Why I Did Not Make A Scene
People ask me later why I did not raise the roof.
Why I did not call the police, or call a lawyer at ten at night, or stand at that desk and holler until somebody moved me.
I have thought about it a lot. The honest answer is that there was nobody to arrest.
Lynette had not broken a law. She had just gotten to the clipboard first, the way she got to everything first, and a clipboard is not a crime.
The other honest answer is harder. Brianna was the one in pain down that hall.
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Anything loud I did out here landed on her, not on her mother. If I made them come deal with me, they took a nurse off of Brianna.
And if I pushed, the story Lynette had been telling for nine months wrote its own ending right there. That I was trouble. That I would make a scene. That I was not steady.
I knew what she thought of me. She had told me once, in her car, calm as weather.
She said men like my father did not stay. She said she was not going to let Brianna build a life on one.
My father left when I was six. Lynette knew that because I had trusted Brianna with it, and Brianna had trusted her mother, and her mother had filed it away to use.
So I did the only thing I could think of that did not cost Brianna anything.
I got up. I walked down the hall to where the nursery window was. I stood where I could at least see.
A floor nurse told me gently that I needed to stay in the waiting area.
“I will not make any trouble,” I told her. “I just want to see.”
Something in my face must have been all right, because she let me stand there. For a while it was just me and the cold glass and the row of bassinets and Lynette’s back.
I had my phone in my pocket. I thought about calling my mother, who lives up in Effingham now, but it was late and there was nothing she could do from an hour away.
I thought about texting Brianna. I did text her, three times. I wrote, I am here, I am right outside, I love you.
The phone was in Lynette’s purse. I found that out later. The messages sat there unread while I stood at the glass believing Brianna had chosen to leave me out.