Five Quarts_ A Personal and Natural History of Blood - Bill Hayes [44]
A man she’d met at a club, Shannon answered. Someone she’d really connected with, at first. He was beautiful and Cuban and mysterious. And secretive and insistent and controlling. And scary and—more than anything else—dead set on getting a green card. He’d disappeared, who knows where.
My heart sank. “I am so sorry, Shannon, so sorry. Is there something I can do?” I was offering both consolation and an apology. I felt terrible that before now she hadn’t been able to share all this with me, that I probably had not ever given her an opening. Regardless, I was the first in our family to hear that she was expecting. She’d just gotten the news herself earlier that week, Shannon said. Okay, now I was just plain confused. Didn’t she say six months?
“I thought I was off again,” she started to explain. “You know I’ve never had regular periods. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gone a while without having one.” This sounded like a bad rough draft of an answer, one she wasn’t convinced of herself.
As for her swelling belly, she added, fumbling, “I thought I was gaining weight again. I thought I was having more stomach problems. I—” She stopped herself. “The truth is, I couldn’t face the reality. I couldn’t go through that door.”
I was glad we were separated by hundreds of miles of phone line because the look of horror on my face would’ve killed her. Shannon had always been at odds with her physical self, but this was on a whole different level. With a calm I did not feel, I quietly asked, “Are you dealing with it now? You’ve seen a doctor, right?”
“Yes, I’m all checked out. I had a sonogram, amnio-whatever, everything. They say the baby seems to be fine.”
“That is great. And you? How are you doing?”
“I’m doing . . . okay.”
“Good, good.” I sighed relief. “So, you’re . . . You’re keeping the baby, right?”
Shannon stated evenly, “I’m having the baby, but I’m not keeping it. I’m going to give it up for adoption.”
Evidently, once her denial had been punctured, absolute clarity had kicked in. Shannon had already made arrangements for the adoption through a private agency recommended by her doctor. Are you really sure about this? I was tempted to ask again, but I kept quiet. Her voice was firm; she was not calling for advice, I could tell, but to let me know how everything was settled. The prospective mother, who had just written Shannon a warm, earnest letter introducing herself, was a family-practice physician, a single Caucasian woman who spoke fluent Spanish. Shannon chose not to meet her in person or to maintain any contact after the birth—feeling this would make it easier to separate from her baby—but she knew what she most needed to know, that this woman would provide a loving home. Plus, Shannon’s child would have an older brother, for the mother already had an adopted little boy of mixed race. This woman had also offered to defray the costs of my sister’s medical care, counseling, and other expenses, which lifted a burden since Shannon made little money and had no savings.
Despite the spinning in my head, I found myself saying reassuring things: She’d made the right decision; it sounded like a perfect match. But I held back what I most felt: Was there really no other way?
After speaking with me and my other sisters, Shannon broke the news to our parents. If she’d written a list in advance of all the things not to demand of her, it would have consisted of my father’s three commands: She must return to Spokane and stay with them. The adoption must go through a Catholic agency. And the baby must be baptized.
Sorry, but no, no, and no. In so answering, Shannon was cutting her ties with Mom and Dad. My sister had never before exhibited such grit. White-knuckled at the wheel, she saw her destination eighty days ahead and wasn’t allowing any obstacles to get in her way. Distancing herself from family members was crucial. At the time, two of our older sisters each had infant sons, the family’s first grandkids; for Shannon, seeing them was too painful. She also insisted I not come up to Seattle.
“I went