As Simple as It Seems Read Free

address where someone thought Mike Colter might have lived at one time. The apartment was on the west side of Manhattan, the basement of a brownstone with a wrought-iron gate and three steps down to the door.
    â€œWe rang the bell, but there was no answer,” my mother said.
    Just as they were getting ready to leave, my father thought he heard someone moving behind the door.Finally it opened and there was Grace.
    â€œShe was in a bad way. Soaking wet and shaking like a leaf.”
    â€œWas she sick?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” my mother said. “She was in labor. It had started in the middle of the night, and by the time we got there she was nearly out of her mind from the pain.”
    â€œWhy didn’t she go to the hospital like you did?” I asked. “And where was Uncle Mike?”
    â€œLet your mother finish, Bena,” my father said.
    My parents went inside and helped Grace to lie down. Then my father said he would call for an ambulance, but Grace got upset. She didn’t want him to do that, she said she had no way to pay for it, and besides, she had already made up her mind.
    â€œAbout what?” I asked.
    An uneasy look passed between my parents.
    â€œGrace was an alcoholic,” my mother said. “She’d been warned not to drink while she was pregnant, but she hadn’t been able to stop. The doctors told her that if the baby lived, it would be damaged. Fetal alcohol syndrome it’s called.”
    â€œDid the baby die?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” my mother told me.
    â€œDid the alcohol hurt it?”
    My mother’s eyes grew moist and her lower lip trembled.
    â€œYes,” she said softly, “it did. But it could have been much, much worse.”
    She explained that she and my father had finally convinced Grace to let them call for an ambulance and that she’d stayed behind in the little apartment while my father took Grace to the hospital. Before Grace was carried out of the apartment on the stretcher and loaded into the ambulance, my mother told me, she leaned over Grace and whispered, “You be me.” Then she placed her wallet in Grace’s hands and kissed her good-bye.
    I didn’t understand.
    â€œWhy did you say, ‘You be me’?” I asked. “And why did you give Grace your whole wallet, instead of just giving her some of the money out of it?”
    My mother began to cry.
    â€œDo you want me to tell the rest?” my father asked her gently.
    But she shook her head, dried her eyes, and continued.
    â€œI wanted a baby more than anything in the world,” she told me. “We had tried forever.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “You’ve told me a million times how you spent years knitting little booties and sweaters, and then when I finally came, the clothes were all moth-eaten and I couldn’t wear them.”
    My mother got a faraway look in her eyes.
    â€œYou were so tiny,” she said, “but you had quite a pair of lungs. You could wail all night, and for weeks you did, too. I’d wrap you up tight, and rock you and sing to you until you finally fell asleep. Poor little thing, you had a hard time of it in the beginning.”
    I had heard all of this before. I knew that I’d come earlier than expected and that I’d been so small and fragile, I looked like a tiny baby bird—all pink and wrinkled. I’d seen pictures of my scrunched-up little self, swaddled in a blanket and cradled in my mother’s arms. But I didn’t understand why we were going back over all of this now.
    â€œWe’d waited so long,” my mother continued, “I couldn’t believe you were really mine. I couldn’t believe I was finally—”
    â€œYou haven’t finished the story,” I interrupted impatiently. “What happened to Grace and the baby? And where was Uncle Mike?”
    My mother seemed lost in thought. When she didn’tanswer my questions, my