Brutal Game

by Cara McKenna

  Anne patted his shoulder. “Nothing to fear, champ. Just a massively expensive purchase with no guarantee she’ll say yes.”

  “When you put it that way.”

  “C’mon. Let’s go look at sparkly shit.”

  And since the car was getting cold, he flung his door open and took the next big, icy step into the unknown.

  * * *

  “How’s this?” Laurel asked, holding up a sugar cookie to show Flynn’s sister.

  Heather eyed it in her beady way and nodded. “Perfect.”

  Before them on the kitchen table were tubes of icing and sprinkles and those little silver balls that just had to be poisonous, Laurel imagined. The cookies were supposed to be snowflakes, frosted pale blue and white, but they’d spread a bit in the oven and given the color scheme, they could’ve passed for trussed-up Stars of David.

  She set the test cookie aside and got to work on the rest while Heather layered a lasagna. For a family named Flynn they certainly did lean heavily on Italian bakes. Then again, she’d never before had a meal at Heather’s not bestowed by a surly delivery driver, so it felt very fancy indeed.

  For Laurel, the afternoon was a welcome break from the lingering questions that nagged at her day and night. A week since she’d peed on that stick—and two days since she’d peed on a second one, also positive—and she felt no closer to confident about her decision. But for the next few hours, it wasn’t about her. It was about Kim, and about cookies, and fun and celebration. She just hoped no one noticed her toasting with seltzer water.

  The young woman of the hour was out at the moment picking up her daughter from her ex’s mom’s house, leaving just Laurel and Heather to handle the party prep. Once upon a time this apartment had seemed so harsh and unwelcoming to Laurel, with its cigarette undertones and the incessant drone of the portable TV on the kitchen counter, always tuned to court TV or trashy talk shows.

  Heather herself had initially intimidated the crap out of Laurel, as well. She was nearly fifteen years older than Flynn, an abrasive South Boston native with a lanky build and a hulking presence, a load of auburn hair and clashing roots and no deficit of eye shadow. Everything about Heather Flynn growled, Don’t fuck with me, but Laurel had grown very fond of her. She’d stepped up to raise her brother in her twenties and was every inch the mama bulldog, but she hid a heart of gold behind the sandpaper veneer.

  Her daughter Kim had just completed a certificate program in medical billing. The family, broken though it was, was fiery and proud, and you’d think Kim had just graduated from Harvard with honors.

  Laurel, on the other hand, had had no one cheering when she’d crossed the stage to accept her Bachelor’s in Engineering at Wentworth aside from her classmates, to say nothing of a party to mark the occasion. The whole thing struck her as slightly outlandish but infinitely charming, and she envied Kim, she could admit. Or perhaps it merely humbled her to remember how she’d judged Flynn’s niece when they’d first met, thinking she was a sulky, overgrown teenager who’d had a kid way too young and fucked up her life.

  Joke’s on me, Laurel thought. In no time at all Kim might land a job that paid better than Laurel’s waitressing gig. The engineering market in Boston was tight and competitive, and it didn’t help that she’d let her education lapse. She wanted to kick herself, some days. Now more than ever.

  “You’re quiet.” Heather’s accent was as heavy as her brother’s. Yaw quiet.

  “Am I normally noisy?” Laurel deflected, knowing full well Heather had her pegged.

  “Somethin’s on your mind.”

  Laurel went with the truth, if not the one that really had her preoccupied. “Just thinking about how Kim’s getting her shit together, and here I am, officially thirty, and no closer to a career than I was when I was her age. Makes me realize a Bachelor’s is just a waste of time and money if you’re too much of a coward to use it.”

  “It’s not too late.”

  “I know,” she said, pressing a silver bauble into the center of a blue cookie. “It just looks so bad to potential employers, that I’ve let it get so moldy.”

  “Just keep at it. It’s all well and good kickin’ your own ass if it gets you movin’, but don’t pause long enough to let the self-pity take root. Trust me, I’m Catholic. I know guilt. And guilt gets shit done.”

  “No, I know. And you’re right. For me, inaction is the absolute worst thing. If I think too hard about it, I get scared. And if I get scared, I clam up. It’s just such a slog, sending out résumé after résumé and getting nothing back. Like I’m shouting into the— Oh.” Pain spread through her lower back, slow and intense, as though her tailbone were in a vise. “Oh. Oh, Jesus.”

  Heather glanced up, cheese bag in hand. “You okay?”

  “It’s my back.” She clutched the spot, rubbing, not caring if she was getting frosting on her sweater.

  “You throw it out?”

  Laurel shook her head, gnashed her teeth through a fresh, mean wave of agony. “No,” she groaned. “It’s an ache, but Jesus, it’s so bad. Fuck.” The pain eased and she caught her breath. Goddamn, was this another joy of pregnancy?

  “I’ve got ibuprofen,” Heather said.

  “No, thanks.” She was only supposed to take Tylenol. For someone who wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do about her pregnancy, she’d done her homework. “Damn, I hope that was it.”

  “PMS fun?”

  “Something like that. Whew.” She waved a hand to cool her flushed face, then looked back to the task at hand. “When do you get your new car?” she asked Heather. The old one had “shit the bed,” as Heather put it, not worth the money to replace the engine. Flynn had found her a used one through a coworker’s brother or something.

  “Not ’til the weekend, probably. Worth the wait, though—looks like a good little car. Yaris, it’s called, which is a stupid-ass name. Sounds like a nickname for your twat. But it’s supposed to be reliable. Not a scratch on it, Mike said, which’ll be nice after driving that rust bucket for twelve years…”

  Laurel nodded, half listening. The pain hadn’t gone, merely softened. She felt its nagging pulse and moved in tiny, cautious motions as she worked. There were only three cookies left to ice when another spasm hit, harsh as the first. She moaned and doubled over, staggering to a chair to sit.

  “Shit, girl, you okay?”

  Laurel shook her head, then nodded, unsure. Goddamn, six weeks pregnant and she was already huffing and puffing her way through the pain—how the heck would birth feel, if things went that way?

  “Ah, fuck.” She squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands to her back, trying to radiate their heat into the spot, praying it would calm again soon. There was more, now—cramps deep in her belly, squeezing sensations shot through with hot shocks of pain.

  “I’ve got Vicodin,” Heather said. “It might be expired, but—”

  “No, no. Christ, this hurts so much.”

  “You need me to get you to Urgent Care?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” It was hard to think, and scary besides.

  “I could call a cab— Oh. Laurel.”

  She opened her eyes, finding Heather’s blue ones wide.

  “Baby, you’re bleeding.”

  Laurel looked down to discover a maroon patch spreading across the beige chair pad between her thighs. “Oh. Oh my God.”

  Heather put out a hand, all business. “C’mon. Come to the bathroom. We’ll get you sorted out.”

  Too frightened to argue, Laurel followed in an awkward, tight-legged shuffle, horrified by the wet heat soaking her underwear and jeans.

  I’m losing it.

  I’m losing it.

  Though they were alone in the apartment, Heather shut the bathroom door behind them. “Stand in the tub and get those pants off.”

  Laurel did, barely aware that she was now naked from the waist down before Flynn’s sister. The blood was bright, bright as cherry Kool-Aid. Her back pulsed cruelly but it was her
belly she felt now, with terrible clarity. Cramps as though someone were twisting ropes inside her.

  Heather handed her one warm, damp hand towel and set a dry one on the tub’s edge. “Here, baby. Get yourself cleaned up. I’m gonna find you a pair of pants.”

  Laurel could only nod and obey. While Heather was gone, she tenderly wiped away the blood, then stood there with the dry towel clenched between her thighs. She could feel it still flowing, see it turning the periwinkle terry cloth the color of merlot.

  Heather returned shortly, a lump of patterned fleece tucked under her arm. She unfurled it with a wan smile, revealing a pair of pajama pants covered in hot pink flamingos. “Kim’s. Festive, right?”

  Laurel mustered the world’s limpest smile and looked to the towel.

  “How far along?” Heather asked quietly.

  She jerked her head back up, feeling ten times more naked than she actually was. “Pardon?”

  “I had three miscarriages,” Heather said, crouching to root beneath the sink. She set a plastic pack of maxi pads on the closed toilet and stood. “It’s no fun, I know.”

  “You think that’s what this is?” Laurel asked, voice a tiny whisper. She didn’t have the luxury of googling “six weeks pregnant backache bleeding” just now.

  Heather nodded. “Sorry, baby.” She’d never addressed Laurel by anything other than her name, now three times in five minutes she’d called her “baby”. It was weird. Weird and comforting. “Does Mike know?”

  Laurel nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t planned or anything…”

  “How’s that towel?”

  She eased it gingerly from her body, folded it, pressed a clean section to the spot. It came away red, but the gush had eased. “I think it’s slowing down.”

  “Good. I brought you some of Kim’s undies. I know that’s not your idea of a party but hey, there’ll be a pad, right?” As she said it, she stripped the waxed-papery strips off a maxi pad’s adhesive and pressed it into the underwear, careful and meticulous as though she were wrapping a present. “You keep the rest—we’re a tampon house.”

  Laurel cracked a tiny, frightened smile at that.

  “I can’t give you a lift, but I could call you a cab.”

  “Do you think I need to go to a hospital?” she asked.

  Heather shook her head. “I doubt it. Call your doctor’s nurse line, if they have one, but this looks pretty textbook, speakin’ from experience. If I were you, I’d go home and take it easy.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. And a cab would be good, thanks.” No way she was taking the T, that much was clear.

  “You got it. Here.” Heather handed her the underwear and set the pajamas on the tub’s edge. She picked up the maxi-pad package and studied it, sparing Laurel an audience as she got dressed.

  “Like I said, I had three. I’m happy to talk about it, if you ever need to.”

  “When?” Laurel asked, tugging the fleece up her legs. It felt odd, dry and clean and cozy, even as the rest of the world seemed to be falling down around her.

  “One was after Kim,” Heather said, “when Robbie and I were trying for another kid. Two were before Kim. With those, it was like my body knew what was best for me, since my heart or my religion would never let me get rid of a baby. I prayed for those ones, even if I never came out and spoke the words for real. I felt real guilty both times, like I’d made it happen, but I was relieved. They were a couple years apart, a couple different guys, neither of them up to the challenge—and I wasn’t, either. They were blessings. I can say that now.” Though she crossed herself as she did.

  To Laurel, this didn’t feel like a blessing, or an answered prayer. This felt like robbery. Not robbery of a child, necessarily, but the theft of her will, her choice. Flynn’s as well.

  “I’m not saying that’s what this is for you, though,” Heather said. “You’re different than I was when I was younger. You’ll make a great mom, if you go there. It wasn’t meant to be, this time, and who can say why.”

  Who, indeed? And how the hell was she going to tell Flynn?

  “Don’t say anything to your brother, please.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Tell him I had a migraine or something, and that I’m sorry. Let him enjoy the party, and I’ll tell him when I’m calmer.” And once she’d stopped crying, which she sensed she’d start doing the second she made it to her place, her room. Or maybe just the backseat of the cab.

  “Don’t worry about Mike. You just worry about yourself. You have a hot water bottle at home?”

  “No.”

  “Borrow ours. It’ll help. And that Vicodin’s yours, just say the word.”

  “No, thanks.” She stepped out of the tub, feeling no less naked for the borrowed pajamas clashing with her garnet-colored sweater. Garnet. Christ, that color looked so garish now. So cruel.

  Heather left for a minute and returned with a tote bag. Inside were the pads, Laurel’s jeans in a plastic sack, a hot water bottle, and another bottle—red wine.

  She smiled. “Not as good as Vicodin, but it can’t hurt.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cab’s on its way.”

  “Cool.” So not cool in any way imaginable, that any of this was happening. But one thing was certain amid the fear and confusion—she wanted to get away as soon as possible. She didn’t want to risk running into Flynn. Didn’t want to catch sight of his face, because that’d be the end of her. She wanted to get home, get into her own pajamas, hole up in bed and cry until anything, anything at all, made sense.

  7

  Since many miscarriages occur so early that a woman may not even realize that she is pregnant, it can be difficult to estimate how common miscarriage actually is. Some experts believe that as many as half of all fertilized eggs die before implantation—

  Thump thump thump.

  Laurel jumped at the knock on the bathroom door, halfway to a heart attack.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me.” Flynn’s voice permeated the wood, a rumble that both comforted and unnerved her.

  She was sitting on the tile, back against the tub, phone in hand. Neither of her roommates had been in when she’d gotten home, and just as well. She clicked out of the browser app and shut off her phone. “Come in.”

  The door swung in and there he was. Familiar man in a familiar space, and yet she felt so utterly, irretrievably lost.

  He did a double-take, surprised to find her on the floor. “Hey. How’s your head?”

  She had no reply for that, so she shrugged, no doubt looking sheepish as fuck. “How was the party?”

  “Shitty without you. But also pretty special. I brought you a hunk of cake and some Vicodins Heather insisted you might want.” He held up a paper grocery bag then set it on the counter. “I didn’t explain exactly how terrible an idea that was, obviously.”

  “She’s sweet in her weird way.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.” He closed the toilet and took a seat. “I didn’t know you got migraines. Is it a pregnancy thing?”

  “I…I don’t think so.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be someplace dark?”

  She tried to smile, tried to be candid and brave and dignified, but one twitch of her lips and her entire face crumpled. Tears streaked her cheeks, burning hot.

  “Whoa, honey.” He was on his knees in a beat, cupping her shoulders. “What’s going on?”

  She tried to speak but nothing came, only a rusty squeak. She grabbed the maxi-pad package from the floor beside the toilet, held it up, flung it at the wall with a flash of anger.

  His brows drew together, expression darkening from confusion to horror. “Wait. What is going on?”

  “It’s gone.” The words felt odd, watery, coming from the roof of her mouth, somehow, not her throat. She gulped air. “The pregnancy. It just… I just started bleeding, at your sister’s.”

  “Like a miscarriage?”

  “Yeah. Exactly like that.” />
  For a moment he could only shake his head, looking lost. Looking slapped. “Jesus, Laurel… Does it hurt?”

  “Yeah. So bad.” The pitiful, ringing truth of that opened something inside her, tears coming fast as though a dam had burst. “It hurts really, really bad.”

  “How?”

  “My back. And there’s cramps. But mostly it’s my back.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Not much.”

  “Does it… Are you bleeding now?”

  “Yeah, loads.”

  He squeezed her hands. “Fuck me. Heather said you had a headache.”

  She nodded, catching her breath. She stole one of her hands back to wipe her running nose. “I asked her to tell you that.”

  His brow knitted. “What?”

  “I didn’t want to wreck the party for you.”

  “The fuck?” He paused, caught himself. Sighed and let her other hand go and rubbed his face. He leaned over and freed the toilet paper roll from the dispenser and unfurled a long banner of it to hand to her. “Sorry. I’m not angry at you. I’m just…fuck if I know. Upset, I guess.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  Those blue eyes looked so tired. “So this happened hours ago? How could you not know how bad I’d want to be with you while you’re going through this?”

  “I didn’t know if I wanted that.”

  Hurt settled across his face like a shadow.

  “Not because you aren’t a part of this,” she said, and blew her nose. “Not because you don’t have a right to know or to care, or to want to help. It’s hard to explain.” It was that same instinct that urged cats to hide themselves away when they gave birth, wasn’t it? The same one that made women so grumpy at the height of PMS. Something primal and isolating.

  His expression softened. “What happened? To the baby, I mean.”

  She wished he wouldn’t call it that—it was an embryo. Had been. Nothing more than a little squiggle of cells, or so she took comfort in imagining. She shrugged. “Something genetic, probably.”