Halfway to You(98)

I wiped my wrist across my forehead, feeling hot and snotty and raw. “Goodbye,” I said, hurrying down the alley.

“Ann, wait.”

I ducked into the crowd, zigzagging through the chaos. Fireworks were going off somewhere else in the city, and people were cheering. I ran with tears in my eyes, the people and the lights blurring. I shoved shoulders and elbowed my way to the end of the road. I hopped into a tuk-tuk and urged the man to drive.

The smog of the city blew on my face as we wove through traffic, swerving around cars, pedestrians, scooters, and tour buses. I felt sick again, but it wasn’t the same nausea as that morning—it was acidic, churning sorrow. It ached and fizzed up my throat, and I swallowed it back down. I was no stranger to disappointment. I told myself I could handle it, even as I was falling apart.

My driver merged with traffic, whizzing past a stalled produce truck. Engine fumes filled my nostrils. I wiped away my tears, clenching my jaw. I didn’t see a way Todd and I could reconcile after something like this. I didn’t see how we could—

BOOOOOOM.

A sudden blast erupted. The taxi jerked sideways. I grasped the bar by my head, holding on as the world tilted. I was floating. A string of beads hanging from the rearview mirror lifted, independent of gravity. My hair rose up around my face; my driver’s arms waved in slow motion.

Then:

Pavement.

Pain.

Ears ringing.

Flames and smoke plumed into the sky. Sirens wailed, but all I sensed were the vibrations in my chest, the blinking of lights against my eyelids. My stomach hurt. The street felt gritty under my cheek. I realized my left leg was frozen, pinned underneath the frame of the tuk-tuk’s roof. It ached dully, as if it wasn’t even mine. The driver lay unconscious nearby, thrown from the vehicle completely. It hurt to lift my head; blood seeped into my eye from a blossom of pain on my temple. With shaky hands, I pushed myself up off the tar and yanked my leg free.

The exertion caused a lightning bolt to crack through my abdomen. Tremor-like cramps followed, and I lay back, terrified, trying to calm myself. A sudden gush warmed between my legs. I looked down. Blood spread on my thighs, my dress. I gasped, a sound both hoarse and guttural, a sound I didn’t recognize as my own. Then the world tipped again, and I slumped.





MAGGIE


San Juan Island, Washington State, USA Friday, January 12, 2024

“Hold on,” Maggie interrupts. “You lost . . . ?”

Ann nods, tears glittering on her eyelashes.

“So I’m not . . . ?”

She tips her head to one side, her mouth pressing into a sympathetic line. “Oh, Maggie,” Ann says, her voice watery with emotion. “It would be an honor to be your mother. But—I’m sorry, dear—I’m not. And that’s the truth.”

Maggie wipes her eyes with shaking fingers. “What happens next?”





ANN


Bangkok, Thailand

January 2000

I awoke to the sound of a news broadcast, Thai voices nasal and quick. I heard a recording of sirens and chaos. The room beyond my eyelids was bright, and I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, wanting to block it out. My body felt numb in the unbearable sort of way—the scary sort of way.

“I see her eyes moving,” a distant voice said. It echoed slightly off the walls. “Ann?” A shadow passed across my face, and I cracked one eye open, wary of the brightness.

“The light.” My throat snagged; it hurt my chest to speak. “Turn off . . . the light.”

He stood, the room went dim, the TV muted, and then he returned to me. “Better?”

I blinked, and Todd came into focus.

“There you are,” he said, touching my cheek. His hand was warm. “Copper.”

I shivered. I was in a drab hospital bed, and the room was so, so cold. “What happened?” I croaked.

“A bombing,” Todd said. “The police are still trying to figure things out. Apparently bombs went off in multiple locations. I heard the explosion all the way from Khaosan Road; they evacuated the street. It was chaos.”

“A bombing?”

“Some sort of political unrest. That’s all I’ve been able to glean.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. Memories of fire and smoke and pavement flashed across my vision. Then blood. Too much blood.

I recalled my conversation with Todd, my heart breaking in the back seat of the tuk-tuk before it swerved off the road.

My hand shot to my stomach, and a tense ache combusted inside me. “The baby,” I said, tears filling my eyes.

Todd reached for my hand, but I pulled back, curling my fist into my chest.

“The baby,” I repeated, more forcefully, but I already knew the answer.

“Sweetheart . . . I’m so sorry.” His voice was gentle, his brow furrowed in compassion and concern. But it was his clear gaze that tore through me worse than any pain I’d ever felt, worse than the pain of a bombing, worse than the pain of losing our child.

What I saw in his gaze was the smallest flicker of relief.

Our baby was gone, and perhaps he was sad on my behalf and worried for my health, but he was also relieved. And I knew in that moment that all I’d ever see on Todd’s face—for the rest of my life—would be that horrible, awful relief.