The Day She Let Me Go

I turned back toward Margaret. “What do you mean you were there?” Her eyes moved to Lily, then back to me. “I was outside the agency office,” she said. “Across the street.” I stared at her. “You watched them take me?” Margaret shook her head quickly. “No. I watched them bring you out.” She pressed both hands together in her lap. “I had signed the papers two days earlier. My parents told me it was done. They said I should go home and forget.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “But I couldn’t.” I sat on the edge of the bed with Lily against my shoulder. Margaret continued carefully, as if every sentence might make me ask her to leave. “I went back to the agency. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I thought maybe I would beg them to stop everything.” “Why didn’t you?” “Because I saw your adoptive mother.” I said nothing. Margaret looked toward the photograph. “She was holding you in that yellow blanket. She was crying and smiling at the same time. Your adoptive father kept touching your little hand like he couldn’t believe you were real.” A sharp pain moved through my chest. I could picture them. My mother had told me that day was the happiest day of her life. Margaret swallowed. “You started crying. The caseworker tried to calm you, but it didn’t work. So I stood across the street and sang the lullaby.” My arms tightened around Lily. “You sang it from across the street?” “Yes.” “And I stopped crying?” Margaret nodded. “The caseworker heard me. She came over and asked if I knew the baby.” “What did you say?” “I said no.” I looked away. The lie felt older than I was. Margaret wiped another tear from her face. “She asked me to hum the song again. She wrote down some of the words. Then she went back to you.” That was how the lullaby had reached my mother. Not through paperwork. Not through some kind caseworker who had invented a comforting story. Through Margaret. Through the woman who had stood across the street and watched another family take me home. “Why didn’t you stop them?” I asked. Margaret looked at me for a long time. “Because I was nineteen.” “That isn’t an answer.” “No,” she whispered. “It isn’t.” She took a shaky breath. “My parents had hidden my pregnancy. The father was gone. Everyone kept telling me that a married couple could give you a better life.” “And you believed them?” “I was terrified. I signed papers I barely understood because every adult in the room said it was the right thing.” I wanted to remain angry. I needed to. Anger was easier than imagining her young and frightened. “So you gave me away,” I said. Margaret’s face folded. “Yes.” “And then you came into my home twenty-eight years later pretending to be a babysitter.” “Yes.” The answer was so simple that it made me furious. “You do not get to turn this into a sad story about yourself.” “I know.” “You do not get to use my daughter to repair what you lost.” “I know.” “You keep saying that.” “Because you’re right.” Lily started crying harder. I stood and bounced her gently, refusing to look at Margaret. Normally, I would have handed Lily over. Margaret could settle her faster than anyone. But not this time. I held my daughter until her cries softened. Margaret remained on the chair, her fingers locked tightly together. She did not reach. She did not offer advice. She just watched me comfort my own child. Then she stood. “I should go,” she said. I did not stop her. At the nursery door, Margaret looked back. “I am sorry I lied,” she said. “I wanted to know you, but I should not have used your child as the doorway.” Then she walked out. The next morning, I found the stuffed rabbit beneath Lily’s crib. I picked it up, ready to throw it away. That was when I noticed the faded writing on its tag. One word. Grace.