Then Again - Diane Keaton [74]
The Fasten Your Seat Belt light goes out. On cue my heart stops pounding. I start in with the usual promises of change. I’ll spend more time with Mom. I’ll stop with the endless projects and the half-assed solutions to a meaningful life.
It reminds me of the day I drove Dad home from UCLA’s Medical Center after he flunked “The Program.” I remember all those placating words the doctors and their staff used during Dad’s two-month stay, but especially “It’s the quality of life, not the quantity.” Dad didn’t look like a man with much quality left. We were silent as we headed south on the 405. The traffic was slow. I didn’t know what to say. Two blocks before Cove Street, two blocks away from Dorothy, Dad blurted out, “Diane, I want you to know something. I’ve always hated my work. I wish I’d traveled more, gotten closer to you kids, taken more risks.” It was his use of the word risk that made me think of the risks I hadn’t taken, especially those revolving around intimacy. It also made me think of the time Kathryn Grody told me Estelle Parsons had adopted a baby boy at age fifty. Wasn’t she too old to be adopting a baby? It made me remember my sixteen-year-old pledge not to have intercourse before I was married. Boy, that would have been a big loss, particularly since I’ve never married. And what about the time I told Mom I was against psychiatry on principle. What principle? Where would I be without analysis? I was intolerant of everything I went on to benefit from.
As soon as I see L.A. spread out below, I know I’m going to have to reinvent the future. I know I have to make a decision that will or will not lead to the experience of a different kind of love, a love of less expectations on the receiving end. I know if I adopt a baby I will need to adapt to conditions that require care and responsibility, and management skills too. But above all I will need to earn the right to be a mother, especially considering I am a single white woman staring fifty in the face.
12
HELLO
The Bundle
Dexter came to me in a straw basket with two handles. The first thing we did was drive to the pediatrician’s office. As I put her in the new car seat, she looked cautious; after all, she’d flown across the country to meet up with a woman she would have to learn to call Mother. Everything about her was new: her tiny hands and feet, her big round face. When the doctor deemed her “alert,” that meant she had passed her first test. She was alert, and attentive, and prepared, and vigilant. That was the moment I knew I had it in me to take on the rest of the tests Dexter would have to pass for as long as I lived. That’s when I put my hand on her face, looked into her eyes for as long as forever will ever be, and smiled. I knew I could do it. I knew the dust from the past had lifted. Yes, Warren was right, I was a late developer, but I’d become a woman, despite my protestations, and now a mother too. Dexter was my “in sickness and health, till death do us part,” unconditional love. She was my new family, this sturdy, resilient, alert girl from North Carolina.
Born Thursday, December 14, 1995, Dexter flew to Houston, Texas, four days after she was born. She arrived in Los Angeles the following Friday. On Saturday, Uncle Rickey, Robin’s husband, drove Dexter and me all the way to Tubac, Arizona, for Christmas with the family. Dexter was up for the frequent diaper changes at various gas stations with other fellow Americans on their way to Christmas cheer. She appeared to be content with the steady movement of the car on the road. When we arrived at Mom’s ranch, Aunt Robin, Aunt Dorrie, Grammy Dorothy, Cousin Riley, Cousin Jack, and my friend Jonathan Gale gathered around Dexter in the living room. We all agreed she had a sly smile, almost as if “Prove it” would inform her character. At ten days