Our granddaughter. She was theirs. She had never really been mine. My tears were falling faster than I could wipe them away. I didn’t want to fall apart, but how could I not?
Even in my devastation over not seeing Maisy every day, I knew this was right for her. I was proud of Drew and Sarah. Their lives were going to change immeasurably. It would be a hard road, but they would have plenty of support. I was about to tell them I was happy for them, that I would do all I could to expedite the process of getting Maisy back to them, as difficult as it would be for me.
But then Drew said, “Daisy, you’re the only mother Maisy has ever known. You’ve been there since the hour she was born, taking care of her.”
My heart gripped again, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But I was a caretaker. I was made for hard goodbyes. I just never imagined one quitethishard. “Well, thank you. And I will do everything I can to help you guys—”
“We always, always want you to be in Maisy’s life,” Sarah said. Her voice broke as she said, “Daisy, I can’t imagine how hard this is for you. I’m so sorry.”
I put my head in my hands, trying to control the sob that came out of me. But I couldn’t. I was breaking into a million little fragments, every loss, every challenge, every hardship that had ever befallen me colliding into this one moment.
Sarah hugged me, crying on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She was just a girl. And she was making a huge decision that was going to change her whole life. And it was the right decision. I knew that. Even so, it took me several minutes to regain my composure enough to speak. I pulled away from Sarah and cleared my throat. “Kids, you don’t know much about me. But my birth mom died, and, after that, the woman who had always been my mother left me. So I spent years feeling unloved and abandoned and fantasizing about what my life could have been if only… Or thinking that maybe my birth mother hadn’t actually died; maybe she would come back to rescue me, and I would be loved again.” I took a deep breath. “So believe me when I say that I want nothing more than for Maisy to know her whole life—” My voice cracked, and Sarah, still perched on the edge of my chair, put her arm awkwardly around me. “I want her to know the parents who loved her enough to step up for her even if they weren’t quite ready.” I turned my head toward Cheryl. “I want her to be so flooded with love and pink bows and Christmas presents that it is nauseating.” Cheryl nodded, wiping her own tears. “And I can tell you from experience that if I could go back and have my mom in my life, everything would be different for me. So, I’m really sad for me, and I can tell you that I would have done my best for Maisy in every moment. But I’m happy for her that she gets to grow up with her biological family.”
I thought about Robbie then. About how blindsided he must feel over just learning the truth about his life now, how angry he must be that everything was a lie. But, then again, maybe he wasn’t. Because Robbie and I weren’t the same. He grew up drowning in love. So maybe the truth of it all was just semantics to him. And I couldn’t judge Tilley and Elizabeth for their choices. I sort of understood them, actually. I just wanted something different for Maisy.
Cheryl wiped her eyes. “I had no idea that you had been through all that, Daisy. I’m so sorry.”
It shot through me with fresh pain that she had no idea, that her friend Julie, the one she had likely spent most of the weekends of the past few years on a baseball field with, had never mentioned me. But that was my cross to bear. All there was for me now was to be better, to do what was best for the girl I loved like she was my very own.
I looked at the beautiful kids that had made my girl. I thought about how Sarah would be leaving soon. Mason would be leaving soon. And I would be here with a job I loved, sure—but also a former mother who I’d bump into all the time, like it or not. Nothing was tying me here. Not really. And, while I wouldn’t say it out loud yet, that gave me an idea.
For now, I ushered Drew, Sarah, and Cheryl out and walked into the nursery. Ever so gently, I lifted my girl out of her crib. I held her close, rocking her, the stream of moonlight through the window illuminating her sweet face. Physical pain gripped me knowing this was it. I was going to have to say goodbye. A sob caught in my throat as I imagined giving her up. I pulled her in closer and let my tears fall. I knew I should be happy for her, but, instead, I felt devastated, as heartbroken as I could ever remember feeling. As she slept, I rocked and cried, mourned all the life that could have been. I knew, logically, that this was what was best for Maisy. I knew that she would have a wonderful life. But I couldn’t help but wonder: When would it be my turn? When would I get to finally have what was best for me?
The next day, I almost turned around when I saw Julie standing on my floor of the hospital, by the nurses’ station. I was taking my much-needed lunch break after a morning of an unanticipated oxygen drop for one of my patients and collaborating with one of my leastfavorite occupational therapists for another patient. The very last thing I wanted was to deal with Julie. But, then again, I’d had some time to mull over what she had said, the gifts she had left me. And I knew that if I wanted a relationship with Julie—which I did, I really did—I was going to have to leave the past in the past. I would never truly understand why she did what she did. I would never be able to fully grasp it. But I’d exhibited some erratic behavior lately, to say the least. So I could give her the benefit of the doubt.
She smiled when she saw me. How did she manage to look so damnnormal?
“Sorry to bother you at work,” Julie said. She took my hands and squeezed them. “Cheryl told me about Maisy, and I wanted to check on you.”
The moment she saidMaisy, I felt breathless with grief. I nodded bravely and said what was true, avoiding that maybe it was the tiniest dig. “I’m heartbroken, but I know what it’s like to grow up without a mother, and I never want that for Maisy.”
Julie looked down at her feet, her face reddening, and I was a little embarrassed. This wasn’t her fault. But so many other things were that I didn’t feel that bad about making her uncomfortable.
Julie cleared her throat and looked back up at me. “I really wanted to share something with you.”
I took a deep breath. If I played along, this would be over more quickly. Then, out of the corner of my eye, coming through the elevator door was a woman who looked familiar. I thought I recognized her. I squinted. If she were thirty pounds heavier with no makeup…
“Daisy!” she said, running to me. I would have recognized that voice anywhere. “Abbott,” I said quietly. The motherIhad let down, the one whose baby I had loved like my own, the one we had lost together.
As she hugged me, she absolutely fell apart. And so did I. As we squeezed each other tightly, I realized that she and I had fought a battle together that no one else in the world would ever understand. Maybe her husband.Maybe.But we were bound together in our womanness, in the connection we felt to a baby she grew inside of herself for nine agonizing months of uncertainty, a baby whose first—and last—breaths I had witnessed. We were bound by that, and there was no space for anger, no reason for it.
“Thank you so much,” she whispered into my ear.
I pulled away, tears flowing down my cheeks, not bothering to wipe them. They were mostly for baby Brian, for this woman in front of me, but I knew that they were also for Maisy, for knowing that my time with her was coming to an end. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m so sorry that I didn’t take care of you after. I had my own stuff and I just—”
She shook her head and squeezed my forearms. “Daisy, you did the thing I wasn’t brave enough to do.” Her voice caught as she said, “You loved my boy in his last moments so that I got to be the one to remember his whole, perfect, beating heart, not his silent one.”
Looking at her devastated face, I couldn’t imagine how I could have blamed her then, how I could not have understood her wishes. And I scolded myself because, really, it wasn’t my job to understand. It wasn’t my job to cast blame. It was my job to care for my patients. And, well, it was very clear that time and time again, I had overstepped. “I loved your boy, Abbott. I will always love him.”
“I feel him, you know? It’s like he’s sending me little signs.”
Maisy. Maisy was my little sign. Maybe she, a baby I could save, was a gift from Brian, the baby I could not. No, I wasn’t going to get to keep her forever, but I had given her a great beginning. And that was something.
She put her hands on her belly. “Like this little one.”
I hugged Abbott again. “That is amazing news!”
