Hello, sweetheart!

I stuffed an extra sweatshirt into my backpack, flattening it down so I could close the zipper top. Scanning my to-do list, I saw ‘turn off oven’ was still not crossed off. I hadn’t used the oven in days, but the thought of travelling across the country made me want to hit the off button three or four more times. As if that would ensure everything would turn out okay.  

At 7:10 AM, I dealt with the last two items, ‘turn off lights’ and ‘lock the door,’ before I lugged my oversized suitcase onto my small front porch and waited for the taxi to arrive.

I wouldn’t say I had my life completely pulled together, but I was managing. I lived in a modest sized apartment outside of Boston, and I paid my rent on time every month thanks to my job as an assistant at a downtown insurance company. I had a few close friends who kept me busy on weekends, although my dating life had been nonexistent since I broke up with Jeff last summer. I needed a break from men until I could figure out how to find a guy who would treat me right. Of course that seemed like a trivial concern at this moment. 

***

My flight from Boston to Las Vegas was on time, which was good, except it meant I was closer to confronting my sister, and the mess she had made of her life. I should have kept in touch more, paid closer attention to the warning signs that things had taken a bad turn, but I was so tired of worrying about her after all these years.

All I wanted out of life was stability, and that felt impossible when I was living in my sister’s world. My mother once told me when she gazed into my sister’s eyes as a baby, she never saw the innocence and sweetness she had seen when I was born just two years earlier.  

Even back then my sister seemed to be headed for some sort of crisis, and now, at age 26, it appeared she had finally met her fate. 

We were supposed to see her last Christmas, but she cancelled at the last minute, telling us she was sick. We had no idea she was hiding a pregnancy, and we certainly didn’t know that the boyfriend I could best describe as sketchy, the father of her child, was going to abandon her just weeks before she gave birth. She had followed him to Las Vegas and taken a job bagging groceries. It was as settled as my sister had ever been, and it looked like maybe things were going to work out.  But in the end his gambling was all that really mattered to him, and when his fortunes took a turn, he kicked her out and changed the locks on their apartment.

We would have been supportive had we known, but after hiding her pregnancy, she didn’t have the guts to tell us she was living in a shelter and about to give birth.

We got the call from the hospital yesterday. My sister was the mother of a 6 lb, 4 oz baby girl. She had been diagnosed with clinical depression, not for the first time, and didn't feel she could care for her child. It was a shock, even coming from my sister. My mother couldn’t deal with it, so I was forced to step up. I was just managing to take care of myself. I didn’t need this on top of everything else, but what else was I supposed to do? My sister was family. 

I texted my mom as soon as the plane landed, and she sent back three heart emojis. She wasn’t a bad person, but that’s all she could muster right now. I felt so alone as I watched families and couples collecting their bags at the carousel, off to vacations and getaways in this magical city. But it wasn’t magical for my family. I bit my lip to hold back tears as I lugged my suitcase from baggage claim over to the taxi stand.

Waiting forever on the long line, I was glad to finally get into the air-conditioned cab.  Within minutes I was on my way to the Comfort Inn that would be home for the next few days, or maybe longer.  It was cheap and right down the street from the hospital, so at least I could save the expense of renting a car. 

I was relieved to reach my hotel room, despite its low ceiling, drab furniture, and the paisley bedspread that had seen better days. I was tempted to lay down, curl up under the thin sheet and sleep. Instead, I showered, changed into a simple sundress and sandals and prepared to walk over to the hospital in the intense midday Las Vegas heat.

***

The maternity ward was not a happy place when you were visiting a mother who was about to abandon her child. I tried not to peek into the other rooms, to see the tired but happy moms and the overwhelmed dads about to bring their babies home to secure and comfortable homes where they would be loved and cared for the way babies were supposed to be. When I reached my sisters room, she was sleeping, which gave me a chance to really look at her for the first time in as long as I could remember. Her hair was chopped short, making her look older and more fragile. Her face was not as thin as it had been, likely a result of the pregnancy. I could see below the thin sheet that her belly was still full, a surreal reminder of why I was here.

Peeking behind the curtain, I was relieved that nobody was in the other bed. This would be difficult enough without having another new mom just feet away. 

I paced restlessly around the confined space until my sister finally opened her eyes and looked at me. “Melissa.” She closed her eyes again for a minute and then re-opened them. “Sorry,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for falling back to sleep or for turning my life upside down. I guess it didn’t matter.

“Gina, thank goodness you’re okay. Why didn’t you tell us?” The words spilled out of me, and I had to close my mouth to stop them. 

My sister licked her lips, which were parched. “I wanted to tell you and mom at Christmas, but I couldn’t do it. That’s why I cancelled. I knew having this baby was the right choice, but I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “And then time passed, and my relationship with Marty started going downhill. I thought I could make things right, but they only got worse. It was never the right time to say anything.”

“We’re your family,” I said. “How could you possibly talk to us without sharing something this huge?”  But then I realized Gina and I often went months without talking, and I hadn’t seen her in over a year. Our sporadic family get togethers, eating turkey or a pot roast at mom’s dining room table, gave us the false sense that we were okay. But things hadn’t felt normal since dad died after a long illness. That was when were in high school, but maybe the shift happened long before that. 

Gina looked at me with exhausted eyes. “I can’t go back and change that, but I need you now. I need you to take care of my baby. You’ll be great with her, and I'm not capable - at least right now."

“Does she even have a name?” My voice was harsh, accusing, but I didn’t care. I was angry that this was all falling on my shoulders.

“Yes, I named her Caroline, and her middle name is Jane, after our two grandmothers. I thought you could call her Cara. Cara Jane”

Cara Jane, such a sweet name. I rolled it over in my mind. “That’s beautiful,” I admitted. “But why don’t you want to be her mother?”

“I do,” Gina’s voice cracked, the first sign that this was breaking her heart as much as it was breaking mine. “I just can’t right now.  I need to heal, to take care of myself, before I can even think about taking care of a child.”

“But you said having this baby was the right choice?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hug her or slap her for what she was doing to herself – for what she was doing to me.

She gave me a heartbreaking smile. “I thought this baby would be good for me and, really, I wasn’t wrong. She made me look at myself and see that I need to do better. That if I truly love her, I need to let someone else take care of her.” Tears began to trickle down my sister’s cheeks. I wasn’t a mother, but I could only imagine how difficult this was for her, what it meant to give up a child you had carried and gave up everything to protect.

“What makes you think I can take care of her. I have a full-time job and no support. Mom is over an hour away and she’s not going to pick up and move to Boston to help me. She’s not capable of that right now.”

My sister looked at me with an expression so earnest all I could do was wait for her to speak. “If you can’t take care of her, I’ll have to give her up for adoption, and we may never see her again.” She inhaled a shaky breath before continuing.  “Cara is special. When I saw her for the first time, I knew that she was the only thing I’d ever done right in my life. Just meet her, you’ll see.” She sat up, wincing with the effort. “I know I’ve been a burden to our family my whole life. There must be some bad genes or some bad karma that made me nothing but trouble. But my daughter isn’t like that. I think she can help us heal what’s broken in our family.” She looked exhausted as if speaking  had taken all her strength.

I didn’t know how to respond. This didn’t sound like my sister, who had always been selfish and irresponsible. She was asking me to make an enormous sacrifice – but it paled in comparison to the sacrifice she was prepared to make to give her daughter a better life. I didn’t know Cara existed until yesterday, but I already felt a bond of obligation to her. It wasn’t fair, but nothing in life really was. “Can I see her?” 

“Of course. Go to the nursing station and they’ll bring you to her.” She smiled. “I know once you see her…” Tears pooled in her eyes. “You’ll see that this is the best thing.” With that she lay down and closed her eyes, the tears continuing to flow. There was nothing more to say. 

I watched her for a few moments before I turned and walked out of her room and over to the nursing station. They pointed me down the hall to the nursery, where I saw rows of babies, sleeping, crying, squirming around in their small cribs. I had never seen so many babies, and I felt tense, overwhelmed, as if I was being asked to care for all of them. 

“Hi, I’m Suzie, the nursing assistant for this unit. I understand you’re here to see Cara?”

I nodded numbly as she walked me over to one of those glider rocking chairs in a quiet corner and motioned for me to sit while she went to get the baby. I rocked up and back, starting to hyperventilate, ready to shatter into pieces with fear and stress and 1,000 other emotions I didn’t have a name for. I might have sat there for a minute, or it might have been ten minutes before Suzie returned carrying a bundle that looked way too small to hold a baby. 

“Have you ever held an infant before?” she asked. 

I thought back to holding my cousin as a baby, but I had only been 6 or 7 at the time. “No, not really,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn.

“That’s okay. Just hold your arms like mine, and I’m going to hand her to you.” She smiled, and I was grateful, because I’m sure she could sense what a mess I was.  “Make sure you support her head but the rest of her is tightly swaddled. Just hold her securely but gently. I promise you, it will all come naturally after a minute or two.” She carefully placed the bundle in my arms.

I felt my body relax as I took the soft blanket. Suzie held on until Cara’s small body was snuggled up against my chest. Then she slowly let go and stood up, her expression one of sympathy and kindness. “Isn’t she just beautiful? ” she said. “Take your time getting to know her. There’s no rush.” She didn’t wait for a response. She turned and walked away, as if she trusted that I knew what to do.

I watched her leave and then looked down into the face of my niece. My heart stopped as I took in her rosebud mouth, round cheeks and finally her searching blue eyes. She stared at me for a few moments before closing them, but I saw everything I needed to see. I knew at that moment that this was not what my mother saw when she first looked at my sister. What I saw and felt was a surge of need to protect this tiny person, a surge of love. Not the kind I thought I had for Jeff, or even the love I had deep down for my mother. This was something much more powerful. I felt the world around me disappear as I stared down as this bundle, this magical little person who had come into my life literally overnight. 

“Hello, sweetheart!” I said in a high voice I didn’t recognize. Her mouth twitched as if she was smiling at my words, but I knew it wasn’t a response to me. Or was it? I held her for a long time before I untucked one of my hands and with a single finger gently touched her forehead, and then her rosy cheek, feeling the softness and the warmth of her. When I leaned down and breathed in her baby smell, all the problems I had, all those I was yet to face if I agreed to take care of this little angel, suddenly felt trivial.  I was holding a brand-new life in my arms, and she was part of me.

I was at a crossroads with two distinct paths ahead of me. Each one had consequences, and would be life-changing for both me and Cara. But despite the impossibility of it all, my heart swelled with each little breath she took, each delicate little hum that came from her as she dreamed peacefully in my arms. I suddenly felt a courage and resilience I never realized was inside me. And I knew that if I searched my heart, I would find the clarity and the strength to make the choice that would determine both of our futures.