Life and Other Inconveniences(61)

It didn’t matter. When I first saw my daughter’s beautiful face, I made a vow. I’ll do my best. Every day, I’ll do my best.

She had red hair. If that wasn’t a sign from heaven that my mother loved and watched over me, I didn’t know what was. I named her Riley in honor of my grandfather. Olivia for a middle name, which had also been my mom’s.

I honored my vow. Every day, every hour, I did the best I could to take care of my baby, love her and care for her, to try to deal with the exhaustion, the fear, the terror of being a single mother. That instant love I felt for her wasn’t pretty or besotted; it was primal and fierce. I’d die for her. I’d kill for her. Later, it would gentle into the gift it was—the shimmering, wonder-filled love for my favorite person, my daughter, my treasure . . . my reason for being.

But I still kept imagining a future with Jason. When I figured out just how damn painful nursing was and broke out in a sweat when Riley clamped down, when she cried nonstop every afternoon for six straight hours until she was four months old, when she had her first fever and was so limp and sick, I held on to that vision. Pop was still working (he had to, with me and the baby), and calls from Jason were a lifeline.

“You’re amazing,” he said. “I love you so much. This will all be worth it, honey, I promise.”

I wanted that to be true so much. I imagined a path toward a happy life out here. We’d have a little house. Sometimes, on a Sunday, I’d pack Riley into the little front carrier and go to open houses and imagine a couch here, a crib there.

Jason came to see his daughter, of course. He came every few months, which was not nothing. He made much of how he suffered for fatherhood, the only freshman in his dorm to be a dad, how the other kids at school couldn’t believe it. He complained about how he had to take the bus one time since his parents wouldn’t give him a plane ticket, making his trip seem Odyssean. He was often tired on the visits to Chicago and slept more than I did.

Pop would give me a look and say nothing, but I knew. I felt it. Over the months, then years, it became clear that Jason was a perpetual boy, whereas I’d become an adult the day I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test. From that moment on, everything I did was for the good of my baby. My needs, wants, dignity, health, pride, everything . . . they were a far-distant second.

Meanwhile, Jason got Cs at the University of New England, would call to tell me about a party his fraternity had hosted where thirty uninvited girls had crashed. He told me he loved me but didn’t think he could make the trip out over spring break because he’d been fired from his on-campus job. The ten hours a week had proved too demanding.

He contributed. I might’ve been naive, but I wasn’t stupid. I sent him a list of our expenses each month, and he sent a check to cover half. I knew the money came from his parents . . . not that they ever acknowledged Riley.

It was crushing, but I didn’t have time to wallow. I waited, yes. Boys matured more slowly than girls. I knew that motherhood was the strongest urge in nature. I knew Jason would’ve chosen an abortion.

But hope. That thing with feathers, right? Like a stupid pigeon who crashes into someone’s windshield on I-90 and then flies off, not realizing that all its flapping isn’t recovery . . . it’s a death knell.

I needed that dying pigeon. When Riley spent her entire fifteenth month with a stomach virus so bad her butt was raw and she cried at the sight of food, I pictured being a “real” adult. Pictured Jason walking in like a man this time, not a skinny college boy, telling me it was time for us to be together, his parents and college be damned. That he’d bought a little house a few blocks from Pop, and it was waiting for me and Riley, and I’d plant tulips along the stone wall and we’d get a puppy and his job would support us, and I could take classes more regularly and wouldn’t have to fall asleep with my head on a cash register, an open textbook in my lap.

It was like being a kid and believing in Santa. What’s the upshot of knowing the truth? Why not hold on to the magic a little longer? Why not, when my days consisted of childcare, laundry, working, cooking, studying, little spurts of sleep that only reminded me how tired I was? Why not picture a fricking ring and a small but tasteful wedding, a swing for the baby, a blue couch where Jason and I would sit each night, his manly arm around me, the two of us unbreakable?

He had his moments. When I learned I was a sister and flew out to meet Hope, Jason came down from Maine, not telling his parents, and paid for the hotel. He brought Hope a stuffed animal and was kind to her. I cried when I had to say goodbye to her, and Jason took me to a tiny restaurant in Norwich, and I felt cherished as he listened sweetly and told me I was a good person.

Never once was he harsh or cruel. He was just . . . young.

Every time he came out, he’d kiss me, carry Riley on his shoulders, bring presents. The pigeon of hope continued to flap once in a while. I waited. I made excuses. I didn’t want to imagine anything but that little house, that blue couch, the yellow tulips and Riley’s swing.

When Jason graduated, I asked him when he was coming to visit. For the first time ever, his voice became uncharacteristically cool. “You’ve been riding me to get a job all these years, Em,” he said. “Now I have one. I need to do it.”

Me? Riding him? I’d been ridiculously accommodating. “I think I’ve been kind of amazing, actually,” I said through gritted teeth.