Pickle Flavor Binge: Giving
Title: Giving
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Pickle flavor binge, malt (Summer Challenge 2010 111: (brownie) make a brownie out of one of your pocky/a segment from a pocky chain), brownie, butterscotch, cookie crumbs (of Ahava and the last segment of Warm Strangers.
Word Count: 5937
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Arelie and Maria Jackson.
Notes: Malt challenge, butterscotch! Ow, my fingers.
WARNING: This fic discusses miscarriage and infertility in detail. First post ate the warning, sorry!
4. eating for two
Someone was sobbing at the registers.
Maria Jackson abandoned her cart and sprinted for the front of the store, whispering prayers under her breath. It was not so very long ago that she had cried in that lost, heartbroken manner, and oh God, please God, please let it be something else, not what had happened to her but something, anything, else...
She rounded the corner of the aisle and saw, to her slight relief, that the woman bent over the counter had no pool of blood around her feet, nor anything in those hopeless sobs but despair. But she was visibly pregnant, and oh, heaven help them both...
Maria realized just before she reached the woman that she probably should not put her arm around the shoulders of a complete stranger, and settled for touching her shoulder lightly. "Are you all right?" she asked, urgently. "Are you in pain? Bleeding?"
The woman looked up, startlement swimming under tears in deep hazel eyes. "Oh, I... no..."
"Ma'am," the slightly frightened clerk said, "um, maybe I could run it again?"
The tears overflowed again, and the woman put her head back down, pressed her hand over her mouth and choked on a sob. "N-no," she said, and wiped at her eyes. "No. That's all right. I should have-- I'll just-- I'll put these back, I'm sorry."
"I'll pay for it," Maria heard herself saying. She dug in her purse for a moment, and handed over the first credit card she could find. "Here. I've got it. It's all right."
The woman stared at her, eyes very wide, tears still streaking her face. "I... I..."
The clerk, wisely deciding that he did not want to be in the middle of this, swiped Maria's card and began to bag the few groceries on the counter. It really wasn't very much-- a loaf of bread, some milk, a few assorted fruits. Not nearly what a pregnant woman should be eating. Maria swallowed down some disapproving words, accepted her card back from the clerk, and turned to the woman. "Come on," she said, kindly. "You look like you need a shoulder."
The woman's mouth wobbled, and she visibly bit back another spate of tears. "If you don't mind," she said, quietly.
"Not at all." It wasn't as if she needed to go shopping today-- that had mostly been distraction. "There's a nice park across the street. Let's go sit there."
3. and baby makes 3
The park, Maria thought, had been a good idea. The woman's eyes had welled up again at the sight of a small, rounded hill crowned with sunlight, but when they reached a bench and sat down, she tipped her face to the sun and visibly relaxed.
So did Maria. If she was calming down now, it couldn't be... what she'd feared.
"So," she said, after a few moments. "I'm Maria Jackson. What's your name?"
"Arelie," the woman replied, without opening her eyes. "Arelie Koch."
"Arelie," Maria repeated. "What a lovely name."
Arelie opened her eyes and gave Maria a slightly wobbly smile that was, nevertheless, a smile. "It's Hebrew," she said. "It means brave. My mother wanted to give me a strong name." Her hands went to her belly without apparent conscious thought. "I... I don't know how true it is."
Maria had no idea what to do with that, so she went to the heart of the question, the thing she'd been wondering since she saw Arelie bent over at the register. "What's wrong?" she asked, quietly. "Is it the baby?"
"No," Arelie said, and began to cry again, less violently. "And yes. And no."
Maria, hesitantly, reached up and put an arm around Arelie's shoulders. The other woman neither flinched nor moved away, so she tightened it just a bit, reassuringly. "Want to talk about it?"
Arelie did.
6. baby blues
In some ways, it was a familiar story. Pregnant unexpectedly, unable to get a job, unable even to find a place to live, Arelie had seen that declined credit card as the culmination of her failure. In some ways, it was even more heartbreaking-- Arelie loved the child, wanted it desperately, but had no idea how she could possibly keep it. "I can't pay for prenatal care," she said, sobbing into Maria's shoulder. "I don't even know if I can pay for the delivery. How am I going to take care of this baby?"
Maria said nothing during the long flood of words, only kept that arm around Arelie's shoulder and occasionally patted her back reassuringly. A plan had started to take form.
She knew how it felt, to feel a total failure. She knew how it felt to want something so desperately you felt you'd die, and yet have no way of getting it. She knew. Maybe... maybe there was a way...
After a long time, Arelie's words and tears ran out. She rested quietly on Maria's shoulder, occasionally letting out a hiccupping sob, before finally sitting up and rubbing at her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You must think I'm an idiot."
"I don't," Maria said, letting her arm drop to her side. "Not at all. I..." She hesitated, bit her lip. "Do you know what you'll do?"
Arelie shrugged, and put both hands on her belly. "No," she said, quietly. "I can't get a job until the baby's born, and I can't have the baby unless I get a job, and..." She stopped, swallowed hard. "I don't have any choices, do I?"
It was the helpless little ache in Arelie's voice that decided Maria. "You have a choice," she said. "I can't have children."
She said it so abruptly that it was possible Arelie didn't understand her at first. Maria couldn't really blame her, but she had to say it fast, had to push the words out or she would never say them. She hadn't even been able to tell Lawrence; she'd had to get the doctor to do it, because she couldn't stop crying long enough, and after... the words just hadn't seemed possible.
After a minute, Arelie said, "Oh," in a small voice. "I'm sorry."
"The doctor called it an incompetent cervix," Maria said, gripping the slats of the bench, feeling the splinters bite into her palms and trying desperately not to remember. "I can get pregnant. I can even keep it for a few months. Then..." She swallowed. Then the awful cramps, then the blood, then crying the bathroom because it had happened again, no matter how careful she'd been.
"Then," Arelie echoed. She put her own arm around Maria's shoulders, and squeezed. "I'm so sorry."
"I feel like dying every time," she said. "I... my husband, Lawrence, when we found out, he said no more. He was right to. I can't take any more miscarriages. I know it. But I want children so desperately I feel like crying every time I think about it." She took a deep breath, stared up at the brilliant green of the late-summer leaves, the flashes of clear blue sky that flickered through as the trees moved in a light breeze. "We hadn't talked about it, but... Arelie, maybe we could take your baby."
Arelie pulled back abruptly, with a small gasp.
Maria let her go. Honestly, she hadn't expected a different reaction. Here she was, a total stranger-- well, maybe not quite a total stranger, but certainly not a friend-- offering from the blue to take an obviously beloved child from its mother. If that was maybe for the best, well, who was she to say that?
But she wanted a child so badly. And Arelie needed help, so badly.
"We'd pay your medical expenses," she said, into the heavy silence. "All of them, from prenatal care to recovery. And we'd pay for any other costs. You could even stay with us, until the baby's born, if you wanted. To sort of audition us as parents." She took another deep breath, her throat hurting. "And you wouldn't need to go, if you didn't want to. I know someone who put her baby up for adoption-- they went with an open adoption. She sees her son every few weeks. They go out for dinner and everything. We could do that, if you wanted. We could do anything you wanted."
The silence went on, and Maria finally looked away from the sky through the trees, at Arelie's startled, frightened face. "I know you don't know me," she said. "I know you probably don't want to know me anymore. But... I think, I think we could help you." Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes; she blinked them back, hard, and held Arelie's gaze. "Please, please let me help you."
Arelie took a shuddering breath, then turned away, stared up at the trees for her own interminable time. Maria, beside her, stifled the brief flash of hope and resigned herself to disappointment. Any moment now, Arelie would decide that she was crazy, and would get up and walk away. She'd probably always wonder what had happened to the poor woman who'd cried on her shoulder...
"Could I change my mind?" Arelie asked, tentatively.
Maria jerked, startled to realize she hadn't left. "I... of course you could," she said. It hurt her throat to say it, but that was the right of every woman. "Any time. You can walk away, any time, and we won't... no repercussions. Nothing. It's up to you."
There was another long, silent moment, broken only by the breeze.
"All right," Arelie said. "All right." She let out a long breath that ended on a faint, choked sob. "I must be crazy. I must be insane. All right."
"No crazier than me," Maria said, and felt hope, for the first time since.
12. in a family way
"Are you insane," Lawrence hissed, putting one hand flat on the tiled kitchen counter and leaning towards her.
"Probably," Maria said, sitting down beside him. "Keep your voice down. She's only in the living room."
Her husband rolled his eyes, but obediently lowered his voice. "Maria, we don't know the first thing about her. She could be a psychopath, for heaven's sake!"
"She is not a psychopath," Maria snapped. "I am sure of that."
"Maria--" He stopped, sighed, and pressed a finger to the spot between his brows that she knew always ached when he got exasperated. "Maria, you told me yourself that you don't know anything about this woman except that her name is Arelie Koch and that she's pregnant."
"And that she's homeless," Maria corrected him, quietly. "And that she's alone in the world, with no one to help her. And that she can't take care of her baby." She paused, swallowed down a lump in her throat. "And that we could."
"Maria..." he began, again.
She threw her hands up. "Is this some kind of lawyer thing?" she demanded. "Do they teach you to overuse your clients' names?"
"You tell me," Lawrence snapped. "You're the patent attorney."
"And you're the public defender," she retorted. "Aren't you supposed to have a little compassion?"
Lawrence pressed that spot between his brows again. "Maria, think. Facts. What do you actually know about Arelie Koch? And I mean know, not guessed or inferred from what she's told you."
Oh, that was rich, Lawrence telling her to use her head. She bit back a retort regarding who had proposed to whom on the first date and instead said, "All right. Fact. She's pregnant."
"Fairly self-evident," he said. "I'll accept that one, Counselor."
"Fact," Maria said. "She has no money."
He raised a finger. "Objection-- inference based solely on witness statements."
"Seriously?" she demanded. "You're really going to treat this like a trial?"
"Humor me," Lawrence said, in a tone with no room for discussion.
Fine, then. She rolled her eyes, but went on. "Remember the part where I met her because her credit card declined? She didn't have any others, Lawrence, and she wasn't buying all that much. If she has money, she doesn't have more than about thirty dollars."
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded, cautiously. "All right, objection withdrawn."
"Fact," she said. "I want children so badly I cry at night and... and I know you do too. Lawrence, she could be the only way we'll ever have a baby."
Her husband looked up at that, concern running deep in his eyes. "Oh, Maria. You don't know that."
She swallowed back an inappropriate burst of tears. "Yes, I do. Please, Lawrence. What can it hurt? It's not like we need the money."
He stood, slowly, and spread his hands. "You, Maria. I'm afraid it'll hurt you. What if she has her baby and decides she doesn't want to give it up after all?"
"Then that's her right," Maria replied, as serenely as she could given the screaming terrors the thought gave her.
"Yes," Lawrence said, "but what will that do to you? I don't want to see that. I don't want you to go through that. I'd rather go through a reputable adoption agency and be done."
He had a point, but... Maria remembered Arelie weeping on her shoulder, and turned toward the living room door, barely ajar. Arelie sat in there now, in the rocking chair she'd gotten before. But.
"We could do that," she said. "But then nobody would help Arelie. Lawrence, if nothing else, we have to help her."
He was silent for a long moment, then said, "All right. Fine. Have it your way. But Maria, I will not see you hurt lightly."
She thought of Arelie's face again, and was somehow sure that if she was hurt, it would not be at all lightly.
7. bun in the oven
"Blue or pink?" Maria asked, over breakfast.
Lawrence, who never woke up fully until he'd had at least one cup of coffee, blinked blearily at her. "What?"
"For the baby's room," Maria said, none too patiently. "Blue or pink? Or maybe yellow. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, so we'd better not judge. Maybe I should wait until after the sonogram?"
"Maybe you should wait until..." Lawrence cut off as Arelie sidestepped shyly into the kitchen. He looked at her for a long, silent moment, then picked up his mug and said, "I'm late. I have to go get dressed."
"Lawrence," Maria said, in her most disapproving tones, but he'd already escaped to their bedroom. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and turned back to Arelie. "I'm sorry about him. He can be such a lawyer sometimes."
Arelie shrugged, and linked her hands together over the increasingly prominent swell of her belly. "It's all right," she replied. "I wouldn't trust me either, if I was him. Sometimes it just takes a while."
"It's not all right," Maria said. "It's been a month. He's had a while." She directed a disgusted glance towards her bedroom. "He's just being overcautious."
Arelie stayed silent for long enough that Maria looked up sharply at her. She stood at the window, staring out, an utterly unreadable expression on her face.
"Arelie?" Maria asked. "Are you all right?"
She blinked, shook herself, and said, "Yes. I'm fine. He thinks I'm going to change my mind."
Something under Maria's heart clenched, hard. She managed to keep it from showing, though, and said only, neutrally, "Well, that's your right. Come on, it's almost time for your six-month appointment."
2. It’s a girl
"Here we go," the technician said, sliding the monitor over Arelie's belly. "One baby picture, coming right up."
"That looks disgusting," Maria said, meaning the gel.
Arelie looked down at her belly, and nodded. "It feels pretty disgusting too," she said. "And cold."
"Sorry," the technician said, with inappropriate cheer. "We need it if you want to see the baby. We... ah, there we go!"
Both women's heads snapped towards the screen. After a moment, Maria said, "I can't see anything."
The technician chuckled. "You just don't know what you're looking at," he said. "Look, here's the head, and the arms, ooh, and there's a foot." He looked down at Arelie, wide-eyed and staring at the screen. "Congratulations, you're probably having a girl."
"Oh," Arelie whispered. She swallowed, and wiped a hand across her face. "A girl?"
"A girl," Maria echoed, looking at the vague traces on the screen. A girl. A little girl with hair to braid, hands to hold, knees to bandage when she scraped them up. A girl.
The picture moved suddenly, and the technician laughed. "Did you feel that?" he asked Arelie. "She kicked."
Arelie ignored him. Her hands had come up to fold around the bottom of her belly, and a desperate longing settled into her face, an expression that it hurt Maria to see. Maybe this was it-- maybe she'd turn over now and say, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm keeping my baby and what could Maria say to that, except let them both go?
Arelie did not roll over, did not even look away from the screen, but she did say, "You'll take care of her." It was not a question.
Maria had to push the words past the lump in her throat. "I will," she said. "Always."
Arelie reached out and took Maria's hand in hers, squeezing tight. The technician looked back and forth between them, but mercifully said nothing.
1. It’s a boy
Arab, Alabama was the smallest town Maria had ever lived in, and she'd long since resigned herself to everyone knowing everyone else's business. Her infertility had somehow flown under the radar, but the strange pregnant woman living in her house most definitely had not. Nor had it escaped the town's collective attention that this was the same woman she'd rescued at the grocery store.
Her well-meaning friends told her all the rumors, from the somewhat pedestrian one that claimed Arelie was a relative sent to have an inconvenient baby far away from anyone who knew her, to the frankly bizarre one that named Arelie Lawrence's pregnant mistress who he'd brought home. Maria didn't even know what the originator of that story thought of her, but she was pretty sure it wasn't flattering.
Ah, well. Rumors she could handle, and even occasionally laugh over sometimes, in bed with Lawrence or making dinner with Arelie. But that wasn't the only thing the town talked about.
The same friends who passed on the rumors also told Maria all sorts of horrifying stories, stories practically designed to change her mind about all this adoption nonsense. From flaky birth mothers changing their minds and disappearing with the resulting child, to furious birth fathers showing up three years in and suing for their child. It was this last story, and the resulting nightmares, that finally drove her to Arelie's room.
Arelie was sitting in the rocking chair at the window, staring blank-eyed out of it as was her wont, when Maria came in. She hesitated, then cleared her throat. "Arelie," she said, as gently as she could through the fear choking her. Arelie looked up inquiringly.
"I need to know about the baby's father," Maria said, and Arelie's face shut down.
Before she could close up entirely, Maria continued. "It's not because of you. It's because of him. I'm so afraid he'll come and take her away from me after. I..." The fear rose up, and she put her hand to her mouth, blinking back tears. They were so close, so close, and if somebody came to take her baby... "You can change your mind," she said. "I've accepted that. You're her mother until the day you tell me otherwise, and I am fine with that. But if he comes..." Her throat closed over, and she could say no more.
Whatever Arelie saw in her face then, it apparently convinced her that Maria was in earnest, because she sighed, and stroked a hand over her belly. "You won't need to worry about him," she said, very quietly. "He doesn't know where I am. He never even knew I was pregnant."
Maria blinked, and sat down on the bed. "He... what? You didn't tell him?"
Arelie pressed her lips together, tightly, her expression one of indescribable grief. "No. Not exactly. I didn't know I was pregnant when he... when I left him."
There was a story here, and Maria was somehow certain that all the pain Arelie was hiding lay behind it. She folded her hands in her lap and asked, "Tell me?"
13. bundle of joy
Arelie didn't look at her at all, just kept staring out the window with her eyes on the horizon. "He was married," she said, flatly. "Not to me. The baby's father, I mean."
Maria opened her mouth, then shut it again. "Ah," she said, finally. "I see."
"No, you don't," Arelie said, and laughed a little. It sounded more like a sob. "I loved him, Maria. I knew I shouldn't, I knew the whole time that what we were doing was wrong, but... but I loved him, more than anything I've ever loved in my whole life. I still do. And I thought, I really think he loved me like that too." She looked down at her belly now, absently stroking it.
The silence this time stretched on so long Maria was sure her nerves would snap. Finally, she said, "Tell me about him. Please."
That got a smile from Arelie-- a genuine smile, one of the first Maria had ever seen from her. "Oh, he was wonderful. Farid-- that was his name, Farid Amala-- he was the first man who ever treated me like I mattered. Like I had thoughts and emotions and... oh, I can't describe it. When I was with him, he paid attention to me. He... he cared."
Maria thought of Lawrence, who, as close-minded and frustrating and absentminded as he could be, had never given her less than his full attention. "I think I understand," she said.
"Yes, you would," Arelie said. "I've seen you and Lawrence when you don't think I'm looking. You love each other."
"When did..." Maria cut that question off before it could start. Derailing, not a good idea. "Yes. We do."
"That's why I'm leaving my baby with you," Arelie said. She looked at Maria for the first time in the conversation, her eyes clear and, if pained, at least certain. "Farid would have left his wife for me, but... he had children, Maria. Five children, and another on the way. I couldn't let him leave his children, so I left." She looked away again, out the window. "I didn't realize... I suspected, but I didn't realize I was pregnant until a month or so later."
That explained... so much, particularly her distance and the way she looked so far away, looking for something-- or someone, rather-- who was no longer where they should be. "Would you have told him if you did know?"
Arelie was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "No. I... no. I don't think so."
Maria nodded, then got up off the bed, went over to kneel by the rocking chair, and put her arms around Arelie's shoulders.
Arelie didn't cry, but it was a very near thing.
11. pickles & ice cream
Lawrence meandered through the kitchen on his way to the backyard, and stopped dead when he got a good look at Maria's lunch. "What the hell is that?" he demanded.
Maria looked down at her plate, then back up at Lawrence, confused. "It's a tuna and banana sandwich," she said.
"What," he said, flatly.
She sighed. "Look, Arelie had a craving for it this morning, and I had a taste while I was making it, and it was actually really good, all right?"
Lawrence opened and closed his mouth several times before finally saying, "You know she's the one who's pregnant, right?"
"Oh, shut up," she said, and took a healthy bite of her sandwich.
8. baby on board
"Maria?" Arelie said.
The high-pitched tension in her voice gave her away. Maria looked up sharply and caught a frozen, frightened expression on Arelie's face. "What?" she asked, dropping her book. "What is it? Are you all right?" Fear clutched her heart. "Is it..."
"It's the baby," Arelie interrupted. "Now."
"What..." Maria said, and then Arelie's full meaning sank in. "Now? But I thought you weren't due for weeks!"
"I don't think she cares," Arelie said, then clutched at the doorframe. "Ow, Maria, now!"
Maria got to her feet and made herself breathe, deeply. "Okay. Okay. How long have you been having contractions?"
"Um." Arelie looked a little ashamed of herself. "All night, I think... don't look at me like that, I thought it was false labor! Um, until my water broke."
"Well, hell," Maria said. "All right, go get the bag. I'll call Lawrence and tell him to meet us at the hospital."
Arelie looked a little more ashamed.
"Oh, Lord," Maria said. "How long ago did your water break?"
"An hour ago," Arelie said, meekly. "I didn't want to be any bother."
That did not deserve an answer. "Get in the car," Maria said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll call him from the hospital."
5. labor & delivery
Lawrence paced back and forth in the sterile white hospital room, restlessly, flicking his thumb endlessly against his forefinger. Maria would have laughed at him, except she would dearly have loved to join him. Anything to get rid of all the anxiety building up.
Arelie, meanwhile, looked as if she'd very much like to be anywhere else. And Maria could not at all blame her.
"When... is the doctor... coming?" she panted. Her face was red and sheened with sweat under the bright white fluorescent lights, her lip dented from biting, tendrils of her hair stuck to her neck. Four red crescents stood out against the pale skin of her palm where her nails had bitten in.
Poor girl. "Soon," Maria assured her, stroking her hair. "Hang in there."
"Uh-huh," Arelie said. "Easy for you to... ah!" She clamped down on Maria's hand.
Lawrence was immediately at their side. "Bad one?" he asked. "Should I go kidnap you a doctor?"
"Please," Arelie said, but Maria shook her head.
"Better not," she advised her husband. "I'd hate for you to go to jail today of all days."
"That's true," he said, got up, and started pacing again.
Ten minutes later, Arelie said, "This. Is not. Soon. Aah!"
"That's it," Lawrence said, and headed for the door. He got there just as it opened, and narrowly missed getting hit in the face.
The doctor strode in, clapping his hands briskly, all beaming smiles and slightly obnoxious cheer. "Well, then," he boomed. "What have we here?"
"It's about time," Maria snapped. "She's been in labor for hours!"
"You'll be the family, then," the doctor said. "Don't worry, these things take time. Legs open, Miss Koch, let's have a look."
Arelie went a bright, painful-looking red, but spread her legs obediently. Lawrence, at the other end of the room, turned around fast.
The doctor snapped on a pair of gloves and poked around for a moment, then announced, "Nine centimeters dilated. Good enough for me. Nurse!" A harassed-looking woman poked her head in the door, and he continued, "Let's prep this woman and get her to delivery, please."
"Finally," Arelie said, and let her head fall back.
"You're not done yet," the doctor said, and smiled at her. "But you're getting there. Courage, Miss Koch, it's almost over."
The nurse came in with a gurney, and helped Arelie maneuver herself onto it. "There you go, dearie," she said, with a smile of her own. "Delivery room B, doctor."
"All right, off you go," he said, and when both Lawrence and Maria moved to follow, added, "Not you two. Waiting room's down the hall."
"But..." Lawrence began.
"She shouldn't..." Maria said.
"I want Maria," Arelie said, her voice quite level and calm and yet somehow carrying across the room. "This is her baby. I want her there."
Somewhat to his credit, the doctor didn't bat an eye at that, although the nurse looked startled. "Well... it's against regulations, but... all right." He nodded to Maria. "You'll have to come scrub up with me. Sir, waiting room's down the hall."
Arelie reached out and caught Maria's hand as she passed, following the doctor. "You'll be there?" she asked, half-begging.
"I'll be there," Maria promised, and squeezed her hand.
10. ten tiny toes
Maria didn't remember much of the delivery itself. It was bloody and painful-looking and by the end of it, Arelie didn't have much of a voice left to scream with.
She refused to let go of Maria's hand. That much she did remember. Arelie biting her lip until it bled and clinging to Maria's hand like a lifeline. The doctor keeping up a constant stream of reassurances, the nurses putting in occasional words, everything blurring into the brilliant white lights and sterile walls and Arelie's blood on the doctor's gloves and then...
"Whoops," the doctor said. "Little fast there, baby!" He stood up from between Arelie's legs, a small, bloody, squashed and sobbing thing in his arms. "Here she is! Congratulations, ladies, a gorgeous little girl." He reached to hand the baby to Arelie.
She made a violent motion and pushed backwards. "No," she said. "No. She's Maria's baby. No."
The doctor hesitated, then shrugged, turned, and handed the little girl to Maria.
She should be worrying about Arelie, Maria knew. That reaction was... not good, if she didn't even want to touch her little girl. But...
But this was Maria's little girl. That much was true. And oh, how beautiful she was.
"She's healthy?" she heard herself asking, staring down into that small, angry face.
"Perfectly," the doctor said. "Keep pushing, my dear, you've still got the afterbirth in there. Ten fingers, ten toes, full complement of limbs, good set of lungs, good Lord, can't you hear her?"
Maria could. And she could see her. And there was nothing, nothing in the world to compare.
Her little girl.
15. (s)he has your eyes
"What do you want to name her?" Maria asked, some hours later.
They were sitting together in Arelie's recovery room. The baby was still in Maria's arms. Lawrence had taken one look at their new child and run out to do... something, possibly get drunk. Not that Maria minded. She wanted to talk to Arelie.
Arelie shrugged. "She's your daughter," she said, her voice utterly colorless.
Maria looked sharply up at her. "Yours too," she said. "You won't be out of her life, Arelie. You can still be her..." She faltered. Was there a word for what Arelie would be? Biological mother made her sound like a chemical spill.
But Arelie was already shaking her head, a queer little smile on her face. "No," she said. "I can't."
"You should name her," Maria insisted. She could argue the case later, when Arelie was better rested. "I won't take that away from you, at least."
Arelie hesitated for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Ahava. It means love." She paused another moment, then added, "Ahava Maria."
Maria blinked, and then bit back tears. "I... Arelie, I don't know that I deserve that."
"You're her mother," Arelie said. "And... Maria..." She stopped.
Maria waited for a long moment, then said, "Yes?" through a throat painfully tight.
Arelie swallowed. "You're the best friend I've ever had," she said. "Thank you. So much. Her name is Ahava Maria."
"Ahava Maria Jackson," Maria said, quietly. "Yes."
Arelie blinked rapidly, several times, and wiped a hand across her face. "I... could you take her to the nursery now?" she asked. "I'm tired. I... I want to sleep."
"All right," Maria said. She got up, Ahava Maria cradled carefully in her arms, then bent over Arelie and kissed her forehead. "Thank you, Arelie. You've given me something so extraordinary... I don't think I can ever tell you how much it means."
"I know," Arelie said. "Believe me."
14. cut the cord
Arelie signed over her parental rights that evening-- she said nothing more than she had to, and nothing at all to Maria.
"I'm worried about her," Maria said to Lawrence, in the car during the ride home.
He nodded, fingers tapping restlessly against the steering wheel. "Me too. She did not look well. Do you think we should get her to see a psychologist?"
"Probably a good idea," Maria said, feeling relieved.
"At our expense, of course," he added. "I mean, it's the least we could do." There was a long, silent moment, then he added, "My God, Maria. I never realized she'd be so..."
Maria reached out and put her hand on his. "I know," she said. "I know."
They spent the rest of the ride home in happy contemplation of their new daughter. Tonight was for Ahava, and a celebration. They'd help Arelie tomorrow.
They never got the chance.
The next day, Arelie was gone.
9. the stork
"Mom?" Ahava asked, coming up to the kitchen table. "How did you get me? And don't say the stork, I know that's not true."
Maria put down her pen and looked down her nose at her eldest daughter. "Just how do you know that, young lady?"
Ahava rolled her eyes. "Please, Mom. Everybody knows it. Jamie Barclay told me so in third grade."
"Jamie Barclay is a meddling busybody," Maria said, then sighed. "Anyway, we did not get you through the stork. I don't think I ever told you I got you through the stork."
"You did so," Ahava said. "I'm sure you did. I know you have to have sex to get a baby. So did you have sex with Dad?"
Oh, Christ. Maria was not having this conversation with her seven-year-old. "No," she said. "I did not have sex with your father to get you. Ahava, you remember when we told you that you were adopted?"
Ahava frowned. "Yeah, but... I don't really get what that means."
"It means you aren't my biological daughter," Maria said. "Someone else had sex to get you. Your biological mother." She swallowed, thinking of Arelie the last time she'd seen her, those devastated eyes. "She gave you to me and Dad. That's how we got you."
Ahava frowned even deeper. "Oh," she said, and then, in a small voice, "Did she not want me?"
"No," Maria said, more vehemently than she'd meant. "Oh, Ahava, precious, she wanted you so much. She just couldn't keep you. She gave you to us because she knew that we'd take care of you and love you, just like we do." She bent down and kissed her daughter's forehead. "She named you. Did you know that?"
"No," Ahava said. "What does that matter?"
"She named you Ahava," Maria began.
"I know that--"
"Let me finish, please," she said, gently. Ahava flushed, but nodded. "She named you Ahava. It means love, in Hebrew. Did you know that? She loved you very much, my darling." She hesitated. "I know it made her very sad to give you to us."
"Oh." Ahava thought about that for a moment, then said, "So the stork really did bring you."
Maria laughed. "A stork named Arelie Koch, yes, love."
"Arelie," Ahava said, as if tasting the name. She hesitated, then said, "Mom... will you tell me about her?"
"Of course," Maria said. She scooted her chair back from the table and patted her lap. "What do you want to know first?"
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Pickle flavor binge, malt (Summer Challenge 2010 111: (brownie) make a brownie out of one of your pocky/a segment from a pocky chain), brownie, butterscotch, cookie crumbs (of Ahava and the last segment of Warm Strangers.
Word Count: 5937
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Arelie and Maria Jackson.
Notes: Malt challenge, butterscotch! Ow, my fingers.
WARNING: This fic discusses miscarriage and infertility in detail. First post ate the warning, sorry!
4. eating for two
Someone was sobbing at the registers.
Maria Jackson abandoned her cart and sprinted for the front of the store, whispering prayers under her breath. It was not so very long ago that she had cried in that lost, heartbroken manner, and oh God, please God, please let it be something else, not what had happened to her but something, anything, else...
She rounded the corner of the aisle and saw, to her slight relief, that the woman bent over the counter had no pool of blood around her feet, nor anything in those hopeless sobs but despair. But she was visibly pregnant, and oh, heaven help them both...
Maria realized just before she reached the woman that she probably should not put her arm around the shoulders of a complete stranger, and settled for touching her shoulder lightly. "Are you all right?" she asked, urgently. "Are you in pain? Bleeding?"
The woman looked up, startlement swimming under tears in deep hazel eyes. "Oh, I... no..."
"Ma'am," the slightly frightened clerk said, "um, maybe I could run it again?"
The tears overflowed again, and the woman put her head back down, pressed her hand over her mouth and choked on a sob. "N-no," she said, and wiped at her eyes. "No. That's all right. I should have-- I'll just-- I'll put these back, I'm sorry."
"I'll pay for it," Maria heard herself saying. She dug in her purse for a moment, and handed over the first credit card she could find. "Here. I've got it. It's all right."
The woman stared at her, eyes very wide, tears still streaking her face. "I... I..."
The clerk, wisely deciding that he did not want to be in the middle of this, swiped Maria's card and began to bag the few groceries on the counter. It really wasn't very much-- a loaf of bread, some milk, a few assorted fruits. Not nearly what a pregnant woman should be eating. Maria swallowed down some disapproving words, accepted her card back from the clerk, and turned to the woman. "Come on," she said, kindly. "You look like you need a shoulder."
The woman's mouth wobbled, and she visibly bit back another spate of tears. "If you don't mind," she said, quietly.
"Not at all." It wasn't as if she needed to go shopping today-- that had mostly been distraction. "There's a nice park across the street. Let's go sit there."
3. and baby makes 3
The park, Maria thought, had been a good idea. The woman's eyes had welled up again at the sight of a small, rounded hill crowned with sunlight, but when they reached a bench and sat down, she tipped her face to the sun and visibly relaxed.
So did Maria. If she was calming down now, it couldn't be... what she'd feared.
"So," she said, after a few moments. "I'm Maria Jackson. What's your name?"
"Arelie," the woman replied, without opening her eyes. "Arelie Koch."
"Arelie," Maria repeated. "What a lovely name."
Arelie opened her eyes and gave Maria a slightly wobbly smile that was, nevertheless, a smile. "It's Hebrew," she said. "It means brave. My mother wanted to give me a strong name." Her hands went to her belly without apparent conscious thought. "I... I don't know how true it is."
Maria had no idea what to do with that, so she went to the heart of the question, the thing she'd been wondering since she saw Arelie bent over at the register. "What's wrong?" she asked, quietly. "Is it the baby?"
"No," Arelie said, and began to cry again, less violently. "And yes. And no."
Maria, hesitantly, reached up and put an arm around Arelie's shoulders. The other woman neither flinched nor moved away, so she tightened it just a bit, reassuringly. "Want to talk about it?"
Arelie did.
6. baby blues
In some ways, it was a familiar story. Pregnant unexpectedly, unable to get a job, unable even to find a place to live, Arelie had seen that declined credit card as the culmination of her failure. In some ways, it was even more heartbreaking-- Arelie loved the child, wanted it desperately, but had no idea how she could possibly keep it. "I can't pay for prenatal care," she said, sobbing into Maria's shoulder. "I don't even know if I can pay for the delivery. How am I going to take care of this baby?"
Maria said nothing during the long flood of words, only kept that arm around Arelie's shoulder and occasionally patted her back reassuringly. A plan had started to take form.
She knew how it felt, to feel a total failure. She knew how it felt to want something so desperately you felt you'd die, and yet have no way of getting it. She knew. Maybe... maybe there was a way...
After a long time, Arelie's words and tears ran out. She rested quietly on Maria's shoulder, occasionally letting out a hiccupping sob, before finally sitting up and rubbing at her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You must think I'm an idiot."
"I don't," Maria said, letting her arm drop to her side. "Not at all. I..." She hesitated, bit her lip. "Do you know what you'll do?"
Arelie shrugged, and put both hands on her belly. "No," she said, quietly. "I can't get a job until the baby's born, and I can't have the baby unless I get a job, and..." She stopped, swallowed hard. "I don't have any choices, do I?"
It was the helpless little ache in Arelie's voice that decided Maria. "You have a choice," she said. "I can't have children."
She said it so abruptly that it was possible Arelie didn't understand her at first. Maria couldn't really blame her, but she had to say it fast, had to push the words out or she would never say them. She hadn't even been able to tell Lawrence; she'd had to get the doctor to do it, because she couldn't stop crying long enough, and after... the words just hadn't seemed possible.
After a minute, Arelie said, "Oh," in a small voice. "I'm sorry."
"The doctor called it an incompetent cervix," Maria said, gripping the slats of the bench, feeling the splinters bite into her palms and trying desperately not to remember. "I can get pregnant. I can even keep it for a few months. Then..." She swallowed. Then the awful cramps, then the blood, then crying the bathroom because it had happened again, no matter how careful she'd been.
"Then," Arelie echoed. She put her own arm around Maria's shoulders, and squeezed. "I'm so sorry."
"I feel like dying every time," she said. "I... my husband, Lawrence, when we found out, he said no more. He was right to. I can't take any more miscarriages. I know it. But I want children so desperately I feel like crying every time I think about it." She took a deep breath, stared up at the brilliant green of the late-summer leaves, the flashes of clear blue sky that flickered through as the trees moved in a light breeze. "We hadn't talked about it, but... Arelie, maybe we could take your baby."
Arelie pulled back abruptly, with a small gasp.
Maria let her go. Honestly, she hadn't expected a different reaction. Here she was, a total stranger-- well, maybe not quite a total stranger, but certainly not a friend-- offering from the blue to take an obviously beloved child from its mother. If that was maybe for the best, well, who was she to say that?
But she wanted a child so badly. And Arelie needed help, so badly.
"We'd pay your medical expenses," she said, into the heavy silence. "All of them, from prenatal care to recovery. And we'd pay for any other costs. You could even stay with us, until the baby's born, if you wanted. To sort of audition us as parents." She took another deep breath, her throat hurting. "And you wouldn't need to go, if you didn't want to. I know someone who put her baby up for adoption-- they went with an open adoption. She sees her son every few weeks. They go out for dinner and everything. We could do that, if you wanted. We could do anything you wanted."
The silence went on, and Maria finally looked away from the sky through the trees, at Arelie's startled, frightened face. "I know you don't know me," she said. "I know you probably don't want to know me anymore. But... I think, I think we could help you." Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes; she blinked them back, hard, and held Arelie's gaze. "Please, please let me help you."
Arelie took a shuddering breath, then turned away, stared up at the trees for her own interminable time. Maria, beside her, stifled the brief flash of hope and resigned herself to disappointment. Any moment now, Arelie would decide that she was crazy, and would get up and walk away. She'd probably always wonder what had happened to the poor woman who'd cried on her shoulder...
"Could I change my mind?" Arelie asked, tentatively.
Maria jerked, startled to realize she hadn't left. "I... of course you could," she said. It hurt her throat to say it, but that was the right of every woman. "Any time. You can walk away, any time, and we won't... no repercussions. Nothing. It's up to you."
There was another long, silent moment, broken only by the breeze.
"All right," Arelie said. "All right." She let out a long breath that ended on a faint, choked sob. "I must be crazy. I must be insane. All right."
"No crazier than me," Maria said, and felt hope, for the first time since.
12. in a family way
"Are you insane," Lawrence hissed, putting one hand flat on the tiled kitchen counter and leaning towards her.
"Probably," Maria said, sitting down beside him. "Keep your voice down. She's only in the living room."
Her husband rolled his eyes, but obediently lowered his voice. "Maria, we don't know the first thing about her. She could be a psychopath, for heaven's sake!"
"She is not a psychopath," Maria snapped. "I am sure of that."
"Maria--" He stopped, sighed, and pressed a finger to the spot between his brows that she knew always ached when he got exasperated. "Maria, you told me yourself that you don't know anything about this woman except that her name is Arelie Koch and that she's pregnant."
"And that she's homeless," Maria corrected him, quietly. "And that she's alone in the world, with no one to help her. And that she can't take care of her baby." She paused, swallowed down a lump in her throat. "And that we could."
"Maria..." he began, again.
She threw her hands up. "Is this some kind of lawyer thing?" she demanded. "Do they teach you to overuse your clients' names?"
"You tell me," Lawrence snapped. "You're the patent attorney."
"And you're the public defender," she retorted. "Aren't you supposed to have a little compassion?"
Lawrence pressed that spot between his brows again. "Maria, think. Facts. What do you actually know about Arelie Koch? And I mean know, not guessed or inferred from what she's told you."
Oh, that was rich, Lawrence telling her to use her head. She bit back a retort regarding who had proposed to whom on the first date and instead said, "All right. Fact. She's pregnant."
"Fairly self-evident," he said. "I'll accept that one, Counselor."
"Fact," Maria said. "She has no money."
He raised a finger. "Objection-- inference based solely on witness statements."
"Seriously?" she demanded. "You're really going to treat this like a trial?"
"Humor me," Lawrence said, in a tone with no room for discussion.
Fine, then. She rolled her eyes, but went on. "Remember the part where I met her because her credit card declined? She didn't have any others, Lawrence, and she wasn't buying all that much. If she has money, she doesn't have more than about thirty dollars."
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded, cautiously. "All right, objection withdrawn."
"Fact," she said. "I want children so badly I cry at night and... and I know you do too. Lawrence, she could be the only way we'll ever have a baby."
Her husband looked up at that, concern running deep in his eyes. "Oh, Maria. You don't know that."
She swallowed back an inappropriate burst of tears. "Yes, I do. Please, Lawrence. What can it hurt? It's not like we need the money."
He stood, slowly, and spread his hands. "You, Maria. I'm afraid it'll hurt you. What if she has her baby and decides she doesn't want to give it up after all?"
"Then that's her right," Maria replied, as serenely as she could given the screaming terrors the thought gave her.
"Yes," Lawrence said, "but what will that do to you? I don't want to see that. I don't want you to go through that. I'd rather go through a reputable adoption agency and be done."
He had a point, but... Maria remembered Arelie weeping on her shoulder, and turned toward the living room door, barely ajar. Arelie sat in there now, in the rocking chair she'd gotten before. But.
"We could do that," she said. "But then nobody would help Arelie. Lawrence, if nothing else, we have to help her."
He was silent for a long moment, then said, "All right. Fine. Have it your way. But Maria, I will not see you hurt lightly."
She thought of Arelie's face again, and was somehow sure that if she was hurt, it would not be at all lightly.
7. bun in the oven
"Blue or pink?" Maria asked, over breakfast.
Lawrence, who never woke up fully until he'd had at least one cup of coffee, blinked blearily at her. "What?"
"For the baby's room," Maria said, none too patiently. "Blue or pink? Or maybe yellow. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, so we'd better not judge. Maybe I should wait until after the sonogram?"
"Maybe you should wait until..." Lawrence cut off as Arelie sidestepped shyly into the kitchen. He looked at her for a long, silent moment, then picked up his mug and said, "I'm late. I have to go get dressed."
"Lawrence," Maria said, in her most disapproving tones, but he'd already escaped to their bedroom. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and turned back to Arelie. "I'm sorry about him. He can be such a lawyer sometimes."
Arelie shrugged, and linked her hands together over the increasingly prominent swell of her belly. "It's all right," she replied. "I wouldn't trust me either, if I was him. Sometimes it just takes a while."
"It's not all right," Maria said. "It's been a month. He's had a while." She directed a disgusted glance towards her bedroom. "He's just being overcautious."
Arelie stayed silent for long enough that Maria looked up sharply at her. She stood at the window, staring out, an utterly unreadable expression on her face.
"Arelie?" Maria asked. "Are you all right?"
She blinked, shook herself, and said, "Yes. I'm fine. He thinks I'm going to change my mind."
Something under Maria's heart clenched, hard. She managed to keep it from showing, though, and said only, neutrally, "Well, that's your right. Come on, it's almost time for your six-month appointment."
2. It’s a girl
"Here we go," the technician said, sliding the monitor over Arelie's belly. "One baby picture, coming right up."
"That looks disgusting," Maria said, meaning the gel.
Arelie looked down at her belly, and nodded. "It feels pretty disgusting too," she said. "And cold."
"Sorry," the technician said, with inappropriate cheer. "We need it if you want to see the baby. We... ah, there we go!"
Both women's heads snapped towards the screen. After a moment, Maria said, "I can't see anything."
The technician chuckled. "You just don't know what you're looking at," he said. "Look, here's the head, and the arms, ooh, and there's a foot." He looked down at Arelie, wide-eyed and staring at the screen. "Congratulations, you're probably having a girl."
"Oh," Arelie whispered. She swallowed, and wiped a hand across her face. "A girl?"
"A girl," Maria echoed, looking at the vague traces on the screen. A girl. A little girl with hair to braid, hands to hold, knees to bandage when she scraped them up. A girl.
The picture moved suddenly, and the technician laughed. "Did you feel that?" he asked Arelie. "She kicked."
Arelie ignored him. Her hands had come up to fold around the bottom of her belly, and a desperate longing settled into her face, an expression that it hurt Maria to see. Maybe this was it-- maybe she'd turn over now and say, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm keeping my baby and what could Maria say to that, except let them both go?
Arelie did not roll over, did not even look away from the screen, but she did say, "You'll take care of her." It was not a question.
Maria had to push the words past the lump in her throat. "I will," she said. "Always."
Arelie reached out and took Maria's hand in hers, squeezing tight. The technician looked back and forth between them, but mercifully said nothing.
1. It’s a boy
Arab, Alabama was the smallest town Maria had ever lived in, and she'd long since resigned herself to everyone knowing everyone else's business. Her infertility had somehow flown under the radar, but the strange pregnant woman living in her house most definitely had not. Nor had it escaped the town's collective attention that this was the same woman she'd rescued at the grocery store.
Her well-meaning friends told her all the rumors, from the somewhat pedestrian one that claimed Arelie was a relative sent to have an inconvenient baby far away from anyone who knew her, to the frankly bizarre one that named Arelie Lawrence's pregnant mistress who he'd brought home. Maria didn't even know what the originator of that story thought of her, but she was pretty sure it wasn't flattering.
Ah, well. Rumors she could handle, and even occasionally laugh over sometimes, in bed with Lawrence or making dinner with Arelie. But that wasn't the only thing the town talked about.
The same friends who passed on the rumors also told Maria all sorts of horrifying stories, stories practically designed to change her mind about all this adoption nonsense. From flaky birth mothers changing their minds and disappearing with the resulting child, to furious birth fathers showing up three years in and suing for their child. It was this last story, and the resulting nightmares, that finally drove her to Arelie's room.
Arelie was sitting in the rocking chair at the window, staring blank-eyed out of it as was her wont, when Maria came in. She hesitated, then cleared her throat. "Arelie," she said, as gently as she could through the fear choking her. Arelie looked up inquiringly.
"I need to know about the baby's father," Maria said, and Arelie's face shut down.
Before she could close up entirely, Maria continued. "It's not because of you. It's because of him. I'm so afraid he'll come and take her away from me after. I..." The fear rose up, and she put her hand to her mouth, blinking back tears. They were so close, so close, and if somebody came to take her baby... "You can change your mind," she said. "I've accepted that. You're her mother until the day you tell me otherwise, and I am fine with that. But if he comes..." Her throat closed over, and she could say no more.
Whatever Arelie saw in her face then, it apparently convinced her that Maria was in earnest, because she sighed, and stroked a hand over her belly. "You won't need to worry about him," she said, very quietly. "He doesn't know where I am. He never even knew I was pregnant."
Maria blinked, and sat down on the bed. "He... what? You didn't tell him?"
Arelie pressed her lips together, tightly, her expression one of indescribable grief. "No. Not exactly. I didn't know I was pregnant when he... when I left him."
There was a story here, and Maria was somehow certain that all the pain Arelie was hiding lay behind it. She folded her hands in her lap and asked, "Tell me?"
13. bundle of joy
Arelie didn't look at her at all, just kept staring out the window with her eyes on the horizon. "He was married," she said, flatly. "Not to me. The baby's father, I mean."
Maria opened her mouth, then shut it again. "Ah," she said, finally. "I see."
"No, you don't," Arelie said, and laughed a little. It sounded more like a sob. "I loved him, Maria. I knew I shouldn't, I knew the whole time that what we were doing was wrong, but... but I loved him, more than anything I've ever loved in my whole life. I still do. And I thought, I really think he loved me like that too." She looked down at her belly now, absently stroking it.
The silence this time stretched on so long Maria was sure her nerves would snap. Finally, she said, "Tell me about him. Please."
That got a smile from Arelie-- a genuine smile, one of the first Maria had ever seen from her. "Oh, he was wonderful. Farid-- that was his name, Farid Amala-- he was the first man who ever treated me like I mattered. Like I had thoughts and emotions and... oh, I can't describe it. When I was with him, he paid attention to me. He... he cared."
Maria thought of Lawrence, who, as close-minded and frustrating and absentminded as he could be, had never given her less than his full attention. "I think I understand," she said.
"Yes, you would," Arelie said. "I've seen you and Lawrence when you don't think I'm looking. You love each other."
"When did..." Maria cut that question off before it could start. Derailing, not a good idea. "Yes. We do."
"That's why I'm leaving my baby with you," Arelie said. She looked at Maria for the first time in the conversation, her eyes clear and, if pained, at least certain. "Farid would have left his wife for me, but... he had children, Maria. Five children, and another on the way. I couldn't let him leave his children, so I left." She looked away again, out the window. "I didn't realize... I suspected, but I didn't realize I was pregnant until a month or so later."
That explained... so much, particularly her distance and the way she looked so far away, looking for something-- or someone, rather-- who was no longer where they should be. "Would you have told him if you did know?"
Arelie was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "No. I... no. I don't think so."
Maria nodded, then got up off the bed, went over to kneel by the rocking chair, and put her arms around Arelie's shoulders.
Arelie didn't cry, but it was a very near thing.
11. pickles & ice cream
Lawrence meandered through the kitchen on his way to the backyard, and stopped dead when he got a good look at Maria's lunch. "What the hell is that?" he demanded.
Maria looked down at her plate, then back up at Lawrence, confused. "It's a tuna and banana sandwich," she said.
"What," he said, flatly.
She sighed. "Look, Arelie had a craving for it this morning, and I had a taste while I was making it, and it was actually really good, all right?"
Lawrence opened and closed his mouth several times before finally saying, "You know she's the one who's pregnant, right?"
"Oh, shut up," she said, and took a healthy bite of her sandwich.
8. baby on board
"Maria?" Arelie said.
The high-pitched tension in her voice gave her away. Maria looked up sharply and caught a frozen, frightened expression on Arelie's face. "What?" she asked, dropping her book. "What is it? Are you all right?" Fear clutched her heart. "Is it..."
"It's the baby," Arelie interrupted. "Now."
"What..." Maria said, and then Arelie's full meaning sank in. "Now? But I thought you weren't due for weeks!"
"I don't think she cares," Arelie said, then clutched at the doorframe. "Ow, Maria, now!"
Maria got to her feet and made herself breathe, deeply. "Okay. Okay. How long have you been having contractions?"
"Um." Arelie looked a little ashamed of herself. "All night, I think... don't look at me like that, I thought it was false labor! Um, until my water broke."
"Well, hell," Maria said. "All right, go get the bag. I'll call Lawrence and tell him to meet us at the hospital."
Arelie looked a little more ashamed.
"Oh, Lord," Maria said. "How long ago did your water break?"
"An hour ago," Arelie said, meekly. "I didn't want to be any bother."
That did not deserve an answer. "Get in the car," Maria said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll call him from the hospital."
5. labor & delivery
Lawrence paced back and forth in the sterile white hospital room, restlessly, flicking his thumb endlessly against his forefinger. Maria would have laughed at him, except she would dearly have loved to join him. Anything to get rid of all the anxiety building up.
Arelie, meanwhile, looked as if she'd very much like to be anywhere else. And Maria could not at all blame her.
"When... is the doctor... coming?" she panted. Her face was red and sheened with sweat under the bright white fluorescent lights, her lip dented from biting, tendrils of her hair stuck to her neck. Four red crescents stood out against the pale skin of her palm where her nails had bitten in.
Poor girl. "Soon," Maria assured her, stroking her hair. "Hang in there."
"Uh-huh," Arelie said. "Easy for you to... ah!" She clamped down on Maria's hand.
Lawrence was immediately at their side. "Bad one?" he asked. "Should I go kidnap you a doctor?"
"Please," Arelie said, but Maria shook her head.
"Better not," she advised her husband. "I'd hate for you to go to jail today of all days."
"That's true," he said, got up, and started pacing again.
Ten minutes later, Arelie said, "This. Is not. Soon. Aah!"
"That's it," Lawrence said, and headed for the door. He got there just as it opened, and narrowly missed getting hit in the face.
The doctor strode in, clapping his hands briskly, all beaming smiles and slightly obnoxious cheer. "Well, then," he boomed. "What have we here?"
"It's about time," Maria snapped. "She's been in labor for hours!"
"You'll be the family, then," the doctor said. "Don't worry, these things take time. Legs open, Miss Koch, let's have a look."
Arelie went a bright, painful-looking red, but spread her legs obediently. Lawrence, at the other end of the room, turned around fast.
The doctor snapped on a pair of gloves and poked around for a moment, then announced, "Nine centimeters dilated. Good enough for me. Nurse!" A harassed-looking woman poked her head in the door, and he continued, "Let's prep this woman and get her to delivery, please."
"Finally," Arelie said, and let her head fall back.
"You're not done yet," the doctor said, and smiled at her. "But you're getting there. Courage, Miss Koch, it's almost over."
The nurse came in with a gurney, and helped Arelie maneuver herself onto it. "There you go, dearie," she said, with a smile of her own. "Delivery room B, doctor."
"All right, off you go," he said, and when both Lawrence and Maria moved to follow, added, "Not you two. Waiting room's down the hall."
"But..." Lawrence began.
"She shouldn't..." Maria said.
"I want Maria," Arelie said, her voice quite level and calm and yet somehow carrying across the room. "This is her baby. I want her there."
Somewhat to his credit, the doctor didn't bat an eye at that, although the nurse looked startled. "Well... it's against regulations, but... all right." He nodded to Maria. "You'll have to come scrub up with me. Sir, waiting room's down the hall."
Arelie reached out and caught Maria's hand as she passed, following the doctor. "You'll be there?" she asked, half-begging.
"I'll be there," Maria promised, and squeezed her hand.
10. ten tiny toes
Maria didn't remember much of the delivery itself. It was bloody and painful-looking and by the end of it, Arelie didn't have much of a voice left to scream with.
She refused to let go of Maria's hand. That much she did remember. Arelie biting her lip until it bled and clinging to Maria's hand like a lifeline. The doctor keeping up a constant stream of reassurances, the nurses putting in occasional words, everything blurring into the brilliant white lights and sterile walls and Arelie's blood on the doctor's gloves and then...
"Whoops," the doctor said. "Little fast there, baby!" He stood up from between Arelie's legs, a small, bloody, squashed and sobbing thing in his arms. "Here she is! Congratulations, ladies, a gorgeous little girl." He reached to hand the baby to Arelie.
She made a violent motion and pushed backwards. "No," she said. "No. She's Maria's baby. No."
The doctor hesitated, then shrugged, turned, and handed the little girl to Maria.
She should be worrying about Arelie, Maria knew. That reaction was... not good, if she didn't even want to touch her little girl. But...
But this was Maria's little girl. That much was true. And oh, how beautiful she was.
"She's healthy?" she heard herself asking, staring down into that small, angry face.
"Perfectly," the doctor said. "Keep pushing, my dear, you've still got the afterbirth in there. Ten fingers, ten toes, full complement of limbs, good set of lungs, good Lord, can't you hear her?"
Maria could. And she could see her. And there was nothing, nothing in the world to compare.
Her little girl.
15. (s)he has your eyes
"What do you want to name her?" Maria asked, some hours later.
They were sitting together in Arelie's recovery room. The baby was still in Maria's arms. Lawrence had taken one look at their new child and run out to do... something, possibly get drunk. Not that Maria minded. She wanted to talk to Arelie.
Arelie shrugged. "She's your daughter," she said, her voice utterly colorless.
Maria looked sharply up at her. "Yours too," she said. "You won't be out of her life, Arelie. You can still be her..." She faltered. Was there a word for what Arelie would be? Biological mother made her sound like a chemical spill.
But Arelie was already shaking her head, a queer little smile on her face. "No," she said. "I can't."
"You should name her," Maria insisted. She could argue the case later, when Arelie was better rested. "I won't take that away from you, at least."
Arelie hesitated for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Ahava. It means love." She paused another moment, then added, "Ahava Maria."
Maria blinked, and then bit back tears. "I... Arelie, I don't know that I deserve that."
"You're her mother," Arelie said. "And... Maria..." She stopped.
Maria waited for a long moment, then said, "Yes?" through a throat painfully tight.
Arelie swallowed. "You're the best friend I've ever had," she said. "Thank you. So much. Her name is Ahava Maria."
"Ahava Maria Jackson," Maria said, quietly. "Yes."
Arelie blinked rapidly, several times, and wiped a hand across her face. "I... could you take her to the nursery now?" she asked. "I'm tired. I... I want to sleep."
"All right," Maria said. She got up, Ahava Maria cradled carefully in her arms, then bent over Arelie and kissed her forehead. "Thank you, Arelie. You've given me something so extraordinary... I don't think I can ever tell you how much it means."
"I know," Arelie said. "Believe me."
14. cut the cord
Arelie signed over her parental rights that evening-- she said nothing more than she had to, and nothing at all to Maria.
"I'm worried about her," Maria said to Lawrence, in the car during the ride home.
He nodded, fingers tapping restlessly against the steering wheel. "Me too. She did not look well. Do you think we should get her to see a psychologist?"
"Probably a good idea," Maria said, feeling relieved.
"At our expense, of course," he added. "I mean, it's the least we could do." There was a long, silent moment, then he added, "My God, Maria. I never realized she'd be so..."
Maria reached out and put her hand on his. "I know," she said. "I know."
They spent the rest of the ride home in happy contemplation of their new daughter. Tonight was for Ahava, and a celebration. They'd help Arelie tomorrow.
They never got the chance.
The next day, Arelie was gone.
9. the stork
"Mom?" Ahava asked, coming up to the kitchen table. "How did you get me? And don't say the stork, I know that's not true."
Maria put down her pen and looked down her nose at her eldest daughter. "Just how do you know that, young lady?"
Ahava rolled her eyes. "Please, Mom. Everybody knows it. Jamie Barclay told me so in third grade."
"Jamie Barclay is a meddling busybody," Maria said, then sighed. "Anyway, we did not get you through the stork. I don't think I ever told you I got you through the stork."
"You did so," Ahava said. "I'm sure you did. I know you have to have sex to get a baby. So did you have sex with Dad?"
Oh, Christ. Maria was not having this conversation with her seven-year-old. "No," she said. "I did not have sex with your father to get you. Ahava, you remember when we told you that you were adopted?"
Ahava frowned. "Yeah, but... I don't really get what that means."
"It means you aren't my biological daughter," Maria said. "Someone else had sex to get you. Your biological mother." She swallowed, thinking of Arelie the last time she'd seen her, those devastated eyes. "She gave you to me and Dad. That's how we got you."
Ahava frowned even deeper. "Oh," she said, and then, in a small voice, "Did she not want me?"
"No," Maria said, more vehemently than she'd meant. "Oh, Ahava, precious, she wanted you so much. She just couldn't keep you. She gave you to us because she knew that we'd take care of you and love you, just like we do." She bent down and kissed her daughter's forehead. "She named you. Did you know that?"
"No," Ahava said. "What does that matter?"
"She named you Ahava," Maria began.
"I know that--"
"Let me finish, please," she said, gently. Ahava flushed, but nodded. "She named you Ahava. It means love, in Hebrew. Did you know that? She loved you very much, my darling." She hesitated. "I know it made her very sad to give you to us."
"Oh." Ahava thought about that for a moment, then said, "So the stork really did bring you."
Maria laughed. "A stork named Arelie Koch, yes, love."
"Arelie," Ahava said, as if tasting the name. She hesitated, then said, "Mom... will you tell me about her?"
"Of course," Maria said. She scooted her chair back from the table and patted her lap. "What do you want to know first?"