Forever Bound

by Deanna Roy

  I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. This made me look at my belly, flat beneath the stretchy top of my pajamas.

  The kid was in there. I stared at the pale green stripes as if I could see through them. I had no idea what it looked like. A miniature infant? A fish, swimming around?

  My laptop was on the floor, so I bent down and picked it up. I opened up a browser and typed in, “What do you do if you’re pregnant?”

  That was a mistake. I got a million religious sites about adoption and God loving your baby.

  I typed in a new search. “What happens when you’re pregnant?”

  This time I got a bunch of medical and pregnancy sites. The image results filled with drawings and photographs of floating babies and strange little pink shrimp-like things.

  How did they have photographs of unborn babies? Did they stick something up in you? Was that safe?

  I shuddered. But still, I clicked on one.

  The baby floated inside a clear bubble. Was it really clear? That seemed risky. I didn’t want to move, in case I popped it. How did pregnant people walk around without feeling totally paranoid?

  I angled my head, looking at the kid. It was sucking its thumb, all oblivious. The umbilical cord came out of its belly button, snaking and twisting around. That scared me too. If I turned in a circle, would I get it all tangled? I remembered making toy tornadoes in peanut butter jars as a kid. You twirled the jar and water swirled, tossing around the light bright pegs inside as if they were colorful telephone poles.

  I could see the tornado in my belly. I’d have to quit dance class.

  But people danced when they were pregnant.

  God, I was so ignorant.

  I was about to close the laptop and pretend this had never happened when I spotted an ad in the corner. “How far along are you? Use our tool!”

  I clicked on it. It was some sort of pregnancy calendar. It asked for either the day of my last period or the day I conceived. Well, that was easy.

  I typed in 3-6.

  It took me to a new page that read “Congratulations, you are four weeks pregnant.”

  What? That couldn’t be right. I went back to the previous screen and typed the date in again. The result was the same.

  This time, I read the text. “You conceived two weeks ago. You are just finding out you are pregnant! Congratulations. Pregnancy is counted by the first day of your last period, so you may be adding two weeks to how long it’s been since the baby was conceived.”

  Oh, okay. Got it.

  There was a drawing of something out of a science book, a bunch of pink bubbles stuck together. Underneath, it said, “Your baby is the size of a grain of sand.”

  I looked down at my belly again. Sand? Seriously?

  It really had gotten everywhere.

  ~*´`*~

  I typed up multiple texts to both Tina and Corabelle to tell them about the baby, then deleted each one.

  I thought I could talk to them about anything. Secret fake boyfriends. VD tests. Boy hopping, sometimes without a whole lotta time in between. Boinking my astronomy TA.

  But I couldn’t talk to them about this.

  Corabelle’s baby had died of a heart condition when he was only a week old. Her now-husband Gavin had gotten a vasectomy afterward. They weren’t sure they’d ever have a child together.

  Tina had given birth at seventeen, but her baby was born too premature to survive.

  I couldn’t tell them I’d gotten knocked up by a total stranger. It was too close to home for them. I would say something wrong, destroy our friendship.

  Terror started to set in. What was I going to do? I still had one more quarter term before graduation. But I didn’t have a job. And who would hire me if I was pregnant?

  I flipped on my belly on the sofa, ready to kick my arms and legs like an angry toddler. What the hell had I done?

  My face smashed into the cushion. I was stuck. I had no idea where Chance was. Or even who he was. No way to contact him. If the tabloids hadn’t tracked him down, I surely wasn’t going to have any luck.

  But had they tried?

  I snatched my phone from the coffee table. I typed in “Chance Tennessee musician.”

  I found one guy born in 1925. And a whole lot of want ads for musicians to play in gigs, a “chance” to do something or another.

  Why did he have to have a name that was a common word?

  I dropped the phone to the floor.

  If I couldn’t talk to Tina and Corabelle, then who? Frankie? I couldn’t imagine that conversation. Besides, he was outed with the new boy now. The last thing he needed was speculation that my swelling belly was HIS love child.

  Tears threatened then. I was so not a crier, but I could feel them coming. Probably the hormones. A whole host of new horrible things were about to happen, if Buzzfeed videos were anything to judge by. Was I really going to get hemorrhoids and leaky boobs?

  I had five-inch spike platforms! Designer dresses! Pink godforsaken dreadlocks!

  I clutched a handful and resisted the urge to yank. Stupid hair. I couldn’t even afford to keep it up, and now I would have a baby?

  I collapsed back on the sofa. I never wanted to leave the house again. But I had to pull myself together. I had a vague notion that I was supposed to eat certain things, but not others. And there was something about diet drinks. And hot tubs.

  How did people know all this stuff?

  I got up and paced the room, feeling like a lion in a cage. I needed help. Big-time help.

  Then I paused by a framed photograph. It was taken when I was nine, before all the bad things happened. When my family was still a family, and not a bunch of cinders scattered everywhere. My mom, my dad, and —

  My mind froze on his name. Bry Guy. My little brother. He was seven in the picture, a mess as usual, hair everywhere and his collar crooked. He was a tornado, tearing through our lives with laughter and energy.

  He’d died when I was ten. Nothing was ever the same after.

  I switched my gaze to Dad. He lived in Florida now. I hadn’t gone to see him like he wanted. Probably a good thing, given what had happened.

  And Mom. She lived here in San Diego. Despite the way our family blew apart after Bryan died, she was a good, solid person. She didn’t understand me and my crazy ways. But she would listen. She’d try to dress me in normal clothes and would shake her head at my hair.

  But she’d be there.

  I raced to my bedroom to put on my most normal outfit. I knew what I needed now.

  I needed my mama.

  Chapter 27: Chance

  Now this was better. I could see the song lyrics in my head, how I would write out the scene.

  The rolling hills were green and dotted with trees. The battlegrounds rose and fell in gentle slopes. Along a line, blue cannons on big spindle wheels stood sentry, clean and perfect like soldiers on the march.

  The whole thing felt too pristine, too tidy for the bloodshed that went on here. A Civil War with spectators, northerners who came to the battlefield to witness the quick defeat of the backwater Confederates. Instead of witnessing a decisive victory, however, these voyeurs ended up running in smoky chaos when the battle raged like war does, with death and gunfire and devastation.

  Only a few tourists walked the grounds at this early hour. The morning was cool, a light mist rising from the ground as if the ghosts of the old soldiers were getting up for a day’s work.

  An intricate wood fence was pieced together like a puzzle of timbers, angular and neat. I couldn’t get past how idealized the battlegrounds had become. How long did it take before something so horrible became beautiful again? At least one hundred years, judging by this park.

  I walked along the slope past the sturdy stone house with its blood orange-red door. My father had visited these places once, I knew. He told me stories about these fields when I was young, when he still lived with us.

  I wondered if he had been back here since, if this was still a favorite pl
ace for him. After he left my mother, we got only a rare word back from him, although I know he sent her money. I saw the deposit slips once. But he did not try to see me, or Hannah, who was too young when he left to even remember him.

  Water sluiced down a path, perhaps from a faulty irrigation line, or maybe just a hose left on. The deep, heavy footprint of a boot broke up the perfection of the path. I imagined it could be a relic from some soldier’s tread, or maybe even the mark of my own father’s passage here. I stared at it until an old man carrying a toolbox stopped to peer at me. His shoe matched the print.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  I shrugged off the strange disoriented feeling and shook my head. I turned away, knowing I needed to get back to a city, play for money, earn my next meal. I was burned out, done with this, but still in no mood to go home. I supposed I could look for work, pour cement again, someplace far from Tennessee.

  I felt lost, unmoored, and no longer in a good way.

  I set down my guitar case. I tried calling Charlie but the signal out here was no good with my cheap phone. I wanted to toss it, hurl it onto the battlefield.

  But I needed it. I had to keep that one last line to home, to my sister, to my past. Maybe Charlie was right. I should go home and wage that battle with my mother. Hannah needed to be let go. But I didn’t think I was the man who could do it. I had failed her in every way, been exactly the wrong sort of person, a bad brother, a terrible influence. And in the end, I was responsible for what had happened to her.

  No, it was better that I was miserable, alone, and walking the world with nothing but a guitar and a change of clothes. At least I could do those things. Because of me, my sister could not.

  Chapter 28: Jenny

  To avoid getting dragged on any outings that might make me crazy, I didn’t text my mom that I was coming until I was a couple miles away from her condo.

  I took a deep breath before typing the words.

  Just got through shopping at H&M and thought I’d drop in.

  Both things would make her happy. Shopping at “normal” stores, “non-alternative” stores. And coming to see her.

  I really had stopped by H&M and picked up a maxi dress, figuring I’d need a tent to cover up this belly eventually. Might as well start now. It was right up Mom’s alley, navy and white striped with double straps. It made my eyes cross and had enough fabric for three normal outfits for me. Maybe six. It was long.

  Her complex was simple, four two-story condos in each building, set off with yellow stucco and palm trees. When I parked in a visitor spot close to her door, she stepped out on the porch.

  I could tell the moment when she saw my hair, because her hands clenched in that way they did when she was trying to control herself.

  I plucked the shopping bag from the passenger seat. I wanted to throw up, and not in the way I’d felt the past few days. Pure nerves. I swallowed hard and headed across the parking spaces to her tiny yard lined with pink bougainvillea.

  “My sweet Jenny!” she said, enveloping me in a hug. She looked every bit the urban mother in a smart twin set and slender slacks, her work clothes. Her hair was blond and short and styled into a feathery bob.

  She tugged at one of my pink dreadlocks. “Isn’t this an interesting style?”

  I bit my lip. “It’s new.”

  “It’s definitely different. So to what do I owe this surprise?” she asked.

  “It’s spring break,” I said. “My friends are all out of town.”

  She laughed and led me inside. “Glad I’m the company of last resort.”

  “How was work today?” I asked as I sat at a tall bar that separated her sunny kitchen from a breakfast nook.

  “Same as usual. Lots of paper shuffling.” She worked for an accounting firm, mainly in billing. I was pretty sure I’d rather die than ever do something like that.

  “How was the winter term?” she asked.

  “I did fine. Just one to go,” I said.

  “We should make plans for a graduation party,” she said. “Maybe I can get your father to spring for the club.”

  I tried to picture how much bigger I’d be by then, belly popping out of my graduation gown.

  “Oh, no, something simple. Maybe here?” I looked around as though I admired the place. It was nice enough. Just too boring for my liking, decorated in beiges and browns.

  “We can talk about it later,” she said, her code for “I’ll get my way in the end.”

  It didn’t matter. All our plans were about to be shot.

  “Show me your shopping,” she said.

  I reached down and pulled the dress out of the bag.

  Mom lifted the fabric. “Just lovely,” she said. “Glad to see you’re getting a little more conservative.” Her gaze raked over my tight pink T-shirt and rhinestone-studded jeans, which were, hilariously, the most conservative things in my closet. “Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do after graduation?”

  “I talked to some people two weeks ago,” I said, tucking the dress back in the bag. “In the movie business. Social media management, stuff like that.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “I guess there isn’t a lot to do with a liberal arts degree unless you’re going to grad school.”

  I plucked an apple from a bowl on the counter and turned it in my hands. “Something will pop up.”

  My belly button, for example.

  “I could ask around the firm,” she said. “See what’s coming available.”

  God, accounting. I’d rather turn tricks. But I had to be gracious and grown-up for what was coming, so I said, “Sure, Mom. Sounds good.” I thought about taking a bite of the apple, but then my stomach went queasy. I set it down.

  She went to the refrigerator and filled a glass with water. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Actually, my mouth was already dry with the unsaid news. “That would be great. Water’s fine.”

  She filled a second glass. While she was still looking away, she said, “I can’t help but wonder what’s really going on, Jenny. You’re being way too agreeable.”

  Mom was good like that, knowing how to segue into a tough conversation, leaving the door open for me to lay whatever I’d done lately right on her.

  She turned and set the glasses on the counter. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  I took a long sip, trying to steady myself. There was no way to do this but be straight.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Mom was so startled by my words that she knocked over her water, sending it cascading onto her pale blue cardigan.

  “Oh!” she cried, snatching the glass before it crashed to the floor. She pulled a dish towel from a hook and began soaking up the spill.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I said, not sure what all I was apologizing for. The words. How I said them. The mess.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Just let me get a handle on this.”

  I waited in the tall chair as she soaked up the bulk of the water. I thought she might go back to her bedroom to change, but then she started giggling like a teen. “Wait. Have I gotten the dates wrong? Is it April first already? Is this your April fool?”

  Oh, crap. I broke her. Mom never laughed like this and she certainly always knew the date.

  “You all right, Mom?”

  She bent forward, bracing her palms on her thighs. “You were always such a practical joker, Jenny.” She glanced around. “Did one of your movie friends set up a hidden camera? Are you trying to make a viral video?”

  I clutched the edge of the counter, trying to figure out who this woman was, standing in front of me, completely losing it.

  “Mom, it’s not a joke. You’re scaring me. Please go back to being the straitlaced organized mother who sees the practical side of everything.”

  She held the dish towel to her face despite the fact that it was dripping wet.

  “Mom?” I asked. Now I was getting worried. “Are you okay?”

 
; She stepped forward and dropped the towel on the counter. “Just let me…adjust.”

  I wiggled on the chair, feeling like a little kid in trouble.

  She continued to pass the wet towel over the counter for another minute. Then she stopped and looked up at me.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Her face was drawn tight with confusion. “Was it that movie director man? He’s so much older than you, Jenny.”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re seeing someone new?” she asked.

  I shook my head again.

  She slid onto a stool on the opposite side of the bar. “Well,” she said, “the baby has to have a father.”

  “He’s not in the picture,” I said, deciding not to mention that I didn’t know his last name or if he was even inside the state lines anymore.

  “All right.” She pressed her hands against the counter, still streaked with water. “Have you considered your options?”

  Now, that was unexpected. I didn’t think she’d get all progressive on it.

  “I haven’t thought about anything yet,” I said.

  “How far along are you?”

  “I looked at a website online, and it said four weeks.”

  “Did it give you a due date?”

  I shook my head. “I can look.” I pulled out my cell phone to find the site again.

  Mom got up to pace the kitchen, walking to the fridge and back.

  I focused on the little screen of my phone. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from her. Condemnation. Anger. Disgust.

  Maybe a hug.

  “I never thought this would happen to you,” she said. “I thought you were so independent. Cautious.”

  I figured I’d get a little stern talk, so I kept tapping. My stomach felt like lead, but overall, it hadn’t been as bad as I had imagined.

  I put in the conception date again and clicked past the part where it said the baby was sand. There was a link that said, “Reveal your due date.”

  Mom was back at the counter. “I don’t think you are ready for a baby,” she said.