Khaki
SERIOUS TEARS
I’ve never been one of those designers who descends on a room with her tape measure and graph paper, charting out every perfect dimension. I go to the room, get a feel for it, and when I see the perfect pieces, I just know. I can feel that they are the right proportion and scale for the space without a yardstick.
When Alex was born, he was kind of like me with those pieces of furniture. He knew I was his mommy. From the moment he lay on my chest and breathed that first sigh of relief, we began the type of love affair that a woman doesn’t know she’ll ever have until it happens to her.
And I think that’s how, even those first nights in New York, I knew that I was meant to be your mother. I might not have given birth to you, but I was the one who could calm you down, get you to sleep, make you relax. And I felt that same surge of love like a spiking fever whenever you came to me for solace.
It has never, not for one single second felt anything but right between you and me. You are my baby. You are Graham’s baby. You are Alex’s sister. And that’s that.
Loving you like I do has made me realize that giving birth has very little to do with motherhood. And that, even in the absence of a hormone surge, new motherhood turns me into an emotional mess. When Alex was born I cried so much that your aunt Charlie was afraid I was in the throes of a severe bout of postpartum depression. But then I was devastated over the loss of Alex’s daddy, so sad that here I was, so magnificently in love on my own.
With you, I think the tears were a mixture of sorrow so deep it’s a hole to China and gratitude so soaring that it’s the peaks of the Andes. I had pined for another baby for years, and here you were. But I knew what it was to feel that pure connection with a child, and so I knew what Jodi must have been going through. And I wept every time she crossed my mind, which was often.
It was okay, because, angel that you were, you cried some serious tears yourself. Alex never cried, and so I kept taking you to the doctor and sobbing, “She’s crying because she knows I’m not her real mother.”
Every time, he would pat me on the shoulder and say, “You are her real mother. She has colic.”
That would appease me for a day or two and then I’d be back.
I finally realized that no co-pay in the world was going to fix this, so I took you over to see Mother and Pauline, who had no idea what had transpired. When I walked through the door, Mother was in the library, and, peeking her head around, called, “Frances, honestly, are you going to babysit that child for the rest of your life?”
I smiled, nodded, and said, “I am going to, as a matter of fact.”
Mother scrunched her nose and shot me an annoyed “What?”
“Graham and I are adopting Carolina.”
Pauline came running in from the kitchen, as best as you could run at eighty-five, in support hose with a stocky build. “I been praying for years you get another baby. I tole you!”
Mother gave me a look like I had just told her I was taking a leave of absence from my life to become a groupie for an indie punk group. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and gestured for me to hand Carolina to her. She wrapped her up and said, “You better spend a lot of time with your grandmother so you’ll grow up with some damn sense.”
You opened your little eyes, and we all laughed. Mother looked up at me. “Khaki, I swear. You can’t just take someone’s baby.”
I crossed my arms. “You see,” I said, “that’s what’s wrong with you and Graham. You’re too narrow-minded. I knew this little girl was meant for me, and so did Jodi. Families aren’t always born, Mother. They’re made.”
Pauline nodded and said, “Uh-huh. Girl’s smart, Miz Mason.”
I smiled at Pauline. It was abundantly clear who had raised me.
Mother smiled a little. “I guess that’s true. After all this time, Pauline is sort of like my sister.”
Pauline looked at me skeptically.
“It’s true, Pauline,” I said. “Mother would’ve bossed her sister even worse than she bosses you.”
I paused for a moment, wondering if I had overstepped my bounds. Mother and I rarely talked about her parents and sister dying, that childhood tragedy that had defined so much of her life and, looking back, must have been responsible for many of those moments that I felt she kept me at arm’s length. But Mother laughed, and you looked up at her and cooed.
“All right.” Mother relented. “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Then she said something that I hadn’t even thought of, something that made me feel like the house was on fire and I couldn’t get to you and Alex. “But you know she has a year to change her mind.”
I shook my head frantically. “No, Mother. She only has seven days.”
Mother cocked her head and put her fingers up to the pearls around her neck. “Honey, you and I both know what happened with the Taylors.”
I bit my lip and looked over at you, feeling the tightening like a noose around my neck. I had convinced myself that I was safe, that the seven days had passed and you were ours. But the harsh reality that a family I knew well had been forced to give their child back in a brutal court case was a pill I couldn’t swallow. And all because of a tiny, tiny mistake on some paperwork.
Pauline could read my face. “Chile, you ain’t got no business worrying yourself over something like that. You just go on being a momma.” Then she smiled. “See,” she said, winking. “I tole you all it’d take was a little bacon grease.”
I smiled, trying to push away the thought, remembering the devastation of that mistake being found eleven months into the Taylors’ adoption.
“I’m just saying, is all,” Momma said. “The Taylors told me the statute of limitations on those things is usually considered a year.”
But I knew a lot of things would have to fall into place for that to happen. Jodi or Ricky would have to want you back, we’d have to get a judge that didn’t owe Daddy for something or another . . . I swallowed my fear, walking over to adjust a stack of books on a gorgeous campaign chest I had bought for Mother’s redesigned library. It was a competition between us. I’d turn them straight, and then, when I was gone, she’d turn them back at an angle.
“I’ve gained like five pounds, thanks to you,” I said to Pauline, feeling my breath return to normal.
“Khaki,” my mother said warningly. “Weight gain is a slippery slope.”
You made a little gurgling sound, and Mother cooed down at you, “Not for you, darling. You’re supposed to gain weight.” As if she had assuaged your fears, you closed your eyes again and drifted back off to sleep.
I sat down and sighed. “So, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to keep my surgery date two weeks from now or if I’m going to reschedule.”
Mother sat up straighter and peered at me. “Why on earth would you have the surgery now? You have a baby.”
“Yeah . . .” I said in a long, drawn-out way. “But it’s probably not the best thing in the world to have a bunch of junk clogging up your insides. I feel like I need to get it out.”
“I come over and hep you take care of the chil’ren,” Pauline said.
“Maybe you should wait until they’re a little older,” Mother said.
But I knew from experience that toddlers were much more taxing on a body than babies—especially babies that you didn’t birth.
I took you back home, put you in your bassinet, and curled up on the couch to order more diapers, bottles, and another bouncy seat from Amazon. When I logged on, a message reminded me that it was time for my auto-ship tampons to be delivered. That can’t be right, I thought. I had seen a brand-new box in my cabinet when I put my makeup away that morning.
About that time, Graham slammed the back door, and, as he was walking to my office, called, “I’m going to pick Alex up from school. There’s a sale on fishing rods at the Neuse Sports Shop, and I want to take him to pick a couple out. And Momma’s going to come watch the kids so we can go hear the Embers play at Pearson Park tonight.” He breezed through the doorway and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me, which was my first clue that my face was whiter than an Irish virgin.
Kristin, Scott, and Bunny’s prediction raced through my mind. “Oh my gosh,” I said, under my breath. I looked up at my husband. With that particular mix of joy and terror that only one subject-adjective combination can create, I said, “I’m pregnant.”