At 18, I was forced to give up my newborn son. For 31 years, I searched for him. Then the surgeon who saved my life wore the cross I had tucked into his blanket, and the story I had been told began to unravel.
I was 18 when I told my parents I was pregnant.
My mother dropped the dish towel.
My father shoved his chair back so hard it struck the wall.
“Who knocked you up?” he yelled. “Give me his name. When I get my hands on him…”
I clutched at the silver cross I wore around my neck. It had belonged to my grandmother. Her initials, E. M, were engraved on the back.
I was pregnant.
“No! I’m not telling you.”
The words were out before I thought them through.
I’d never defied my parents so openly before.
Mom shook her finger at me.
“Don’t speak to your father that way. After everything we’ve done for you.”
“Give me his name.”
“You tell me his name, now.” Dad braced his palms against the table and loomed over me. “I’m going to speak to his parents myself and sort this mess out.”
They were calling my baby a mess.
I put my hand over my stomach. “I’m keeping my baby.”
“You have no money,” Dad said. “No home except this one. Remember that before you start making demands.”
“I’m keeping my baby.”
Dad was wrong.
I had Daniel, my baby’s father.
When I’d told him I was pregnant last week, he’d been concerned first, then ecstatic.
He held me close and lifted me off my feet.
“I’m going to be a dad!” he crowed.
Dad was wrong.
We’d talked for hours and eventually made a plan.
***
“We rent something small,” he’d said. “One bedroom. I’ll paint it yellow.”
“What if I hate yellow?”
“Then you choose. I’ll still paint it.”
I’d laughed and leaned against him. “Your parents won’t like it.”
We made a plan.
“Neither will yours. But they won’t be paying the rent.”
He’d pressed his hand over mine on my stomach.
“I’ll come for both of you. I promise.”
***
Dad sent me to my room when he finally realized I wasn’t going to tell him who the baby’s father was.
I waited a few minutes, then slipped out the window to see Daniel.
“I’ll come for both of you. I promise.”
Daniel hadn’t been around lately, but I needed him to know what had just happened.
I hurried to his house, then froze on the sidewalk.
There was a for-sale sign on his lawn.
I knocked, walked around the side, and peered through a window.
The sofa where we’d sat together was gone. So were the curtains.
Daniel hadn’t been around lately.
A neighbor was watering her roses.
“They moved,” she said. “Didn’t leave an address, hon.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
I stayed on the step after she went inside.
“They moved.”
Daniel knew about the baby.
Whatever he’d decided about me, how could he leave without explaining?
***
I tried calling, but the number was disconnected.
After that, I had nowhere else to call. I couldn’t ask my parents to help find him.
Suddenly, the baby and I were all alone against my parents.
How could he leave?
I began searching for a job and a cheap room.
I called about a room above a laundromat. The woman sounded kind until I mentioned the baby.
I crossed it off and worked out what the next listing would cost. My savings wouldn’t cover the deposit and the first month’s rent.
“That won’t cover a roof and diapers,” my father said, glancing at my figures.
I began searching for a job.
I turned the paper over and kept calculating.
I needed to find a way to make this work.
***
Then my parents changed.
Mom came to an appointment and held my hand during the scan. Dad stopped interrupting whenever I mentioned the baby.
My parents changed.
One night, they sat me at the kitchen table.
“We’ll figure this out,” Mom said. “You won’t have to do it alone.”
“We’ll help you,” Dad added.
“You mean I can bring him home?”
Mom nodded.
“We’ll help you.”
I cried before I could ask anything else.
I had spent weeks counting money that wasn’t enough. Now, somebody was saying we could manage.
***
I found part-time work at a bakery.
Mom cleared a drawer for the baby’s clothes.
I cried.
Dad asked whether we needed a crib.
At night, I taught myself to crochet from a library book.
The first bootie came out crooked. I undid it and tried again.
When Mom helped fold a tiny shirt, I moved aside to make room for her.
I wanted this new version of us to last so badly that I never questioned it.
I taught myself to crochet.
I chose the name. Fabian.
At night, I whispered it to my belly.
“Fabian. Hi, Fabian.”
I no longer thought about Daniel. He’d clearly changed his mind and abandoned us both.
***
Fabian was born a few weeks after I finally finished a passable pair of booties.
He’d abandoned us both.
He was warm and furious and perfect.
When the nurse placed him against me, I forgot to be frightened. I loved him so much!
Before the nurse took him for his checkup, I undid the clasp on my grandmother’s silver cross.
I tucked it into his blanket.
“So you’ll always have something from me,” I whispered.
I loved him so much!
