How to Save a Life

by Sara Zarr

  I close the book. Robin shouldn’t make me read these things. In the old days there were no books about being pregnant, and women did it anyway and for generations we were all born, so what’s the point? My great-grandmother was born in the middle of a dust storm in South Dakota that killed all the crops and half the livestock. We’re strong. At least on my mother’s side of the family. I don’t know about my father’s.

  We have another appointment with Dr. Yee this week, and I’m not going to ask her if the baby will fit through my pelvis. She’d only give me one of those looks like I’m stupid.

  It’s been exactly two weeks since I got here. By now my mother must be wondering how I am. I dreamed about her last night, that she was holding my baby and telling me at last I’d done something right. In real life she wanted me to get rid of it, but in my dream her eyes were so full of love and pride that I woke up aching for her.

  The house is quiet; Jill’s at school, and Robin has a meeting with the city. A few flakes of snow blow by the living-room window every now and then. I wonder if it’s snowing in Omaha. My mother hates winter. She’d like to move somewhere like Florida or Arizona and be warm all the time. Kent says it’s too expensive. Maybe when he retires, he used to say, and Social Security can pay for it, or after he makes his fortune. After his luck changes.

  I stand by the window and stare out until my back hurts. Normally I don’t feel lonely here, but today I do. I can’t get the dream out of my head, the eyes of my mother and how she touched the baby’s downy head with so much tenderness.

  Every day or so I pick up the cordless phone next to Jill’s father’s chair and imagine punching in the number at the apartment in Council Bluffs. It’s an impulse that lasts minutes, and then I walk around the room or go upstairs to lie down or see if there’s anything new and interesting in Jill’s room, and the impulse goes away. Today it’s stronger, the ache I woke up with like hunger.

  Sometimes you want to hear your own mother’s voice.

  I sit in Mac’s chair and put my feet up on the ottoman and hold the phone, running my fingers over the smooth silver buttons. My mother and Kent should both be at work at this time of day. I could just hear her voice on the answering machine; I don’t even have to leave a message.

  She answers on the second ring.

  I should hang up, I know. I know. She repeats her hello, impatient, and asks who it is in that commanding way that still has power over me.

  “It’s Amanda.”

  My mother is quiet.

  “Your daughter,” I add. “Mandy?”

  “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.”

  Her voice. It’s low and hoarse, the way a voice gets when a person has had a cold, but hers has always been that way. Her boyfriends always say it’s one of the sexiest things about her. They like her voice and the fact that she’s small, like me. They like that they could pick her right up off the floor. They also like her hair, which she keeps long and blonde. If money is tight, she’ll touch up her roots before she buys groceries. Men don’t like women with short hair or gray hair, she’ll say. But Jill’s hair isn’t that long, and she has Dylan. Robin’s hair is as short as a man’s and gray, and I think she looks beautiful.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  “Great.”

  She’s started smoking again. The flick of her lighter, the draw of breath.

  “Is it snowing there?” I ask.

  “It won’t quit.”

  I wish she could see me here, sitting in this leather chair. Living with crepes and people who own shelves and shelves of books, and the way Robin calls me every day when she’s out, just to say hi and ask how I’m doing. I’d told my mother I found a family for the baby, a perfect family that wanted me to come live with them, but nothing else, and she didn’t ask. Now I want to tell her everything.

  “When you were pregnant with me did you worry I was going to fall out? Or that I wouldn’t fit through?” I want to know one thing, any one thing, about what she felt when she was carrying me. If she had the same kind of fear and excitement and growing sense of attachment that I’m having.

  “Don’t be silly,” she says. “Is that why you called? To ask me that?”

  “Partly.”

  “What’s the other part? I don’t have money, and if I did I have better things to spend it on than a baby I told you not to have.”

  Already it’s hard to remember what the apartment looks like. When I try to picture it, all I see is her, ashing her cigarette into one of the diet pop cans that are always nearby. The image of her blocks out everything else, like the furniture and the color of the rooms and where the windows are.

  “I don’t want any money. I’m calling to tell you I’m all right.”

  She pauses. “I don’t care, Mandy. You walked out on me. You think you can do so much better? I don’t care.”

  The leather of the chair’s arm is worn soft, looks faded. Mac must have run his hand over it a million times, the way I am now. “Okay. You can tell Kent I’m all right. If he’s worried.”

  She laughs her small, hoarse laugh. “Don’t you wonder why I’m home when I should be at work? I’m packing up to leave. Almost the second you were gone, Kent gave me the heave-ho. I’ve got my things here in garbage bags, lined up by the door.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “You don’t care. A friend from work is putting me up.”

  A man friend, probably.

  “Tell me this, Amanda,” she says. “Does your perfect family know they’re getting themselves an Indian baby, born to a high school dropout?”

  “Yes,” I say quickly.

  “That had better be the truth. Knowing you, it’s not. And you’d be surprised how even the nicest people get ugly when it comes to these things, so if it doesn’t work out don’t come looking for me to take care of you.”

  The phone is getting warm against my cheek. “Maybe it won’t be Indian.”

  She takes another drag on her cigarette, then says, “I knew it,” and I imagine her shaking her head, as if she’s so sure when it comes to who I am. “I knew you had to be lying when you said that was your first time.”

  It was my first real time. “Maybe it will be white. Like Kent.”

  There’s a long pause, and I’m glad there are more than five hundred miles between us.

  “What are you saying? Mandy?”

  My hand shakes as I take the phone away from my ear and press the red button that ends the call. Mac’s chair is in the perfect position for looking out the big living-room window. The snow has stopped, and the mailman is coming up the walk. Here the day is normal, just like yesterday was and tomorrow will be. I work on erasing the conversation with my mother, and all that’s left is the same ache that I woke up with, the ache that was for the mother in my dream.

  I try my letter to Alex again, copying it over onto a sheet of the nice stationery from Jill’s drawer.

  Dear Alex,

  I don’t have much to do these days while I wait for the baby. Writing to you helps pass the time, and the truth is I don’t have anyone else’s address. I hope it’s okay. You can write me back but you don’t have to.

  One of the books I’ve been reading says the baby is probably five pounds now. It won’t change much in the coming weeks except to get bigger and bigger. I can’t wait to see what she looks like. Did I tell you I’m having a girl?

  After she’s born and I’m recovered, I have to figure out where I’ll live. I don’t think I’ll stay here in Denver. The baby should have her own life, and I don’t want her to be confused about who her mother is. I think it’s important for children to have a good, stable environment and not have to worry what’s going to happen from day to day.

  If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

  Sincerely,

  Mandy Madison (from the train)

  I seal and address and stamp the envelope and put on my coat to walk to the mailbox.

  The snow here is different from t
he snow in Omaha. More powdery, dry and crunchy under your feet. And the air is not quite so cold, and it’s not windy; it doesn’t hurt your lungs to breathe in.

  All the houses on this street are like Robin’s: no saggy porches, no peeling paint, no old cars crammed into driveways. They all have shoveled walks. Juniper bushes are tied up for the season so the snow doesn’t break them. The air smells fresh. This is the kind of life I want—a neat life, where people pay attention to details.

  When I saw Robin’s post on the Love Grows website, I could tell she was a person from this kind of life.

  I’m happy for my baby, for the life she’ll have.

  What I don’t know is how to have this life for myself.

  Jill

  It’s the third time in about a week I’ve had lunch with Laurel and Cinders. They’re warming up to me again. It feels mostly good, though there’s definitely this sense that it’s their trial period with me; they can still cancel their order at any time and send me back to wherever it is I came from, and none of us are getting so committed that it will hurt if that happens. We keep conversation as trivial as possible. I eat with them only if they invite me. They choose what and where we eat. Like today, Cinders craves Greek breakfast, so we head off campus to a place where she can get some scrambled eggs with gyro mystery meat.

  What makes today different is that Dylan is with us. Things aren’t as awkward between them and him—not perfect, either. He defended me all through my worst behavior, and it got a little tiresome for Laurel and Cinders. But it’s the first day of March and there are hints of spring in the air and we have Greek food. All good things.

  Until the subject of Mandy comes up.

  Of course it makes sense that Dylan assumed Cinders and Laurel knew about Mandy. When you’re getting reacquainted with people who were, in a previous life, your best friends, naturally you’d tell them about the most earth-shaking, life-changing event to occur since, you know, the sudden death of your father. Only I hadn’t, because of the whole experimental nature of the dynamic here. And ever since last week when he was over studying, Dylan has taken this acute interest in Mandy and her doings around the house and the crazy stuff she says. The peculiarities that are Mandy—the ones that drive me crazy—amuse and intrigue him.

  Therefore it’s not so surprising to me when he picks up a chunk of souvlaki and says, “I bet Mandy’s never had Greek food. We should bring her here.”

  “Who’s Mandy?” Cinders asks.

  Dylan, across from me, chews slowly and raises his eyebrows.

  “Um,” I say.

  Where do I begin?

  “Mandy is this girl who’s living at… well, she’s staying with us. With my mom. She’s sort of like… a relative? You know? Like a distant, distant relative.”

  Laurel frowns. “I thought you didn’t have any family left. I mean after your dad… I thought you and your mom were the whole family tree.”

  “Reeeally distant.”

  “From another country, or what?” Cinders asks.

  “Nebraska,” Dylan says.

  Shut up. I try to communicate it with my eyes—subtly, so Cinders won’t notice.

  “Just tell them, Jill.”

  Now Laurel is losing patience, too. “Tell us what?”

  I wave my coffee cup at the waitress. I don’t want to share the whole saga of Baby Girl MacSweeney with them. It’s embarrassing. It feels like evidence of a failure—on my part, at being a good daughter. And a sign that my mom is losing her mind, not coping with her grief.

  “Well…”

  Laurel holds up her hand. “You know what, Jill? If you don’t want to tell us, don’t. It’s fine. You can just keep on living in your Balloon of Jill and float on over our heads. It’s no big deal.”

  Dylan nudges my foot with his under the table.

  “Can I get a refill first? Please? The waitress is totally ignoring me on purpose.” I lift my cup again, to no avail. I set it down and put my hands around it, concentrating on a slice of mushroom on the edge of Dylan’s plate. “All right. Mandy isn’t a relative. Mandy is an eighteen-year-old stranger who is large with child and occupying our guest room.”

  “Aaaand…” Dylan prompts me.

  “And my mom is adopting her baby.”

  Cinders blinks. “That’s… unexpected.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “She’s not really a stranger,” Dylan says. “I mean, she’s been there two weeks. You’re getting to know her.”

  “And what a treat that has been.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Laurel asks.

  Before I can list the Things That Are Wrong with Mandy, Dylan jumps in. “Nothing is wrong with her. She’s just different from us.”

  Cinders says, “Isn’t your mom a little old to be taking on a baby?”

  “Yes!” Hey, maybe this telling thing isn’t so bad; finally I’m getting some sympathy. It all spills out. “I think it’s a huge mistake. And my mom didn’t even get a lawyer…. There’s no contract, no nothing. Just a flimsy e-mail agreement! My dad wouldn’t—” I stop myself. Dylan glances at me.

  Cinders is gratifyingly appalled by the whole thing, and for the rest of lunch she and Laurel ask questions and express disbelief, like, on top of dealing with my dad’s death, now this. It’s great, really, and energizing, except when Dylan keeps defending Mandy and my mom. But it’s three against one and eventually he stops and by the time we get back to school I’m high on righteous indignation and the feeling that, once again, I’m a part of something, and I’m right.

  I carry that energy through my shift at Margins, where there is lots of excitement because, while I was at school, Ravi got his man.

  Ron fills me in. “Harmless middle-aged man on crutches comes into store. He talks me into letting him keep his backpack, right, because how else is he going to get his purchases up to the register? I’m an idiot.”

  So Ravi was on the money with his theory about sneaky people acting disabled. I guess the rest: “He loads up his backpack with art books and other expensive crap? If anyone stops him, he can say, ‘I was going to pay. I am but a helpless man on crutches.’ ”

  “Right. And it’s not the first time. Oh no. Ravi’s been trailing him from store to store. The guy’s been hitting every Margins in our region since before Christmas, but no one could ever quite catch him in the act. The guy’s a one-man cottage industry of stolen merch.” The cops came, he tells me; it was this whole scene.

  “Where’s Annalee?” I ask.

  “She took Ravi out to celebrate. She’ll be back soon.” He looks at his watch. “Actually I thought she’d be back by now. They left nearly two hours ago.” Ron smiles. “Think something’s going on between those two?”

  “What? No.” I say it as if the very idea is nonsense, but for the next hour I find myself obsessed with wondering what Ravi and Annalee could possibly be up to all this time, and the comments she made when she first met him. I try to add up in my head the number of times he’s been in the store since that night. Five? Six? Dude works fast. Anyway, we’re the ones who had a bonding experience first. Okay, so that experience involved injury to Ravi’s face, and me apparently ignoring him for an entire year of Ms. Schiff’s computer science class, but the point is we have history.

  When Annalee finally shows up, Ravi is right behind her, and they are happy, happy, happy. I’m trapped in the customer service booth in the middle of the store, watching them be happy from a distance. Annalee has that look on her face, that energy you get when you have a new crush. Or when you get good news, or there’s a fun trip coming up or even just the weekend. Like despite all the b.s. that goes on day after day, life has some zip to it after all.

  I don’t know when I felt that last. I highly doubt I look the way Annalee looks now when I’m with Dylan. Definitely not lately; we’ve been off and on for so long. Did I feel that way for at least a few hours when we got back together? I can’t remember if I ever felt that way. I must have, before.
<
br />   I don’t know.

  Annalee comes over to the customer service booth. “Hey, Jill.” She toys with the store keys she wears on a black leather cord around her neck. “I’m going to buy a frap for Ravi. I’ll be on in about fifteen, and then you can take your break, okay?”

  Fifteen? I know our barista isn’t the fastest in the West, but how long does it take to make a frap?

  “Sure.”

  And off they go to the café area, laughing it up.

  “Nice takedown,” I say. Way too loud. Even Ron, clear across at the register, looks up.

  Ravi turns around and says, “Thanks, Jill,” and Annalee walks with a noticeable bounce in her step.

  Do you remember if I ever looked like that? I want to call after him. Like I had something to look forward to?

  I’m still hanging on to the remnants of Laurel and Cinders’s reaction to the Mandy situation when I get home and find Mom in her office, working and listening to Neil Young, a cup of tea beside her keyboard. The desk lamp casts a halo of light around her. It’s a lonely scene. I shouldn’t go in and do what I’m about to do. The timing is wrong. There’s probably not a right time, though, which in the moment seems like reason enough to proceed.

  I come in close, lean on the back of her chair. “What is that? Same thing you’ve been working on all month?”

  She takes the glasses from the end of her nose and puts them on top of her head. “Yes. The feasibility study for RTD. They want to extend the light rail, and I’m trying to help them figure out how to do that without upsetting residents along the corridor here.” She hovers her fingers over a map on one of the two monitors she has set up.

  Sometimes I forget my mom has this whole other life, where she’s great and competent and well paid for the consulting work she does with transportation-engineering firms and the city. She’s so smart at work stuff.

  Then I see, taped to the other monitor, ultrasound pictures of Mandy’s baby. There are two: One doesn’t look like much, but the other one is a close-up of her face. Her hand is up by her mouth, her puffy little eyes shut, the outline of her nose clear. “Mom…” I say, unable to take my eyes off the picture of this person, this person who’s on her way into our family.