What You Left Behind

by Jessica Verdi

  Mom stops in her tracks and blasts me with the most massive, out-of-control grin I’ve ever seen. “Did you hear that? She’s trying to say Daddy! That’s right, Hope, daaaa-deeee. Daaaa-deee.”

  It suddenly feels like there’s some sort of Panic Creature with lots of legs and super sharp claws crawling around my stomach, through my chest, and up to my throat.

  There’s no way Hope is trying to say “Daddy.” She’s too young for that. Right? My fingers twitch with the impulse to grab my computer and look up “average age of baby’s first word,” but suddenly there’s something even more pressing, something I need to do right now, just in case she really is trying to say what Mom thinks she’s trying to say.

  I can’t be Daddy. Not yet. Not before I know what it even means.

  “Hey, Mom?”

  “Daaaa-deeee. Daaa—”

  “Mom!”

  She snaps out of it. “Yeah, bud?”

  “I need to ask you something, and I really hope you won’t get upset.”

  She lowers herself back onto the bed, and the joy in her eyes melts into worry—the same worry that was in her eyes the day Meg and I told her about the pregnancy. To her credit, she didn’t freak out then. I hope she won’t now.

  “What’s going on?”

  I wish I didn’t have to do this. But I’m desperate.

  “I…um…was wondering if you could tell me a little more about my father. Michael.”

  I watch Mom carefully. The changes are small, but they’re there. A line of confusion between her eyes. A swallow of surprise. The downturn of her mouth as she deliberates. A rise and fall of her shoulders as she understands what I’m asking.

  “Do you want to find him?” she asks finally.

  I look away, and my gaze lands on the corner of Hope’s light green baby blanket sticking out through the slats of the crib. “Da-da-da-da-daaaa,” she sings.

  I nod.

  “Why now?”

  I open my mouth to tell her the truth, but for some reason I can’t say it. “I don’t know.” It’s lame and obviously a lie, but Mom doesn’t push it.

  “Okay,” she says after watching me for a second or two. Her voice sounds surprisingly steady. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  I look back at her. “You don’t mind?”

  She sighs. “I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. You know I was never keeping secrets from you, right?”

  “I know.”

  “But, Ry…” I wait as she seems to work something out in her thoughts. “I really don’t have a lot of information. The last time I tried to track him down, I hit a dead end.”

  The last time she…huh? “You’ve tried to find him?”

  “A couple of times. So I could have the information for you when…well, when this conversation happened. And…I guess I wanted to see what he’s been up to all this time. I wouldn’t mind some answers too, you know.” She fiddles with the frayed edge of her cutoff shorts, and for the first time, I see it: she was in love with my father. That’s why she doesn’t talk about him all that much. He broke her heart when he left her.

  Suddenly I’m thinking about all the fights with Meg, her insistence on not terminating the pregnancy, her absolute refusal to even listen to my side of it. Even though she didn’t think she was going to die, and even though it was my fault she was in the position where she had to make that choice…in a way, when she decided not to have the abortion, she was choosing to leave me too.

  Mom’s not the only one with a broken heart.

  I put my arm around her, and she rests her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  She pats my knee. “I’d do it all again. It got me you.”

  And I guess that’s where our similarities end. I wouldn’t do it all again. Not even close.

  Hope is quiet now, asleep. The mobile continues its song.

  After a minute, Mom straightens up. “His name is Michael Taylor.”

  Michael Taylor. My father. The picture is becoming clearer already.

  “He’d be about thirty-seven or thirty-eight now. When I checked a couple of years ago, he was no longer living in Boston. Or if he is, his information isn’t listed anywhere. I actually called every Michael Taylor in Boston—came up with nothing.”

  “Mom,” I whisper, “I can’t believe you did that.”

  She just shrugs. “There are a lot of Michael Taylors in the United States. And all I have to go on is his name, his incredibly common name.” She shakes her head to herself.

  “You don’t know his parents’ names? Or what he does for work? Or anything that will help narrow it down?”

  “I’m sorry, Ry. I wish I did. He was a concert promoter at the time—the kind of job you do in college, working off the books for cash. He could be doing anything now.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She gives me a kiss on my forehead. After she leaves the room, I start Googling.

  Michael Taylor. Approximately 531 million results.

  Michael Taylor concert promoter. 126,000 results, most having to do with lawsuits against Michael Jackson’s concert promoter or second-market tickets to Taylor Swift concerts.

  Four hours later, I fall onto my bed, smother my face into my pillow, and scream as loud as I can.

  Why does everything have to be so impossible?

  • • •

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Grandpa,” I say into the phone. “It’s Ryden.”

  “Hello?” he says again.

  “It’s Ryden,” I say, louder.

  “Ryden! How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Grandpa. How are you?”

  There’s a clicking on the line. “Hello?” my grandmother says from another phone somewhere else in their house.

  “It’s Ryden, Sylvia,” Grandpa says.

  “Ryden!” Grandma says. “How are you?”

  I quietly bang my head on my desk. This is never going to work. My grandparents are older than they should be. They had four kids in a row in their twenties and then got pregnant with my mom when they were forty. Unplanned babies: a Brooks family tradition.

  “I’m fine, Grandma, how are you?”

  “Oh, we’re doing fine. How’s our great-granddaughter? Is that her crying I hear?”

  Clearly Grandma’s hearing isn’t as bad as Grandpa’s. “Yeah, she’s teething. Actually, that’s what I’m calling about. I’m going back to school for my senior year in a few weeks, and I’m going to have to put Hope in day care. I was wondering if you guys would be willing to help pay for it. I have a part-time job, but it’s not enough.”

  I cross all my fingers. Please.

  There’s a pause.

  “Well,” Grandpa says. “How much are we talking here?”

  “It’s over four hundred dollars a week,” I admit. “I know it’s a lot, but—”

  “Ryden, I’m sorry,” Grandpa says right away. Can’t he even take some time to think about it first? “We would help you if we could, but we just don’t have that kind of money.”

  “I understand,” I mumble.

  “How about this—we’ll send you a check for a hundred dollars. I know it’s not much, but it will help.”

  “Yeah. It will.” Not enough though. Not nearly enough. “Thanks.”

  “And please bring that little cutie around to visit us soon,” Grandma chimes in.

  “I will. I promise.” I pause, debating whether to ask them my next question. Oh, fuck it. “Do you guys remember my father?”

  “Your father?” Grandpa repeats.

  “Yeah.”

  “If I ever meet that bastard, I’m going to wring his neck with my bare hands until he’s pleading for mercy.” Jesus, Grandpa. He’s shouting now; his bald head is probably beet red and shiny with sweat, his veiny, wrinkled hand
surely gripping the phone way too tightly.

  “Never mind, it’s okay,” I say, not wanting Grandpa to rage himself into a heart attack. One death on my hands is more than enough, thank you very much. But then his words sink in. “If you ever meet him? You mean see him again, right?”

  “Never met him, never want to.” The disgust in Grandpa’s voice is heavy.

  I let all the air out of my lungs. Michael must have been even more elusive than I thought. “So you don’t have any information about him?”

  “Information? Not a chance. He never even saw fit to grant us the courtesy of an introduction, Ryden. We could see him every day—he could be our mailman, for crying out loud—and we wouldn’t know it.”

  Another dead end.

  “Okay, well, thanks anyway. And thanks for the money.”

  I hang up the phone. A hundred dollars. I mean, it’s a hundred dollars I didn’t have yesterday. But that money will only pay for one day of day care.

  What the fuck am I going to do?

  Humans should be more like deer: a few minutes after they’re born, they start to walk; a week later, they start going to look for food with their mothers; and a year after that, they’re on their own. Simple.

  I don’t want to go to Mom—not yet. If I let her take over the plans, soccer will be the first thing to go.

  A thought creeps into the back of my brain: if it’s this hard to figure out what to do with Hope now, what’s it going to be like when I’m at UCLA? I highly doubt Mom will move to California with me, and I can’t leave Hope here with her. That’s just…not an option. Even if Mom were willing. And even though it would be easier. It’s the same reason I wouldn’t consider giving Hope up for adoption—Hope is Meg’s baby. There’s no way in hell I’m giving away anything—or anyone—that’s part of her. No matter that the alternative is pretty sucky. Plus, my mom didn’t give me up for adoption or leave me with her parents while she went off and did stuff. And I’m really glad about that, even though I know having me made her life really difficult.

  Hope’s lying in her crib, babbling to herself, swatting at her mobile. At some point while I was on the phone, the crying stopped. I lean over the top of her crib and place my hand on her chubby belly. Her heartbeat pulses under my fingertips.

  One of the all-time craziest moments of my unusually crazy life was when Meg and I heard that heartbeat for the first time. The doctor had a machine at the office. Before Hope had arms and legs and everything, she had that heartbeat. It was loud and it was strong. It was the first tangible proof I had that she was real and that she was here to stay.

  I pull my hand away and sigh. If I’m going to keep soccer, which I am, I need to come up with a solution—for this summer, for the school year, for college, for all of it—and fast.

  I stare at the photo of me and Meg on my computer desktop. It was taken at one of my games last season. She looks so happy. And healthy. And alive.

  There is one other thing I could try…

  It’s not going to work. But I’m kind of out of options.

  I put Hope in her car seat—she starts crying immediately—and bring her into the bathroom with me. I shave, brush my teeth and rinse with Listerine, and pluck the two rogue hairs between my eyebrows. Then I get in the shower. The sound of the water slightly drowns out the sound of her crying, and I stand under the stream and try to focus on each individual drop pounding down on my head.

  Today, I wash my hair.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing on Meg’s front porch. Being back here after all this time makes me want to throw up.

  Her house is big, way nicer than mine, and has a fancy brass doorknocker in the shape of a horse’s head—but it’s all shiny and I don’t want to mess it up with my sweaty fingerprints, so I just knock on the door old-school style.

  The two brand-new Lexuses (Lexi?) in the driveway stare me down. When did they get those? Meg’s parents already had nice cars, and they weren’t even that old. I bet they bought them for each other and put big red bows on the roofs like those rich people in the commercials. Meanwhile, I was getting a job and trying to figure out how the hell to take care of their granddaughter.

  I knock on the door again and then try the doorbell, which is less like a bell and more like a freaking classical orchestra.

  There’s no answer.

  But I know someone’s home because the curtains behind the large foyer window move slightly. I glance down at Hope in her car seat on the porch beside me. She’s clearly visible from the window, the bright red of her sun hat standing out like a giant “you are here” arrow. Meg’s parents know Hope and I are here, and they don’t care. Not like I should be surprised—they haven’t contacted me once since Meg died, not even to check up on the baby.

  I’ve never understood them. For two people who don’t seem to like each other that much, they sure are perfect for each other. Both are workaholic control freaks, attached to their kids in all the wrong ways—making sure Meg and Mabel were on the Ivy League path, behaved like perfect little clones at their work functions, and kept company with the right people. (I, of course, wasn’t the right people.)

  But the cancer made them more psycho. They couldn’t control Meg’s disease. Or her choice to continue the pregnancy. And now I guess her death amped the crazy up that much more.

  I knock one last time. Nothing.

  “Well, I never liked you very much either,” I say. If they’re on the other side of the door, they probably heard me. I hope they did.

  As I make my way back to the car, I have an impulse to call someone and freaking vent. And for some reason, Joni is the first person who pops to mind. But then I remember that (A) I don’t have her number, and (B) she and I are not friends. I don’t know her, she sure as hell knows nothing about my life, and we’re gonna keep it that way.

  I’m about to pull out of the driveway when some movement catches my eye and Meg’s younger sister, Mabel, steps out from around the side of the house. She looks directly at me and makes the international extended-pinkie-and-thumb phone gesture. Then she disappears the way she came.

  I grab my phone out of my jeans pocket and discover I have one new text. Meet at the four-way stop sign at the end of our street in five min.

  What the hell?

  I coast down to the end of the block, and a few minutes later, I see Mabel approach in the rearview mirror. I get out of the car.

  “Hi,” she says. She’s gonna be a sophomore this year. Meg and I hung out with her sometimes, especially when Meg was mostly confined to their house. She’s very different from Meg. Lots of sparkly nail polish and pushup bras (not that I was looking) and considers “shopping” a legitimate hanging-out activity. Honestly, if I’d never met Meg, I probably would have ended up hooking up with her sister. Mabel’s exactly the kind of girl I used to go for.

  “Hi, Mabel.”

  She opens the back door of my car and goes to unbuckle Hope out of her car seat.

  “Wait, no—” Hope is asleep and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m beginning to think I should just drive around all day. It’s the only thing that actually mellows her out. But I’d probably have to sell a kidney in order to pay for the gas.

  Mabel lifts her up as if I didn’t say anything, grunting a little with the weight of her (six-month-old babies who have been fattened on formula and pureed sweet potatoes are way heavier than you’d think—sixteen pounds at her last doctor visit), and cradles her against her chest. Hope squinches her face up and makes little fists. I brace myself for the inevitable wailing, but she settles in and falls right back into her slumber.

  Why does Hope seem perfectly happy with everyone except me? I’m about to reach out to take the baby from Mabel—out of nothing more than spite and jealousy—when I notice the tears running down Mabel’s face.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She just sniffles
and nods and breathes in Hope’s baby smell. That smell is pretty amazing, I have to admit.

  Remembering my conversation with Alan, I say, “Her name is Hope.”

  She smiles. “Good. I know that’s what my sister wanted.” She’s holding on to the baby like she’s the most precious thing in the entire world, and something gurgles up from that place deep inside me. Hope is Mabel’s niece. Her family. She’s known her for all of two minutes and is already head over heels in love.

  I wonder if this is what Meg would have looked like, holding the baby like this, gazing at her with adoration…

  No. Stop.

  I clear my throat. “Mabel, listen.” She looks up at me. “I’m sorry.”

  She blinks. “For what?”

  For forcing my way into your sister’s life during those early days even though she was clearly trying to hold me at arm’s length. For not doing everything in my power to make sure she didn’t get pregnant. For not finding some way to convince her to get an abortion.

  “For not bringing Hope to see you sooner,” is all I say.

  She shakes her head. “Don’t say that. I know my parents are being complete jackasses. Do you know they actually blame you for Meg dying?”

  I stare at her. I did know that, yeah, but no one’s ever said it directly to my face before. It’s strangely satisfying—so much so that it almost trumps the stab I feel at the sound of her name. Almost. “They’re right.”

  Mabel rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, because you’re the one who gave Meg cancer, right?”

  “No, but the chemo was working. The tumors were shrinking. If she didn’t have to stop going, she would have gotten better. And guess what? I’m the reason she had to stop going. So, A plus B equals…” Thinking about this, everything hurts. My arms, my legs, my heart, my brain. The pain is physical, debilitating. I want to keel over in the middle of the road and wait for a speeding car to run me over. Too bad there’re never any speeding cars around here. Goddamn four-way stop sign.

  I sit on the curb.

  Mabel sits next to me, stroking Hope’s head. “You’re wrong,” she says. “And Meg thought so too.”

  I lift my head slowly. “How do you know? Did she tell you that?”