Crochet Bees

Crochet Bees

By C. Peterson

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I strained to see the thumbnail image on the phone screen held up in front of me. A picture of a package label, sent from the post office box Michael kept in Las Vegas. The company sent pictures of the incoming mail before they forwarded it to wherever we were at the time. We had been full-time travelers in a small 1998 pop up trailer. A glorified tent, really. Not by choice, both of us are some form of refugee.

The package was from a gift company. I had been expecting a present and here it was, on its way. Present is too strong of a representation. Consolation prize? Bereavement gift? Was this bereavement? I chose not to explore my mind any further. It was what it was. It was a condolence gift from the adoptive couple we had picked. I, in turn, had decided to finish the crochet bee mobile and baby blanket and send it to them for the other baby on the way.

We hadn’t known when we picked them that they also had a surrogate. With our baby, they would have had two babies about three months apart. I cannot lie that having known about the other baby might have changed my mind about choosing them. It’s so difficult for same-sex couples to adopt that it would have felt unfair that one couple should get two gifts while other couples still waited. After a bit I came to embrace the idea of two siblings having each other. Protecting each other against whatever ignorance other children threw at them as adopted children with gay parents.

Michael and I hadn’t been trying to get pregnant, certainly not as we approached forty, and we were shocked when a joke pregnancy test proved to be real. He had already had his kids with his first wife and I never wanted to be a mother. It was never a question that I could make THAT decision and he would support and also not pressure me. In the end, I felt like I would be drowning a kitten. A helpless thing that could bring someone else happiness. A being that had done nothing wrong to deserve being excised. So I contacted an agency and we interviewed couples, finally settling on the one we felt would be best.

We had been thorough as we drafted our question list together in the afternoon sun and we were nervous about the FaceTime interviews. These people could end up being so critical in our lives, even though we would be peripheral. I worried if we looked acceptable, about how old we were, how our pop-up could be framed so that we didn’t look as poor as we are. In the end, I chose to tell the couple we did not select directly. It was my decision and it was a difficult one so I felt I needed to do it myself instead of cowering behind the agency coordinator. We made the decision quickly and didn’t leave either couple hanging, worrying, wondering. It was best that way. The benefit of age, I suppose. A younger woman might not be able to face the glare of hurting people’s feelings.

We planned how to navigate an open or semi-open adoption. We discussed how involved we should be, how we should tell Michael’s kids, how to be present in the background without pestering. I started crocheting the honeybee mobile. We decided to put small items in each bee, one for me, one for Michael, one for us together. We debated thumb drives of photographs or trinkets. I thought about putting a birthstone ring in my bee. My grandfather, in his retirement, had spent his time faceting stones on museum-worthy equipment for my grandmother. I was his only grandchild interested in faceting and he told me to use marbles as practice. I still save marbles when I see them. I was certainly not going to put a marble in a baby mobile but a ring could be fine. The plan was to tell the adoptive parents about the hidden trinkets so they could open the bees as a family when they decided it was time.

Now three unfinished bees sit looking at me with their soft black yarn eyes, as does the ice cream multicolored yarn for the baby blanket. We didn’t know gender so I picked something universal and baby-ish. I have to finish them. They sent us a gift. One, a doctor by trade, had talked me through the emergency room visit and ultrasound where there was no heartbeat. They’ve been so kind. At 11 ½ weeks we were all sure things would be fine. I wanted to know the gender but I’ll never know now. I hated the names they had picked but I didn’t criticize. I have to finish the bees. We won’t put anything inside them now.

When the box arrived I opened it anxiously in the car while Michael watched. Inside was a candle, note, and succulent. A succulent should have survived better in transit. I suppose no one expected it would have a stop-over in Sin City. It was damaged and all of the outside parts had turned black and wilted in the heat. I understood it was meant to represent regeneration, healing, and new life. As it arrived, however, it was a disturbing reminder of what had been.

Michael held his composure. He had cried briefly when we found out about the miscarriage on a Saturday morning. I had spent an uncomfortable weekend waiting to miscarry, knowing a dead thing was inside of me. The following Monday I had surgery to remove the baby. Michael thought he had to be strong and hid away emotionally.

I asked Michael to open up to me again and tell me what he felt about the package. He hesitated and told me that it reminded him of when he was about eight years old. He had gotten permission to send away in the mail for small lizards that he would get to keep as pets. He waited on bated breath for his pets to arrive. When they did they were barely alive and died shortly afterward. The succulent reminded him of his dying lizards. The damage a single paper box can do.