I Can Tell You’re Good People

Our ad is simple. “Loving, Financially Stable Couple In Their Thirties Want To Give Their Hearts And Lives to a Baby. Please call Lauren and Jared.” The phone doesn’t ring for months, then two calls in one weekend. The first comes from Teresa, in her early twenties, due in June. This is January. Her older children, an eight-year-old and six-year-old, live in Florida with their father. She’s trying to get them back, but had some trouble with drugs, and now she’s in Indiana with a new man who’s forty-one, married and has seven kids of his own. He wants to divorce his wife and marry Teresa, but doesn’t have the money.

“How can he not have money for a divorce?” I ask Jared later.

Jared shrugs. “He’s got seven kids.”

I take notes on everything Teresa says. She wants me to know they’re struggling, “but good people.” Good, fertile people. Her man’s ex-wife, now there’s a real asshole, Teresa says, and paying her child support is killing them. And the man’s current wife, also an asshole, won’t give him a divorce even though he doesn’t love her. Maybe her man turns wives into assholes, I want to say. He works construction, and things have started looking up since he found work in Indiana. He told her, though, no more babies. For a while he said if it’s a boy he might want to keep it, but he changed his mind. Really, no more babies. Things are too tight right now, plus with his travel out of state for work, she’s by herself with the four kids most days.

“Wait, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m confused. Whose kids are these?”

“Three of them are his, but the baby’s ours.”

“You two have a baby?”

“Five-month-old.” Her voice tightens, and I worry she might cry. “It’s hard, but we’ll make it. We’ve been through worse in our eighteen months together.”

Worse? The worst thing Jared and I went through in our first eighteen months was attending colleges in different states. I think we fought once. “I don’t mean to pry, but why is he paying child support if the kids live with you guys?”

“The others are with their mothers.”

“Oh.”

Teresa says I might be interested to know her man has some Indian in him, and she’s sixty percent Hispanic, forty percent Irish. She’s back on course, her voice strong, stating the facts. Also, she tells me her man has MS, but none of the kids have it.

“That’s good,” I agree, knowing nothing about MS. Seven kids. It must not be hereditary. But then again, MS doesn’t show up until you’re older, right? Maybe the new baby would have it. Would we still want it? It’s the way I’ve begun to think. I rank races and diseases now. Bi-racial? Downs Syndrome? Cocaine? What are we willing to take?

Teresa and I talk for over two hours. It’s easier than I imagined. I tell her we’ve been married ten years. I tell her Jared’s done well, the youngest head football coach in Division 1-A. I tell her we live in a house a couple blocks off the lake. “Forty kids live on our block.” I don’t mention we don’t know any of them. I watch pretty mothers push strollers back and forth to one another’s houses for play dates. They make it look easy, shrugging off their PhD’s and PR careers to raise their broods. It’s in the water here, flowing down the street, except at our house the pipes are blocked. Infertility of unexplained origin, that’s what the doctors said. I tell Teresa we live a short walk from the school our children would go to. And an ice cream shop. An ice cream shop!

Near the end of the second hour, Teresa says she likes me. She can tell I’m a good person. And that we would be a good family for her baby. When I tell her I’m a chef, it turns out that she’s wanted to be one “her whole life.” She took a semester at a community college, but that’s been a while ago. She wants to go back once this is all over. Can I help? Can I talk to her about restaurants and jobs?

“Of course.” I slide out of my chair onto the floor. Who is this, I wonder of myself. This agreeing person? Yes, women who want child support are assholes. Yes, MS is okay. Yes, I’ll help you get a job. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“Would you like to read our birthmother letter?” I ask. This is where the adoption agency has instructed me to take the call. “It’s a little book about Jared and me. With pictures. So you can see what we look like.” I don’t tell her the pictures strategically show us holding our nieces and nephews. We look comfortable with big smiles on our faces. At least, that’s what I hope. I don’t tell her our picture on the front was taken at a café in Paris, either. Too much affluence can scare a birthmother, our agency advised us. They don’t want to feel like they’re selling a baby. Well, that’s good because we don’t want to feel like we’re buying one.

Teresa would like to see the letter. “Absolutely,” she says. She is unnervingly confident. I picture her small, with Latin eyes, black hair, enormous belly. Young and strong, with a mouth on her, but that’s okay, right? We can’t all have gone to boarding school. I get her address and tell her I’ll FedEx it today. Call me when you get it, I say. Or I can call you. Wishy-washy me. Maybe Jared would be better at this. But I’ve established the next point of contact. That’s what the agency said to do.

Lynette calls the next afternoon. She’s due in March, and at thirty-three, has a higher risk for Down’s, her doctors say. Because I’m old, she adds. I don’t tell her I’m a year older. She has a fifteen-year-old, Tracey, and they live in a trailer with Lynette’s mother and aunt. She wants me to know right off that she’s just completed a work-release program. She served eight months in prison for calling a doctor on the weekend to get Vicodin.

“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. I draw a question mark on my note pad. Neither she nor the crime makes sense, but I don’t press for clarification. I’ve never questioned anyone about their prison time before; I’m not clear on the etiquette. 

She says the judge threw the book at her, to scare her, and it worked. She’s never pulling that shit again. Now in a drug-counseling program, she’s clean, she swears. The only thing she’s taken since prison is codeine, and she quit that as soon as she found out she was pregnant. Really, she’s a good person. The birthfather is, too. They met in work release. He’s twenty.

“When did they have sex?” I ask Jared later. “They were picking up trash on the side of a highway.”

“Remember twenty?” he says, trying to pinch my rear. Jared got the best of the remaining Shawnee blood left in his family line—the cheekbones, the black hair, the long, lean body. He was All-American in college, then head coach at thirty-one. He thrives on combat, the beating of someone else. It’s the reason he’s done so well. If it weren’t for decency, he’d rip through the world this way—no pretenses, just the brutal honesty of loss and win.

Lynette tells me the birthfather, engaged to someone else, has two kids. His mother keeps them. But he’s a good daddy, she wants me to know. He doesn’t care what she does with this baby. In fact, he’s all for adoption. Lynette wants him to have a paternity test, though. We’re the first ad she’s called. She hasn’t called anybody, she says, and she’s having an ultrasound next week, then she’s going to make her decision. Another question mark on my pad: why does paternity matter if she’s giving up the baby?

“I don’t want to do this. If there were any other way,” her voice trails off. “But I just got out of prison, and the doctors won’t let me work.”

I write it all down. The agency hasn’t prepared me for this. She tells me her daughter is confused. I want to say I am, too. Instead, I tell her Jared and I believe in open adoption. Jared and I want our child to know his or her birthparents from day one. Adoption is the most unselfish thing a mother can do for her child, I tell her.

“That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“Let me send you our birthmother letter.  I’ll call you in a couple of days to make sure you got it.” Good, I think. I’ve done better with this woman. I like her better than Teresa. Who needs Teresa, with all the asshole ex-wives? But then greed pops up. Maybe we could get both babies.

Things to do while you wait for the phone to ring: buy groceries, go to the movies, keep your doctor’s appointments. My ob/gyn works in an office on the first floor of the Playboy Building downtown. It’s an elegant high-rise, some of the most expensive real estate in the city, but still I grin every time I walk through its revolving doors. A turn to the right, I’ll drop my panties and spread my legs for a doctor; an elevator ride to the top, maybe I could do it for a photographer. After the fourth in-vitro didn’t take, my mother said at least I wouldn’t ruin my figure like she did. I’d always be able to wear a bikini. “I don’t understand how she can’t understand,” I say to Jared later.

“How could she? She’s got kids.”

Two days later I try Teresa, but her number is busy. Lynette answers on the first ring.

“I got your book.” Lynette’s voice labors over the gravel and shards of glass in her throat. I picture her smoking cigarettes in a dirty t-shirt and sweat pants on the steps of her mother’s trailer. “I’m gonna make up my mind after the ultrasound tomorrow. If I give it up, I’m gonna give it to you. I can tell you’re good people.”

“Oh God, Lynette. I don’t know what to say.”

“I want to do the right thing for once. I’ve had a hard life, but I feel better talking to you. And Tracey liked the fact we could see the baby, get pictures.”

“She’ll always know you, Lynette. We wouldn’t have it any other way.” Jared and I will be the enlightened, progressive, baby-stealing kind of parents.

“I’m just so swollen. The doctors won’t let me work, so my boss fired me.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Probably. I just … look, I hate to ask, but is there any way I can borrow fifty dollars to buy toilet paper? I’ll pay you back by Friday. I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but we’re desperate.”

“I … sure,” I stall. We’ve been warned about this. Women who milk you for rent and groceries who aren’t pregnant, or worse, the ones who are and have no intention of placing their baby. “I just need to talk to our agency. There are legalities about this stuff, and I don’t know exactly what we can and can’t do. But if we can, we’d love to.”

“I’ll pay you back Friday. Another agency helped with some money a while ago.”

“Don’t worry about it. Let me see what we can do.” I draw another question mark. Another agency? But she’s only asked for fifty. Surely she’s not taking us for a ride.

The adoption agency we work with is run by bulldogs—fierce, aggressive women who’ve adopted or placed babies themselves. The head of the agency, Tania, has two adopted children; she knows what she’s doing. Instead of cash, she advises us to send a gift card to Target or Wal-Mart. Especially if drugs are a concern, she adds. She’s also going to have a birthmother advocate call Lynette to feel her out. If Lynette’s serious, she can sign a release for the doctor to confirm pregnancy. Once we have that, we’re clear to meet her. After we hang up, I realize I’ve forgotten to tell Tania about the other agency. I’ve also forgotten to tell her the other birthfather has MS. Too many details to keep straight. On the Internet, MS looks like it rarely passes from one generation to the next. Did I tell Jared about it? I call Lynette about the card. Wal-Mart is better, she says. “I can buy gas there, too.” I had no idea you could buy gas at Wal-Mart. We make plans to talk tomorrow. I call Teresa, but the line’s still busy.

“It’s a girl,” Lynette tells me the next day. “She’s really healthy. Good size.”

I get a little shaky. Now the baby’s real. A girl.

“And I’m not due in March. I’m due the twenty-first of February.”

“Oh God. That’s a month away.” How could she be so off on her due date? And how could she get pregnant in prison? Is she really clean? “Lynette, forgive me, I’m confused. When did you meet the birthfather?”

“In work release.”

“But you just got out of jail in October. How could you be due next month? I’m sorry—if this is too personal, please say so. I’m just trying to understand the timing.” It’s the nicest way I can think to ask if she’s really pregnant.

“It’s fine. I was in work release in June. I didn’t go into prison until July.”

“Oh,” I say, as if it’s all clear now. Who knew work release came before prison? “What was he in jail for? I’m sorry. If this is too much, tell me.”

“You’re fine, honey. He went in for selling weed when he was seventeen. But he’s getting his life together now.”

“Oh.” It is too much. A drug addict and a drug dealer. These are the birthparents we’re getting. I had hoped for two college kids, a spring break slip-up sort of thing.

“I talked to the agency. I got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I’m gonna ask them to release the records to you.”

“That’s great, Lynette. Thank you. You know, if you’re up for it, I think the next logical step is to meet. We could drive down this weekend and take you to lunch.”

“No, no. You two come here.”

“Okay, Thank you. Does Saturday work?”

“No, I got family in town. How about next weekend?”

“Sure, sure, no problem.” I try to sound spontaneous, “You know, Jared has Monday off for Martin Luther King. Could you meet then?”

“No, I said I got family here.”

“Okay, next weekend then.” Jared and I hang by a hair. A push too hard and the whole thing blows away. When we hang up, I call Teresa. Her number is still busy. I call the operator. Yes, there’s trouble with the line.

I stay busy. I write a recipe for cranberry scones with orange zest for a restaurant opening downtown. I return a couple of Christmas presents, buy a Madonna CD I end up not liking. I don’t call Lynette. Jared and I see a play. I try to park the car but miss the spot. I back up, roll the windows down and miss again. It’s the easiest fucking things I can’t do.

I make it five days before calling. Lynette sounds bad when she answers the phone. She’s been up all night, sick. The doctor told her she’s got the high blood pressure, to stay off her feet. A television plays in the background, a game show. When she breathes, I can hear the air chafe her throat. There’s a wheeze in her lungs, and I think she’s having an asthma attack before I realize she’s crying. “My daddy’s in prison.”

“Oh, Lynette.”

“We’ve had it bad. He molested her.”

“Who?”

“Tracey. She’s in counseling. She’s doing okay, great actually. Straight A’s almost. She’s going to college if it’s the last thing I do.”

“That’s great, Lynette.”

She gives a half laugh. “Yeah, I got no job. No house. My own mother sued me for child support, but the judge threw it out ‘cause I can’t work. Things are just bad.”

“Oh, Lynette.” Outside, children walk home from school with their coats wide open, no hats, no gloves. I don’t want to push, but with the due date so close, we need to meet as soon as possible. “Do you still want to get together Saturday?”

“Yes, honey. You two come on down.”

“How,” I try to keep the terrible, gushing relief out of my voice, “how do we get there?”

“I can give you directions Saturday.”

I don’t tell her I’ve already programmed her address into our car’s GPS, or that her house is exactly four hours and twenty minutes from ours.

“I talked to the daddy yesterday,” Lynette says. “He’s all for the adoption.”

“That’s great.” I am the master of understatement.

“I’m still gonna make him take a paternity test, though.”

“Why, Lynette? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but I don’t understand. If you’re placing the baby for adoption…” The kids stop in front of our house. I resist the urge to go out and tell them to button their damn coats.

“Cause he thinks I was with another guy. I was, but we didn’t do anything. You know what I mean?”

I have no idea what she means. I have no idea why we still don’t have proof of pregnancy, which has somehow gotten lost in the country of chaos, despair and bad decisions that is Lynette. I’m speaking to a convicted drug something. North is no longer north. I don’t need directions to her house. I need directions to her.

Later I tell Jared everything she says, word for word.

“I believe her,” he says. “Nobody in their right mind makes up a story like that.”

The plan is to drive to Indianapolis Saturday and stay in a hotel so we’ll be fresh in the morning. Every advantage we can give ourselves, we do. During the drive, we play the baby name game, kicking around old family names. We’ve talked like this for years, long ago settling on a name, but haven’t told a soul. We don’t want to jinx ourselves. Jared slows down to pay a toll and tells me his sister said Lynette must be good looking if she’s having sex with a twenty-year-old. I hadn’t considered this. It makes me ridiculously happy. Halle Berry was adopted! My friend Diane was adopted, too! Diane’s gorgeous, an executive chef in LA. One thing we haven’t told our families about is the drugs. We also won’t tell them Lynette was in prison. Turns out there are a few secrets in our open adoption after all. I take out my phone and hit redial. Teresa lives in Indiana, too. Maybe we could meet her after we meet Lynette. I feel slippery, greedy, but I don’t care. The number is still busy.

At lunch, we make fun of our over-carbonated waitress. It’s mean, but we’re giddy with possibility. She’s young, blonde, annoyingly perky. Everything is extra big and good here! And free refills, too! I would never make food like this, much less eat it, but I’m starving. The waitress checks on us again. “I wasn’t kidding! Isn’t the steak enormous?”

“Mmm, enormous,” I slip my foot out of my boot and put it on Jared’s crotch as she skips away. “Just enormous.”

Interested, he slides down in the booth a little, pressing himself against my foot. “How enormous?”

“Gargantuan.” I say breathlessly. My cell phone rings. It’s the agency; Teresa has called. Teresa? She wants us to call her back right away, as fast as we can. I take my foot back. “My God, we could get both babies! We’ll put one in the blue bedroom, the other in the green. Or no. No! They’d go in the same room. We’d get matching cribs!”

Jared gives me his “slow down” look, but sits up and throws his napkin over the plate. He wants me to call right away, too.

“Should I tell her we’re in Indiana?” I ask. “Should we try to meet today? Or you think it’d freak her out?”

“Why don’t you mention it casually? See where it goes.”

“It’s good to talk to you,” I tell Teresa after she answers. “I’ve tried to call.”

“We’ve had some trouble with our phone bill, but we’re good now.”

“How are you? Did you get our birthmother letter?”

“You guys look nice. Really nice. You have a beautiful house and it looks like you’re good with kids, but...” A small whine starts up in my head, like the first few seconds of steam being released from a radiator. “…we’ve decided to keep the baby.”

I cough, trying to clear a passage for air to get through.

“I’m sorry. I thought you should know. I wanted you to know.”

“Thank you. Thank you for telling us. Good luck to you,” I say and lay the phone down beside my plate. All that remains is a rib-eye bone in a pool of greasy blood. I’d thought she was immoral, illiterate, damaged. I’d thought so many wrong things I could puke.

Jared reaches for my hand, not speaking. We sit there in awful silence until the waitress bounces back over, her blond ponytail swishing behind her. “So, you two leave room for a big dessert?”

“No,” Jared tells her. He stands to move over to my side of the booth. “We just got some bad news.” He hands her his credit card. “But you’re going to make it better by settling the damn check and getting us out of here as quickly as you can.”

The waitress steps back, her smile fading.  “No problem, sir.” There’s confusion in her voice; blessedly it compels her to turn and walk away.

Everybody lies. Birthmothers lie about smoking during pregnancy, fertility doctors lie about your chances of getting pregnant, agencies lie about how easy it is to get a baby. I call Lynette Sunday morning and lie about needing directions. I lie to make it casual, to keep her from knowing how desperate we are. We’ve already been in the car ten minutes. We have coffee for the drive and flowers for her. She lies and tells me she’s been up sick all night. Or maybe it’s only a half-lie.

“Things are just so bad. My mother’s an alcoholic, my daddy’s in jail. Tracey’s doing all right, but he messed her up, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, thinking we should adopt Tracey, too.

“Tell her we don’t have to meet today. We can come back next weekend.”

Lynette’s heard him over my phone. “Would you hate me if I said yes?” She sounds sheepish.

“Of course not.”

“But I can’t meet next weekend.”

This is it, I think. “Okay.”

“The weekend after. You come down Saturday, and we’ll meet here.”

“Jared has a charity race to the top of the Sears Tower. We could come down after that.”

“Tell her I might be a bit sweaty, but we’ll be there.” He’s grinning.

“I’d just tell him to get in here and take a shower. We’re gonna be family, right?”

No. You’ll be the birthmother, and we’ll be the parents, and we’ll always know one another, but that’s not a family. I don’t know what it is, but it’s no family.

“Or we don’t have to meet if she’d rather not. Tell her she can meet with the agency first if she’d prefer,” Jared says.

“About that, I done decided. Bring them papers when you come; I’ll sign them.”

I want a baby desperately, but not like this. Adoption should be borne of love, wisdom, selflessness, but this has all the warmth of a prostitute on a street corner. As long as we have the money, it doesn’t matter who we are. A bitter, metallic bile fills my mouth. It is the taste of revulsion, but I have to keep her on the line. Jared slows the car slightly and mouths, “What’s wrong?”

“What?” I ask her.

“I been over and over it. There’s just no other way.”

“Don’t you want to meet first? I think you should meet us, get to know us.”

“No, it’s okay. You bring them papers and I’ll sign ‘em.” She says it with zero emotion.  I could be talking to a dead woman right now.

“Look, I’m not trying to talk you out of adoption. I don’t want you to think we don’t want your baby, we do, but we should really meet first. Maybe you can talk to another birthmother advocate. A lot of them have been in your shoes. I can call the agency if you like.”

“OK, hon, if that’s what you want. I’d appreciate it.” Her voice lightens. Have I really helped? Or is she just glad to get me off the phone?

“I don’t think I could’ve have handled that any worse.” I say, hanging up.

“Nope.” Jared’s already gotten off an exit and onto the other side of the highway, heading north to go home.

“Excuse me?”

“Maybe I should’ve spoken with her. Let’s face it, if she’s got addiction issues, I’d know how to talk to her.” Jared’s mother, the raging alcoholic. Looking at him, you’d never guess how many nights he spent at the Salvation Army as a boy. “Or maybe she responds differently to men.”

“I’m sure.”

“I would’ve told her she’ll make the right decision. Whatever it is, even if it’s not adoption, we’ll respect it. And if she never wants to meet us, that’s okay, too.”

“Well, hell, you should talk to her next time.” 

“Lauren.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. You’re a man, and in case you haven’t noticed, a man’s what put her here in the first place.”

Jared nods slowly and mile markers pass. “We need to prepare ourselves that this might not happen,” he says. “Since we didn’t meet her.”

“That was your idea! She would’ve met us if you hadn’t given her the out!”

“We had to. She was sick,” Jared says.

“Eight hours. We’ll be in this car eight hours this weekend because of her.”

“She’s scared.”

I open the sunroof and let in some air. “So this is how people get babies?”

Jared doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “For you and me, it is.”

It’s my birthday. Jared and I go to a restaurant I created recipes for a few years ago. It’s my chocolate cake we eat. One waiter sings, and even that’s too much. I ask Jared if he thinks Teresa really decided not to place her baby. Or, if perhaps she picked somebody else. Jared shrugs and says there could be a million reasons. Really? Only a million?

“Who’s this?” the woman on the phone asks.

I’ve waited over a week to call, but still I hesitate before giving my name. The woman sounds like Lynette, but older, her voice fried to an even crispier point. I don’t want to betray confidences, but surely this must be her aunt or mother. They all live together. She must know who I am. “My name is Lauren. I’ve been speaking with Lynette about her baby.”

“I thought that was you. I’m her aunt, Jean.”

“Hi Jean,” I bubble over with relief; Lynette’s been talking about us. “How’s Lynette?”

“She’s fine, honey. She had the baby a few days ago. They’re both doing okay, but the baby’s gonna to be in the hospital for six weeks.”

The kitchen spins, or maybe it’s me dislodging time and space, I turn so fast. In the living room, Jared watches TV, but not for long, not after I come in.

“She went into labor early. The baby’s not breathing on her own or taking a bottle yet, but the doctors think she’s gonna be fine,” Jean says.

“Oh my God.” I cover the mouthpiece and whisper to Jared to get me a pad and a pen. “I don’t know what to say. When did she have the baby?”

Lynette’s aunt keeps talking. “A couple of days ago. Five pounds, three ounces. Cute as a button. Has a head full of brown hair.”

“Really?” I’d pictured Lynette as a dirty blonde. “How’s Lynette?”

“She’s still pretty sick. It was a rough labor.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Eyes wide with questions or fear, Jared hands me a pad of paper, but no pen.

“But they’re both healthy? That’s the important thing,” I say.

“They gonna be fine, sweetie.”

“Do you think she’d want to hear from me? I don’t want to intrude...”

“Give her a call. She’s at St. Mary’s. In room 3810. It was nice talking to you. Good luck,” she says and hangs up.

“Her aunt acts like Lynette still wants to go through with it,” I say as Jared calls information on his cell phone. I’m pleading with fate I know, but I can’t help it.

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t know anything until you talk to her.”

“I can’t believe she didn’t call us.”

“The first call.” Jared hands me his phone. The line to the hospital is ringing. “That’s the only time she ever called us.”

When the operator tells me they have no record of her, I speak slowly, trying not to scream Lynette’s name. Or that she has a premature baby somewhere in the hospital. I know the operator can hear it in my voice, the unhinging, but she does nothing to pacify me. I insist, and begrudgingly she puts me through to neonatal. The nurse identifies Lynette as a boarder mothers. Really? A mother on the edge? A mother undecided? No, a mother who’s been discharged but has a baby in neonatal. They have special boarding rooms in the hospital. Lynette’s is 3226. But border mother makes so much more sense.

For the next two and a half hours, we try the line. It’s busy. Once our phone rings, a telemarketer. I pour myself a coffee mug of wine.

“What are you doing?’ Jared asks.  “If this is our baby, we’re going down tonight.”

I haven’t considered this. If she’s ours, then she’s down there alone. Alone, with them. I call again. A half hour before the hospital turns the phones off, someone picks up. This is yet another Lynette, her mother.

“Yes,” Arlene rattles in the family’s whiskey voice, “the baby is doing really well. She wasn’t eating before, but Lynette got her to take a bottle this morning.”

“Really?” I try to sound like this is wonderful news.

“Yeah, she’s just the sweetest little thing. Tracey’s fallen completely in love with her. They’re down there with her right now, feeding her.”

“Can you tell me exactly when the baby was born?”

“Two days ago. January 30th. Lynette had just gone to the doctors; she’d been so sick. And the doctor told her to go home, and stay off her feet, but you know Lynette, she don’t listen to nobody. That girl came home and started cleaning house. One minute she was mopping the floor, the next, she was in labor. She barely made it to the hospital.”

“She was born on my birthday.”

“Well, how about that?” She says it like we’re friends, like she’s pulling for me.

“We need to know, Arlene. We need to know what Lynette’s thinking.”

“Of course, you do. I want you to know I think adoption is wonderful. I have a cousin who gave a baby up. It was hard, but she knew it was the right thing. And do you know, that child just got in touch with her last week. She’s eighteen now. The father’s a heart surgeon. It made my cousin feel so good knowing what a wonderful life she’s had.”

“That’s great.” Jared’s not a heart surgeon. We’re not as good as that.

“I think it’s wonderful you’d let us have an open adoption. We know we can’t just pop into the car and come see you whenever we want, but knowing that we’d could talk to her on the phone and see her every now and then, that helps.”

“We wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“You have a calming effect on Lynette. She’s had a really hard life, you know? And Tracey. That poor girl. I don’t know how much Lynette told you.”

I don’t know either. “She mentioned some counseling.”

Arlene sighs. “Nobody here’s in any position to help. I’m on disability. Lynette’s trying to get her life back on track, and poor Tracey. But whatever Lynette decides to do, we’ll stand behind her. I won’t stand in her way.”

This is the woman suing Lynette for child support? “Will Lynette be back in the room before they turn the phones off?” I ask.

“Yes, honey. They should be back any minute.”

“Just in case, could you please have her call us? The nurse said Lynette could call out after hours. She can call our eight hundred number. It doesn’t matter what time.”

“Okay, honey. I’ll have her call. I promise. It’s been good talking to you.”

Our clocks are slow, or their clocks are fast. Either way, there’s a monumental mistake of seconds; when I try Lynette’s number for the last time, the operator tells me that they’re no longer putting calls through for the night.

At three-thirty in the morning, Jared rolls over, his face inches from mine. “That’s it. I’m calling in the morning. If she’s keeping her baby, I’m going to wish her well. But if she’s placing her with us, we need to know, so we can get down there and be with our little girl.” He rubs his hand hard across his eyes. “If it weren’t so over the top, I’d say let’s just drive down and go in.”

“We can’t do that.”

“She’s weak. She’s a weak person. It’s no wonder her life is the way it is.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” He rolls away from me. “I know everything about her now.”

At ten-thirty the next morning, Jared calls. He’s calm as he tells me he had to phone the nurses station to get Lynette. I can hear a couple of other coaches talking in the background. He says the nurse complained about Lynette keeping her phone off the hook. She actually went to Lynette’s room and put the phone back on the receiver. If not for her, he wouldn’t have gotten Lynette. He tells me she didn’t say a word, that he did all the talking, that she’ll have her decision by four. He’ll come home so we can make the call together. Then he hangs up. I can’t believe it. I tell him everything. Every pause, every word, every terrible thing. And he tells me nothing.

Of course, the line is busy at four o’clock.

“What’d you expect?” I snap, throwing myself out of the chair, but Jared’s fast. He grabs my wrist and pulls me back.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you longer today, but she didn’t say anything. She just said okay a couple of times. I couldn’t even tell you what her voice sounds like.”

It’s hard to stay mad when he’s contrite, but we’ve been married a long time, and I know what I’m doing. “Maybe it was a mistake,” I say. “You calling her.”

Jared lets go of my hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t second-guess.”

“I’m not. It’s just maybe she doesn’t deal well with men. She lives in a house full of women. Her mother said I have a calming effect on her.”

“That train has left the station, okay? So please, let’s not fight each other.” He looks almost small, sitting in the chair, looking up at me. Kids, no kids, either way would’ve been fine for him, but now, thanks to me and my need, we’re teetering on this impossible edge, and in his eyes there’s a panic I’ve never seen before. How do you hold onto something that’s not yours? That’s what he’s trying to figure out.

“I talked to Tania. She said whenever a baby is sick or born prematurely, it’s harder for the birthmother to place the baby. She said we should start preparing for a no.”

“I just keep thinking if she’d met us, things would be different,” Jared says.

“If she tells us no, I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll understand, you know? But if she tells us yes, I’m gonna be angry. I’m gonna be so angry because she’s deliberately kept us from that baby, and I don’t think I can forgive her for that.” I sit back down.

Jared’s not looking at me. He’s looking past me at some other mystery in the room. “I just want an answer,” he says. “Either way.”

A little after six, Lynette answers the phone. Jared gets on the line, but doesn’t speak. She tells me how sick she still is, how the preeclampsia made her go into labor early, how she thought she’d feel better after the baby was born, but she’s still really sick.

“I’m sorry,” I hear myself saying, but I don’t care any more. She’ll talk to me all night about everything except the reason she’s there. “How’s the baby, Lynette?”

She pauses. I hear her ragged breath.

“Lynette?”

“Good. She’s lost three ounces, but she started eating yesterday.”

“That’s normal, isn’t it? For babies to lose a little weight?”

“Yeah, the doctors said so. They think she’ll be in here for another four or five weeks. She’s got to start eating and wetting and all that stuff on her own.”

“Look, I don’t mean to pressure you, but we need to know. One way or another. You don’t owe us anything, and we won’t be mad if you decide to keep her. If it’s yes, we’ll be down there tonight, but if it’s no, we need to know that, too.”

She takes a jagged breath. “Call me back at nine. I’ll have a decision then.”

Jared quietly puts the phone back in its cradle. “She said more to you in five minutes than she did to me in twenty.” He looks sick. “I bullied her. I pushed her around like she was nothing.”

“She was probably never going to give us the baby anyway.”

“It wasn’t to get the baby, I swear. Just an answer. Just a fucking yes or a no. ”

The room has grown dark around us. I should turn on some lamps, but the houses across the street are lit, and I can see people making dinner, watching the news, playing with their children. Right there, across the street and next door. “Jesus,” I say.

“What?”

“We never even asked her the baby’s name.”