Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Jae
That night, for the first time, I walk up the driveway and continue along the path to the backyard.
I can see it from my window every morning, the swaying palm fronds, the blushing pentas, the bold gerberas, the portulacas round like bursting suns.
And at night I see their muted colors surrounded by garden lights.
I go there, past the pool and to a soft stretch of grass.
I sit on a beautiful rustic garden bench where there are flowers near my feet and a towering hedge at my side.
I realize now why I haven’t spent any time in Uncle Rowan’s backyard. Gardens were Mom’s place, our place, and I’m still angry.
Am I unforgivable? Is she? Did she forgive Dad? Did she forgive me?
A cloud of memories hovers over me. Mom on the couch, licking cinnamon roll icing off her fingers. Me walking in holding the pregnancy stick. She shook her head and said, “Nope. I want nothing to do with that.”
I started to cry. I felt defeated. I stammered through words that didn’t make sense, even to myself.
“Who’s going to take care of that baby?” she asked.
“I will.”
“Oh? Because you’re so grown?” she scoffed. “We taught you better. I taught you better. What are you going to do now, Janelle? You’re gonna drop out of school?”
“I’m not dropping out. There are lots of single mothers that make it work.”
“Well, I’m a single mother now, and it’s no cakewalk.”
“I made a mistake, Mom. Okay? I made a mistake. And now I need you. I need your support.”
“You need my support? I wasn’t there when you made that baby, was I? What business do you have getting pregnant when you can’t even take care of yourself?”
As the days passed and my belly grew larger, the anxiety grew too.
Austin avoided me and students whispered as I walked down the hallway.
I started to wonder if someone would try to hurt me, to push me into the lockers or push me down the stairs like I’d heard happened at other schools.
And then one day the vice principal called me into her office.
“You’ll need to withdraw from your honors classes, Jae.” She blinked at me through bejeweled horn-rimmed glasses.
My heart plummeted to the floor. “Why? I’m doing well in all my classes.”
“Honors classes are not the place for pregnant students. You can continue your studies in regular classes.”
“Is that a policy somewhere? Is it written down somewhere that I can’t be in honors classes with a big belly?”
“It’s more than that, and you know it.”
“Is it a policy?” I pressed.
“It is now. It’s been decided, Jae. I’ve already spoken with your teachers.”
My shoulders fell, my body deflated. For a few weeks, I had noticed my teachers watching me in a new way.
Eyeing my belly sideways as I walked into class.
Refusing to call on me when I raised my hand.
Docking points on my tests that shouldn’t have been.
And all the while they had that look in their eyes that said We knew you’d fit the stereotype somehow.
“Is there anything I can do? I like my classes,” I said, my voice wavering.
“No. You leave honors or you leave school.”
That’s when I started researching P-schools, or pregnancy schools, schools that offer childcare and health services and counseling.
But most of them were already shut down because they had subpar education.
The good ones that were left were out of state, which meant that even if the school provided childcare during the day, I’d have to work to afford a place to live on my own.
And I couldn’t work enough hours to cover childcare, housing, and my school tuition.
I felt guilty that I couldn’t do what other women seemed able to do. Without any support, I couldn’t make the puzzle pieces fit. Hopeless, I called a free hotline. A woman with a chocolatey-smooth Macy Gray rasp introduced herself, and I felt immediate calm.
“What do you need to have to take care of this baby?” she asked me.
“Help. I need help. I need my mom,” I choked.
“And you don’t have her support.”
“Not at all.”
“And what do you want the most for yourself? Not for anyone else. For yourself. What’s important to you?”
“To finish school. I don’t want to drop out.”
“Then, Jae, sweetheart, I think it’s time we talk about adoption. Would you like me to refer you to an agency?”
“You mean just give my baby away?”
“No, I mean find amazing parents to take care of your baby so that you can finish school. What do you think? I can at least give you some information to think through.”
I didn’t have to think much. I knew it was the right choice. June Baby couldn’t stay with me. Ms. Rosette was right about that. Mothers have to leave sometimes. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy to forgive ourselves.
Raise your right hand for me. Do you understand that once you sign, you will have given up all your rights to your child, and that you can never change your mind? Do you understand that this decision is irrevocable?
But I didn’t understand. There was no way to understand.
So hearing that word unforgivable from Swan—a birth child to a birth mother—brought the past and the future together into a painful point. Is that where my baby will be one day? Hanging upside down in a banyan tree, saying how much she hates the woman who left her?
Unforgivable. Swan dug that word up from the darkest corner of my heart where I’d tucked it away.
They might know the truth already, that the baby in the picture is mine. Did I ruin my chance at friendship with Swan? With all of them?
A light turns on in the upstairs bedroom and I see Ms. Rosette’s shadow moving behind the curtains. I stand up and brush away the wetness from my cheeks and bend down to cup the glowing face of a portulaca.
Milk stains on clean tees
Like bursting honeysuckle
For small lips