Heartbeat

by Elizabeth Scott

  “Yeah,” Caleb says, “It can,” and I say, “Wait, did I just say all that?” and he nods. He isn’t wearing a shirt and he has nice chest muscles and he’s nice and I like him.

  “Okay, Emma, okay, stop and drink this,” Caleb says and I take the glass of water that is suddenly right in front of me. I’m thirsty, but not super thirsty, but somehow the water is all gone and then there is another glass and I drink that too.

  “You put a shirt on,” I say to Caleb, who runs a hand through his hair and looks at me like he hasn’t ever done before, like I’ve made him happy and angry at the same time.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he says and that is such a stupid thing to say that I tell him that and add, “Where else would I go? Who else understands? And besides, I wanted to see you,” and he blinks and his eyes are closed and he has a shirt on but under it is skin—I know that—and I can feel it—yes, there it is, warm under my hand and he jerks back like I’ve hit him and says, “Emma, please.”

  “What?” I say, and I don’t get it, doesn’t he know how this feels? Doesn’t he want to feel this way too?

  Someone groans. It’s not me. Is he sick? I look at him, but he looks okay. He looks great.

  “I feel great,” I say, and he shakes his head like he knows something I don’t. I move toward him and he backs up but not fast, he backs up slow and I see his eyes and I’m not stupid.

  “I never said you were stupid,” he says and I guess I’m still talking but that’s okay. I don’t talk much, I keep so much inside, I am so full of things that hurt but they don’t hurt now. I rest my head on his shoulder, brush my lips over his neck.

  He tastes like salt, like tears. He tastes like pizza and grief and love and fear. He tastes like Caleb and I want more and there is a noise and it isn’t me I am not saying anything now, I know I’m not, and I pull away and it’s Caleb, he is making that noise, a broken, almost animal sound, his head thrown back and I can see a pulse beating in his neck. It’s his heart and it is beating and I can make it beat fast and I like that and I move in again.

  “Emma,” he says, and he sounds so strange, so serious, and I poke his chest because he must get this, I know the things he used to do, he must have felt like this.

  “Emma, you’ll be sorry when you’re sober,” he says, and I look at him and say this—I know I say this—I say, “Why would I ever be sorry for you?” and his mouth brushes across my forehead, my cheek, my neck and I am turning toward him.

  He is so close, he just needs to be a little closer, and my head hurts a little but not so bad. I still feel good and he feels good and I like that. I want it to keep going forever and ever.

  “I can’t,” he says. “I don’t—Emma, I don’t want you to be sorry over me,” and then we are lying down and he is closing his eyes and making soft, desperate noises as I press my face into his neck, his shoulder, and he is turning his mouth away from mine. When I say, “Why?” he says, “Just sleep, okay? Just sleep.”

  “I wanted the baby,” I tell him, and I never meant to say that. I like to pretend I never thought that but I did, and I have said it now and I don’t like this, I don’t like it at all, and he says, “Hey, hey,” his voice soft and I close my eyes and say, “Do you think that’s why she died? Because I wanted the baby too?”

  “No,” he whispers. “No, it wasn’t because of you. Don’t ever think that.”

  “You won’t kiss me,” I whisper because I can and my eyes are heavy and the room is spinning and I don’t feel bad but it’s not like before. I am not floating. I remember things. I remember Dan and the crib and why I had to go.

  “You don’t want to kiss me,” I say, and right before darkness falls he says, “I do. I really, really do,” and I want to think about that but I can’t, I can’t focus like I want to.

  But he said it.

  37

  I wake up during the night, twice, and throw up into Caleb’s trash can.

  He holds my hair back and I try not to feel like an idiot.

  I do anyway.

  “You aren’t an idiot,” he says, his hand rubbing warm circles on my back and I should be embarrassed that I’m still talking.

  I’m not, though. I just feel...

  Well, awful.

  But nice too.

  38

  I have gotten straight A’s every grading period since they started giving A’s until...well, until. I wish there could be a line for that day, that moment where Mom left, something solid people could see.

  So they could see that there is before Mom died, and that there is after.

  The two don’t connect. They can’t. The person who could have held that time together is the reason why it’s separate.

  I always did the right thing. Before, before, before. That was my thing. Doing the right thing.

  I have never had a drink, because it wasn’t the right thing, and I wake up with my head pounding, a vicious, throbbing pain over my right eye, and my mouth tastes like someone stuffed it with smelly cotton balls and I am not at home.

  I am lying on a narrow bed next to Caleb. He smells wonderful and looks wonderful and I know I don’t. I also don’t have that moment you’re supposed to have after you’ve been drinking, the moment where you wonder what you did.

  I know exactly what I did, what I said, and I am so humiliated I can feel my face, nuclear hot and practically glowing, as I look at his closed eyes.

  Which open and look right into mine.

  “Hey,” he says. “Need something for your head?” and it’s like everything is fine, like I didn’t come over and throw myself at him but I did, I know I did, and maybe I didn’t rip off my clothes (thank goodness), but I wanted him and I know he knows it and now—

  “Emma,” he says, and his hand is touching mine. He is holding my hand and I want to die and I also want him to keep holding my hand. “Stop worrying.”

  “I’m not. It’s just that I should go.”

  I start to sit up but it hurts way too much to do that. Caleb keeps holding my hand, and he is looking at me. He remembers last night—of course he does—he wasn’t the one drunk on a bottle of strawberry wine. He didn’t act like an idiot.

  And then he touches me. One hand on my neck, a mirror of where my mouth touched his skin last night.

  “Don’t run,” he says. “I’ve done that, and you just end up back where you started. And I—” He breaks off, blushes and I see the color on his face, his chest, and my body stirs. It wasn’t just last night and the wine that did it. It’s him. He does this to me, melts me all over.

  “I don’t want you to go yet,” he says.

  So I stay.

  I stay, and we eat cold toaster pastries in the light of the rising sun and he gives me water and ibuprofen. We are silent but it’s not a bad silent, it’s a comfortable silent. I thought I’d have to run away, that being drunk and barging in to see him and all the other things meant I had to go.

  When I tell him that he grins and he is so beautiful that I swallow and look at my hands.

  “Since when have you done what you’re supposed to?” he says.

  “Since forever. At least until...” I trail off and all the hurt comes back, everything from last night comes back, Dan and the nursery. The crib.

  I wish I hadn’t seen it.

  I wish I’d never wanted the baby but I did, and look what it cost.

  Caleb hands me another cold toaster pastry.

  “Here,” he says, wrapping my fingers around it, but I can’t eat anymore. I have to go home. I have to see Dan.

  I have to talk to him.

  This time, when I get up, Caleb doesn’t stop me and I see the bed for the first time—really see it, I mean. It’s tiny and we were there, we were both there, and I said—

  “Last night�
��” I start to say, and he stands up too and says, “I know,” and his voice is so serious and he is letting me know it’s okay because this is what you do when you care about someone. You don’t think me, me, me. You think you, you, you.

  I could think that about him. I do think that, and I could think past that.

  I could love him.

  I think I already might, but I don’t want to think about that now.

  “I meant it,” I say in a rush because it’s Caleb and it’s true. “I meant all of it.” I know I am blushing, and I leave then because I can’t say more, I don’t want to say more, there is too much else going on and I shouldn’t—

  My mother is dead and I shouldn’t feel.

  But I do, and I look back when I leave. I watch him smile and see him wave at me.

  And I smile and wave back.

  39

  I notice the sun again as I’m walking home. It surprises me like it did before, but this time I stop and look up at it. I know you’re not supposed to do that, but all that radiant light. All that warmth. It’s just there. Always there.

  My vision is spotted when I look away, and it makes me a little dizzy. Well, that and the hangover, but it was worth it. All of it was worth it and today will be—

  I haven’t thought of a day that way, as what it will be, what it could be, since before Mom died. My days have just been what is.

  I’m not happy, but I’m something close to it.

  Then I walk into the house.

  Dan is standing right by the door and says, “Emma?” like he doesn’t know me. His eyes are bloodshot, almost worried-looking, and when I say, “Yeah?” he just looks at me.

  “Dan,” I say slowly, heading toward the kitchen after a moment has passed and he’s still staring. “Are you going to be okay to drive me to school?”

  “But you...” Dan has followed me into the kitchen and he is speaking strangely, haltingly, like he is having a hard time finding words, and I know he knows that I left the house last night.

  “I went for a walk,” I say, because I have been walking and because the rest is mine. Dan has his nursery and his crib and his baby. I can have last night. The bad—and the good.

  “You were gone all night. I’ve been sitting down here for hours waiting and worrying. Where were you?”

  “Worrying?”

  “Yes, worrying. Where were you?”

  “I went to see a friend.”

  “Who? Not Olivia because when I called her she had no idea where you were.” He leans in a little and then stills. “You’ve been drinking! That’s—you can’t do that!”

  I shrug.

  “I don’t want this kind of thing to happen again. You need to talk to someone, and I think—”

  “You’ve said that before. You say it a lot, actually. But you don’t do anything, do you? It’s all just pretend.”

  “Pretend? I’ve been up all night worried about you. Is that pretending?”

  “You were up putting the crib together for your son,” I say, and he stiffens.

  “Where else is he supposed to sleep? And why is it always ‘your son’? Why isn’t it ever ‘my brother’? Because he is, and your mother would have wanted—”

  “What? This? She would have wanted to be dead? Oh yeah, Dan, she’d be so happy to see her body now. She’d be thrilled to know she’s a collection of wires and machines for what you want.”

  “Your mother wanted—”

  “Don’t. You can say she did all you want but that doesn’t make it true. She was dead, Dan. Dead. You didn’t get to ask her what she wanted. You didn’t know, and you don’t know. You’re just pretending. Again.”

  “No, you don’t know what your mother wanted,” he says, and stares at me so firmly, with such belief in his eyes, that I see where he’s been able to find the strength to do this, to keep Mom’s body lying there, dead but run by machines for the baby.

  He truly believes this is what Mom would have wanted.

  I shake my head at him. “No, see, you know what you wanted. You were there, you saw how scared she was about being pregnant. And you didn’t and don’t care.”

  “She was scared,” he says, and I stare at him, shocked, my head starting to pound again and my stomach churning because he knew, he knew, he knew.

  He knew she was scared.

  “Lisa was terrified she’d never get pregnant,” he says. “And then, when she did, she was terrified she’d lose the baby. She wanted him so much. Don’t you remember how she’d sit with her hand over her stomach? Don’t you know why she did that?”

  My stomach churns again. I don’t like what he’s saying; he’s twisting it all around, he’s not saying she was scared like she actually was, he’s making it sound like she—

  Like she knew what he’d do if she died, and that she’d want it.

  Like he knew her better than me.

  “I saw her,” I say, and I keep my words careful, because I did know her better. I was part of her. I was there every day all the years before Dan ever was.

  I knew she loved him before she told him. She told me first, because she wanted to know how I felt.

  Run, I should have said. Run.

  But I didn’t, and once upon a time Mom was with us and loved us and we loved her and I loved Dan and I believe he loved me and that should have been enough, that should have been everything, but it isn’t and wasn’t because life isn’t like that.

  “I saw her,” I say again. “I saw how she spent two years trying to get pregnant. I heard her crying when she wasn’t, when you were out getting groceries or working in the yard or getting your hair cut. She never cried in front of you, you know. She always smiled and said she knew it would happen and you’d smile. You don’t know what it cost her to say that to you. You got to hear about all the risks. She lived with them, even when the clot made things even riskier.”

  He pales, but I’m not done. “And then she got pregnant. She wanted to make sure, but you started planning right away, you were celebrating when she was still waiting and she’d been waiting for years to be sure. Did you ever even think about what would have happened if she wasn’t pregnant? Did you ever think about how she’d have felt, to see everything you wanted not come true?”

  “I didn’t know she cried,” Dan says and his voice is cracking but I don’t care. I am beyond pity now. He should have heard all of this long ago. He should have seen it but he closed his eyes and just saw what he wanted. He didn’t see what Mom wanted.

  “She knew what was coming,” I say. “From the moment she got pregnant, she was worried, just like you say. But I saw everything, Dan. I saw how hard it was for her to smile. How she moved so slowly, like she was afraid to, and this was Mom, who could change a tire in under a minute and who refinished the floors all by herself who used to dance around the house. She never moved like she had to be afraid until she was pregnant, and you can pretend all you want, but she was scared. She sat with a hand on her belly because deep down, she knew. She knew she was going to die.”

  “She didn’t ever think that,” Dan says, standing up. “You can’t really believe that. You—” He pauses, stares at me. “But you do. You think she believed our baby would kill her?”

  “She never even talked about having it. She let you handle the nursery, and when you and I tried to get her to talk about names, she wouldn’t. Don’t you see what that was? Don’t you get it?”

  “She was scared,” Dan roars, and then sinks to the floor, face in his hands. “Emma, she was scared, but not like you think. She was scared she was going to lose the baby. She wanted to do all those things—the nursery, talk about names—but there had been so many lost babies by then. She used to lie next to me at night and say ‘It was so easy with Emma. Maybe it was too easy. Maybe this is why it’s so hard now.’ She wo
uld say—”

  He looks at me, tears in his eyes. “She would say, ‘I’m not supposed to be this lucky.’ She didn’t think she deserved you and her life and we did talk about the baby. She wanted him, and she never believed she was going to die.”

  “Right. So, she didn’t believe it, and she also said, ‘Oh, by the way, if I die, please make sure to keep my body going, please hook me up to machines and tubes so I can have your baby, Dan.’ Is that what she told you after she said she thought she was too lucky?”

  “That’s—”

  “What? True? Not true? We both know she never got a say because she was scared and then she was dead. You chose for her and you want to pretend it’s what she wanted but you don’t know that. You can’t ever know that.”

  “And you can’t know she would have wanted your brother to die,” he says. “Because that’s what would have happened, and did you ever hear her wish him away? Did she ever tell you he was a mistake? Did she ever whisper that she didn’t want him? We both know she was scared, but I know why and I did what I thought she’d want, and that was to save our son.”

  “You never even asked me,” I say and the words come out in a rush, ripped from me, and he blinks.

  “What?”

  “You never asked me about Mom. You never—it was like you didn’t even notice I was there, in the hospital, when they told us she was dead and then you left because the doctor called you over. You just chose, you chose the baby, and I see my dead mother every day, Dan. I’m seventeen and I see my dead mother and I miss her and I want her back but she can’t come back. She’ll just lie there till the doctor cuts her open and then her body won’t be needed anymore, you won’t need her anymore and it’ll be you and your son. The perfect little family.”

  “Stop this,” Dan says, moving over to the stove, his whole body shaking. “I have loved you since the moment you and your mother let me into your lives. I have always been proud to have you as my daughter but hearing you talk about your mother like this, like she’s nothing to me, like it doesn’t kill me to know that she’s gone, like I don’t miss her like you do or love her at all is bullshit. And you say ‘me and my son,’ but what about you? Is the idea of having a brother that bad? Are you that jealous?”