Lucy by the Sea (Amgash, #4)(28)

I said, No. I did not want to know anything about my family.





iii


But I was sad because of the girls, I missed them almost constantly, and when we spoke they never said, “I miss you, Mom.” I thought suddenly of how often Becka would say that to me even when she was married to Trey. But she did not say it these days.

Some mornings I woke even before William did, and I would take my walk because I was so anxious. And I was anxious because of the girls. One day I called Chrissy and asked her how Becka was doing—I knew she would tell Becka I had done this, but I wanted to know—and Chrissy said, “Mom, don’t worry about her. She’s got her shrink, Lauren, and she’s got Michael and me, and she’s doing okay.”

“She doesn’t call me anymore,” I said.

Chrissy hesitated before she said, “I think she doesn’t need you like she used to. Even those years married to Trey she still needed you, but, Mom, you did your job. She’s on her way.”

“Okay,” I said. “I hear you.”

And I did.

But it sort of killed me, I will tell you that.



* * *





Chrissy called me back two days later. She said, “Okay, now I have something to tell you, and it will make you happy. I didn’t think we should talk about it in the same conversation about Becka.” She said, “But I bet you already know.”

“You’re pregnant,” I said.

The baby was due in December. “Don’t tell Dad, I’m going to call him myself as soon as we hang up.”

Oh, I was ecstatic—!

“He’s out for his walk,” I said. And we spoke about how she felt no sickness at all, just a slight queasiness at times, and she was eating like a horse. She said they were not going to know the sex of the child. “We want to be surprised.” Then she said how glad she was that William had gotten rid of Melvin. “Can you imagine, Mom? I mean, I was pregnant that day, and if he had moved in with us— Oh Mom.”

“I know,” I said. “Are you still going to the protests?”

“Don’t worry about the protests, Mom. They’re small, and I stay really safe.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”



* * *



—

Oh, I was absolutely euphoric when we hung up! Chrissy was going to have her child! I thought about holding the baby and baby clothes and how Chrissy would be such a good mother; I pictured her with a boy, somehow, and— Oh, the whole thing just thrilled me!



* * *



—

And when William came back his face glowed as well; we spoke of it immediately. “She told you they’re not going to learn the sex of it, right?” William asked, and I said, Yes, she had told me that. William said, “It’s great, Lucy. This is great news.” And I said I was so excited I could barely stand it.

And then not soon after I saw that William’s face fell, and he said, “I miss Bridget.” He walked over to look out at the water. He said, “I need to go see her again soon.”

“Go anytime!” I said, but he did not answer me.



* * *





That night William was tapping on his computer, and he looked up and then closed it. He said to me, “Do you remember how when we wrote the vows for our wedding, you asked that we put in not just ‘until death do us part,’ but the words ‘forever and beyond’? Do you remember that?”

“Remind me,” I said.

“I just did.” He looked over at the fireplace and then down at his shoe. “You wanted to make sure that it wasn’t only until death do us part. You wanted to make sure that it was longer than that.”

And then I did remember. I said, “I guess I’m afraid of death.”

“I don’t think so,” William said. “I think you just really loved me and wanted it to go on forever.” He said then, “I think it’s the opposite of being afraid of death. I think you just don’t believe in death.”

“Of course I do,” I said.

“Oh, I know in the real sense, but you— Oh, never mind,” he said, as though suddenly exhausted. But then he said, waving a hand laconically, “You’re a spirit, Lucy. You know things. I’ve told you that before. There is no one else out there like you.”



* * *



—

I thought: He is wrong, I am scared of death. And I do not know anything.





iv


Protesters still went out into the streets every night and I still worried about their health, but the violence seemed to be over. When I asked the girls they said there had never been violence at the vigils or protests they attended in New Haven.

I listened carefully to people on the news, people of color, who said that every day they had to worry when they got into their cars that they could be stopped, or when they walked down the sidewalks in their neighborhoods that they could be stopped. How they were conscious every single minute of being in real danger.

And it reminded me of how, many years earlier, after I had left William, I went to a writers’ conference in Alabama, and there was a woman there, a poet, and she was Black, and she had driven down from Indiana alone to attend this conference, and she had gotten lost and it was nighttime before she found where we were to stay at the college. And what I suddenly remembered was her fear that night. She had said to me, “You don’t want to be a Black woman alone on some desolate road down here.”