Kaitlyn (Based on a TRUE story!)

Kaitlyn

by Catherine Maven

Copyright 2000

            “For Christ’s sake, Nancy! Do we really need all this stuff for a weekend at Jane’s?” demanded Richard as he re-entered the kitchen after his fourth trip to the Grand Cherokee in the driveway. He ripped a paper towel from the roll and mopped his face. “I’m going to need another shower in a second.” His more-salt-than-pepper hair was damp around the edges, and his mood-stone eyes were grey with tension, rather than the blue they shone when he was happy and in control.

Richard’s eyes hadn’t been blue in quite some time, his wife Nancy realized sadly. Her own brown eyes looked sad whenever she faced them in the mirror these days, too. The grey in her hair had been covered with a reddish shade the hairdresser had called ‘lively’ and which Richard told her made her look like a hooker. She hadn’t been able to lose the extra thirty pounds she’d gained while pregnant, which made her feel sluggish.  She forced herself through her days, fantasizing constantly of sleep.

She glanced up from her ‘things to bring’ list for a moment, torn between apology and resentment. Had packing been any easier with the other two kids? Probably not, but at forty-six, dealing with a toddler seemed entirely overwhelming. And if anything, Richard was less help now than he’d been fifteen years earlier. She pushed the thought away; she didn’t have time to think about it right now. Glancing once more down the list, Nancy felt satisfied she had everything they needed for the overnight visit.

“Kaitlyn!” she called. “Are you ready to go?”

“Weady,” announced the tiny girl as she entered the kitchen, carefully adjusting her dress. “Went pee.”

“Good girl,” affirmed her mother automatically. “Have you got your car toys?”

“Book,” responded Kaitlyn, disappearing for a moment and returning with Animal Babies, her favourite book.

“Maybe you should bring some more toys,” coaxed Nancy. “It’s a long drive.”

Kaitlyn’s face turned stubborn. “No,” she repeated. “Book.”

“Fine,” responded Nancy, feeling attacked on both sides. She bit back a sarcastic reply; it wasn’t supposed to be good for children to grow up with sarcasm. She turned to Richard. “I guess we’re ready to go, then.” As she and Richard lead Kaitlyn out the door, she said quietly, “Maybe she’ll sleep.”

Richard turned to her. “Yeah, that’s likely.”

Obviously, Nancy thought to herself, he hadn’t read about the harm of sarcasm but she knew better than to mention it to him. He was sure to say something like, “Why don’t I just flash my magic wand and become a completely different person?”

The drive from Fresno to San Matteo passed almost entirely in silence. Kaitlyn sat primly in her carseat, looking at each picture in the book for a long time. Nancy found the child’s self-discipline spooky. She couldn’t remember details after such a long time, but she certainly had painful memories of long drives with the older two kids.

Kaitlyn’s ability to amuse herself calmly actually worried Nancy. Was the little girl normal? She knew this was every parent’s fear, but couldn’t help feeling there simply had to be something wrong with her daughter, given the circumstances of her birth.

Still, she couldn’t picture herself going to the family doctor to complain that her child was too well-behaved. She smiled wryly at this thought, and decided to conserve her energy. As she leaned back and began to nod off, she wondered for a moment what sort of child she herself had been.

* * *

When they got to Jane’s house, a stranger answered the door. Before they could even back off to re-check the townhouse number, though, the young woman flashed a wide grin and stood back, motioning them inside.

“Hi,” she said, “You must be Richard and Nancy. I’m Maggie. Jane told me you’d be arriving sometime this afternoon. She’s sorry she couldn’t be here to welcome you, but there was some kind of emergency at work. She said she’ll be home at suppertime.  Come in, come in!”

Richard stepped inside, but Nancy hesitated at the door. Who was this girl, and what was she doing here? With her short stature, red hair tied loosely into a pony tail, Celtic green eyes and freckles, Maggie at first appeared to be a child.  But then Nancy noticed that Maggie had a woman’s body, and decided she must be in her late teens at least. Her mouth was too wide, and the overall effect was somewhat homely, Nancy couldn’t help assessing. Good. Less temptation for her husband.

Still, why hadn’t Jane warned them there’d be a stranger in the house? Where would they sleep, if this girl had the guest room? Before she could worry any further, though, the young woman spotted Kaitlyn standing behind her mother.

“Oh, what a cutie!” Maggie exclaimed.  “Is she your granddaughter?”

“No,” said Nancy at the same time as Richard responded, “It sure feels like it.”

Maggie looked from one to the other, aware of the tension in their answers. Then it seemed she had decided not to pursue it further, for she simply asked, “What’s her name?”

“Kaitlyn.”

Maggie crouched down to the little girl’s eye level and said, “Hi, Kaitlyn. I’m Maggie. Would you like to come in, too?”

Kaitlyn stood frozen for a moment, and then seemed to conclude that the stranger was harmless. She walked around her mother, past the woman, and into the house. Maggie stood back up, motioning Nancy to enter as well.

Once they were settled in the kitchen, gratefully holding cold beers, Richard addressed the stranger with his lawyerly directness.

“So, Maggie,” he said with what Nancy recognized as his coax-the-witness voice, “Where are you from?”

“I’m from PEI.” When their faces remained blank, the girl elaborated. “Prince Edward Island? On the east coast of Canada, eh?” Her smile showed she had already been teased about her Canadianisms.

“So how did you end up here?”

“Here, California, or here, Jane’s?” responded the girl, her eyes sparkling. Nancy felt a brief pang, hoping the girl wasn’t flirting with her husband. She decided she’d better intervene.

“Both, actually,” she said in her own friendliest voice.

“Yeah, good question,” said Maggie, in an irritatingly-chatty voice that set Nancy’s nerves on edge. “The answer is the same, really.  I came to San Francisco to go to LifeSpring—do you know it?—and met Jane there. You know how Jane is. She has a knack for gathering odd ducks like me. 

“She showed me around California for a few days after the seminar, and then somehow I ended up staying here with her and the kids. I guess you’d call me the nanny-slash-housekeeper-slash-cook at the moment. I take care of the kids after school, clean the house a bit, do some shopping, and cook. Earning my keep as it were,” she concluded.  It was hard to know if her babbling was a result of nervousness at entertaining strangers, or if she was one of those chatterers who exhausted their listeners.

They sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly, as if answering Nancy’s earlier concern about where they would sleep, Maggie added, “I’m sleeping on the couch for the weekend. The guest room is yours. No problemo.” She turned to Kaitlyn, who sat sipping her juice, looking tiny and fragile on the large kitchen chair next to her mother’s. “How’s your juice, miss? Can I get you anything else?”

Kaitlyn shook her head. “Duice good.  No more.”

“Boy, she talks really well. How old is she?” asked Maggie.

“Twenty months,” replied Richard, playing proud daddy. “She’s mostly toilet trained, too.”

“Really?  I thought most kids weren’t toilet trained till they were almost three.”

“It was her idea,” replied Nancy quickly. “She saw Pull-Ups on tv, and asked for them.”

“Big girl now,” completed Kaitlyn, parroting the commercial.

“I see,” said Maggie, impressed and amused by the child’s precociousness. “Do you have to go now?” she asked.

“Yes, pwease,” said Kaitlyn.

“I’ll take you,” Maggie said, reaching over and picking the child up. Kaitlyn immediately began to push away, saying, “No! Myself!” with something resembling fear.

“Okay, okay, punkin’,” said Maggie, putting Kaitlyn down. “There. Better? I’ll just show you where it is, then, okay?” She offered her hand. The little girl hesitated, and then took it. When they got to the stairs, Maggie crouched down beside Kaitlyn and said, “It’s up all these stairs, I’m afraid. Do you want me to carry you up?”

“No, I go myself,” replied Kaitlyn firmly.

Maggie followed closely behind. Not only did Kaitlyn go up the stairs herself, but she didn’t even put her hands on the steps as toddlers usually did. Instead, she climbed like a tiny adult, her right hand grasping the balusters for support. Once Maggie had determined Kaitlyn didn’t want or need help in the bathroom itself, she returned to the bottom of the stairs to wait to guide the child back through the house when she came down.

Watching Kaitlyn descend the stairs a few minutes later, Maggie marvelled at the little girl’s poise and independence. She looks like a small queen, dignified and regal, Maggie thought. Enough to make you wonder about reincarnation.

When they returned to the kitchen, she couldn’t help saying it out loud. “She’s a regular Queen Victoria, isn’t she?  I’ve never met a child—a baby, really—so mature at such a young age, and believe me, with four siblings and a couple dozen younger cousins, I’ve done my share of babysitting.”

Maggie watched the couple exchange a glance, full of some kind of intensity. She’d hit a nerve there, she realized. But then the subject was skillfully turned to how Richard and Nancy had met Jane at Berkley, and it wasn’t till later that Maggie realized how her interest had been deflected.

Jane returned home at five, bring wine, laughter, and her daughters Dallas and Austin. The girls greeted Maggie warmly, noted Nancy. Maggie seemed to have a way with kids. Jane quickly took charge, helping Maggie finish cooking their vegetarian stir-fry, and directing her daughters to clean and set the table.

Surprisingly, Maggie was mostly silent during dinner, for which Nancy was grateful. It allowed the old friends to catch up. For a while, Nancy forgot her troubles and simply enjoyed the meal. After all the strain of the past couple of years, it was a relief to pick up with Jane as if they’d never been apart. Richard, too, felt more relaxed. Occasionally, Maggie would ask a question, listening carefully to the answer.

During the meal, though, Maggie noticed that both Richard and Nancy seemed curiously indifferent to Kaitlyn’s needs. However mature her behaviour, Kaitlyn still didn’t have a full set of teeth, and Maggie could see her struggling with the plate of food her mother had put in front of her. 

When it seemed no one else was going to intervene, Maggie reached over and cut the food into tiny pieces, removed an onion or two she thought the child probably wouldn’t like, and spooned the rice into a separate bowl, which she placed on the chair between Kaitlyn’s legs.  Then she rooted around in drawers for a clean tea-towel, which she tied loosely around the little girl’s neck.

Kaitlyn hungrily grasped the spoon Maggie proffered, and began to shovel rice clumsily into her mouth with one hand while the other reached for morsels from her plate.  Kaitlyn kept glancing at Maggie with wary fascination.

Satisfied, Maggie returned to her own meal. She had known since she was twelve that she wanted kids when she was older. Babysitting was her favourite part-time job, and helping Kaitlyn reinforced Maggie’s desire for children of her own. 

No one seemed to notice her intervention. Somehow, that didn’t seem right to Maggie.  She began to understand Kaitlyn’s independence.

After dinner, chocolate-fudge brownies were set on the table, along with coffee and tea. Maggie cleared Kaitlyn’s dishes away, found a clean washcloth to wipe the little girl’s hands and face with, and then reached for a single brownie, aware of the little girl’s eyes following her every movement.

Maggie cut the brownie, and gave half to Kaitlyn, glancing over to get Nancy’s approval. Since Nancy didn’t turn even once in their direction, Maggie shrugged, hoping Kaitlyn wasn’t allergic to chocolate. Maggie poured the child some milk, then poured a lot of milk into her mug of tea.

“I like a little tea in my milk,” Maggie told Kaitlyn, who gave her a shy smile as if she got the joke.

Nancy, glancing over, finally seemed to notice what the child was eating (Of course, thought Maggie, she only notices when I give Kaitlyn something sweet to eat).

“Is Kaitlyn done eating already? Good. Usually one of our older kids feeds her.  I’d hardly remember how to do it myself, now,” she said, turning immediately back to Jane.

After dessert had been cleared away, Maggie volunteered to take Kaitlyn to the nearby playground. Neither parent objected, and the little girl had warmed sufficiently to actually offer her hand to Maggie as they went out the door.

At the playground, Kaitlyn lost some of her reserve, and even smiled broadly as she slid down the short slide into Maggie’s waiting hands. But the playground was full of noisy children who ran and screamed and chased each other, which only made Kaitlyn’s poise seem all the more odd. Maggie wondered whether Kaitlyn had been abused, or in some way traumatized, into this exaggerated self-control. Then she shook off this troubling thought and concentrated on enjoying playing with the little girl. I love her, Maggie realized with sudden warmth.

Half a hour later, Richard and Nancy showed up to claim the little girl for her bath before bedtime. Maggie noticed Nancy did not take Kaitlyn’s hand as mother and daughter departed. Richard stayed behind, so Maggie felt obliged to stay as well. She sat in the tire swing, while Richard sat on the teeter-totter opposite. She waited for him to start; she could tell he had something he wanted to say to her.

“You seem quite taken with Kaitlyn,” he said finally.

“For sure,” agreed Maggie. “She’s an extraordinary little girl.”

“It’s no wonder you thought we were her grandparents  She’s one of those afterthought kids.”  He smiled nervously, then continued. “We thought we were done with babies. Our other kids were twelve and fourteen, not far from college years, we thought. We were planning on taking early retirement in another ten years or so. We’d been looking at timeshares down in the Caymans. ...”  His voice trailed off, and he looked at his shoes.

Maggie could tell he wasn’t used to things not going the way he’d planned. Still, she herself already been forced to accept that life didn’t always go the way you wanted. There were – surprises. If anything, Kaitlyn seemed like a rather wonderful surprise. So that’s what she said.

“I know, I know,” he replied, his tone the opposite of his words. “But it feels like we’re raising a granddaughter  . . . Look. By the time Kaitlyn graduates from high school, I’ll be sixty-five. I’m too old to enjoy being a parent any more. This is not where I’d thought I’d be at this point in my life.”

Maggie didn’t understand why this stranger, almost old enough to be her father, thought he had to explain anything about Kaitlyn to her. And it wasn’t her place to criticize, but she didn’t have to sympathize with him, either. So she said nothing.

“Actually,” he said at last, still not looking at her, which made Maggie feel a bit like a priest in the confessional, “We decided to abort. We talked long and hard about it, but finally agreed that it wasn’t fair to bring an unwanted child into the world.” 

His voice had become tight, as if he were forcing himself to continue. “So that’s what we did.  Nancy had an abortion. We thought we’d made the right decision.”

He glanced up, and must have read Maggie’s confusion in her face. “Yeah, so, ... then a month and a half later, Nancy realized she was still pregnant. Of course, we contacted the doctor to see if he’d screwed up the abortion. But no, he assured us it had been successful. Biopsy showed they’d gotten the . . . fetus.”  He stopped and ran a hand down his face.

“So what we were left with, apparently, was . . . the . . . uh . . . surviving twin. I personally don’t understand how doctors could remove a fetus and leave ... things there for another one.  Nancy was bleeding, like she had gotten her period. It should have been all over. But it wasn't, and the doctor said it was too late for another abortion . . .”

Maggie was in shock. Not only at hearing such a bizarre story, but why should this man have felt compelled to tell it to her, a total stranger? She didn’t know what to say. Her heart, in fact, went out even more strongly to Kaitlyn. She should have been a twin. Maggie hoped Kaitlyn never found out about this, but if the father was telling strangers, what likelihood was there his daughter wouldn’t hear at some point?

Now Richard was staring at her, and Maggie struggled to find something appropriate to say. Sorry? For whom? Tough luck? Believe It Or Not? Her thoughts were swirling. She had always supported women’s right to abort. In the abstract, it seemed like the right thing. But faced with the reality, and such an ugly reality, she didn’t know how she felt. She had no idea what she’d have done in the same circumstances. She hoped she never got the chance to find out. 

Maggie didn’t remember what she said then, or how they got back to the house. She felt even stranger the next day, however, when Nancy took her aside after lunch and repeated the same story to her. 

“So now you know why we feel so strangely about her,” concluded Nancy. “She shouldn’t have been born.”

“Why didn’t you give her up for adoption?” Maggie asked finally.

“We thought about it, but the other children were excited when they found out I was pregnant, and I didn’t want to have to explain to our family and friends why we’d given up our child . . .” Nancy’s face was red with embarrassment, and again Maggie was puzzled about why they’d felt compelled to confide in her.

“So why don’t you have a nanny?”she asked, trying to say something constructive.

“We do, but she doesn’t work weekends,” Nancy said, and then sighed. “And I’m too tired to be a good mother. I just don’t have the energy and more. I don’t have the patience. I feel like no matter what choice I make now, everyone suffers.”

* * *

“Do you know the story behind Kaitlyn?” Maggie asked Jane later, while the couple were busy loading their vehicle for the trip back to Fresno. 

Jane nodded. “It’s a pretty weird situation, isn’t it? The last time I saw Nancy before this weekend was when I visited her in the hospital just after she had Kaitlyn. At the time, both Richard and Nancy were acting like they were thrilled with the new baby. Of course, that’s how most people feel when they hold their baby for the first time.”

“I wish I could adopt Kaitlyn myself,” said Maggie. “I’d like to just kidnap her, even. I can’t stand that they make her feel so unwelcome, when she’s such a special person, Jane.”

“I know, I know,” said Jane sympathetically. “I feel the urge to protect her, too. You aren’t serious, though, are you?”

Maggie nodded. “If I could, I’d take her in a heartbeat. She’s amazing!”

Jane put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “That’s so loving and kind of you! But realistically, Maggie, you’re a young, unmarried – well, basically a vagabond without even a regular job. Not that that’s bad, of course. Just not great material to offer to adoption proceedings.”

“Couldn’t they just give her to me?” Maggie demanded.

“Maybe. But is Kaitlyn better off with a vagabond than a set of parents with jobs, a house, other children?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know, Jane. I just can’t stand to see her go back with them. She deserves better, doesn’t she?”

Jane wrapped an arm around Maggie’s shoulders, and squeezed. “There’s no easy answer to this one, kiddo. Sometimes there is nothing we can do, and that’s something we have to live with the same as they have to live with bringing Kaitlyn up.”

Half an hour later, Maggie watched in tears as the couple drove away. Kaitlyn  had finally allowed Maggie to pick her up, not knowing it was only to say good-bye. Maggie wondered if the affection she’d shown Kaitlyn, temporary as it was, was in fact another kind of betrayal. Could a twenty-month-old child understand why she’d never see Maggie again?

Suddenly California seemed too far from home, and she began to pack her own things.