What You Left Behind

by Jessica Verdi

  “No. But…” She reaches into her purse—one of those giant leather ones with the brass buckles that all the girls carry around—and pulls out a notebook. It has a red cover.

  Holy shit. Is that—

  She hands it to me.

  It’s probably just a regular notebook. Don’t get your hopes up.

  I open it and am immediately overcome with a feeling I’d forgotten even existed. When exactly what you want to happen, the thing you’re wishing for, actually comes true.

  This is one of Meg’s journals. I flip through quickly. It’s full.

  It doesn’t matter what’s written in it. Just the fact that it’s here, in my hands, means I get more of her.

  I hold it tight against my chest. Sort of the same way Mabel’s holding Hope. Like it’s the most precious thing in the whole world.

  “I started reading this after she died,” Mabel says. “It made everything feel a little better, you know? Like she wasn’t all the way dead. She was still here, a little.”

  “I know.”

  “She wrote this one when she was about seven months pregnant, I think. It was in my room when my parents boxed up all her stuff. That’s why they missed it. Everything else went into storage.”

  I swallow. “Everything?”

  “Her room is a guest room now.” Mabel lowers her eyes. “Like we don’t have enough of those already. They painted it this disgusting pea soup color and bought all new furniture. My parents are fucking crazy.”

  Have to agree on that one.

  “Anyway,” she says. “I think you should have it.”

  I should probably say something like, Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. She was your sister. You should keep it.

  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Yep. But, Ryden…” She looks at me, her eyebrows quirked warily.

  “What?”

  “There’s some pretty intense stuff in there. What she was going through… Anyway, I thought I should warn you.”

  Guess what? We were all going through some pretty intense stuff then.

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I make the split-second decision not to read the journal all in one sitting. If I read it slowly, piece by piece, my time with her will last longer. “Thanks, Mabel.”

  She kisses Hope on the forehead and passes her to me. “Can I see her more often?”

  “Of course. Come over whenever you want.”

  She smiles.

  Chapter 6

  Back at home, I hand Hope off to Mom. “I’m gonna go to my room for a while, ’kay?”

  “What’s that?” Mom asks, nodding to the notebook tucked under my arm.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

  “We have to talk about—”

  I close the door on her and slide onto my bed, backing up so I’m wedged in the corner. I open the book.

  January 11.

  She wrote this more than seven months after the green journal, five weeks before she died. It’s a short entry.

  I know Ryden blames himself for me getting pregnant. I wish he wouldn’t. It’s not his fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. “Fault” is the wrong word. “Fault” implies something bad, regretful, unfortunate. If he could only see what I see, he would know this baby isn’t something to be sorry about at all. It’s a happy thing. It’s amazing. Maybe someday he’ll understand that. I hope so anyway.

  I shake my head. Even that late in the game, she was still so sure she was going to make it through. But I know that if she’d opened her eyes and seen what the rest of us saw—that she was deteriorating, fast—she would have felt differently about blaming me.

  Just one more, and then I’ll stop reading…

  January 16.

  I told Ryden what I want to name the baby today. Hope Rosa Brooks. I like the sound of that. Pretty. Strong. The name of someone who has her two feet solidly on the ground and knows which direction to walk.

  I remember that conversation. We were in my room, under the covers, sharing a pillow, staring at each other. (My mom didn’t care. Meg was already pregnant, so what difference did it make if we were in bed together? Anyway, we were fully clothed.) Even seven months pregnant and close to death’s door, Meg was so beautiful.

  Things were good between us again. The only thing we’d ever really fought about was the abortion, and yeah, that was an enormous fight, and it lasted a long time, right up until it was too late for her to have one and the fighting became pointless. But even through her blatant disregard for my opinion, for my concern for her well-being, I’d never considered breaking up with her. We were in the shittiest of shitty situations, but we were in it together.

  I brushed her hair out of her eyes. God, I loved that crazy hair.

  But then I felt sick for thinking that, because the fact that Meg still had her hair meant she’d stopped chemo, which meant she wasn’t getting any better.

  “Hope Rosa Brooks,” I repeated, testing the feel of the name on my tongue, trying to distract myself from Meg’s hair and all its implications.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “What does it mean?”

  “What do you mean, what does it mean?”

  “I know you, Meg. You’re the most organized person I’ve ever met. I know you have a reason for everything. Usually a long, thought-out reason.”

  She smiled. “Okay, fine. So, Rosa because of Rosa Parks.”

  “That bus lady? Why?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I want our daughter to grow up knowing she can do anything she puts her mind to.”

  I nodded. “Okay, what about the Brooks part? Shouldn’t it be Reynolds?”

  “It’s traditional for a child to take the father’s last name,” she said.

  “I have my mom’s last name.”

  “Yeah, but that’s because you don’t have a dad.” She gave me a look that gave extra meaning to her words: I didn’t have a dad, but maybe I could if I wanted. If I decided to track down Michael.

  I shook my head at her. I wasn’t ready for the Michael stuff yet. “But this baby will have a mom and a dad,” I said. “So that’s not a good argument. And since you won’t marry me…”

  “Ryden, come on, we’ve talked about this.”

  We had. A couple of times, actually. And she kept shooting me down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I wanted to get married. Jesus, getting married at seventeen is nuts. But so is having a kid. And since we were doing that, I wasn’t going to leave her when she needed me the most. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. But she kept saying no. She said it “wasn’t something she felt she needed to do.”

  “I’m just saying, all things being equal, I don’t get why the baby automatically has to have my last name. You’re the one doing all the heavy lifting.” I put my hand on her huge, round stomach. The baby didn’t kick, which was fine by me—that shit freaked me out.

  “Yeah, I am,” she agreed. “So I get to decide. And I want her to have her father’s name. The end.”

  I sighed. Whatever. Fine. I wasn’t going to fight with her about something as stupid as a last name. “And what about the first name? Hope?”

  “Hope.”

  “Why Hope?”

  She just stared at me, like I was slow.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Because it’s hopeful, you dumbass. She’s stuck inside here”—she rubbed her hand over her belly, linking her fingers with mine—“in this sick, all-wrong body, not getting the best start, you know? And…” She took a deep breath. “And I really don’t know if she’ll be okay, Ryden.” Her lower lip started to wobble. “But I really hope she will.”

  I gently reached out and brushed my thumb over her quivering mouth, feeling like breaking down in sobs too but really, really trying
to stay strong. What Meg said about the baby was exactly how I felt about her. I didn’t know if she would be okay, but I really hoped she would. She wasn’t looking so good lately. Her face was drawn, her skin had lost its luster, and her eyes looked so, so tired.

  “Hope is a really good name,” I whispered. And I kissed her.

  I close the book when I reach the end of the entry, but something’s nagging at me that I can’t put my finger on. Meg recounted that conversation pretty much exactly the way I remember it, but though the memory is the same, it feels weird now. Off, like there’s something between the lines, something I’m missing. Huh.

  It takes every ounce of energy I have—which, let’s be honest, isn’t much lately—to close the book after the second entry. I’ll read more tomorrow.

  I bring the book to my face. It smells like her house, like Glade PlugIns and chocolate-cake-scented candles and carpet shampoo. That scent used to work its way into her hair. Whenever I had my arm around her—walking with her in the halls or around the neighborhood in the snow after she got too weak to go to school—I would lean down, kiss her head, and breathe it in. When that delicious, familiar smell hit me, I would have to stop, wherever we were, and kiss her. And every single time, she snuggled closer into me.

  I lie down, place the book right next to me on my pillow, and let its lingering scent waft over me.

  • • •

  I jolt upright.

  Shit. It’s Sunday night. 7:36 p.m. Soccer starts tomorrow morning, and I haven’t figured out what to do about Hope. I’m screwed.

  Still half asleep, I reach out for my phone, and before I really know what I’m doing, I call Alan.

  He picks up on the second ring. “Yo.”

  “Hey. It’s Ryden.”

  “I know. It was your ringtone.”

  Okay, I have to ask. “What’s my ringtone?”

  “‘99 Problems’ by Jay-Z.”

  I think about that for a second. Weird, but whatever. Alan’s weird. Plus, he’s off by about a thousand problems. “What was hers?”

  “Meg’s?”

  Punch to the gut. “Yeah.”

  “‘Stronger’ by Kanye West.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  No. “Yeah. Listen, I have a question. Soccer practice starts back up tomorrow, and I haven’t exactly figured out what to do with Hope during that time. Any chance you want to watch her?” I clear my throat and spit out the rest before he can say anything. “It’s kind of all day, Monday through Friday, up until school starts. I know it’s a lot, and I know this is really random, but—”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Wait, really?”

  “Yeah. It’s not like I have anything else going on. And I’d really like to get to know Hope. Just let me know what I need to do. I’ve never really babysat before.”

  Well, that was easy. Wonder why I didn’t think to ask him earlier.

  I hang up with Alan and fall back onto my pillow. But it’s not as soft as it should be. The journal. Guess I turned around a lot in my sleep, because the book is now half on my pillow, half off, and it’s fallen open.

  I go to flip it closed but stop. There’s something written on the inside back cover. The writing is small, but the letters are clear. It’s a checklist of some sort.

  Mabel

  Alan

  Ryden

  My heartbeat picks up slightly. Mabel, Alan, Ryden. What does that mean?

  I grab the other journal off my desk, the green one from the first day we met, and flip to the back cover. Nothing. I turn to the front cover. Also blank.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial a number I’ve never called before. Mabel picks up immediately.

  “Are there any more?” I ask.

  “Any more what?”

  “Journals. Meg’s journals.”

  “No, that’s all I have. I told you, my parents put all her stuff in storage.”

  “Yeah, but you had time to take this one from her room before that happened. Did you take any others?”

  “I didn’t take that one from her room,” Mabel says. “It was in my room. I found it stuck in a stack of books on my nightstand a couple of days after she died. By that time, all her stuff was already in boxes and being loaded onto a truck.”

  I think about that for a minute. “You didn’t take it,” I repeat.

  “No.”

  “It was already in your room.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you had never seen it before?”

  “Nope. Or at least not long enough to distinguish it from any of the other books Meg was always writing in.”

  “So Meg must have put it there. She wanted you to find it,” I murmur, almost to myself.

  “I guess so, yeah.” There’s a short pause and then Mabel says, “But why?”

  “I have no idea.” But my mind is revolving with possibilities.

  What if this checklist, this journal, means something? What if she left one for each of us, and there are two other journals out there, for me and Alan?

  What if there’s something Meg wanted us to know?

  Chapter 7

  In the morning, I’m actually feeling all right—which is crazy, considering how dead tired I am.

  I spent a long time last night searching for a journal with a Ryden in the back. It was a fail, obviously. If Meg had left another journal here, I would have noticed it before now. Then I left Alan a voice mail asking if he’s found any journals at his place and fell asleep reading more of Meg’s red journal, the Mabel one, looking for a clue.

  I was woken up by Hope an hour or two later. Same old story. But then something sort of miraculous happened. She was crying and crying, her sore little gums bared, two small white teeth only just starting to fight their way to the surface, her hands pulled into fists, making way more noise than a thing the size of a shoe box should be able to, and somehow I knew it was hunger crying, not teething crying, even though she had eaten right before I put her down. I knew it. So I made her some formula, pulled her into my lap, and she latched onto the bottle right away, her sobs subsiding almost instantaneously. It was like when my mom feeds her. Easy. Peaceful. Kind of awesome.

  She went right back to sleep when her bottle was finished. It was the first time I’ve ever gotten her to do that on my own.

  Since I was all amped up after that, I used the time to continue the Michael search.

  Michael Taylor Boston 1998 Ryden Brooks: 160,000 results and clear from the first page that they were all scraps of completely unrelated nothingness. Sometimes the Internet can be ostentatiously useless.

  So I switched missions and Googled UCLA day care. Way more productive. Turns out they have a campus day care that gives highly discounted rates to children of UCLA students if they meet the financial aid requirements. And hello, I’m poor as fuck.

  It’s all going to work out. Today is the day that my life finally starts to get back on track.

  I meet Mom in the kitchen. She looks up from her coffee and her book in surprise. (Mom reads a lot of paranormal trilogies. You’d think she was one of the girls at my school or something.) Then she takes in my practice gear and Hope all ready to go in her car seat, and her eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to soccer practice.”

  She blinks a few times, slowly, and then says, “You’re bringing the baby?”

  “No. Alan’s gonna watch her.”

  “You paying him?”

  “No.”

  “Ryden.”

  “Mom.”

  She sighs and puts down her coffee. “We need to talk, bud.” She pulls out the chair next to her.

  I glance at the clock. “I can’t right now. I have to be at practice in an hour, and I still have to show Alan how to heat u
p bottles and shit.”

  “I really don’t care. Sit down.”

  I don’t have time for this. But I sit, because I know that tone of voice, and I know she’s not going to let me go until I listen to what she has to say. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Enough with the attitude, okay?” she says. “I’m on your side.”

  “I know,” I mumble.

  “Good. Now, explain this whole soccer thing to me. How on earth is that going to work?”

  “The same way it always does.”

  Mom gives me a look. “What did I say about the attitude?”

  “I’m not trying to give you an attitude. I’m serious—soccer works the way it always does. I go to practice; I go to games; I come home. What’s to understand?”

  “What’s to understand is that you have a daughter now, and a job. And school. We talked about this. You have obligations, Ryden. Important ones. Soccer’s going to have to go.”

  I shake my head. “Soccer’s important. I can’t play in college if I don’t play this season.”

  Mom stares at me, her eyes bugging out of her head, as if I told her I’ve decided to become a woman or something.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Buddy,” she says softer, putting her hand on mine, “you can’t go to UCLA. I thought you understood that.”

  I yank my hand back. “The hell I can’t. That’s been the plan for almost two years! The coach wants me. When he called a couple of weeks ago, he said that they just need to see me play live, and then they’re going to make their official offer.”

  “Things are different now.”

  I push my chair back and get to my feet. “Do you honestly think I don’t know that?”

  “I don’t know what you think, Ryden! You don’t talk to me like you used to. And you clearly haven’t been working to figure out the day care situation—”

  “Not true! I told you, Alan is going to watch her.”

  “Yeah, during soccer practice. I’m not talking about soccer practice. I’m talking about when you go back to school. Unless Alan graduated early, he’ll be going back to school in two weeks too. Which puts us no closer to a solution. This isn’t going to magically work itself out. This is real life, Ryden. You need to start acting like it.”