She looks stunned and shocked to hear me saying this, probably because it’s the first time I’ve brought up the issue. Lots of firsts with us today.
“I—I’m not sure how to respond,” she says, tucking a loose strand behind her ear.
“You don’t need to respond, T. It’s just my observation, personal and opinionated.”
“But...you’re right,” she says, standing up from the chair. Her gaze locks with the linoleum tiles beneath us and her arms tighten around her chest, appearing as if she’s protecting herself from some kind of harm or pain—shielding herself from—me, I guess. Maybe I shouldn’t feel relief to know I’m right or I’m not crazy for thinking how odd it is for someone to change so intensely in a year’s time. “I don’t exactly know who I am, AJ.”
How can a person not know who they are? I know people sometimes need to find themselves or what they want to do with their lives, but I’m not sure I’ve met someone who doesn’t know themselves, per se. “Now, I’m not sure how to respond,” I tell her. Feeling a heaviness in my chest, my thoughts and questions sway from the dizzying look in Tori’s eyes down to Gavin, who’s starting to radiate heat into my arms from his small body.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“He’s burning up.”
Tori stands and walks over to where I’m standing and places her fingers down gently on Gavin’s head. “He is hot. He’s never been sick before,” she says, stating the obvious.
“Tori, what is going on?”
She looks up at me, her big brown eyes shimmering under the glow from the orange lights above. The innocence and kindness I see within her gaze remind me of why I first fell for her. She looks at everything as if it’s bigger than herself, and as though everything amazes her, but when she’s sad or hurt, it’s like her eyes encompass every ounce of pain she’s feeling within her body. I can look right at her and know what she’s feeling by just the way she’s looking at me. This is exactly why my confusion won’t recede. I look in her eyes now, and I have no idea what’s happening in that head of hers. It’s like something happened, something drastic and life altering, something she doesn’t want to tell me. “I’m not supposed to be someone’s mother.” While I’ve heard those words from her lips before, this time they pack a punch. This time, she is someone’s mother. This time, there are no options surrounding what she is or isn’t supposed to be.
“And I wasn’t supposed to be someone’s dad, but here we are,” I say, peering down at Gavin. “Oh crap, he needs a bottle.” I reach down into the diaper bag beside the exam table and pull out a ready-to-use container of formula and a clean bottle.
“You’ve really got this ‘dad’ thing under control, huh?”
“He’s depending on us. It’s our job.” I tell her, taken aback by her simple statement. It’s not hard to care for something or someone you love more than anything else in the world.
“Okay, are we ready?” A nurse asks, walking in with a caddy full of awful-looking hospital supplies. The thought of watching her take blood from Gavin is already making my stomach hurt. He’s so little and the needle will be so big in comparison. However, when she begins to prepare for the blood work, I see with relief the needle is sized for a baby and not one that would be used on an adult. “Could you please lay Gavin flat on the exam table. I’ll need one of you to hold him still for me.”
Tori moves away from the seat. I think it’s because it’s next to the exam table and she doesn’t want to be the one holding Gavin down. This is not surprising, seeing how the last hour has gone, but in all honesty, I don’t want to be the one he’s looking at while being poked with a needle either. Taking the few short steps over to the table with Gavin, I lay him down and hold his arms with my hands while making silly faces at him to ensure he has no clue what’s about to happen.
I feel the need to close my eyes while she pricks him, and the screams commence—screams I’ve never heard him make before, almost as if someone were ripping his little heart out. This is killing me. I hope this goes quickly, but instead, it seems to take forever.
Finally, I hear the nurse’s footsteps, and Gavin’s cries quiet down a bit. When I open my eyes, I see Tori staring through us with horror in her eyes.
“I know you’ve been waiting quite a while, but we should have the results for you within ten minutes or so. I’ll have someone bring in a second chair for you, as well.”
It takes a solid five minutes to calm Gavin down completely, and he pretty much passes out from what I’m assuming to be exhaustion.
“I can’t do this,” Tori says.
Like any good record scratch, my heart pauses, along with every other sound around me. That phrase is disturbingly familiar, and the last time I heard it, Cammy caused my life to change, in an extremely painful way. “What?” I’m not sure the word was even audible. What the hell can’t she do?
“AJ, you know I—this isn’t what I wanted—what we wanted.”
“Tori,” I say calmly. “I don’t know what is going on in that crazy head of yours right now, but have you thought through whatever you’re about to say? Because for the life of me, I don’t know what I could have done differently to prevent you from saying something like this.” I don’t even know what she was going to say. I’m just assuming, I guess, based on past experience.
“I can’t do what you do, AJ,” she continues.
“So don’t; be you. How hard is that?” I’m angry. I sound outraged. Is this really the time or the place to have a discussion like this? Our son is in the ER for a high fever, and she’s telling me she can’t do this?
“I’m trying my hardest,” she says.
“Try fucking harder,” I snap at her.
Considering the fact that I can count the number of times I’ve sworn at Tori on one finger, the one time being right this second, she looks baffled. “I can’t,” she says, through gritted teeth.
It’s not like I haven’t had these thoughts about her too, but I was hoping it was all in my head. When people say they don’t plan to have kids, maybe they don’t all mean it, but some do. I think Tori definitely meant it and for a reason she never gave me. In fairness, my reason for not wanting kids was never exactly mentioned either.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWELVE YEARS AGO
FIVE DAYS HAVE done nothing to ease my anger or pain, and I’m not sure I will ever feel differently. I’ve debated calling Cammy every second since I was dragged out of her hospital room, but I don’t know what to say. Well, I do have something to say, but it will probably make things worse. However, if I don’t clear my mind soon, I’m afraid I might completely implode, and if I come any closer to breaking, Mom might lock me in a room and corner me until I tell her every single one of the dark secrets I’ve been keeping from her this year.
With the image of that actually happening, I act on the decision I’ve been debating since the moment I woke up this morning. I grab my coat from the closet and quietly open the front door. “AJ, is that you?” Mom calls out from the kitchen.
“Nope,” I shout back.
“Andrew,” she laments. Mom pulled out the full name…she knows something’s up. “Come in here for a moment, please.”
I roll my eyes and clench my coat tightly within my fist as I turn the corner and walk into our aged kitchen. “What’s up, Mom?”
She wipes her hands off on a dish rag, turns around, and leans her back up against the counter. Her arms slowly fold over her chest, and her eyes narrow in on me. “You have been my son for seventeen years, and not once have you locked yourself in your room for four days straight, which tells me something is going on or something has happened, so what is it?”
I might be what everyone calls a wiseass, but one thing I’ve never done is lie to either of my parents. I’ve never had anything to lie about before. “I’m just stressed-out, no biggie,” I tell her.
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and tilts her head to the s
ide, her gaze blazing into me as if she’s summoning all of my thoughts. “I’ve seen you stressed-out—football tryouts, your internship interview last year, midterms, finals, and college applications. But it’s the end of your senior year, you have a scholarship to your college of choice, and a girl…a friend who idolizes the ground you walk on—speaking of which, I haven’t seen Cammy for a while, is everything still okay with her? Is that what this is all about, sweetie? Did you two have a fight? Because it’s normal for friends to fight. I’m sure it must be stressful thinking about going to school in different states. You said she got into George Washington University, right? University of Rhode Island is only an eight-or-so-hour drive; you can still see each other during holidays and vacations back at home. Your father and I made it work, and your brother and Ellie are sticking it out, so I’m sure you can—”
“Mom…” I interrupt her. “Please stop. We’re just friends, like I’ve told you a million times.” Hunter and Ellie have basically been married since they were eight years old, so there’s no surprise there. Plus, their colleges are less than an hour away from each other. Doesn’t count as long distance.
“Oh,” she says softly. “Well, if you’re feeling unwell about this situation, maybe it means you might feel a little more strongly for her than you think.” More strongly than I think because, I ah, knocked her up. Oh, and then she decided to give our daughter away without discussing it with me. I’m pretty sure that might be worse than an argument between friends.
“I guess we are in some kind of fight, and I might owe her an apology, so I was going over to her house to talk about it.” There, not a lie.
“I see,” Mom says. “Well, tell her parents I say hello. Actually, wait a second.” Mom turns around and takes a loaf of bread from the cooling rack on the top of the stove. “Juuuust one second.” She retrieves a thin towel from the cabinet above her head and wraps the loaf up. “Take this to them.” Mom hands me the bread, and all I can think about is the conversation I should have with her parents—that being: Hey Mr. and Mrs. Sky, I impregnated your daughter. This was all my fault, even though she’s hidden the truth from you and everyone we know for the past nine months. However, I’d like to offer you some bread in exchange for your forgiveness. “I do wish I had been given the chance to spend some time with Cammy’s parents.” I would have liked to spend time with Cammy’s parents too, but that never happened before she got pregnant and it definitely didn’t happen after she got pregnant. Friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever, it’s been two years, and they wouldn’t know who I was if they were standing right in front of me.
“They work a lot,” I tell Mom.
“That’s too bad,” she says. Mom has a different mindset than a lot of my friends’ parents. It seems like the housewife/stay-at-home-mother lifestyle is a thing of the past around this area. Most of my friends have two working parents with how high the cost of living is here. I think the only reason Mom doesn’t have to work is because Dad won some lawsuit twenty years ago and paid the house off. Plus, Dad works absurd hours, and his carpentry business is the biggest in this district. Still, we don’t live like gold or anything, but we’re comfortable and we have food on the table, as well as a roof over our heads. We may only be considered middle-class compared to the high-income families here, but I don’t see it as an issue.
“I’ll be home before dinner,” I tell her. Mom kisses me on the forehead and pulls me in for a hug. “Goodness, I’m going to miss you when you go to Rhode Island next year. You’re my baby. The house is going to be so empty with both you and Hunter gone. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself!” These comments are on repeat. They have been since Hunter went back to school after Christmas break. We’re three years apart, and he still has another year college left, but even though I think she’s hoping he’ll move home after graduation, Hunter has a plan, and that isn’t moving home. If I had to take a guess, he’ll drop a ring on Ellie’s finger, knock her up, then they’ll buy a nice little house down the street and live happily ever after. Mom will be okay with that too, because then she’ll have grandkids. Grandkid…she should have had grandkids, but her first grandchild will never meet her or even know of her.
I pull away from her tight grip and head out the door.
The drive is short, but the neighborhoods are drastically different; mine being middle-class and hers being more wealthy. I never feel like I belong here, but even more so now as I walk up her long driveway with a pit my stomach. I ring the bell and wait the moment it takes for the door to open. “Hello, can I help you?” A woman who looks exactly like Cammy, but twenty-five or thirty years older, greets me. She has the same auburn hair and the same shade of golden brown eyes.
“I’m—um—” What if Cammy finally told them who the father is—was… “I’m AJ, Cammy’s friend. I was just stopping by to see how she’s doing.”
Mrs. Sky eyes me wearily and opens the door wider. “She’s upstairs. AJ, you said?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” God, she knows. Now I’m going to pray that her dad isn’t home too.
“Cammy used to mention your name a lot last year. I haven’t heard much of you since. It’s nice to put a face to the name she used to be so fond of.” Mrs. Sky smiles faintly and places her hand on my back as I walk inside. “Go on, maybe you can cheer her up a little.”
“Cheer her up, ma’am?” I don’t know why I feel the need to play dumb, but I’m going with it right now. It feels wrong, but Cammy obviously hid the truth for a reason.
“Oh, I’m not sure who knows what these days, so I’ll let her explain to you if she wants to.”
“Oh okay. Got it.”
I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the top. Looking at each door in the hallway, I realize I don’t actually know which bedroom is hers because the only times I’ve been in her bedroom were when I climbed up onto the back porch roof and snuck in through her window, which obviously happened one too many times.
While I debate whether to knock on her door, I mentally juggle the consequence of doing it or not doing it. If I do, she may ask who it is, but she’ll likely assume it’s her mom. If I don’t, I could catch her at a bad time, and she might scream, or something else along those lines. I lightly tap the back of my knuckles against the door a few times, waiting to hear her say come in.
“What?” she says coldly.
I’ll take that as my cue to go inside. Slowly, I open the door and poke my head in. Cammy is in bed, with the dusty-rose colored sheets and white comforter pulled up to her neck. Her focus is locked on her TV hung on the opposite wall, and she’s clenching the remote in her hand. “Can I come in?” I ask.
She shrugs and continues clicking the channel button on the remote. I close the door behind me and cautiously walk over to her bed and sit down. “How are you feeling?” I know it’s a question that deserves a punch to the face after disappearing for the last few days, but she made it clear she didn’t want me around in the hospital, and I wasn’t going to argue with her after the decision she made without me.
“Like shit,” she says. Her gaze finally breaks from the TV, and she peers over at me. Tear marks have stained her cheeks with a salty residue, and the whites of her eyes are tinged with tiny, swollen red veins. Her pretty hair is tied up on the top of her head and she looks pale, washed out, and sick.
It’s taking everything I have inside not to ask her again, why she let her parents do this to her—make such an awful decision for her and without me, but if I don’t want to be kicked out of this house, I have to play my cards right. Regardless of everything that has happened, I still love her, even if my heart has been put through a meat grinder.
“I get it,” I tell her. But I don’t.
“No you don’t,” she says. “Because I don’t get it.”
“You don’t get what?” I ask, feeling confused.
“You still think I wanted to do that? Do you have any idea how much emotional agony I’m in right now?” s
he asks, loud enough that I’m afraid her mother might hear, but at the same time so softly that I can hear the weakness pouring through her voice.
“I don’t know what to think, Cam! You never talked to me about it,” I say, trying to hide the sternness raging from my gut.
“Shh. Keep your voice down,” she scolds me. “I wasn’t allowed to talk to you about it.” She mutters the last part, keeping her focus locked on the door knob.
I don’t understand any of this. “No one forced you to do what you did, though.” I shouldn’t have said that. It’s exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t say if I got the opportunity to talk to her again.
“That’s not entirely true, AJ,” she says with tears bubbling in the corners of her eyes. “I was forced to make the decision I did. If I hadn’t, I would be living on the street with no money, no support, no job, no way to feed our daughter, and no way to keep her safe.”
“I don’t understand.” For so many reasons, I don’t understand. I wouldn’t have let that happen. We had this discussion a million times throughout the last few months. I was going to give up my scholarship and put off college, get a job, find an apartment—do everything I could to support Cammy and our daughter. She was okay with it and on board with every plan.
“If I kept her, my parents were going to kick me out. They were going to hunt down the father—you, and destroy your life, keep us apart, and make you pay every dime you ever earn to our daughter. Both of our lives would have been destroyed, and I was scared.” I want to argue with her, but I’m seventeen and she’s seventeen. Her parents could do whatever the hell they want to do until the end of August when she turns eighteen. Then at eighteen, they’d have no obligation to help her out, and if I didn’t help her out, she would be on the street if that was their punishment. While I can understand her fear, we’re talking about our daughter who we just mindlessly handed over to two strangers we know nothing about.
A Missing Heart Page 5
