Chapter 12 - Jenna Chose Without An Audience
Jenna signed the consent six days later.
I did not watch.
Neither did Ryan.
Neither did Evelyn.
She asked me to drive her to the attorney's office and wait downstairs.
So I waited downstairs.
Forty-eight minutes.
Longest forty-eight minutes of my life, and it was not my child.
When Jenna came out, she carried June.
For one irrational second, I thought that meant she had changed her mind.
Then Hannah and Luke came through the doors behind her.
Hannah had been crying.
So had Luke.
Jenna looked hollow.
Not regretful.
Not relieved.
Just wrung out.
I stood.
She handed me her car keys.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
Hannah stepped toward her.
Stopped.
Jenna noticed.
Then hugged her.
Luke looked away.
I did too.
The transfer happened later according to the legal schedule they had already arranged.
Not in a parking lot.
Not in some dramatic passing of a baby from one woman to another.
By that evening, Jenna returned to the hotel alone.
I stayed.
She ordered Thai food.
Ate three bites.
Went into the bathroom.
Turned on the shower.
Then sat on the closed toilet lid without getting in.
I sat on the floor outside.
Door open.
She said:
“I want her back.”
My chest tightened.
I did not tell her she could.
Did not tell her she couldn't.
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
A minute later:
“No.”
Then she cried.
“I don't know.”
I stayed.
After a while she said:
“Was I wrong?”
I hated the question.
“I don't know.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You're getting really good at that.”
“I mean it.”
She wiped her face.
“What if Ryan was right?”
“He wasn't right to do what he did.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“He might be right that I regret it.”
“Yes.”
She stared.
I continued.
“Regret doesn't automatically mean the decision was wrong.”
She cried harder.
Maybe that was the one thing she needed permission to believe.
The next morning she called Hannah.
Not to reverse anything.
To ask for a photo when everyone felt ready.
Hannah said yes.
That was all.
Ryan did not call Jenna.
Evelyn did.
Jenna didn't answer.
Two days later, Evelyn texted:
I love you. I am trying not to turn that into an argument.
Jenna showed me.
“Mom definitely had help writing that.”
“Probably.”
She almost smiled.
Then:
“I’m not answering yet.”
“You don't have to.”
A week later, Jenna flew back to Arizona.
She really had been living there.
At least that part had been true.
At the airport she hugged me.
Then said:
“I’m sorry I left the baby in your life like a grenade.”
I shook my head.
“You didn't.”
She looked at me.
“Ryan did?”
“Ryan pulled the pin.”
She laughed.
Then winced.
“Too soon?”
“Probably.”
She walked toward security.
Before disappearing, she turned.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Don't stay married to him because he wanted a baby.”
“I won't.”
“And don't leave him just because I placed mine.”
I stared.
She shrugged.
“Seemed fair.”
Then she was gone.
I stood at the terminal window after her plane left.
My marriage remained exactly where she'd left it.
May you like
Mine to decide.
Which suddenly felt much harder than being furious.
