by Lily Foster
Janelle sips at her soda. “It was a bad time. I just wanted to set him free, let him meet someone new, someone he could start a family with.”
“You couldn’t adopt?”
“Before I met Paul…Well, let’s just say I made a few bad decisions. I had a boyfriend, a real wild one.” When I smile, she shakes her head. “Not the good kind of wild. He was a small time dealer with a temper. Yeah, and it turns out his idea of a good time was armed robbery. Two weeks after my eighteenth birthday I was driving the getaway car. I was tried as an adult of course.”
“You went to jail?”
“For two weeks. I mean, I knew the boy was no angel, but I truly didn’t know he walked into that convenience store fixing to hold a gun to the cashier’s head. I testified against him…Didn’t see how I owed him my life after what he put me through. I was found guilty but the district attorney and the judge were sympathetic. I was sentenced to five years of probation.” She shakes her head. “I can still hardly believe it happened.”
“I can’t picture you meeting with a probation officer.”
She nods. “Month after month after month. It’s sobering, I’ll tell you that.”
“So how did you meet Paul?”
“One of the conditions of my parole was steady employment. I was hired as a temp and Paul was my boss.” She smiles and shakes her head. “He saw something in me. Went to bat for me when I applied for a permanent position at the firm and my record became an issue. Pushed me to start junior college, encouraged me to apply for promotions...He taught me everything I know.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “You never know what lies around the bend, you know? Here I was, in the worst predicament possible, and something very good came of it. I met Paul, who showed me how to stand on my own two feet.”
“But?” I ask, having not gotten an answer to my question.
“Long story short, no one was giving us a child to raise with a felony conviction on my record. I bet it’s different now, at least I like to think the world is a more accepting place…That a dumb split-second decision you make when you’re a kid doesn’t brand you for life.”
“Where is Paul now?”
“He stayed in Philadelphia. Started dating someone I’d introduced him to years before. When he called to tell me he was getting married, I ran. Had to get far, far away from the pain. Would have sailed to the Arctic Circle if it was possible.”
“Powell is a close second,” I offer, trying to ease her sadness.
“Damn straight it is. Those first two winters I wondered if I’d truly gone nuts, upending my life like that and heading off to no man’s land. But I found peace in the snow, the lake, the silence.”
“You’ve built a nice life for yourself there.”
She takes in a breath and straightens up in her chair. “I have. I have my band of misfit friends—”
“The book club.”
“Yes, my book club that reads roughly one third of the books assigned. And Lawrence isn’t half bad. I think I’ll keep him.”
Lawrence is Janelle’s boyfriend. She didn’t let him come around for the first two months I was living with her. She told me afterwards she didn’t want to upset the apple cart. I’ve gotten used to her animal and agriculture-related adages. I now try not to put the cart before the horse when making decisions, I know there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I realize that leopards generally don’t change their spots. Sometimes I amuse myself trying to come up with ones that apply to my life. Like I didn’t give Simon a reason to buy the cow, you know, having given the milk away for free, and as a result, the chickens have come home to roost. Yes, I have that much time on my hands. Five months later and Lawrence has yet to stay overnight. But I watch them, they’re affectionate with one another. I figure they probably get it on while I’m at school during the day. As they say, while the cat’s away, the mice will play. Yeesh.
Our smiles fade in tandem. “So…”
She looks at me square, reading the question on my mind. “Paul and his wife have three children.” She rolls her eyes. “Amanda loves posting dorky photos.” She adds, “He looks happy and that’s what I wanted for him.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. Every single person has a story, and I feel closer to Janelle knowing hers.
I don’t get much sleep the night before the surgery. My aunt is wonderful, so wonderful, but she’s no substitute for Simon. When I first got the news, I wailed like a wounded animal, faced with the prospect of losing our child, our son. Up until that moment I was so undecided, ambivalent at times even. But now I feel as if I would surely want to die myself if my baby doesn’t survive. God, I want Simon to hold me, to tell me it’s all going to be all right. I want him to know.
But he doesn’t know because he never came looking for me. It pains me to admit that I believed he would. After everything, after the way he left and the deafening silence in the weeks that followed, I still believed that I was special to him, that he must be suffering, missing me and what we shared. I believed he would find me, sweep me up in his arms and tell me he was sorry. He’d hold me and tell me again how he’d love me forever.
As they roll me towards the operating room, I wonder where he is at this very moment. Is he just waking up, thinking about an assignment due later this week? Or maybe he’s eating breakfast with his new friends in the dining hall. He might even be on his way to class walking alongside some new girl—flirting, laughing, entirely oblivious to what is going on.
Simon.
He is my last coherent thought, the last face I see before the anesthesiologist places the mask over my face and instructs me to start counting backward.
One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight…
Chapter Seventeen
Simon
“You’d be up shit’s creek if I fell for an accountant.”
“Brandon enjoys working on my truck. You like the challenge, don’t you?”
“It’s not a challenge, it’s just an old piece of crap five year’s past its expiration date.”
Mike comes over to the kitchen island and hands both of us a beer. “Is it running?”
Brandon smiles at my brother the way you smile at someone you love. “It’ll get the job done.” Looking to me, he adds, “For now.”
“For now my ass. I need that baby to get me back and forth to my job.”
“How is that working out?” Mike clearly doubts my ability to keep up with classes while holding down a night shift. “You know I can lend you some money.”
I take a long pull off my beer and shake my head as I swallow it down. I’m exhausted, and I’ve been questioning my decision making skills lately too, but I’m not taking my brother’s money. “My classes are manageable…The workload isn’t too bad.”
In truth, I feel like I’m drowning sometimes. The kids here are different. Their mothers and fathers are research scientists, prize-winning novelists, corporate titans—they come from the land of success and they speak the language of privilege. I retreat to Mike and Brandon’s place sometimes when it gets to be too much. I don’t have to pretend like I have my act together when I’m around these two. I can be myself, let my guard down.
Brandon grabs a sweatshirt from a hook by the door. “I forgot the arugula. I’ll be right back.”
Mike gives him a lazy salute. “I’d say screw it, but I’m making broiled salmon over a bed of arugula. It’s kind of necessary.” When we’re alone, he asks again, “Sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. It just takes some getting used to.”
“I know what you mean. I felt like Chicago was some giant, scary, alien metropolis when I stepped off that bus.” He stops in the middle of chopping some scallions. “Sometimes I think about those first few days here, scared out of my mind, and I can’t believe I was stupid and desperate enough to do what I did.”
“It all worked out.”
“By the grace of God.” He goes back to work prepping the fish. “I’m lucky I didn’t get killed.
”
“You never really told me the story behind what happened.”
“Same story a thousand other gay teenagers could tell. Got outed by some Neanderthal, his homophobe friends made my life miserable, I thought about killing myself, and then finally got the fuck out of that town before I did wind up dead, either by their hands or my own.”
“People suck.” He nods in agreement. “Did I tell you I ran into Andrew a while ago?”
“When?” Mike asks, a smile spreading across his face.
“Last spring. He let me and a friend into the go-kart place for free. He asked about you.”
He nods and chuckles. “You knew about us?”
“I followed you a few times when you snuck off into the woods.”
He winces. “Sorry, little brother. Did I scar you for life?”
“Me?” I put a hand on my chest, pretend I’m offended. “Hey asshole, I’m open-minded.”
Brandon comes back in as Mike says, “I always feel bad when I think about him. He’s still living there, probably still taking shit from those ignorant clowns.”
“What did I miss?” he asks as he put the grocery bag down on the counter.
Mike says, “Just talking about Andrew.” Brandon squeezes his shoulder as he passes by on his way to the fridge. “They kicked his ass when it was just a rumor. Can you imagine if they actually caught him in the act?”
“They would have killed him.” I state it as fact.
“And me right along with him.”
“You think it’s still the same there?” Brandon asks. “I mean, so much has changed in just the past five years.”
Mike smirks and shakes his head, but I’m not so inclined to agree. “Maybe it is better. I mean, I don’t think it’s as safe to come out there as it is in New York or Chicago or any other big city, but I also don’t buy into that stereotype that the majority of people who live in rural areas are intolerant.”
Mike pauses on his way to the stove. “I don’t either, but it’s the minority sometimes, the select few who tend to talk the loudest and punch the hardest.”
I nod, acknowledging what sucks but is often true. “They did make Andrew’s life a living hell for a while there.”
Brandon wraps and arm around Mike’s shoulder. “I work with a mechanic named Danny. Nice guy, but Brandon hates him for no good reason.”
My brother and I look at each other and say in unison, “Danny Duncan.” Mike adds, “Yeah, and take note…If we have kids someday we won’t be naming any one of them Danny, Blaze, Wes, or Christian.”
Brandon is wide-eyed. “Blaze?” I can’t help but laugh, even though those names don’t exactly conjure up happy memories for the Wade family. Brandon cocks his head. “Maybe living with that name made him mean.”
Mike plates our dinners at the small kitchen island. “Thanks again for having me over. This looks great.”
“You’re always welcome,” Brandon says as Mike nods with a mouthful of food.
I clear the plates after we finish. Mike sits back looking on, sipping the last of his beer. “Are you sure nothing’s up? You don’t seem right.”
“I’m, uh, a little homesick if you can believe it.”
“Funny, as we no longer have a home to return to in our hometown, but I guess I can understand missing what’s familiar.”
“Did Mom tell you I was dating a girl?”
“Ah, a girl.” He smiles. “No, she didn’t mention that. But in fairness, she’s been a bit of a hot mess lately between Timmy, packing up the trailer and moving to North Carolina.” He waits me out for a minute and then says, “Tell me about her.”
I have my back turned. “I was going out with Christian Mason’s sister, Charlotte.”
“Really? That must have been interesting. Is he still— ”
“Yes, he’s still a smug, mean-spirited punk.”
Mike’s eyebrows are practically at his hairline. “Did you hang out at her house, get to know her family and everything?”
“Are you sniffing glue, brother?” I keep my expression neutral, but that ache is coming back, the one that hits right in the center of my chest. “I never stepped foot in their house.” Except for that one time. “I don’t think Christian or her father even knew about us.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
I nod, but can’t help wishing that her brother did find out. Maybe we would have fought. I could have landed a few hits for Timmy, for Mike and for Charlotte too.
“Do you know Wes Keller is a cop now?”
“That’s like the opposite of reassuring. I mean, he wasn’t the worst out of that pack, he didn’t torture me and Andrew as bad as some of the others, but he was a piece of shit. Another one of Christian’s lapdogs.”
“I think he has a thing for Charlotte.”
“You still haven’t told me anything about her.”
“She’s not like them, not at all.” I try to describe her beyond that, but I can’t. It hurts too much. “I just miss her.”
Charlotte
“Are you ready to fill out the paperwork? It’s a big hassle with social security and everything if we don’t file them before you’re discharged.”
“Discharged,” I joke. “I don’t live here?”
“For real…I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when you’re gone. No one else watches The Bachelor around here.”
Mary is my favorite nurse, but I love them all. I have a tremendous level of respect for the profession now, seeing firsthand how hard they work and how concerned they are about the well-being of all of us under their care. I’ll miss them, but I’m eager to get home. Weird…I now referred to Janelle’s as home.
“I only watch The Bachelor because there’s no Netflix in here. It’s either that or watching those creepy Nightline mysteries.”
“So…Any ideas?”
When I wasn’t busy gazing at my beautiful son with awe and adoration, or fretting every time a specialist came in to speak with me and Janelle, I was considering what name to bestow on this little man. Every single day someone reminded me about filling out birth certificate. Who knew one flimsy little piece of paper could be capable of causing so much strife?
The first name took me a few days. I thought I’d see his face and immediately come up with the name that suited him best, but it didn’t happen like that. No, the only words that came to me when the nurse placed him on my chest were Thank you, God and I love you.
I spent hours staring and smiling at him that night. He deserved a special and wonderful name. I tried out Simon, whispering it to him as he fed at my breast, but it just didn’t sit right with me. And I wasn’t naming him Bradley after my father, or Christian—hell no. I didn’t know either one of my grandfathers, so naming him James or Peter seemed ridiculous. What did I want for my son? Happiness, of course, and love. But looking on at him in the neonatal intensive care unit these past few days, I realized strength is what the both of us needed. I looked up boy names associated with strength. Maximus—hah, Aaron—not bad, Jerry—really?, and Ethan—hey, I like that. And even though I didn’t know James Caldwell, my mother’s father, I wanted this child to have some tie to her. Ethan James.
I assumed I’d write Simon Wade down as the birth father, even though I had no intention of reaching out to him, but the state of Michigan had different ideas. Naming Simon as the father required establishing paternity. I’d have to contact him—Surprise, you’re a daddy!—and have him sign a form in the presence of a notary. Not happening.
But leaving the line blank didn’t seem fair to my son and it made me feel cheap. It made me feel like one of those girls on those stupid talk shows who can’t figure out which one out of the three dudes she’s been sleeping with has impregnated her. To be fair, maybe that’s how people see me: careless, young and clueless. But that’s not how it is. Maybe our time together had been brief, but I did truly love someone in this life, and that someone had loved me too. We meant something to one another, and the two
of us together created this child.
“I’m just going to give you something to chew on.” Mrs. Ryan was the social worker assigned to me when I was admitted to the hospital. This morning she eased into a chair holding my baby, looking down at him smiling as she spoke to me. “He’s going to know about this beautiful child. You might tell him this week, you may reach out to him next year, he may find out on his own at some point, or this boy will seek him out when he’s a young man.” Every scenario made my stomach churn with anxiety. “It’s never going to be easy, never going to be the right time.”
“I can’t tell him now.”
“Is there a time in the future when you can envision yourself reaching out to him?”
“Maybe once he finishes school?” She looks to me, asking for more. “He has a plan…His undergraduate and then law school. He’s brilliant, Mrs. Ryan.” I can feel myself blush as I say the words, bragging about Simon, knowing I sound like a fawning fool. “He’s on a full scholarship at Northwestern.” Shaking my head, I add, “I’m being realistic. Telling him now would ruin any chance he has at getting an education. He’s had a pretty hard life and this is his only shot.”
She glances over at the television, where the Real Housewives of who knows where had been muted upon her arrival, and then looks back to me. “Everything aside from your questionable taste in television tells me that you’re every bit as brilliant. I meet a lot of girls your age, Charlotte. Not many of them pass the time reading The Jungle or Blood Meridian. What have you got on your nightstand now?” she asks, tilting her head to look. “Ah, Tess of the d’Urbervilles.” She smiles. “Another light and easy read.”
“Tess is my girl,” I joke.
“Yes, I’m sure you can relate to her.” She shakes her head and the smile drops. “Charlotte, don’t be one of those girls, the stoic ones who suffer in silence and don’t reach out for what they deserve.”
“I’m not.”
“He’s brilliant, he needs to finish school, he deserves a chance at a better life. What about you? What do you deserve? What do you want?”
