by Callie Hart
“At first, I was convinced I wasn’t going to be able to cope. I thought I was going to have to hand her over to the state. It wasn’t resentment that I couldn’t go get high or drive around with my friends anymore, though I certainly did feel that way. It wasn’t the worry or the intense panic that I was going to fuck up so badly that I ruined her life somehow, though I thought about that a lot, too. It was the seizures. They started coming faster, progressively getting worse and worse, no matter how many meds or therapeutic treatment courses they put her on. I would sit on the broken tiles in my bathroom with her afterwards, chewing my fingernails off, this seething, dark anger inside of me, taking hold of me…because I knew it. I knew it deep in my bones. I knew this day would come, and I would have to stand here, saying this to you all.”
I take in a breath, trying to stretch out my lungs, to push aside the terrible burning sensation in the back of my throat. There are women crying in the front row. Women crying in all the rows. Men crying, too.
“At some point, that knowledge became something I accepted, though. I stopped thinking about passing her off to be dealt with by someone else. She became more than my sister. She became my responsibility. My sole reason for getting out bed in the morning. She was so young. She was just a kid. She wanted to play and sing and dance, so I gave her as many opportunities to do that as I could. I held her hand when she needed me to. I held her body when it was bruised and broken. I held her close, and I held her tight, and she felt safe despite the illness that was tearing her apart from the inside.
“And now she is gone.” I stare at the tiny coffin for a moment, unable to speak. A heavy, suffocating blanket of hurt hangs over the church; it seems as though even the limestone statues of the saints are holding their breath. Eventually I look away from Millie, closing my eyes. You could hear a pin drop. “I am twenty-six years old,” I whisper. “I am twenty-six years old, and I’ve carried more hurt and suffering on my back than anyone should. Millie carried more, though. She carried it with a light heart, and she never complained. And now that she’s gone, I’m done. I’m done with everything. I’m done with trying so hard to live up to expectations. I’m done trying to hold up the goddamn sky. I’m done trying to be good. To always do the right thing. I mean, where did it get me? I did everything right and she still died. I still couldn’t help her in the end. So fuck it. That’s it.” I open my eyes, scanning the shocked, tear-stained faces that are staring back at me. “And most importantly, I am done with you fuckers.”
I step down from the lectern. I walk past Millie’s coffin, my heart tearing in two as I leave her behind. I walk rigidly down the aisle, toward the exit that seems so far away, and all I can concentrate on is putting one foot in front of the other.
This is what the end of the world feels like.
TWO
SLOANE
SIX WEEKS LATER
“Ice chips?”
“No.”
“Cucumber?”
“No.”
“Milk?”
“No!”
I’m holding a box of tissues in my hand. I consider hurling it at Zeth’s head, but he’s quick on his feet, the projectile would never actually hit him, and the effort involved in throwing the box would probably make me throw up again. My mouth fills with saliva, my stomach rolling heavily. I groan, leaning my forehead against the side of the bathtub.
“I’m not doing it,” Zeth says quietly. “No fucking way.”
I allow my eyes to close, trying to swallow down my urgent need to vomit. When I’m sick with a stomach bug, I will always just stick my fingers down my throat and get it over with. I know throwing up and getting it out of the way will actually make me feel better, if only for a short time, but this is different. I have an interloper setting up camp inside my uterus, and it won’t matter if I’m sick or not. I’ll feel shitty either way, so why put myself through the actual act?
“If you love me, you’ll do it,” I say. God, I sound so pathetic. How many women have I seen suffering from severe morning sickness at the hospital? At least twenty or thirty, I’m guessing. And every single time I’ve treated one of them, I’ve always thought they were being melodramatic. You get pregnant, you throw up. That’s life. That’s how it goes. Surely it can’t be that bad.
But it can. It really can be that bad, and I’m learning just how bad right now. This is karma, teaching me a brutal lesson for not believing my patients.
Zeth leans against the doorjamb, his arms folded across his chest. His lips are pressed together into a disapproving line. There are two vertical creases between his eyebrows, underlining the fact that he’s really not impressed by what I’m requesting of him right now.
“You’re a doctor, Sloane. You know better than anyone on the face of this planet what is and is not good for a growing baby.”
“I know.”
“So explain to me how a MacDonald’s thick shake is going to make anything better right now.”
“It just is, okay! It’s what I want. It’s what I need. It is what the baby needs. Just go and get me the goddamn thick shake, Zeth Mayfair, or by hell’s teeth I will make your life so miserable, you’ll wish you’d never laid eyes on me.”
He blinks. He blinks again. Without saying another word, he spins on the balls of his feet and walks off down the hallway. His boots thump as he makes his way down the stairs. The front door slams.
It’s three-thirty in the morning, and the baddest motherfucker in the state of Washington has just gone out to get me MacDonald’s.
He comes home forty-five minutes later, and I’m exactly where he left me, moping on the bathroom floor. He sinks down beside me, placing a brown paper bag between his legs, then he snakes his arm around me and pulls me to him so that I’m leaning against him.
“You’re fucking impossible,” he informs me, opening up the bag with one hand.
“I know. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
He smirks. It’s one of those oh-my-god-you’re-so-fucking-hot, this-is-how-I-ended-up-pregnant-in-the-first-place smirks. I want to slap it right off his perfect, handsome face. He’s being so kind to me right now, even though I’m acting like I’m fucking possessed. He doesn’t deserve a face slap. He deserves kisses and back rubs. He deserves showering with affection. He deserves the fucking Purple Heart for putting up with my crazy ass. My eyes begin to sting. Zeth takes one look at me and pulls the thick shake he’s just driven down a mountain in the dark to get for me, handing it over as quickly as he can.
“Don’t cry,” he says gruffly. “Please do not fucking cry.”
“I’m not going to. I just feel so bad. I can’t sleep for more than an hour without getting up and puking. I can’t smell bacon without wanting to burn the house down, and I keep snapping at you like a grade-A bitch. I’m a hot mess.” I stick the straw in my mouth and pull. It’s a miracle; as soon as the thick strawberry deliciousness hits my tongue, my body stops freaking out. My stomach quits its incessant heaving and pitching, and my desperate need to cry simply ups and vanishes in smoke.
Ahhhh, MacDonald’s strawberry thick shake. Fixer of all problems. How I love thee. Zeth laughs down his nose when he sees the look of sheer bliss on my face.
“You are a hot mess. But the very best thing about you is that you’re my hot mess. Besides. This is temporary. You’re not always going to be on the verge of stabbing me in the neck with a toothbrush. Are you?” He looks slightly worried.
“No, baby. This, too, shall pass.” The old adage seems appropriate right now. Zeth doesn’t look completely reassured, but his smile does widen.
In some ways, this is all still so foreign to me. Him, being able to kiss me. Him, being able to tell me that he loves me. Having him actually being able to share a bed with me and not try and kill me when he wakes up. The thing is, it’s just so easy to forget how things used to be. He makes this feel normal, when it’s anything but. We met under such dangerous circumstances. We went through so many perilous ordeals together. And
now I’m having his baby, and he’s willing to leave the house in the small hours of the morning to do something he doesn’t particularly agree with, because he knows it will make me happy.
“We just have to get through the next few months. Everything will be fine,” he says.
“Hmm.” I take another draw on the thick shake, the cold penetrating my brain, throbbing at my temples in the very best way. “We have to get through telling my super religious parents you knocked me up first. If we survive that, we’ll be able to survive anything.”
THREE
ZETH
She falls asleep on me, her fingers twitching as she slowly slips into unconsciousness. She barely seems to sleep at all these days, which is perplexing. Doesn’t she need extra sleep because of the baby? Shouldn’t she be really fucking tired all the time? I’m not saying I spent any time on Google, researching how she should be behaving at the moment, or how her body should be reacting to the changes its going through, but…fuck it. So what? I did Google it. Sue me. I’m not a goddamn mind reader. I don’t know the first fucking thing about pregnant women. Aside from the fact that the one I’m currently living with seems to be losing her mind, of course.
I carry her to bed, careful not to wake her. She’ll be waking up for work in a couple of hours; the hospital have cut her down to four eight hour shifts a week, which Sloane considers a grave injustice, but I’m secretly glad she’s not spending thirty-six hours at a time on her feet, forgetting to eat, running around a trauma center like nothing has changed with her. I’d never say that to her face, though. She’d probably lynch me for trying to wrap her in cotton wool when she’s perfectly capable of doing whatever the hell she damn well wants to. She’s so fucking stubborn. It’s hilarious, and worrying, and intensely fucking sexy all at the same time.
I never thought a chick with the beginnings of a baby bump could be a turn on to me. Never. Turns out I was wrong. Turns out, the woman just needed to be Sloane, and she just needed to be knocked up with my child. I place a sheet over her and I sit in the chair by the window, listening to the rain coming down outside. I try not to stare at her stomach. Sometimes it feels like the motherfucking walls are closing in around me, all of the air suddenly sucked out of the room. I’m going to be a father. Me. I am going to be someone’s father. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a terrifying prospect. I’m worried a lot of the time these days, which feels shitty. My head isn’t in the game. I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything other than the obvious: how am I going to be a stable, worthy role model for an infant? Am I going to be able to keep him or her safe? Am I going to drop the poor kid on its head the moment Sloane gives birth and hands me our child? And then there’s the most worrying of all the questions that are constantly ricocheting around the inside of my head: Am I going to be able to love it?
Loving Sloane is easy. It’s as simple as drawing breath. My feelings for her were an unstoppable force of nature I couldn’t have held at bay even if I’d wanted to. She started out as an enigma, and then an addiction. After a while she became a part of me, and there was no me and her. There was just us. But this baby… God. This baby is an unknown entity. I already know I’ll die for the tiny soul forming little by little, day by day inside of the woman I love. I am certain of it. The strength of my conviction is actually a little fucking frightening, because it’s so unexpected.
Dawn arrives, pale, weak sunlight spearing through the clouds down into the valley, the forest below the house coming alive with color as the light touches it: orange, green, brown, yellow, all blending together to create one bright, bold tapestry of autumnal color. Sloane stirs, but she doesn’t wake. Carefully I get up out of the chair and cross the room to her, looking down on her as she sleeps. Her skin seems lit from the inside, glowing and warm. She refuses to see how extraordinarily beautiful pregnancy has made her, but I see it clearly. She’s stunning. Slowly, I reach out a hand and allow it to hover her stomach, just an inch above the tiny swelling that’s only just recently started to protrude.
“You’re in there. You’re really in there, huh?” I whisper. I don’t know who this baby will be, or how it will affect our lives for the better or the worse, but I know how its existence makes me feel, and it’s not what I would have expected. Not even close. I’m glad he or she is slowly growing, getting strong, forming one cell at a time inside of Sloane. I’m glad. It seems beyond right.
I hold my breath, lowering my hand even further, so that I’m almost touching her stomach. My fingertips brush the soft cotton of her Snoopy nightshirt…
Vrrrrrrnnnn vrrrrrrn vrrrrrrrn. Vrrrrrrnnnn vrrrrrrn vrrrrrrrn.
I jerk my hand back, adrenaline crashing through my veins. On the dresser, my cell phone vibrates angrily as a call comes through, a cold, pale blue light washing up the walls. I cross the room quickly and grab it, checking the screen to see who’s calling so early. It’s Michael. Normally I’d ignore him, but he wouldn’t be trying to get a hold of me at this time of the morning unless it was super important.
Sloane hasn’t woken yet, hasn’t even stirred, so I quietly slip out of the bedroom and down the stairs, holding my cell to my ear. “What is it?”
“Insurance adjustors,” Michael says. “They showed up at the warehouse in the middle of the night.”
The warehouse. My former residence. The building the Italians burned down not too long ago, because I refused to work for them. I had Michael set up a perimeter alarm in the hollow shell of the building shortly after the fire gutted the place. The alarm must have been tripped or something.
“What are they looking for?”
“I don’t know.” Michael sounds pensive. “Could be they suspect arson. They were grumbling that the place wasn’t coded for habitation.”
“Good thing no one was living there then.” This is actually true. With Lacey gone and me spending nearly every waking hour with Sloane here at her place, the warehouse was sitting empty for a while there. Still, all of my belongings were there. I’m sure it would be easy enough to come to the conclusion that the place was being used as a residence.
“If they do find out the fire was set on purpose, they’ll open a full investigation. They’ll want to interview you.” Michael obviously knows how little I am going to enjoy the prospect. He sounds apologetic, as if this is all somehow his fault. “I’m going to go and pay the fire chief a visit later on this morning,” he advises. “I just wanted to check in, make sure you were okay with that?”
A visit from Michael isn’t something most people ever wish for. He’s a charming motherfucker with a killer sense of style, but he’s also stone cold when he needs to be. He gets the job done. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t flinch. He’s basically an extension of me.
“I don’t mind. See if you can’t persuade the guys down at the firehouse that this was an electrical fire after all. Rats chewing at cables.”
Michael grunts. “There’s something else.”
“What?” I don’t really even need to bother asking, though. I already know what it’s going to be. We’ve had the same, repeating problem for a while now, and it’s getting really fucking old.
“Mason,” Michael says tightly. “Found him drunk, asleep in the middle of the cage just now. He threw up all over the canvas. He was covered in blood. I think he’s been street fighting again.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, groaning. “Fucking idiot. All right. Make him fucking clean it up. Do not cut him any breaks. I’ll be down there in an hour. Make sure he waits there for me. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“Okay, boss. You got it.”
******
“Goddamn, Mase. What the fuck?”
Michael wasn’t kidding when he said the kid was covered in blood. He’s not just covered. He’s absolutely soaked in crimson. It’s in his hair, down the back of his shirt, his knuckles, his forearms, his entire goddamn face… Some of it belongs to someone else, I’m sure, but by the looks of things most of it is
his. There are three or four open cuts and scrapes on his hands and face that are still bleeding freely, not to mention whatever he has going on on his torso. Great, round patches of blood have soaked through his grey t-shirt, forming black, ominous Rorschach patterns all over his clothes.
“Urggghhhh. I told him not to call you,” Mason groans. He’s lying on his back on the linoleum floor just outside the door to the men’s locker rooms, as if he was headed in their to clean up but couldn’t quite make it before he had to lie down and pass the hell out. “You guys are the worst,” he says, slurring.
Ever since the funeral, this is how it’s been: Mason drinking too much. Mason starting fights. Mason being too fucked up to subsequently defend himself, and Mason getting his ass kicked.
“We’re the worst?” This claim deserves some thought. We are the bad guys. He’s the one constantly breaking into the gym and fucking shit up, and me and Michael are the bad guys. Sounds about right.
I crouch down beside Mason, studying the bloody, bruised mess that is his face. “You have less than thirty seconds to get your ass up and off this floor, motherfucker. Then you and I are going to have words.”
Mason blearily cracks an eye. “You want me to move?”
I don’t say a word. I let him take in the look on my face. He needs to see how fucking pissed I am, and I don’t need words to demonstrate that. One glance at my expression is enough to do that just fine.
“Zeth, I—”
“Thirty seconds. I’ll be waiting in my office.” I get up and I cross the gym, flicking on light switches and ceiling fans as I go. It’s a strange life, being a small business owner after so many years of breaking the law (along with other people’s bones). I never thought I’d end up following a ritualistic routine each morning, putting the coffee pot on, starting up the AC, sitting down in front of a computer to respond to emails. Okay, so most of the time I don’t deal with that part of the gym’s day-to-day operation, but sometimes, when I have a second, I’ll take a run at replying to messages. There are five in my inbox when I open it up, killing some time before Mason can drag his carcass up the short flight of stairs to come talk to me.
