The Things I Get to Keep
1. Escape
Just returned from the denturist with my sister. While there I was filling out forms with her when a woman came up to me: “Masha, you don’t remember me.” I looked at her more closely and I did remember her. She said I gave her a most precious daughter who is now twenty-two. I hugged her and thanked her for caring for the baby; for loving her. I continued attending to the form. As she exited the office she turned to me and smiled: “I’ll always remember you.” She had no idea that I remembered everything; the emaciated infant lying on the gurney, the loose skin folds on her thin thighs, sunken cheeks, wary expression, came to me in detail. I remembered how thrilled I was when I heard her weak whimper like a kitten. She hadn’t given up. One woman forgot to feed her because she just didn’t have the time; another woman did, though.
I considered running away, even though there was no “away” and never has been, but I had to stay with my sister during her appointment. Now, we are home and I am looking for the escape hatch.
2. Swagger
It was the sixteen-year-old boy swagger that did it. All I wanted was to buy some jam and bread for toast the next morning when I dashed into the store last evening. Long ago a nurse showed me a day old baby boy whose body was convulsing from amphetamine withdrawal. At the store I glimpsed his new mom even though I always look down wherever I go. We smiled hello. She yelled to the boy: ”Come here! This is the lady who brought you to me. You were wrapped in THREE blankets!” So funny! We looked into each other’s eyes. I hadn’t seen those eyes since he was one day old; I never, ever would have recognized him. He had been told my name all of his life by his new mom as part of his life story and now he saw my face. “Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you, too.” And I thought, “He will remember me in his dreams.’
I hurried to the Express Check-Out; the heck with strawberry jam. As he passed by me, he ignored me in full teen boy swagger mode filled with toughness, vulnerability, confusion and angst. He didn’t care one bit for two old ladies; one who cared once, the other who has adored him since she first saw him swaddled in three blankets. I loved that swagger.
3. Recovery
Last night I was ferried away across the River Styx by surprise. I attended a reading in the Flag Room at Columbia Library by a sweet natured author from Portland. She read an excerpt from her new, joyful novel about a little girl who put a secret message in bottle and threw it into the Willamette River. It came to rest under the pier where the ferry docks in Westport on the Oregon side. It was then I was ferried away.
Many years ago a newborn came to his final rest in the cold water under the same pier. The crime lab had extracted DNA from bone tissue, but it was inconclusive due to degradation. A placenta with a severed stub of umbilical cord was in the hospital waste, discarded from a procedure completed within the appropriate time-frame. Potential, valuable evidence was retrievable. Deborah Hanley, the DA, slapped her forehead when I informed her a placenta has the same DNA as a neonate’s body. She took no action to secure it. The criminal case derailed. The baby would not have his place in human history; he would belong to no one forever. Deborah chose to conceal her embarrassment over her lack of knowledge. She let the truth drown and drift into a cold case.
I remember muted sounds of applause as I hurried out of the Library, dashed to my car, slipped behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. The silence of that interior was always comforting.
All night long, alone, I found my way back to that other shore, the one with clean sand and the rhythmic lapping of peaceful, delicate waves.
Martha Ellen resides alone in the Pacific northwest. She likes it that way. Relocated from Chicago in 1972. Old hippie. Retired social worker. History of social justice activism. MFA. Poems and prose published in various journals and online forums. She writes to process her wild life.