Hazel's Theory of Evolution

by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

  Maybe I’ve never fit in at school, but I’ve always 100% belonged at home. What would it be like to be bounced from family to family? For someone to say, “You go here.” “No, you go HERE.” “Actually, you don’t belong anywhere at all.” It sounds lonely and confusing. It’s a good thing red pandas are probably too busy eating bamboo to care what a bunch of scientists think.

  I looked up every time I heard the approach of engines, but the cars never stopped on the tree-lined road, bumping over the railroad tracks and away.

  5:29. 5:47. 6:03. Why weren’t they back yet? Now it was milking time. I thought about taking care of it myself, even though it was Rowan’s job. Actually, I thought about doing it because it was Rowan’s job. I imagined my family coming home and Rowan heading to the barn and me saying, “Don’t bother. The little sister you were so worried about took care of everything.” But I couldn’t bear to turn from the road.

  I put aside my notebook and hugged my knees, feeling awful. I was hungry again, but the awfulness dulled my hunger. Arby crept up beside me, nudging my arm. I stroked her ears, barely noticing their softness. I felt like I was being eaten from the inside out—like inside me was an emptiness that kept inflating and stretching, pushing my atoms farther apart until I was nothing but the spaces in between.

  They ought to have come back by now. Something bad must’ve happened. I didn’t want to think it, but I did anyway: something like another miscarriage.

  The word miscarriage made me picture a baby carriage rolling off course down a steep hill—and when you caught up to it, all out of breath, you peeled back the blanket and the carriage was empty. At least, that was how I’d pictured it since Lena.

  Before that, I’d only heard the word in the legal sense. Mimi was a public defender. She represented people who’d been accused of crimes but couldn’t afford to hire their own lawyers, so the court appointed them one for free. Mimi made sure they got a fair chance in court.

  “But aren’t some of them guilty?” I’d asked her once.

  “You mean, did they break the law?” Mimi had asked. “Maybe, maybe not. These things are rarely cut-and-dry. Maybe the punishment is too harsh for the crime. Maybe my client is getting more than their share of the blame. Or maybe they did absolutely nothing wrong. There are many ways justice can be miscarried.”

  That’s what a miscarriage meant, whether it happened in a courtroom or a uterus. Something had gone wrong, and the result was completely unfair.

  The sun was low. The day had been warm, but I shivered in the long shadows. Finally, at 6:43, they arrived. First the light green Thimbleweed Farm van. Mom got out of that one. Then Mimi’s gleaming black Jetta, with her and Rowan. Mimi had her attaché case, and Rowan carried a brown paper bag in each arm. Arby bounced up, barking, and skittered to greet everyone, but I stayed hunched on the stoop.

  “What’s wrong?” Mom said, hustling over. “Hazy, are you all right? You didn’t lose your key, did you? Remember there’s a spare in the—”

  “I didn’t lose my key.” My brain repeated, Something bad, something bad. “It’s six forty-three.” I looked at my watch again. “Six forty-four.”

  “I know,” Mom said, “I’m so sorry. Like we said, the doctor was running late, and then we had a lot of questions, and by that time we thought we might as well pick up dinner—”

  I must’ve looked as confused as I felt.

  Mimi said, “Didn’t you get my messages? I called the landline twice. The first time to let you know the appointment was starting late, and the second time when we were leaving the doctor’s office, to ask if you had any special requests for dinner.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t hear the phone. I was out here waiting.”

  Rowan rolled his eyes. “Next time, why don’t you check to make sure you actually need to be worried?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t explain about the empty crib in the empty house and how it had made me shiver. It was exactly the sort of anti-kittens-and-rainbows stuff I’d sworn not to say.

  Mimi hugged me around the shoulders. “Come on. We got Indian food. Let’s eat, and we can tell you more about the appointment.”

  Sure enough, the rich scent of curried potato wafted from the paper bags. “Did you get samosas?” I asked.

  “Did we ever,” Mom said. “And dal, and palak paneer, and aloo gobi . . . all your favorites. That reminds me, there are four mango lassis in the backseat of the van. I’d better get them before days pass and they turn into mango-flavored cheese.”

  The appointment had gone fine. Obviously. There was nothing to worry about. Unless the doctor had missed something. Unless something unexplained was lurking around the bend.

  I fed Arby, and she tucked in, scattering as much kibble on the linoleum around her as went down her throat. The rest of us sat at the table, everyone inundating me with information as we passed around the food, piling basmati rice on our plates and scooping the different vegetable dishes on top: lentils, creamed spinach with cheese cubes, potato and cauliflower in tomato sauce. It was comfort food, and I needed it.

  “It’s too bad you weren’t there,” Rowan said. “The ultrasound was so cool. What was onscreen was literally happening inside Mimi.”

  “We’ve got pictures, though,” Mom said hastily. “Where did those end up?”

  Mimi said, “I stuck them in my attaché. I’ll get them out after dinner.” She studied me across her plate, which had only rice with a dab of mild dal. “Assuming you want to see them.”

  She seemed to know part of me didn’t want to. But if she’d been disappointed I hadn’t gone to the appointment in the first place, she’d feel even worse if I didn’t look at the pictures. So I nodded, popping a piece of cauliflower in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to lie with words.

  “Oh!” Mom said. “We found out the baby’s sex.”

  “They make mistakes all the time, you know,” I said, swallowing. “The doctor thinks it’s a girl, but the penis is tucked between its legs. Or the doctor thinks it’s a boy, but they’re seeing the umbilical cord.” Rowan wasn’t the only one who’d been reading up.

  “That’s true,” Mimi said, “and—”

  “Or the baby could be intersex. That’s when the baby has anatomy or chromosomes that don’t fit the typical definitions of male or female.”

  “I know what intersex means,” Mimi said, “but—”

  “Or what if the baby’s transgender?” I said, thinking of Antoine and Carina. “Or it could be nonbinary. That’s when a person doesn’t identify as exclusively male or female.”

  “Hazel!” Mimi said sharply. “Thank you for presenting the possibilities. I recognize the limits of technology. I recognize the possibility of physician error. I recognize that gender exists on a spectrum and is not determined by body parts. But since this is the world we live in, I am going to trust the ultrasound and refer to this baby as a girl until she is old enough to express otherwise.”

  “So, you’re saying it’s a girl,” I said.

  “As far as we know, yes, it’s a girl.”

  Mimi smiled. Mom smiled. I choked on my aloo gobi.

  “Go down the wrong way?” Mom asked, patting my back.

  I took a long sip of milk. “I think it was a slice of jalapeño.”

  I hadn’t expected knowing the baby’s sex to change how I felt, but suddenly everything seemed even more real, even more dangerous. And it didn’t have anything to do with whether the baby was (probably) a girl or (probably not) a boy. It was calling it she or he.

  An it was a thing. Things got lost or broken all the time.

  A she or a he was a person. A person could break your heart.

  A knock came at my bedroom door. Arby jumped off my bed with a little rrruff to investigate.

  “Hazel.” Mimi’s voice filtered through the wood. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

  The door opened. Mimi had changed out of her work slacks and blouse i
nto lounge pants and a fleece that masked her slightly swollen belly. She sat on the bed beside me. I stared at the ultrasound pictures in her hand—unwillingly, yet somehow unable to look elsewhere. Against the smudgy, black background was the white, sketchy outline of the baby’s head. Her lips pouted. Her hands were drawn up to her chin. She looked about to whisper a secret.

  “I’m not out to make you feel guilty,” Mimi said, “but when I heard the heartbeat today, I really wished you were there with the rest of us.”

  Of course, right away I felt guilty. “Why? What did it matter if I was there or not?”

  “Nothing to the baby, but I wanted you to hear it. I wanted you to know things are okay.”

  I forgot Rowan’s threats. I couldn’t stop myself from adding darkly, “For now.”

  Mimi sighed. “For now. And hopefully until it—she—is born.”

  “Did you use Mr. Perfect?” I asked.

  Mimi shook her head. “What happened before may have had nothing to do with him, but it seemed too risky.”

  “Good.” I was curious what the new donor was like, but maybe it was better not to know. He might turn out to be a disappointment, too.

  “I hope so,” Mimi said. “I hope all my worries are for nothing. But the truth is, I hadn’t even wanted you and Rowan at the ultrasound at first. Mom’s the one who convinced me.”

  “Why didn’t you want us there?”

  “I guess I was scared the doctor would get the picture up on the screen and see that the baby wasn’t developing correctly. Or that there wouldn’t be a heartbeat at all.”

  My breath caught, but I didn’t say anything.

  “I try to be optimistic,” Mimi continued, “but inside I’m scared to death. I’m so scared I won’t even let myself think about what scares me. And that’s not even accounting for ordinary mom fears like how can I claim responsibility for such a tiny, vulnerable human, how can we balance careers and motherhood, and can we honestly afford to send another kid to college?”

  “Then why do it?” I said. “You’ve got Rowan and me. Why do you need another kid? Is it because we’re not really yours?”

  “Excuse me?” Mimi said sharply. “Hazel Maud Brownlee-Wellington. We share a name. I’m listed on your birth certificate. So what if you didn’t hang out in my uterus for nine months? You are mine—really mine. Don’t let me hear you say otherwise again.”

  “I know.” I squirmed. “But it’s different from having a baby from your own body, isn’t it? Even if we don’t want it to be?”

  “Oh, babe. You don’t shy away from the tough questions, do you?” She sighed and stared at the scans. “You’re right. I want to make it simple, because in some ways it is: you’re my daughter, and I love you completely. But in other ways, it’s complicated.”

  “Because of how the world sees us?”

  “I’ve never been overly worried about what the world thinks,” Mimi said. “No, it’s something from inside myself—a very deep desire to create and carry a child who’s literally part of me. It’s beyond reason. I guess it’s what you’d call instinct. The innate drive to procreate.”

  I thought that over. All animals, including humans, had instincts to help them stay alive in the moment. To fight, flee, or freeze in the face of danger. To find water and food. To compete in some situations, cooperate in others. Then there were the instincts that helped species survive from one generation to another. That was what Mimi meant. Mating. Pair bonding. Procreating.

  But did everyone have to? Of course I wanted to know where my next meal was coming from, and if a tornado plowed through our neck of the woods, you’d find me hiding underground like any sensible person with a basement. The other stuff, though—the mating, the procreating—did those instincts apply to everyone, or could you opt out? I’d never dreamed of getting married and having kids when I was grown up. Maybe I’d adopt, but I wasn’t even sure about that. Mostly I wanted a lot of dogs.

  “I don’t think I have the drive to procreate,” I said.

  Mimi threw back her head and laughed. “Good. Trust me, I don’t want my thirteen-year-old daughter procreating anytime soon.”

  I shook my head. “I meant ever.”

  Mimi set the scans aside and drew me against her. She smelled like the coconut and hibiscus of her pomade, and a little like curry. “That would be all right, too. Not everyone does, and thank goodness, with seven billion people on this Earth.”

  “It’s actually more like seven and a half billion,” I said. “FYI.”

  She kissed my forehead and told me to get on with my homework.

  I stared at the door long after she’d closed it behind her. Talking with Mimi had felt good, but now I realized what she’d done. She’d hauled me up the hill of hope beside her, and I hadn’t even put up a struggle. I needed to slide back down before I got hurt.

  Chapter 8

  Life at Finley became routine. My feet marched me to each class. My teachers knew my name, and I knew theirs. I kept to myself, except for lunch, when I sat with Carina.

  We mainly talked about school. I gave her tips on algebra, and she freaked out, in a good way, over all the poems and novels we were going to read in language arts, especially The Hobbit—“Which I’ve already read twice, but I can’t wait to read again.” I liked the sound of Animal Farm, until the teacher told us it was an allegory. In other words, it wasn’t really about farm animals. What fun was that?

  Yosh and I hadn’t said a word to each other that wasn’t called for by one of Mrs. Paradisi’s activities. His drawing was still tucked in the back of my folder. I wasn’t sure why I was saving it. Every time I caught a glimpse of that green-feathered bird boy saying “I go bananas for Britannica,” I felt vaguely annoyed.

  Meanwhile, I counted down to my next sleepover with Becca. Friday night, we’d make dessert—we had a bunch of apples that would be perfect for pie—and stay up watching a movie. Saturday morning, we’d go to the farmers’ market with Mom. She was all set to debut her new orange-clove and bergamot-fir products, and if they sold well—or even if they didn’t—Mom would give us money to buy spiced cider and doughnuts. As for the baby news, if Mimi wanted to tell Becca, that was her decision. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I accepted it.

  But the night before, Becca called. “Don’t be mad, but I need to cancel.”

  I was confused. Why did she think I’d be mad? I knew she wouldn’t cancel without good reason. “I’m not mad,” I said.

  The air gushed out of her. “Good. I’m sorry. Obviously.”

  “It’s okay. What’s going on?”

  She got quiet. A squirmy kind of quiet.

  “I hope nobody died.” I figured I’d put that out there. It was the worst possible thing that could’ve happened, right? Nothing else was very important in comparison.

  “Nobody died.”

  “Good. Um. I hope nobody’s sick.”

  “Nobody’s sick.” She sighed. “It’s . . . a school thing.”

  “Oh. A field trip?”

  “No, not a field trip. Look, don’t be mad—”

  “I told you I’m not mad!” Honestly, I was starting to get mad. Just a little.

  Becca took a deep breath. “I joined cheerleading.”

  “Cheerleading?” I echoed, though what else could she have said? “With pompoms? And skirts? And Kirsten Van Hoorn?” With each word, my voice went up. Up in volume. Up in pitch.

  “You promised not to be mad,” Becca said. “And you know what? Kirsten was really encouraging to me. She’s the one who convinced me to try out.”

  “Kirsten,” I repeated. “Convinced you to try out.”

  I could almost hear Becca nibbling her hair as she mumbled, “She’s not so bad.”

  “It’s because of her that people called me Goat Girl, and Skunk Girl.”

  “I know, I know,” Becca said. “She hasn’t always been nice to you.”

  Always? Try never. And it wasn’t like she’d been especially nice to Becca, either,
as Goat Girl’s best friend.

  “How are you good enough to be on the team?” I said. “Can you even do a cartwheel?”

  “I practiced.” Becca sounded hurt, and I realized I’d been sort of mean. Still, they were legitimate questions. “I’m not perfect, but I made it.”

  School had just started. How could a person practice hard enough in that time to go from not knowing anything to making the team? Or had she been practicing even longer, in secret? I’d known Becca five years. She’d never mentioned an interest in cheerleading. Not once.

  Becca continued, “Some of the girls who were cheerleaders last year helped me. We got permission to use the gym during lunch period.”

  Some of the girls. Which obviously included Kirsten.

  “That’s nice,” I said, making it clear I didn’t think it was nice at all.

  Her own voice rose. “Did you expect me to sit all by myself in the cafeteria, now that you’re gone?”

  I wasn’t used to Becca getting angry, and definitely not at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just surprised. And disappointed.”

  “That I’d be a cheerleader?”

  “No, not that,” I said, even though it was only partly true. Cheerleading was technically open to everyone, but only girls seemed to join. It wasn’t fair that girls cheered on boys at their games, but not vice versa. “I meant that you can’t come over this weekend. I miss you.”

  “I really am sorry.” Becca’s voice softened. “I miss you too. But there’s an intensive training this weekend because the first football game is next week.”

  “All weekend?”

  “All weekend.”

  “And you just found out today?”

  There was another squirmy silence. Becca said, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you ever since the auditions last week.”

  “Last week!” I almost choked on the words.

  “I knew you’d get mad. You’d say you wouldn’t get mad, but you’d get mad anyway.” She wasn’t accusatory. If anything, she sounded apologetic, which only made me feel worse.