‘Mommy? You OK?’ Maggie stood next to her bedside in the dark room. She was tugging on her arm. The light from the TV lit her worried face, but the sound was muted.
Faith sat up and wiped her face with the tissue she still had clutched in her hand. ‘I’m fine, honey. What are you doing up? Are you feeling OK?’
‘You cry a lot, Mommy.’
‘What?’
‘I heard you crying. Why you crying?’
‘I was thinking of something sad, is all. There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
Maggie climbed on the bed and curled her tiny little body into Faith’s, like a puppy. ‘I’m cold,’ she said.
Faith lay down and pulled her in close, rubbing her arm to keep her warm. She could feel Maggie’s breath on her chest, where her head rested; her eyelashes tickled her skin when she blinked. She stroked her long, blonde tendrils, curling her fingers around the ends as she softly sang Sully’s favorite Irish folk song, ‘When You and I Were Young, Maggie’. She used to sing it as a lullaby when Maggie was a baby.
I wandered today to the hills, Maggie, to watch the scene below
The creak and the creaking old mill, Maggie, as we used to long ago
She buried her face in Maggie’s hair and inhaled: The baby years were lost now, but underneath the scent of raspberry shampoo she swore she could still smell the sweet, indescribable perfume of a newborn.
Faith wanted to bottle this moment – lock it up in time and put it in a room where she could go back and experience it whenever she wanted, because it was so rare. Maggie was not an affectionate kid. She never had been. And since they’d gone to the police that awful day, she’d been even more distant with Faith, understandably, and Faith hadn’t pushed for more, hoping that if she gave her space, she would come back around to trust her, like a frightened animal might. Even when she was an infant, Maggie never liked to be snuggled, preferring to be held on her tummy. Before she became mobile, rather than be carried, she liked to sit in the stroller or in the playpen. When she grew older and learned to walk, she had no time for cuddles and affection – she was too busy, her restless mind racing at all the things she could be doing, her body always rushing to the next activity.
At least that’s what Jarrod said it was: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or the result of whatever Dr Michelson’s catchall ‘developmentally delayed’ meant. But Faith had always felt responsible for her and Maggie’s lack of … closeness. All the other mommies made having a relationship, a connection, with their child look easy. When she wrote her articles for Parenting, Faith, too, had made bonding sound natural, magical, instantaneous and eternal. The underlying message being, if a mother experienced anything different, she must be doing it wrong – including the author, herself.
She traced the outline of Maggie’s ears with her fingers. She had Sully’s ears – they stuck out a bit from the sides of her head.
The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie, where first the daisies sprung.
The creaking old mill is still, Maggie, since you and I were young.
Jarrod and she hadn’t been trying for a baby; that was supposed to come much later. She was shocked when she first found out she was pregnant, which, thanks to irregular periods, wasn’t until she was four months along. She knew that a lot of things had happened in those sixteen weeks when she was making arms and legs and organs and brain cells. She had mistaken morning sickness for a hangover a few times. Excitement followed shock, but worry remained a constant. She didn’t touch another drop for the rest of the pregnancy.
When the nurse handed Margaret Anne Sullivan Saunders over to her in the delivery room, she’d studied every inch of her pink skin, counting fingers and toes and exhaling the breath she’d held for five months when the doctors gave her a seven on her Apgar. But as she grew, and the emotional problems started – the ones that defied a definitive diagnosis – she began to wonder if there was more to normal than perfectly formed digits and a sound heartbeat. A search on Google led her to a host of websites that offered the possibility of a truly frightening diagnosis. She had heard of fetal alcohol syndrome, but that was for alcoholics, was prevalent among Indians, and the kids were born with characteristic facial deformities like wide-set eyes, a thin upper lip and a small head. Maggie didn’t have the physical abnormalities, but all of her developmental delays, cognitive deficits and behavioral problems read like ingredients in a fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) cookbook: hyperactivity, attention deficit, impaired fine motor skills, speech delays, stubbornness, impulsivity, poor socialization skills. She weighed less than six pounds when she was born and had remained in the fortieth percentile for height and weight at every check-up. Of course, the broad gamut of neurological issues, developmental delays, and behavioral problems could be attributed to many other conditions, and certainly not every petite kid who had ADD or ADHD and didn’t like to be hugged had fetal alcohol syndrome. Nor did it mean that their condition fell in the range of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Maggie’s issues could be the random luck of the birth defect/disorder draw, much like what flavored personality or gave someone intellect, or caused spina bifida or muscular dystrophy. Or they could be due to too many wild nights out before Faith knew she was pregnant. There was no blood test or MRI that would offer a definitive answer. No doctor had ever suggested a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or asked, upon examining Maggie, if Faith drank while she was pregnant. There was no ‘cure’ for any of the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders; the treatment for conditions on the spectrum would be the same as what Maggie had been getting or would be receiving in the future. Her hyperactivity and ADD would be treated the same – eventually, she would likely be medicated with Ritalin or Adderall. She would be given special assistance with classwork as she got older, if she needed it. She would go to the best doctors and therapists and psychologists and have tutors and attend private school so that she could overcome her learning disabilities. There would be no point in attaching a label with a damning stigma to Maggie when the treatment would be the same anyway.
‘More, Mommy,’ Maggie said, tugging Faith’s hair. She put her thumb in her mouth.
They say that I’m feeble with age, Maggie, my steps are much slower than then.
My face is a well-written page, Maggie, and time all alone was the pen.
She had screwed up in the having kids department. Not willfully, but it had happened. Even if Maggie’s issues were luck-of-the-draw developmental problems faced by many parents, she had come from Faith’s body and she felt responsible. Every day Faith had to make decisions that affected both the emotional and physical well-being of another person and she wasn’t doing the best job in either department, no matter how much she wanted to, and no matter how easy the articles made parenting sound. Jarrod talked of having more children, but even before the affair, Faith couldn’t face doing it wrong a second time.
It was rare moments like this that she lived for, though. That every parent lived for. When your child holds you close and you know you’re her whole world and she is yours. And you know you couldn’t possibly love someone more than at that very moment, because they are truly a part of you.
Faith inhaled the scent of Maggie and stroked her head. Tears of both sadness and joy ran down her cheeks. She wished she could fix what was wrong inside it. She wished she could rewire it the way it was supposed to work. Like so many things in her life, she wished she could hit a do-over button. She wished she could do it right the next time.
They say we have outlived our time, Maggie, as dated as the songs we’ve sung.
But to me you’re as fair as you were, Maggie, when you and I were young.
Because she would, she thought, closing her eyes, her face nuzzled in her beautiful daughter’s neck.
She would do everything right next time.