Baby Face

Thursday, Anna and Tim tell Faye there is another option for Miley. Jackson’s parents want to raise her. Faye sits on the couch beside the baby’s bassinet and considers their futures. So quiet and sad, but emotionally detached. I was heartbroken, thanks to inspired choices of camera shots and costume.

Looking at Faye, all I could focus on was the kitten on her t-shirt. Sweet baby face of innocence. Then the camera moved to the bassinet; another sweet innocent lay there gurgling happily. She was unaware that her future was in limbo. Would she be staying in the place familiar to her, talked to and held by the only voices and arms she knows? Or would she have to get used to being held by strangers in a new place, without comfort of returning to those she knows?

But there’s a third baby face too, and that is Faye. Still a child herself, she wants to – and perhaps should – experience and enjoy growing up without being dragged into adulthood too soon by raising a child. There is no shortage of adults who are willing to care for Miley, but the children who produced her are not so sure.

Both Faye and Jackson realize the gravity of their situation, and they know that Miley is their responsibility. But they really are just too young to be anything but terrified by the thought. Having Miley around is more like having a new baby sister than a child of their own. But it’s hard for either of them to articulate that to themselves, I think, let alone their parents.

That’s where Tim has been brilliant this week. He, self-professed no contender for Father of the Year, has handled the situation sensitively and directly without ever pretending to know any of the answers. He listened to Faye when she freaked out at the christening. When Jackson’s parents suggested that they take Miley, he listened to them. He somehow talked Anna into hearing them out. And then he did something it seems no one else thought to do: he listened, and talked without lecturing, to Jackson.