After Brooke and Natalie left, I dissolved into hysterical tears. Evan didn’t push me to talk, he only led me inside the house, took off my clothes, and put me to bed. He curled up behind me and murmured into my ear that everything was going to be okay. I pressed myself against his body, trying to feed off of my husband’s inherent strength. Eventually, he fell asleep, but even as exhausted as I was, I lay awake into the early hours of morning, staring into the dark, replaying the events of the evening inside my head.
“I think it’s the flu,” I told Chandi the following morning when I called to tell her I wouldn’t be coming in to work. I’d cried so much the night before, my sinuses were plugged and my voice sounded as though I’d gargled rocks; there was no need to fake being ill.
“Oh no,” Chandi said. “Poor you. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have Paula and the other techs handle what they can of your appointments and reschedule the rest.”
“I might be out a few days,” I said. My body ached, feeling as though it had been poisoned.
“I won’t put anything on your calendar until Friday,” she promised.
I thanked her and then hung up, rolling over to tuck the covers under my chin. Two of our dogs, Gypsy and Cleo, curled against me near my feet, while their brothers, Sammy and Chuck, sat next to the bed, whining a little and wagging their tails, unsure what to do. It was seven o’clock, and typically, both Evan and I were in the kitchen drinking our coffee by now; my staying in bed was far from our normal routine.
Evan stood across the room, already dressed in tan Carhartts, black, steel-toed work boots, and a brown flannel shirt. His brow furrowed, watching me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to keep you company?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I just need to sleep.”
“Okay,” he said, but the word was full of doubt. He took a couple of steps closer and then crouched down so our faces were level. His hair was still wet from the shower; his skin smelled of the woodsy, pine-scented soap he preferred. “Should I take the dogs?”
“No,” I said. “Leave them, please. They’ll take care of me.” As though on cue, both Sammy and Chuck leapt back onto the bed, circled twice, and lay down. Gypsy lifted her head from the mattress and set it on top of my leg. Cleo didn’t move. None of our dogs weighed more than twenty pounds, but there was a reason Evan and I had a California king-size bed—we needed the extra room. “See?”
“All right.” Evan smiled, then leaned over for a quick kiss. “I’ll come and check on you at lunch. You need to eat.”
I nodded, despite the fact that the thought of food was enough to turn my stomach.
“Love you,” he said, and he left a moment later, after I said I loved him, too. When the front door shut and I heard his car start in the driveway, I closed my eyes, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep. But all I saw was the pained look on Brooke’s face when she’d confronted me on the deck—the anger that had flashed in her eyes. All I heard was the way her voice strangled when she spoke. The damage I’d done to her clung to her like a second shadow.
Everything I’d thought about the new life I’d given my children was wrong. Hearing that Natalie hadn’t even known about Brooke until a few months ago, and that my elder child had spent her childhood in foster homes, had sucked all the air from my lungs. I pictured my younger daughter standing next to Brooke last night: Natalie’s blond hair, petite frame, and large, doe-brown eyes, eyes that must have come from her father, a man whose name I’d blanked from my mind, whose face I couldn’t recall. She seemed so capable and strong as she attempted to calm Brooke down. Seeing her like this, I had no doubt that Natalie was a wonderful mother—patient and loving—something she must have learned from the woman who raised her. She certainly didn’t inherit it from me.
I knew in my gut that I couldn’t live up to their expectations, and it only took a moment for me to ruin whatever meet-my-birth-mother fantasies they might have had. I wasn’t strong enough to be their mother when they were babies, when they needed it most, and after my response to seeing them last night, it was clear I couldn’t be strong for them now. What they sought, I couldn’t give them. The truth was, no matter how far I’d come, how much I’d accomplished, a huge part of me was still that young woman who fell apart when she gave up custody of her children. I was still the troubled, unstable girl who thought she heard her daughter’s voice that day in the park. Having them in my life now would only magnify that girl, bring her to the surface again, after I’d worked so hard to keep her contained.
This was how I spent the next forty-eight hours, remembering, crying, and sleeping, burrowing beneath the covers, replaying every moment of the short time my daughters stood in front of me, reliving every one of my past mistakes. As he promised he would, Evan checked on me throughout the day, bringing me water and bits of food.
On the third day, he entered our bedroom about noon, bringing with him half of a turkey sandwich and a glass of ice water, which he set on the night table. He called the dogs off the bed, ordering them outside, then sat down on the edge of the mattress.
I righted myself and leaned against the headboard. He grabbed the water and gave it to me. Obediently, I drank almost half of it and then took two bites of the sandwich before I set it back on the plate. He waited while I got up and walked to the bathroom and then watched as I washed my hands and climbed back in bed.
“You aren’t going to get up?” he asked. “Maybe move to the living room?”
“I’m fine here,” I said. I looked at him with wide, glassy eyes.
“You know you can’t do this forever,” he said.
“I know,” I snapped, and then, regretting my tone, I reached out and grabbed one of his rough-skinned workman’s hands. No matter how well he scrubbed, his cuticles were always slightly darkened by engine grease. “I know,” I said again, softly. “I just need a little more time.”
He stared at me, then squeezed my fingers in return, but didn’t say anything more.
After a moment of silence, I spoke again. “Do you think I did the right thing?” My heart banged inside my rib cage, waiting for his reply.
“That’s not up to me to decide,” he said.
Frustrated by the neutrality of his response, I let go of his hand and pulled my own hands back into my lap, curling them into fists. “Tell me what you think, Evan. Please. I need to hear it. They came here looking for a relationship with me . . . with their mother . . . and I just . . . freaked out. I disappointed them. I hurt them, even more than I already had. I’m a horrible person, right?” Go ahead, I thought. Say it. Confirm everything I already know. All the trained dogs in the world can’t make up for the fact that I abandoned my children. Twice.
Evan ran his fingers through his shaggy silver-brown hair. “No,” he said, and I could tell from his tone he was a little frustrated with me, too. “You’re not. You thought you’d never see them again, but now you have, and this is what happened. You went with exactly how you felt in the moment. It was a genuine reaction. A real one. You were overwhelmed, and scared. You realized you couldn’t handle it. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you honest.”
“But—” I said, and my voice cracked before I could go on.
“But, nothing,” Evan said. “You are so many things to so many people, baby. To me, to Randy and Lisa, to Chandi and to Paula, and all your other employees. To the women you work with through the prison. Not to mention the animals you take care of every day. I feel like you don’t see any of how much you mean to us. How good you are. How loved. You can’t keep letting one decision define the whole of who you are. Whether it was right or wrong, you have to forgive yourself. You have to accept that it’s healthy to know your limits.” He leaned toward me and cupped my face in his large hands, locking his hazel eyes on mine. “You gave your girls their best chance. Even if their lives didn’t work out the way you hoped, you can choose to be happy they found each other now. And I’m telling you that what you need . . . your best chance . . . is to forgive yourself. You need to find a way to be okay with your decision. Really, truly, deep-down okay.”
I stared at my husband through teary eyes, blinking fast, trying to digest all he had said. “You don’t think I’m weak?”
“No,” he said, dropping his hands from my face. “I don’t.” He leaned forward and kissed both of my cheeks, then my lips, and I tasted the salt of my own tears. “I think you’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known,” he continued. “Other people who’ve been through just one of the struggles you’ve faced might have been crushed. But not you. You kept going. You didn’t give up. No matter what, no matter how much pain you were in, you pushed ahead and kept trying to do the right things, make better choices, and live a good life.” He paused. “You wouldn’t be who you are or where you are without your faults, Jenny. And who you are is amazing.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. His words felt like balloons, lifting a leaden weight off my chest. I am more than my mistakes, I thought. I am stronger than I know. Evan was right—everything good in my life had only happened because of the things I’d done wrong. Everything was connected, linked to the moment I got pregnant with Brooke, and then that night when I left the girls alone in the car. Getting caught led me to prison, which ultimately led me to Randy and working with dogs. Working with dogs led me to Evan, a successful career, and eventually, being able to give back to others like me. Yes, I was a woman who couldn’t raise her own children, but as a result, I had become so much more than that. The kind of hurt my daughters had suffered—and were surely suffering through right now—was part of their lesson, just as my pain was a part of mine.
Still, I wished I could do something to make up for the damage I’d done. I remembered how easy it used to be to comfort Brooke with just the touch of her “soft side” blanket, and then later, how she gave it to her baby sister so Natalie could be comforted, too. Even if I couldn’t be in their lives, I wished for a way I could offer both of my daughters that kind of comfort now.
A thought struck me then, and I knew what I had to do. Without a word, I threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed.
Evan stood up, startled. “Where are you going?”
“The garage.” The air outside of the warm bed nipped at my skin; for three days, I’d only worn one of Evan’s white T-shirts, so I quickly dug through one of my drawers for a pair of sweats to replace it.
“Now?” he said, squinting at me.
“Yep,” I said as I changed my clothes. “Now.” I shoved my feet into a pair of his slippers.
“Jenny . . .” he began, but before he could finish, I opened the bedroom door and rushed down the hallway, through the living room, and into the garage. Glancing around at the shelves that lined two of the walls, I searched for the clear plastic box I opened only twice a year, finally spotting it on the highest shelf, next to the red and green Rubbermaid boxes that held our holiday decorations.
“What are you looking for?” Evan said as he walked up behind me.
“That,” I said, pointing toward the box.
His eyes followed the direction of my finger. “Our Christmas stuff?”
“No,” I said. I took the two steps down to the cement floor and pointed again. “The other box, next to those. The clear one.”
This time, he saw what I meant. “Your letters to the girls,” he said slowly, and I nodded.
“Are you sure reading them is a good idea right now?” he asked. “You’ve already had a rough couple of days.”
“I don’t want to read them,” I said, and my voice quavered. “I want to send them to my daughters.”
A look of understanding passed over Evan’s face, and he came down the steps to join me. He put one long, strong arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “I’ll get them down.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I watched him take a six-foot ladder and set it up next to the appropriate shelf, retrieving what I needed. A moment later, Evan carried the box through the house and put it on the kitchen table. I followed him inside, then stood next to the table and removed the snapped-on lid.
“I can stay and help,” he offered. “If you want.”
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a grateful smile. “For doing this”—here, I motioned toward the box—“and everything you said to me in the bedroom. You’re so good to me. But I think this is something I need to do on my own. You should get back to work anyway.”
He looked at me a moment longer, then nodded. “The card Natalie left with her contact information is on the fridge, under the blue magnet. In case you end up going to the post office. There are some smaller boxes in the hall closet that might work.”
“Okay.” I took a couple of steps over so I could hug him. “I love you so much.”
“Love you more,” he said, and then he left through the back door. The dogs made a ruckus when he joined them outside, and he called them to follow him, which I appreciated. They’d distract me if he’d let them stay home.
After he was gone, I stood in the silence, unmoving, contemplating what I was about to do. I stared at the stack of notebooks inside the box, the earlier pages filled with one or two sentences, couplets of my thoughts about the girls when they were young; the later containing the letters I’d written to each of them on her birthday each year. I wondered if they would sit down and read everything together. Or if each of them would take a turn, poring over every one of my words on their own before coming back together and talking about the things they’d learned about me—the things they’d learned about their past.
It was daunting to imagine them peeling open these pages and seeing into the depths of me, into the record of the things I’d wished for them, their dreams I hoped had come true. I hoped that in my passing all of this on, both of my girls would better understand what I’d been through, why I made the decisions that affected them both so much. I hoped they would laugh a little when they came across the stories of the funny things they did when they were babies; I hoped their hearts would be warmed by my words. I hoped these notebooks would help them to forgive the woman who’d brought them into the world—the woman who ended up leaving them to the find their way through it without her.
Just like my mom did to me, I thought, and I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach, recalling the day I stood on her front porch and she turned me away. Am I like her? At the time, and over the many years since, I couldn’t fathom how she could just cut off a relationship with her only child. How she could see me needing her, asking for help, and still she closed the door. Yet here I was, under different circumstances, basically having done the same thing to Natalie and Brooke.
I sat down at the table and, with shaking hands, began removing the notebooks from the box. A voice in my head warned me that I’d probably be better off forgetting the whole idea—that I should just put the box back up high on the shelf. What if getting this package from me only made things worse? What if now, after I’d rejected them, my daughters couldn’t care less about my thoughts, or what memories I had of the time together we’d shared? What if the package came back, marked RETURN TO SENDER?
But then another thought struck me. This decision wasn’t about me, or how I felt. It was about Natalie and Brooke, about giving them something they needed. I wanted to give them answers, which was more than my mother had given to me. I’d never know why my mom made the decisions she did, but if I went through with mailing the package, Natalie and Brooke wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Sending them my notes and letters was about giving them an explanation—giving them the truth, as imperfect and ugly and unfair as it could sometimes be. It was giving them everything I could.
Half an hour later, I had filled a brown cardboard shipping box with the stack of notebooks. Then came the hardest part—writing one final note to my girls. I grabbed a blank sheet of paper from the printer in the den, then returned to the kitchen, where I sat back down at the table and began to write.
Dear Brooke and Natalie,
I know I hurt you both, and for that, I can never say “I’m sorry” enough. I spent so many years trying to convince myself that you were better off without me that I don’t know how to believe anything else is true. If I were a different person, I might be able to handle the weight of your pain, but as it turns out, I’ve had a hard enough time managing my own. I don’t offer this as an excuse, only as explanation for my inability to become the addition to your lives that you might have hoped.
What I hope now is that the contents of this box give you at least some of what you came looking for from me. I hope they give you some answers, some important pieces in the puzzle of your history. I hope you get a sense of the scared, messed-up girl I was when I had you and just how much I missed and loved you over the years. No matter the distance between us, the two of you will always be the biggest part of my heart.
I signed my name, and then sealed up the box, resting my palms flat upon it as though I were granting it a blessing. I glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, noting that I still had plenty of time to get to the post office. All I needed was Natalie’s address from the card on the fridge, along with my wallet and my car keys, and I’d be on my way. I’d take the short drive downtown and send the package off. I’d say a little prayer to wish it well—to wish my daughters happiness and peace—and I’d then come home to my husband, to the life I’d built in spite of my many messy but necessary mistakes. Mistakes, as Evan had said, that helped shape me. And while there was no guarantee I wouldn’t make more as time went on, one thing was clear—one thing I knew somewhere down deep in the cells of my body. Whether or not my daughters forgave me, sending them this package might be the only way for me to forgive myself. It was time for me to move on.
I’d finally found a way to let go of the past.
