by B. E. Baker
She doesn’t say no, and I know I’ve got her.
“Eggs,” I say. “Toast.”
“Waffles?” she asks. “Do you guys eat those here?”
“Absolutely, we do,” I say. “Or, you know, we could always go over to Hotel Adler.”
She giggles. “Maybe not right now.”
“I’m kidding. Jostli would have a heart attack.”
“Look, I’m not saying—”
Her phone rings. When she sees the number, she answers it immediately. “Rob?”
She’s silent, listening intently.
“No, no. That’s not—”
Silence again.
“I’m coming home.”
A brief pause.
“I don’t care about that. Believe me, it will be a relief. No, you can’t change my mind.”
Another pause.
“No, no one needs to pick me up. I have money. I’ll get a cab. You’re at Emory?”
She hangs up.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Brekka, my brother Rob’s wife, isn’t quite twenty-four weeks along.” She shakes her head. “She hadn’t felt the baby move in a while, so they went in to check things out, and her amniotic fluid is low. Way too low.”
“Oh no,” I say.
“I wonder if I can still get that car,” she says.
“Take our jet. Mom and Dad won’t care, I promise.”
She gulps. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Family is everything. I’m sure they need you there with them.”
She smiles up at me. “Thank you.”
I drive her to the airstrip where our jet is waiting. “I’ll be praying for you and Brekka and Rob,” I say. “I know it’s not much, but if there’s anything else I can do, please let me know.”
“I’ll miss you,” she says. “But we both knew I had to go home eventually.”
And I’m terribly afraid she’s really telling me goodbye. Forever.
15
Beth
Songs have run through my head for as long as I can remember. Sometimes they were songs I heard somewhere, but often, they were songs that simply appeared. Notes, chords, words, strumming, buzzing, and chiming around in my brain. The busier I am, the more things I think about, the softer the background music becomes. When I’m studying for something, for instance, it drops to the barest hum. When I’m bored, or when I’m anxious, the music crashes over me, sounds, feelings, lyrics, all mixing together. Sometimes the experience calms me, sometimes it agitates me.
When Jostli expressed surprise that I was writing so many new songs, I nearly laughed. I don’t write the songs: they tumble out of me, like carbon dioxide expelled from the body with every breath. Except when a good one emerges, it’s the purest form of delight. As I sit here, alone and anxious in Cole’s clean, sleek, and sophisticated jet, that familiar music should be bombarding me. It should distract me from my concern, my fear, my nervousness.
But no music runs through my head.
Ever since Rob said, “Beth, I’m scared for the baby,” the music in my head evaporated.
My big brother is never afraid—not when he lost his best friend, or for a time, the use of his legs. Not when my dad’s arthritis caused him to neglect the dealerships. No, Rob, who knew nothing of car sales, stepped in and turned those flailing dealerships around. Rob is as invincible as anyone I’ve ever met.
And he’s afraid.
No one and nothing is ever really safe. Those words keep running through my head—no music, just a depressing realization that nothing lasts forever. Nothing is guaranteed. Knowing that, I still flew away from my family, chasing after a stupid dream of a mother who would ‘get’ me. To borrow Paisley’s analogy, I threw a whole fistful of coins into the garbage, and I’ll never get them back. Rob’s afraid, and I’m not there. The music inside my head may have abandoned me forever as punishment.
But by golly, I won’t leave their side now.
When the jet lands, my Uber is already waiting. Bless Cole for taking care of that for me. I like him a lot, far, far more than I ever should have. He said he liked me too, but I don’t fit into his world. My home is here, in Atlanta, and it’s so much easier to remember that when he’s not smiling at me, not touching me, not talking to me in his low, low voice.
I breathe in the balmy, humid air. My blouse sticks to my skin after mere moments outside. Ah, July in Georgia. I’ve missed most of peach season. I wonder what else I’ve missed. When I reach the hospital, Brekka’s asleep in a hospital bed, Rob by her side. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hair’s sticking up in strange places. When he sees me, he leaps to his feet and hugs me for a little too long.
“You,” I whisper. “Go. Shower, take a nap, recover. I won’t leave her side, I swear it.”
“You just flew international,” he says. “You’re jet lagged. You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“I smell a lot better than you.” I lift one eyebrow. “Do you think you’re exuding the sense of calm that you need to keep your baby safe and your wife happy?”
He gulps.
I glance at my watch. One-thirty a.m. “If you hurry, you could get in a quick nap and still get back before she wakes up.”
Rob looks past me at his wife. Her face is pale, her frame so small, so delicate. I’ve never seen her asleep before. When she’s awake and talking and analyzing everything you say, she’s like five hundred pounds of dynamite in a ten-pound sack. No one notices the sack.
But now that she’s asleep, my heart contracts. She looks so fragile. I used to long to be petite and tiny, like her. She’s the kind of girl a guy wants to protect. At nearly five foot ten, no one ever thinks I need protection, but in many ways, that’s a gift. I can carry my own luggage, and reach the dishes on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets without a stool. I can run from here to my house. Okay, maybe not, since I never run anywhere. But theoretically, my body can do whatever I need. It’s a blessing that I’ve selfishly taken for granted until this very moment.
“I’ll keep her safe.”
Rob blinks, and then he nods at me. He grabs a bag and ducks out the door.
The next few weeks pass in a blur. Mom and Dad come and go, but they have commitments, friends, and a schedule. Christine has work, and Jennifer has a job and kids and a husband. I put my life on hold before I left, and I haven’t hit the play button. I have nothing but time, so we settle into a routine. I take nights, Rob takes days. Brekka’s amniotic fluid never rises, but neither does it fall. The baby isn’t growing fast, but she is growing. The doctors do ultrasounds every day, give her corticosteroids to help develop the baby’s lungs just in case, and each day, they agree to wait one more day.
The day after thirty-one weeks, she goes into labor, and they give her magnesium sulfate.
“It’s been shown in some studies to lower the risk of cerebral palsy.” Dr. Stone rarely looks up from her clipboard, and she’s not very personable, but I hear that’s common for people who are on the spectrum. She’s the best neo-natal doctor in Atlanta, so we don’t care.
“Does that mean the baby is coming?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We’ll know more in a few hours. I don’t want to do any more pelvic exams than necessary.”
“Me either,” Brekka says, a half smile on her face.
She has stayed remarkably calm in all this.
Dr. Stone leaves, and Rob stands up. “I’m going to get dinner. Burgers? Anyone?”
I shrug. “Sure, but get extra fries.”
“How are you not three hundred and fifty pounds?” Rob asks.
“Maybe I am,” I say. “As long as I’m healthy, it’s none of your business what I weigh.”
He rolls his eyes and leaves.
“You don’t look at your phone anymore,” Brekka says.
I freeze.
“When you first came back, you looked at your phone a hundred times a day. Now, you never do. I haven’t even seen it in days.”
I turn
around to face her.
“Why?” She places both hands on her belly. “I’m in labor, and I’m scared for the baby. You should distract me with the truth. What happened in Europe?”
I collapse into the hard, plasticky gray chair in the corner. We’ve talked about a lot of things. We’ve watched television shows. I’ve read to her and to the baby. I entertained her by trying to learn to knit, and then she and I ordered some things off Etsy together. But I never offered any information about the past few weeks, and she has never asked. Until now.
“It started out rough,” I say.
“How so?”
I tell her about the tour delay and how Cole came and got me.
“You couldn’t have looked that bad,” she says.
I stare at her. “Do you know that character Hagrid, off Harry Potter?”
“Yes.”
“He wouldn’t have found me attractive.”
She laughs, and then she grabs her belly.
“Oh no, is everything alright?”
She grimaces. “Try not to be so funny. Laughing hurts.”
“Laughing leads to contractions. I hear you.” I reach out and hold her hand.
She squeezes my fingers with her own, tiny hand, and then I tell her everything. How much fun I had in Liechtenstein, how much I like Cole. How we kissed. Rob jogs into the room then, with a bag in his hands.
Brekka shakes her head. “We need another half hour.”
Rob’s mouth drops open. “What?”
“Leave and come back in half an hour.” Brekka blows him a kiss.
There’s no way that my brother will—but then he does it. He pivots on his heel and walks out.
“You have him really well trained,” I say. “That’s amazing.”
“That’s a topic for another girl chat,” she says. “But for now, continue.”
I do. Right up until the time that he asks me to stay, and I hop on his private jet and fly here.
“And what does he say now?” she asks. “Has he asked you to come back?”
I shake my head.
“What does he say, then?”
I shrug. “Nothing. I haven’t gotten a single text or a single call. I think he wanted me when he saw me as Henrietta Gauvón’s daughter, a performer, a singer, famous, awe-inducing. I think he was attracted to that person—Elizabeth, I call her—but that’s not me. I’m plain old Beth Graham. I like magnolias and sweet tea and porch swings.”
Brekka whips out her phone and starts tapping away.
A jolt of adrenaline shoots through me. She has Paisley’s number, and Paisley has Cole’s. She could be texting him right now. “What are you doing?”
She flips her phone around. “This is you, no?”
I squint at the video. It’s one of the songs I performed at Henrietta’s concert. “Yes.”
“Seven point three million views. Let me repeat that. Seven point three million views. Do you have any idea how many that is? And these other songs have millions, too. You’re an idiot.”
“You haven’t contracted in a while,” I say.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Brekka says. Then she turns and looks at the monitor. “Hey, I haven’t. In more than twenty minutes, actually.”
When Rob comes back, we eat cold hamburgers, mushy french fries, and then I go and pick up some bundt cake.
“This is a celebration for you, little baby.” I lift my forkful of cake in the air. “Since you stayed inside, you get chocolate cake, delivered by your mom, who loves you more than anything. Now just stay put a while longer.”
After Rob finally kisses Brekka goodnight and leaves, she pivots on me like a used car salesman eyeing a new lead. “You will text him.”
“It’s the middle of the night there,” I protest. “It would wake him up.”
“Text him right now. If you don’t, you’ll chicken out.”
I shake my head. “I stopped checking my phone because I realized that my message got through to him. I like Cole a lot, more than I’ve ever liked anyone, but we are like two puzzle pieces that just don’t fit. My life is here, and his life is there, and it would never have worked, no matter how much I wanted things to be different.”
She purses her lips. “Well, then, message that agent. You’re still mooning over something and if it’s not the guy, it’s the songs.”
My heart thaws, just a little. The singing and the guy are inextricably entwined to me. But maybe if I recorded an album there, just maybe my longing about Cole would diminish. Maybe I could stop thinking about him. Maybe I wouldn’t have to hide my phone in my purse to keep from checking it a hundred times a day. “This is not a good time.”
Brekka takes my hand in hers. “The second my baby is born, you will call that agent. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Less than two weeks later, she goes into labor again, only this time, there’s no bundt cake celebration.
“The labor has been steady for hours now,” Dr. Stone says. “And I know that you wanted to try a natural delivery, but the baby is showing signs of distress. I’m going to recommend a delivery via cesarean section.”
Brekka and Rob don’t argue.
The nurse, Susan, puts a hand on Brekka’s arm, carefully avoiding the IV. “You made it past thirty-three weeks,” she says brightly. “You did good, really good. And she’s a girl. They do better coming early.”
“Is that true?” Brekka asks Dr. Stone.
“They typically spend less time in the NICU,” Dr. Stone says, “so, yes.”
A little color rises in Brekka’s cheeks, and some of the tension in my shoulders eases. I follow them all the way to the door into the OR, but they stop me there. “Spouses only.”
“You’ve seen her here, day in and day out for nearly ten weeks. Surely you can make an exception,” Brekka snaps.
Dr. Stone looks down at her feet. “We’re not supposed to—”
“It’s fine,” Susan says. “I won’t document it.”
I follow them inside, a little surprised that I’m allowed, and I watch in equal parts wonder and horror as they slice Brekka open and remove a tiny baby. She’s purplish, covered with smears of white, and so, so small.
“She’s not crying,” I whisper to Rob.
When the nurses whisk the baby out of the room, Brekka shouts, “Go with her, Rob! Go!”
He shoots out of the room like a couponer on Black Friday, and I walk across the room to the operating table to hold Brekka’s hand. Dr. Stone keeps working on her, sewing her up methodically, as if the baby wasn’t just rushed from the room.
“Is she going to be alright?” I ask.
Dr. Stone says, “My expertise ends when the baby comes out of your belly, but she looked as healthy and strong as any thirty-three week old baby I’ve seen.”
Rob returns half an hour later. “She’s doing just fine. They put her on oxygen, but they don’t think she’ll need it long. She’s just over four pounds, which is a very respectable weight for her age. They’re going to try feeding her soon.”
“Then get back in there,” Brekka says. “Now.” When he stares at her, gape mouthed, she glares. “Go—I’m fine.”
I stay with Brekka until she recovers enough to sit up. Then I wheel her over to see her baby, through the glass for now. She’s wearing a white diaper and a tiny pink cap, and nothing else. Tubes connect to her tiny hand, and there’s a tiny monitor on her foot. Itsy bitsy diodes attach to several places on her torso, but her skin is pink and her mouth and eyes are just perfect.
Brekka inhales sharply, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. “She’s alright. Oh, Beth, she’s perfect.”
“She really is,” I say.
Brekka places one hand against the glass, leaning as close as she can. “Rob and I have talked about it, and we want to name her Ruth.”
“Are you sure?” My full name is Elizabeth Ruth Graham. Ruth, for the woman in the Bible who left her family and joined her mother-in-law. ‘For your people will b
e my people.’ My parents thought it fitting, since I was adopted, but I always felt like it was a giant bulls-eye, highlighting the fact that I wasn’t originally a part of the family.
Brekka takes my hand with her free one. “Rob said that the family was missing something, a vital piece, something huge, until you came along. And then he just knew that it was perfect. As much as I love your brother, I’ve been afraid since long before I knew him that I would never hold a baby in my arms. I want that baby to be named after you, the missing piece in Rob’s family—and the most beautiful addition to ours.”
Five days later, when the nurse places Ruth into Brekka’s arms and says she’s ready to go home, I’m there, crying.
“You have to visit us all the time, because Baby Ruth already knows your voice.” Brekka pins me with her patented stare. “But you didn’t fulfill your promise to me, and now it’s time.”
“What?” I ask.
“You have someone to call.”
For a split second, I think she means Cole and my heart sprouts wings and takes flight. Then I remember she means the agent. “I don’t want smoke and mirrors and enormous audiences of a million people.”
“Tell him that,” Brekka says. “You give him your terms and see if he’ll agree. If not, at least you tried.”
I hold Baby Ruth one last time, and then I walk them out to their car. “I’ll call him, but you do this for me. If you two need help, you call me.”
Brekka laughs. “My mom is flying into town to stay with us today. I can already tell you, I will need help.” She drops her voice. “Help hiding a body.” Her eyes widen with purpose.
“Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but I’d recommend against homicide this close in time to such a major surgery. It might make dragging someone difficult. And if you go to jail. . .”
“I suppose that for now, I’ll wait,” Brekka says.
I’m pretty sure Rob won’t be able to fit everything into the trunk of Brekka’s car. A metric ton of flowers, stuffed animals, baby clothing, and other gifts were delivered in the past week or so, and they were there so long that they accumulated quite a lot of stuff. But all those years playing Tetris as a kid paid off, and Rob actually squeezes the last box into the top corner and closes the back hatch.
