The Cards
The first thing Mark heard was, So you’re telling me I won’t have a grandson.
You already have a grandson, is what he wanted to say, thinking of his nephew born the prior spring. He wanted to scream through the phone, the cool metal pressed against the bones of his fingers.
When he came out in college to his parents, Mark didn’t expect a congratulations, much less a marching band, but their reaction stung more than he expected. It pierced the red muscle of his heart, the beginning of a small tear.
And so, the only way Mark could think to respond to his dad, the lawyer who loved direct answers – and, apparently, the idea of grandsons – was yes.
*
By the time Jeff rappelled into the center of Mark’s life, four years after law school, Mark’s parents had resorted to not asking about his life at all. They didn’t learn Jeff’s name until Mark and Jeff had been together for more than two years, didn’t comment on the Facebook photos of their engagement, didn’t send a check or a card after the wedding ceremony. Jeff joked that when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, it went into effect everywhere except for 72 Heritage Drive in Alpharetta, Georgia, where Mark’s parents ended phone calls by giving their best to his roommate.
“We’re married, Mom,” he said once, remembering how his parents had declined the invite to the City Hall ceremony, citing the expense of the plane ticket to Boston, despite Jeff’s offer to pay. “We’re planning to be fathers. We want to build a family.”
Do you remember Mr. Athens, your eighth grade history teacher? He died last week, just awful. Funeral was packed though.
It wasn’t simply changing the subject; the subject never rose, a sun never approaching the horizon, their world splashed in shadow.
*
When the adoption agency scheduled a check-in, the day was blazingly hot, one of the last days in the Boston summer before the autumn winds swept in and the leaves turned orange.
“The sun is a good sign,” Jeff said. “I just know it means we have a match.”
They had already paid $15,000 to the agency to hold their spot, an amount that Mark felt was significant, without knowing if anyone would want them as parents.
“There’s nothing in the contract about a guaranteed baby,” Mark said. “And there was that clause where the agency can request funding at any time, even if there isn’t a match.”
“There isn’t a cloud in sight,” Jeff said, still looking toward the sky, the opposite direction of the numbers and legalese on Earth. “I know you’re nervous, but Cathy and Joanie had a great experience with them – twice. They matched right away.”
Sure enough, Jeff was right. With the phone on speaker, they learned that the mother who selected them as adopting parents was a nineteen-year-old from Chelsea. The baby was a girl. Mark and Jeff would later decide to name her Chelsea, after the town she was from, the one that stayed tucked under the bridge they drove over on their way out of the city.
“She’s thrilled to be paired with you,” the adoption agency rep said over the phone. “And, you know, her uncle is gay, so …”
Mark cringed, to which Jeff rolled his eyes and brushed his hand in the air: Just let it go.
“The mother wanted to make sure a loving family was in the girl’s future,” she continued. “She saw that in the scrapbook you put together.”
The scrapbook was Jeff’s idea. He was the creative in the relationship – messages on lunch bags, notes on kitchen counters in between dinner recipes. The scrapbook they created to woo a potential mother was born from that – give Jeff a purpose and he could create something out of nothing and bring everyone else along.
Bright yellow and as wide as a vinyl record, the scrapbook was full of mementos yet to be created: an illustration from Jeff, an architect, of how the office would evolve to a nursery; the menu from the restaurant where they went on their first date, eight years ago, with the kids’ options highlighted; a photo with Jeff’s parents, just enough space for a baby to squeeze in.
What they did not include: the boxes in the office of their South End townhouse, still stacked next to Mark’s desk where the movers dropped them six months ago. The billable hours that Mark added up, sixty hours on a light week, for his job as an attorney at the financial firm downtown. Mark’s resume neatly bulleted out, which he sent once a month to the shaving cream giant across town, hoping to be hired before the baby came. They’re a great place for parents to work, friends said. Super flexible hours.
For Mark, putting together the scrapbook was like editing his life from a dull documentary to a family film, bursting in Technicolor. He hadn’t doubted his ability to be a father until he saw the pages staring back at him, questions crawling out from shadows: Will I be a good dad? Do I know enough to teach my kid? Is this what I want?
Jeff’s approach – the whole-hearted embrace of the project, the robust grabbing of his hand to do it together – had reminded Mark of when they first met. His natural angling toward optimism and adventure was what first snatched Mark’s attention when they met at a bar, Jeff throwing down a half-full drink to dash toward the dance floor. That was Jeff – always running toward the fun, headfirst into the next thing, faith that it would be worth it. Mark, more comfortable on the sidelines with his friends or his phone, always had a moment of terror in joining him. But he learned that it was always worth the risk. It’s what made Jeff, Jeff, and what made Mark love him even more with each antic and adventure.
*
“What are you most excited about?” Jeff asked, standing at the stove boiling a pot of pasta.
“For dinner?” Mark responded, uncorking a bottle of red wine.
Jeff pinched his torso.
“Oh, being a father,” Mark said. “I’m not sure yet, what about you?”
“The clothes, naturally,” Jeff told him. “The little overalls, the hats. The tiny Halloween costumes.”
“Good one,” Mark said. “I’ll have to keep thinking.”
The saucepan sizzled and set off a plume of steam as Jeff poured in a can of tomatoes.
“I’m also excited to be alone at night with the baby,” Jeff said, stirring the slick tomatoes deeper into the olive oil. “When my friends talk about having those quiet moments, it sounds so special. I picture sharing what I learned throughout the day with her. Whispering little lessons and hoping they stay there.”
“Like what?”
“Life is short, your dads love you, you can do anything you want to do. That type of thing.”
The two stood in the kitchen, listening to the tomatoes simmer in the pot, bubbles gurgling and splashing red onto the stove.
“There is one thing I was thinking of doing,” Jeff said. “Don’t make fun.”
Mark went to say OK, but Jeff had already started in on his idea.
“We could make a mobile with our advice written on it,” he said. “We write down lessons from our life onto colorful cards. Chelsea could have them in her room as a baby, which becomes a memento as she gets older.”
The tomatoes continued their simmer.
“I saw it on Pinterest,” Jeff added, as if to justify the validity of the concept.
Mark thought of what he would put on the cards, of how he would teach the child – his daughter – to stand up for her beliefs, to be kind to others, to grow up and be a great something-or-other. He thought of the things his parents said to him; the shock he may feel when something comes back, falling out of his mouth like a photo escaping from an album long closed, locked in an attic a generation ago.
“OK,” Mark said. “I’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll try. Just don’t get the most expensive card stock you can find; we need to be saving.”
Jeff smiled and turned back toward the sauce.
“Well, it’s too late for that, I already left the cards on your desk,” he said. “The pricey ones, too.”
*
The next morning, Mark took the five cards out that Jeff had purchased and placed them on his desk. Next to those, a Sharpie. There was also a box with scissors, stickers, glue sticks. Mark sat there, hitting the marker against his knee.
He was still drumming when the email for a job interview came in. We’d love to connect by the end of the week, it said. The marker went down, Mark’s fingers dancing across the keyboard. After he confirmed the time for his interview, he pushed the cards to the side of his desk.
I have time for that later, the words will appear when they’re meant to, he thought, though he wasn’t completely sure that those words would ever come.
*
You’ll make a great father one day, Mark’s mother had said when he was a kid, anytime he did something good around the house. Helped set the table, helped the younger cousins with their homework, helped bring in the groceries from the car.
And then, you’ll make your wife very happy.
The trouble, even as a kid, was that Mark could never picture himself as a family man. He tried to picture what his wife would look like, where they would live, what they would name their children, and he simply couldn’t do it, like picturing shadows without an object to cast them.
It wasn’t until he was fourteen and kissed Jake Rafferty after Model UN, Jake’s “CANADA” nameplate still pinned to his blazer, that it all made sense.
From that point on, he counted down the days to high school graduation, calendared out in a notebook under his bed, slashing through the weeks every Sunday after church. By his senior year, Mark knew three things: first, he would go to school in Boston, far away from home; there, he would come out; and, finally, he would give up anything to achieve those destinies.
That’s how he ended up announcing that his senior year football season would be his last, despite the interest from the recruiters, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to play in college without getting unwanted attention. It’s how he gave up going to his church’s youth group on Sunday night, lying to his parents about where he was driving. And how, after he told Jake that he wanted kids someday, and Jake laughed, saying that it was impossible, that no kid would ever want two dads, he stopped picturing his house, picking names for the kids, imagining whether he would put them in soccer or ballet or piano or all three.
That fall of his senior year, his aunt and uncle visited from North Carolina, bringing along their son, three months old. Everyone took turns passing around the baby. As the pack of young cousins came in for their turn, the directions pushed through – watch the head, be careful not to twist, stay calm, always stay calm, they can tell when there’s danger or discomfort.
When it was Mark’s turn, the baby wailed, turning his head toward his mother. Mark’s arms, powerful enough to sack the quarterback from Parsons High School that morning, had transformed into something thin and weak. He felt the baby wiggle against his body, right on his core, as if the child were kicking rope that had twisted onto itself in a storm.
Oh look, people said. Oh, he’s not used to you, as if Mark was a taste that had to be tolerated until it was normal.
His aunt came over, taking back the baby. There, there. As the baby left his arms, Mark noticed the sweat in the crooks of his elbows, the pins and needles in his forearms and wrists. If they knew how he spent his weekends – what he and Jake were doing in the woods behind his house – he wasn’t sure he would be offered a turn to hold the child again. He wasn’t sure he would be at the picnic at all. The life lessons hanging in his room at home may not have been written on cards, but they were there, splashed across the walls in invisible ink.
*
The request for more money came through email early one morning, before Jeff was out of bed. Mark had just made a pot of coffee when his phone pinged.
Chelsea’s mother is requesting an extra $1,200 for supplies to support her pregnancy, it read.
“What does that even mean?” Mark asked Jeff when he shuffled in and read the message on Mark’s phone.
“It’s probably things like pregnancy pillows, vitamins, that type of thing.”
“Why should we be responsible?”
Jeff lowered the phone and raised his eyes to Mark, his eyebrows lifting to suggest it was a question he shouldn’t ask.
“OK, you’re right,” Mark said. “It’s all part of support for Chelsea.”
“Thank you,” Jeff said. “Write back and tell her we can send a check this afternoon.”
“You mean that I’ll send a check this afternoon,” Mark said, but Jeff had already turned back into the bedroom.
*
Mark continued to avoid the cards through the week, glancing over at the pile between conference calls, not sure of what to put on them other than Don’t become a lawyer. He concentrated on his interview prep, using the Sharpie to instead underline key points in his notes.
Mark met with the hiring manager later that week. She was a woman about ten years his senior, whose badge hung off a lanyard around her neck, KAMILA in bold letters. She started the conversation by asking what passion project he was working on.
“We always like to get to know you first,” she said. “The ‘tell me about yourself’ prompt is just so corporate and law-firm-interview – no offense.”
“Oh, none taken,” Mark laughed. “Well, my husband and I are expecting a baby …”
Kamila gasped; a smile broad across her face.
“Congratulations!”
Her joy was a contrast to the questions Mark got at his current firm about work coverage or more exact dates regarding his leave. Mark noticed how her energy and excitement outshone his own; she would get along with Jeff, he thought.
“Your first?”
“It is. We have a lot to learn and –”
“Oh, you’re going to do just fine. When I had my first, I spent nine months wondering how the hell I would know what to do. You just figure it out.”
“That’s what they all say,” Mark said. “I assume they’re all right.”
“We are,” Kamila said, smiling. “Trust us. You’ll be a great father.”
Mark explained the mobile, how it would hang in the nursery and serve as a guide for their daughter through her life.
“How lovely and creative.”
“Yeah, my husband came up with the plan. He’s an architect, the perfect blend of engineering and creative brain. I just have the lawyer brain.”
“Hey, we can be creative, too,” Kamila said. “You’re writing that advice, that’s creative.”
Mark considered this – he hadn’t written anything yet, of course, but he knew it would come. It always did when he participated in Jeff’s adventures. That had to take some sort of level of imagination.
That night, when he got home, he wrote the first piece of advice onto a card: You were born into this world creative. Use your gifts, no matter what anyone tells you.
*
The email was short: The mother is requesting $450 for an ultrasound.
Could we meet with her first? Mark typed back. He realized after he hit send that he hit reply, not reply all, that Jeff was not on the note. He felt guilty, then relieved, and then guilty that he felt relieved.
The response came only a few minutes later: Unfortunately, it’s against our agency’s policy for candidates to meet with birth parents until after the child is born.
Mark opened up the online bank account; there would be enough to write a check by Friday, when they both got paid. By the time he finished the math on a scrap paper, pushing aside the neat pile of cards to do so, Jeff was calling.
“You saw the email, right?” Jeff asked. “Obviously we have to do it.”
“Of course,” Mark said. “It still seems weird to me.”
“I’ve been asking around and it’s not that uncommon.”
“If you say so,” Mark said, fumbling through the desks to find the checkbook.
When the sonogram came through email a week later, Jeff printed it out and stuck it to the fridge behind a magnet of the Golden Gate Bridge. He sent it to his parents, who responded right away, more exclamation points and heart emojis than letters. Mark found it hard to get excited about the piece of paper, to convince himself that this black-and-white image was going to be his daughter, but he pushed it aside. He would continue to talk about Chelsea with Jeff as if she were in the next room over, quietly sleeping under the cards.
*
The following week, a call to Mark from the recruiter.
“The interviews tomorrow will be the final round,” she said. “I would expect a decision pretty quickly after your time together.”
“That sounds great,” Mark said.
“Do you have any questions for me before tomorrow?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
And then –
“Actually, I do. When we discussed compensation, you didn’t mention benefits for new parents.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. Mark could hear her stammering through the phone. “I shouldn’t have assumed that you wouldn’t be interested.”
He hung up the phone and looked at the stack of cards on his desk. He took off the cap of the marker and wrote on one of the cards, Ask for what you want. You never know what’s around the corner.
*
It was a week later when the recruiter called to offer Mark the job, which he accepted. The law firm didn’t make it easy for him to leave – during his last two weeks, he clocked more than eighty hours each – but he had three weeks between closing his computer and starting the new job. It was just enough time to redo the office and transform it for the nursery.
“I have a job for you,” Jeff said. “But make sure you wear old clothes.”
“Oh no,” Mark groaned. “It’s painting, isn’t it?”
Jeff grinned.
“Since you did such a good job on the front door of our old place, you were my top candidate,” Jeff said. “A regular Picasso.”
The Sunday before his first week off, Mark drove with Jeff to Home Depot to look at the paint wall.
“I don’t want blue or pink,” Jeff said. “I want her room to feel unique. New and fresh.”
Mark held a handful of violets and greens when Jeff ran his fingers over a swatch of yellows.
“Ooooh,” he exhaled. “What about a golden color? That room faces the back, so it doesn’t get a ton of natural light. The brightness could be really nice for her, especially in the winter?”
“I think the brightness will be good for us in the winter,” Mark said.
“True.”
Fresh Dandelion. Desert Yellow. California Gold.
“Oh, I love this one,” Jeff said, pointing to June Sun. “It’s not too garish, but not too pastel either.”
“Do you test it first?”
“Nope, this is it.”
In the room, Mark put the tarp down. He wore his old football practice jersey and a pair of sweatpants with a hole in the waist. He cracked open the paint can, unveiling liquid the color of fresh custard. He dipped the new brush in and started painting.
Jeff was right about the color. It was a cloudy day, and the yellow bounced a natural warmth across the walls.
He wrote that night, from the new glow of the room:
The sun was shining the day we learned you’d join our family. Always look for the sun. Even when you can’t see it, it’s there.
*
Mark was moving furniture back into the freshly painted room when the next email from the adoption agency arrived: another request, this time for transportation bills to and from the doctor, another $300. Mark, home alone, transferred the money right away, his stomach knotted as he pressed “Confirm Transfer” on his phone. He called the friend who recommended the agency six months prior.
“Did they do this to you?” he asked.
“A couple of times,” Cathy said. “It was more than ten years ago so I can’t remember how often, but the birth mother told us she hadn’t been pregnant before so we knew she needed some extra support.”
“The mother told you that, or the agency?”
“The mother. Her name is Shannon.”
“You met her?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, a bunch of times,” Cathy said.
They told us that we couldn’t meet, Mark could hear himself saying, before the phone in his hand vibrated, Jeff’s face popping up on the screen. He swiftly ended the call with Cathy and hit the green accept call button.
“It’s already paid,” he told Jeff in greeting.
“Oh thank goodness,” Jeff said. “I hadn’t even looked at the bank account today.”
“We’re all set; I got you.”
“Thank you, honey,” Jeff said, and ended the call, leaving Mark alone in the nursery, the knot in his stomach only wound tighter.
*
With only a few weeks to go, Mark had two cards left to fill out.
“I’m stuck,” he told Jeff.
“Have your parents given you any advice you could use?”
“I’m not sure those lessons belong on cards,” Mark said. “But I don’t think any of that really matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about my family, and wondering if they’ll want to be in Chelsea’s life,” Mark said. “I realized that whatever they decide, it won’t matter. She’ll have everyone she needs here, with you and me.”
Jeff pinched him.
“Oh, babe,” he said.
Mark wrote the fourth card that night:
Family is what you make it.
*
It was raining when the adoption agency called Mark to say that the mother had changed her mind.
Mark knew Jeff understood what was happening, as he held the phone to his ear, repeating the same words over and over again. Okay Okay. No questions, not yet. Okay. Jeff’s face was drained of color, a blank canvas absent of any shadow; he turned around and moved toward the nursery before Mark finished the call.
This happens all the time, Mark heard the woman say. None of their money would be returned. They would, as before, have no direct contact with the mother, nor would they meet the baby when she arrived. It was as if her only existence was a bank account deficit and unbounded hope, sitting between two men, a whisper that became a roar.
Mark felt a tension rising in his chest, into his throat, crawling out of his mouth as he said goodbye to the woman on the phone. She didn’t even apologize, he thought, and pushed it aside. He inhaled, exhaled, and inhaled again; he waited a moment for the blood to flow back through his body and traced Jeff’s steps to the nursery.
He found Jeff standing in the middle of the room, a quiet nest of gold shining against the grey rain. The books on the shelf – Goodnight Moon, I’ll Love You Forever – looked out toward them as they had an hour previously, their spines uncracked. On the changing table, a stuffed bunny, eyes blank, his small body waiting to be held. The four cards that Mark had written, the one blank card on top, sat on the windowsill.
Mark didn’t see Jeff fall; it was the crash of his knees against the floor that jolted his attention awake. Jeff was kneeling, his hands cupping his face. Mark slowly knelt to the ground, holding Jeff from behind, it’s okay, it’s okay. For a moment, there was nothing in the room but the two of them, the echoes of dark, bottomless sorrow within the bright-yellow walls, and those four cards, the empty one that might not ever be filled.
“We were so close,” Jeff gasped. “We were so close.”
Mark took the cards from the windowsill and sat on the floor, slipping them into the pocket of Jeff’s sweater.
“The best part about your idea is that the cards will work for the next time,” Mark said. “Hold onto these. I’ll keep the marker in my desk drawer.”
Mark took Jeff by the hand, feeling Jeff’s fingers settle against his palm. Mark squeezed, felt the knuckles in his grip; he lifted Jeff away from the floor.