“Oh, boy. Can’t wait.”
The smile was gone. “I have done exactly what you’re doing. It never works out. It never works out, do you understand? The end result is always two lives wasted, and then you’re born again, only this time with a predisposed habit to put yourself second and you spend that life doing the same thing and around and around we go.”
“It sounds like we’re talking about my mom. But it feels like we’re talking about yours.”
“This may sound strange,” Leah almost-whispered, as if confiding a great secret, “but being pregnant has made me ponder mother/daughter relationships.”
“What an odd coincidence!”
“Right? What are the odds?” For the second time in ten seconds, the smile dropped off Leah’s face as if it was never there. “Don’t do it, Angela. You’re not doing either of you—any of you—any favors.”
Angela thought about that for a few seconds, and Leah let her. Finally, Angela said, “Thank you for the advice. I mean that sincerely. But what’s this really about?”
“Mothers and daughters. Families—old ones and new ones. The ones you’re stuck with and the ones you make.”
“Funny you should say that,” she said slowly. “I was giving serious thought to hanging it up earlier this week. Letting Dad’s file go back into cold storage—not that it’s up to me, but you know what I mean—and just . . . letting it all go. Poof!” She waved good-bye to the imaginary file flying off to CCD. “And I won’t lie, the idea of doing that—it was as tempting as it was frightening. Like standing in the doorway of the plane with your parachute, ready to jump. You want to jump, you paid the instructor to bring you up there and you jump, but it’s still scary.”
“Ooooh, metaphor.”
“You hush up.” It is weird and wonderful that I’m going to be this woman’s cousin-in-law. That we’re talking like regular people! Which I am, but she is not! Argh, stop fangirling, you’ve already been busted for that once today.
She took a breath and finished, “But the day we got back from ICC, I got to talking with Jack and I thought—”
“You thought damned if the next generation is going to grow up like this.”
“Yes. Exactly. But another way to look at it is: I saw the cage door start to ease open and I wasted no time slamming it shut again. And I’m fine with that.” Well. “Fine” wasn’t the right word, but she knew Leah would get it. “But my choices don’t have to be yours, just like Archer’s weren’t mine. Whatever you’re wondering, whatever’s on your mind, whatever decision you’re trying to make, I don’t think Uncle Dennis should factor in. And he’d be the first to tell you that.”
“Well.” Leah was studying her the way you’d look at a book you weren’t sure you’d like, only to find it was growing on you. Or maybe I’m just projecting all over the place. “I’m no stranger to family drama, that’s for certain. But even if you won’t take good advice, you certainly give it.”
“‘Family drama.’ Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Angela shook her head. “I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine what fighting your mother’s killer was like. What? Don’t you think it’s strange that nobody’s talking about this? Well, not strange so much as courteous—I kind of threatened the Horde with dismemberment if they brought it up. But it’s just you and me now. And I don’t like elephants.”
“If you want to ask, then ask.”
“I don’t need the gory details. I’m just trying to wrap my head around having to kill someone to save your own life. Most people know about it but not someone who’s done it.”
Leah waved her hand in a faux casual gesture. “Oh, it was mostly terrifying with a dash of horrifying. I wish I could have saved my mom, though. Even after everything she did. You know how people say ‘I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy’? Well, she was my worst enemy. And I wouldn’t have wished that on her. He sliced her up like a trout. And don’t take this the wrong way, either.” Then she stood, bent sharply at the waist, and threw up in Angela’s recycle bin.
TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, Archer.” Physically.
“Maybe we should go see a doctor.”
“It’s just morning sickness.”
“At night!”
“You know it’s called that because for most women, it hits in the morning, right? It doesn’t mean it’s always exclusive to the hours between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. and that any deviation from that means you need to live in your OB’s waiting room. You’re actually reading the baby books you keep buying me, right?”
“Something’s up,” he insisted, his face set in stubborn lines. His forehead was so laddered with concern wrinkles, a chipmunk could have climbed it. Easily. Archer’s bad luck that his grim face was one of her favorites. “You’re not sleeping well, you’re having nightmares every night—sometimes twice a night—you’re not keeping much down. And reliving what that shithead did to your mom? ‘He sliced her up like a trout’? I cannot fucking believe she asked you about it! Angela’s ears are gonna be ringing for a while.”
“Yes, I heard you ‘discussing’ your concern with her. As did the rest of the house. And it was unnecessary.”
Archer’s pacing sped up, which Leah hadn’t thought was possible. She prayed he wouldn’t trip; he was going so fast he’d probably get a concussion. “Don’t care. She should have left you alone. I told them, I told them not to bug us—you—about that. You wouldn’t believe the heinous shit I threatened them with if they disobeyed.”
“If it was anything like the heinous shit Angela threatened them with, I think they were properly cowed.”
“No! They were the opposite of cowed! The minute my back was turned they threw off being cowed! I am very angry and confused and thinking too much about cowing!”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Deep breath. “I sought Angela out, Archer. It’s not what you think.” She squared her shoulders and tried to look firm and uncompromising, which was tricky when you were prone. “Sit down.”
He stopped and stared at her, his eyes so wide she could see the whites all around, like a horse that got a whiff of fire. “Oh, my God.”
“Sit down, please.”
“Oh, fuck. It’s bad, isn’t it? Just tell me.” He whirled and paced faster, scraping his fingers through his hair until it was standing up in shaggy, aggravated spikes. “We’ll figure something out. Whatever it is. Maybe you should go on bed rest? Let’s go see a doc and ask about bed rest. I’m sure you’ll be fine. The baby’s gonna be fine, okay, hon? Don’t worry. Okay? But just tell me. Whatever it is.”
“I will. But first I want you to have a seat.”
“Just tell me!”
She propped herself up on an elbow and glared. “I want you to sit down in this room’s only chair, which is beside the bed, because it will give you proximity to me, which I will find comforting and also because following your pacing is making me feel like vomiting again. Now sit. Down.”
He sat.
She lay back and looked at the ceiling. They’d been there a week, she’d had ample time to stare at it. To think about what to say, and when. Trust Archer to notice but give her time and space to broach the subject.
“We are having a daughter,” she began carefully.
He was already nodding and she was already trying not to roll her eyes. The nod. The patented ArcherNod that said: Everything is fine, you can tell by the way I’m nodding in agreement with you. I wouldn’t do that if things weren’t fine. So nodding is good, nodding is good. The irony? It never calmed her down. “Okay.”
“As far as I can tell, our daughter is perfectly healthy.”
“Okay.” Archer was already fidgeting in the chair, dread and concern fighting for pride of place on his face.
“She’ll probably be beautiful. Not ‘all babies are beautiful’ beautiful. Beautifu
l beautiful.”
“Okay.”
“And this baby isn’t tabula rasa. She’s lived before.”
“Okay.”
“The reason I know this is because the baby is my mother.”
“Okay. What?”
She repeated herself. Better get used to that. You’re going to be talking about this a lot.
“You’re pregnant with my mother-in-law?”
“Yes.”
“Your mom’s coming back.”
“Yes.”
“Through you.”
“Yes.”
Then he just sat. And sat. It didn’t surprise her—she’d had the luxury of taking a week to adjust to the bombshell—so she stayed quiet.
Finally, he looked up. The concern ladder was back on his forehead. Where’s a chipmunk when you need one? Can I catch one? And train it to walk on Archer’s forehead? Why am I now obsessed with chipmunks? “How do you— I don’t doubt you. But how do you know? And use small words, on account of my brain dumbness.”
She smiled, as he’d intended. Because he didn’t have “brain dumbness.”*
Ugh, really not a fan of that phrase.
Archer was one of the few people who couldn’t see his past lives, one of the few she couldn’t read. He was an utter blank, but in the very best of ways, like a canvas that could be made into anything. Meaning he was either a brand-new soul
(“At least I’m not a rerun like some people,” he teased.)
or he’d lived so long and so well he had earned a clean slate. Archer didn’t know, or care, which it was. She didn’t know—ironic, and she was well aware that made him fascinating to her—and cared, a little. Out of intellectual and spiritual curiosity, if nothing else.
“I know it’s Mom because our baby is dreaming. But they aren’t my dreams.” She paused, trying to find the words to explain how sometimes You Just Know without coming off like a condescending jackass. “I’ve seen other people’s dreams—their lives—when I’m awake. That’s always true, you know that. I can see them even more clearly in therapy sessions after a dose of Reindyne. But never like this. Never while sleeping. In all my life, I’ve never dreamed anyone’s lives but my own.”
“So you knew about your mom’s past lives but never experienced them. Which is how you recognized her in our daughter.”
“Yes, exactly. And it’s a problem. It’s a problem on top of a huge pile of problems.” She sighed. “One I’m not equipped to endure, much less solve. I never thought I’d find someone who would adore my extensive weirdness—and I’m not talking about the Insighting! I mean my weird B-list Hollywood career. My mom-baggage.”
“You never thought?” He shook his head. “Because that’s insane. I thought you were wonderful even before I fell in love with you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but right now I want to focus on the impending reappearance of the star of My Daughter, My Whore. But I want to come back to this. Because you could have had a family with anybody you wanted anytime you wanted.”
Wrong. But I love that you think so. “Well, like I said, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find someone I could stand who could stand me, much less start a family with them. I knew I was in over my head before this week—”
“But lots of couples feel that way.”
“Have you already forgotten the Walgreens pee-stick freak-out?” Given his shudder
(“If I have to pee on every pregnancy stick in the store, I will! This has to be a mistake, and I’ll prove it! I would also like two candy bars! Anything but Milky Way!”)
he hadn’t. Though he would have been within his rights to repress the hell out of it. That had been an eventful weekend.
“But this?” She gestured to her stomach. “It’s unprecedented. I’ve been all over the literature, and there’s nothing documented. I’m not arrogant enough to insist no one ever gave birth to a parent or grandparent before—I’m a firm believer in ‘there’s nothing new under the sun.’ But if someone did, they either didn’t know or kept it quiet.”
“So . . .”
“We’re on our own,” she finished.
He picked up her hand, kissed her palm. “See, that’s another thing you’ve got wrong. We’re not on our own.”
A sweet thought. Inaccurate, but points for trying.
“But, hey,” he continued, now mouthing at her fingers like a gigantic minnow looking for algae. She giggled (how did something so silly make her laugh every time?) and her fingers twitched against his lips. “At least tonight when you wake up from one of her dreams, I’ll still be awake on account of my own impending nervous breakdown. We can keep each other company!”
She burst into tears and when his face sagged, she held up her hand (the one he wasn’t nibbling on) to reassure him. “Happy tears,” she managed. “God, I love your irreverence.”
“I am pretty irreverent,” he said modestly, and she laughed. The “laugh until you cry” cliché had never worked for her. The reverse, though?
Perfect.
TWENTY-SIX
“No!”
“Just once. Just to see if you like it.”
“I don’t have to eat mud to know I won’t like the taste.”
“But it’s not mud,” Paul pointed out. “It’s salted caramel brownies. Look, I’m not saying your original recipe is bad . . .”
“Better not be. Because one, my original recipe is sublime, and two, there are several sharp knives within my reach. And you’re not wearing a cup.”
“Your recipe is transcendent! But maybe you could . . . just . . . kind of . . . mix it up a little?”
“Listen, you barbarian Horde of one, I have never jumped on a bandwagon in my life and I won’t start now.”
“You’re wearing Crocs to cook! How is that anything but bandwagoning?”
“Bandwagon isn’t a verb! And Crocs are classic! They’re ancient, like the high-heeled shoe, Crocs’ve been around—”
Archer leaned forward, the better to murmur. “Prepare to feel ancient,” he warned Angela and Leah.
“—since 2002!”
“Ouch.” From Leah.
“Yeah, that one smarts,” Angela said, then adding, “Paul, stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken.”
“Salted caramel frosting. Salted caramel cake. Salted caramel cupcakes. Salted caramel cheesecake. Salted caramel marshmallows. Salted caramel puppy chow.” Jack threw up his hands. “Salted caramel bark! Salted caramel frappés! Salted caramel martinis! Salted caramel roasted almonds. Salted caramel candles. Salted caramel caramel. Boring, boring, boring!”
“See, you were droning on, but all those things sounded great,” Paul said. He was in his usual Saturday midday attire: sweatpants, a faded green too-tight sweatshirt, bare feet, the red tape measure dangling over one shoulder (he occasionally used it as a belt). “Even the candle.”
“No salted caramel in this kitchen! Unless you make it yourself. In which case, I will yield territory long enough for you to be a salted caramel sheep. Following along with the salted caramel herd. And God help you if you leave me a sink full of caramel-coated dirty dishes. God. Help. You.”
Leah shook her head. “You guys ever notice that when someone repeats the same phrase over and over, the words lose their meaning pretty quickly?”
Archer was already shaking his head. “Leah, hon, all I heard, honest to God, the only thing I heard you say just now was ‘salted caramel, salted caramel, salted caramel, salted caramel.’”
Angela swallowed a giggle. “And, of course, now we’re all craving salted goddamned caramel.”
“Not my problem,” Jack snapped, turning back to his cookbook shelf with a huff. The brouhaha du jour had begun when he was flipping through his cookbooks to seek inspiration for a new dessert. Which, unfathomably, was Paul’s internal cue to make the horrific, misguided suggestion that rather than tr
y something new, Jack should jazz up an old recipe.
They were seated around the turtle table—most of them, anyway; Mitchell and Jordan were at work. Emma Drake was at the other end of the house, having completed her daily chore (the mail) and now doing who knew what. She tended to break her fast early, before most of them were up, preferring toast and coffee because anything else slowed her down. “If I eat all that, I’ll get logy and just slouch around the house all day,” she explained. Which was terrifying to think of.
Jack had prepared a breakfast (as was his wont) that was delicious but (as wasn’t his wont) lacked his usual perfectionist/gourmet tendencies. Scrambled eggs but no dill. Bacon, but not thick-cut . . . the precooked kind you could zap in a microwave. Muffins, but not from scratch. Milk, but no lattes. Juice, but not fresh-squeezed.
Jesus. We really take this kid for granted. He’s phoning it in and it’s still a terrific meal.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said brightly, then drained her glass. “It’s all delicious as usual.”
“Goes without saying,” Archer said, his mouth full. He swallowed and added, “Leah, this kid, you wouldn’t believe it, he’s been good at this since he was five.”
“It shows,” she replied, smacking his hand when he went for the last of the bacon, then wolfing it down herself. Every Drake in the room had the same simultaneous thought: She’s perfect for us! Uh, Archer. Perfect for Archer.
Then. The fatal error. Archer, as he often did, kept talking. And, as often happened when Archer talked, disaster followed: “Jack, even on an off day your grub is outstanding.”
Angela froze. Leah glared at the father of her child. Paul quietly backed out of the kitchen. Everything seemed to slow down and simultaneously get sharper and louder.
Jack sloooowly turned away from the cookbooks. “‘Off day’?” he asked with deceptive pleasantness.
Archer was sloooowly getting out of his chair, doubtless ready to slip unobtrusively—or sprint—out of the kitchen. His exit was foiled when Leah seized his sleeve and yanked him back down. Her dagger-eyes were eloquent: You said it. You stay and deal with the fallout.
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