Chapter 20 Baby Boy #3
“Well, West does, and that’s not what I wanted to tell you, but it’s some context, I hope.
Anyway, I was flat broke by the time I had him, and I had to work two jobs and rely on family to help me pick up all my slack, and that was so hard.
I’d given everything just to have him, and there I was—not able to spend any time with him at all. I was depressed. You understand?”
“Like postpartum depressed?”
“It’s all depression, but yes. Technically, this was during my postpartum period.”
Helen’s never gotten this personal with me before, but I’m easing into the conversation, my anxiety abating.
I appreciate the fact that she feels like she can talk to me like an adult now.
I also, stupidly, get the feeling I know where this is going.
Being a working single mother was hard, it was difficult for her to send West away for school, but she’s so glad he found a friend like me—this would all be on theme for the night, and I’ve heard versions of it before.
But what she tells me after that…
The next part is like a deleted scene from a movie. A scene that makes a big fucking difference. It basically changes the whole story.
“This might sound a little crazy,” she admits, going in. “Hear me out.”
I nod, suddenly nervous again.
“Did you know you were a preemie?”
Frowning, I nod again. My mother explained that to multiple doctors like it was the best excuse she could come up with for why I was so fucked up.
“And you know I used to work in a neonatal intensive care unit.”
Jesus fucking Christ. That I did not know. “Okay.”
“You were born on a holiday. Just before midnight. I worked the night shift. I remember when they brought you in. You weren’t breathing on your own. You had a lot of complications. It was a hard delivery.”
“Wait—” I hold up my hand to stop her. “Is this a true story?”
“It is, and I have a point. I just want you to understand where I’m coming from when I get to it. So save all your questions and comments until I’m done.”
“You were my nurse?”
“Three nights a week.”
“What hospital?”
“Archer.” She gives me an admonishing look, annoyed I’m not abiding by her no questions rule.
“Sorry. Go ahead.” I lean back in my seat, folding my arms across my chest, because I’m feeling suddenly defensive.
“Your mother didn’t visit much on the night shift.
Three nights a week, it was just you and me.
West was four months old at the time. I missed him so much, so you got a lot of my attention.
Years’ worth of misplaced maternal devotion, I’m sure, but I don’t think either one of us minded.
I was in a dark place, and I decided you needed me.
It felt like you did anyway, when your own mother couldn’t be there. ”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I didn’t put too much thought into it at the time. Who was I to judge someone struggling to adjust to motherhood, you know?”
“I guess.”
“Well, once you were healthy enough to go home, I offered to follow up with you. Your mother was scared to death to take you home. You’d had this habit of stopping breathing in your sleep.
By the time we discharged you, you were doing fine, but she knew it was something we’d dealt with a lot at the beginning.
I told her I could stop by once a day to make sure the equipment was working right.
Make sure you were still healthy and feeding well.
All the usual things a home health nurse does.
She agreed to it. She offered to pay me a lot, too. She was a piece of work, your mother.”
I don’t want to know. I want Helen to get to the fucking point of all this.
“Of course, I had to bring West with me most times, and your mother always took the opportunity when I was over to run errands. The three of us—me, you, and West spent a lot of time together back then. You were a fussy little thing, but you were precious. I would hold you right here.” She places her hand on her breastbone, over her heart, tapping it in a steady rhythm.
“You loved being rocked in the chair by your bedroom window. You just slept and slept, like you’d never slept a day in your life.
I held you on my chest, and I’d get West in my other arm, and we’d all rock together.
You two would even share a blanket. You were so sweet.
It was hard for me to put you down when I’d get hold of you. ”
This can’t be a real story. It’s like a fable. An allegory.
She goes on, her hand falling back to rest on the table.
“When you got a little older, your mother would call me up three or four times a week. She paid so much, I was able to quit my second job, so when I didn’t have to work, I picked you up, brought you home, and took care of you.
Sometimes she’d even leave you with me the whole weekend.
But then, over the years, I saw you less and less, and when you should have been getting into everything the way West was as a toddler, you were always sleeping.
I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what I could do about it except be there for you when she let me. ”
At this point I feel really and truly defensive. Like my privacy has been invaded. Violated. And also like I’ve been thrown to the wolves with no way to defend myself.
“By the time you were four, I didn’t see you anymore, and it ate at me.
Years went by, and all the messages I sent your mother asking after you went unanswered.
So, I finally reached out to your father—my Hail Mary.
He answered. He told me you’d been accepted at Cardigan, and that you enjoyed painting, and that you’d been through a lot with illnesses off and on, but you were healthy now and going off to school.
Archer, I’d prayed for you every day. For years I had to count on God to watch over you, but it wasn’t ever enough for me.
So my family and I—we figured out a way to send West to Cardigan, too.
He was smart, he was good at baseball. He got a scholarship, and I had money saved from taking care of you all those first years. ”
“Excuse me? What?”
Her mouth pinches, and she drops her eyes. Guilty.
“I know this must all sound crazy. My friends, my co-workers, my mom kept telling me to let it go. Let you go.” She shakes her head and stares at her folded hands on the table.
“But I couldn’t. Not if there was finally something I could do to bring you back.
I requested the two of you room together.
West was a sweet boy, and I knew he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you because of how protective he gets. ”
I’m scowling. If anything, West was over protective, but I hadn’t needed him. By then I knew how to protect myself. At first, West’s kindness had seemed like the biggest threat to my safety, but eventually he wore me down enough to feel comfortable around him. To trust him.
“And the rest you know already. The rest, you remember.”
I’ve moved past defensive. I’m pissed. “How did you find my cell phone number? After I left home?”
Staring straight at me she says, “I hired a private detective.”
“Un-fucking-believable. And the blanket? You mentioned a blanket? What did it look like?”
She gives me a grim look, lips pressed together and a glint in her eyes.
The look is probably because she’s just poured half of her heart onto the kitchen table, and I have yet to acknowledge it.
But when you find out you’ve been someone’s pet project your entire life, how are you supposed to react?
“It was blue. Archer, there’s a reason I’m telling you all this. ”
“Yeah?” I snap. “What? Why?”
She leans closer, absorbing all of my anger and paying no attention to the bitterness in my tone. She reaches across the corner of the table and pulls my arms out of their stiff fold on my chest. She takes my hand in an arm wrestling grip.
“Baby boy, I love you. I’ve loved you your whole life. When I saw you that first day, I wanted you to be my child. My baby. Maybe it was my hormones or the backlash of having lost so much, but I fell in love with you so fast, it felt like God himself put you in front of me.”
My eyes start blinking rapidly. Her words are catching up with me, gaining resonance.
I can hear her, but everything in my field of vision gets jumpy.
I can’t focus, and my ears hurt—like they’re being assaulted with battering rams. Nausea takes over my gut, and the room spins.
I find myself nodding. Moving my head, up and down, over and over, like okay, yeah, you love me, I know. ..
But I don’t know. Turns out I’ve never known anything.
“West told me your stupid theory. About the chimps and the wire mothers. I know you think that because your mother didn't love you that means you can't ever love anybody, but you’re wrong. First of all, you were not a chimpanzee, you were an exhausted little boy. Second, you didn’t have a mother made out of wire. You had me.” Her voice breaks, and something inside me shatters.
“When you were a baby—when you were with me—I told you how much I loved you every time I saw you. And you know what? Your mouth actually does know how to form the words. You said it to me enough times. Not lately, granted, but I remember well enough. Don't you shake your head at me.”
How can I stop? I don’t even feel my body anymore.
“There’s a whole lot of love in that big heart of yours, and I don’t want you to lose that wonderful young man out there because you keep telling yourself you don’t have what it takes to love him back.
And you will lose him if you keep on thinking that.
That feeling you have for him—that he’s got for you?
That’s called love. He’ll give it back to you if you let him.
I just want you to open up your heart, baby boy.
Love is what we’re put here for. What you’re meant for. ”
The raw emotion chewing at my insides is so difficult to tolerate that the only right response—the only thing I know how to do is shut it down.
I stare at the table. I’m inhaling, and I’m exhaling.
It might be loud, like I’m running a marathon, but I’m breathing, and that’s the important thing.
She presses her fingertips into the palm of my hand.
“Archer Michael, I love you like you’re my own son.
It’s why I never have been able to let you go.
I want your happiness as much as I want West’s. More than I want my own.”
My face is wet, and I buckle under the loss of control. I’m spinning and breaking apart. My eyes close because hearing is enough right now. Is too much even.
Her other hand rubs my arm, grounding me in reality. “Sweet baby boy,” she says, her voice soft. The way she says it—like a mother should—it’s the final blow, and I collapse beneath it, taking my hand from hers to cover my burning eyes.
The pressure shifts in the room when the silent, swinging door opens. I hear the scrape of a chair across the floor, and then Tristan’s hands are pulling at me. My arms wrap around him as one pathetic sob wracks me, but that’s the only one that gets out. I stuff the rest back down.
Tristan presses a soft kiss beneath my ear, his hand running over my hair.
I feel no love. All I feel is the same old emptiness.
His cheek presses into mine. He tightens his grip around me.
Helen’s hand moves up and down my back, like we’ve all just witnessed a miracle together.
That may be how it looks, but it’s not how it feels. “I need to go,” I whisper, so quiet in Tristan’s ear, I’m afraid he won't hear me. He pulls away. Concerned, he stares at my face and uses the fingers of both hands to wipe my cheeks.
He turns to Helen. “We're gonna go. I’ll take care of him.”
“I know you will, sweetheart. I know.”
Tristan stands and offers me his hand. I take it to rise up beside him. I look down at Helen, tears in her eyes as she gazes at me like I’m her own son. She’s been looking at me like that my entire life. How have I never noticed it before?
“I love you,” she says again, standing, taking her turn to dry my face.
The light of her love for me shines so bright it blurs my vision. “Nell, I can’t.”
“You can. Of course you can. You’ll see.”
“Thank you so much for dinner,” Tristan says, but his voice sounds different. He gives Helen a long hug. I can hear their whispers, but not the words.
He turns back to me and forces a smile as tears streak down his face.
No, no. I don’t want him to cry. Not for this. Not for me. I’m not worth it.
“Come on.” He takes my hand again to lead me out of the house.
I go with him, but when we get to my car, I have to stop again. I lay my arms across the hot metal roof and sink my head between them. I’ve always known I’m broken, but now I’m ground to dust.
All I can think about is this isn’t what Tristan signed up for. I need to find my fucking spine. He needs me strong. He doesn’t need—this.
Tristan stays close, his hand moving back and forth across my waist, waiting for me to pull myself together.
And I have to. I fucking have to for him.
It takes a while because all I keep thinking about is Connor.
The brother I left behind. I’ve had Helen propping me up my entire life and all Connor’s had is…
I glance at Tristan, and I feel like a thief.
Did I mention that there was one more space at Helen’s table? Across from Kate and next to me? This empty space and the person who wasn’t there to fill it?
And no one can tell me it didn’t occur to Tristan, too. Of course it did. But I’m the miserable asshole keeping them apart. With things I’ve done. Things I’ve said. All of which are easier to think about than Helen’s confession.
What happens next is almost too unbelievable to recount. But I swear it happened. Like, no bullshit.
Kate comes running outside as I’m opening Tristan’s car door. She has a jar of fireflies. Eight of them.
“There’s one for all of us!” she says to me, in a tizzy of excitement. “And an extra one! I caught it just for you!”