How to Save a Life

by Sara Zarr

  “I don’t know. It’s a pretty good job. Part of me still wishes I could make my parents happy, achieve the American dream, make all their hard work and sacrifice worthwhile.”

  “See, that’s the problem with doing stuff to make other people happy. If they really love you, and you wind up miserable, how can they be happy? Me going to college would make my mom happy, but my life can’t be about that.” I run our little Mexican flag up its pole to try to get some chips. “The American dream is kind of stupid, anyway. Slave ninety percent of your life so that you can spend the last ten percent of it doing nothing?”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s stupid, but—”

  “And there’s no guarantee you even make it far enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

  “True. I just think there is some value in—”

  “Look at the state of the world. At this rate it’s all going to implode any second, anyway, and you could… die unexpectedly. So you should do what makes you happy.”

  He takes a big bite of food.

  “Right?” I ask. Then I spot Mandy’s blonde hair, fluffy once more, coming our way. “Finally.” And here is where my enchilada threatens to come back up, and not just because it’s kind of cold and gross but because Ravi and Dylan are about to meet. Why did I ever think this was a remotely good idea? I wave at Mandy. If I stay focused on her and the baby, we’ll get through it.

  Dylan, trailing behind her, doesn’t look very happy, considering how excited he was about this idea initially. I opt not to make a scene about them being late. I don’t give Dylan a hug or a kiss. I introduce him to “Clark.” I explain to Mandy how the flag works. I point to the little stack of presents at the side of the table and say, “Surprise! Happy… birthday!”

  She smiles, just barely, not looking all that surprised. “Thank you,” she says. “You didn’t have to.” It’s maybe the most forlorn and sincere I’ve ever seen her. She seems sad and far away, and she keeps her hand on her belly like it’s a security blanket. I have this impulse to hug her and tell her everything is going to be okay, that by this time tomorrow the watch will be out of our lives, and between me and her and Mom we’ll figure everything out.

  It’s not the time.

  Dinner is nice enough, for what it is. We get a good view of the cliff divers and of the floor show, which involves a guy in a gorilla suit. What it has to do with Mexico, I cannot say. Dylan eats his weight in sopaipillas but doesn’t seem quite all here. He’s distracted and anxious-looking, and I worry that Ravi will think he’s rude, or that Dylan thinks Ravi is rude. Ravi is acting weird, too, and I don’t blame him. Considering how into him Mandy was when they first met, she’s barely talking to him or to any of us. He tries to start a few little conversations with Mandy; the music is loud, and Mandy is out of it, so he gives up.

  And then when Mandy opens her presents… well, I don’t know what I expected. Some excitement? Or emotion? When she holds up the little onesie with ducks on it, her face is a sheet of ice. Dylan shifts in his seat. “I picked that one out,” he says, sounding incredibly uncomfortable.

  “Oh.”

  I’m an idiot. I should have made the time to get a couple of things just for her—non-maternity T-shirts, her very own straightening iron—and wrapped them up quickly to mix in with the other stuff. Or in place of the other stuff. I should have thrown a baby shower for my mom, not for Mandy. It’s so obvious now, way too late.

  Ravi excuses himself and asks me to point him toward the restrooms.

  “I’ll show you,” I say. “I have to go, too.” Which is a lie.

  We weave our way through the tables, dodging a pair of cliff divers, moving to let an escaped toddler by, and narrowly avoiding collision with a sopaipilla-bearing waitress. When we get out of the main dining area, I admit to Ravi that I’m lost and I think the bathrooms are on the other side of the indoor lake.

  He turns and says abruptly, “I think I’m going to head home.”

  I knew this wasn’t going well, but I don’t want him to leave. “I wish—”

  “I just—” Ravi turns away from me, gazing off at the waterfall. “Jill, you really…”

  I know what this is. I do know. I’ve been pretending I don’t, but I do. I know why I said those things to him at the coffee shop when he brought up Annalee. I know why I haven’t felt right lately being back together with Dylan. I know.

  Ravi stares at me now, with his kind brown eyes behind glasses, and shakes his head slightly, then starts walking away. I follow.

  “That’s not the exit.” He’s totally not listening. “You’re going to wind up in the caves.” I follow him into the caves, little kids running by us, salsa music pounding. It’s dark. He’s walking fast, toward an area that’s partially blocked by a sign: PLEASE ACCEPT OUR APOLOGIES. THIS AREA IS CLOSED. “Ravi… wait.” I feel silly, ridiculous, chasing him through this dim, fake world, when he clearly wants to get away from me. “Holy shit, Ravi, why can’t you—”

  He turns and in one movement pulls me toward him by my arm. Not hard. But certain. We squish against the wall to hide from the Casa Bonita authorities.

  “Ravi, what—”

  “Maybe you could stop talking for a second.”

  I do. He’s looking at me in this way that makes my breath rapid and shallow. His hand is still around my forearm, firm enough that it would be hard to get away. In a different kind of a situation, I would pull another self-defense move. I would twist my wrist and jerk it toward myself at the weak part of his grip, where his thumb and fingers meet. Then I’d put my hand on his face and push his neck around, using leverage to throw him off balance and put him on the ground, leaving him to be trampled by small children hopped up on soda and fried ice cream.

  I don’t do any of that.

  “I’m not with Annalee. I never really was,” he says, and waits.

  Oh, I think.

  “It’s hard for me to see you with your boyfriend,” he says, and waits some more.

  My vision blurs; my heart races.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asks.

  “You asked me not to talk.”

  He pulls my forearm against his chest. He puts his other arm around my waist. Bends his knees to get closer to my height. I stand on my toes to get closer to his. It happens.

  Lips, tongues, hands.

  Joy. Revival.

  Oh.

  I reach to take off his glasses without stopping what we’re doing.

  There are giggles. A couple of junior high girls have stumbled upon our little scene here. “What are you looking at?” I ask over my shoulder.

  Ravi pulls away. The girls leave. “I think I’m going to head home.”

  No. No. “Yeah, you said that before.”

  “Now you know why.”

  “Why’d you even come tonight?”

  “Morbid curiosity? To see what I’m up against? Because you asked? Definitely not because I thought this would be the perfect place to make a smooth move.”

  Even though what I would like to do is scream “Fire!” so that everyone gets out of the restaurant and Ravi and I can stay in this cave for hours, reason prevails. “Come say good-bye to Mandy. Otherwise it will seem weird. Please?”

  “Jill,” he says in disbelief. “The things I do for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Act normal.”

  We travel back through the cave—the memory of Ravi’s hand still on my arm—past the lake, among the patrons, and find our table… empty. A busboy is clearing the plates. The presents are gone.

  “A guy and a girl were here,” I tell the busboy. “A guy with eyeliner and a really pregnant girl. Did you see them?”

  He doesn’t look up. “They left.”

  Mandy

  Dylan is keeping his promise. I wasn’t sure he would. When we drove to the restaurant, we passed several pawnshops and I wanted to stop then, not wait. This is a time for seizing moments, because you don’t know if you’re going to get an
other one. But he was so worried about how Jill was expecting us and didn’t want to be later than we already were. I thought maybe it was a trick. That when we got there, he’d tell on me to Jill and she’d call Robin and they’d keep me locked up until it was time for the baby to come. Then they’d abandon me at the hospital.

  But he didn’t do that. When Jill and Clark went to the bathroom, he looked at me and said, “We’d better go now.”

  He put all the presents into a bag, and we got our coats and left. Dylan said he’ll keep the presents for me until I come back and get them. I took the duck outfit and the turtle hat and made them fit into my bag, in case I don’t end up coming back.

  Now we’re driving in the part of town where most of the pawnshops are; Dylan keeps not stopping. He’ll slow down at one, or even stop for a few seconds, and then something makes him change his mind and he keeps driving.

  “We need to pick one and stop,” I say. “I still need time to buy my ticket and get the train.” Or the bus, or whatever I’m going to do. Dylan shouldn’t know too many details. Even though he’s keeping his promise now, it’s better to leave him partly in the dark.

  At the next shop there’s a police car out front with its lights flashing. “Nope,” Dylan says.

  “Here,” I say, pointing to another coming up on our right.

  He pulls into one of the four spaces in the small lot out front, and we look into the store.

  “Do you even know how this works?” he asks, the engine still idling. His cell phone rings; he ignores it.

  “No.”

  “Me neither.” He glances at me and laughs a small laugh. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m scared.”

  “We have to just do it. They’ll tell us what to do.” I start to take off my seat belt, and a man comes out of the store and lights a cigarette, the whole time staring a hard stare into the car. He takes a step toward us, gesturing to Dylan to roll down his window.

  “Nope,” Dylan says again, and backs out into the street faster than is really safe, and the tires squeal a little. “Sorry,” he repeats.

  I should have done this on my own. People like Dylan and Jill and Robin—they might have had some bad things happen to them, and they might have pierced eyebrows and lips, and Jill might act tough, but when it gets down to situations like this, they don’t know how to be truly strong. You have to dig down and find some part of you that doesn’t care what people think, doesn’t care if it’s hard, doesn’t care if it hurts, doesn’t care if you have to momentarily experience humiliation, uncertainty, fear. I know.

  “Tell you what,” Dylan says. “I’ll stop at an ATM and give you what you need for the ticket and as much extra as I can take out.” His cell phone rings again. We know it’s Jill.

  “It won’t be enough.” All of my chances to sell the watch whip by in a blur of lights.

  “It’ll be something.”

  We stop at a bank drive-through. He gets money and gives it to me with an expression on his face that tells me he wishes he’d done better.

  “Thanks.”

  By the time we get to the station, it’s past eight. The train going east, the one that would take me back to Omaha, will have already left if it was on time. Still, I don’t rush Dylan or say anything when he takes too much time finding a place to park. Staying calm is an important part of survival and getting from one moment to the next. He helps me in with my bags, watches them while I go to the bathroom. After I pee and wash my hands, I look in the mirror and take deep breaths. I could walk out into the station and tell Dylan to take me back to Robin’s. Nothing has changed yet. Nothing has been ruined. There’s still a window of hope for me here if I’m willing: Go back. Figure out with Robin what we’ll do after I give birth. Trust.

  Trust. That’s the part that makes my willingness stumble. Everything in me says I can trust Robin. But sometimes trust isn’t something you can just choose to do even if it makes sense. All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn’t abandoned me, is me. What I can’t figure out is what staying means and what leaving means.

  If I stay, it means I’m willing to abandon my daughter. If I leave, I think maybe I’m abandoning myself. And that’s one thing that, through all of this, I’ve never done.

  When I come out of the bathroom, I go to the ticket window and talk to a woman there. The train going east is delayed.

  “By how long?”

  In a friendly voice she explains that the passenger train shares the track with freight trains, and if freight trains have troubles, everything else gets off schedule.

  “I didn’t ask why. I asked how long.”

  She frowns. “It’s about an hour out right now. But all I can do is guess. Sometimes they make up time.”

  “What about the train to California?”

  “Westbound is on schedule as of now. But after eastbound makes it out of here, we close the station until morning. You’ll have to go home and then come back. A coach fare…”

  I walk away while she’s still talking. “It’s a little behind schedule,” I tell Dylan so that he’ll keep believing that where I’m going is east, to look for the father.

  “You want me to wait with you?”

  “No, thank you.” I’ll have to think of somewhere to spend the night.

  He puts his hands in his pockets. I sit on the wooden bench. I already feel like I have to pee again, but I just want Dylan to leave before anything happens to me. Emotionally, I mean.

  “Good luck with everything,” he says. “You have my number?”

  I nod.

  “Mandy…”

  “What?”

  “Sorry about how I didn’t come through exactly.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He sits on the bench next to me. His arm touches mine. “You’re gonna come back, right?”

  I look at him.

  “I mean, once you talk to the father and all, you’ll come back and have the baby like you planned.”

  And give her to Robin, he means. The answer is that I don’t know.

  “Yes,” I tell him.

  He exhales and gives me a sitting hug. “Okay. Call me if you need anything, any more money or anything.”

  I nod against his shoulder. He’s a friend, even if he partly failed at his promise tonight. He’s the only friend I have after right now, I think. I squeeze him tighter, as tight as I can with my belly between us, so that he knows I’m not really mad about him being scared of the pawnshops. Not everyone can be brave.

  Jill

  Mom is beside herself, a babbling wreck. She keeps asking me to explain how this happened, as if there could be an explanation, as if I personally have control over the actions of everyone in the world.

  “How could you lose track of Mandy?” She’s frozen to the couch, exactly where she first sat when she came home from her meeting and I told her Mandy and Dylan were sort of missing. She’s still got her laptop bag half over her shoulder.

  “I didn’t lose her. She left.” I’m not doing so great myself—furious with Dylan and at myself because what if it was the stupid baby stuff we bought her that put her over the edge? What was I thinking? And at Mandy. I thought we had a deal; I thought we were a team, and she lied to me after all. Maybe I was right about her in the first place. The only thing I feel calm about is Ravi. Well, relatively calm.

  “Why won’t Dylan answer his phone?” Mom asks.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I’m not Dylan.”

  We’ve tried calling his house, against my advice. I told her it was too soon, that we should wait a little longer, that maybe Mandy didn’t feel well and they stopped at a drugstore for Pepto or something to keep the enchiladas down.

  I didn’t really think that; they wouldn’t have left without saying good-bye.

  “He would have called, or answered,” Mom said, and she was right. Now we’ve got his parents all upset, on top of everything else.

  Mom wants us to go out looking. I tell her to remember what Dad
always said: In case of an emergency, stay right where people would expect you to be. Dad, Dad. Be here now. I’ve never seen Mom like this. Eleven months ago this scene was reversed: It was the day of the accident, me a statue on the couch, her taking care of things and making calls and telling me it would be okay, it would be okay, and now I remember she brought me a glass of bourbon from Dad’s stash. So now I get her some wine and make her watch the public television station instead of the news, just in case there are any horrifying car crashes around town or anything. Public TV is showing a special on the history of domestic cats. In between texting and calling Dylan, I refill her wine, make her talk about the cats. I take off her shoes and slip her bag off her shoulder and tuck a blanket around her.

  “How could Mandy do this?” she asks me, forlorn.

  “We don’t know if she’s done anything. As long as she’s with Dylan, I think she’s okay.”

  “Then why won’t Dylan answer?”

  It’s a circular conversation that keeps winding up back here. I suggest that his phone could be dead or lost; it happens. Then she repeats, “How could Mandy do this?”

  Finally, frustrated with not having an answer, I say, “She doesn’t belong to us.”

  “She does, though.” Mom runs her hand up and down the blanket. “Don’t you think she does? That we all belong together?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You were right. I should have gotten a lawyer.”

  Yes, I was right. But in this moment I don’t want to be right. “Signing something wouldn’t necessarily guarantee anything,” I say. “People are free. Things happen, and you can’t stop them, remember? And Mandy is…” Mandy is what? Crazy? Stupid? Those are words I would have used to describe her a month ago. But what would I do, in her shoes? How would it feel to carry a baby for this long only to give it away? “You know what Dylan said about her once?”

  “What?”

  “That she’s the one who needs a mother.” As I say that, an idea, a memory, shimmers for a fraction of a moment in the back of my mind, but it’s gone before I can figure out what it is.