We Are Not Like Them(31)
I try it now. “What are you thinking?”
He sighs and bangs his head yet again. “I don’t want to do this, Jen.”
I look at him, waiting patiently. It usually does the trick.
“Okay, fine, I’m thinking about the baby. I’m thinking I don’t want to be in jail when you give birth.”
This is what I get for wanting him to be honest and open up. “Don’t even say that.”
“You asked.”
“Here, feel him.” I grab Kevin’s hand, bring it to my stomach, where Little Bird is kicking.
“You mean her?” Kevin smiles. It’s barely there, but I hold on to the slight twitch of his lips like a kid clutching her favorite stuffy.
From the very beginning, Kevin has been convinced the baby will be a girl. I know it’s a boy though. The other night I dreamed about him. I pulled him to my breast, his eyes opening and staring up at me. They were greenish-brown like Justin Dwyer’s. I woke up then, swells of nausea overcoming me. I screwed my own eyes shut and prayed my baby’s eyes would be a boring mud brown like mine.
“We’ll know soon enough.”
Too soon. I’m so ready for this pregnancy to be over, though I know it’s easier with the baby inside me. I can’t have a kid in the middle of this, when everything is in chaos.
A wave of fatigue hits me. “I’m going to go lie down for a while. Why don’t you go watch the game with Matt. Try to relax for a bit if you can? And no more Twitter.” I kiss his cheek, my lips catching on sandpaper stubble. He hasn’t shaved since the shooting.
Despite the rest of the house smelling like a Yankee Candle shop, the scent of pubescent boy still lingers in Kevin’s room. There’s an old aquarium that used to house a snake called Hoagie and, next to that, a box filled with faded yellow CliffsNotes and a stack of CDs. On top is a scuffed plastic case that calls to me, Nirvana’s Nevermind. I put it in the three-disc changer on the ancient stereo and press play, stare at the chubby naked baby on the cover.
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
I can barely remember to brush my teeth in the morning or where I left my keys, and yet each and every word of this song comes rushing back to me like I’m fourteen again.
The faded glow of the stars still glued to the ceiling are like dozens of eyes watching me as I lie back on the itchy quilt covering the bed. It’s too much: our life is never going to be the same. I have to remind myself of this again and again. The last five years have been so hard—all the miscarriages, the failures to get pregnant, the all-consuming fear I would never be a mother. All the times I lay in bed like this, blinking up at the ceiling, thinking the worst thing that could ever happen to me was not having a baby. It was like driving down a stretch of highway that disappears into nothing. That’s what my life would have been like, no children, no degree, no great career… nothing. On those long dark nights, I used to bargain with the universe: If you just give me this, I will never ask for anything else. And it worked, I got pregnant. The worst was over. But that seems so stupid now. Of course life can get worse. It can always get worse. I was so focused on one thing, there wasn’t room to consider all the other terrible things that could go wrong. Like my husband going to prison for the rest of his life, or the lawsuits that will bankrupt me and my kids and my kids’ kids. And that poor little boy. Every time I let myself wallow, I come back to that poor boy and remember what my husband did. Will I ever be able to look at Kevin and not think about that boy?
I fumble around the bedside table for the tiny, dusty remote to the boom box so I can play the song again. Instead, I land on my phone, abandoned since this morning. It’s been so long since I had that heart-quickening sensation of waiting for a boy to call or text me, and I experience that same jolt of agitated anticipation now: Has Riley been in touch? But when I look, the only text waiting there is from Lou.
You hanging in there kiddo?
Never mind that her message is more fitting for someone home sick with a cold. At least she’s checking in. It’s something.
I close the text and scroll to my favorite pregnancy app, the one that tells you the size of your baby from week to week. At thirty weeks, our baby is the size of a large jicama. I look up what a jicama is—this whole fruit-and-veggie thing comforts me. It helps to picture the glob of cells growing inside my belly. I’ve already lost a baby the size of a blueberry, and one the size of a plum. I scroll through the next few as if looking into my future: a butternut squash, a pineapple, a pumpkin, then a baby.
I drift off dreaming of vegetables.
It could be minutes or hours later when Kevin comes into the room. His voice, its urgency, wrenches me from a rare deep sleep. “Jen, Jenny.”
Kevin makes a kind of choking sound like the words are caught in his throat.
“He died, Jenny. Justin died.”
Chapter Five RILEY
Gigi’s eyes flutter behind paper-thin lids. Otherwise, she doesn’t move. I swipe a damp washcloth across her cheek, skin so smooth it should belong to a baby, not to an eighty-nine-year-old woman.
I’m happy to lose myself for a moment in this simple act of caring for Gigi, especially considering all that she’s done for me over the years, patiently teaching me how to play chess, sewing my Halloween costumes, giving me swimming lessons while keeping her head above the water so she wouldn’t mess up her roller set; painting my toenails Berry on Top, even when Momma told me no because that color was trashy.