Growing Girls by Jeanne Marie Laskas Read Free Book Online Page B

ghost-mothers. It is so hard for me to believe these women exist, so hard to hold on to the small fictions I invent to remember the truth that happened before my arrival in my girls’ lives. It is as meaningful as imagining the landscape of heaven; I may as well be a kid picturing God up there mixing the potions He’ll pour into the molds to now populate Cleveland.
    I can’t hold on to the fact that my daughters were once cradled by the women who gave them their biology, were once jostled about by aunts or grandmothers who took hold of their umbilical cords and made the cut, were once wiped clean of the goo with which they arrived into the world by some trusted villager. I can’t hold on to the fact of her goodbye. I can’t hold on to that one at all.
    In my mind I begin both of my daughters’ lives with the pictures that arrived in the mail. The beautiful babies waiting. To think about the rest of it is only to realize how little I think about the rest of it, is only to spiral down again and down again.
    What do I want? What does she want? We want to meet one day, as old women, alone in a coffee shop. We want to embrace and fall into sobs. We want to verify in each other the fulfillment of every mother’s pledge: we did the best with what we had. We want to discover an instant kind of love that exceeds all expectations.
    Anna came with us to China to get Sasha. To keep her entertained on the plane, I supplied her with many books of stickers. When we arrived in Beijing she had little Poohs and Piglets covering her arms and legs and many people remarked that she looked like one of those tattooed ladies in the circus. Anna remained largely oblivious to the attention and soon enough added Eeyore to the tip of her nose.
    Twelve other families were picking up Huazhou babies and so we formed a large group. I could see some of the other parents-to-be studying Anna, and I got the sense that despitethe stickers she became for them a symbol of hope. Here was the healthiest child in the world, a happy kid with a rich imagination who just two years previously had been bundled up in an orphanage, waiting.
    It was June and unbearably hot in Beijing but nonetheless we all traveled to the Forbidden City, where we took pictures for our girls to one day hold. Then we went to the Great Wall and bought pearls. Alex and I had both learned when we got Anna that these trips aren’t about sightseeing. Your whole self is used up trying to learn how to be a parent and there is nothing left. Even so, there is the rumble of who you used to be, the person who traveled the world in search of stories and who fell in love with wandering way back as a kid on Lorraine Drive, taking off for a day in the woods. The adventure! Standing on the Great Wall stretching east and west into the horizon, it was hard to be just a person with a camera and a seat waiting on a bus. I wanted to run on that wall. I wanted to climb. But Anna was hot and she needed more juice.
    Women who have babies early in life often think of motherhood as a rut, as if there’s a great world beyond they’re somehow missing out on. But I remember wishing for babies as a young woman, feeling my life of adventure was a rut. I try not to make too much of this. Mostly, I just think life is full of ruts. There’s the rut of putting the coffee on the exact same way you did the night before, first the water, then the filter, then eight scoops, then the button setting the timer so that at 6 a.m. you’ll smell it brewing. The rut of waking up to your same radio station, same announcer, same robe, same slippers, same dogs to let out, vitamins, cat snaking between your legs. The rut of thesame bowl of Kix for your kid, same yogurt, same highchair, Elmo. The rut of eating a banana at your desk while checking your e-mail. The rut of: Aren’t I getting boring?
Shouldn’t I perk this life up?
    Did I want a second kid simply to get out of a rut? Is that why I wanted the first one? Where would this