by Dyan Brown
I sigh, then stack the box in a pile growing in the corner by my closet. Glancing over at the clock, I see it’s almost eight. I’ve been packing for four hours straight, missed dinner, and it feels like I’ve hardly dented this room. I grab a marker off my desk, go back to the box I just stacked, put ‘Sam’s school stuff’ on top, and then ‘ATTIC’ on the side.
I think it’s time I take a break. Going over to my bed, I lay down in my favorite position—on my belly, feet on my pillows and arms crossed under my chin. I start flipping through channels and find a singing competition.
I wish I could sing. Hell, I wish I could do anything special. Oh yeah, I forgot… I can become a ghost!
Rolling my eyes, I lay my head on my arms and dive into the show, but my mind keeps wandering back to Grayson.
I couldn’t resist going back to the computer and looking up Grayson’s Facebook page the next day. The article was right. Grayson looks more like a twenty-five-year-old than a nineteen-year-old college student. Thick brown hair with deep blue eyes and a defined jawline that goes down to a slightly squared chin combine to make his photo extremely easy on the eyes. He has perfect lips that, even in the bright sunshine, show a very kissable blush, as if he bites them a lot. I open my own teeth, releasing the bottom lip I was inadvertently biting.
On his profile picture, Grayson’s hair is a perfect, windblown mess. Strands of it wisp down to the full eyebrows that form natural arches over his ocean-blue eyes. I have mentally thanked—several times—whatever made the man decide to put a shirtless picture of himself at the lake on his profile. His olive skin complements his perfectly sculpted torso and muscular arms. The About section on his profile says he’s into martial arts. My first reaction was to wiggle in my seat with excitement at the thought of meeting such a hot guy. Then my second reaction was to panic at the thought of meeting such a hot guy.
I glance back to the photo on my desk of Sahra and me from our last summer together. I don’t think I’ve changed all that much in the past three years. My hair is still just as wild, the thick red curls spiraling around my face a sharp contrast to my sister’s straightened locks. We’re standing in full sunlight, the rays shining on our backs and through our hair, brightening her light brown into a dirty blonde and making my red even more brilliant. Our hair and the few inches she had on me in height were the only differences between us.
I try to view the photo from an outside perspective. As someone who’s objective. Beyond the hair, both girls have round faces with vivid green eyes, pointed noses, and too-full lips. Yet somehow, she is—was—the beautiful one. Always the first to get a look, the first to get talked to. Everyone else felt the radiant goodness that Sahra projected.
God, she was so beautiful.
If I were a cartoon, I imagine I’d look like Betty Boop hooked up with a leprechaun and had a curly-haired baby. People have always told me I was pretty, but I’m fairly sure all I project is sarcasm and bitterness. Hashtag RBF, right here.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly, I’m standing on a dock beside the same lake I’d seen in Grayson’s profile picture. There are people everywhere. College students are sunbathing on the wide expanse of the dock, there are inner tubes strung together to make a massive, ten-person raft, and guys cannon-balling into the lake to splash the girls in hopes of making them laugh and squeal in feigned horror of getting their hair wet. The bright sunlight reflecting off the water looks like thousands of tiny glinting diamonds, and I almost lose myself in the hypnotic rhythm of the slow waves. I know in this moment I must be dreaming, because for the first time since Sahra died, I’m not afraid of the water.
I see April, in all her California beach bombshell-ness, chatting up an extremely good-looking blond. She waves to me familiarly, giving me a mischievous grin and arching a plucked brow before turning back to the guy in front of her. Hearing my name in deep, silken tones, I turn.
Oh, damn…
Grayson is the one who called me. Bounding up the dock from the shore, he slows as he nears me. He’s not even out of breath. I give him a shy smile, and he returns a slight grin that slowly widens to a full, broad smile. He leisurely looks over my face, my eyes, my nose, my mouth. This is the place I belong. It’s a place I have both missed and know I’ve never been before.
His eyes linger there, and my mind wills him to press down on my mouth with his. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the muscles in his arms tense, and my breath quickens as he winds an arm around my waist, drawing me closer. The reflection off the water dances over his tawny skin. He looks back up, following the lines of my face to my brow, and gives me the softest kiss on my forehead. The sweetness of it me makes me feel safe, warm, and treasured.
One moment, I’m wrapped up in the soft warmth of his arms. In the next, I’m being pulled away. Lassoed by that rope tied to my core.
No! Please, no.
5
The same feeling from before surrounds me. Drowning. I finally give in, and this time, there is an odd peace. It’s almost tranquil. But still, I feel like I have been in this ocean forever. When am I going to get to the person I’m supposed to help? Even as I worry, the thought slips away into the waves. How did I not notice before how serene these transitions are?
As soon as the notion passes, I start to hear cars passing me at high speeds. Streetlights come into view first, flickering as they come to life over a highway. The feeling of hard concrete comes up under my feet. I’m beneath an overpass. I take in my surroundings, looking to my right at the oncoming traffic. There is a silver Honda with its hazard lights flashing, so I start toward it. If all the drifts could be as obvious as this, that would be great.
What am I thinking? I’m just schizing out again. Thank you very much, Uncle Carl!
I hesitate for just a moment, but then I hear a woman screaming in such agony that my mouth falls open. Any pending psychological disorder aside, I can’t hear someone scream without seeing if I can help. It’s just not in me to leave someone in pain—my own self-imposed Hippocratic oath. I jog the remaining thirty feet to the car and look through the driver’s window, my heart already pounding.
Holy. Shit.
In the driver’s seat is a very pregnant woman. I look around the inside of the car and see there isn’t anyone with her.
Crap! Of course she’s alone, Sam. Okay, um, what do I do?
I try the door handle, but it’s locked. I tap on the window to get her attention, but she’s still screaming in pain.
“Fuck,” I mutter. Not another one where no one can see or hear me. I knock on the window again, so hard I think it will break, but it stays solid.
She looks right at me.
She can see me! “Oh, thank God! Open the door. Let me help!”
We look at each other for a moment while, I think, she decides if she can trust me or not. Like she has a choice. Her chest heaves up and down in a panicked rhythm.
“My name is Sam. Please, let me help you.”
To my relief, she nods against the glass, sweat leaving a smear on the window as she reaches for the handle. As soon as the door is open, she’s falling toward me.
“Please,” she moans. “It’s too fast. She’s coming. I can’t…” She collapses in my arms.
I would drive her to the hospital if it wouldn’t put me into a panic attack and make things worse than they already are. We need an ambulance. I look down, searching the pockets of my jeans with one hand, holding onto her with the other. There is nothing in them.
“What’s your name?”
“Lindsay,” she groans as she prepares for another wave of pain to hit her.
“Do you have a cell? Have you called 911?” I nearly have to shout over the onslaught of noise as a semi barrels past. She mutters something I can’t hear and points toward the passenger side of the car. The phone is on the floorboard.
Great.
“You need to lie down in the back seat.”
She answers by screaming in my ear
and nearly dragging me to the pavement by my neck. That lasts for a full minute before I can get her upright enough to reach through and unlock the back door. “Come on. Let’s get you back in the car.”
“No, I can’t! I can’t do it. Please, just make it stop,” she pants, out of breath.
“You can do this. You don’t have to do much—just a few steps, and then you can relax for a minute. Okay?”
We hobble a few steps together, and I open the door, sitting her down on the seat with her feet on the ground.
“Let me get the phone.”
She grunts her acknowledgement while white-knuckle gripping the doorframe.
I don’t even make it around the car before she’s rolling into another contraction. Her scream is bone chilling. My brow creases in sympathy for the pain she’s in. I’m never doing that, I think. And I should either thank or apologize to my mother.
Opening the passenger-side door, I grab the phone from the floor. For a second, I wonder if the operator will be able to hear me over the traffic and screaming, but I still have to try. I flip open the phone and dial as I walk back to her. Who still has a flip phone? It rings once before I hear the ever-faithful operator say, “Dallas 911. What’s the location your emergency?”
“I need help! I’m on a highway, and there is a woman in labor,” I pause as I realize what question is coming next, and that I can’t answer it.
“Ma’am, what’s your location?”
My first thought is to say Dallas, but I think they know that one. “Umm, I’m not sure,” I say, looking around. “There’s a Toyota dealership on one side of the highway and a Lowes on the other?”
“All right, I have an ambulance on its way. Can you tell how far apart the contractions are?” she asks in an utterly calm voice.
“They’re supposed to be separate?” My voice raises several octaves. “No, I can’t! She’s just in pain. What do I do?”
The operator begins guiding me through some steps to take, and I do everything she tells me, starting with assessing the progression of labor. I tell Lindsay to lie down and ask her if it’s okay for me to remove her pants so I can see whether the baby is visible. She says yes and awkwardly helps me. I don’t have time to be embarrassed for her, although she seems as though she couldn’t care less.
She’s so swollen, but even in the dim light I can see the baby’s head crowning. The operator tells me to look around for a clean cloth or towel, but I don’t see any in the car. Deciding we need to keep her pants clean to wrap the baby in, I move them out of the way. There is a newspaper in the car, and I grab it, opening it to pages that haven’t been exposed to the floorboards. I ask Lindsay to lift herself up as I place the makeshift delivery mat under her for the baby. After another bout of instruction from the operator, I take a deep breath, preparing myself to become a makeshift doctor.
“All right, Lindsay, I need you to push slowly during the contractions, okay? Try to control them if you can.” She’s breathing so rapidly that I’m afraid she’ll pass out, but she just nods, taking a few deep breaths. “Okay, with the next contraction, I want you to push.”
She sucks in sharply and lifts her shoulders up to bear down. The newborn’s head slowly emerges into my waiting hands. Oh… wow.
“That’s great! Now try to relax and don’t push again until I tell you.”
Next, the operator, stuck between my ear and shoulder, tells me to check around the baby’s neck to make sure the cord isn’t wrapped around it.
It is. Of course. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Relaying the news to the operator with a simple affirmation, I keep my internal dialogue to myself. I must keep Lindsay calm. She seriously has enough to worry about already.
“What now?” I choke out to the operator, wondering where the composed, confidant me is. Conjuring her up, I slip a finger between the cord and the baby’s neck. I pull the cord up, away from the baby’s neck as instructed. Everything is so slippery that it’s hard to get a proper grip.
Finally, there is a little bit of give and enough slack on the cord to go over the baby’s head. Once the head is free, I let the operator know. The next contraction hits, and Lindsay continues her slow push, causing a tiny shoulder to emerge. I support the head with my hands, trying not to pull the baby out, but letting it fall out like the operator instructs. In one great gush, a large amount of reddish fluid spills out, along with a perfect, tiny body.
“Ha! You did it!” I cry as I catch this amazing little baby girl. “She’s perfect!”
The babe starts shaking and crying in my hands despite the ninety-five-degree temperature. Taking Lindsay’s pants from my lap, I drape them around the infant’s tiny body, rubbing her down. I don’t think I’m rubbing as hard as the operator wants, but she is just so tiny—so delicate.
I put the little girl on her mother’s belly, and Lindsay grabs her as she sobs, trembling. The umbilical cord still connects mother and daughter, who are finally getting to meet one another. We’re all crying as I sink from my knees to sit on the hard concrete.
This is so amazing. I can’t believe people do this every day for a living. What a life! As I watch the mother and daughter become newly acquainted, I hardly notice I’ve dropped the phone in the commotion. I look around for the ambulance, and I can see it about a mile back, coming toward us. Relief floods through me as my shoulders shrink against the open car door, and I finally exhale.
There’s movement to my right, and I turn automatically to get a better view. I expect someone to be there, but it’s dark and empty. There’s nothing but concrete and more highway on the other side.
Still, I get a deep-seated feeling that I’m being watched intently—so much so it makes me uncomfortable, like I’m the one without pants on, bare-assed to the world. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I shift my weight nervously from one foot to the other. I don’t have much time to contemplate the feeling as the still-flashing lights overtake my peripheral vision and snap me back to the here-and-now.
Turning back toward Lindsay, I smile. “They’re here. She’s so beautiful. She really is a little angel.”
“Thank you, Sam,” she says, wrapping her daughter into the hem of her shirt, trying to warm her with a second layer of cloth. Then she looks up and meets my gaze. “Thank you.”
The look she gives me is as much a thank you as her words are. There is gratefulness there like none I’ve ever seen—even from Tessa. I have the feeling I just saved two lives, not one. Lindsay’s attention goes back to her daughter as the ambulance lights near. I feel my face split into an impossibly huge grin.
Wow. I love this!
Sensing the pull in my stomach, I feel as though my head is thrown forward as I’m washed once again into the darkness. I try not to resist this time, letting my limbs flail around in the current. I know where I’m going. There is no reason to fight it. Soon, there is a soft feeling of my comforter below my cheek and a mattress below my body.
My body.
I’m home.
6
I roll over in bed. Looking around my room, all I see are boxes and dust motes drifting through sunbeams like warm snow. The sun is shining way too cheerfully for this early in the morning, but the sounds down the hall indicate I’m already late for the last breakfast I’ll have in the house I’ve grown up in.
I’m looking forward to leaving, but it hit me yesterday that I wouldn’t see my parents again for months. I’ve never been away from them longer than the month Sahra and I spent with Uncle Carl and Aunt Karen every summer when we were younger, or the occasional week here and there when I’d stay with my grandparents.
This realization has made me sadder than I would have thought. I haven’t had the guts to ask my parents how my leaving is going to affect them. It brings up too many thoughts about Sahra. Another child leaving… and I’m sure it doesn’t help that I got into a college out of state. Even though Sahra was just at the University of Dallas, they still weren’t able to do anything when she needed
to be saved.
Although, being 190 miles away will have some advantages, too. I’m not sure what those things are at the moment, but they’re out there. I’m sure the fact that Uncle Carl is there is helping them more than it’s comforting me. Well, it did make me feel more comfortable when we were on speaking terms. We still haven’t talked since he left last week.
Delivering the baby was a very surreal experience. I looked up the report the next day and found out a baby, whose name is Angelica, was, in fact, delivered in the same spot. I need to talk to Uncle Carl about it, but I don’t think he’s going to like what I have to say.
“Sammie, are you up?” Mom yells from the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I grumble loud enough for her to hear me as I throw back the quilt and swing my legs out of bed. Slumping forward, elbows on knees, I rub my face hard in an effort to wake up. Glancing over at the floor-length mirror by my closet, I see a haggard mess looking back at me. I always shower before bed and then do my hair in a tight double French braid to keep the curls from becoming a white-girl Afro. I must have been tossing and turning in my sleep last night, because my tight braids are now frizzed.
Good, that’s what I needed—a bad hair day.
Running my hands over my newly acquired fuzz, I attempt to tame it the best I can. I go over to the clothes that I set out on my desk the night before. The rest of my clothes are packed and ready to go. I change from my boxer shorts and tank into a pair of jean shorts, a Texas wildflower T-shirt, and socks. Due to my bed-head frizz, I also throw on a ball cap and pull a wild, curly ponytail through the hole in the back. I mutter a ‘whatever’ to my hairdo and sigh.
I head toward the kitchen to see if Dad has made it back with the U-Haul yet and find Mom busy making pancakes.
Guess she’s feeling it, too. The worse she feels, the bigger the meals. I think she thinks she can feed our feelings away. No wonder I’m well-padded around my thighs.
In the days after Sahra passed, of course, she was bad. Usually, people bring food to the family when someone dies—we were giving dishes away. There is a little tug at my heart with the memory as I take a seat at the kitchen table and fiddle with my locket.
