The Truth About Forever

by Sarah Dessen

  As he went back to the bar, Delia moved down the table, rearranging the items in the pans. “It is just so weird,” she said, taking in the black-bean burgers, “because I meant to bring more of those, and forgot them. I was so worried we wouldn’t have enough!”

  “Nope,” I said, waving off a fly that was buzzing over them. “Plenty.”

  “See, again,” she said, sighing. “Too good. Too good! I don’t like this. I need a sense of balance. I never thought I’d admit this, but I need chaos.”

  Just as we were leaving, she got her wish.

  It happened as we were packing the last of our stuff into the van. Wes and I were pushing in the carts, and Delia was at the top of the driveway, getting her check from the client, who was so entirely happy with her catering experience that she was paying full price and adding a bonus, which was another first. So all was great, wonderful: perfect. And then I heard a shriek.

  It wasn’t Delia. Nope. It was the client, reacting to the fact that Delia’s water had just broken. The baby was on its way.

  Chapter Sixteen

  "Are you okay?”

  I nodded. "I’m fine. Fine.”

  This was my mantra, the thing I kept saying in my mind. Actually, though, I wasn’t entirely certain. All I knew for sure was that I was at the hospital: everything beyond that, like the last time I’d been here, was a bit of a blur.

  After the initial shock of the water breaking, we’d done what we did best: gathered our wits, got a plan, and went into action. It wasn’t until we’d piled into the van and were on our way to the hospital, Delia beside me, my hand gripped in hers, that I’d glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was five forty-five, which meant that in fifteen minutes, I was supposed to be meeting my mother at the Commons. Considering how things were going, this should have been my biggest concern. But instead, my mind kept drifting back to another ride, not so long ago.

  Then, I’d been holding a hand, too. My father’s, though, had been limp, my fingers doing all the work to hold our palms to each other. Instead of Bert, who was breathing loudly through his nose while Delia waved him off, annoyed, there’d been a paramedic across from me, his hands moving swiftly to attach an oxygen mask and prepare the defibrillator. And instead of the wind whooshing past from Wes’s open window, and Delia on her cell phone calmly making arrangements with Pete and the babysitter, there had been an eerie, scary silence, punctuated only by the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Then, a life was ending. Here, one was about to begin. I didn’t believe in signs. But it was hard to ignore the fact that someone, somewhere, might have wanted me to go through this again and see there was another outcome.

  The memories were everywhere. When we pulled up at the curb, it was in the same spot. Entering emergency, the doors made that same smooth swish noise. Even the smell was the same, that inexplicable mix of disinfectant and florals. For a second, I’d thought for sure I couldn’t do it, and found myself hanging back. But then Wes turned back and looked at me, offering the same question he’d been asking ever since. I’d nodded, then fallen in beside him. He was pushing Delia in a wheelchair and she was taking deep, slow breaths, so I did too. When we got on the elevator and the doors slid shut, I finally relaxed and felt myself rise.

  What I felt now was a different kind of scared. For the past two and a half hours, I’d sat on the bench in the hallway a few feet down from Delia’s room, watching as doctors and nurses first ambled in and out, as if there were a million years before anything really happened, then started moving more quickly, and even more so, and then suddenly, everything was a commotion. Machines were beeping, voices calling out pages overhead, the floor beneath my feet reverberating as a doctor jogged down the hallway, his stethoscope thumping against his chest.

  In my opinion, everyone else was entirely too calm. Especially Wes, who, when he wasn’t asking if I was all right, was eating one of the many snack foods he kept disappearing to buy from the vending machine downstairs. Now, as he unwrapped a package of little chocolate doughnuts, offering me one, I shook my head.

  “I don’t see how you can turn down a chocolate doughnut, ” he said, popping one into his mouth. From Delia’s doorway, I was sure I heard a groan or a moan, followed by Pete’s voice, soothing.

  “I don’t see how you can eat,” I replied, as a nurse emerged from the room, her arms full of some sort of linens, and started down the hallway toward the desk.

  He chewed for a second, then swallowed. “This could go on for ages,” he said, as Bert, who was sitting on his other side, jerked awake from the nap he’d been taking for the last half hour, blinking. “You have to keep your strength up.”

  “What time is it?” Bert asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

  Wes handed him a doughnut. “Almost seven,” he said.

  I felt my stomach do a flip-flop, although I wasn’t sure it was from hearing that I was now officially an hour late to meet my mother, or from the shriek that came from Delia’s room, this one loud and extended enough that we all looked at the slightly open door until it abruptly stopped. In the quiet that followed, I pushed myself to my feet.

  “Macy?” Wes said.

  “I’m fine,” I said, knowing that was his next question. “I’m just going to call my mom.”

  I’d left my cell phone in the van, so I walked to the line of pay phones, digging some change out of my pocket. The first time, the line was busy and I hung up and tried again. Still busy. I pushed open a door that led outside to a small patio, where I sat for a few minutes, looking at the sky, which was slowly growing darker. It was perfect fireworks weather. Then I went back inside and called again, getting the solid busy beep once more. This time, I held on for her voicemail, then cleared my throat and tried to explain.

  “It’s me,” I said, “I know you’re probably worried, and I’m really sorry. I was on my way to meet you but Delia went into labor so now I’m at the hospital. I have to wait until someone can drive me, but I’ll get there as soon as I can. I’m sorry, again. I’ll see you soon.”

  There, I thought as I hung up the phone. Done. I knew it wouldn’t solve everything, or even anything. But I’d deal with that when the time came.

  When I came back to the bench where Wes and Bert and I had been sitting, it was empty. In fact, there was nobody in the hallway at all, or at the nurses’ station, and for a second I just stood there, feeling totally creeped out. Then Wes stuck his head out of Delia’s room. He was grinning.

  “Hey,” he said. “Come see.”

  He held the door for me as I stepped inside. Delia was sitting up in the bed, the sheets gathered around her midsection. Her face was flushed, and in her arms was this tiny little thing with dark hair. Pete was sitting on her right, his arm over her shoulders, and they were both looking down at the baby. The room was so quiet, but in a good way. By the window, even Bert, pessimist of pessimists, was smiling.

  Then Delia looked up and saw me. “Hey,” she said softly, waving me over. “Come say hello.” As I came around the bed, she shifted her arms, so the baby was closer to me. “Look. Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Up close, the baby looked even smaller: her eyes were closed, and she was making these little snuffly noises, like she was dreaming about something amazing. “She’s perfect,” I said, and for once, it was the exact right word to use.

  Delia trailed her finger over the baby’s cheek. “We’re calling her Avery,” she said. “It’s Pete’s mom’s name. Avery Melissa.”

  “I like it,” I said.

  I stared down at the baby’s face, her little nose, the tiny nails on her tiny fingers, and suddenly it all came back to me: getting here, the walk across the lobby, how scared I’d been remembering everything about being with my dad. I could feel it rushing over me and I wanted to block it out, but I steeled myself, tightening my fingers into my palms. Avery’s eyes were open now, and they were dark and clear. As she looked at me, I wondered what it was like for the world to be so new, everything a first. Today I hadn
’t had that luxury: each thing that happened since the moment we pulled up was an echo of something else.

  Now I watched Delia study her daughter, smiling and slightly teary, and I had a flash of my own mother, all those months ago, walking out of the waiting room downstairs toward me. More than anything I’d wanted to see something in her expression that gave me hope, but there was nothing. Just the same overwhelming sadness and shock, reflected back at me. That had been when this all began, the shift between us, everything changing.

  I felt something ache in my chest, and suddenly I knew I was going to cry. For me, for my mother. For what we’d had taken from us, but also for what we’d given up willingly. So much of a life. And so much of each other.

  I swallowed, hard, then backed away from the bed. “I, um,” I said, and I could feel Wes watching me, “I need to go try my mom again.”

  “Tell her I couldn’t have done it without you,” Delia said. “You were a real pro.”

  I nodded, barely hearing this, as Delia bent her head back over the baby, smoothing the blanket around her head.

  “Macy,” Wes said as I moved past him, out into the hallway.

  “It’s just,” I said, swallowing again. “I . . . need to talk to my mom. I mean, she’s worried probably, and she’s wondering where I am.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Sure.”

  Suddenly I just missed my mother—who once stared at the ocean, who laughed huge belly laughs—so much it was like a pain, something throbbing. I gulped down some air. “So I’ll just do that,” I said to Wes. “Call my mom. And I’ll be back.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest as I started toward the elevators, walking quickly, struggling to stay calm, even as tears began to sting my eyes. I could feel my heart beating as I ducked around the next corner to an empty alcove. I barely made it before I was sobbing, hands pressed to my face as the tears just flowed, tumbling over my fingers.

  I don’t know how long I was there before Wes came. It could have been seconds, or minutes, or hours. He said my name and I wanted to collect myself, but I just couldn’t.

  When he first put his arms around me, it was tentative, like maybe he expected I’d pull away. When I didn’t, he moved in closer, his hands smoothing over my shoulders, and in my mind I saw myself retreating a million times when people tried to do this same thing: my sister or my mother, pulling back and into myself, tucking everything out of sight, where only I knew where to find it. This time, though, I gave in. I let Wes pull me against him, pressing my head against his chest, where I could feel his heart beating, steady and true. I felt someone pass by, looking at us, but to them I was just another person crying in a hospital. I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to finally understand. Delia was right: it was fine, okay, expected. This was what you were supposed to do. And it happened all the time.

  We caught the last of the fireworks, the biggest and best, as we walked to the Wish van in the hospital parking deck. As they burst overhead, Wes and Bert and I all stopped to look up at them, the whiz and pop as they shot upwards, and the trailing, winding sparks that fell afterwards. Avery was lucky, I thought. She’d always have a party on her birthday.

  After everything that had happened, I’d thought that maybe things would be weird between Wes and me when I finally emerged from the ladies room, having splashed my face with cold water in an attempt to compose myself somehow. But as usual, he surprised me, walking me back to Delia’s room to say our good-byes as if nothing really out of the ordinary had happened. And maybe it hadn’t.

  When we turned into Wildflower Ridge, he pulled up at the far edge of the Commons, a decent distance from the picnic and fireworks area, as if he knew I’d need a little bit of a walk to get my head together and prepare myself for the next challenge. In the backseat, Bert was asleep, snoring with his mouth open. Before I opened my door and hopped out, I eased my purse from under his elbow, careful not to wake him.

  Wes got out too, stretching his arms over his head as he came to meet me in front of the van. Looking more closely, I could see the party was breaking up, people gathering their blankets and strollers and dogs, chatting with each other as they rounded up the children who weren’t already sleeping in arms or over shoulders.

  “So,” Wes said, “what are you doing tomorrow?”

  I smiled, shaking my head. “No idea. You?”

  “Not much. Got a few errands to take care of in the afternoon. I’m thinking about running in the morning, maybe trying that loop in this neighborhood.”

  “Really,” I said. “Are you going to ask me the question? Maybe shout it from the street?”

  “Maybe,” he said, smiling. “You never know. So you’d better be ready. I’ll probably pass by around nine or so. I’ll be the one moving really slowly.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  He started back to the driver’s side. “Have a good night.”

  “You too,” I said. “And thanks.”

  Once he was gone, I took a deep breath, then started across the Commons to find my mother. There was so much I wanted to say to her, and for once I wouldn’t overthink, instead just letting the words come. Delia had convinced me that my mother only wanted me to be happy. It was up to me to show her that I was now, and why.

  After picking my way through the crowd, dodging little kids and various dogs, I spotted my mother talking to Mrs. Burcock, the president of the homeowner’s association. I watched her as she listened, waving now and then at people passing by. The night had clearly been a success, and she seemed relaxed as I walked up to stand beside her. She turned and glanced at me, smiling, then redirected her attention back to what Mrs. Burcock was saying.

  “. . . and bring it up at the meeting next week. I just really think a pooper-scoop rule would improve things for everyone, especially out here on the Commons.”

  “Absolutely,” my mother replied. “Let’s bring it to the table and see how everyone responds.”

  “Well, Macy,” Mrs. Burcock said to me. She was an older woman with a prim haircut. “Did you have a good evening?”

  “I did,” I said. I could feel my mother watching me. “Did you?”

  “Oh, it was just wonderful. We’ll have to start planning next year, right Deborah?”

  My mother laughed. “Starting tomorrow,” she said. “First thing.”

  Mrs. Burcock smiled, then waved and started across the Commons toward her house. My mother and I stood there for a second, not talking, as more neighbors passed on either side of us.

  “So,” I said. “Did you get my message?”

  She turned her head and looked at me, and I saw, in that one moment, that she was mad. Beyond mad. Furious. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before.

  “Not now,” she said, her lips hardly moving as she formed the words.

  “What?”

  “We are not,” she said, and this time I could hear, clearly, the absolute rigidness in her voice, “going to discuss this now.”

  “Great event, Deborah!” A man in khakis and a golf shirt called out as he passed us, a couple of kids in tow.

  “Thanks, Ron,” my mother replied, smiling. “Glad you enjoyed it!”

  “Mom, it wasn’t my fault,” I said. I took a breath: this wasn’t how I wanted this to go. “Delia went into labor, and I couldn’t—”

  “Macy.” Never before had I flinched at the sound of my own name. But I did now. Big time. “I want you to go home, get changed, and get into bed. We’ll discuss this later.”

  “Mom,” I said. “Just let me explain, you don’t understand. Tonight was—”

  “Go.” When I didn’t, she just stared at me, then said, “Now.” And then she turned her back and walked away. Just walked away from me, her posture straight, crossing over to where her employees were waiting for her. I watched her as she listened to them, giving her full attention, nodding, all the things she hadn’t, for even one second, done for me.
/>   I walked home, still in shock, and went up to my room. As I passed my mirror I stopped, seeing my shirt was untucked, my jeans had a barbeque sauce stain on them, my hair and face were all mussed and wild from crying. I looked different, absolutely: even if I hadn’t been able to explain it, all that had happened showed on my face, where my mother had seen it, instantly. Get changed, she said, which was ironic, because all I’d wanted to tell her was that I already had.

  I was so screwed.

  It wasn’t just that I hadn’t showed up for the picnic. It was also the fact that Jason, arriving at the info desk to find I’d quit, had immediately called my cell phone, then my house. Not finding me available, he discussed the situation with my mother, who had been trying to reach me ever since. I’d forgotten to turn my phone back on, then left it in the van, never checking it afterwards. Until late that night, when I finally pulled it out of my bag. I had ten messages.

  Put plainly, I was in big trouble. Luckily, I had someone around who knew that area, could recognize the landmarks, and knew the best road out.

  “When you first get down there, just let her talk,” Caroline said. She’d been unlucky enough to stop in that morning en route from the beach house, walking right into this maelstrom. Now we were in the bathroom, where I was devoting twice as much time as usual to brushing my teeth as I attempted to put off the inevitable. “Sit and listen. Don’t nod. Oh, and don’t smile. That really makes her mad.”

  I rinsed, then spit. “Right.”

  “You have to apologize, but don’t do it right off, because it seems really ungenuine. Let her blow it out of her system, and then say you’re sorry. Don’t make excuses, unless you have a really valid one. Do you?”

  “I was at the hospital,” I said, picking up the bottle of mouthwash. If I was going down, at least I’d have nice breath. “My friend was giving birth.”

  “Was there not a phone there?” she asked.

  “I called her!” I said.

  “An hour after you were supposed to be at the picnic,” she pointed out.