The Midwife’s Playlist: A Now Entering Hillford Novel

by Lennox, Piper

  The speaker coughed into his elbow. “Um...Camden Merritt.”

  The show went on. Those of us who held our diplomas, officially free, whispered and laughed and planned for the parties tonight and the rest of summer.

  For me, the parties were over before they even started. Panic churned through me, bitter and relentless. I begged off celebratory lunches with friends and cringed through my parents’ photos, telling them I needed to go home for a while and lie down. When I faked a migraine, Mom clucked and said it was probably dehydration—did they have to hold the ceremony outside, every year?

  The ride home couldn’t pass quickly enough. I kept my hands on my seatbelt buckle, ready to unhook it the second we bounced into the driveway.

  “I’m getting out of here, E. As soon as I can.”

  He’d said it before. More times than I could remember, more times than I’d ever wanted to hear. Especially once I was part of the equation. Especially now.

  My key stabbed the metal outside the lock. I blinked and tried to right it, dragging it downward and scarring the door before, by some horrible miracle, I got the key into the hole.

  Once I was in the driver’s seat, things were easier. My muscles remembered to do the motions my brain couldn’t. I smelled burning clutch but, in a haze, decided it couldn’t be me.

  “Ford!”

  I looked around like God was talking to me. Nope: just Easton, her face in my passenger window as the car crept along.

  “Stop this fucking truck right now.” She looked me over, her anger faltering when she noticed the dried blood near my collar, and the deep bruise on my jaw.

  “Don’t worry. I got him back.”

  Panic swallowed her whole. She hopped off the running board and, while the car was still moving, swung open the door and climbed in. “Ford,” she whispered, “what did you do?”

  “He’s fine. I just punched him back. God, did you think I murdered him?”

  She took a long breath and smoothed out her dress. She looked nice, I noticed. But I didn’t mention it.

  “Why weren’t you at graduation?”

  I pointed to the bruise and stuck a cigarette in my mouth. The car swerved a little as I turned onto the road, one hand rifling through my pockets for a lighter.

  “Ford, pull over. You’re wasted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re slurring. Come on, this is dangerous. I don’t feel safe.”

  “You,” I drawled around the filter, “didn’t have to get in the truck.”

  “Ford,” she barked, and grabbed the handle over her door. Easton could be dramatic, that way. I was barely going fifteen. Not even fast enough to kick up dirt behind us.

  “Is this a thing, now? Drunk driving? Real responsible, Ford. You’ll be a fantastic fucking father.” She hit the dashboard with her palm. “Let. Me. Out.”

  “Yeah, okay, Easy—I’m going to be such a shitty father, aren’t I? That’s why I bought you that crib, right? Why I’ve been sending resumes out every goddamn day? Which, by the way, would be a lot easier if you would at least consider moving outside of Hillford. There’s nothing in this town to support a family.”

  “Funny,” she seethed, gripping the handle again when I veered around a pothole, “other people in Hillford don’t have that problem. I’ll be working too, by the way, so don’t play martyr.”

  She sucked in a breath while I turned the truck around on a side street. The sound rattled me like a shotgun, even though my radio was blasting the alt rock station in the city: Gin Blossoms.

  I turned it down.

  “And, while we’re on the subject: I told you not to buy that crib yet. I haven’t told my family. How long can I hide that giant box in my closet?”

  I wasn’t sure what happened next that made her gasp, what miscalculation of mine made the car shudder like it did, but Easton started screaming for me to stop and let her drive.

  She reached for the wheel. I knew enough to stop her; she was trying to overcorrect. I told her I’d pull over. Sit back. Just sit back, I’ll take care of it.

  Which one of us pulled the wheel the wrong way, I’d never know. The tires hitched into the deep, burnt-red ruts in the road. The ones I always knew to avoid, when I was sober.

  The sound of metal crumpling and the sudden boom of impact shut us both up. The tree we’d hit, huge and gnarled with long curls of bark peeling down its surface, looked like it was growing right out of the hood.

  I hit the wheel chest-first, then shot back when something exploded. In my drunken shock, I thought it was me: my heart had simply burst, I was so mad. At my dad, at Easton. At everything.

  Easton.

  I tried to call for her, but the breath I took sent razors spiraling down my lungs, peeling them into ribbons like that bark in front of us, a kaleidoscope in the spider-webbed glass.

  I tried again. Even the whiskey I’d swigged all morning after my fight with Dad couldn’t numb the pain in my ribs.

  “Easton,” I coughed. Blood was in my mouth. I spit, watching it streak the airbag as I shoved it down and looked at her.

  She was partially on the floor of the cab. It looked like she was hiding there, until she lifted her head and looked at me. A bruise stained her cheekbone, just under her right eye.

  “Are you okay?” I grabbed her elbow and, somehow, got her sitting back in her seat.

  There was blood. Tons of it, deep red and shining in the sun, streaking her legs. It smeared on the vinyl. It stained her white dress, the one she’d picked just for graduation.

  “Ford?” Her voice splintered and broke.

  When she started to cry, I shook my head, fierce: this wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t have to cry. I was going to fix this.

  I ran. Through the ache in my chest and the fact I could hardly breathe, I kept running, until I was sure I’d collapse.

  My destination, at first, was her parents’ house. I kept my eyes locked on their screen door all the way from the mailbox.

  Then I stopped, right beside the gate, and went to my house instead.

  “Dad?”

  He set down his drink when he saw me. His hands, as broad as mine and twice as rough, cupped my ears and turned my face to survey the damage. The irony wasn’t lost on me, but for once, I let the opportunity to call him on it pass by: he had tears in his eyes.

  Not once had he ever cried for me.

  I told him everything.

  While he called an ambulance, I wondered why using my cell hadn’t occurred to me. All I’d been able to think about was finding our parents. Here it was, graduation day—the moment we were supposed to be adults—and I was in the middle of the kitchen, panting and crying like a little kid while my father handled it all.

  He drove me back to my truck. Easton was lying across the bench.

  “I’m here,” I told her, and held my breath when I saw the handprints of blood. On the dash, the wheel, the door—they were everywhere. Like she’d tried to save herself.

  The ambulance took us to Memorial Hospital. I sat on the bench beside her stretcher and threw up in the bag they gave me, instead of holding her hand. They told me I was in shock. I remember thinking, You don’t know the fucking half of it.

  In the ER, we were separated. Dad came with me. They stitched my cuts, bandaged the wounds, and took X-rays to confirm I hadn’t broken anything. Just a good bruise, they said, in the middle of my chest. “You’ll be sore for a while, but fine.”

  I kept asking them about Easton. “Is she okay? Where did you take her?”

  They gave me something. I calmed down. I didn’t stop asking, but I was quieter now. I guess that was all they cared about.

  “Idiot,” Dad sputtered, when we were alone. He went on about condoms and protection and responsibility. He screamed about how I wasn’t old enough to be a father. I couldn’t possibly handle it.

  “You did it,” I spat, refusing to flinch when he pivoted to face me. “I’m thinking the bar’s set pretty low.”


  “That’s exactly why I can tell you this shit, Ford—yeah, I’ve done it before. And I’m sure you think you can do it a hundred times better, without even trying. That’s how I was, too. Bet your granddad thought the same thing.” He whirled away and scratched the back of his head. A string of curses fluttered under his breath.

  He left.

  It was the last time we’d ever talk, until the day he’d start dying.

  I looked at the clock. It had been over an hour since anyone gave me an update on Easton.

  So I hopped off the exam table, got dressed, and went to find out for myself.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  The wand moved again. I started my countdown over.

  I shut my eyes. If I didn’t cloud my senses with sight, maybe I could hear better.

  One. Two.

  Silence, buzzing and whooshing through the speaker.

  Three. Four.

  The wand moved again. The gel felt like it was burning my skin clear off, it was so cold.

  They’d drawn blood, done an examination, and were now searching for a heartbeat. Three tests that would tell me what I already knew.

  In the truck, I lay down and clenched my muscles, squeezed my legs shut as tight as I could—anything to stop the blood I felt coming out of me. The scent of it was everywhere, mingling with the smells in Ford’s truck. Oil. Cologne. Grass. Rust.

  While I’d waited to hear his footsteps pounding back through the dirt, or the wail of an ambulance through the air, I wished he’d left the radio on louder. I wished I had my headphones.

  And I wished it now, too. I’d always hated silence.

  But never before had silence scraped its way through my brain like this, or rattled me stronger than any bass. Never before had it left my ears ringing with a high-pitched scream, something toneless and drawn from the soul, that my mouth couldn’t make.

  Twenty-Five

  “You make it sound like I just took off, out of the fucking blue.”

  “You did.” Easton turns up the radio. I turn it off.

  “I didn’t abandon you in the hospital, or whatever you’re implying.”

  “Well,” she snaps, “you’d left town before I’d left the hospital, so.”

  I roll down my window to smoke. Before I can so much as pat my pockets for the cigarette pack, Easton tells me—not at all kindly—to “please” not smoke in her car.

  “Fine.” I pull over in front of the fields a couple miles from our houses, cut the engine, and yank up the parking brake, all while staring her dead in the eyes. I make it a point to light my cigarette before I actually get out.

  As soon as I lean on the front bumper, headlights illuminating crickets in the tall grasses ahead of me, I feel the radio turn on. Loud.

  I exhale a long, thick cloud, shaking my head. We might be all grown up, this time around. But we’re doing the same old shit.

  Fact was, I did visit her, that very afternoon.

  Her parents were there. I stared wide-eyed when her dad moved towards me, sure he was going for a strangling—but he hugged me. It left me in a stupor, until I heard Easton ask them if we could have a moment alone.

  She said she hadn’t told anyone I’d been drunk, her parents included. I was sure it was in my medical file, but apparently no one was doing anything about it. I almost wished they would.

  “You didn’t even cry.” Easton’s car door shuts too softly, compared to her words. Quiet as they are, there’s a serrated edge to them that keeps cutting long after they end. Long after she joins me against the bumper.

  “Not in front of you. You were upset. I didn’t want to upset you more.”

  “You still did. It seemed like you didn’t care that I’d lost it. It...” Her voice snags. “...seemed like you were relieved.”

  “I was relieved you were okay.”

  “I wasn’t. But you were. You had, what—a few stitches? Some scrapes?”

  “Jesus, Easton, you think I didn’t know that?” I throw the cigarette butt into the mud, the last inhale rushing out of my lungs. “You think that didn’t tear me apart? I walked away with basically nothing, and you....”

  The rest of my sentence falls away. I don’t know how to say it.

  Yes, she was fine on the outside. Less banged up and bruised than I was, in fact.

  But on the inside....

  “Whatever my feelings about the pregnancy were, back then...I never wanted it to end like that.”

  “But you did want it to end.”

  “Not like that,” I repeat, biting the words. Making sure she knows, without a single doubt, what I mean. “I wasn’t relieved. I was disgusted. I hated myself for what I did to you, getting us in that accident.” I look at her. The headlight on her side lights up her profile from behind, edges glowing, the rest in navy-blue.

  She shuts her eyes and spreads her hands on the hood behind her, feeling the music she can’t hear, just to ground herself.

  “See...you think that’s all there is to it. The accident, losing the baby—you still can’t admit you were wrong to leave. You still don’t get that after losing so much, I had to face it all alone and lose you, too.”

  When she opens her eyes again, they’re cast upward. At first I think she’s trying not to cry more.

  Then I realize she’s studying the stars.

  “Coming home to all those flowers and cards, and seeing your name on one of them—as though you were no different to me than everyone else in town, and I wasn’t any different to you? That I wasn’t worth more than some stupid little note saying ‘I’m sorry’?” The tears spill again, catching the headlights. “I didn’t even get a goodbye. I had to go to your house and hear from your dad you’d gone missing. You have no idea how much that hurt me.”

  She looks at me again. “It still hurts. Losing the pregnancy’s probably the only thing that’s ever hurt more.”

  I know, as useless as it was back then, saying “sorry” will mean even less now. So instead I sit on the hood, prop my heels on the bumper, and pat the space beside me. She scoots up.

  “Did you ever tell anyone?”

  “No. Mom couldn’t access my medical records. She just knew about the concussion and stitches in my arm, from that glass that fell out of the windshield.”

  I don’t even remember that. I’d like to think it was the shock instead of alcohol, but there’s no use lying to myself.

  “Did your dad tell anyone?”

  “No. You know him—he keeps to himself more than I do.” I chuckle, but Easton just nods, picking at the frayed strap on her shoe.

  “You were the only person I could talk to about it,” she whispers, “and you weren’t even there.”

  “In that case, you’re right.” I swallow, ready to force the words out. “I did abandon you.”

  Again, she nods.

  “I was ashamed. That was why I left. I had this...this deep, searing kind of hatred for myself, and I didn’t know how to fix it. So I tried to run away from it.”

  “Did it work?”

  I laugh bitterly and put another cigarette between my lips. “Of course not.”

  Like so many things in my life, I already know the answer to the question I’m about to ask. It’s something about the silence. Much as I hate it, I have to admit: you can hear a lot when things are quiet.

  “You were driving when Bennett was killed,” I whisper. “Weren’t you?”

  The spark of his lighter shows me the shadows best, that furrow in his brow as the memory floods back. He takes a drag before nodding.

  “Almost cost Caroline her baby, too,” he says, after he exhales. I don’t see any tears, but I hear them, bitten back and sharp. “Guess that’s some fucked-up motif the universe likes putting into my life.”

  “Not the universe,” I correct quietly. “If you do the same thing, expect the same results.”

  Ford ashes the cigarette without looking, eyes locked on mine. “What?”

  “Look, I’m not trying to start anything. G
iving up liquor, I mean, it shows you’ve started to accept that you have that part of your dad in your genes after all, and that’s good. All I’m saying is, you still need to take responsibility for it. Blaming the ‘universe’ isn’t going—”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Easton?” He flicks the cigarette down. I watch the cherry flash and vanish. “You think I was drunk that night, too?”

  I hesitate. That’s exactly what I thought.

  “Well…you weren’t up-front with how Bennett died; I can only go by the information I have. You can’t blame me for wondering, because why else wouldn’t you have told me? Especially now that we’re....”

  “Back together.” Say it.

  But I can’t, because the rift between us, in this short distance, feels deeper than ever before. Maybe it never left. We were just brave enough to keep crossing it—naïve enough to ignore everything inside it we’d never talked about. Stupid enough to think it would all just vanish.

  “This,” he spits, and slides off the hood so fast, the bounce of his side nearly throws me from mine, “this shit, right here: you assuming I was wasted—that’s why I didn’t tell you. Everyone in this fucking town thought the same thing, you know that? That rumor went around faster than Bennett being dead.”

  “I didn’t know about any rumor,” I counter. I barely catch myself when I slide down from the hood, the ground unlevel and marred from rain, tire tracks, and time. “I just....”

  “Just assumed.” He waits, cursing and turning away when I don’t respond.

  “Well, why wouldn’t I? You didn’t tell me, so my mind went to...the worst reason.”

  “The most likely reason, you mean?” The headlights hit him like a low spotlight, slanting his shadow down the road. “You know, I could actually sort of get it, if you had heard the rumor. If that’s what put it in your head, and you just needed confirmation. It would still be fucked up—but I’d understand it better than this.” He paces away a few feet, then comes back, stopping just inches from my face. “You know me, E. This town, they don’t know me, they can believe whatever they want. But you?”