To get a moment alone, Jane walked into the living room, sank into the couch and pressed her palms over her face. As soon as she did, Griffin and Trevor let out simultaneous and piercing screams from the next room over, where they were left to play.
By instinct, Jane called out for help from her daughter. “Hazel, honey, can you come grab the boys for a bath...” Her voice trailed off into the quiet. There was no Hazel to help. In fact, there was no sign of Hazel at all for days.
Jane picked up her phone to check for text messages. Nothing. Just a stream of unanswered Thinking of you messages.
Jane needed Hazel. And not just for help with the boys. She needed her for her soul. Her heart.
Her thoughts were interrupted by another set of shrieks. But she wasn’t done with thinking about Hazel. She felt an intense pull back to Susie’s notebook.
So she did a thing she vowed to do only in dire circumstances, which was to remove the twins from their high chairs and, without even cleaning off their faces, place them right in front of the television. It worked like a charm. The boys were probably not full, but they were quiet. So Jane retrieved Susie’s book from the other room and returned to reading it.
Letter 3
The early years
Susie
Dear Eve,
I carried you in my belly a full nine months plus another eleven days. I told you to take your time if you wanted, as I rubbed my big swollen belly. I told you that you didn’t have to come out until you were ready. And you took my words to heart. It took thirty hours of labor before you made it into the world and into the doctor’s hands. You yelped under the bright lights of the delivery room. I burst into tears upon hearing the sound of your voice for the first time. I squeezed your father’s hand; he was looking down at you with a quiet shock in his face. You were our “miracle.”
The nurse placed you in your father’s arms first. As he rocked you back and forth and smiled so warmly, so knowingly, down at you, I felt in my heart that you were his daughter. It may sound surprising to you, but it didn’t even cross my mind that you were someone else’s for another half a decade. You felt so fully, truly and wholly ours. I knew that together, your father and I would give you the very, very best life.
And, I felt we did. When you were hungry, we fed you. When you required a new diaper, we changed you. When you were sleepy, we rocked you. When you were fussy, we walked you. And even when you needed nothing at all, we lay with you and kissed you and hugged you and played with you and read with you. Just because we wanted to. Just because we loved you. Just because we were your parents.
The feeling that I could give another human, you, everything you needed was by far the greatest honor I had ever felt. For the first year of your life, I held you nearly all day long. I didn’t want to let you go. I didn’t want to miss a single moment of your life. There were so many intoxicating moments of unbridled joy just simply observing you. At the littlest cough or hiccup or giggle, I would just explode with joy.
In those early years, I felt I knew everything about you.
But still, the person you would become felt like a great mystery to me. It’s going to sound odd to you, but I mourned the future version of you. I wanted to know everything about you forever, but I knew that it wouldn’t be possible.
I studied your reactions to things—whether you preferred chocolate or vanilla ice cream, a dress or shorts, your hair up or hair down, the color marker you picked up first, your favorite toy, or movie, or bedtime book. I wondered whether any of these things indicated what you would choose when you were six, or twelve, or twenty, or fifty years old. I wondered how every little choice you made today would change you.
I felt desperate to know who you would be in addition to who you already were.
At the time, I didn’t consider whether I felt this way because half of you, half of your genes and personality and preferences I suspected were alien to me. But upon writing this letter to you, I know this must have been a significant part of how I felt when I observed you, all those years ago. I suppose I also knew that the day you would meet your biological father would come eventually.
But I really, really didn’t want it to. I wanted you to be all mine, all ours, forever.
I’m sorry if it made a mess of things,
Mom.
* * *
And with that, Jane took out her journal and pen and wrote.
This entry, she knew, was going to hurt.
Letter 3
The early years
Jane
Dear Hazel,
When I walked through the door of our house with you in my arms for the first time, I felt it would be reasonable to panic, but I didn’t. I just exhaled slowly and tried to keep my thumping heart under control. It was just us now.
I placed the car seat gently onto the couch so as not to wake you and then lay back on the couch. My body was still aching and cramping from your birth. There was a mix of dull stinging and squeezing deep within my belly. Lying there with things quiet and slowed down made me acutely aware of all those throbbing feelings in my body. I pressed my eyes together even more tightly and exhaled slowly again. I felt a tear press up in my throat. I wished I could share these moments with someone that would remember them. I wished my mother and father were there. I even for a moment wished Silas were there. I felt helpless and alone. Scorched by all the things that had happened in my life before motherhood was a part of it.
Sleep came in like a tide and tried to tug me into a slumber. I didn’t know if I should let it happen. What if you were to wake up and need something? I thought about pulling my eyes open, but everything was so heavy and tired and sleep tugged some more. I wanted to give in to it. It seemed so sweet and luscious to be fueled back up by sleep. Even if it were just the littlest drop. I rolled over onto my side and brought more of the surface area of my body into contact with the couch cushions. And just as I prepared to give in fully, just as I was about to succumb to rest, my body jolted me awake. My baby! You couldn’t just be left alone! My entire torso sprung up into a seated position, my eyes stretched out big and wide, my heart raced but in a new way. I frantically turned my attention to the car seat you were sleeping in.
You didn’t appear to have moved or made a sound at all. You just lay there peacefully, angelically, in your car seat.
I shook out my body, dispelling any last traces of adrenaline. As my heartbeat slowed, and that dull ache in my belly returned, I was reminded that I was, in fact, supposed to sleep when you slept. I felt betrayed by my own body. This electric instinct to mother was more powerful than any of my own personal needs. I felt relieved and terrified all at once that I would be here at all hours of all days to take care of you. My body apparently wouldn’t have it any other way. But who would be there to take care of me?
I inspected your face. You were small and fleshy and alien-like. Your skin’s bluish hue at birth had turned to a splotchy pink. Your hair was dark and thick and two small pieces stuck up like a rogue patch of grass on the right side of your head. I felt an urge to pat it down and raised my hand to do it, but then something inside stopped me. Let her sleep, a voice spoke in my own head.