4: Nurture [NOVEL]

Chapter 1: Nature
Chapter 2: Nurture
Chapter 3: Nurture

“Mama,” I looked up at mother with bright eyes.

“Yes?” Her gaze sought mine over her burgeoning belly as she placed one hand over it protectively.

“Baby?” I asked, reaching out to touch her belly.

“Yes, your baby sister,” she said with a soft smile.

As I rubbed her belly tenderly, my baby sister rewarded me with a thump. I giggled and rested my head on mother’s belly.

“Love you,” I whispered.

“Love you, too,” mother whispered back.

At the time, I didn’t realize that we were both talking to the baby.

~~

We shared more sweet moments like this as mother’s belly grew as if it would take over the world. Sometimes, father rounded out our family of four to shower love on my in utero baby sister. Sometimes, my grandparents joined us to revel in the blessing of our family. Most of the time, mother shared these moments only with me. A soft smile played along her lips as I placed my hand on her stomach for the millionth time that day.

“You’ll help me take good care of baby Maggie, won’t you?”

“Maggie?”

“Yes, we’re naming her Margaret Lynn after my great grandmothers.”

My own lips mirrored her smile, “Beautiful.”

Mother giggled but the giggle faded quickly. She breathed deeply and pressed her hand to her stomach. Her eyes darted to the clock. A little later, the pinched look returned and her eyes sought the timekeeper again. 

“Get up, dear,” she gently removed my hand from her stomach where Maggie seemed to be beating out a special message for those of us on the outside.

As I stepped back, she rose slowly from the couch. This proved difficult as she now had both hand pressed protectively to her abdomen. Her face contorted with suppressed pain once more. Finally reaching her feet, she looked back at the couch. A wet spot marked her recently vacated spot. She barely acknowledged it, fumbling for her phone and pressing the screen with a desperation that I had never seen before.

“James, she is coming early,” she gasped into the phone, pausing to listen to father’s garbled response before adding, “Just hurry. This is the third or fourth contraction since my water broke.”

She hung up the phone and nearly doubled over. The phone dropped to the floor as both hands sought to cradle my baby sister. I picked up her phone and looked up at her with wide, worried eyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I held to out to her.

“I’m fine, dear. We just need your daddy to get home, so we can get me to the hospital in time to meet your baby sister.”

I followed her as she hobbled toward the door. I still held her phone protectively in my hand, wanting to help but not knowing how.

~~

Maggie didn’t make her entry into the world until late the next day. I had to wait three more days to meet her. Mother and father wanted her all to themselves. Grandma Jane looked after me for those couple of days. She loved me in a reserved way, but for those two days, she made me feel like a princess.

“More pancakes, honey?” She asked, flipping the last batch onto a large plate sitting on the counter.

“No. Thank you.” I took one final bite, chewing and swallowing swiftly so I could ask the question pounding away at my heart. “When do I get to meet her?”

“Maggie? We both get to meet her later today. They are finally discharging your mother from the hospital. Thank goodness,” she furrowed her brow in that way grownups do when they worry they said too much to the child in their care.

I stared back at her without comprehending the concern buried under her words. It would be years before anyone let it slip in my presence that mother almost died bringing Maggie into this world. When they did, she softly whispered that it would have been worth it and turned a smile she saved just for Maggie onto my sister’s upturned face.

I first beheld that smile when father helped mother through the door. A tiny bundle, swathed in shades of pink wiggled enticingly in her arms. Grandma Jane and I rushed forward.

“How can I help, my dear?” Grandma asked.

“We’re fine,” mother assured her wearily.

“You’re here. You’re all here,” I cried with enthusiasm to have my family returned to me after three interminable days.

“Yes, we are. Here’s your sister,” mother leaned forward and father put his arms around her protectively, as if afraid she might fall.

Maggie looked back at me with wide grey eyes, unimpressed. My heart leaped and I knew love at first sight for the first time in my life.

“Hold her?” I pleaded.

“Not yet.” Mother whispered softly.

I sighed and followed in their wake. As we all followed mother and her precious cargo into the front room where a cozy rocker and ottoman awaited the new mom, my grandma reached out to pat my shoulder reassuringly.

“She won’t let me hold her either,” she whispered conspiratorially.

I smiled up at her and reached for her hand. She took it tenderly and I sighed in contentment as mother settled in her chair and we all crowded around to admire the newest member of the family.

Mother cradled Maggie close and started to hum. As my baby sister snuggled into her, the humming gave way to song. My mouth dropped in an awed oval as I witnessed this scene of love. Mother hit each note perfectly as she gazed in wonder at the treasure in her arms. While the sound echoed through me, filling me with admiration, a part of me longed for her to miss even one note.

~~~

Later, in the darkness, my tear-stained cheeks rested against the damp pillow. I thought I felt arms about me. A voice as familiar as my own heartbeat sang softly to comfort me as mother never had. I missed that off key voice and the love that flowed over me, but I couldn’t help but be glad my baby sister had that kind of love surrounding her.

5: Nature

3: Nurture [NOVEL]

Chapter 1: Nature

Chapter 2: Nurture

When mother got sick a couple months after I became their daughter, she was often too tired to play with me. Some days, she barely found energy to change my diapers and feed me. Father spent as much time with me as he could, but I could tell his thoughts dwelled on mother. The gifts completely stopped. They barely held onto the desire to read to me and get to know me. I didn’t feel completely cut off from their love, but I definitely felt a shift that became a chasm as answers changed all of our lives.

~~

As mother laid me gently in my crib, holding her breath and moving with exaggerated caution to keep from waking me, father paused outside the doorway to gaze worriedly at her. She glanced up at him as he opened his mouth to speak. She placed one finger to her lips and hurried silently to join him throwing one last anxious glance over her shoulder at that wrapped bundle of love that was me.

“She’s getting so big. I feel almost too weak to hold her sometimes.”

“I’ve noticed. You’re so pale…” the rest of what he wanted to say hung in the air between them.

“I know. I know,” her slow steps brought her to him and she placed an arm reassuringly on his forearm. “I’m going to see the doctor in the morning. Hopefully, she will have answers.”

He nodded as he pulled her into his arms and supported her as they shuffled off to bed together like a much older couple. 

~~

Father hurriedly flung off his coat and rushed into the living room. Mother still sat where she had dropped to the couch after her appointment with the doctor.  Noticing the intensity in the room, my new nanny scooped me up and carried me off to my room, cooing softly in my ear to distract me from the tension permeating the air. I cooed back, watching my parents over her shoulder until they disappeared.

“What did the doctor say?” anxiety clung to father’s every word.

Mother couldn’t reply. Tears streamed down her face, despite her upturned lips. She reached into her purse and pulled out a square of paper. She turned it to face him, revealing a black and white photo—the Rorschach test of parents-in-waiting.

“I thought the IVF treatments didn’t work?” Father whispered wonderingly as he gently took the ultrasound photo from her trembling hand.

“Something did,” mother’s voice shook.

“Our very own baby.”

“Yes, our very own.”

As if those echoed words triggered a memory, they both glanced toward the nursery. Within those walls, my status changed in that instant. Without photos I found in the attic before I moved out, I never would have known that they once loved me.

Chapter 4: Nurture

2: Nurture [NOVEL]

Chapter 1: Nature

2: Nurture

I don’t actually remember how I came to live with my adoptive parents. I know I wasn’t born to them. They wouldn’t dare let me forget. I was just their back up in case IVF didn’t work—a little orphan girl who would be eternally grateful even if they failed to learn to love me or even try.

I picture our first meeting from time to time. My adoptive parents have told me enough stories about it that I have a feeling I picture it properly. If they didn’t insist on claiming me as their daughter, I wouldn’t bother calling them mother and father anymore, based on the picture they painted. Yet they insist that since they are raising me I owe them the respect of letting everyone know they are my mother and my father.

For my part, I did my best to impress them with my cuteness and bright mind despite having no idea why I was meeting two more strangers. With my light hair and light eyes, most people thought I looked angelic at that age.  The few pictures that I found reveal more of a sad guardian whose ward kept making bad decisions than a smiling cherub. After my mother passed as I entered the world, my father tried his best to care for me. The few mementos that the social worker kept for me show that quite clearly.

But depression proved a cruel and demanding mistress after the death of his wife, so he relinquished his parental rights and allowed the state to make decisions about my future. He wrote a letter to explain this, but I wouldn’t hear anything except that my real family hadn’t wanted me until I turned eighteen.

Sally the social worker carried me to the door and placed me gently on my feet. She liked to let me make a good first impression by toddling into meetings with prospective parents. Curiosity always lead my wavering footsteps toward the new couple waiting to meet their potential daughter. Apparently, the women with blond curls held the highest attraction for me. I’d stumble right into their arms and their hearts, but somehow I passed my first birthday without finding a new home. I imagine the haunted look in my light eyes that every photo captured which lead to my long tenure with the adoption agency.

“This is Opera,” Sally introduced me as I came to clutch at mother’s skirt.

“I wanted a baby with that newborn smell. This one is already walking.”

“Just barely,” the social worker’s already pinched smile tightened even more. “I explained to you how difficult it is to find a newborn to adopt. This little girl could go home with you by the end of the month.” The look she leveled on mother and father reproved them more than any words could have.

Father’s eyes pled with mother as much as his words, “You always wanted a little girl and look how she came right to you.”

“That was rather sweet. And if we can’t have our own…” Bitterness crept in as her words trailed off.

She leaned forward to peer into my eyes. Their soft blue depths seemed to look through me. One slender hand rose slowly, cautiously as one would approach a skittish kitten. Her tentative touch gently pushed fine tendrils of blond hair back from my forehead. 

“At least she looks like she could be ours.” She murmured softly. “We could name her after my mother.”

Sally frowned at this, “Once they reach a certain age, we discourage changing the name they go by. They aren’t puppies, after all.”

Mother and father exchanged looks again. Father never spoke much but his eyes had practice in wordlessly reasoning with her. She sighed as I grasped her hand in both of mine and rested my cheek against it.

Apparently, that small act melted her heart enough to win her over. They filled out a million forms and promptly agreed to invasions of privacy that included a rigorous background check and home visits before and after my arrival in their lavish home.

A couple of weeks later, I joined my new family. At first, they fawned over me, elated to finally realize the dream of becoming parents. They showered me with gifts and took turns holding me and reading me stories. They made time for me and listened intently so they could understand my garbled words and fine meaning in them. Then something changed.

Chapter 3: Nurture

Intro and Chapter 1 [NOVEL]

 Intro

As my loyal readers know, I committed to writing this novel as part of a National Novel Writing Month experiment. A friend of mine suggested a genre that I had not heard of before. After having her explain it, I dived in and the following posts are the tentative result of my experiment. Having not read in this genre before, I am sure I will make some tactical errors. That is where you, dear readers, can offer your assistance. Please let me know if some aspect of my storytelling isn’t working. And, on the flip side of the critiquing coin, please let me know if something worked particular well, so I don’t second guess myself and remove it during the revisions that we all know are coming.

To help us all understand where my crazy story might be headed, I should inform you that genre suggested was alternate families. My understanding is to look at how being raised in two different environments might affect the main character. Since I am the daughter of a woman who once made borscht for my class that got a review of, “It’s delicious, but it’s not borscht,” I may have added my own whacky spin, so hopefully it still pleases the minds of my dear readers.

So goals for this year include:

1. Actually finishing the whole novel as I post it for your consideration.
2. Commit to a name for this fascinating piece.
3. Don’t go crazy in the process.
4. Have a completed novel to publish by the end of the year in digital or physical form. Maybe?? Perhaps??

Thanks for reading and encouraging me to stop semi-procrastinating a goal I have had since the late 1980s. Yes, I am that old.

~1: Nature~ 

They say you can’t remember being born or the first few years that follow, yet I have memories that could be nothing else. Maybe I pieced them together from what others told me. If that is the case, how do I picture them so vividly?

As I released my first breath in a plaintive scream, two shadows separated from the brightness in which I now lived. They tried to come into focus as my eyes adjusted to a world full of light. It would be months or years before I memorized every feature. In the meantime, life would get more interesting and only holding onto the memory of their loving smiles could get me through some of the harder moments. But as a newborn, I didn’t know that worry existed. As I grew, I learned more about that. Sometimes it felt like my learning came twice as fast as it did for anyone else. 

Regardless, one truth lingers in my heart: no matter what final age I reach, I hope I always remember those first two faces. For most of that first year, I only knew mom. Whenever I cried, someone would rush to my aid. A halo of golden curls crowned the head of my rescuer. Eyes somewhere between blue and green would peer into mine with a mix of love and concern. The softest voice would coo at me. Then I would be lifted up and cradled against the smell of home and the song of my mother’s heart.

“Mommy’s here.”

I continued to fuss as she held me closer to her heart.

“Opera, my darling, what do you need?”

She became an expert at interpreting all my cries and even my softest snuffling sounds. She would provide whatever I needed with love and gentleness. Then she would sing softly to me. Though she never quite reached the right notes, her singing always soothed me and brought me back to a place of peace. Aside from her heartbeat, her voice was my favorite sound of that first year.

Next to such a wonderful mother, no one could compete for my affection. But if anyone stood a chance, it was Nona Bea. She told me once that the first time we met, I reached for her instinctively because she and my mother could be the same person at different ages. When she held me close though, I instantly realized my mistake and would not be consoled until my mother’s heart worked its magic once more.

That didn’t deter my Nona. She would hold me as long as I let her. Eventually, she won me over and I would allow her to hold me a little longer each time. I think it was the sound of her voice, laced with just the right emotion for whatever story she chose to share with me as I gazed up at her beaming face. I wish I could remember those stories. Maybe they are the same ones she told as I grew older, but perhaps they held answers that would have made the more confusing parts of my childhood suddenly make sense.

What I do remember was Nona Bea telling me how special I was. I think I recall this mostly from later conversations, but she must have started those assertions the very first time she saw me. I know all grandmothers do that, but the way she reminded me seemed different than what other families said to their children. Something in her intonation and the way she peered into my eyes struck me as saying more than the words revealed.

“You are special, my love, and no one will ever be able to help you navigate everything that comes your way, but you are strong like the women before you and you will figure it out.”

“Oh, mom, you told me that and look at me. I’m just an ordinary housewife,” my mother giggled

I cooed at the sound of her voice, more lyrical in speaking than in song.

Nona grabbed mom’s cheeks in that way older people do and leaned in, “Being a mother is never ordinary, not if you do it right. And you will.”

My mother blushed and turned away. Neither Nona nor I was fooled by this. We had seen the tears forming in the corner of her eyes. I could coo about it all I wanted and she would never understand that I knew. And Nona took the opportunity to blot away a few salty tears of her own.

Chapter 2: Nurture