you into a golfer.”

I set the encased ball down on a small table near the chair that Delores was sitting in. “But what does that have to do with cutting me from the golf team?” I asked. “If you wanted me to be a golfer so bad, why did you give up on me?”

“I didn’t give up on you.”

“Then why?”

“Do you remember what I was doing right before I sent you home from the course that day?”

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” I said. “I’ve replayed that day over and over again in my head thousands of times.”

He smiled warmly. “Good. Then tell me everything about it.”

I had no idea why we were talking about the worst day of my life on arguably the best day of my life. We should have been fawning over the beautiful babies swaddled up tightly just a few feet away. But I wanted to finally end the mystery of why I’d been treated so unjustly by him all those years ago, so I recited what I remembered. “My friend Jim had asked you what the best height was to tee a ball, so you took a few minutes before the match instructing him on how to properly tee it up. I was standing nearby and you asked me if I could offer any additional advice, and so I threw in my measly two cents.”

“Yes!” he said enthusiastically. “And it was your ‘measly two cents’ that finally set me straight. It was like I was listening to your mum when you spoke to Jim so pragmatically. You said, ‘Tee it high, Jimmy. The only reason we even use tees is to get the ball up off the dirt. If you really want your ball to fly, tee it high.’ When you said that,” he continued, “I realized that
that
was what your mother was trying to tell me before she passed away. She didn’t care if you played golf or not—she just wanted you to fly. She was trying to tell me that as your father it would be my responsibility to lift you up, to get you to a point where you could really take off and fly as far as your dreams would carry you. I’m the tee—you’re the ball.” He paused, giving me a moment to reflect on what he’d just said. “I cut you from the team because golf was my passion—
my
dream, not yours. When you were talking to Jim I realized that I couldn’t allow my dream to hold you back any longer from finding and pursuing your own lofty goals. I know I did a lot of things wrong as a father, but cutting you from that team—” he hesitated. “I like to think that was one thing I did right.” He diverted his eyes to Erin and Nicklaus, then to Delores, who was holding Maggie, and then back to me. “And now look at you. You and Erin are the tees with your own little balls of joy, and it’ll be up to you to lift them up off the ground; get their heads above the weeds of life so that they can take flight.”

Erin had a small tear dripping down her face. “You okay?” I asked.

She giggled softly. “I’m wonderful.” Erin took baby Nick’s tiny fingers and wrapped them around her own index finger like a golf club. “I was just thinking that I’d like to learn how to golf, too, so that I can help teach our children when they’re a little older.”

“Don’t worry, Schatzi,” I said reassuringly, “I’ll teach you—and them—everything I know.”

“And how much is that, dear?” she replied dryly.

My father laughed aloud and slapped me on the back. “Oh, don’t you worry, Erin.” He winked. “You just let my son here teach you everything he knows about hitting a ball… and then come see me and I’ll teach you how to hit it straight!”

London’s loud voice woke both of the babies. They blinked in unison and opened their eyes—Nicklaus’s were blue, Magnolia’s were a tender shade of brown. Then each in turn looked around carefully, methodically studying the world around them, like golfers scoping out the fairways before starting a new round.

“Welcome to the game of life,” I whispered. “It’s a wonderful day to play the course.”