She knew that life was precious. She knew how it felt to carry a living being within her only to give it away. Her child became the property of adulthood, but this little girl -- abandoned in the bushes and crying -- was now her daughter. For lack of any alternative, they’d called her Christine.

She had no regrets when she woke up crying in the night. In fact, she worried when she was quiet. On those nights, she slipped out of bed to the nursery to make sure she was still there. In her worst nightmare, she was gone and she was left with nothing but the baby’s lavender blanket and the scent of powder.

She would hold her and rock her in her mother’s rocking chair, and watch as the baby girl watched her. She imagined where she’d come from and who her parents had been. She made up a thousand scenarios of who she’d be grow up to be and what role in that future she would play.

She would be tall and slender, sharp and fast. She would be compassionate, hardheaded, and be burdened with faultless generosity. Maybe she would be a lawyer, giving her time to children like herself or putting away those who would take advantage of them. And then, if she was lucky, she would fall in love. She would fall in love with someone like her father, or maybe Bill Clinton sans the tendency towards cigars and interns. Claire wished her love, with whomever she might find it.

One subject she would be unmoved on, though, was grandchildren. She wanted many of them and she didn’t want to wait forever. From the day they were born, she would spoil them to the bone. Then, she would send them home to mother and let her comprehend migraine-inducing satisfaction that came with childrearing. It was the least of the gifts she could give her girl. That was what she saw when she peered searchingly towards tomorrow; she chose that.

Claire suspected that this was somewhere near the life her daughter’s birth mother had envisioned when she left her beside the jogging path and fled from her high-pitched cry. Had it been her, she doubted she possessed the will to turn away and leave, even if it was for the sake of her child.

Christine fell asleep looking at her, grasping the sheer material of her nightgown in her fists like a lifeline. It was an inborn survival instinct, born from the desire to hold on to mother and to security. She was at the same time furious at and grateful for that woman without a name who had given her the chance to raise a darling little girl to adulthood and not let this rampant affection inside go to waste. The mother in her didn’t rest because her son had gone astray. She only grew restless and discontent; something was missing.

That made this child an even greater blessing. When Claire had most needed someone else to care for, she had appeared. The aching certainty that motherhood had ended too soon for her vanished and was replaced by a new radiance. The exhilaration was the same, the joy and the fear of failure. It was the same. She no longer felt as though she’d reached the end of her usefulness. She still served an obvious purpose and that purpose dwelled in her daughter’s fluttering eyes.

She laughed at herself. It had been a dozen years since she’d been excited about play groups and play dates and Mommy & Me classes. This was her opportunity to try out those techniques she’d read in books and magazines that sounded so good at the time. They might work, though she doubted it. Her memory of all this was coming back.

It was her belief that everyone deserved a mother, especially their own. Christine was no different. She deserved the tender embraces she was showered with and the long naps in Claire’s arms by the pool. She deserved to reach her pudgy fingers out towards butterflies and for them to flap their delicate wings against her fingertips. She deserved those experiences and the laughter that came with them. As long as it was in her power, her daughter would have them.

But she would give her more than that someday. She would give her a choice. Somewhere, packed away with care, was a slender envelope filled with what little knowledge they could glean of her mother. She was young, no job or prospects. She was a product of the foster care system and had spent her childhood bouncing from one uninterested home to another abusive one. She had nothing, but she wouldn’t wish that on her child. Just as Claire did, she wished her love.

It turned out, that the desperate young woman had spied Claire on her daily run and slipped into the brush just before. As she’d passed, the mother roused her sleeping infant and ran away. It would’ve been harder to watch than it was to run. Then, she’d run and run and run away. No one had found her yet.

Christine would know. She had the right to know that love had been in the hands that laid her on the ground and love had been in those that picked her up. If her mothers had their way, that was all she would know. As long as she drew breath, she would have love, even if she was unaware of its source. It transcended distance; it surpassed death. A mother’s love was immortal, though mothers were not.

They had only so long to prepare their babies for the world before they had to leave them to their fathers and their own devices. There was a massive amount of knowledge to pass on and so few chances. Claire cherished every one and, tonight, began to tell Christine the secrets of her success. She was long asleep and even longer past caring, but she heard and the memory would be there. In a few years, she would nearly understand.

She fussed and jerked in her dreams and Claire imagined they were about butterflies and green leaves and bath bubbles, and her wanting to touch them but not being able to reach far enough. She tsked at her ambitious baby and stroked her chubby chin until she was calm again. In her mama‘s dreams, she sat on a blanket in her lap and held a butterfly. She cooed sleepily, her lips beginning to move in memory of a pacifier. Maybe tomorrow, they both thought.

With that prospect, her mother kissed her and put her to bed. She hesitated at the door and looked back to be sure she hadn’t dreamed up Christine’s tiny existence. She only saw the silhouette of her tiny chest rising and falling and heard her breathe. She was real, she was here. She began to suck her fist and Claire finally felt safe in backing away. Twenty years of motherhood and she was back where she started.

She returned to her husband, who’d only turned over in her absence and climbed underneath the covers. He muttered at the disturbance but calmed as she settled against his back. He was hardly more than an overgrown boy himself. She pressed her lips to his shoulder and slept.

Across the hall, her daughter reached towards the sky and laughed in her mind, secure in the knowledge that mama would be there. Across the state, her son turned the page of his textbook and thought of home and those lame family nights he’d begun to hate, but now sorely missed. Across the world, a woman held the form of fallen caterpillar in her hand and her mind went back to same place it always did.

To the piece of her soul moving around outside her body and to where she was now.

 

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