There’s a song by Ben Folds called “Gracie Girl.” We played it for the father-daughter dance at my oldest daughter’s wedding last year. It begins:
You can’t fool me, I saw you when you came out
You got your momma’s taste but you got my mouth
And you will always have a part of me
Nobody else is ever going to see
Gracie girl …
It was perfect. Our oldest girl is named Grace, and the song is lyrical, lilting, wistful, and a dozen other things she is.
I had no idea that within a year, I would be singing that song to my younger daughter’s baby. I wouldn’t have dreamed it, because she’s my younger daughter. Younger, as in, eighteen and unmarried. She was still living at home and going to school.
After the initial shock of hearing Kat’s news had faded, the next seven months passed by quickly. Before we knew it, baby Cato was home from the hospital and holed up in his mother’s room, along with his very hands-on, invested, and earnest teenage father, who was spending more and more time at our house.
We have this same room on video, with toddler Kat and her little dark curls, roaming around and exploring shortly after we moved into this house. The closet where dresses hung on pink plastic hangers is now stuffed with tiny cardigans and boy clothes on little white hangers.
Like a young wolf pair, Kat and John retreated to their den with their little cub. For the most part, they came out only to forage sporadically, retreating like shadows when any of us got too close.
I was left to stand in the hall, figuratively scratching my head and thinking, this is not how I thought it would be. Everyone had implied (if not coming right out and saying it) that my life was over. You watch, those kids will pawn that baby off on you, and don’t you let them do it. I had known that was mostly wrong, even early in her pregnancy. Kat wanted this baby far too much to give him up—to me or to anybody. But I did think that she would need me more.
Where were all the questions:
How do I swaddle him, Mom?
How do I get him to latch on?
How do I do this or that?
The questions were never asked, let alone “pawning off” baby Cato on me.
The very first week was when I made my big mistake. Kat and John had come out of their lair to sit with the rest of us at the dinner table. Kat and John ate avidly, but were clearly tired. They had begun to lighten up a bit, laughing at the younger kids’ jokes, when a thin little wail began from their room. If I’d had ears on the top of my head, I’m sure they would have perked up into perfect points. I looked at the young parents—they ate doggedly on. My heart overcome with pity, I thought, “Aw, they’re exhausted and starved. They deserve to eat a good home-cooked meal in peace.”
Joyfully, I jumped up, went to Kat’s room, and looked down at the delicious little morsel of humanity wiggling around in the bassinet. I picked him up, came back to the dining room table, and sat down, cuddling Cato while I listened to the end of another one of my husband’s long and rambling stories.
To my shock, Kat came around the table, grim-faced, and took Cato from my arms as if taking back a swiped sweater. Without a word, she retreated to her room, followed closely by John. My husband and I stared at each other, while the two younger children looked confused.
Over the next day or so, I cried, wrote in my diary, vented to a friend in an email, broke down, and confided in my older daughter. After all my patience and love, running her to and from doctor’s appointments, was this how I deserved to be treated? Really?
