25. Amanda
I’m not sure anyone has any idea what to expect when they arrive at Helen’s baby shower. I should’ve known it would be fine—it’s being thrown by Abby. She’s not prone to Helen’s excesses.
Most of the shower is completely normal.
Abby invited all the usual suspects, like Donna, Beth, and Mrs. Earl. A few of the people from town who aren’t terrified of Helen also came, as well as me, of course, and Mandy. But there are a few others that we might have wished didn’t come.
Abby’s mother, for one, and David’s mother, who still hasn’t gone back home. I don’t envy Helen all that mother-in-law time. I suppose that’s one of the perils of having a mother-in-law who usually lives a twenty-hour flight away. When she does come to visit, she camps out for an extended period.
It’s been a long run of weeks for her, surely.
And then there are also a few of Helen’s. . .friends seems like a strange word for the dean of Harvard’s business school, a famous talk show host, and CEOs of some of the biggest companies in America. Even so, we’re all stuck making small talk and decorating onesies in Abby’s family room with them. Thanks entirely to Abby, no one seems too very awkward about it.
When we start to open gifts, the difference between us becomes a little more obvious. “Here,” Helen says. “I’ll start with this one.” She grabs a beautifully wrapped box I saw Mrs. Earl carry in.
“That’s from me,” Will’s effusive mother says. “If you don’t like it, you don’t need to feel obligated to use it. I won’t be offended.”
After Helen unwraps the box, she pulls out a crocheted baby blanket featuring adorable fluffy white clouds on a blue background. It’s sure to look like crap almost as soon as the kid starts spitting up, but I can get some really cute photos with it before then, if I remember.
“That’ll go well with my gift,” I say.
Helen glances around. “I. . .” She frowns. “Which one is yours?”
“I didn’t wrap it,” I say. “I’m going to do a newborn photoshoot for you.”
“Oh, no,” Beth says. “I was going to give her a photoshoot.”
“Trust me,” Abby says. “One of you can take photos in the first week, and one can do them a month later, and she’ll love both.”
“Absolutely,” Helen says. “Thank you so much.”
“I have to leave soon,” the dean of Harvard says. “But I wanted to give you this.” She winks as she hands Helen an envelope.
“What’s that?” Beth asks. “I hear the best stuff comes in cards.”
I try not to cringe.
“Oh, it’s just a letter for a friend,” the dean says.
She’s almost out the door when Mrs. Earl presses. “Surely it’s more than a letter. What is it?”
“Oh, well,” Helen says. “I think?—”
“It’s an acceptance letter for little baby Fisher-Park,” the dean says. “Whenever that child is ready, Harvard Business School will be waiting for him.”
“Not until he’s graduated from Stanford undergrad,” Helen’s mother says.
The two women are glaring at one another, clearly upset over the school an unborn child will choose to attend. I’m definitely out of my element here, having only ever attended an unimpressive school haphazardly.
“Open mine,” Abby says, thrusting a box with little rabbits all over it at Helen. “You’ll like it.”
Helen opens the box, and I’m sort of praying, softly, that it’s not some epic gift. Abby’s already thrown her a baby shower with adorably cute decorations and food, and she’s been the perfect host, all while pulling double duty on legal work every time Helen feels lousy, and helping plan the wedding.
Plus, it’s a week and a half before Christmas.
Please, please, let her gift not make me feel even more inadequate.
“I didn’t have a lot of time,” Abby’s explaining.
As Helen pulls out the oversized, double-thick swaddling blankets, I’m a little annoyed. She only had just enough time to sew her little nephew not one, or even two, but three swaddling blankets? I suppose it could have been worse. It’s not the custom quilt she made for Donna—for both of her babies.
“I did start a quilt, but I haven’t had time to finish it yet. It’ll be done before he’s born.” She winks. “You’ll have to tell me his name before then, though, or I’ll never be able to embroider it before he comes home from the hospital.”
There it is. An embroidered custom quilt, in process.
After everyone oohs and awws over the blankets I know are great—she made them for me with both of my girls, and they were the best—it’s time for a few more silver-spoon gifts. But finally, the shower’s over, and it’s time to go home.
“I know most of you need to leave, but for anyone who isn’t done partying yet,” Abby says. “We have a special surprise.”
A. . . what? Somehow, in the past two hours, Steve and Ethan set up a whole host of decorations, including a beautifully made wooden backdrop made from a bunch of different colors of distressed wood plank. Adorable baby items have been attached at artful locations, and the words ‘Fisher-Park baby’ are spread across the top of the whole thing. It’s nice, this time of year, that Steve has a covered arena they can use. I can’t help wondering how much it cost to bring in a dance floor that’s covering the better part of it.
There’s even a live band that has just started playing songs at the far end.
“I invited your spouses and significant others to join us,” Abby says. “I hope you don’t mind.” She winks at Helen. “But I wanted to show my sister that once you have a baby, it’s okay to still do fun things. Adult things.” She shrugs. “So if you’re so inclined, let’s dance!”
The band is pretty decent, and maybe that’s why it takes me not one, but two songs before I realize who’s singing.
Maren.
Abby evades me for nearly five minutes, which is good. It gives me time to consider that if I kill her, there won’t be anyone who can defend me on the murder charges.
When I finally find her, I’m still pretty upset. “What could you possibly be thinking?”
She shrugs. “About what?”
“Maren?” My hiss comes out a little more deranged than I’d like. People around us are staring. “She does not need encouragement!”
“It was my idea, actually.” Eddy steps out from behind the arena support beam and wraps an arm around my shoulders.
“Traitor,” I say. “Don’t tell me you’ve switched to their side, too.”
Mandy, Abigail, and Steve have all approached us at different times to suggest that we should let Maren record her album. Thankfully, Abby has done exactly as promised, gotten the venue transferred to Utah, and she’s awfully close to having the whole thing dismissed.
She’s done all that while taking care of her own baby, her other children, keeping her husband happy, and handling all of Helen’s legal work. My hero-worship notwithstanding, I’m still royally ticked. “We’ve been over this and over it.”
“Have we?” Eddy asks. “I feel like they’ve been over it and over it, and we’ve just ignored them.”
“Our friends need to learn when to butt out.” I can’t help stomping my foot, but my heel hits the dance floor hard just as the song ends, and now everyone’s looking at me. Now’s the moment. I should order Maren to quit singing, and if it ruins Abigail and Helen’s party, well, they deserve it. They can’t tell me how to parent, and just because they disagree doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
The whole world can disagree with me, and I still won’t back down.
That’s what it means to be a mother.
And that’s when it hits me.
The whole world, or at least, my whole world, does disagree. Mandy told me that holding Maren back would just make her resent me. Abigail told me that with our guidance and support, which Maren has been asking for, she would be safe. Much safer than Eddy ever was. And Steve even worked up a plan for how an adult from our family could go with her for every single event the label wants, from recording to marketing and social media.
The whole world thinks I’m wrong.
Am I?
For the first time since this madness started, I figuratively stand down. Instead of shouting and stopping my daughter from performing, which she’s clearly enjoying, I shut my mouth and I listen to her. I watch her.
Maren’s next song is about her dad.
Her dad was pretty lousy even when he was alive, so I’m shocked she’d write a song about him. . .until I realize it’s not about him. It’s about Eddy. She’s singing about how her dad chose her. Her dad’s always there for her. Her dad supports and uplifts her. He never judges.
And he always forgives.
That’s definitely not Paul. She’s singing about Eddy, and it’s all the kind things she never says out loud.
Is it possible that she expresses the feelings and thoughts she can’t bring herself to say. . .in her music? Are these more than just inane pop songs? Could she, at not-quite-eighteen, be an artist?
I hate that I’ve missed it.
I’ve been blind.
But I’m seeing it now. Abby walks up and slides her arm through mine. I wait for it, but the I-told-you-so I’ve been dreading never comes. “It’s hard,” she whispers. “So, so hard.”
“What is?” I force myself to turn and look at her perfect face.
“Watching them grow up.”
A tear forms in my right eye, and it slides its way down my cheek. “She’s still a baby.”
“It hurts when they don’t need us anymore,” Abby whispers. “But don’t worry. They always come back, because they will always need us in some ways. That part never changes.”
“Not me—she doesn’t.” Now there’s more than one tear. “She hates me now, and even before, she knows she drew the short straw.”
Abby drops her head on my shoulder. “That little girl knows how blessed she is.”
As if she can hear us, Maren launches into a cover of “I’m not Lucky, I’m Blessed.” By the time it ends, I’ve definitely wrecked my makeup.
“I hate this,” I say.
“Admitting when you’re wrong?” Abby asks. “Or letting her go?”
“Option C, all of the above.”
“A few years ago, you couldn’t have done it,” Abby says. “I’m proud of how you’ve grown.”
It takes me a few more minutes to compose myself, and another ten minutes after that to be ready, but by the time Maren’s done with her set, I’m prepared. When I tell her I’m sorry, when I tell her she can record her album, Maren leaps into my arms, her hands wrapping around my ribcage.
No one ever actually tells me that they told me so, even though they all did.
And I never do feel much better about the record label. I won’t trust them until the day I die. But when I think about how my family now boasts connections to the dean of Harvard’s Business School and a half dozen powerful CEOs, I can’t help smiling.
I might have come from a trailer park, and my parents might still be willing to trade me in for a pack of double-mint gum, but my daughter isn’t like that. My daughter has an army of people behind her, all of us willing to attack and destroy if she’s threatened.
I’m not sure I could hope for anything more than this, to have created a family that’s so much more than the one I was born into. It’s the American dream, really, to grow a life for your kids that’s better than you ever imagined it could be.
And I’m living it every day.