Today, I finally became a father. Adoption was easy. Breaking the news to my mother that Jim and I were going to raise a family was harder than my yearly urologist visit.
I swear I have dementia at age thirty. I typically can’t remember what I ate for breakfast in the morning. But I remember very clearly the night last year when I told her about our plans to adopt.
It was unusually icy for October in Jersey. I even slipped on the path to her front door. I forgot to bring hockey skates. I hadn’t visited the house since I had left New Jersey a year earlier for an editing position at CNN in D.C. that I couldn’t turn down. Though we spoke on the phone regularly, I hadn’t seen my mom and sister for that entire time, just one of the advantages of living in D.C.
My sister, Amy, had given birth to a baby girl a week prior and begged me to have dinner at Mom’s house with her and her husband to finally meet the baby. Of course, I wanted to visit to meet my niece, but I also knew it was the right time to tell my mom that I wanted a child of my own.
I had come out to my mom and sister two years before— I told them that I had been dating a surgeon, Jim O’Donnell, and that I had never been happier in my life. My sister couldn’t wait to meet Jim, whereas my mother’s dreams of finding me the perfect Jewish woman went kaput. She wouldn’t talk to me for a few weeks, but she eventually came around and agreed to meet him, too. I couldn’t imagine how she’d react to this latest news. She’d probably take a trip to Dad’s grave and curse him for not taking her with him.
My heart beat uncontrollably as I rang the doorbell of the little, white house with one hand, strawberry cheesecake in the other. As I waited for the door to open, I noticed a stain on my tie that my mom was sure to point out.
The pink door swung open and there stood my mother with her arms wide open, her short, red perm perfect as usual, wearing a white apron embellished with the word “Oy!” over her floral, yellow sundress.
“Steven!” she shrieked as she pulled me into the foyer by the arms and planted a big kiss on my cheek. The coral lipstick probably left a mark as usual.
“Do they not have food in Washington?” she began. “You’re looking too skinny! And is that a stain on the tie I gave you for your twenty-fifth birthday? Your father fed his clothes better than he fed himself, too. Come inside! The chicken will be out of the oven in thirty minutes. Your sister and Craig are sitting on the couch with Emma. She’s the sweetest little baby.”
“It’s great to see you too, Mom,” I smirked as she closed the door behind me. “I brought you a strawberry cheesecake. It’s not from New York, but it’s still pretty good.” She gave me another kiss on the cheek as she took the box from my hands on our way to the family room. I was wearing as much lipstick as she was.
As I entered the room with my mother, my sister and her husband, Craig, who was holding the baby, both stood up from the couch. “Steven!” they both exclaimed nearly in unison.
My sister’s long, red hair was even brighter than when I last saw it and her large, white smile was warming. She looked beautiful as usual in her light purple sweater and the pink foulard that I bought her while in Paris. Craig, certainly good-looking with his athletic six-foot frame, thick brown hair, and equally impressive smile, was a very lucky man to have Amy. He knew it, too.
Amy hurried to me, banging into the coffee table on the way over, and threw her arms around me. “It’s so great to see you! We can’t go this long without seeing each other.” Craig approached, the baby sleeping in his arms.
“Emma, this is your Uncle Steven,” he whispered to the doll-like baby clothed in a pink onesie. “Want to hold your niece, Steven?”
“After dinner when she’s awake. I don’t want to wake her up from her beauty sleep the first time we meet,” I smiled.
My mother, still standing besides me with the cheesecake in her hands, told me to make myself comfortable as she found a spot in the fridge for the cheesecake. Amy, Craig, and I sat down on the couch, me in the middle, as Mom rushed into the kitchen.
“So how’s murder these days, Craig?” I asked.
“Camel’s doing pretty well lately,” laughed Craig. He was the only one in the family who usually laughed at my jokes.
“We won’t tell Emma that her dad’s a killer for a few more years,” I went on.
“Steven, you’re terrible!” giggled Amy.
“What’s Steven joking about this time?” asked Mom as she reentered the family room and sat on the nearby loveseat, hands folded on her lap.
“He’s calling Craig a murderer again for selling cigarettes,” Amy said as she rolled her eyes.
“If work gets too stressful, maybe I’ll pick up smoking. Are Marlboros any good, Craig?”
He let out a deep chuckle.
Ignoring Craig, Amy asked me, “Did Jim get over that bad cold?”
Mom quickly got up from the loveseat in silence and hurried back into the kitchen. As I shook my head as I watched her leave the room, Amy scooted closer to me and whispered, “Give her time. I never thought she’d get over Emma’s baptism, but she surprises me sometimes. I remember she spoke to Rabbi Birnbaum about it for weeks. She learned to accept it with time. The same will happen with you and Jim. I think she’s really starting to like Jim anyway.”
“But when she finds out that I already told you about the adoption, we’ll never hear the end of it,” I whispered back.
Amy saw Mom enter the family room again and quickly feigned a smile. Mom sat back down on the loveseat, folded her hands on her lap as before, and said, “The chicken smells delicious.” Amy, Craig, and me all nodded our heads. Mom looked mesmerized as Craig rocked Emma in his arms. “Isn’t your niece beautiful?” she turned her head to me.
“She sure is,” I said to my mom when our eyes met. I continued slowly, “I think your next granddaughter will be beautiful too. Jim and I are going to adopt.”
“That’s wonderful!” Amy cried. “Craig, isn’t that great? Emma will have a cousin her age. I always wished I had a cousin my age.” Craig nodded in agreement and ecstatically congratulated me.
“Thank you, thank you!”
The three of us then looked toward my mother who sat silently in the loveseat, now staring at the folded hands still in her lap.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Amy blurted out.
My mother said nothing.
Craig, who had been rocking the sleeping baby, suddenly stopped and said, “I’m, uh, going to use the bathroom.” He turned the baby over to Amy and tripped on the carpet as he rushed out of the family room. Amy looked flustered as Craig left.
Suddenly, my mother lifted her head and began to speak to Amy. “You don’t need to pretend that you didn’t know this news.”
Amy’s mouth was gaping.
“Mom, this isn’t Amy’s fault. I should have told both of you together.”
“I don’t know what to say, Steven. Maybe mothers are going out of fashion these days.”
Baby Emma suddenly awoke from Amy’s arms with a loud screech. Attempting to talk over the baby’s cries, I pleaded to my mother, “The baby’s grandmother will be in its life! I want you to be a part of my life with Jim. I can’t do this without you. Should I return the baby after the stork delivers it? Or should I hire an actress to play the part of the baby’s mother?”
My mother was silent as Baby Emma’s whimpering continued. Emma’s cries were getting louder, and Amy’s efforts to soothe her were clearly futile.
Amy’s face was turning pink as she looked from my mother to me. “Mom, how can you act this way?” she yelled over the baby’s screams.
But before Amy could continue, Craig called over the baby’s cries, “Amy, I think the toilet’s clogged. It’s overflowing! Grab that plunger from the upstairs bathroom?”
“Jesus!” Amy yelled as she quickly placed the crying baby into my arms and ran out of the family room to assist Craig, leaving me alone with Mom.
I looked down at the baby as I began to rock her in my arms. Still crying, her watery, green eyes were fixed upon me. I bent my head down and kissed Baby Emma on the forehead and whispered, “Don’t cry, Emma. You’re hungry like me. Dinner will be ready soon.”
I lifted my head back up and turned to my mother who was still sitting on the nearby loveseat. Now at the edge of the seat, Mom didn’t take her eyes off the baby. I looked back down at Emma, whose whimpers persisted.
After I freed my left hand from under her head, I placed it softly on her tummy. Emma was screaming, with her eyes still staring at me. Suddenly, she grasped my finger tightly with her tiny hand as her cries got even louder. “Sure you don’t want a tissue, Emma?” I laughed as I continued rocking her.
When I again lifted my head up after a few minutes, my mother was staring silently at me. She bit her lips and began to cry. She softly said, “Steven!” and left the loveseat for the couch.
She threw her arms around me as she sat next to me even though I insisted that she be careful of the baby in my arms. She cried harder than Emma into my shoulder. “Mom, don’t cry. Do I need to rock you in my arms, too?”
As she pulled away from me, she said, “I never said I was perfect, Steven.”
She got up from the couch and left the room.
A minute later, she returned with a stack of magazines. She sat down, the magazines piled in her lap. “I gave these parenting magazines to Amy and Craig when they were expecting Emma. Jim and you should take these now.”
I thanked her for the magazines and assured her that Dr. Jim O’Donnell was obsessive and had probably already bought some.
“But Sheila Horowitz suggested I get these,” she insisted.
Mom placed the magazines onto the coffee table and stood up. Smiling at Emma, who was sniffling in my arms, she said, “I hope the toilet didn’t overflow again. Put Emma in the high chair?”
“Of course.”
“And can you just promise your mother one thing?” Mom asked, looking at me now.
“Yes?”
She laughed through her tears, and while waving her arms said, “There is no way my second grandchild is being raised Catholic!”
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