Selena Kitt - Crazy About the Baumgartners

I didn’t know if there was or wasn’t a God. I didn’t know if this was a punishment or some horrible, random act. I just knew things would never be the same again.

The Baumgartners had generously given me my own laptop for Christmas, but the photo software I had installed wasn’t anywhere near as good as the computer in Doc’s office. He had Photoshop on that machine and his own laptop, but I didn’t want to ask them to spend another gazillion dollars to put it on mine too, so I just used the computer in the office.

It was hard walking into that room. Holly’s bedroom. I thought of it that way still, even though it had been months since she slept here. The walls were now taupe, the mural painted over, the ceiling an off-white that was almost gray, and Doc’s office furniture had been moved back in. It was an office again, and all traces of the baby had been erased. Carrie and I had packed up all her sweet, little pink baby things and boxed them. The social worker promised she would give them to Holly’s grandmother. The baby furniture, purchased new, had gone to Goodwill.

I sat at Doc’s desk, turning on the computer. Poor Holly. The judge had ruled, just like Doc said he would, to award permanent custody of the baby to her paternal grandmother in Manti, Utah. I liked to think that maybe she was going to have a great life out there, that her grandmother would love her and care for her because they shared the same blood. But if being blood related made people kinder to each other, Holly never would have come to us in the first place.

“Gretchen?” Carrie called from downstairs. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute!” I plugged my camera in, waiting for the pictures to load, smiling as Janie and Henry’s smiling mugs popped up, one after another.

Their mother’s birthday had been a grand occasion so far, between dinner out and a beautiful cake Doc had picked up from the local bakery. Sometimes I thought we should stop celebrating birthdays once we started to feel old, because no one liked them much anymore, except those who still were young. Carrie’s birthday had been far more fun for Janie and Henry so far than it had been for her. Not that she minded, I don’t think. She’d agreed to celebrate for them, because they wanted it, not because she did.

I loaded the photos onto the computer and then cleared the camera, making room for more photos. We still had to eat cake and Carrie had to open her gifts. I had to get pictures of that.

Downstairs, Janie and Henry were fighting over which of them would get the biggest frosted red rose on Carrie’s birthday cake. There was no age on it, just “Happy Birthday, Mom.” We’d talked about this upcoming birthday and Carrie said she was dreading it.

“Why?” I’d asked.

“Because it’s just one more year on the planet. And now every year, I’ll be thinking, I wonder what she looks like now? I wonder what she did this year?”

I just hugged her. There was nothing more to say.

The Baumgartners had requested they be notified about Holly once a year-just a picture, an update, something-but the grandmother had refused. They never even met the grandmother so couldn’t appeal to her compassion or consideration. A lawyer handled all the court appearances and paperwork, and when the judge decided and we had to give Holly back, a social worker came to the house to get her, later taking her on her first plane ride to Utah.

“Oh Doc, do we have to do candles?” Carrie complained.

“But if you don’t blow out the candles, you don’t get a birthday wish,” Henry said, aghast, as if giving up your birthday wish was akin to death.

“Oh all right.” She smiled indulgently, ruffling Henry’s dark hair.

“Let me do it!” Henry grabbed the candles-a number three and a number two-from his father, putting them on the cake.

“Oh, hey, look at that, I’m twenty-three.” Carrie grinned, turning the cake to show me. “I’m younger than you, Gretchen.”

“You got them backwards, big guy.” Doc laughed.

“Oops.” Henry flushed, pulling them out and reversing them.

“Get the lights, Janie,” her father said.

We all sang the “Happy Birthday” song, warbly and off-key, but Carrie’s eyes were shining with love as she looked around at all of us. She was happier than I’d seen her in a long time, and I was glad Doc had insisted we make a big deal of this day.

“Make a wish!” Henry insisted.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and blew out the candles.

“Okay, who wants cake?” She picked up the knife.

“I want that rose!” Henry pointed at the biggest, fattest one and the argument began anew. In the end, she split it right down the middle, which satisfied neither child because compromise was just two people agreeing to something neither of them wanted.

We ate cake and ice cream-Neapolitan, because Doc loved strawberry, the kids’ chocolate and Carrie vanilla. And me, I loved all three flavors mixed together in the bowl, all creamy and melty in my mouth.

“Presents! Presents!” Henry insisted, dragging his mother into the family room where they were piled up on the table. All of them were from Doc, even the ones he took the kids to the mall to choose, because of course he’d paid for them. There was just one from me and it wasn’t on the table. She opened them all-new slippers, Bath and Bodyworks lotion, a brand new juicer and more toys for the kitchen like a rice cooker and a food chopper. She’d taken to cooking big, gourmet meals, since she’d reduced her hours to part-time at the real estate office.

All the presents were opened when Doc pulled another out of his pocket, handing it to her.

“Oh Doc, you shouldn’t have!” Carrie exclaimed, lifting the necklace he’d bought her out of its box. “This is beautiful!”

“There are three birthstones.” He showed her. “One for Janie, one for Henry, one for Holly.”

“Thank you.” She looked up at him with shining eyes.

He took the necklace from her hands, going around the back of the sofa to put it around her neck. Janie and Henry flanked her, watching their father with big eyes.

“Because she’ll always be part of our family,” Doc murmured, kissing her cheek as he let the necklace dangle between her breasts. “Never forgotten.”

Carrie put her hand over his, on her shoulder, for just a moment, squeezing.

“I have something for you.” I stood, reaching for her hand, and she took it, looking at me curiously as I led her toward the stairs.

“Where are we going?” she asked, following me.

The kids and Doc were just behind her. Upstairs, the hallway was lined with framed photographs Doc had taken of the kids over the years. Carrie had gone a little overboard with the amount of pictures she had framed and put on the wall, and I teased her about “the gallery” but she claimed she always had such a hard time deciding which picture she liked best, so she just framed them all.

“Can you find it?” I smiled, squeezing her hand. “It’s like Where’s Waldo… only it’s Where’s Holly?”

“Oh Gretchen.” She saw it almost right away. Doc had hung it for me before we left for dinner, making room halfway down the hall, between the bathroom and the office. I’d had to keep Carrie downstairs so she wouldn’t see him, which wasn’t easy because she kept asking what “all that damned pounding was going on up there.”

It was a photograph of Holly and Carrie on the beach. Mrs. B was holding her looking back at the camera, and Holly was over her shoulder, smiling in her little suit and sun hat. It was the perfect lighting, the perfect moment. I’d had it printed and had purchased a beautiful, ornate wire frame that spelled out the word “Mother” at the top and “Daughter” at the bottom.