“Having the girls,” I said.
“Any of it. Do you regret it?”
He wasn’t looking at me. It was as if he couldn’t look at me, as if our whole lives rested on my answer.
I put my hand in the one he had dangling. His fingers closed over mine. His skin was cold.
“Of course not,” I said. And then, because I was confused, because I was a bit scared of his unusual intensity, I asked, “Do you regret the choices you made?”
“No,” he said. But his tone was so flat I wondered if he lied.
In the end, he didn’t come with Echea and me to St. Paul. He couldn’t face brain work, although I wished he had made an exception this time. Echea was more confident on this trip, more cheerful, and I watched her with a detachment I hadn’t thought I was capable of.
It was as if she were already gone.
This was what parenting was all about: the difficult painful choices, the irreversible choices with no easy answers, the second-guessing of the future with no help at all from the past. I held her hand tightly this time while she wandered ahead of me down the hallway.
I was the one with fear.
Ronald greeted us at the door to his office. His smile, when he bestowed it on Echea, was sad.
He already knew our choice. I had made my husband contact him. I wanted that much participation from Echea’s other parent.
Surprised? I sent.
He shook his head. It is the choice your family always makes.
He looked at me for a long moment, as if he expected a response, and when I said nothing, he crouched in front of Echea. “Your life will be different after today,” he said.
“Momma—” and the word was a gift, a first, a never-to-be repeated blessing—“said it would be better.”
“And mothers are always right,” he said. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I have to take you from her this time.”
“I know,” Echea said brightly. “But you’ll bring me back. It’s a procedure.”
“That’s right,” he said, looking at me over her head. “It’s a procedure.”
He waited just a moment, the silence deep between us. I think he meant for me to change my mind. But I did not. I could not.
It was for the best.
Then he nodded once, stood, and took Echea’s hand. She gave it to him as willingly, as trustingly, as she had given it to me.
He led her into the back room.
At the doorway, she stopped and waved.
And I never saw her again.
Oh, we have a child living with us, and her name is Echea. She is a wonderful vibrant creature, as worthy of our love and our heritage as our natural daughters.
But she is not the child of my heart.
My husband likes her better now, and Ronald never mentions her. He has redoubled his efforts on his research.
He is making no progress.
And I’m not sure I want him to.
She is a happy, healthy child with a wonderful future.
We made the right choice.
It was for the best.
Echea’s best.
My husband says she will grow into the perfect woman.
Like me, he says.
She’ll be just like me.
She is such a vibrant child.
Why do I miss the wounded sullen girl who rarely smiled?
Why was she the child of my heart?