You Were Meant For Me (3 page)

The yawn propelled Miranda into action. She lifted up the tiny creature. Under the towel the infant was naked; the umbilical cord, tied in a crude, red knot, looked as if it had been sawed off, and there were reddish streaks on her body. Was the umbilical cord infected or was it supposed to be that way? Miranda had no idea but wished she had some antibiotic ointment. Avoiding the red protuberance, she shifted the baby gingerly in her arms. Around one wrist was a bracelet; the small pink glass beads were interspersed with white ones whose black letters spelled out
BABY GIRL
. Someone had cared enough to place that bracelet on her wrist; was it the same person who had left her here in the station? Miranda wrapped
the blanket around the infant's body. But that didn't seem sufficient, so she opened her coat and positioned her close to her own body. That ought to keep her warm. Or at least warmer.

The station was still empty. What should she do? There was an app on her phone that would help her locate a police station. But she did not want to be walking around here in this strange neighborhood by herself. No, she'd rather head for the station house back in Park Slope. She waited downstairs for the train; it would be warmer than the windy platform. When she heard it arriving, she hurried up the stairs and got in as soon as the doors parted.

As the train chugged along, it occurred to her that the infant might be hungry or thirsty. Hungry she could not fix. But she had a bottle of water in her bag; also hand sanitizer, which she wished she had thought to use earlier. Damn! Gripping the tiny body under one arm, she managed to squirt the green gel over both hands and rub furiously. Then she wet her fingers with the water and held them to the infant's lips. She opened her mouth and began to suck. Tears welled in Miranda's eyes. She was thirsty, poor little thing. Naked, abandoned in a subway station, and thirsty too—the final and crowning indignity in a brand-new life that so far seemed comprised of nothing but.

When they reached their stop, Miranda made her way through the dark streets toward the police station. At least the rain had tapered off. Against her body, the infant felt warm and animate. Miranda was keenly aware of her breath, in and out, in and out. The rhythm calmed her.

Yanking open the heavy doors to the station house, she stepped inside. A bored-looking officer behind a bulletproof shield was leafing through a copy of the
New York Post
; two
other officers—one pale and seemingly squeezed into a uniform that was a size or two too small, the other as brown as the baby Miranda held close to her heart—were chatting in low voices. Above, the fluorescent light buzzed like a frantic insect. The cop reading the paper finally glanced up. He looked not at Miranda, but straight through her. “Can I help you?” he said in a tone that suggested he would sooner endure a colonoscopy, a root canal,
and
a tax audit—simultaneously.

“Look,” she said urgently, opening her coat to reveal the infant in its makeshift swaddling. “Look what I just
found!”

“Y
ou thought it was a
doll
?” Courtney leaned over to reach for one of the cookies Miranda had baked—there were snickerdoodles, gingersnaps, and chocolate chip. The three of them were gathered in Miranda's apartment on President Street. Bea would be here any minute; she promised to come in time for the local news broadcast that would be airing at five o'clock.

“The most lifelike doll I had ever seen,” Miranda said. She had canceled—well, all right,
postponed
—her meeting with Evan; she had been up most of the night and had slept virtually all day to compensate. Now her friends had come over to hear the story directly from her and to watch the news clip. “Also, I was still a bit looped and I wasn't sure what I was looking at.”

“I would have been frightened,” Lauren said.

“Of what?” Miranda was about to reach for a cookie too but then stopped. She had three cake recipes she had to bake—
and taste—this week; winter pounds were so easy to pack on, so hard to take off. Besides, it was the baking as much as the eating that appealed to her. She loved the visual and at times almost sensual interplay of ingredients, colors, and textures: the dense, golden clay of batter punctuated by the dark bits of chocolate, the pungent, earthy drip of molasses, the powdery loft of flour hitting the bowl.

“That something would happen to the baby while you were holding it. What if she had died while you were carrying her on the subway? The police might have charged you.”

“I never even thought of that,” Miranda said. She was still remembering the feeling of the infant pressed so close to her; they seemed to fit, like puzzle pieces, so neatly together. Is this what new mothers experienced when their babies were handed to them? Well, not
that
infant's mother; clearly she had not felt that sense of completion when holding her baby. But Miranda was more sympathetic—and even curious—than judgmental. What could have driven her to do such a thing? What impossible place—all other options exhausted, rejected, used up—had she reached to make her decision? The blanket and the bracelet showed she had made some effort. Though leaving the baby in a subway station . . . well, it was pretty hard to put any positive spin on that.

The bell rang, and there was Bea, corkscrew curls massing around her face, running up the stairs. “Hell-o!” she said, plopping down on Miranda's rug with a big shopping bag from Duane Reade. “I brought provisions!”

“Let me see,” said Courtney, peering into the bag. “Chips, pretzels, macadamia nuts, chocolate . . .” She looked up at Bea. “Is there anything you
didn't
buy?”

“Well, we're going to watch the news; I figured we'd need fortification.”

“Bea, the clip is going to last, like, three minutes,” Courtney said. “This isn't exactly a double feature.”

“And I made cookies,” Miranda added.

“You always make cookies!” said Bea. “But doesn't watching TV make you hungry?” She reached for a bag of chips and opened it in a single, deft stroke.

“Look, it's going to start!” Lauren said, squeezing Miranda's arm. “Turn the sound on.”

The reporter, a tall, glib guy who resembled a Ken doll, shoved the microphone in her face. “We're here, live in Brooklyn at the Seventy-eighth Precinct with Amanda Berenzweig—”

“Miranda,” her on-air incarnation corrected.

“Excuse me?” Patter interrupted, Ken looked baffled.

“Miranda, the name is
Miranda
Berenzweig.”

“Of course it is,” he said with his dazzling smile. “Now, can you tell us what happened, Ms. Berenzwig? Right from the beginning?”

“You didn't correct him that time,” Courtney noted.

“I thought he might cry if I did.”

“Shh,” said Bea. “I can't hear.”

The talking stopped, and Miranda settled back to watch her televised self explaining what had happened: falling asleep in the subway, waking in an unfamiliar station, the doll-that-turned-out-be-a-baby. Then the camera cut away to the baby herself—now cleaned up and wearing a little cap over her head.
If anyone has any information, please call . . .
flashed along the bottom of the screen. Then some more blather from Ken and the segment was over. A commercial for a new breakfast cereal chirped across the airwaves until Bea clicked the remote to mute it.

“So what's going to happen to her now?” Lauren asked. Of the four friends, she was the only one with children.

“Foster care, I guess. Until someone claims her.
If
someone claims her,” said Miranda.

“Someone will claim her,” Lauren said as she buttoned her coat. “You wait.”

The rest of them sat around discussing it after she had left. Bea had been right: they polished off the cookies, the chips, the nuts, the pretzels, and almost all the chocolate. “Who wants the last square?” Bea said. Miranda wavered and was glad when Courtney spoke up. When she and Bea got up to leave, Miranda gave them each a hug. She had even forgiven Courtney—sort of. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “I was so glad you were here.”

“Of course we were here,” Bea said. “Where else would we be?”

*   *   *

Over
the next couple of days, Miranda found herself thinking about the baby. She thought about her as she baked those three cakes and while she edited the two late articles that finally showed up days past their respective deadlines. She thought about the baby in the shower, when she went out for a run in Prospect Park, and when she worked her shift at the food co-op on Union Street.

She also thought about the baby's mother. She first pictured her as a teenager, petrified to tell her parents she was pregnant. Or maybe she was a drug addict or an alcoholic. Miranda remembered the blanket, the towel. Whoever she was, the mother had tried, sort of. But why the subway station and not a hospital or a police station?

There were no answers to these questions. But she might be able to find out more about the baby. She returned to the police station where she'd first brought her. The once-bored cop
now greeted her like a long-lost cousin. “You!” he said, smile wide and welcoming. “You're the one who found the baby!”

She nodded, oddly pleased. “I am. And I was wondering what happened to her since then.”

The officer was only too glad to fill her in. She got the address of family court and the name of the judge assigned to the case. The building, at 330 Jay Street, was not all that far from her office in downtown Manhattan. The next day, she made the trip and, after a few inquiries, found the courtroom she'd been looking for. The metal benches just outside were packed, and the waiting sea of faces looked sad, angry, embittered, or a ravaged combination of all three. Miranda stepped inside the courtroom and slid into a seat at the back. Up front, Judge Deborah Waxman was presiding. She looked to be in her sixties, with frosted blond hair, frosted pink lip gloss, and frosted white nails—it was like she was sugarcoated. But nothing about her manner or voice was even remotely sweet. She cut through the whiny excuses, the meandering stories, the bluster and the rationalizations made by deadbeat dads and criminally negligent moms with the same brisk, impartial efficiency in a way that Miranda found intimidating but admirable. When she called a ten-minute recess, Miranda asked a court officer if she could approach the bench. The officer looked at the judge who looked at Miranda. She felt herself being intensely scrutinized and was relieved when the judge inclined her head in a small nod. She had passed.

“What can I do for you?” asked the judge.

Miranda knew she did not have much time. “I've come about the baby,” she said. “The one who was found in the subway at Stillwell Avenue.”

“Stable condition at a city hospital,” the judge said
succinctly. “When she's been thoroughly checked out, she'll be released.”

“Where to?”

“Family services is arranging for a foster care placement. No one has claimed her, so she'll be put up for adoption.” Judge Waxman looked down as if assessing the condition of her iridescent manicure. “Why do you want to know?”

“I'm the one who found her that night,” Miranda said. “I brought her to the police.”

“You did.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“That was a very kind thing to do.” The judge brought her gaze up from her nails. Her small but intensely blue eyes seemed to be taking Miranda's measure.

“No, it wasn't,” said Miranda, meeting that gaze full-on.

“You think it was
un
kind?” Judge Waxman sounded surprised.

“It was no more than decent,” Miranda said. “And decent is not the same as kind. Decent is what anyone would have done.”

“Not her mother,” said the judge.

“No, well, I'm sure there's a story behind that. . . .”

“Isn't there always?” The judge glanced at her watch. “Recess is over,” she said. “Thank you for coming, Ms. . . .”

“Berenzweig.”

“Ms. Berenzweig. I'll see that the mayor's office sends you a citation or something.”

“I don't want a citation,” Miranda said.

“No? Then what do you want?” It was a challenge.

Miranda felt flustered. Did she even know? “Just to know that she's all right,” she said.

As it turned out, that was not enough. Now that she knew
the baby was being cared for, Miranda craved more information. She was such a thirsty baby. Would someone make sure she drank enough? What about a name? Names were so important; Miranda hoped she wasn't given one that was silly or demeaning.

Over the next week, Miranda returned to Judge Waxman's courtroom three more times. Each time, she waited patiently for a recess or a break and would listen to the update that Judge Waxman delivered in the same clipped tone. The baby was drinking formula. The baby had gained an ounce. There was some evidence of drugs—she would not specify—in her system, but they were minimal; it did not appear that her mother had been an addict. Miranda warmed to the woman, frosting and all. How would the judge have known these details unless she too had taken a special interest in the baby?

Then Judge Waxman told her that a foster care placement had been found for the baby; she would be leaving the hospital shortly.

“Would I be able to see her before they let her go?” Miranda asked.

“Whatever for?” Judge Waxman's brows, two thin, penciled arcs, rose high on her forehead.

“Just because. Maybe I could hold her. The nurses must be so busy; they might not have time.”

“I've never had a request like that,” said the judge. Miranda did not say anything; she just waited while those shrewd blue eyes did their work. “But I see no reason why you couldn't. Come back tomorrow; I'll give you the name of the facility and a letter allowing you to visit with her at the discretion of the nurses.”

“Oh, thank you!” Miranda said. “Thank you so much!”

She walked out of the courthouse buoyant with
anticipation, and after work spent an hour in Lolli's on Seventh Avenue, considering the relative merits of tiny sweaters, caps, dresses, and leggings. She spent way too much money, but rationalized her purchases as charitable contributions.

The baby was being held at Kings County Hospital, on Clarkson Avenue; Miranda took the subway to the 627-bed facility (she had looked it up online) after she left work the next day. The two nurses on the neonatal ward were only too happy to indulge her. “Honey, you can hold her all night long if you want to,” said one, her Caribbean accent giving the words a musical lilt.

“Do you know that someone found her in the subway?” said the other one.

“I know,” Miranda said. “I was that someone.”

“Lord, no!” said the nurse.

Miranda nodded and looked down at the baby. She was definitely heavier; Miranda felt she had her weight imprinted somewhere in her sense memory and she could discern the difference. Her skin tone had evened out and her dark eyes were open and fixed on Miranda's face. Did she remember the time they had spent together? Could she in some inchoate way
recognize
her?

Miranda spent the next two hours walking, rocking, and talking to the baby. She took scads of photos that she would later post to her Facebook page. The baby guzzled the bottle of formula that the nurses prepared, and she dozed peacefully as Miranda toted her up and down the hospital corridor. During a diaper change, which the nurse showed Miranda how to execute, she blinked several times and kicked her tiny feet. As her hand closed around Miranda's extended finger, the force of her grip was a revelation.

When visiting hours ended, Miranda pulled herself away with the greatest reluctance. She went back the next night, this time with butterscotch blondies she had baked from an office recipe; the nurses tore into them eagerly. “For someone who had such a start, she's doing all right,” said the one with the island accent. She bit into her blondie with evident delight.

“She's lucky you're the one who found her,” said the other.

“Maybe I'm the lucky one,” Miranda said, gazing down at the baby who was now wearing a knit dress adorned with rosebuds; Miranda had rubbed the cotton against her own cheek to test for softness when selecting it.

The following day, Miranda was back in Judge Waxman's courtroom. “The family that adopts her—they'll be thoroughly checked out, right?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Judge Waxman. “We have our protocols, and they are strictly adhered to.”

“Will they love her, though? How can your protocols determine that?”

Judge Waxman pursed her shiny lips in what looked like irritation. But when she spoke, it was with more gentleness than she had previously displayed. “What about
you
, Ms. Berenzweig?” she asked.