Sarah's Choice

by Rebecca St. James

  “As a heart attack. Thank goodness your grandmother assumed Katie was two months premature . . . even though that kid weighed in at almost eight pounds.” He gave Matt a lopsided grin. “People believe what they want to believe sometimes. The point is, it all worked out.”

  “And you’ve never felt like you had a gun to your head or something?”

  “Is that how you’re feeling?”

  Clay paused to let Brittany survey Matt’s glass and tell him to drink up because he was falling behind, and then move on to the now-rowdy businessmen before he leaned in to continue. Matt leaned in too. The light above the table formed a yellow disk around them.

  “Look, Matt, for some reason, people these days, they fall in love . . . they get married . . .” He measured out the time line on the table with the side of his hand. “They fall out of love . . . they get divorced. We said we weren’t going to do that. Granted, it was hard. But you know what?”

  Matt shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Most people give up before they get to the good stuff. And the good stuff isn’t good. It’s great.” Clay tapped Matt’s arm. “You could have the great stuff, but you can only get it by going through the hard stuff. Because that’s where the great stuff is.” His eyes burned into Matt’s. “It’s called being a man, buddy. I don’t regret a thing.”

  “Not even having another kid on the way?”

  Clay waved him off. “Women should learn to tell their husbands they’re pregnant on a Friday. That way they have all weekend to let it sink in—y’know, have their nervous breakdown before they have to head back into the world.”

  “So you’re cool with it?”

  “I am.”

  “Even the whole college thing?”

  “Hey, I’m thinking of it as my retirement plan. They’ll all need a good education to support me in my old age.” Clay raised his glass. “I have expensive tastes, you know.”

  “What is that anyway?”

  “7UP. Listen, this is on me so get a fresh Coke. That one’s watered down.”

  Matt nodded but his mind was far from a soda refill. It all made sense, what Uncle Clay said. But did he have what it took for a long haul? When had he stuck with anything?

  Clay was watching him. “I get that it’s overwhelming right now. But think of it like your desk when it’s covered with paperwork. What do you do? You take it one piece at a time and decide what’s important to do now.”

  Matt had to grin. “That’s not exactly something I can relate to.”

  “Right. Which brings me back to what we were talking about before.” Clay put both palms up before Matt could protest. “We’ll get to that another time. Look, I know I give you a lot of grief, but you can come to me whenever you need to. I mean that, buddy.”

  A new Coke arrived, and Clay bantered with Brittany while Matt waited for the surge that usually happened when somebody said, “Hey, do this.”

  Right. The same surge that had thrust him into flimsy moneymaking schemes and juvenile practical jokes. The take-the-risk surge that kept him moving . . . where? Forward?

  Or around in circles?

  There was no doubt Uncle Clay’s advice was good. But he couldn’t just take it and run with it this time. Not yet. Because this time he’d be running with Sarah’s life too.

  And their baby’s.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sarah had just finished trying to eat a can of soup that couldn’t hold a birthday candle to Audrey’s when the doorbell rang. She ignored it and waited for the inevitable rent notice to appear under the door. What would it be this time? A wanted poster with her picture on it?

  She was just about to yell that she’d pay Catfish with interest tomorrow if he would just go away, when a voice throbbed through the door.

  “Sarah. It’s Mom. I need to talk to you.”

  Biting back, What in the world are you doing driving in this storm? Sarah unlocked the bolt. It was snowing too hard to make her mother wait outside while she prepared a statement.

  Agnes stood there, diminished and frail, as if she’d aged ten years since last night. Sarah knocked back the guilt and said, “Come in, Mom.”

  By the time she got the door closed and re-bolted, her mother had wandered into the bedroom/living room/everything else room. Sarah shoved her boots against the wall with her foot and grabbed the skirt and top she’d shed onto the floor when she got home from work.

  What was she doing? Tidying? As if her mother wasn’t already staring into the kitchen with an appalled look on her face. Sarah noticed for the first time that the trash can was overflowing onto the floor mat, whose original blue had morphed to a winter-street gray.

  “I know it’s a mess,” Sarah said.

  Agnes turned to her and shook her head until strands of gray separated from the always-neat curls as if they, too, were frantic. Sarah could see her Adam’s apple struggling as she tried to swallow.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” she said. “Do you want some tea?”

  “I want to talk. Like two grown women.”

  Sarah dumped the contents of the chair onto the floor and nodded for her mother to sit. “I’m willing to try that, as long as you leave God out of it.”

  Agnes took a breath and held it in for a long moment. Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out Sarah’s Dad-scarf.

  “You left this last night. I knew you’d want it back.”

  “Thanks. Let me take your coat—”

  “Sarah, have you thought about what your father would say about this? You always trusted him—”

  “I can’t go there either, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you have to go somewhere! You’re obviously not able to think this out for yourself.”

  The tension that had drained out of Sarah after her lunch with Audrey threatened to snap again. But she pulled back on it. She couldn’t put that wounded look on her mother’s face twice. The frenzied one she wore now was pained enough.

  “Sarah,” Agnes said, “you haven’t thought at all about what your father would say to you?”

  “I have, actually.” Sarah went to the hook by the door and hung the scarf. She kept her back to her mother. “I was standing out in the snow the other day, thinking about how we used to go skiing together. And you know what I think he might say to me right now?”

  “I think I do.”

  Sarah faced her. “I think he might say, ‘Go for your dream, Sarah. I never got to go for mine.’ ”

  Agnes stood up so abruptly Sarah took a step back. “Have you ever thought this isn’t all about you?”

  Sarah jerked her arms into a fold across her chest. “Who is it about, Mom? You? Are you afraid of what the people in the church will say?”

  “What I’m afraid of is . . . I’ve already lost my husband. I can’t lose you too.”

  “The only way you’re going to lose me is if you keep driving me away.”

  “But I can’t accept you having an abortion, Sarah. It’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know if I’m having an abortion!” Sarah pressed her palms together and breathed. “Whatever I do,” she said, “I have to do it alone.”

  Her mother put her hand to her face as if Sarah had slapped her. “Then you will be alone. I can’t . . . I’m done.”

  Agnes somehow pushed past her and fumbled with the bolt.

  “Mom—”

  “Just let me out, Sarah. I have to get out.”

  Sarah turned the lock, but she couldn’t get to the doorknob before her mother twisted it with a shaking claw and thrust herself into the cold. Sarah went after her.

  “Mom, don’t leave like this.”

  Agnes halted at the top of the stairs leading down to the parking lot, but she didn’t turn to Sarah. She poked at her phone and pushed it against her ear.

  “Denise!” she cried into it. “It’s happening again!”

  Before Sarah got to her, Agnes grabbed at her chest and sank against the railing. Sarah caught her befor
e she could hit the frozen concrete. She heard her sister shouting through the phone Agnes still clutched in her fingers.

  Sarah pressed her mother’s body against hers and pried the cell from her fingers.

  “Denise!” she said. “I think Mom’s having a heart attack.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “She’s holding her chest, and it sounds like she’s having trouble breathing.”

  Agnes groped for the phone. “Let me talk to Denise!”

  “Mom, I have to call 911—”

  “Sarah, don’t. She’s having a panic attack.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because it happened Friday night after you left. Let me talk to her.”

  Sarah didn’t have much choice as Agnes somehow managed to snatch the phone from her. By then Sarah was sure her mother was hyperventilating, and she tried to guide her back toward her still-open doorway. Agnes dug her heels in with surprising strength and shook her head at Sarah with a vehemence she hadn’t seen since she was twelve.

  “I have to stay outside—”

  “It’s snowing, Mom. You don’t even have gloves on—”

  “Just until I can breathe.”

  She pulled away from Sarah, phone still at her ear, and nodded at whatever Denise was telling her, which was apparently to walk and breathe and say over and over, “I’m going to be all right. Everything will be okay.”

  Sarah watched her own breath heave dense puffs into the night air. She felt like having a panic attack herself. Because they were all so far from okay.

  Denise was right. Sarah only vaguely remembered her mother’s attacks back when Sarah was in high school. It was always Denise and her dad who handled them, and, true to form, Denise oozed at least a temporary calm into their mother now until Agnes said she could get in the cab Sarah reluctantly called for her. The driver careened in about thirty seconds later; he probably hadn’t gone far after he dropped her off. If Agnes had driven herself in her fifteen-year-old Mercury, there was no way Sarah would have let her leave. Even so, setting her out with her hands still trembling like dry leaves and her nearly blue lips still murmuring, “I’m all right,” was against her better judgment.

  But then, how much had she been able to trust her judgment lately, anyway?

  Her mother’s shoulder hardened as Sarah tried to assist her into the backseat, but still Sarah said, “Call me when you get home. I want to know you’re all right.”

  Agnes abandoned her mantra and looked up at Sarah with wet, red-rimmed eyes. “I won’t be all right until you do the right thing.”

  Then she stared straight ahead until Sarah closed the door. The driver took off and shot a pile of gray icy slush across her feet. She didn’t realize until then that she wasn’t wearing shoes.

  She’d long since lost feeling up to her ankles. Her feet were mere stumps as she plodded her way back toward the building with her arms wrapped uselessly around the thin, snow-soaked hoodie that clung to her ribs. Head down against the blistering wind, she headed toward the steps—and plowed into a scrawny body that materialized among the flakes.

  Even through a nearly frostbitten nose she could tell it was Catfish.

  “I am so not in the mood,” she said, and tried to maneuver around him, but she was too cold-slow. He planted himself on the first step and poked a finger close to her face.

  “Two months,” he said.

  Sarah grabbed for the digit and missed, which was fortunate because she was sure she would have bitten it off in the rage that bulleted through her.

  Apparently Catfish sensed none of that. It was his face he poked close to her this time, so close she could see the cobweb of red lines in his eyes.

  “You owe for two months.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why haven’t you paid?”

  “I told you I was going to. And I will. Look, just let me by. My feet are frozen up to my knees—”

  “I’ll follow you to your apartment and you can write me a check.”

  “Get out of my way, you heartless little . . . hipster.”

  An expletive slipped between his lips. “Heartless? Look, I’ve cut you more slack than anybody—”

  “Then cut me some more!”

  Sarah tried to shove him, but the wraith look was deceptive. He didn’t budge, and panic and anger and the horror of losing her toes gathered like a fist.

  “I’ll get you the stupid rent tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s too late. I get it tonight, or the landlord’s getting involved—and you don’t want that, trust me. Look, I can’t help it if you blow your paychecks on—”

  “Shut. Up. Just shut up! My mother just had a panic attack in front of my apartment—my boyfriend is like a twelve-year-old—and I’m pregnant. I said I’ll pay you tomorrow, and if you don’t get out of my way right now, I will punch you in the face.”

  Catfish blinked and stepped mutely aside. Sarah tried to rush forward but her feet would only hobble up the steps. When she reached the top, Catfish called to her.

  “Hey. Are you really pregnant?”

  “No,” Sarah said without turning around.

  “Oh. I was going to say congratulations.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure which part of that tipped her over the brink. She hardly made it inside her apartment before she went to the floor. Cold air bit through the doorway and she kicked the door shut. Her body was numb, but she still felt the blows of the sobs that hit her hard. She couldn’t fight back. She could only crawl to the bed and tear off her half-frozen clothes and hurl herself under the covers until she stopped shaking and sobbing and submitting to the punches of someone beating herself up.

  Why had she blurted all of that out like projectile vomiting—and on Catfish, of all people? She owed him the rent. She should have paid him a month ago, for both months. But everything had pointed to her getting the promotion and being able to leave this dump, as Megan called it. It was, in fact, Megan who advised her to put him off so she could buy the necessary professional accoutrements. Spoken with a French accent.

  Sarah sat up and dug her fingers into the hair that hung like melting icicles on her shoulders. How long had she been letting Megan influence everything she did? Influence? She’d practically been controlled by her. She had even blotted out Dad’s whispers. In a way she was no better than Schmoozing Thad, allowing Megan to hand down edicts and scurrying to carry them out.

  Until the day Sarah said she couldn’t have an abortion.

  Yet here she was tonight telling her mother she still didn’t know if she would or wouldn’t and driving her to the far edge of her sanity. And her own, for that matter. Who runs shoeless into the snow? Who threatens to take out her building manager? Who calls her boyfriend an adolescent when she herself can’t make a decision to save her soul?

  Sarah extricated herself from the damp covers and made her way to the floor by the chair for a pair of sweats she’d dumped there when her mom came. As she fumbled her way into them, still shivering under her skin, she caught sight of herself in the mirror she checked herself out in every day, last thing before she went out into the world she thought she could conquer.

  Bleak. There was no other word to describe the thin, pallid creature who stared back at her from sunken brown eyes. Even without the lips still colorless from the cold or the gooseflesh pimpling her skin, she would have seemed pathetic.

  Sarah hastily pulled the sweatshirt over her head. The fabric brushed against her sore breasts, and she winced. She looked down at her still-flat stomach and spread her hands across it.

  “This is all because of you, Daisy,” she said.

  She was suddenly cold again, this time from the inside. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t give this person a name until she came to a decision. She’d made it hard enough on herself when she’d accepted that she—it—was a baby. Besides, the name was a dream.

  Just like she wished all of it was.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sarah found a
pair of socks and a dry blanket and crawled back into bed. She’d felt far too much for one day. Emotions were exhausting when you weren’t used to letting them out.

  She was immediately asleep and just as abruptly awake again, as if she’d slept hard through the night. She had to rub her eyes three times to realize she was in, not her apartment, but a bright bedroom with the unmistakable light of a blue-skied morning beckoning at a bay window framed in misty gold.

  Sarah put her feet on the rug and stepped on one of a pair of frog slippers—frog slippers?—that seemed to wait for her to stuff her toes into them. She did, and followed the smell of slightly burnt pancakes like a trail down a flight of polished wood stairs and into a kitchen. Although the cooking area gleamed with every stainless steel appliance and Pampered Chef utensil known to the culinary world, the counters were a complete disaster—worse, even, than her apartment. Two dozen eggs had apparently been used for something because their oozing empty shells formed a trail from their sticky cartons to an overturned box of Bisquick and several spoons and spatulas, each coated with a gooey-looking substance that made Sarah wonder why her stomach wasn’t threatening to erupt.

  But across the room the scene was far different. A table in another sun-filled bay window was set with a bouquet of construction paper flowers on pipe cleaner stems and a card propped up against them that said, in painstakingly formed crayon letters, “Hapy Birthday Momy.” Those letters could only have been made by someone whose tiny tongue poked out with the effort.

  A cherub with a mop of mink-colored curls approached with a plate piled almost comically high with hot cakes. The pink tongue was indeed visible as the little girl of maybe six set the plate on the table. The cakes were misshapen as mud pies and singed around the edges, but the hopeful wrinkles in the child’s brow made Sarah say, “These look delicious.” And kept her from saying, “Honey, who are you?”

  “Sit down,” the cherub-child . . . chirped. There was no other word for the sound of her voice. “I’ll get you the syrup. You want whipped cream? I have some. And strawberries.”

  “Just syrup, I think,” Sarah said.