I went back to work and law school and life feeling the loss of something I never had, trying to put it behind me until, at work, at 4:15 on a Wednesday, files piled around me, cold coffee sitting on the edge of my desk, there was a woman’s voice on the phone: “Miss Stanislawski?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling time stop around me.
“This is Sunilda Rosario from OCFS,” she said with the staccato punches of a New York Dominican accent, rapid fire Spanish inflections in her words.
“I’m sorry, from the what?” I asked, thinking she might be an expert witness we’d called on a case. “Children and Family Services, Miss Stanislawski.”
“Oh, oh, OK,” I said, stumbling around, shuffling papers on my desk. She went on: “After investigating all possible options for the placement of Baby Costello it’s become clear that there are no immediate relatives on either side of the family prepared to take custody. We wanted to know if you could come in and talk to us about fostering the baby, if you’re still interested…”
“Wait, what?” I meant to put the file in my hand on my desk but I missed the edge and paper cascaded around me. A memory; paper floating by the windows that morning when I stood in an office just like this one. I feel Frankie brush past me. “What about Mrs. Costello? Did you find the father? What about his parents?”
“The father is in prison, the paternal grandparents are deceased, and the Costellos are not in a position to take the baby. I’m calling because Mrs. Costello suggested we call you as a close friend of the family…”
So on a Wednesday afternoon in my cramped office under the fluorescent lights, a hundred sheets of paper surrounding me, I became his mother. It’s not official yet, though. There’s a year ahead of us of court dates, home visits, interviews, assessments, background checks. There’s the chance that I won’t be able to adopt him, not if his father decides to hold on to his rights from prison. There’s the chance they’ll think that I can’t do it on my own when they do the home visits. But there’s also the chance that this is exactly how life is supposed to go.
Now we’re here, where Michelle grew up, with Mrs. Costello in the doorway, thinner than I remember her, in a pink sweater set, gold crucifix hanging around the soft freckled creases of her neck. I pull the baby from the car seat and walk past the Virgin Mother up to the front door.
“Gigi? Sharon? Hello, girls, come in. I just made a pot of coffee.” Mrs. Costello is warm and friendly like she always was and welcomes us in the same way she always did, but she doesn’t look at the baby. She doesn’t ask to hold him, doesn’t pat his back, doesn’t do any of the things old ladies do when they see a baby, especially one they’re related to. She just notices him on my shoulder and pads to the kitchen to get the coffee; the sound of her nylon knee-highs rubbing against her house slippers gives me chills. Sharon and I sit down on the tweed sofa, its plastic cover crackling under us.
I try not to wake the baby as we sit down. Sharon tugs at my sleeve and mouths, “Oh my God,” her eyes directing me to the opposite wall. Above the upright piano the wall is covered in gold-framed photos of Jimmy, the Costellos’ son. He died when he was eleven. He was all arms and legs and green eyes that grew bigger and bigger the sicker he got, the thinner his face became. We all remembered Jimmy, how one day he was playing baseball in the street and the next he was waving at all of us from his bedroom window. But when we stood at his window to yell up to him one summer morning, he wasn’t there. Just the bedroom curtain swaying slightly; no doe-eyed smiling sick boy waving back.
Every time we stopped by with my parents to see how the Costellos were doing after he died, we noticed that Mrs. C had added another framed photo of him to this wall. She kept adding pictures to the wall and she kept teaching sixth grade at St. Ignatius, the constant procession of eleven-year-old boys through her classroom comforting and torturing her every day.
But Sharon isn’t looking at Jimmy’s wall. She’s looking at the three-foot-tall portrait of Michelle, leaning against the top of the piano, no space yet for it among the frames. A full-color rendition of Michelle in oil paint. She’s wearing her prom dress—I remember it from Frankie’s photos—and sitting on a cloud with huge angel wings behind her, a backdrop of feathers for her face. Around her neck there’s a gold locket, opened in thirds, revealing three pictures: Jimmy on the left, Frankie on the right and, although he’s still alive in the next room, Mr. Costello in the frame in the middle. I feel sick. I want to fold into myself, to cry, but I do neither. There’s no space for my grief in this house. I hold the baby on my lap and clutch Sharon’s hand.
“Why is life so fucking hard, Shar?” I whisper.
“I don’t know.”
“How am I going to do this?”
“Listen, just drink the coffee, say hi to Mr. Costello and then we go. OK? It’ll be OK.”
Before I can plead with Sharon to get us out of here Mrs. Costello comes in with the coffee. “Here we go, girls, nice and hot. You take milk?” she asks as she pours milk into all three cups before waiting for an answer. Her voice has the same warble I remember, high-pitched and shrill, like Archie Bunker’s wife.
“Thanks, Mrs. C. It’s good to see you.
