I gave birth to a baby girl on November 3. The hospital was clean, and already decorated for Thanksgiving. Paper turkeys lined the hallways along with paper cutouts of cornucopias, which I learned the word for later and hope never to see again. My mother was very angry with me, but when my contractions began, she helped me to her boyfriend’s truck and drove us south, to the address on the papers I had been given.
The labor pains were like a drill, boring to my very center. I was offered an epidural and I refused it, wanting to feel everything, knowing what was to come. But then the agony increased, and again I was offered an epidural, and I said yes. A doctor with a white mask covering his white face told me to push, push, and I pushed. But it was not enough. My mother spooned ice chips into my mouth. Her hand on my forehead. Her fingers in my hair. My mother: in spite of everything, she would take care of me.
My daughter was born in the hours between the middle of the night and the dawn. Her face is burned into my eyelids: whenever I sleep, or even blink, I see her. She had curls, night-black. Her eyes were a very pale brown, and her eyelashes were long and dark. She looked shocked to be in the world. She parted her lips and screamed.
They cleaned my daughter and wrapped her in a blanket with a pink cap on her head. Then they gave her to me. I kissed her, tried to take in her smell, to remember. A wave of longing caught me in its fist. You can do it! the wave told me. It is not too late! And I let myself have the fantasy of taking my daughter home to the Ace Motel, sleeping next to her (and my new sister and my brother) in my Dora the Explorer sleeping bag. Making her dinner in the parking lot, watching her run between the cars, dancing in the Texas sunshine. My mother pulled us both into her arms. “It is a mistake,” she whispered. “Do not give up your child.”
But I knew a different future was possible. I thought of opening a book in a circle of light next to a cream-colored building. I felt a backpack full of books on my shoulders, imagined a takeout cup of tea. Even in the hospital, moments after giving birth, I saw this version of myself and prayed that God would understand my decision.
And my daughter! She would not grow up in a room that smelled of sweat and beer and frustration and beans. She might even have her own room, all by herself, with a crib and a mobile from the Pottery Barn catalog I had once picked up at a Starbucks coffee bar. A crib that cost eight hundred and fifty U.S. dollars! And soft, thick blankets. And a mother—one of these American women—who did not have to make terrible choices. My girl would not have to struggle. She would not be hungry. No one would hold her down on the top of a train, shoving his seed into her, thrusting with anger and pain. I brought my lips to my baby’s perfect rose of an ear. And like the old woman in Veracruz who had thrown me a bag of bread and lemonade, I said, “May God watch over you.”
And then I gave her to the waiting nurses and signed the papers. I ate a hospital breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and a fruit cup. I slept for a while, and then I got out of the metal hospital bed, my breasts on fire, full of milk for no one. My mother helped me dress myself and settle into a wheelchair. We left the room.
As my mother pushed me toward the elevator, an American couple entered through the doors at the end of the long hallway. They hurried toward the viewing room, and I knew. I saw them exchange a smile; the woman reached for the man’s hand and they clasped fingers. The man wore a T-shirt that said “University of Texas.”
As we passed them, the woman looked at me. Her face was clear and untroubled. She was shining with happiness.
And I was free.
I climbed into my mother’s boyfriend’s truck and she drove us home to the Ace Motel. No one spoke to us as we hurried into Room Sixteen. The men had gone to work, and my mother bathed me in the cracked tub. I can still remember the feel of the warm washcloth on the back of my neck. I tried to remind myself that I would recover, go to school, and make a bright life for myself in America. I would go to university and become a lawyer or a doctor. I would buy my mother a wonderful house. Maybe someday I could see my baby again. I had checked the box on the paper that said she could contact me. My body felt liquid. My daughter was gone. As my mother washed my hair, I cried with abandon, letting go.
This was the worst day of my life.
50
Alice
THE PAPER TURKEYS on the wall flutter as we walk down the hospital hallway. Since my mother’s death, I have always hated hospitals, but for some reason I am not scared this time. It’s true: this birth mother could also change her mind, as Mitchell’s did. We might be getting our hopes up only to have them dashed. But something has shifted in me. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or ten minutes from now, but I am calm. A faded banner above the nurses’ station (likely brought out every year) says, “Be Thankful, for You Are Blessed.”
I reach for my husband’s hand. It is warm.
A heavyset woman in a pink sweatshirt pushes a wheelchair past. The girl—no older than twelve—glances up. Her expression is so sad it stops my breath. I feel her sorrow enter me, slow and terrible. As she is wheeled toward the exit, the girl watches me over her shoulder. She reaches the end of the hallway, and when the door is opened, she turns from me, toward the light.
Jake has allowed me to pause. But now he squeezes my fingers—a question. I meet his eyes and nod.
There is a glass window a few feet ahead of us. I pull Jake forward. In the nursery, only one tiny cradle is occupied. Swaddled in a pink blanket, a baby is asleep. Her round face is so lovely. Jake pulls me close, his breathing ragged. “There she is,” says Jake.
A woman approaches, her heels clicking smartly on the floor. “Mr. and Mrs. Conroe?” she calls.
“Yes,” says Jake.
She reaches us and crosses her arms, staring, as we are, at the baby. “Ah,” she says, “I see you’ve found her.”
“Yes,” says Jake.
Machines whir and buzz, a strange lullaby. My blood roars in my ears. The baby girl yawns, showing us her petal of a tongue. And then she opens her eyes. They are caramel-colored. It seems she is looking at me.
Her cheeks, her curls, one tiny exposed fist!
“I’ve got you,” I whisper to my daughter.
She gazes at me for a moment, then exhales deeply and closes her eyes. Her tiny chest rises and falls as she finds her way to newborn dreams.
For my Ash, my Harrison, and my Nora
Acknowledgments
Without Alexia Rodriguez, who enabled me to meet immigrant children and to attend a Homecoming football game and dance, this book would not have been possible. Thank you so much, my dear friend.
The soul of this book comes from the work of Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra, whose shelter, Hermanos en el Camino in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca, provides a safe place for migrants, offering them food, shelter, medical and psychological attention, and legal aid. His work and his words are the meaning of grace.
For the gift of time and glorious silence, I am tremendously grateful to Madro?o Ranch, the MacDowell Colony, and the Corporation of Yaddo.
Michelle Tessler, your guidance, kindness, and encouragement mean everything to me. Also, thanks for the bourbon.