What's Left Behind

by Lorrie Thomson

  “Ouch!” He rubbed his mouth, set his beer on the side table. “Thanks a lot, Abby.” She’d been jittery all day; the cottony words she wanted to say to Charlie lined her throat. And in the mix, something akin to thrill, because this was good news, right? Ill-timed, years too early, shocking, but good and real and meant to be.

  In the low light of the television, Charlie’s eyes glowed. He wended a cool hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt, his touch sweet and familiar. “Want to mess around?”

  Abby held her hand to Charlie’s, took its placement on her lower abdomen as a sign. She leaned into his touch. In the kitchen, the clock ticked, the refrigerator hummed, and a fresh batch of ice cubes clinked into the waiting tray. Her pulse revved. In this moment, she loved Charlie more than ever, maybe even more than a year and a half ago when, on the reverse side of the couch cushion, he’d opened her with his fingers, unzipped his jeans, and pushed himself inside her for the first time. Making love had seemed like an afterthought because she’d loved him forever.

  Would he love her after today?

  Charlie’s gaze went half-mast, his face leaned in to kiss her, his hand slid lower.

  Abby cupped Charlie’s face. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, a fragile twine of fear and hope. “I’m pregnant,” she said, and Charlie froze, his fingers caught beneath the band of her underwear.

  “Charlie?” she said.

  Charlie let out a breath. He stared at her until his chin trembled. He stared at her until her smile fell and her hope faltered.

  Charlie yanked his hand from her shorts and tore into the kitchen. The clink of bottle against bottle, Charlie riffling through the beers his dad kept in the crisper but never counted. One beer wasn’t enough?

  Abby sat up and folded her arms over her stomach. On the TV screen, Jenny asked Forrest to marry her. Across the room, a framed eight-by-ten portrait of the Connors family hung on the wall. Twelve-year-old Charlie sat on a studio bench beside his father, fake pine tree in the background. Baby sister, Kate, balanced on Mrs. Connors’s knee. To this day, Mrs. Connors referred to Kate as her little miracle. Charlie called her annoying. He only volunteered to babysit so that he could get his parents out of the house and get himself into Abby’s shorts.

  But Charlie had told Abby he wanted kids. She hated Charlie, but she hated herself more for believing him.

  Charlie stood in the dark doorway, beer in hand. Mist billowed from the bottle’s open mouth.

  “We’re keeping the baby,” she said, because sometimes Charlie needed her to state the obvious, to make their plans, to break them down into manageable bites. Last week, they were planning on going to the University of Maine. Now, they weren’t.

  Charlie came into the room. He got down on his knees before her and laid his head in her lap. Out of habit or love or insanity, she stroked his hair, worried the satin-soft strands between her trembling fingers. The yeasty beer aroma hooked in her throat, tugged queasiness from her belly to her mouth.

  Charlie raised his head and offered Abby the open beer. “Maybe,” he said, “we should drink on it.”

  You drank a beer while pregnant if you didn’t give a damn, or worse. If you wanted the pregnancy to end, you drank quite a few.

  Abby took the beer from Charlie, the bottle cold against the web of her hand. The words on the label blurred, and her hand shook. Sometimes stating the obvious wasn’t enough. Sometimes she had to show Charlie their plan.

  “Get off me,” Abby told him, and shoved him from her lap onto the shag rug.

  “What the—?” Charlie said, and then flinched.

  Abby stood and hurled the beer bottle past Charlie and against the far wall, smashing the glass of the Connors family portrait.

  The pom-pom throw pillow behind Abby’s head let her know she was lying on the love seat in the entryway of Briar Rose. The bittersweet aftertaste of a memory filled her mouth, and her hands covered her belly. The warmth of someone else’s hands covered hers.

  She opened her eyes, expecting Charlie.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” Rob said, and everything flooded back. Tessa. The pregnancy. Luke’s baby, but no Luke.

  Luke’s baby.

  “I found some apple juice. But I didn’t see any straws anywhere.” Tessa stood over Abby, one of Abby’s juice glasses in hand. Tessa’s nose was red, as if she’d been crying, but her eyes were dry. She shifted from foot to foot.

  “Put it on the table,” Rob said, his tone sturdy and take-charge above an undercurrent of concern.

  Abby had better get it together before her guests returned to find their innkeeper laid out in the parlor, Rob staring at her as if she’d just woken from the dead. The only time she’d ever fainted before was when she and Celeste had locked themselves in the upstairs bathroom at Celeste’s parents’ house, two eighteen-year-olds cracking up over the absurdity of peeing on a stick. Minutes later, Abby had read two solid pink lines and promptly forgotten how to breathe.

  Rob helped her up, propped the pillow behind her back. Her body moved at half-speed. “I’m fine.” Abby reached for the glass of juice with a trembling hand.

  “She’s a terrible liar,” Rob told Tessa. He held the glass to Abby’s lips, and she bent her head to take a sip. The juice scratched going down. She took another sip, got the same result.

  “Better?” Rob said, and she nodded. “Liar.”

  Abby grinned. “How long was I out?”

  “Couple minutes.”

  “Really? Felt like hours.” Abby sat up the rest of the way herself and turned to Tessa. “So . . . how are you feeling?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Five hours is a long drive.” Abby angled her head toward the door with the pink hand-painted Powder Room sign. “Do you need to use the restroom?”

  “Pretty much all the time,” Tessa said, and they exchanged a brittle smile before Tessa headed across the room. From behind, you couldn’t even tell she was expecting. Abby had carried that way, too. Or so she’d been told. As a pregnant teenager, she’d felt anything but inconspicuous.

  Abby’s smile cracked. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “This is not how I imagined the afternoon. I am so sorry. Mortified, actually.”

  “My fault. I should’ve warned you about my superior kissing skills. Many a woman has swooned.”

  Abby laughed, and Rob pecked her on the cheek. The sweet gesture spoke the language of intimacy. Did Rob feel that way about her? “Kidding,” he said. “You were my first.”

  A balloon of hysteria welled in Abby’s stomach, threatening to burst, and she breathed through it.

  What was it with teenage pregnancies in her family? Lily Beth had warned Abby, to no avail. And Abby had passed along Lily Beth’s admonition to Luke. If you can’t be chaste, for goodness sake be careful. Yet, she’d always imagined Luke fathering beautiful children. Towheaded boys with ruddy cheeks, quick smiles, and a weakness for Abby’s oatmeal raisin cookies. Blue-eyed girls who were equally at home digging in the sand or standing on a stool before Abby’s kitchen counter. She already loved them. She’d told Luke as much. But in her fantasies, she imagined the pitter-patter of Luke-related little feet years and years in the future. Not while her baby was still a teenager. Definitely not after Luke had died.

  Abby filled her cheeks with air and blew out a breath. Charlie called her habit, Abby’s little blowfish. She called it, releasing excess stress. Or attempting to do so.

  How could Abby spring this shock on Charlie? Or Lily Beth, for that matter? Charlie still needed to call her most every day. And Abby knew Lily Beth had been middle-of-the-night widow walking since Luke’s death. Lily Beth would admit to nothing, but the dark circles under her mother’s eyes told the tale.

  Abby tested the steadiness of the floor, found it lacking. “She should’ve warned me,” Abby said, imagining how Lily Beth might’ve reacted if Abby had announced her pregnancy six months after the fact, instead of days after she’d known. In front of Abby, Lily Beth had called her pregnancy a
blessing. But late at night, the muffled sound of Lily Beth’s behind-closed-doors tears had spoken of something darker.

  Yet, Tessa’s pregnancy was a blessing. A miracle that had knocked Abby off her feet.

  “Five hours,” Abby said. “Why didn’t she call first? What if I wasn’t even home?” Irresponsible behavior got you pregnant, but then you had to grow up and smarten up for the sake of the baby. Abby’s pulse throbbed against her eardrums, and she ordered it to slow down.

  “She’s . . . ?” Rob said.

  “Luke’s girlfriend,” Abby whispered.

  “Thought so.”

  Tessa came out from the restroom, her hairline wet, as though she’d splashed water on her face.

  “Did he know?” Abby asked.

  Tessa met Abby’s gaze. She squinted across the room. Her lips opened and rounded, as though translating he to Luke. Her brow relaxed, and she shook her head.

  If Luke had known, he’d have called Abby right away, and they’d have talked it out. They always talked things out. But to what end? She wouldn’t have wanted Luke to drop out of school. He’d worked hard to get there.

  Yet, that’s exactly what she’d expected of Charlie.

  She’d also expected Charlie to marry her, but only because he’d asked her years before the pregnancy. This situation was different. Luke hadn’t been ready for that kind of commitment.

  While in high school, he’d never dated a girl more than a few months before the outgoing calls would cease and the incoming calls would commence. Tearful pleas for Luke to call back, because he was the love of her life. She couldn’t live without him. Oh, the unnecessary drama.

  Yet, that wasn’t fair, because what each girl felt was real. “What did I do?” Luke would ask Abby after the latest rash of calls.

  “You made her fall in love with you,” she’d tell him.

  And then he’d lose interest.

  “Luke was good with kids. Did you know that?” Abby asked.

  “Drink some more juice,” Rob said.

  I’m okay, Abby mouthed. He nodded, but his hand slid to the small of her back and stayed.

  Tessa sat down on the wing chair beside Abby, a two-step process. Lower to cushion, shift to relative comfort.

  “He used to babysit for my friend Celeste. He was the only male sitter she’d allow. Her kids loved him.” Luke would help them build couch cushion forts in the living room, igloos in the yard. He’d make cocoa they claimed they liked even better than their mother’s homemade hot chocolate. Celeste was wise to ignore the empty packets of Swiss Miss in her trash.

  “He never mentioned babysitting.”

  “No? He took an early childhood ed class in tenth grade. The one where he had to carry a baby doll around with him in a Snugli? And the doll cried until Luke changed its wet diaper or gave it a bottle?”

  Abby pictured Luke carrying a real baby, his baby, a smooth round cheek resting on Luke’s shoulder. She lifted the apple juice from the table. The enormity of what Luke had lost—his whole beautiful life—made her want to smash the glass against the wall. Slowly, carefully, she set the glass down.

  Tessa shrugged. She clasped hands on her thighs, making herself look like a shy schoolgirl, if you could ignore the pregnant belly backdrop.

  At least when Abby was expecting Luke, she hadn’t been known as that pregnant freshman girl. No, she’d been that pregnant girlfriend from home who called and talked to Charlie’s roommate every Friday night while Charlie was out partying.

  And then she’d stopped calling.

  An ache pressed her temples. Rob took her hand, as if they were in this together, whatever this was. Tessa had waited months to let her know of the pregnancy. Why hadn’t Tessa simply called to tell Abby she was carrying Luke’s baby? “Only two other boys took the class with Luke. When Luke figured out they were only there to meet girls . . .” Not that Luke’s motives had been any more pure. “When the boys didn’t take too well to twenty-four/seven child care, Luke charged them for doll sitting. He did pretty well for himself at ten dollars an hour. Kind of cornered the market.”

  Rob squeezed Abby’s hand. “An entrepreneur, like his mother.”

  Tessa let out a laugh and a hiccup, and she covered her mouth. “That sounds like Luke.”

  Good. Abby had set Tessa at ease. Took guts to drive herself from Massachusetts to Maine, no clue what kind of reception she’d receive. Act first, think second, if at all. Unfortunately, she could well imagine Luke doing something similarly impulsive. Tessa probably hadn’t anticipated the fainting. That made three of them.

  Tessa’s fingers unclasped and jittered in her lap.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Abby asked.

  Tessa hiccupped again.

  “Let me get you some water.” Abby stood up. Brown dots played before her eyes and she sat back down.

  Rob shook his head at Abby and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get the water. You, stay.”

  “Woof,” Abby told Rob, and Tessa giggled. Rob walked from the room. Abby’s gaze zoned in on the back of his jeans, the angle of his hips.

  The sensation of being watched turned her to Tessa. “Your parents?” Abby asked.

  “My father knows.” Tessa’s gaze scurried to the ceiling.

  Abby had seen that expression before on her son’s face, the squirm of a half-truth. “Really?”

  “Uh, well, he will when I phone to tell him.”

  Thought so. “And your mother?”

  Tessa sucked her lips into her mouth. “She’s . . . she’s out of the country.” Her expression turned numb with a tinge of defiance around her eyes.

  Was her mother also out of Tessa’s life?

  “Does she know about the baby?” Abby asked.

  Tessa shook her head, and her eyes misted.

  Abby took a slow, deep breath. How horrible for Tessa’s mother not to know about the existence of her own grandchild.

  How horrible for Abby not to have known. Until Tessa had, on impulse, landed on her doorstep.

  Abby drew her hands to her chest, one overlapping the other. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I don’t know.” Even though Tessa’s gaze did not scurry and retreat from Abby’s, Tessa sat up taller. She shifted into a subtle defensive stance. And Abby still didn’t believe her.

  Rob returned with a glass of ice water and handed it to Tessa. “There you go.” He sat next to Abby, and the sides of their knees bumped.

  “Thanks.” Tessa hiccupped and gulped down the water, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. Did she know the dangers of dehydration? As soon as Abby had discovered she was pregnant, she’d worried about the baby’s health. She hadn’t realized how much harder it would be after Luke was born.

  Between middle school and high school, Luke had sprained the same ankle twice playing basketball. Broke his wrist executing a back flip on a frozen pond. Suffered a concussion during a sledding accident because he’d refused to wear a helmet. Each injury had chipped away at the fallacy she could keep her child safe from harm.

  “You have a bag or suitcase I can haul in for you?” Rob asked.

  “Just this.” Tessa gave the handbag at her side a poke.

  Was she staying somewhere else and she’d already dropped off a suitcase? “So . . . what’s your plan?” Abby asked.

  “I guess I have three choices?” Tessa’s hand settled over the swell of her belly. “I could, you know, keep the baby?” she said, and her gaze wandered around the room.

  Heat prickled the back of Abby’s neck. She hadn’t asked Tessa about her plans for the baby. She’d assumed Tessa would raise the child.

  What else would you do for the child of the man you’d loved and lost?

  Tessa’s gaze fell to the floor, and she shook her head. “Probably a dumb idea. I’ve never even babysat. I’m not good with kids. I have school and—” Tessa took a couple of long, deep breaths before she met Abby’s gaze. Her mouth turned down, as though she
might cry, and her brow furrowed. She tried for a smile, the same shaky optimism Abby had seen before she’d fainted. “I could give you the baby.”

  The words thrummed between them, pounded through Abby’s chest. Beside her, Rob shifted in his seat. She ushered her hair over one shoulder. Her hand came away sticky with sweat. Beneath the apples-and-cinnamon scent of her home, she detected a milky newborn scent. Beyond the shushing crash of waves, the memory of an infant’s cries tickled her ears. And instead of the carved-out feeling that had plagued her since she’d touched her lips to her son’s cold cheek, warmth, soul-warmth, filled her head to toe.

  I want my son back.

  Abby glanced at Rob, and he offered an encouraging nod-grin that didn’t touch his eyes.

  Abby stood up. Her legs did not shake. No spots danced before her eyes. And her vision did not waver at the edges.

  “Thank you, Tessa. Thank you so much.” Abby bent and gave Tessa a hug. The girl reached up to touch Abby’s hair, looped a finger into a curl, the way Luke had when he’d been small. Tessa swallowed and pressed her cheek to Abby’s. Abby had prayed for a second chance. Maybe this wasn’t a miracle, but it was pretty darn close. Abby let go first and swiped at the wetness beneath one eye. “You at least have to stay the weekend.”

  Tessa’s wide grin withered, and her bottom lip puckered into a pout.

  A sudden knowing panic gripped Abby’s chest, a close cousin to the sensation she’d experienced months ago when the University of Massachusetts had flashed on her caller ID. “What? What’s wrong?” Abby said, her voice high and tight.

  Tessa shrugged and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Abby. It might be better for me to give the baby to someone else.”

  “Better?” Abby said, her voice wavering, a hairbreadth below hysteria. “Better for whom?” Abby searched the girl’s face, looking for malice or madness. But all she found was a nervous smile and a gaze that hid from Abby’s glare.