During the pause, I hear Dad’s ragged breathing as I walk toward the pool and tennis courts at the end of our street.
“You didn’t know she had one?” I ask.
“She threatened she would, but she never . . . told me she did.”
“Threatened?”
“Gibbs told me in July she was pregnant, but I didn’t believe her.”
“Why?”
“She was jealous of Hannah. She wanted us to go to Padre Island for the weekend, but I’d already committed to going to Big Bend with your mother. Then Gibbs said she was pregnant. It sounded phony to me. Besides, she’d been messing around with a couple of other guys. I had no proof I was the father or she was pregnant. I asked her when she found out because she was buying drinks from me at the bar the night before. She said she took a test that day. And I said, ‘Then you better stop drinking.’ I told her I was going with Hannah and she stomped off.”
I reach the small park near the courts and sit down at a picnic table. A man across the street is walking his Husky. That dog should be in Alaska, just like me.
“When did Mom tell you about being pregnant with me?”
“While we ate lunch on the South Rim Trail, sitting on the cliff looking into Mexico. You know the place—The Top of the World. We’ve been there several times. She showed me the lab results. Neither of us expected it, but we were happy with the news.”
Mom certainly was. “What happened when Gibbs found out?”
“She banged on my door late Sunday night, very stoned. Had a pregnancy test kit with her. Said I could watch her pee and prove she was pregnant. I told her about Hannah, and Gibbs got crazy. She broke stuff in my apartment and tried to hit me. She said she’d abort her baby if I wouldn’t stay with her. I called the cops. I didn’t see her after that for a few weeks because Hannah and I went on a camping trip to Utah.”
Exactly what Mom wanted. I can imagine how Gibbs felt, being pregnant and having Dad call her a liar then leaving town.“Gibbs said she had an abortion and I was her daughter.”
Dad sighs. “Gibbs says a lot of things, Laney. I never saw any pregnancy test, and she never talked about having an abortion after that.”
He says this like Gibbs was just an emotional basket case and a liar, and I’m a fool for believing her. I never considered Dad a misogynist, but dammit, he is! Women are just stereotypes. “She told me earlier today she had three miscarriages of your babies, and there was a fourth time which she’d tell me about after I flew up there. Seeing the photos changed that plan.” I feel my blood pressure rise, and I know I’m talking too loud. “Dad, she’s been pregnant by you four different times and never held your baby. How do you think that makes her feel?”
“That’s what she says, Laney, but Gibbs doesn’t always tell the truth.”
Like I’m a gullible idiot. “You think she lied about having miscarriages?” Then with as much sarcasm as I can muster, “I thought women lied only about being raped!”
“Calm down, Laney. Not the first one, but I have doubts about the others.”
“Why not the first?”
I hear him take a few quick breaths. “Because I was with her when she miscarried.” His voice lowers, and he coughs. “That . . . that was a horrible day for both of us.”
“And the others?”
“She’d tell me she was pregnant when I dated another girl. Then tell me she had a miscarriage weeks later after we had a fight about something. Always at convenient times to win my sympathy. She’s manipulative as hell, Laney. Remember, she’s an addict.”
I can’t believe my father is saying this. She had miscarriages at convenient times? “Why didn’t you stop having sex with her? Just walk away and not touch her again. Why? Who was manipulating who?” I know I’ve gone too far. “I’m sorry for screaming, Dad. But if you thought she was lying about being pregnant and miscarriages, you could’ve stopped her by leaving her alone. Why didn’t you?”
“I just . . . can’t seem to do that. Gibbs has her addictions, and . . . I have mine.” He coughs, and I know he’s crying. “Has been that way since fourth grade.”
“She loves you.”
“You’ve never met her. You talked with her the first time today.”
“I know she does. And I think you love her.” I wish I could hold him. “You’ve never been able to leave her alone, even if it meant destroying your family.”
I hear him choke out a whimper. “I know, Baby Girl. I know.”
“You love her, so stop complaining about her faults. You need to be on her side all the time, not just when you feel like it. Why haven’t you married her?”
“Because she won’t stop doing stupid stuff. Like smoking pot during her break! That crap happens all the time.”
“Maybe she’ll stop if she doesn’t have to worry whether you love her or not.”
“Maybe. But I’ve been burned too many times before. She can’t help doing what she does. After dealing with that for most of my life, I know it’s better to keep some distance.”
I hear pain in his voice and some anger.
“Maybe when you’re up here,” he says with sarcasm, “you can fix everything, and we can be one happy family.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Why? Seems like you’d blame her for ruining our family.”
“Because I think we’re connected somehow.”
“What does that mean? Because you look like her?”
“You always knew I did. That’s why you loved me so much. I always reminded you of her.”
“That’s not why . . .”
“Do you ever regret choosing Mom over Gibbs?”
Silence. I wipe both my eyes. I know the answer, whether he admits it or not.
“No. I regret not being able to love Hannah more.”
“I think you’re lying, Dad. You always regretted that choice but told yourself you couldn’t have had me otherwise. But if you’d chosen Gibbs, you’d still have had me.”
“How?”
“I can’t explain it yet. I think what Gibbs said is true.”
“About you being . . . her . . .”
“Yeah.”
“That’s crazy, Laney.”
I hear Gibbs calling for Dad.
“She’s awake,” he says. “I better go see what she wants.”
“Don’t fuss at her. Show her you love her. Please.”
“I’ll do my best. Bye, Laney.”
I stand and stretch. The air has turned chilly, and I wish I’d brought a jacket. How am I going to deal with twenty below? Or thirty?
Or maybe I feel cold because the thoughts in my head make me tremble.
I’m Gibbs’ daughter.
In another universe, Gibbs didn’t get an abortion. And Dad didn’t choose Mom. Gibbs had a daughter who looked remarkably like me, and somehow my world has entangled with theirs.
17
Mom is standing at the front door as I walk toward it. “Where have you been?”
“I walked to the park. Dad called me.”
“About?”
“About the trip. What I might want to do, what he should buy at the store. That kind of thing.” I flash her a big smile. “He wants to take me on a snow machine.”
She rolls her eyes. “He still doesn’t know about Gibbs being pregnant?”
“No. Like you said, maybe she isn’t. Evidently that’s happened before.”
“Sean told you that?”
“Yeah. He didn’t believe she was pregnant before you went to Big Bend.” I study her face as I say the words. She’s wondering what else he told me. “And he had doubts at other times. So maybe she’s faking it now to make sure he doesn’t leave her.”
She wrings her hands. “Why would he leave her?”
“To come back here. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Her eyes widen slightly. “He wouldn’t want to.”
She doesn’t deny it. That’s her goal. That’s why she’s letting me go, even with Gibbs�
� pregnancy. “You never know.” I hug myself. “Can we go inside? It’s getting cold.”
She opens the door, and we both walk in.
“Have you studied at all?” she asks.
“Some history. When have I not made the grades you expect of me?”
“After your father left. I don’t want this reunion to affect your standing in your class. You’re number one now. You need to stay there. Chandler is nipping at your heels.”
With all that’s been going on in my mind the last few days, school has dropped near the bottom of my list. But I can’t tell her that. “A good runner always has a great kick. I’ll go study now. But, tell me again, what calamity befalls if she beats me by a hundredth of a point?”
“Being the top student stays with you forever. Nobody remembers who comes in second.”
I fold my arms and send her a little smile. “Except mothers?”
“Certainly. They’ll always remember that their daughters could’ve won but chose not to.” She lifts her arm and points to my room. “Go. Study.”
So the answer to my questioning the relevance of mercantilism and balancing chemical equations is that Mommy will forever be disappointed if I don’t know them better than Chandler. I feel liberated by this knowledge. Not.
For the next three hours, I flip through notes and review questions without interruption. But sometime during the fourth hour, I fall asleep and am assaulted by dreams.
I’ve left the house and walk back to the park. The wind blows Christmas lights hanging from eaves and inflated Santa Clauses into Frostie the Snowmans. Two Wise Men have dived into the manger on the lawn next door.
I wrap my arms around myself and hurry back to the picnic table where I sit huddled against the wind. The trees in lawns creak and bend, their decorative lights illuminating the action. A gust of wind swirls in front of me. I turn away and face the playground surrounded by oaks, lit only by the moon. I played here often when I was little, but I haven’t come since . . . since Dad left. We’d go swimming, and he’d try to teach me tennis. I’d climb into the tower and slide down into the rubber mulch. He’d help me swing through the monkey bars.
I walk away from the streetlight and into the dappled, moving shadows until my shoes hit the landscape timbers surrounding the play area. Moonlight makes the green canvas roof on the tower glow as it expands and contracts in the wind. I want to climb up there and launch myself down the tube slide.
I use the climbing wall in front of me to reach the first level then the ladder to reach the Crow’s Nest where plastic panel games wait to be turned and flipped to reveal matching pictures or tic-tac-toe moves. My hand rakes across these old toys as I move to the lookout tower where I see an orange rope wrapped around the pole and disappearing over the side.
Curious.
My heart flutters, and I feel a chill swelling in my stomach. The rope is a black diamond design, just like the one Dad bought for me. I look over the rail and down the rope . . . Shit! A child hangs by the neck, swinging in the breeze. I jerk up and bang my head on the roof. I want to scream, but I can’t pull in any air to push out.
Clambering backward, I find the entrance to the slide, swing inside while tucking in my arms and lifting my feet until I stop near the exit. I struggle to scoot out, stand, and run around the fort toward the child.
Her back faces me, the knot pinning her long hair against her neck, the ends whipping behind her. She wears shorts and a tank top. I see a twisted leather bracelet on her wrist—just like the one I wore years ago.
My heart pounds in my ears as I reach out to touch it, but my fingers shake so much they push against her arm. The body turns toward me slightly, and I look up at her face.
And see myself. At thirteen.
I collapse onto my knees and scream, “No!” as I pound my fists into the mulch.
Tears pour out of my eyes as my chest hitches in spasms.
“How? Why?”
My body feels numb, and I can’t cry anymore. I look up and the body is gone.
No rope.
No wind.
I wipe my eyes and see the inside of my room. It’s 3:00 am. My right cheek shows red streaks where it pressed against my hand on my desk. My neck is stiff.
I stand and race toward my closet door, sling it open, and reach on the top shelf in the corner until I feel the rappelling rope Dad gave me and pull it down.
Black diamond orange with a slipknot at the end. I see myself two and a half years ago tying that knot then pulling the loops onto my arm as I climb out my window. Scared I’ll chicken out. Scared I’ll go through with it. Looking up and down the sidewalk, seeing no one, I run toward the park.
Just before I cross the street, I see a man walking his Husky near the playground. He won’t leave. The dog sniffs every tree.
Stifling a scream, I run back toward my house and back into my room. I fling the rope against my door and start yelling. Pick up anything I can and throw it against the walls.
Mom swings open the door and finds me holding my lamp above my head, ready to crash it into the carpet.
“Delaney!”
I collapse into tears. The next day I make my first visit to the psychiatrist. Mom never learns what I intended to do that night. And I never tell Dr. Feelings about the comments on my Facebook page. Did you get off watching your naked father and girlfriend? Couldn’t turn away, huh? Pretty sick in my book. And on and on. I stop sharing my thoughts. No more social media. All accounts deleted.
I wall off myself from everyone.
Just me and my writing.
The other Laney would’ve waited in the shadows across the street until the man left the park. Then she’d run to the fort and hang herself.
By the next day, many would know why. Maybe some would care.
Is this why I have flashbacks and dreams of choking? I’ve often felt a noose around my neck. And a hand around my throat. The question is—in my real life or during one of the other Laney’s lives?
Can’t be in my life. I’d be dead.
How many of our different selves die in other worlds? And why?
So many choices lead to death, and yet we never know. We just feel random emotions and wrestle with random thoughts, never realizing they leak into our worlds from elsewhere.
And death is always somewhere else. Never with me now.
If I drive my car into a tree, another Laney didn’t make that choice and survives.
Then how do we ever die? Old age? Disease?
When the last Laney in the last universe takes her last breath? Would she know she’s the last one?
My phone vibrates with a message from Gibbs. Call me if you’re awake. It was sent at 3:00 am, exactly when I snapped out of my dream.
Gibbs was pregnant at the same time as Mom. Both by Dad.
One photon can be split by a laser into two photons that are forever entangled, meaning no matter their distance apart, they affect each other.
If atomic particles can be entangled, why can’t embryos or fetuses? Or people? They’re made of the same particles as everything else.
Gibbs aborted her fetus. But another version of her did not. That girl would be my age. If we’re entangled, we’ve affected each other our entire lives.
I call Gibbs.
“Did I wake you up?” she asks.
“No. I fell asleep studying then woke up from a bad dream. I need to ask you a question.”
“OK. But first I want to say I’m sorry for . . . what I said before. That wasn’t fair to you.”
“I understand why you said it. I don’t blame you at all. In a weird kind of way, I think it’s true.”
“How?”
“I’ll try to explain once I’m up there. You told Dad you were pregnant and wanted him to go with you to Padre Island, but he decided to go to Big Bend with my mother. Late Sunday night he told you my mother was pregnant, and you two had a fight. Yes?”
“He told you?”
“Yes. Did my mother know you were preg
nant before that weekend?”
“I told her on Thursday, the same night I told Sean.”
“How?”
“After Sean told me to leave the bar, I waited for Hannah in the parking lot. I told her my truck wouldn’t start and asked her to give me a ride. I’m sure she saw it as an opportunity to push me out of the picture, so she agreed. As we drove, I told her I was pregnant with Sean’s baby, and she needed to let him go. My baby needed a father. She yelled at me, called me a slut, then back-ended a car. Scared the shit out of both of us. I jumped out of her car and walked back to get my truck.”
Maybe that’s when both babies became entangled. Both mothers experienced the same fear at the same time. Would that event have been enough?
“How long after that did you have the abortion?” I hear her breathing for several seconds then she stifles a sob.
“The week after they left town. I didn’t know where they went or if he was coming back.” She coughs and blows her nose. “I told myself I couldn’t raise his child without him being with me. Later, when they married, I wished I had something of his to live with. Laney, why did you say it’s true? That you’re my daughter?”
“You chose to have an abortion, but another version of you had the baby. She and I have been linked our whole lives.”
“Is she real?”
“In another universe.”
“How can that be possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I ever see her? Or is that just crazy?”
“I’ve seen other versions of me.”
Her voice brightens. “I thought I saw her once. A girl rode by my campsite on her bike. I remember thinking she looked just like me.”
My legs feel weak. I know what’s coming. “When was that?”
“Just before Sean and I started making out on the table at the lake. The day you caught us. Could that have been her?”
“I . . . I have no doubt. Had you thought about a name before . . .”
“Yeah. I was thinking about Bailee. With two e’s at the end for a girl and ey if it was a boy. It was my grandmother’s name.”
Some Laneys Died: A Skipping Sideways Thriller Page 13