If Only I Had Told Her

“Maybe I should start taking you to all my resale shops,” Aunt Angelina tells Mom. We’re on our way back to Vintage Mother Goose to buy a crib.

“Angelina, I will turn this car around and head straight to Pottery Barn, I swear to God,” Mom replies.

“No, no, I’ll behave.”

I’ve chosen how the baby will sleep: in a mini crib in my room for at least a year. I won’t let it cry it out, but I’ll try to wait for the baby to settle themselves like the book about French parenting I’m reading suggested.

Now there’re only a million other decisions about this baby that I’ll have to make in the next few months.

But it’s a start.

The Mothers have been trying to let me figure out this stuff on my own, letting me decide what kind of mother I want to be, not telling me how it must be done like Angie’s family. Aunt Angelina co-slept with Finny in her bed until he was two, while Mom kept me down the hall with the baby monitor on the lowest setting so that I really had to scream to wake her. Neither method is recommended these days, and neither of them has tried to convince me otherwise.

So when I said that I had decided to get a small crib for my room for the first year or so, there was no questioning my decision. Angelina called and confirmed that the mini crib we’d considered last time we were at Vintage Mother Goose was still available, but Mom insists that we look at it one last time before purchasing it.

The same elderly woman is sitting behind the counter when we arrive.

“Back again, dears?” she says without a pause in her knitting, proving my suspicions that she is a witch.

Mom, the expert shopper in all situations, leads the way to the furniture corner where the little crib sits. “It doesn’t quite match the rest of the wood in your room,” she muses. “It would almost be better if it was totally different. This will look like we tried to match it and failed. I’m certain I could find one online in a better color.”

“This is perfect,” I say. “Last I heard, none of the interior design magazines were doing spreads on teen mom’s nurseries, so I don’t think we’re missing any opportunities.” I rest my hands on the adjustable bar possessively.

“All right then, sweetie. If it were me, I’d find the coordination soothing when in the trenches.”

“In the trenches? Why do people always talk about motherhood like it’s going to war?”

Mom and Aunt Angelina look at each other and shrug.

“What are we thinking then?” the saleswoman asks, approaching us.

Mom begins to set up the purchase and delivery. I stare down at the crib and try to convince myself that someday there will be not only a mattress inside it but an infant.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Aunt Angelina asks.

“That we should let Mom order a bespoke crib mattress made of organic llama hair or something?”

“Exactly. She’s respected your wishes not to turn your dad’s office into a Victorian nursery full of chintz and should be rewarded.”

I turn from the crib to face her. “Since it’s Dad’s money, I’ll have to let her do something to his office eventually.”

Angelina stiffens. “What did you say?”

“Since it’s Dad’s money—”

“It’s not your father’s money, Autumn. Is that what your mother told you?”

“No, I just assumed,” I say.

Angelina looks stricken. This must have something to do with Finny that I don’t understand. She looks past me to where I can hear the saleslady and my mother talking behind me. Her mouth tightens.

“Your mother didn’t tell you about the arrangement with Finny’s father?”

Everything tilts in my mind.

“The what? With him?” I ask.

“Autumn,” she whispers, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to kill your mother.”

“Mom?” I shout as I twist around. She and the saleslady simultaneously turn from each other to me. “What is this arrangement that Aunt Angelina is talking about? With Finny’s…Finn—”

I can’t bring myself to call that man a father to Finny.

“Let me finish arranging the delivery, and we’ll talk about it later,” Mom sings out to me, using a customer service voice.

I’m not buying what she’s selling.

“What’s this arrangement?” I ask Angelina. She’s tried so hard to give me support along with respectful space. Through all these months, I’ve remained in awe of her composure, but she looks like she’s about to lose it.

She trusted her best friend to tell the mother of their grandchild this delicate bit of information, this involvement of the man who abandoned her child.

“I don’t know the details, but apparently, in exchange for whatever access you are willing to give him, updates or pictures, Finn’s father gave access to Finny’s trust fund.” Her voice has started to rise, and she catches herself and swallows, then takes a breath.

I’m still trying to understand why she said the words “trust fund” and “Finny” so close together, so we both clearly need a moment.

“Well, that’s done!” my mother exclaims from behind me.

I don’t turn to look at her. I can’t stop staring at the hurt on Aunt Angelina’s face.

“Is it, Mom?” I say.

We agreed to wait until we were at home to talk.

“Yes, I want to be able to see your face when we talk about this,” I told my mother when she suggested waiting until after the drive home. The drive was quiet and as frosty as the late autumn chill outside.

At home, seated around the kitchen table, finally looking at her face, I say, “We already know that you thought what you were doing was best for everyone.”

“And that’s not an excuse,” my mother agrees. “I should have told you.”

“So why didn’t you?” Angelina presses. “We agreed this was Autumn’s decision.”

“How does he even know that I’m pregnant?”

“That part’s my fault, kiddo,” Aunt Angelina admits. “He reached out to me right after you went to the hospital. He has this project about Finny he wanted help with, and it had all been such a whirlwind of emotions from losing Finny to thinking we might lose you to finding out about the pregnancy, and I don’t know. I told him.”

“And he made Mom an offer too good to refuse?” I ask them both. I feel like a piece of me has been sold.

“I meant to tell you,” Mom says. “But then I didn’t, and it seemed easier to wait until…”

“What? Until that man demanded access to my child that he’d already paid for?”

“Until you were able to think about it more rationally and less emotionally,” Mom explains, but I can hear she knows how pathetic it sounds.

“Look, I told you before, Claire,” Angelina says. “If Autumn wanted access to that money, she’d have a good legal case, and we could have sued John instead of letting him hold the strings.”

“Yes, I remember, Angelina,” Mom says. “But I th—”

“Okay, what money is this?” I say. “Let’s start there!”

“Every time John felt guilty for abandoning his son, he put some money in an account he’d secretly opened with Phineas’s name on it, or sometimes for an especially plagued conscience, he’d buy another government savings bond. It wasn’t until after Finny died that John realized how much his guilt had added up.”

“How much had it added up?”

“Enough that if you were to sue on behalf of Finny’s heir, after we’ve settled out of court and paid the lawyers, there’d still be enough to raise this baby to age eighteen and send both you and the baby to college.” Aunt Angelina continues, “It’s an open-and-shut case, Autumn. He has access to the account, but the name on it is Phineas Smith, the father of your baby.”

“And if we don’t sue and tell him never to contact me?”

“He keeps the money,” my mom says. “And we would have to use the money from your college fund to raise this baby.”

“I would sell the house,” Angelina adds. “I was thinking about it anyway since I’ve been staying here most nights.” She glances angrily at my mother, and I suppose that won’t be the case tonight. “We’d find a way to make it work.”

“But it would be so much harder for everyone, Autumn, including your child,” Mom says. “I don’t have to tell you that being a teen mother puts a lot of obstacles in your way. This money could alleviate, or even obliterate, those obstacles.”

“But you promised that we would let her choose,” Angelina says, shaking her head. This is a betrayal between the two of them that goes deeper than my part in it. The Mothers have always been a team, and this disconnect is unprecedented. If Finny were here, we’d be sharing meaningful glances across the table about this historic conflict.

“I’m sorry,” Mom says again. “I know that saying it doesn’t change anything. But I’ll keep saying it.”

“And if we don’t sue, and we keep using that little gold card?”

“I told him that you weren’t ready to discuss the particulars.” Mom begins to blush as the depth of her lies starts to sink in. “But he wants to be part of the baby’s life in whatever capacity you’ll give him, Autumn.” She gives Aunt Angelina and I look that is more pleading than when she was advocating for herself. “The man has so many regrets.”

“He should,” I say. “And so should you.”

Mom nods. She either mouths or whispers that she’s sorry, but it’s too quiet to hear.