Page 49 of Harper

I spent that Thanksgiving with Aunt Charlotte, who was a decade younger than my mother and closer in temperament and lifestyle to me than my mom. Once I’d explained everything, she agreed to let me stay with her until my delivery date and even offered to help me find a family to adopt the baby. I worked as a waitress in the meantime, saving money for my future travels, and sorting through applications from adoptive families with my aunt.

Denise and Howard Calvin, a married couple from Sunriver, Oregon, who were unable to have children of their own, had steady jobs, a large house in the country, phenomenal references, and hearts overflowing with love for a child, were one of the families. After meeting with them in person only once, Aunt Charlotte and I agreed they’d be wonderful parents.

That part of my plan worked.

But naively, I didn’t anticipate the emotional burden of lying to my family and giving up my child. Both took a toll.

Lying to Joe and my family—sending them fake emails from Chile, where I said I was studying, without any mention of my pregnancy—created a wedge between us. Though I felt certain that I could mend things with my family, I knew the importance of using this time to break up, once and for all, with Joe. We drifted apart, though he tried like hell to keep us together, and then—when I finally broke up with him “from Chile” via email—he tried to get me to change my mind. Butevery day of my pregnancy, the brick wall I built between us was higher and harder to scale until not even Joe could make it up and over. In the end, I stopped responding to him, then blocked his emails, partly because his pain—and therefore my guilt—was unbearable, but partly because I was distracted by an unexpected emotional connection to someone else.

Despite my best efforts to avoid them, my feelings for my baby—for Joe’s and my daughter—grew day by day in both intensity and depth. I’d already experienced the sort of instinctual love that had led me to keep her and had driven me to find her the perfect family. But this was something different—it was an intimate and personal love that grew head over heels day by day. This was the love that would almost destroy me when I handed her to the Calvins and bid her goodbye.

I started calling her “Raven” after her father’s family and wondering what she’d look like. Would she be blonde and blue-eyed like me? Or black-haired and brown-eyed like Joe? I found myself rubbing my belly at stop lights and placing my hands protectively over her as I walked quickly from the parking lot into work. If anyone asked, I’d have said I sang lullabies to soothe myself to sleep, but Raven and I both knew I was singing to her.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, I even started wondering if I was making a mistake.

Was it too late to tell Joe we were going to be parents?

Was it too late to tell my family another Stewart was on the way?

But these questions didn’t really need to be answered. No matter how much my heart swelled with new-found love for Raven, my feelings about motherhood remained the same. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t commit to being a parent.

In my mind, the decision to give Raven to the Calvins was an act of love, an act of mercy, not a punishment. It was myway of protecting her—my way of giving her the best possible chance at a loving and stable life. The Calvins were ready to be parents. More than just wanting to be parents, they longed for the privilege. They could offer her more than I could. I was certain of that.

I went into labor on a cool Tuesday morning, two weeks before Memorial Day. Aunt Charlotte called the Calvins to meet us at the hospital, then accompanied me there. Despite the books I’d read in preparation, labor was a horror I never could have imagined. I almost lost my life in that hospital, though I barely remember a thing after those first few nightmarish hours.

My memories end when I was sedated and resume an hour before Raven went home with her parents.

Raven Emily Stewart was born on a Tuesday morning.

Full of grace.

She went home with the Calvins on Friday afternoon.

Far to go.

In the end, we had an hour together, my daughter and I.

At least, I think we did.

Most days, it’s easier to believe that it was only a dream.

Chapter 5

Harper

“Guests are all checked in,” says Sawyer, plopping down next to me on a couch in the hotel lobby. “Want to grab dinner?”

We’re on the third day of a five-day tour from Skagway to Whitehorse to Mayo to Dawson City. In the morning, we leave Dawson City and start the ten-hour drive back to Skagway with a camping stop in Carmacks tomorrow night to break up the trip.

We’ve been driving, hiking, canoeing, and camping for three straight days and tonight, like the rest of our guests, I’m ready for a hot shower and a proper bed.

“I’m exhausted,” I tell my brother. “Rain check?”

“You gonna make me eat alone, Harp?”

“’Fraid so,” I say, nudging him with my elbow. “Though I’m sure if you tried, you could find some company over at Jack London’s.”

“I suppose I could,” he says with a weary grin. “But come to think of it, I’m pretty tired, too.”

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