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We both laugh and maybe it’s because we both realize it’s been a long time since we laughed together that Bob reaches across for my hand and gives it a squeeze before placing it back at the two-o’clock position on the wheel. Ten and two … he rarely drives with one hand.
I’d thought Dave and Susan Strong would be different. Secretly I’m kind of sick of our group of couple-friends. Except for Lynn and Mike, of course. I feel bad saying this especially because I used to be just like this, but to most, if not all, of the people I know, raising children is the greatest gift in the whole wide world. Leanne. Kerry Kendricks. Sally. If you ask how someone’s doing they’ll answer with something their kid’s just said or done. Nothing about themselves. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself and realize I’m just like them. I hate that. Hate. I’m sick of my brain going to mush, of lying in bed wondering what I’ll make for their school lunches the next day. Or whether I need to pick up another case of juice boxes at Costco. I’m sick of car pool. I’m sick of being the devoted mom. I’m tired of shuffling the kids to piano, guitar (Andrew just started weekly lessons), soccer, tutoring. The homework they bring home takes an ungodly amount of time and effort. Now that the time has changed we leave in the dark and we get home in the dark. I’ve tried making good square homemade meals but lately I’ve been throwing in frozen chicken nuggets and heating up canned peas. The kids seem fine with it (Chicken nuggets! Wow! Thanks! only makes me feel guilty for feeding them crap). But there’s not enough time. This is what we all talk about. Everyone I know. This is it. This is what our lives are.
We talk about those women who leave their kids in day care or with nannies while they work full-time. Why have kids? someone will say. And we all nod like it’s so true, it’s so selfish of them.
They’ll regret going back to work when their kids grow up to be delinquents.
Having coffee and pie at a tacky café with sticky plastic tablecloths, someone will mention Dale Harmon who was left alone a lot and ended up accidentally shooting himself with his father’s gun. Someone always mentions Dale Harmon. No one ever let their kids play over at the Harmons’ house because everyone knew Evers, Dale’s father, had guns. So there you go: if his parents hadn’t been working all the time Dale would still be alive. That was the prevailing thought. But I’m not quite sure Dale’s mother, Tally Harmon, was working at the time. I think she might have gone back to work after Dale died. To get out of the house. The Harmons’ house stayed on the market for ten months before they had a buyer from out of town who wasn’t familiar with the family. No one in town wanted to move into a house a child died in. But the thinking was, If Tally had been a good mother she would’ve been there. Once she went back to work no one really saw her anymore. I was convinced that secretly she was relieved to have an excuse to go back to work.
I used to be a pharmaceutical rep. Right out of college I got a job with a company that’d just introduced an antidepressant TIME Magazine called “The Pill That Changed Our Minds.” I was part of a massive hiring and nearly every one of my clients placed huge orders. I was voted sales rep of the month for a straight six months. I didn’t particularly like my job but I loved the money, and my dad would exaggerate to all his friends that I was in line to take over the company. I remember limping home in high heels to Bob and our shitty three-room apartment uptown, off Wilson. I’d soak my feet in Epsom salts at night, talking to Bob from the edge of the tub about how the paycheck was worth it. I ended up hating all the walking and talking and schmoozing and handing out samples or free ballpoint pens with drug names on them. Most of the doctors hit on me and it grossed me out but I couldn’t do anything about it. They were good clients. I ended up quitting just after Bob and I got engaged. It was a pain-in-the-ass kind of job, I thought. Until about a year later, I really didn’t miss it at all.
It was the late ‘80s and every place we went it felt like I was looked down on because I didn’t work and didn’t have kids. We’d go out for beer with Bob’s friends from work and they’d all ask what I did for a living. I’d say something stupid like, “oh, volunteer work and stuff,” but it was a lie. I didn’t volunteer. I sat around our suffocating apartment doing nothing in particular, wondering why I quit selling antidepressants. Wondering if I needed antidepressants. I was relieved to start house hunting. It gave us spark. Purpose. It was fun imagining what our lives would be in this or that house. Then we moved and I threw myself into unpacking. Feathering the nest. I felt—we both felt—grown-up. We’d lie in bed with our new roof over our heads, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of an unfamiliar house. We had so much to talk about back then. We chattered on and on about light fixtures and hardware-store runs and door handles and leaky faucets and catch basins and finished basements and crown molding. I knew where to find the nails at Home Depot (aisle five) and Manuel in the paint department (halfway down aisle seven, to the right) asked how the green was working out in the bedroom. Bob and I came to know which steps were the squeaky ones and we’d politely avoid them if one of us was sleeping.
I started wanting kids because I was bored. I was twenty-eight when we went to our first fertility clinic. The doctor sent us away with a laugh, saying we were young and still had plenty of time to try the natural way.
“You look like it’s a death sentence, Pam,” he said. “You’re newlyweds, for goodness’ sake! That’s all you’re doing anyway, right?”
He took a sip of his coffee and got up to show us the door. I never corrected him on my name.
Then it was 1991. Month after month I held my breath as my period approached. If I missed a day I’d pull another stick out of my economy pack of pregnancy tests. I’d gone through over a dozen by the time we were in front of another doctor asking about shots to stimulate egg follicles. In early 1992, we were talking in vitro. By then it had become a full-time job. Bob was exhausted from the emotional and physical roller coaster but I was focused and determined and a little crazed. Bottoming out every time I saw those telltale stains on my panties. Bob called this time “the door in the floor.” It got worse when people asked when we were going to start a family. No one knows the pain of that question when you’ve just had the ultrasound that shows your third in vitro has failed. By then Bob had checked out. Our fights got louder and meaner and always ended with him storming out and me crying like we were in a country-music video. He started staying away longer and longer and when he rolled back in he’d reek of cigarettes and beer. A double whammy since the doctors all said smoking and drinking decreases sperm count and motility. I’ve always suspected he was trying to sabotage the whole thing even though in the beginning he seemed happy about the idea of us being parents. Back when he’d whisper, I’m gonna make you pregnant right now, in the middle of sex and it would turn us both on. That lasted about two months.
In mid-1992 I gripped the arms on the chair next to Bob’s across from our third fertility doctor who cleared his throat, looked up from my chart and said, “You might want to start considering adoption.”
Cammy
Every once in a while Q-101 has commercial-free weekends and this was one of them and every single song was good. Not just a few—every single one. Ricky and I looked at each other by the time the Plastic Rabbits came on and it was like we were both thinking the same thing at the same time … like, why isn’t there TiVo for radio stations? If there was, we would’ve maxed it out today.
Someone should invent that, he said. Ricky was lying with his head in my lap and it felt all coupley at first but it’s not like he thinks of me that way so it’s totally fine. I used to have a crush on him but whatever, it went away in like five minutes so it’s all good. It’s not weird or anything. I almost never think anything about it. Anyway, the only bad thing about his head in my lap is whichever leg it’s on ends up falling asleep. We watched this group of old couples doing tai chi in the park and Ricky kept calling it ching dong and I laughed so hard Diet Coke came out my nose. And right then is when Missy Delaney walked by. Fucking Missy Delaney. She’s such a bitch and the worst part is no one knows it yet. I feel like I have X-ray glasses on, like night goggles or something. Like I’m the only one who sees her face when their backs turn and her smile goes right into a frown. Not a fade-out but straight to black, like a scary movie and she’s the killer. She has big boobs so all the guys like her of course. Even Ricky. Normally we agree on everything but when it comes to Missy it’s don’t ask don’t tell.
I’m wiping the Diet Coke off my nose on the shoulder of my shirt, so I don’t see the look he always gets when she walks by. He’s all cool and shit and there she is Miss Priss only she’s a total slut. Thank God I didn’t see his face get all red and blotchy like he’s been slimed at Nickelodeon. I can’t take it anymore.
“I heard she got with some Lane Tech guy on Saturday night,” I said.
I kinda feel bad about saying that because even though I did hear it I know it’s probably not true because we saw her with her family when we went for family dinner at Giordano’s. My mom stopped by their table and tried to get me to stop there too but no way. I just went to the table and waited for her to do her little social-butterfly thing.
“Bullshit, she did not,” Ricky said.
Here’s the thing—if it’d been someone he didn’t have a crush on he’d have laughed and agreed with me or he would’ve blown it off or something but he got all pissy so that’s how I know he’s crushing on her. Big-time. Plus, the minute he saw her he sat bolt upright out of my lap like we’d been caught having sex. Whatever. Of course he sticks up for her.
“Why do you even like her? I mean, seriously?” I asked him.
“I don’t like her like her,” he said.
“Yeah, right.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I don’t hate her like you do so sorry.”
I wonder if he dreams of her sucking him like I do to Will. I wonder if he’d still be friends with me if I told him how last night Will said “go faster” and pushed himself so far into my mouth I gagged. I wonder if Ricky’d call me a bitch like Will did. I wonder if Ricky even knows about me and Will.
So I said, “I just can’t believe you buy into all her shit. Little Miss My Father’s Been on the Cover of Fortune Magazine and Yours Hasn’t. Jesus, like that’s something to be proud of. He’s like Mr. I Own the Universe and I’m Going to Save the Environment.”
“He knows Bono and shit,” Ricky says.
“Everyone knows Bono.”
“I mean he knows him. Like, personally. They’re friends.”
“Yeah, well, big fucking deal.”
“Goddamn you’re a bitch these days,” he says.
“What’re you talking about? I’m exactly the same as I’ve always been.”
“It’s like you’re in this cult with Monica or something. You, like, copy her.”
“Fuck you, I do not!”
“Yeah? Well, you always swore you wouldn’t pierce your nose.”
“That was when we were in, like, fourth grade,” I say. “Besides, you’re the one who’s all hot for Monica.”
“Whatever.”
“You know what I did last night?” I changed the subject. “I took two Benadryls. It was awesome. Seriously. Get the Severe Cough and Flu ones. It says to take one but whatever. Take two.”
“You’re a freak,” he said.
Then he tried to dummy-wrestle with me ‘cause that’s his way of saying sorry and I knew it was only because Missy was way out of sight so there was no danger of her seeing him being all over me. Then it hits me—I’ve got to go to the friggin’ movies with my mom … the last thing I want to do.
About a month ago my mom and I were in the car trapped like rats in a line at the place where they test how much exhaust your car puts out and the line was like a million cars long so there was pretty much nothing to do. Nothing good on the radio and my iPod was out of juice. I had finished my homework in study hall last period because Ricky was out sick ‘cause his parents wanted him to have a day with his grandfather visiting from Phoenix so there was no one to pass notes to and I pretty much had to do my homework because Mrs. Cummings was staring holes into my head. It was the longest day of my life, swear to God.
Anyway, there’s Mom babbling about how when she was young she and her mother would go to the drive-in movies on Sunday nights, just the two of them. I said that was what they did in like the fifties—like all Grease the movie and she said they still had drive-ins in the seventies. Whatever. She’s all we should have a mother-daughter tradition, too and I used to love Sunday nights with my mom. Then she got all quiet like she was going to lose it and I don’t know how it happened but next thing I knew I was saying yeah, sure, and she was off and running like she won the lottery. I feel bad I’m such a bitch and so hard on her—it doesn’t take that much to make her happy if she’s all freaked up about a Sunday-afternoon movie matinee. She looked at me like it was the best idea anyone had ever come up with since the dawn of friggin’ time. She’s all it means so much to me that you’re suggesting it. I didn’t suggest it but she wanted me to think it was my idea so I couldn’t take it back. Whether she knows it or not, she’s always made a show of overloving me, like she’s keeping me from noticing how her love came so naturally with the boys. She’s not so polite with them. She’s careful with me. I’ve always felt this way. It’s like she thinks I’m temporary. The boys can’t up and leave but I can. I’m not her blood. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel this way.
All my life I’ve felt them watching me. Like a rat in a lab experiment. They threw me into their mix of DNA and they’re curious about nature and nurture. We’re talking about that in school now. Nature versus nurture. They’d never in a million years admit it but they treat me differently. I’ve always felt no matter how hard they hug me, when the boys came along they hugged them closer. Their hugs lasted longer with the boys. Like they were relieved. Like they were thinking: phew—for a second there it looked like Cammy was the best we could do.
Out of nowhere, this morning I wanted to tell my mom how pretty she is. She’s so pretty it almost hurts to look at her. She never really wears makeup. She doesn’t need it. She’s naturally pretty. I really wish I looked like her. She must look at me and wonder what she would’ve gotten if she’d had her own daughter.
Samantha
The first time we heard Cammy’s voice she was screaming mo peas over and over, crying so hard she was practically choking. The social worker told us it meant “more please” and wasn’t it great, she yelled over Cammy’s two-year-old voice, wasn’t it terrific she already had manners. She says thank-you, too, the lady told us.
Cammy’s foster mother was bobbing her up and down, wrenching her bottle away so we could get a better look at her face. The more she pulled at the bottle, the harder Cammy cried. Isn’t she beautiful, she yelled over her. Here, now come on, Cammy, let them see those beautiful eyes of yours, she said. She was being patient because we were in the room. No telling what she’d be like alone with Cammy. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing the toddler, but I didn’t want to look crazed. Like a baby-stealer. On our way out of that third fertility clinic I was so hysterical Bob said I was one step away from walking into a hospital and stealing a baby.
“What’s in that bottle?” Bob asked.
I hadn’t noticed it was brown but the crying was so loud I couldn’t think of anything other than please just hand her over to me. For the love of God let me hold her. I’d read all the What to Expect in the Toddler Years books, but somehow it didn’t register that Cammy was still on a bottle. She was already underweight for her age so it was easy to forget this was a two-year-old who should probably be on solid food.
“It’s Coke,” the foster mother said. “Don’t give her the diet kind. She only takes the regular Coke.”
I felt a flush of excitement that she told us this like Cammy was already ours. Like the adoption agency had already approved us.
“You’re giving her Coke?” Bob said. I worried his tone would piss her off but then I remembered the foster parents have nothing to do with the adoption. She couldn’t stand in the way just because she was insulted. And she was insulted.
“Yeah, well, you try feeding a crack baby, how about that? If you can find something better—go for it. Be my guest if you think you know it all. It’s Coke or go deaf from the constant screaming. It’s around the clock. Say goodbye to a good night’s sleep.”
The social worker cleared her throat and said, “Yes, well, the Friedmans have been brought up to speed,” and then she leaned over to me and whispered, “As you can see, this particular foster family is a tad bit overwhelmed. They have a houseful of children. It’s really not so bad.” I can’t remember the social worker’s name, which is so weird because I had her phone number memorized back then we spoke so often. She spent every parenting class passing notes to us like this is important and that will come in handy when the group leader talked about how to raise a crack baby.
I’ve always hated that label. There must be something better. Child born addicted is what was first offered to us. The wait for healthy infants was so long. Crazy long. So we went to a private lawyer Mike found for us. Mike called him a fixer. Someone who got the job done. Greased the machine. He worked within the system. He expedited things. Bob and Mike whispered about it and I knew it meant money was changing hands under the table but I didn’t care. I just wanted a child.
We knew we’d be looking at pictures on our second appointment at the adoption agency. I was wearing my gray slacks because they were the only ones that still fit. I’d lost a lot of weight from all the stress. It was six-thirty in the morning when Bob turned to face me in bed. We blinked at each other and he touched my cheek and said let’s go get her like our little girl was waiting to be picked up from school. Which was exactly what I was thinking when he said the words. The way he said it, the smile he smiled, the feel of his hand on my face, pushing my hair out of my eyes, all of it made me cry and laugh at the same time. He was really trying to be a good sport and I knew it even then. Deep down I knew it was hard for him to muster up excitement that day. He sure did try though and I felt grateful for it. We scooted closer to each other. He rearranged the comforter over us. I ran my hand down his chest. He stopped me when I got to the waistband of his boxers. He kissed my forehead and said, “You want the first shower?”
It didn’t hurt my feelings as much as it made me sad. Looking back, I think I sensed that we’d turned a corner and we’d never find our way back to where we started. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. All I knew was that once we decided on adoption, sex felt redundant. Irrelevant. We’d come to hate sex by that time. Because of all the fertility visits. Bob disappearing into a stuffy room to “make a deposit,” they called it. Into a plastic cup. He said they had old Playboy magazines he wouldn’t touch because he said they looked sticky. They had lotion from a pump dispenser on the wall and a box of tissues and a Magic Marker to write your name on a sticker on the cup. There were the bruises on my belly from all the shots I had to give myself to boost my egg count. The ovulation kits. Having sex during surges like it was all one big science experiment, which of course it was.
We were half an hour early for the appointment at the adoption agency. The receptionist smiled and said a lot of people do that on picture day and then she said that’s a good sign it’s the right decision for you. Bob squeezed my hand.
When our adoption counselor told us there were “alternatives” to waiting on the list, however short it was thanks to our shady lawyer, Bob mumbled “alternatives are never good,” and I guess I should’ve paid more attention to that but I was single-minded. I elbowed him and he smiled across the desk like he knew I wanted him to. They look at everything, those agencies. Any hesitation could set you back. I don’t know why I was in such a hurry, but I remember it felt like time was flying by and we’d be passed over and never have children and a childless couple was something I didn’t want us to be. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t pushed and pushed us to have a family. Actually I wonder that all the time.
I was convinced we’d find her that day. Picture day. I’d gotten Bob a key chain engraved with the date so I could give it to him over dinner. The date we had our first child. I remember happily paying double for the engraver to rush the job. We’d only just gotten the call to come into the agency. Two weeks after submitting our application.
I stopped turning the pages in the photo album when I saw her. She was scowling at the camera and the downturn of her mouth looked like my mother concentrating on something. My mother made this same Charlie Brown face when she was cooking and checking a recipe or when I stayed out past curfew or if my father was late and missed dinner without calling from work.
There she was. This beautiful head of wavy light brown hair on the verge of being blond.
“That’s her,” I said. I thought when the time came I’d feel a rush of … something. I don’t know. Some kind of lightning bolt. Instead, it was as natural as looking at the sky. It was as if I’d known her all my life. Like I’d willed her to us.
Bob put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in closer to see. I slid the album over so he could get a better look. I traced the line of her face and looked at him and caught a flicker of something I’d rarely seen in him. He hid it when he felt me turn to him, but there was no mistaking it. He looked defeated. Resigned. I opened my mouth to say something but closed it because I couldn’t think of what to say. He’d folded into himself like a bat. His hands tucked into his armpits. Feeling the heaviness of the silence the adoption counselor said:
“I’ll give you two some privacy.”
She closed the door quietly behind her.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing,” he said. He didn’t look at me. He pulled the book over and smiled at her picture and then turned his face up like he was trying to make up for the grimace.
“You made a face,” I said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You made a face. If you’ve got something to say just say it,” I said.
“No. Yeah. I mean, she’s beautiful. Clearly. But—”
Maybe I was too quick with the defensive/offensive “but what?” but I was upset. How could he be backing off? We’d come this far. We’d talked about adopting a child with special needs. He seemed to think it was a good idea before picture day. He told me that if it would make me happy then fine. Okay, so he was doing it for me, but is there anything wrong with that?
I think it was because he saw that I wanted it. He knew I wanted to be extraordinary. Not ordinary … extraordinary. Making a difference in a child’s life is one thing … making a difference to a child with special needs—that felt right to me. Lynn kept asking me if there was any rhyme or reason to it. Had my mom worked with retarded kids? she asked. What the hell did I think was going to happen? she’d asked. Did I think I’d win some award or have a street named after me? she’d asked. I couldn’t explain it. Not to her and I suppose not to Bob. Not well enough anyway.
So there we were staring at Cammy in a three-ring binder.
“But what? Finish your sentence,” I said.
“Nothing.”
Then he cleared his throat the way he does when he has something to say.
“It’s just—” more throat clearing “—I mean, are we sure we can take on a crack baby?”
“I hate that term.”
“You know what I mean. A child born addicted. Whatever. It’s a huge thing.”
“We talked about this,” I said. “We’ve been over this. I thought you were good with it. We were on the same page. I can’t believe you’re changing your mind.”
“Sam, we only started talking about it when we heard there was a long wait.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So … it’s only been a few weeks, four, tops. It’s a big thing. Maybe we should take a little more time …”
“But here she is! She’s the one. She’s our girl. I don’t care what she’s got in her system. And up until now you didn’t care either. At least that’s what you said. Were you lying?”
“Jesus no. It’s just that it’s … real.”
“Yeah, well, having children is real, Bob. We’ve spent how many thousands of dollars trying to make one of our own. That was real, right?”
“You know what I mean. This is a child with addictions …”
“… and they said it wouldn’t be long until it’s out of her system altogether. They said the lasting effects are minimal. So she’ll have trouble concentrating in school. We’ll hire tutors.”
“You really want this,” he said. Like it was a Christmas present that cost a little too much but that he’d be willing to buy to make me happy.
“I really want this.”
He looked at her picture, smiled up at me and touched her photo like I had.
“Welcome home, Cameron Friedman,” he said.
I threw myself into hugging him. I hadn’t asked him if he really wanted this. I figured me wanting it was enough for the both of us.
My mother used to say there’s no such thing as too much love. But what happens when there’s not enough love? What if, when you look at your husband you feel blank like a piece of notebook paper?
I remember my mother leaning over the bathroom sink applying coral lipstick, checking her teased hair to make sure the bouffant was not too big because big is tacky. I would sit on the edge of the bathtub, watching her wave wet with nail polish fingertips, getting ready to go out with my dad. Even when she wasn’t in it, the bathroom smelled like nail polish, Joy perfume and White Rain hair spray. Her closet had sachets so her clothes all smelled like roses, so that’s what she was: petals and softness and color.
Mom’d say things like, “Rule Number One, never ever leave the house without lipstick.” She put it on right after brushing her teeth and as soon as I was allowed to wear it, I did the same thing. She told me Dad never ever saw her without it. She said in a fire there are two things you need to do before you run out, lipstick and mascara. I started having all kinds of nightmares involving fire and she told me that Dad always kept fresh batteries in the smoke detectors, he’s that kind of father, she said. For a long time if someone mentioned their father I’d ask if he changed the batteries in the smoke detectors.
I remember she’d tell me I was meant for greatness and boy oh boy just wait something special was surely in store and boy oh boy would I look back and laugh at how I never believed her. I didn’t believe her when she said I would meet someone who I would love more than chocolate. I didn’t believe her when she said I would love being married just like she did or when she said just you wait, Samantha. You’ll see. The love you’ll have for your children will be beyond your imagination.
It was definitely beyond my imagination the work it took to live day to day with Cammy. Lynn’s son, Tommy, was only a few months old at the time, so we hadn’t been able to spend time together, with or without the kids. Forget babysitters. No one had the patience for Cammy. Our social worker said the more exposure Cammy had to other kids her age, the better off she’d be. I thought I’d try the Mommy & Me class at our health club.
