IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE AND Mason and I declined a great invitation party at the special Oscars Award only that year.
What we did instead was stay home to look after the baby while he continued to search for possible traces of where the mother of this child had gone.
It's been about a week or two since she had come and ditched her child at our front door.
Mason wanted some Christmas vibes this year after all, so we set up a fake tree in the living room and lit the fireplace to enhance the feeling. A few presents piled under the tree.
"This thing won't sleep." I complained over my shoulder as I carried her in my arms, the deviant little devil scratching at me and crying like the world would fall apart. I've spent at least five restless nights waking up to try to get her to sleep, my mind occupied on nothing but her. It's like she was angry at the world, perhaps knowing what has happened to her already.
Mason laughed at his seat on the couch, his glasses over his face that reflected the blue screen of his laptop. "She can sense that you don't like her."
I rolled my eyes, then went back to speaking in soft voices to try to get her to calm down at the very least. Her hazel little eyes are crinkled together, crying and crying. I sighed, looking back over at Mason. "Why does she cry so much? She's in a warm house, she has nutritious formula milk, a change of diapers every few hours, and plus, it's Christmas Eve!"
He sets his laptop aside and gives me a long smiley look like all of this is really funny to him. He wasn't the one waking up every night to calm this thing after all. "She's a baby, Maeve. Babies don't know stuff like that."
"When I was a kid, I did not have any of these luxuries." I duck my face one direction just in time as she sends a jabbing kick. She was strong for how small she was.
Mason sighed, more softly now. "I know. Here, hand her to me. I'll cut you some slack."
"Finally," I murmur and quickly hand off the crying monster into his arms. I sit next to him, peering at his laptop. "Any news on the mother?"
"No, not yet. It's quite impossible if you think about it, so I've put up some flyers online instead." He makes a few soothing noises and somehow, with miracles and wonders, she slows to a halt from crying. Her mouth that has been opened from screaming slows.
My eyes widened. "Wow. I swear she just hates me at this point. See! She's falling asleep when you hold her."
He turned toward me and put a finger against his lips. "Shh, let her sleep now."
When she's fast gone and quiet, her breathing relaxed, Mason settles her back in my arms.
"What you don't have is patience, and all babies need that." He said as I waited for her to wake up. But she doesn't. She lays in my hold peacefully.
I smiled, glancing at Mason and then back at her. I talk in a low and hushed voice; excited: "You know, she's actually kind of cute when she's not wailing and trying to kick me. I guess the dirty diapers are worth it."
He chuckles next to me and wraps one arm around my shoulder. We stare at her red soft hair that draped over her sleeping face in curtains of hope.
Christmas Eve felt a little enchanted that year.
MASON NEVER FOUND THE baby's mother.
I actually found her.
It was through a "friend" of mine in my social network of acting. She had sent me this headline news, complaining about how crazy our society was becoming. She always found ways to talk to me I supposed, and that day as I tiredly cooed the baby to sleep while she kicked and screamed, I read what she sent for a distraction.
And then there was a photo. The photo of the woman I had seen on our front steps, but without a head cover. It was unmistakable. She had the exact same head full of auburn and glowing red hair that resembled her baby. And the eyes. I saw which were now a bright, dark-ish blue. Those eyes stared back at me with a slight sheen of cutting.
I hurriedly rushed to find Mason and showed him.
Too eager to show him the photo, I hadn't finished the story. And I wish I had before going to him with smiles and hope as I murmured to the baby over and over again we found her mother. That she could go "home" to her family. She even stopped crying and gave a tiny smile.
Mason finished reading from my phone and sighed at me. He put my phone faced down on his desk. I stopped beaming and my excited mood which had affected the baby at first seemed to dawn too.
"What is it? We found her, isn't that right?" Too thrilled and caught up in the moment, it took me a while to finally question why this average woman would be on headline news.
Instead of answering me, he quietly got up from where he sat and took the baby out of my hands. He pecked her on the forehead with a kiss that was both gentle and pitying.
The baby had started crying again and Mason made patient attempts of wooing her back to sleep.
He tilted his head at me, his expression sad. "Let's call the adoption people tomorrow."
I saw for a moment a resemblance of motherlessness between Mason and the baby he held so tenderly in his arms.
—————
The mother was named Jasmine Johnson. She was born and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, age forty-two. She married several times, and her latest husband had put her in a psychiatric hospital, saying she was always melancholy and that had some mental issues. She was found pregnant and they treated her, but when the baby was born, it was passed by the city government that she could not keep the baby as her current state was not suitable for raising a child. Weeks ago, she escaped when they tried to take her baby away. What might've been more saddening was that the husband admitted to having no idea who gave her a baby, but that it must've been someone in the psychiatric hospital because he hadn't visited in person for two years; he was planning on letting it into the foster care system.
And who knew, maybe Jasmine knew this and couldn't let that happen? Running away without a thought, crossing the country from Pennsylvania to LA with a baby just a few weeks old in her arms.
Jasmine Johnson jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles last week. Her body was found in traumatic forms, so severed that they cannot recover it.
I couldn't look into the baby's eyes without feeling extreme guilt and sorrow for her.
—————
The husband was some influential business man and insisted on finding his wife's baby that wasn't his. He said he had the best intentions in mind of giving her into the best adoption center or foster care home, but Mason couldn't let the girl who had an unidentified father and has lost her mother so tragically go into some strange man's arms.
I found that I couldn't either.
Sometimes we forget the money and power we had since we passed our lives in trapped and simple ways, only remembering the pain of what's happened to us. Justice was a hard thing, yet somehow in this case we couldn't let go.
It took our best lawyer and a few million dollars to finally shut the man out and leave us alone. When that was done; sadly, we still had to give her up to the adoption people. It was the whole purpose of paying away the husband, since who knew if he would've given her to good people.
I had lost contact with Bridget but Mason found some of his more trusted people. When the people from the adoption center came to our place, the baby was sleeping.
This whole time, I had thought Mason was the one who was going to have this the hardest. He was always so patient with her, and she loved him so much too. They were the perfect duo.
Except he knew that this was best for her and had tried to release all personal attachments. I, on the other hand, somehow was the one who couldn't do this.
My past came to haunt me.
They were letting me hold her one last time, and as I walked over to the adoption people to give her to them, I saw her face change to another baby.
My insides were beginning to feel weird. Isabella.
I had handed off Klarise's baby just like this. Where was she now? Would things be different if I hadn't gave her away? Did I process it all wrong? Would it have been better if we had taken care of her? If we gave her a home?
"Thank you for all your care, but we may now take her out of your troubles." The adoption lady smiled at me, reaching for her.
Seconds went by slowly, my heart thumping against my temple. I looked down at her again. Her face was herself again, no longer Isabella.
Take care of her.
"Klarise?" I looked around, searching for her face.
Give her the love and home you never had.
"Hey, are you alright?" Mason's hand touched my shoulder. I turned to look at him, the baby still in my arms. His face was worried, lines of wrinkles from years looking after me.
I took a step back from the adoption people. I glanced at Mason, and then back at them.
"I think we'd like more time to consider our decision about her whereabouts." I said out of the blue, catching everyone in the room by surprise.
I ignored everyone and, like it was meant to be, everything around me tuned into a buzzing silence. It was just me and her. Her eyes were open, awake from her sleep, and we stared at each other; unwavering.
What I felt through that moment was an experience of one in a lifetime.