“Hey,” she said. It was the middle of day, and Brooke knew he was on a job site; she heard the banging of hammers and the buzz of electric saws in the background. She tried to think of what to say next, but the words logjammed in her throat. She couldn’t do it on the phone. She needed to see his face.
“Hey, babe,” Ryan said. “Everything okay? You sound stressed.”
To say the least, she thought, then forged ahead with the reason she’d called. “Can I see you tonight? Or do you have the boys?”
“Not until the weekend. I’d love to see you. Are you working? Should I bring the crew by for a beer?”
“Not tonight, okay?” Her voice wavered. “But I’m off around eleven, so I’ll come to your place after that.”
“Can’t wait, gorgeous.”
They hung up, and Brooke started her car, skipping between feelings of terror, exhilaration, and panic from one breath to the next. And then she drove toward home, trying to figure out the right words to tell Ryan she was going to have his baby, wondering if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
Jennifer
In August 1981, I was ten months into my sentence at Skagit Valley Correctional. When I woke up each morning, if I tried hard enough, I could forget where I was. I could pretend my thin mattress and gray, scratchy blanket were actually luxurious, that the funky, earthy smell of too many bodies sleeping in one place didn’t exist. I could tell myself there wasn’t a woman who had sold painkillers on a downtown Seattle street corner in a bed less than six feet from me, or guards posted at every door. I could believe that the early-morning light hitting my face streamed in through a beveled glass window instead of one secured with padlocks and wire mesh.
I could, if only for a moment, forget that I’d given my children away.
And then, when my eyes fluttered open, the truth came, slamming into my chest like a wrecking ball, and I wept, missing my girls. I imagined Brooke, holding her sister’s hand, helping to teach her how to walk. I pictured Natalie, gripping her older sister’s fingers, her chubby, slightly bowed legs taking one shaky step after the other. I remembered their sweet, little-girl scents and the way their belly giggles always made me laugh, too. I remembered the way they felt tucked up next to me in the back of our car, the three of us cuddled beneath an unzipped sleeping bag and several more blankets, keeping each other warm. I remembered all of this, and then tried to force myself to forget it. To instead focus on the task in front of me. Get up. Stand in line for the bathroom. Shower. Brush my teeth. One thing at a time, trying not to let my thoughts stray too far beyond the next indicated step.
Still, faced with long hours with nothing to do, I found myself writing little notes to my daughters whenever they came to mind. I used a yellow-and-brown–striped spiral notebook I’d found in the common room, jotting down a sentence or two at a time on the blue-lined pages, my lips twitching the way they always did when I was trying not to cry. Mama loves you so much, I wrote to Brooke. You have such a big, tender heart. You cried the first time you stepped on an ant and accidentally squished it; you asked if we could take it to the doctor. I hope you’re with people who know this about you. I hope you are tucked into bed every night with a story; I hope you’re in school now, and have lots of friends. I hope you never go to bed hungry. For Natalie, I recorded everything I remembered about her first six months: You slept through the night when you were only three weeks old, sweet girl, and I swear you smiled at me the very first time I held you. I wasn’t sure what I planned to do with these notes, but each time I wrote one, I experienced an infinitesimal flash of relief.
This morning, I stood in the kitchen at five thirty, wondering if my daughters would ever read the notes I’d written them, bleary-eyed as I mixed together enough pancake batter to feed three hundred inmates.