In Bloom

The first six weeks after the baby was born were the hardest, as everyone had told Estelle they would be. The days ran together and her body felt foreign, raw and reapportioned. She tried to nap alongside her daughter, heeding the separate urgings of all four of her aunts to sleep when the baby sleeps, but instead found herself lying tired but wide-eyed, scrutinizing every rise and fall of Mona’s tiny stomach. The nights brought no reprieve. Mona rarely slept for longer than a three-hour stretch, and the 5:00am thunderstorms inevitably woke her, ushering in a new day before the last had had a chance to settle into memory.

Only after Mona offered up her first smiles, her bright eyes accompanied by a nearly indiscernible uptick in the corners of her mouth, did the clouds that had hung over Estelle since that first sleepless night in the hospital begin to part. As she grew more confident that the baby was here to stay, she began venturing outside. Rather than the couch, she nursed Mona while sitting in the sunshine on the porch, where she’d planted dozens of marigolds in a nesting frenzy during her final weeks of pregnancy, delighted to learn they were natural mosquito repellants. When the baby was awake, Estelle took her on a tour of the yard, showing her the green tomatoes just beginning to swell, the daisies and black-eyed susans that had taken over the untamed hillside, and the parade of ants who had busied themselves with their own daily routine all summer, oblivious to the drama of new life blossoming in their midst.

In the eighth week she began to take walks again. She and Michael had just moved into the neighborhood in February, when snow still blanketed the ground and the landscape’s potential remained obscured. Only with the big thaw in April had they begun to explore the twisting dirt road they now lived on, which was about as far removed as it came from the Los Angeles thoroughfare they’d called home just months before. As July now flaunted the full lushness of the Green Mountains, she and Mona set out each afternoon for a slow trek up the hill, finally meeting neighbors one by one and taking quiet pleasure in the novelty of rural life.

A few days into their new routine, Michael called on his lunch break. Nearly breathless approaching the top of the hill, Estelle answered, eliciting a little cry from Mona, who had been dozing in the carrier. “Hello?,” she gasped.

“Hey, I need to talk to you about something,” Michael began. Estelle felt her nostrils briefly flare, annoyed he hadn’t even bothered with a hello, how are you? How’s baby girl? before cutting to the chase. Since Mona was born, catching them both slightly off guard by arriving two weeks early after an astonishingly quick labor, she and Michael had been at each other’s throats, reduced to the worst versions of themselves by sleep deprivation and the unique helplessness of being unable to soothe a crying newborn.

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said, taking a deep breath and focusing on the cleansing mountain air.

“My cousin Reeva needs to come stay with us for awhile. I can’t get into all the details right now, but could you get the guest room fixed up for her? It should just be for a few days. I’m sure she can help out with Mona, maybe help you get some rest.”

Estelle paused, taken aback by the request. She was closing in on a record two consecutive days of no postpartum weeping, and the thought of having a house guest when she was hardly managing to brush her teeth each morning threatened to end her streak right then and there.

“Stel, is that cool? I’ve gotta get on a call but we can talk more when I get home.” Michael had just started a new job when they moved, a transition that had allowed him to take just two days’ leave when the baby was born and kept him under constant pressure since. Estelle could tell he hadn’t even left his desk to call her, overhearing his colleagues in the background.

“Okay,” she managed. “I’ll make up the bed.”

***

Reeva was nothing like Estelle remembered being at 17 years old. She moved comfortably in her body and her posture was proud. She laughed easily and spoke earnestly about everything from climate change to Tik Tok dance fads, meeting Estelle’s sarcastic asides with a slight smile and unwavering gaze. She didn’t seem to harbor the kind of rage and gloom that Estelle recalled as integral to adolescence, and Estelle briefly mused about whether this was a generational thing or if she had just been unable to see beyond her own teenage bubble.

Reeva lived with her parents--Michael’s aunt Sonia and her husband, Jim--in Ohio. As Michael had explained briefly when he finally got home the night before, Reeva had just been admitted to Middlebury off the waitlist, and wanted to come check it out in person before the deadline for her decision. Their conversation was cut short when Mona woke up wailing at 11pm, and Estelle hadn’t seen Michael since, having finally fallen asleep alongside the baby early that morning just before he left for work. Around noon, a taxi pulled into the driveway, an unfamiliar sight so many miles from the city. Reeva hopped out, hoisting an overfilled backpack over her shoulder, and gave a little wave when she saw Estelle standing by the back door.

“How were your flights?,” she asked, showing Reeva in.

“Totally fine,” Reeva said. “I just slept and caught up on podcasts. Oh, hi there!,” she continued as her gaze shifted to Mona, switching to the sing-song register adults reserved for children under two. “I’m so excited to meet you, Mona! Look at those cheeks!” She smiled widely and gently touched the baby’s tiny bare foot.

Estelle fixed them both grilled cheeses for lunch and held Mona in her lap as they ate and caught up. Estelle told her about the move and the stress of buying a home for the first time, and shared what little she knew about how Michael was settling into his new role. Reeva gave a rundown of her other college visits and her loose plan of pursuing a journalism major, animated by her desire to craft “data-driven narratives” that would, somehow, shift public opinion on critical issues. As Reeva mused about the future, Estelle recalled the state of her own ambitions as high school graduation approached, which could largely be summarized by a sharp desire to leave her tiny hometown and stay gone. The irony of moving back to the country just a decade later, by choice, did not escape her.

As the conversation dwindled, Reeva looked at her watch. “Well, I should probably start getting ready for my appointment,” she said. “Would it work for you to leave at 2:45?”

Estelle looked at her blankly. “Sorry, what appointment? The admitted students’ day is tomorrow, right?”

Reeva’s brow furrowed. “Mike didn’t tell you?,” she said. “I’m getting an abortion. At 3pm. There’s a clinic on Fairway.”

Estelle unwittingly let out a slight gasp. She’d first met Reeva when she and Michael went on a family vacation to the beach when they were newly engaged. Reeva was ten years old at the time, still more interested in building sand castles than hanging out on the boardwalk, and this first impression had left her forever a 5th grader in Estelle’s memory. “Oh,” she stammered. “I’m sorry, he didn’t.” She trailed off, searching for the right words for the circumstances and coming up short.

“I can’t do it at home without telling my parents. It’s the law. And you know they would freak out,” Reeva explained. “And I wasn’t just being stupid, I was on birth control. Turns out it really is less effective when you’re taking antibiotics. And here we are.”

Reeva’s cheeks flushed just slightly and she briefly averted her gaze, the first time she’d looked anything less than completely at ease since she’d arrived.

“But it’s cool if you don’t want to take me. I can call an Uber--they have those here, right? I would drive myself, I’m just supposed to have someone else give me a ride home.”

“Of course I’ll take you,” Estelle said.

***

The drive to the clinic took just 15 minutes. Estelle put on the radio, seeking to allay the pressure she felt to make small talk. Mona mercifully dozed in her carseat. When they arrived, there were no demonstrators outside, as Estelle had been bracing herself for. No gruesome pictures of fetuses pasted to poster board or offers of prayers. It could have been a dental office, unassuming and tucked away in a shopping center, adjacent to a nail salon and a Subway.

Reeva didn’t want Estelle to actually come inside with her, which was a relief. Instead, she and Mona took a walk downtown, the first time Estelle had taken the baby out beyond their neighborhood aside from the flurry of doctors’ visits in the weeks after birth. They stopped at a cafe and Estelle treated herself to an iced coffee, then traced a slow route going up and down each side street, eventually lulling Mona back to sleep in her stroller. When she’d tired of walking, Estelle found a bench in the small park by the river, draping a shawl over herself to briefly nurse Mona when she woke, the potential need for which had deterred her from spending any time in public with the baby for months.

After two hours they returned to the clinic to pick Reeva up. “How do you feel?,” Estelle asked her. Reeva gave her slight smile, her eyes soft. “Hungry,” she responded.

They went through the drive-through at McDonald’s and Reeva ordered nuggets and a McFlurry, inspiring Estelle to do the same. On the way home, she resisted the urge to turn on the radio, instead seeking to provide an opportunity for Reeva to share and process any of her feelings from the day. When she glanced over, Reeva was looking out the window, sipping her shake and sending the occasional text, seemingly comfortable with the quiet.

For Estelle, the silence only amplified every emotion competing for an audience in her brain. A simmering rage that Michael hadn’t found the time to tell her the true purpose, or at least the secondary purpose, of his cousin’s visit. Pangs of grief that she knew wasn’t hers to feel, but that brought tears to her eyes nevertheless. Relief that the child sitting next to her, braces still on her teeth, had chosen to put off the full weight of adulthood a bit longer. And a surprising feeling of envy that Reeva had seemed so sure in her decision, so at peace.

When they got home, Estelle gave Reeva some coconut water and got her settled in the guestroom, where she curled up under a blanket watching Netflix on her laptop. Estelle shut the door quietly and carried Mona out to the porch. Distant thunder was just beginning to rumble through the mountains, though it was too soon to say if it would actually bring rain. She surveyed the planters that rimmed the perimeter, the marigolds’ sunset colors in full bloom. She’d come to like their musky scent, perhaps more so because she knew it served a purpose; many flowers would have smelled far sweeter, but offered no protection against pests. Estelle closed her eyes and held the baby close, Mona’s warmth radiating across her chest. Only when the drizzle finally started did they go back inside, readying themselves for the night ahead and the inevitable dawn.