Paige
Paige ambled into the waiting room and took stock of things. Marla Brennan claimed one corner, looking, as always, like she was trying to shit a cinder block. The Durbins staked out the other. Hopefully they hadn’t talked to one another. Everybody always worried about that first meeting, but it was usually at the hospital that things went to hell.
She gave the Durbins a quick once-over. Adoptive parents often didn’t realize how important it was to put their best foot forward on the big day, no matter how many times she told them. Gail got the message, though. She wore a long black skirt and an ivory silk blouse. And she even managed to unscruff her husband a bit—no holes in his jeans, and his plain, black T-shirt bore no references to Space Invaders or Blue Öyster Cult. She met so many couples in her line of work, and she always tried to figure out how they fit together. With the Durbins, the pieces didn’t seem to lock tight. Gail could use a cheeseburger or four, but she was beautiful in that dark, Sicilian way. He was all elbows, knees, and shaggy hair. Even with bonus points for the three-day stubble, he only brushed against handsome. Paige decided to start with the Durbins.
“Hi, Gail.”
Gail looked up from her notebook. Her eyes were darting, but she managed a smile. “Paige!”
Jon peered through his bangs. “Hey, Paige.”
Paige settled into the chair across from them. “How you guys doing?”
“Nervous,” Gail admitted.
Jon just nodded.
“That’s only natural.”
“How is she?” Gail asked.
“I checked in with the nurses,” Paige said. “I think we’ve got a bit of a wait ahead of us.”
“Do you have the adoption petition?”
Paige patted her bag. “Right here.”
“And when will you—”
“Henry will file it tomorrow.”
“What about the home study?”
“Next Friday.”
“What about—”
“Relax, Gail. It’s all handled. This is your big day. Try to enjoy it.”
Gail looked as if she wanted to argue, but nodded.
Paige glanced at Marla and then turned back to the Durbins. “Carli’s mom is over in the corner.”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “I introduced myself.”
Shit. Paige took a long look at him. He stared back with an intensity she hadn’t seen from him before. “How’d that go?”
Jon shrugged noncommittally. “What’s she doing here?”
Gail looked at him, puzzled. “She’s her mother.”
Jon frowned. “I mean, why isn’t she in the delivery room with Carli?”
Paige was wondering the same thing. “I’m not sure,” she said quietly, and then smiled in that way intended to help adoptive parents see that she was an experienced professional, trained to handle anything, to control the uncontrollable. “But I’m going to go sit with her and find out.”
Marla just grunted at Paige’s initial questions, so Paige pulled her yarn and needles from her bag, sat with her, waited her out. The mothers of birth mothers always responded in one of three ways: supportive, sad, or pissed off. The purple vein pulsing at Marla’s temple, the way she squeezed a crumpled coffee cup in her fist, told Paige she was dealing with anger. Gail’s parents arrived. Paul and Eleanor, if Paige remembered right. Marla studied the four of them for a long time, and then glared again out the window.
“It ain’t right what you done,” Marla said at last. She waved her hand toward the door, toward the Durbins. “All of this. It ain’t right.”
Paige counted three breaths before answering. “Carli came to us, Marla. She said she wasn’t ready to be a mother.”
“I guess she was ready to fuck.”
“It’s not my place to comment on that.” Paige looked sideways at Marla, tried to figure out what would work with this one. “All of that aside—do you think Carli’s ready to be a mother?”
Marla turned from the window and glared. “It ain’t your place to ask that neither.”
“It was an honest question,” she said. She softened her voice. “I want to know what you think.”
Marla tugged at her sweatshirt and looked at the door. “I don’t guess that anybody’s ready,” she said. “Least not till they have a baby.”
Paige could sense Marla remembering, and her gut told her that those memories were hard ones. She decided to let Marla stew in them, and they sat quietly like that for several long minutes.
“He came over.”
“Who? Jon?”
“He thinks his shit don’t stink.”
Paige looked up at the Durbins. Gail scowled at her mom. Jon sat two chairs away, studying his phone. Gail’s dad was taking photos of plants.
“They’re good people,” Paige said quietly.
Marla opened her mouth and closed it several times before she spoke. “I don’t give a shit what kinda people they are. They’re taking my grandbaby.”