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  Emily walked over to Aron and gave him a hug and gently rubbed the top of Evan’s head with her fingertips, blew me a kiss, and walked out the door. Aron got up, handed Evan back to me, and sat next to me on the hospital bed.

  “Look at him, Sarah, look at what we made! It doesn’t matter if your mom loves Evan or not or if you think that if she sees Evan, she will suddenly love you again. What matters is us and our family and you need to focus on being the best mom to Evan that you can be.” He kissed the top of my head and softly stroked Evan’s cheek. “I love you, Ryan loves you, my family loves you, and now we have Evan. That’s all you should need.”

  As I was about to open my mouth to tell Aron how much I loved him at that moment, I heard a male voice bellow, “So, why didn’t you name him Sam?”

  I looked around Aron and saw Sam, Carol, and Ryan standing at my hospital room door with balloons, stuffed animals, and gift bags. There’s my family, I thought as they came into my room talking and laughing and high-fiving Aron. For the first time in a long time, I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed. Oh, God, please help me be a good mom to Evan. Please help me fill the darkness in my heart with the light that this child has brought to us. And finally, please God, please help Evan accept me for all of my faults and love me as much as I love him. Amen. I opened my eyes and took in scene around me and saw all of the love surrounding me and I realized that my prayers had already been answered because the love and the light I was searching for were right in front of me.

  Aron and I took Evan home two days later; my doctor had decided to keep me an extra day in the hospital to monitor my kidney activity and make sure it was still functioning properly after childbirth. Once my tests came back clear and my doctor was satisfied that it was safe for me to leave, we packed Evan up into his little car carrier and took him home. I spent the next two weeks learning how to take care of my newborn son and recovering from childbirth. I was surprised to feel so overwhelmed when Aron went back to work but I couldn’t help how I felt because I didn’t know the first thing about changing diapers, making formula, or eating schedules. I would wring my hands and break down into tears when I couldn’t figure out how to get Evan to stop crying and beg him to tell me what I was doing wrong. I was so afraid of hurting Evan or Evan feeling pain that every time I heard a cry out of his mouth, I would overreact and try to do too many things at once to calm him down, which ended up just making him more upset and make me feel more helpless. Aron knew I was frustrated, and when he was home in the evening, he and Ryan would take Evan and go to the park or take him outside for an hour so I could have the time to sleep and recuperate from my emotional day.

  There were many times during those first couple of weeks when I wondered if Mom felt as helpless when I was a baby as I did at times with Evan. Maybe that’s why she hit me; she didn’t know what to do with me when I cried and she was frustrated. I was lucky; I had a great support network with Aron, Ryan, Sam, Carol, Emily, and my college friends. I had a wonderful group of people to turn to for advice and support when I thought I couldn’t handle Evan’s crying anymore. Did Mom have anybody? I would wonder as I fed Evan. Was she young and alone and scared with no one to turn to? As I thought and gazed at Evan, I remembered Arthur telling me the story of Mom throwing me down the stairs when I was a newborn and shattering my collarbone because I was crying, and my blood boiled. I couldn’t imagine doing something like that to my precious child, and I knew I would kill anyone who did.

  During those little moments with Evan, deep in my own thoughts, I came to the realization that I would never hurt Evan because I was nothing like Mom. She may have given birth to me, but we were nothing alike. The thought of hurting my son would never cross my mind; only someone who was truly sick in the head would hurt a small child the way she hurt me. “Maybe your Aunt Emily was right,” I would coo to Evan. “Maybe your grandma is a little loony!”

  A month passed and I became more and more comfortable being a mother to a newborn. I was a pro at diapering, could clean projectile vomit off of any surface in less than a minute, and had already gotten him sleeping through the night. My original plan while I was pregnant had been that I would take six weeks of maternity leave and put Evan into a daycare when I went back to work. The closer it got to my start date, the more I dreaded putting Evan into a daycare and losing my precious time with him. I had waited so long for a love like this that I didn’t want to miss a moment of it sitting behind a desk when I could be with him.

  I sat with Aron a couple of weeks before my start date and told him my reservations about returning to work and begged him to help us find a way for me to stay home with Evan.

  Aron didn’t think for a moment before answering, “Sarah, I would love for you to stay home and take care of Evan and have that nuclear family. I’ve already been thinking about it, and I have enough commission work to make up for what you would bring home after paying for daycare.” He paused and looked in my eyes. “Are you sure you want to give up your career and everything you worked for to stay at home? I don’t want you to hate me in five years and want to leave me because you feel like you missed out on something.”

  I shook my head. “Aron, the moment I laid eyes on that little boy, nothing became more important to me than him. I can’t justify spending ten hours a day away from him just for a measly paycheck. It won’t be permanent anyway,” I continued. “It will just be until he’s in kindergarten, and it’s not like my college degree is going away.”

  Aron reached out and squeezed my hand. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “I don’t want you away from our son either.”

  I knew then that I must have proven to Aron and his family that I was a good mother. Aron had told me before we even conceived Evan that he would not hesitate to leave me if he thought I was hurting our child. So when he was willing to go the extra mile to make sure I could spend more time with our son, I knew that it was official, I was nothing like Mom and Evan was safe. I sent in my resignation to my employer the next day and started to settle into my new role as a stay-at-home mom.

  One evening after dinner Aron and I were sitting on the floor in the living room playing with Evan and his new bouncy seat when the phone rang. Aron checked the caller ID.

  “It’s Emily, do you want to take it?” he asked me. I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, why not? Maybe she can talk to Evan and make him make sounds or something.” I picked up the receiver. “Hey, want to say hi to Evan?” I asked.

  “Sarah?”

  I froze. This wasn’t Emily’s voice. I knew this voice; that shrill, fake voice.

  “Mom?” I managed to croak.

  “Hi! How are you? I’ve thought about you for so long!” Mom exclaimed like she was talking to an old friend from high school.

  I couldn’t move or speak; I was dumbstruck that I was hearing her voice after so long. My stomach began to twist and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach; I wanted to hang up and run to the toilet and throw up, but then I heard Evan’s coo behind me and my heart softened. I took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Mom, how are you?”

  “Emily finally told me that you had a baby two months after the fact!” Mom’s voice got higher. “I can’t believe I’m just finding out now that I have a grandson!”

  “Mom, Emily called you from the hospital room right after I had him.” I was lost. Did she not remember refusing to talk to me the day Evan was born?

  “No,” Mom said, “I don’t think so, you must be mistaken.”

  What the hell? I thought, “This bitch is crazy! “Well, I was sitting right there—” I started to say before Mom interrupted me.

  “So Emily tells me that you are only forty-five minutes from here? Kent and I are here for three days, so when can we come see him?”

  I couldn’t keep up with the craziness I was hearing. I turned and looked at Aron and threw my hand up into the air. He looked at me with his jaw hanging open and his eyes so wide I thought they were going to pop out of his head. Well, he’s going to be no help.r />
  “Um, can you put Emily on the phone?” I asked. I had to talk to my sister and ask her why she would think it was acceptable to trick me into picking up the phone to talk to Mom.

  “Sure!” Mom exclaimed in her high-pitched tone. “Hope to see you soon!”

  After a brief pause and a little muffled whispering, I heard Emily’s voice. “Sarah? Don’t be mad! I just think that Mom deserves the chance to see her grandson and you aren’t being fair to her at all.”

  Again, I was dumbstruck. “Emily, she had the chance and she chose to hang up on you, remember?”

  “Well, Mom thought I said something else, she didn’t realize I just told her you had a son.”

  Was I crazy? Was everyone around me absolutely sane and I was the one living in a fantasy world? I knew I’d heard Emily say in the hospital room that Mom wasn’t ready to talk to me; the effects of my epidural had worn off long before so I knew I wasn’t doped up and hazy. “Emily, I was right there—”

  But Emily cut me off, the same way Mom had done just a moment ago. “It is what it is,” she said forcefully. “Forget about the phone call, can you just grow up and put the past aside for a day and let Mom see Evan?”

  I couldn’t believe that these words were coming out of Emily’s mouth. “Emily, I need time; you just can’t do this and spring something like this on me.”

  “Sarah, I’m tired of being in the middle, and you two need to straighten this out for yourselves. So I am going to drive her to your house on Saturday afternoon so she can visit Evan.” Emily lowered her voice to a whisper. “Just do it for me, OK?”

  My heart broke and I suddenly understood why Emily had done this; she really was tired of playing referee between Mom and me and she was being forced to relive the past every time she saw either of us. In order for Emily to move on and leave her past behind, Mom and I had to move on and stop using her as our middleman.

  “All right,” I responded softly, “Saturday at one.”

  “Thank you, Sarah,” Emily said, and hung up.

  I hung up the phone, turned to Aron, and held up my hand to quiet him before he could start talking me out of what I had just done. “It’s the right thing to do, Aron, for Evan, our family, and Emily. It’s something that needed to be done a long time ago and I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Aron smiled understandingly and said, “Just remember, I support you in whatever decision you make. If she gets here and the sight of her makes you nervous or you feel like you did when you were a kid, tell me and I’ll throw her out of the house myself.”

  My guardian angel.

  Saturday came quickly and before I knew it, it was noon and I only had one hour left before I would see Mom walk through my front door. I had gotten up extra early that morning and cleaned the house from top to bottom, making sure I didn’t leave behind any dust bunnies or miss a speck of dirt that would catch Mom’s critical eye. I dressed myself in a sleeveless top and a skirt that accentuated my muscle tone because I wanted Mom’s first impression of me to be one of strength and power. I didn’t want her to think that she had the upper hand the moment she saw me.

  “Settle down!” Aron said. “She’s coming to your house to meet our son; she’s the one that should be nervous, not you.”

  “She’s here.” Aron pulled back the living room curtain and I looked out and saw Emily’s little blue car pull into my driveway. I squinted my eyes and could make out the shape of a woman in the passenger’s seat, but I couldn’t see her face. She’s right there, I thought, and in a move reminiscent of my childhood, I shut my eyes tight and whispered, “And hold my trembling hand today. Amen.”

  Emily walked through the door first and looked at me nervously. “Are you OK?” she asked as she took Evan out of my arms and kissed his tummy.

  I wanted to smack her over the head and tell her what a brat I thought she was for doing this, but then I thought about why Emily wanted this meeting so badly and I smiled. “I’m fine, just fine. How’s Mom?”

  “Oh you know, Mom’s Mom,” Emily said.

  No, I actually don’t know.

  “There she is!” Mom’s shrill voice pierced through my thoughts and made my spine tingle. “Wow have you grown!”

  I turned around and locked eyes with Mom for the first time in sixteen years. “Wow, you’ve…gotten smaller!” I replied.

  Mom hadn’t changed a lot since the last time I saw her; her hair was still dyed red but now it was a bit shorter and healthier looking, her face still looked the same but with a few more wrinkles, and she still had the same physique she had when I was a child. What shocked me was how much taller and larger than her I was; I felt like I was looking down on Arthur again.

  “Well,” Mom replied, “A lot of things are bigger and scarier than they really are when you’re little, aren’t they?”

  Did she just take a dig at me? Before I could react to what Mom said she had grabbed Evan out of Emily’s arms.

  “Oh, look at this sweet little face,” she cooed as she held Evan close to her and kissed his nose. I immediately got sick to my stomach and rubbed my collarbone, thinking of Mom throwing me down the stairs when I was just Evan’s age; I started to breathe a bit faster and chew on my nails. Aron sensed my nervousness and came over and took Evan out of Mom’s arms.

  “I think this little guy needs to eat and have a nap,” he said, winking at me as he took Evan upstairs to the nursery.

  Once Evan was out of the room and away from Mom, I stopped chewing my nails and gestured to the couch. “Why don’t you have a seat? Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, we ate on the way down. Kent’s outside unloading all of Evan’s presents out of the trunk, so maybe he’ll want something when he comes in,” Mom replied as she settled into the corner of the couch. Emily sat next to her, patted Mom’s leg, and Mom squeezed Emily’s hand, I wanted to cry when I saw this show of motherly love Mom had toward Emily. You still haven’t hugged me, I cried to myself. You haven’t seen me in sixteen years and you still haven’t hugged me!

  “A little help here!” I looked toward the front door and saw a rotund man sweating profusely as he tried to maneuver in the large gift bags Mom had brought. I ran over to the door and held it open so he could get inside. “Hi! I’m Kent! You must be Sarah!”

  Oh, Kent, don’t you know you are just another notch on Mom’s headboard? I smiled politely at Kent. “Yes, I’m Sarah. It’s very nice to meet you,” I said out loud.

  Aron came back downstairs with Evan and handed him to me. “Why don’t you sit down and relax for a bit?” he asked. He turned to Mom and held out his hand. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Sarah’s husband, Aron.”

  Mom averted her eyes from Aron’s direct stare. “Um. Nice to meet you,” she said hoarsely. “You’ve got a nice house.”

  Seeing how nervous Aron made Mom was hilarious to me because I knew exactly why Mom was acting the way she was: she knew that Aron knew our family’s dark little secret and it made her ashamed; I rather enjoyed seeing her squirm. Mom shook Aron’s hand quickly and then gestured to the bags of gifts Kent had brought into the living room.

  “We brought presents for Evan,” she said, glancing at me nervously. “Do you want to open them now?”

  “No,” I said, “We can open them later unless you are looking to leave in a hurry or something.”

  Emily clicked her tongue at me and gave me a disapproving glare, but I didn’t care. The only reason Mom brought gifts was to avoid talking about anything meaningful, to try to worm her way back into my life using clothes and toys. I wasn’t going to let her back in so easily.

  “So,” I said boldly as I looked right into Mom’s eyes, “sixteen years, huh? That’s a pretty long time to go without speaking to your daughter.”

  Mom and I locked eyes for the second time that day and what I saw scared the hell out of me. She looked at me with the same contempt and hatred in her eyes that I had seen my entire childhood, and for the first time in my l
ife, I didn’t cover my face in fear; I stared right back as her, as if I were looking deep into her rotten soul. I wanted to jump up and yell at her like I yelled at Arthur and tell her what I really thought of her and what a lunatic she must be to hurt me like she did, and demand answers as to who my father really was. I had played this scene out in my head so many times over the past decade, and now here I was, in front of Mom, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  When I saw the look in her eyes and I didn’t cover my face in fear, I knew in my heart that this would be the last time I would see Mom. I knew from that look that she hated me for reasons I would never understand and that no matter how many gifts she brought or how much she cooed over Evan, it would never change the fact that she would always despise me, for reasons I couldn’t control. Could she fake it and pretend as if she had a perfect relationship with me? Of course she could, but what good would that be for anyone? It was time for Mom’s obligation toward me to end. I was finished being her daughter.

  I stood up and held Evan close to my shoulder. “Emily, Mom, I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Come on, Sarah!” Emily said angrily. “Quit acting like this!”

  I could have screamed and yelled at Emily about how she didn’t understand at all because Mom loved her and I would never know the feeling of my mother’s love, but I heard Evan sigh on my shoulder and I smiled sweetly at Mom.

  “You can leave now,” I said. “I’ve seen enough of you today to last me another sixteen years or a lifetime if I have to.”

  Mom jumped off of the couch. “Kent, let’s get out of here!” she said angrily and snatched her purse off of the floor. She looked up at me and put her finger in my face. “You are crazy,” she hissed at me, “and if there is a God, someone will take that child away from you before you mess it up!”