by Jones, K. J.
“Right here.” Phebe placed his hand on her belly.
A moment and Chris smiled. “That’s the baby moving.” He turned to the other two. “The baby’s moving, y’all.”
Tyler ran through the barn door, huffing and puffing as if he had sprinted. “Emily’s miscarrying, Matt said.”
“Oh, God,” said Phebe.
“Don’t you run.” Chris held Phebe back. “Protect your live baby.”
“Okay. I’ll walk.”
“That’s right.”
6.
Emily lay on the bed, sweating and doubled in pain from cramps.
“I found more Depends.” Jayce came in with an unopened package of adult diapers in his hand. “But nothing, ya know, for, you know.”
“Depends will work perfect.” Matt took them.
Brandon held Emily’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Outside the bedroom, Peter paced in the hall.
“How is she?” Phebe asked as she reached the landing.
Peter shook his head.
Phebe went to him and took his hand. In a low volume to not be heard in the bedroom, she told him, “I felt our baby move.”
“Really?” Peter’s face brightened. “Is it still … can I feel?”
“It stopped. But it was right here.” She placed his hand on the location on her belly. “Chris felt it.”
“Make me jealous.” Peter cocked a grin.
Emily groaned inside the bedroom.
“Bittersweet, huh?” he said.
Phebe’s brows rumpled. “What if it’s the effect of the radiation? What if …?” She cradled her belly.
“Do we get on the road to Carlisle again? There’s risk in that, too.”
“I don’t know.” Phebe frowned at hearing Emily’s pain. “I wish I could help her.”
“Come here.” Peter hugged his wife.
7.
“You okay?”
Emily lay on her side, staring at the wall.
“Do you want to be left alone?” Phebe asked.
“You can come in. It’s over.”
“I’m so sorry, Em.” Phebe sat on her bent leg on the bed. She wanted to touch Emily, and reached out but retracted, not knowing if she wanted affection.
“It’s a weird feeling. I didn’t even want it. But when it began, I felt upset. Ya know? Weird.” Emily rolled over. “How are you?” Her gaze moved to Phebe’s belly.
“I’m … we’re, ah, okay.”
“I’m worried this will happen to you. It’ll be worse. You're further along. It’s, like, really becoming a baby now.”
“Um, I don’t know if this is the right time.”
Emily sat up, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“I, um, it, ah, moved. I felt it. The baby moved.”
To Phebe’s surprise, Emily smiled. She looked worn out and tired, but her smile brightened her eyes.
“I am glad. I told you, we’re emotionally invested in that little one.”
“I just feel bad, because … ya know.”
“Don’t. I’m kind of relieved. Or I think I will be later. Matt said my head will continue to spin around from hormones.”
“Yeah, those hormones seem to be lethal in us.”
“Literally.” Emily laughed, then cringed from the slight cramping remaining.
Phebe gathered the pillows and bolstered them for Emily to rest her back against.
“The things a woman needs to do to get all this attention,” Emily joked.
“What if we need to continue to Carlisle?” Phebe asked.
“What, like without me?”
“No, dim wit. Not without you. We can wait until you’re ready for it.”
“God, I wish we had a car. If all those people hadn’t left their cars on the highway.” Emily shook her blond head.
“The guys are talking about scouting out the side roads. It’s risky, though, if we get lost. The interstate is a sure thing.”
“But it’s twelve thousand miles to go.”
“Right?”
“Is that good for you and the baby? Maybe that’s what caused mine. I mean, who knows, right? So many variables to this.”
Brandon came in with tea. “Good news, there’s honey.”
“Ooh,” said Emily. “My favorite way.”
Phebe got up so Brandon could sit at Emily’s bedside. He handed over the tea. Emily blew on the steam before sipping.
“How are you feeling?” Brandon asked Phebe.
“I’m fine. Is everyone going to be watching me like I’m a time bomb now?”
“Um, probably, if I’m honest.”
“That’ll be fun.”
“Her baby moved,” Emily said.
Brandon’s face showed a flash of sadness. “At the same time as we lost our baby?”
“I’m sorry, Brandon,” Phebe said.
“No, no. You shouldn’t be. That’s amazing. Great news.”
“It’s for the better,” Emily said to Brandon. “I keep trying to tell you that. We’re going to have our hands full with one baby. You can have a kid later when things are settled. Assuming they ever get settled.”
Phebe noticed Emily spoke as if he was having the baby, not her. Or Emily was somehow otherwise left out of the reproduction process.
“Yeah,” Brandon responded. “I know you’re right. But … I don’t know.”
“You loved the idea of having a baby, I get it. You can change Phebe’s baby’s diapers to satisfy your baby yen.”
Brandon tried to smile. “Not exactly what I was thinking.”
The mention of diapers made Phebe blanch. She sat down hard in a rocking chair, feeling a bit of a head swoon and stomach flip. Diapers. Crying. A little squalling thing.
“What the hell am I doing?” Phebe muttered.
“You okay over there?” Brandon asked. “You look pale.”
“Yeah,” said Emily. “You alright?”
“A baby.”
“Um,” said Brandon. “What?”
“Am I crazy?”
“Not lately.”
“Having a baby in this? I can’t have a baby in this. What am I doing?” Phebe began to breathe fast.
“Whoa. You’re having an anxiety attack.”
“Help her,” Emily ordered her boyfriend.
“Pheeb.” Brandon moved to her and squatted down beside her. “Breathe. Slow, controlled breaths.”
“Put your head between your legs,” Emily said from across the room.
Phebe bent over and tried to control her breath, but all she could hear was a wailing baby. Her vision filled with a baby nursery. A changing table. A mountain of diapers. Powder, wipies, diaper rash cream. A crib. Some kind of air purifier. Themed wallpaper – teddy bears or Noah’s ark.
Her reality was an abandoned farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania, filled with elderly people stuff like adult diapers.
Babies needed a lot of stuff and required tremendous attention. This was insane. She barely paid attention to Peter and Tyler.
A memory of talking with her grandparents at the dinner table at her childhood home on Long Island. Though her brother rarely sat still to listen to their stories, Phebe sat and listened in rapture of things that went on before her. They talked of their parents, who grew up in tiny tenements in Hell’s Kitchen on the West Side of Manhattan – not a place attracting tourists back when Clinton was known as ‘Hell’s Kitchen.’ One of the predominately Irish working-class areas, although never caught in a race riot like South Boston. Her grandfather was one of ten, all in a two-room apartment. Literally, two rooms. A bedroom and the everything-else room.
She suddenly said, “Tyler needs to eat or he’ll be short.”
“Excuse me?” Brandon glanced at Emily for an answer. She shrugged.
“My grandfather was short because he grew up poor, one of ten kids.”
“Yikes,” said Emily. “His mother gave birth to ten babies?”
“Those are the ones who lived.”
“Holy crap.
” Emily pulled the sheet over her head to hide from a world without birth control.
A memory of Syanna Lynn doing the same thing in Peter’s bed at the Molly flashed through Phebe’s mind. Her emotions didn’t know what to make of it.
“Well,” said Brandon. “At least you stopped hyperventilating.” He stood up, giving her a look like she had lost her marbles. “Em?”
“Go away, sperm bearer. Don’t ever touch me without wearing several condoms at once.”
“Wow. Okay. I’m gonna go hang out with the other sperm bearers. If you need anything, honey, ring that bell I brought you.” Brandon mumbled as he left, “I’ll send Tyler. He hasn’t hit puberty yet.”
“I think you hurt his feelings,” Phebe said.
Emily lowered the sheet. Her hair stuck up from static electricity. “He’ll get over it. But he’s never touching me again.”
“I don’t think sex so soon after a miscarriage –”
“I mean ever. I’m not having ten babies … who live. It’s not natural for Jewish women to have so many babies.”
“Probably the nagging acted as birth control.”
Emily hurled a pillow at her, and it fell short.
Phebe laughed. “Do I lie?”
“You better be careful,” said Emily. “You Irish people breed like rabbits.”
“Oh, God. He did get me pregnant the first time at it.”
“Potent sperm. You are in so much trouble. They’re trying to take over the world that way. Five hundred years from now, the entire population of Earth will be Irish.”
“That’ll be a big St. Patty’s Day parade.”
“Yeah. Except it’ll be in China, too. Rice and cabbage.”
“Ew. I hate cabbage.”
“Are you allowed to hate cabbage?”
“Well, right now, it’s a moot issue. Not a lot of cabbage issues here.”
“That’s true. But there’s chocolate pudding.”
“Chocolate,” Phebe moaned in desire. “That’s the most important food group. You want some?”
“No. I feel yucky.”
“Yeah.”
Emily sipped her tea.
“I may have to eat the pudding for you,” said Phebe.
“We’re going to end up walking to Carlisle again, aren’t we?”
“I have no idea. What if there’s nothing there? We kind of have a good setup here. If my great grandmother could raise a small army of children in two rooms, I guess we could raise one kid here.”
“One. That’s right. Just one. Stay away from the Irishman. In fact, he may get women pregnant by proximity. He needs to sleep in the barn.”
“Yeah. Um, I’m not cuddling with you to keep warm at night, so no. He can’t get me double pregnant.”
“Wouldn’t that be even more fucked up? Wham, twins.”
“Oh, God. End up with a litter.”
“Explains your people’s litters.”
Phebe scooped up the pillow and hurled it back, intentionally missing Emily and hitting the headboard beside her. Emily still moved to bat it away, though, then laughed.
“I deserved that,” said Emily.
“You sure did. And you used to be the politically correct one.”
“Yeah. I blame Sully and Chris for it. Or that I live with a white supremacist Nazi.”
“Alden’s actually been behaving himself.”
“That’s because he fears for his life.”
Phebe shrugged. “Hey, whatever works. We don’t need him saying shit that upsets Jayce. The kid has been through enough.”
“Actually, it would probably give Jayce an excuse to go shit freak on somebody. I think he needs to let it out or it’ll cause internal damage.”
“I hope not. I think enough of us are internally damaged enough.”
Emily looked around. “Ya know, if we paint over the garish wallpaper, we could deal with this place. It’s probably an act of humanitarianism if we don’t go back into normal society.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
8.
“It snowing,” Chris announced as he entered through the mudroom door. He stomped his feet to bang off frozen mud and snow.
“Get by the fire,” Matt ordered. “Why did you stay out there past sunset?”
“We had to finish up and get the meat into the cellar or critters can get at that good pork.” Chris moved to the wood-burning stove and warmed his hands.
“Don’t get yourself sick,” commanded Matt.
“I ain’t gonna get sick.”
Peter laughed. “You sound like everyone’s mother now, Matthew.”
“Somebody has to look after you lunatics.”
Kevin came in. “Hey, y’all. Your black boy sitting out in the snow without a shirt on.”
“What?” Matt rose first.
“Shit.” Peter stood.
“Let me get my gloves and shit back on,” said Chris.
Pulling on coats, they filed through the door and looked around outside. Jayce sat, shirtless and barefoot, on the front lawn. Snow falling on his shoulders and head. He appeared to be in meditation, legs crossed almost in a lotus position, and hands resting palms upon his thighs. His eyes closed.
Peter wailed, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Jayce.” Matt dropped a blanket on his shoulders. “You’ll get hypothermic.”
“Please, leave me be.” The kid’s voice too tranquil.
“No. Get up.” Matt pulled at him.
“Please, brother, leave me be. I am ready.”
“Ready, my ass.” Chris stooped and grabbed the teen under the arms.
“No.” Jayce struggled and kicked. “Jesus wants me.”
“He can’t have you today. Help me. He stronger than he looks.”
* * *
Inside, Chris paced. “Have you entirely lost your dang mind?”
The sweater was cockeyed on Jayce’s chest from where they forced it onto him. A sock was upside down on his foot. A blanket around him. He was tied around the waist to a wooden armchair in front of the woodburning stove. Drinking hot cocoa and trying to ignore them.
“C’mon, Jayce,” said Matt. “Suicide?”
“It was not suicide,” the kid snapped.
“No? What else do you call that?” Matt’s arm gestured to the window above the sink to represent the outside.
Snow fell steadily. The glass fogged on the inside.
“If the Lord wanted me to live, I would not freeze.”
Peter snickered. “Suicide via Jesus. Great.”
“Hey,” Jayce snapped. “Keep your disbelief away from me. You are going to Hell if you do not repent and accept Jesus as your personal savior.”
Peter rolled his eyes. The kid was behaving worse than Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to the door.
Jayce yelled, “God’s only son, He was sent to us to cleanse us of our sins. You are a sinner.”
“Technically,” Matt said, “we all are.”
“He does not repent,” Jayce said to Matt. “He does not accept Jesus.”
The swinging kitchen door opened. Tyler stood there. “What’s going on? This a tent revival?” He smiled and mocked, “‘Praise Jesus, we all saved.’” He did jazz hands to emphasize his interpretation of an evangelist. “‘Gimme all your money and I’ll save you.’”
“Uh-oh,” Peter said.
Jayce lost it. “Judgment Day is upon us! Do you fools not see it? Are you too blind and unworthy? Revelations is happening. God’s judgment is upon us, for we are sinners!”
“Oh, Lord.” Chris shook his head. “He sounds like my mama.”
“Okay.” Peter moved to the now stunned Tyler. “Let’s go be disbelieving heathens in another room.”
“What’s all that yelling?” Pez asked in the hall.
“Jayce is having a moment,” Peter stated.
“Was he really outside half-naked?”
“We’re gonna visit the Darwinians ladies now.”
“The what ladi
es?”
Peter steered Tyler. “Up the stairs, kid.”
Tyler asked as he climbed the steps, “How come you don’t believe in God?”
“Well,” said Peter. “We have an understanding, me and Him.”
“Like Chris has?”
“Kind of.”
“What’s the understanding?”
“We don’t bother Him and He throws a lot of crap at us.”
Tyler stopped at the landing and scrunched up his face. “That doesn’t sound like a good understanding?”
“You want spiritual instruction? They’re downstairs.”
“What’s going on?” Brandon asked from the landing.
“Oh, good,” said Peter. “Another man going to Hell.”
“Oh. Crap,” said Brandon. “That’s what I thought I heard. You escaping?”
“Trying to.”
“You can hear him through the floor up here.”
“Such a good time for TV, cranked really loud, for the noisy neighbors.” Peter asked, “Where’s Alden?”
“Not up here,” Brandon answered.
“Oh, well. Find him later.”
“He’s not in the kitchen?”
“God, no. That’s where demons are being exorcised. I think he may turn to ash.”
Peter steered Tyler towards the bedroom.
“Enough of the God-talk,” Phebe said. “We’re getting enough through the floor. Apparently, this is the Rapture.”
“Ya know, Chris said things like that before.” Peter threw himself into the rocking chair. “Albeit, not so loudly and violently with the lovely condemnation of his friends. Apparently, according to Christopher, the good people’s souls were taken – ya know, beamed up to the mother ship – and demons jumped into their bodies down here. Only us wicked people are left.” Peter shrugged. “That’s one theory, I guess.”
“Is he wrong?” Tyler asked.
Peter studied the young face for a moment, realizing anything he said could be taken seriously and influence the child for life.
“Um.” Peter scowled, trapped. “That sounds like a question for Pheebs.”
“Oh, screw you, Sullivan,” Phebe snapped.
“She’s hormonal, Ty.”
They all turned to Phebe for the answer. She scowled at them with a little sneer. The adults smirked at her. The ball was on her racket.
“Um,” Phebe began, softening her face. “Well, Ty. There are many beliefs. Tons of beliefs. No one can say one is wrong.”