Khaki

AMAZING GRACE

The thing that no one ever tells you about being a mother is how unfathomably guilty you feel all the time. I felt like I had committed a crime and ruined your youth by being locked up in prison every time I left to pick faucets or approve a blueprint. I reasoned that if I were a doctor or a humanitarian, I would feel like my work was necessary, like I wasn’t leaving you and Alex for some fabric swatches.

But now I know it doesn’t matter what you do. You feel guilty for leaving your children and going to work. You feel guilty for spending too much time with them and making them spoiled. You feel guilty for letting them learn to cry it out in their crib. You feel guilty for letting them sleep with you and never training them to sleep on their own.

It’s a constant, vicious cycle, and no one can tell you what’s the right thing. I had spent years squelching the anxious, analyzing woman in my head; I was trying to keep her quiet, to love you instead of constantly worrying that I was doing the wrong thing.

Alex, fortunately, was out of our bed for the most part, having taken to his new role of “big brother” and wanting to differentiate himself from the babies. Unlike our son, you didn’t care one bit about sleeping in between Graham and me. In fact, I learned quickly that you slept best in your crib in your own room. When you were nine weeks old, I woke up one morning in a panicked sweat and sprinted down the hall to your bedroom, certain that I would soon be screaming “Call 911” to Graham. My infant CPR class was running through my head like a filmstrip on a projector. The only explanation for why you hadn’t woken up all night was that you were dead, obviously. But there you were, sleeping peacefully, swaddled and glowing like a little angel. Alex hadn’t slept that long until he was two. But, like I said before, every child is different.

I was grateful that you were a sleeper because being pregnant with baby three, taking care of babies one and two, working on two design projects in another state, and doing marketing and appearances for the sale of my latest book were keeping me busier than an ant hill intent on carrying an entire sandwich back to their queen. Why I had also agreed to coordinate the church bazaar, I can’t tell you. Needless to say, I was tired.

Three weeks before my due date, I resigned myself to the fact that I was finished traveling and that working was out of the question. With Alex, I had been thin and fit with a little basketball on my front and, obviously, you were my easiest pregnancy and birth. I don’t know if it was something about being pregnant with a girl or being back in the South, the land of salt and pork fat, but I was swollen, exhausted, and pregnant from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

I was thinking that I wished someone would come over and help keep an eye on you. You had recently discovered how you could pull up on the toilet, crack the lid open with one hand, and splash in it with the other. People asked me why I didn’t get those child-safety toilet protectors.

Those people have never been thirty-seven weeks pregnant.

When I answered the phone and it was Jodi’s voice on the other line, I was relieved. “My water is off for some reason,” she said.

“Come stay with us!” I said, probably a little too enthusiastically. “I need a little company.”

I think it was the first time since the adoption that neither of us hemmed and hawed over whether it was the right thing. You loved her; she loved you. We were a crazy, mixed-up, blended family. We were embracing it.

I scooped you up under my arm, carrying you like a pile of lumber, to which you squealed with laughter, and headed off to make up the guest room. While I was changing the sheets, trying to negotiate my pregnant belly and the corners of the fitted sheet, the phone rang again. It was Charlie.

“My power is out,” she lamented.

That had been a common occurrence that summer, especially in the neighborhood where Charlie and Greg’s rental house was. It was so excruciatingly hot that the power system couldn’t keep up with demand.

“Well, then you and Greg come on over and spend the night,” I said, thinking that Alex would be thrilled to be back in bed with Mommy and Daddy. I was less thrilled, as sleeping with Alex was like sleeping with Mia Hamm when she was dreaming about winning a championship.

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she sighed.

“Good,” I replied. “Then I’ll let you change your own sheets.”

I padded back downstairs and placed you in your Jumperoo, where you sang and babbled and carried on. I peered into the fridge to see what I was possibly going to feed a family of seven for dinner. Slamming the fridge door closed, I said, “Pizza it is!” to no one in particular.

“Pizza what is?” Mother said from behind me, her voice laced with judgment.

“Mommy!” Alex squealed as he turned around and ran to me. I leaned down to kiss him, intensifying the shooting pain from my back down my legs.

“Charlie and Greg and Jodi all need to stay here tonight, and I can’t cook for that many people since I can’t fit behind the stove.”

Mother rolled her eyes. “Then you’ll all come to my house, obviously.” She waved her hand and her charm bracelet tinkled like bells in a windstorm. “Pizza.” She shivered, and I realized that I could already taste those jalapeños.

Then she said, “Do you think it’s okay if Jodi stays here?”

“Mother, please. I’m doing the absolute best I can, and I need not to be judged every second.”

“Fine, far be it from me, your mother, to interfere with your life,” she said under her breath. Then turning to Alex, “I’ll see you tonight, darling.”

He replied, “Bye-bye, GG.”

“It’s grandmother, darling. Grandmother,” she enunciated, her lips like a blowfish trying to wiggle its way off a hook.

Alex looked up at me, and I ruffled his hair. Tuesday afternoons were his special time with Mother. They went out for lunch and orangeades and then he and Daddy rode around on the tractor. He had such an amazing time every week, and I savored those special hours with you.

Jodi arrived as Mother was leaving and said, “I swear I paid the water bill.”

“I wouldn’t have even considered that you hadn’t,” I replied.

“Can I help you get ready or anything?”

I shook my head. “Your bed is made, and I told Charlie that she can put her own sheets on.”

“I could have put my own sheets on too,” Jodi protested.

“Yeah, but you gave me your child,” I said, patting her on the back and winking. “I owed you.”

Jodi laughed, and it occurred to me that that was the first time I had been able to make a joke about the adoption.

Two hours later, Mother, Daddy, Pauline, Benny, Jodi, Charlie, Greg, Graham, Alex, you, and I were all sitting down to a lovely supper, graciously prepared by Pauline, when Mother said, “Khaki, you’d better not eat any of those collard greens.”

“They’re the most nutrient-dense food on the planet, Mother. Why on earth would I not eat them?”

Pauline poured herself a cup of sweet tea and said, “Oh, Miz Mason, that’s just an ole wives’ tale.”

Her husband Benny motioned for the bowl of greens and said, “Nuh-uh. My momma went into labor with all six of us the night after eatin’ collards.” I smiled, thinking of the Benny I had met all those years ago in New York and how, as soon as he had gotten back home, that neutral accent had faded right back to Southern.

Jodi looked at the ceiling. “Come to think of it, I think I ate collards the night I went into labor.”

I could feel myself cringe. Even though I had made a joke about it only hours earlier, I was unsettled. That warning from Mother still rang in my ears: “She can take her back for a year, you know.” It was almost like I wanted Jodi to be with you but also forget that she had ever had you, take an eraser to the chalkboard. You were my daughter, the voice inside my head screamed, in direct contrast to the outer me that said we were both your mothers.

“Okay, okay,” Charlie said. “Collards, schmollards. This baby is coming sometime, so I think we all better get prepared.” She reached into the purse hanging over her chair and produced a spreadsheet. “I’ve worked up a tentative baby care schedule that I thought might be fair for everyone—”

“Wait,” I interjected, my fork halfway to my mouth. “You have made a spreadsheet for the baby?”

“They all been talking ’bout it on Facebook,” Jodi said.

I looked at Mother skeptically. “You are on Facebook?”

She wiped her mouth and set her napkin beside her plate haughtily. “I’m a poet, darling. Must I remind you that I have fans?”

I smiled, thinking of how many years Mother had tried to get her poetry published, and she said, “Speaking of, my book is being released in November and, obviously, it’s too cold to do the release party in Manhattan.”

“Obviously,” I said, thinking that November was my favorite time in Manhattan. In all likelihood, with a two-month-old baby, I would miss it this year.

“My friend Laura wants to host the launch party in Palm Beach so that everyone doesn’t have to be so dreadfully cold.”

Jodi covered her mouth with her napkin, and I could tell she was trying to muffle her laughter.

I raised my fork in the air. “No, no, that’s fine. You all run off to Palm Beach and leave me with my three children. I don’t need any of y’all to help.”

Uproarious laughter from the table ensued. Even you laughed.

Mother was the only one with a serious face. “Of course you’ll all have to come, darling.”

Graham shot me a look that wordlessly said my mother was a crazy alien who clearly had no idea what it was to have a child.

“Mother, I’m not sure that—”

“You’re coming,” she snapped. “This is the biggest thing that has happened to me in decades, and my whole family needs to be there.”

I was used to a life filled with travel and hauling children all around kingdom come. But taking three kiddos on a plane wasn’t something I was anxious to do. When it was Graham, you, Alex, and me, we were at least playing man-to-man defense.

“And you,” Mother said to me accusingly. “I have been to every launch party you’ve had all over the country, so I don’t care if your baby is three days old, I expect you to arrive smiling, happy, and thin.”

I caught Jodi laughing again out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, right,” I shot at her, a laugh in my voice too. “Since you’re twelve and lost your baby weight in a week you would think that was funny.” I mentally kicked myself. Why did I keep reminding her? I turned back across from me. “Mother,” I said, “I won’t even be able to exercise again.”

She squinted at me and said, “You are coming, Frances Mason.”

I sighed. “Fine. I’m coming. But I can’t promise thin.”

“Where are we staying?” Graham asked.

Mother started to open her mouth, but Charlie interjected, “Please, Mrs. Mason. Allow me.” In her best Mother-impersonation voice, Charlie said, “The Breakers, darling. Is there anywhere else?”

As I crawled into bed that night, Graham groaned.

“What?” I asked, irritated, thinking that if anyone was groaning, the one with an extra twenty-five pounds of pressure on her hips should be the one.

“I hate Palm Beach,” he said.

I yawned, sliding into the cool covers, closing my eyes, so ready for sleep. “No one hates Palm Beach, sweetie.” I patted his hand.

“I think it is the most egregious display of ridiculous wealth that I have ever seen. In this economy, it’s almost inappropriate.”

I opened one eye. “I’ve known you for two decades, and I’ve never, ever heard you say ‘egregious.’”

He nodded. “That’s how serious this is.”

I was too tired to argue. “Okay, honey. Then we’ll tell Mother we can’t go.”

“No, I mean, she’s right. She always comes to your stuff, so we have to go.”

“Well, then let’s face the fact that we’re going to have to suffer through a long weekend of mai tais on a sparkling beach with our personal butler spreading our towels out in our cabana.”

I rolled over onto my left side heavily and said, “Not to mention the caviar and top-shelf liquor that will be forced on us at Laura’s five-star launch party.”

Graham kissed me and said, “You’re right, honey. I’m being silly. As long as my family’s there, I’ll be okay.”

“Great,” I said, unable to keep my eyes open.

A shot of panic ran through me that another baby was about to be here, and I was going to be even more tired. Knowing that my friends and family would help share baby duty felt like the time I borrowed Mother’s favorite Chanel bag without permission, lost it, and then found it in Charlie’s trunk. I was bathing in relief. In truth, I didn’t know how we were going to handle all of these babies running around and work at the same time. That reminded me that tomorrow, without excuse, I had to start looking for a nanny. About that time, you started crying, and I pulled the covers back and rushed to your side. You were standing up in your crib, fat tears rolling down your chubby cheeks. I picked you up and put you on my hip as best I could with a tremendous roadblock between us. I kissed your little forehead and said, “Do you want to sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight?”

You laid your head on my shoulder, and I knew for certain that no achievement in life—no book deal, no million-dollar sale, no Nobel Prize—could top the feeling of a tiny child resting her head on your body and dozing off. I was practiced at having children in my bed, so even having you on one side and Alex on the other didn’t hinder my sleep.

The ringing phone beside my ear, however, did. Graham could have slept through a tractor-trailer ramming right through our room, but I was a much lighter sleeper. By some miraculous transpiration, the phone woke neither you nor your brother, but my heart was racing. Graham had been right all those months ago, after all. People do answer the phone in the middle of the night because they automatically assume it’s an emergency. In those seconds before I said, “Hello,” my mind leapt to so many worst-case scenarios. Daddy had had a heart attack, the house had been broken into, Pauline had passed away peacefully in her sleep. When I heard my sister Virginia’s voice on the other line, I started crying right then and there. We didn’t talk that often, so for her to call me in the middle of the night, something must have been wrong with Mother or Daddy.

It sounds terribly selfish, I know, but I was a little relieved when she sobbed into the phone, “Allen left me.”

I picked up the cordless and tiptoed into my bathroom, where I shut the door, sat down on the closed toilet lid, and said, “Oh, honey, what happened?”

“He’s found someone else,” she wailed.

How could that creep Allen have gotten one woman, much less two? I thought.

I told Virginia that she was welcome to come over, though where she would have slept is beyond me as we were Bethlehem on a cold, December night. There was literally no room at the inn.

“I’ll come over tomorrow to talk,” she sniffed. I yawned and padded back to my bed, and when I got back between the sheets, I realized that they were wet. I figured that your diaper had leaked, but when I touched your pajamas, you were bone dry. That’s when I noticed that I was soaking wet too, from more than your average pregnant night sweats. I guess the shock of being woken in the middle of the night and the focus I had on what Virginia was saying had prevented me from realizing it before.

“Graham,” I hissed, finally awake enough to realize that the disgusting squish I kept feeling was my broken water. “Graham,” I whispered again, this time a little louder.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he mumbled. “We’ll get it in the morning.”

I threw a baby shoe at him, and he finally opened his eyes. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I’m in labor.”

Graham rubbed his eyes, bolted up in bed straight as a ship’s mast, and ran to his closet. He began tossing things in a bag. I looked over his shoulder.

“Honey,” I said, “why would you need a ruler?”

He shrugged. “Don’t I have to tell you how many centimeters you are or something?”

I shook my head. I realized why my poor husband had begged me to go to a birthing class. He truly was clueless. “Should we wake the kids to tell them bye?”

Graham shook his head. “Nah. Just tell Charlie what’s going on. May as well let them sleep while they can.” He winked at me.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have even woken Charlie because, by the time the nurse had admitted me to my hospital room, Charlie, Greg, Mother, Daddy, Pauline, and Jodi were all there. You were soundly asleep in your car seat, and Alex was snoring again, arms flailed, face mushed into Greg’s shoulder.

Charlie said, “I called Stacey too, and she said she’ll be here before things get really rough. Just in case, she e-mailed me a list of poses for you to do.”

Stacey was my best friend in New York slash yoga instructor slash birth coach with Alex. I would never have made it through without her.

I was thankful that everyone was so interested in my birth, this crazy, patchwork quilt of a family that we were. But now that we were at the hospital, I had one overarching thought. I looked at Graham and said, “It’s too early.”

At that moment, Dr. Painter breezed into my room and said, “You’re thirty-seven weeks, Frances. That’s full-term.” He elbowed Daddy in the ribs. “At least it was back when I was in medical school.” They had a good laugh—Daddy and Dr. Painter had gone to high school together—and Charlie and I rolled our eyes in unison.

I shouldn’t have worried about having to defend myself. Mother said, “My child and my grandchild are at stake here. Maybe we could all be a little more composed.”

“I’m going to check you now,” Dr. Painter said.

I looked around the room at the massive number of people and said, “Oh, no, don’t worry. Please, everyone stay.”

They must have taken me literally because Daddy and Greg actually sat down. “Fantastic,” I said under my breath.

Dr. Painter reached underneath the sheet, and announced, “Five centimeters! Is this girl a pro, or what?” Then his forehead crinkled, and I panicked. He rolled back on the stool, popped his glove off, and said, “Looks like this little one decided to do a last-minute flip.”

Charlie gasped. “Do not try to turn the baby!”

As horrified as I was, I actually laughed. “Why on earth not?”

“Because I read that babies born breech have magical healing powers,” Greg interrupted.

Charlie shot him a look. “Noooo, Greg. Because I read that it can hurt the baby.”

Greg looked at me seriously. “The healing powers thing is true too, though. I swear.”

“I think you should do a C-section,” Mother interjected.

Daddy said, “Perhaps you should let the doctor make the decision,” and Mother said under her breath, “Just trying to help her have a baby with a pretty head, is all.”

Dr. Painter, who was a generally jovial man, put on his sternest face and said, “If you weren’t there when this child was conceived, if you could please leave.”

Everyone left but Charlie. I looked at her and said, “I don’t recall you being there when this child was conceived, love.”

She crossed her arms. “I know. But I got to be in the room when Alex was born, so, you know, I just kind of assumed . . .”

I squinted at her. “Charlie, you threw up all over the floor, and one of the nurses holding my leg had to come clean up after you.”

She shrugged. “Practice makes perfect?”

Graham waved to her and, looking dejected, our last stray family member made her way to the waiting room.

When it was finally quiet, Graham lay down beside me and put his arm around me, rubbing my belly.

“We can try to turn the baby,” Dr. Painter said. “But there are risks.”

“I don’t want risks,” I said. “Let’s do the C-section and call it a night.”

Graham looked at Dr. Painter. “But that’s more dangerous for Khaki, right?”

Dr. Painter got up and started washing his hands. “Every procedure has its risks, but Frances is in excellent health and should come through a routine cesarean beautifully.”

“Okay,” I said, looking at Graham. “When they pull the baby out, you go with the baby.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t stay with me. Follow the baby around, don’t let it out of your sight, and bring it right back here to me as soon as you can.”

Dr. Painter laughed. “The baby will be tagged at birth. There’s no way to get them mixed up.”

“Dr. Painter,” I said. “With all due respect, I’ve seen enough of those Lifetime movies that I’m not taking any chances.”

He laughed and said, “I’m going to go get ready, and the nurse will come in to get you and Dad prepped for surgery.”

“Send my family in, please,” I called.

Charlie burst in the door first and said, “Stacey and Joe aren’t here yet.”

“Well, by all means, let me stay in labor another five or six hours until they arrive.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed my head. “I’m just teasing you. It’s going to be fine, you know.”

I looked at Jodi. “Could you bring me my babies, please?”

Pauline came in carrying Alex, and I could tell by the way her lips were moving that she was praying harder than a sinner on his deathbed. And I was awfully glad of it. Alex climbed into bed beside me and examined my IV line. “Why do you have all these tubes, Mommy?”

I could feel the tears pouring down my face as I said, “Because you have to have tubes to have a baby.”

It was the simplest explanation I could think of. Charlie handed you to me, and I smelled that sweet baby smell at the top of your head and held you close. You were still for a moment and then looked up and smiled at me with the two tiny bottom teeth you were so proud of.

“I hope I don’t take your childhood away from you,” I whispered.

It was like you knew what I was saying. You leaned up and gave me the openmouthed, slobbery “kiss” that you had been perfecting.

“I promise that we’ll still spend tons of time together.”

Graham rubbed my neck. “Honey,” he said. “You heard what Dr. Painter said. It’s a routine procedure, and they do it all the time.”

Then I started crying again. “I know that,” I said. “I just realized that their lives are going to change so much, and they don’t even know it.”

Alex peered into my face and said, “Mommy, is my new baby coming out today?”

“Yes, love. Your new baby is coming out.”

He nodded in approval. “That’s good, because Carolina needs another person to play with.”

“Why is that, sweetie?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know. I like to play with her but sometimes she gets ignoring.”

We all laughed. I kissed you both again, and my heart was breaking into fragments because you sobbed as Mother took you away from me.

I waved good-bye to everyone, and Graham reclined beside me again, one leg on the floor. “You know what, babydoll?”

“What?”

“Their lives are going to change but in such a good way. They are going to have a blast growing up together.”

Less than an hour later, when Dr. Painter handed your sister to me, I realized that Graham, as usual, had been right. In that instant, I quit worrying. I knew that this beautiful baby had been given to our family out of one thing and one thing alone: God’s amazing grace.