Deadbeat

by Amy Sparling

  "Dude why are Maci's slippers here? Does she sleep over?" I ask. Austin's parents would never allow that.

  "Nah," he laughs. I swear he turns a bit red too. "She just likes to wear them when she's over here."

  "That's gay."

  "I think it's cute."

  I make a gagging sound and sink into the beanbag. "This is a nice addition though."

  "Yeah it's cool." He opens his laptop and starts playing some music. We're silent just long enough for it to get awkward and he finally mentions the elephant in the room. "So, why did you want to come over?"

  I throw my hands in the air. "Can't a guy see his best friend?"

  "Yeah. But, you haven't really called me in weeks."

  "You haven't called me either! Maybe if you weren't so far up Maci's-"

  "Screw you, man. Don't give me that." He cracks a smile. He always does that after saying something rude, just to take the sting off his words. He didn't need to smile because I know he didn't mean it.

  "Honestly…Austin," I say. The words are formed perfectly in my head, yet they refuse to come out of my mouth as eloquently. I need help. I need a friend. "I just wanted to chill for a bit."

  His eyes look up at me from his computer. I continue, "Maybe talk a little."

  He stiffens. "About what?"

  I let out a sigh. "I think you know what."

  He relaxes and looks me in the eye. "So she's in the hospital, huh?"

  "Yeah. David's girlfriend told him about it, but he didn't tell me any details."

  "Why not?"

  "Eh, I didn't ask."

  "Well, why the hell didn't you ask?"

  I cover my face with my hands, breathing hot air on them. It thickens and makes my palms wet. "I just want to know that Elisa is going to be okay."

  "Is that it?" he asks.

  "Yes, what else would it be?"

  "The baby." He says it all obvious like there's no way I could have forgotten it. But I have forgotten.

  "Oh yeah, that. I guess it would also be good if her baby didn't, like, die."

  "That's awful, Jeremy."

  "How is that awful?" I ask, boldly looking him in the eye because I feel infinitesimally small right now.

  "You just said her baby but it's your baby too. Why do you keep acting like it isn't?"

  "Because in a way, it isn't mine. It doesn't grow inside of me. Women have this kind of bond with babies because they're made inside of them. Any guy off the street could play the role of being a dad."

  Austin's face crinkles like he's going to be sick. He just doesn't get it.

  "I don't know why you wanted to talk to me, I obviously can't help you."

  I shrug. "I just want to know that someone on this planet still likes me."

  "I like you. In a non-homosexual way, I totally like you," he says. His face is distorted, like he's in some kind of pain. A pain that I should be feeling too but I'm not.

  "Tell me what to do," I say. "I'm begging you, Austin."

  He purses his lips and thinks. And then he takes a deep breath and I lean forward, anxiously awaiting his advice. "Man I'm not some kind of therapist. I'm almost a year younger than you, so my maturity level is way worse than yours. I wish I could help you, but I can't."

  "Ugh." I groan, staring at the floor. "I just want to know why I feel so bad. Should I go talk to her? Should I do something?"

  "I guess it comes down to one thing," Austin says slowly, still in thought.

  "And that is?"

  "Do you want a baby, or not?"

  I don't even need to think about the question. "Not," I say. "Definitely not."

  Chapter 22

  It's May eighteenth. And it's two-thirty in the morning, so I guess it's really May nineteenth. My phone is ringing. Crawling out of bed, I walk over to my desk and grab the phone. I squint at the screen, trying to make out the caller but it's impossible to see for a moment because my room is pitch black. The brightness burns my eyes. And then I see Austin's name, so I answer.

  My first thought is that a police officer will be on the other line, telling me he's dead from some horrible car wreck.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey broseph!" It's definitely not a cop.

  "Why are you calling me so late? It's a school night you know."

  "I'm calling to tell you two things, one of them is very awesome and the other is not so awesome."

  "Tell me the awesome first."

  "My mom just had her baby, so I'm a big brother now. Cool, huh?"

  "Congrats, man. That's awesome," I say.

  "They named him Ian."

  "Cool."

  "So, the other reason I called," Austin says, with some hesitation.

  "This better be good, I was asleep you know."

  "Elisa was in the hospital room next to my mom."

  I am wide awake now. "Did she have her baby too?"

  "Not exactly. A bunch of nurses and doctors just freaked out and they rushed her to Intensive Care."

  "You saw this happen?" I ask. If he didn't physically see it, it didn't happen.

  "I definitely saw it. I was standing in the hallway by the nursery when they rushed her hospital bed down the hall. She saw me too. She was crying."

  "God…" Why did he have to say that last part?

  "I'm sorry, I really don't know why I told you that. I guess I shouldn't have called, I know you don't care about her."

  "That's not true!" I yell into the phone as loud as I can without waking up my parents.

  "Yeah, I didn't think it was," he says in this sarcastic tone. "You better get over here."

  Just the idea of me going to the hospital sends a cold, sharp chill down my spine. "I can't."

  "Yes. You can."

  "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

  I walk into the hospital's main entrance expecting to sign in, or get carded, or something. But no one acknowledges me. There's an information desk next to the gift shop but the lady working it is yawning and playing with her cell phone. To my left is a string of elevators and a waiting room.

  I head to the elevators and skim the sign. Maternity ward is the forth floor. My heart beats faster as the elevator ascends. It reaches the fourth floor and makes a ding that sends a chill through my heart. And by now, it's beating so fast that it actually hurts inside my chest. What am I doing here?

  The doors rumble open to an empty hallway. I step out and look both directions. There's a sign for the nursery, another one for the waiting room and then a hallway to my right with delivery rooms. I shove my hands into my pockets to dry my sweaty palms.

  A few minutes later, and I still haven't moved. I don't know where to go. Right now the best place to go seems to be one step behind me, back inside the elevator. This could all be over with one push of the down button. I could drive back home and go to sleep and pretend this never happened.

  Footsteps come around the corner and I jump.

  "You made it," Austin says. He's holding a dollar bill between his hands, smoothing out the corners. "I'm just headed to the snack machine, you wanna come with?"

  I follow him into the waiting room where a ton of vending machines sit next to a big-screen TV on The Weather Channel. The room is full of people, even at this hour. I stop short at the entryway, doing a quick survey of the room for Elisa's parents.

  They aren't here.

  But at least a dozen people are; some of them in pajamas, others in normal clothes. It's three in the freaking morning, but I guess babies aren't always born between the hours of eight and five.

  I walk up behind Austin, who has his forehead to the glass trying to decide which snack to choose. "Twix?" I ask, pointing to his favorite candy bar.

  "Nah, man. I've had too much chocolate tonight. I want something resembling real food."

  "Try the trail mix then."

  Forehead still on the glass, he turns his head to give me this look. "Trail mix is the epitome of snack food – it is not even close to real food."

  "Then go to Jac
k-in-the-Box," I say. "I don't feel like standing here all night watching you."

  Austin turns back to the machine and presses a button. Peanut butter filled crackers fall to the bottom of the machine.

  A man with loud dress shoes clip-claps into the waiting room. He's wearing a suit but doesn't look like a doctor. He sits next to one of the couples in pajamas. The woman has red swollen eyes, rimmed in dark circles.

  "She's in critical condition," he says. The woman gasps, and her husband grabs her hand and rubs it. Austin opens his snack and sinks into one of the waiting chairs to eat it. Now that I'm with someone I know, I'm not about to venture throughout the maternity ward alone, so I sit next to him.

  And although I'm not exactly eavesdropping, the man is making no efforts to conceal his booming voice, so I get to listen in by default.

  "What does that mean? Is the baby going to be okay?" the woman asks.

  "Dr. Koman says the baby should be fine, but since the mother is in such bad condition the only thing we can do is wait for her to get better."

  "How long will that take?" he woman's husband asks in this pissy tone.

  Business man shrugs. "Could be days."

  "Isn't there something we can do? I mean, we had an agreement," the woman says.

  "You had a verbal agreement, without a signed document you have nothing."

  The husband releases his wife's hand and balls both of his into fists. "I'll tell you what I have. I have two thousand dollars wasted on plane tickets if I don't go home with a baby."

  "The girl is underage, Kurt. Her mom refuses to sign the papers, so unless that girl becomes mentally capable soon, I can't do anything further for you." The man stands up and walks out without another word. I suspect he's disgusted with the way the husband is acting.

  I turn to Austin to see if he was also listening.

  He's got a mouth full of crackers and wide eyes. "I get it now," he says, swallowing.

  "Get what?"

  He leans in to whisper in my ear. His breath smells like peanut butter. "Those people have been hanging around Elisa's room all night. Guess they're going to adopt your baby."

  Chapter 23

  Realizing that Elisa was in ICU had hit me like a ton of bricks. And now, as I clutch the side of this waiting room chair, there isn't a pile of bricks big enough to cause the amount of pain that plummets through me. Elisa had decided to give up our baby for adoption.

  She had been so vehemently against it.

  And now she had a family picked out and everything. I glare at the assholes in their pajamas who are talking quietly to themselves. They are so shockingly average, so plain – everything that would make a total loser of a parent. And the husband was clearly a dick.

  But whatever. It was Elisa's decision to make. And although those people were total idiots, I guess they will make better parents than my parents would have. And I won't have to grow up living with a constant reminder of what a fuck up I was in high school.

  Austin allows me to take a few deep breaths to calm myself. And then he stands up.

  "You want to come meet Ian?"

  "No," I say. Before his face can crumple up and get offended, I add, "I need to see Elisa."

  "You sure?" he asks. I nod.

  He takes me down the hallway of delivery rooms, stopping at the one with his mom's name on the door. "The intensive care rooms are further down the hall. They have walls that are all windows, and she's in one of them. I guess you'll have to ask the nurse or something."

  "Thanks," I say, holding up my fist. He bumps it with his fist and tells me good luck before ducking into his mother's room.

  I'm on my own again.

  As I walk down the hallway, each step gets more wobbly than the last. The hall makes a curved turn and there it is, walls of glass divided into rooms. There are nurses, doctors and people standing around, moving from here to there. A kid sits against the wall playing a video game. I try to blend in with the people, all while searching for Elisa's room or a nurse who doesn't look like she has a million things to do so I can ask her where to go.

  I forget that I should be looking for her parents until one of them wraps me in a huge hug.

  "Oh Jeremy!" Mrs. Hardy cries. "I knew you would come - I knew it!"

  I stand there paralyzed, her arms clenched around me like vise grips. This is not the reaction I was expecting. My shoulder gets warm from her tears. And when she finally pulls back, keeping her arms around my neck, we stare at each other. For a small moment it's as if she's not the adult and I'm not the kid, but that we're both the same on this infinite level.

  She's crying, but it doesn't appear to be a mad-at-me type of crying. "I'm so glad you came, Jeremy."

  "Where is she?" I ask.

  "She's right up front by the window, in the third bassinet," she says. "Her tag says Hardy. I'll go with you and the nurse can let you hold her."

  "No, no," I say, holding out my hand to stop her. Her face twists in confusion. "I didn't mean where was the baby, I want to see Elisa."

  "Oh." Now she looks even more confused. "She's in there with the doctor," she says, waving a hand to one of the glass rooms. Then she grabs my arms tightly, eyes filling with tears again. "You aren't going to let her go through with this are you?"

  The woman is so fragile yet so terrifying. "I just want to go see Elisa," I say, twisting to get out of her grip.

  "Tell me you won't let them take my grandbaby," she demands, her voice trembling. "Promise me."

  "I'm sorry," I say, unwilling to yield to her weeping eyes. "I can't promise that."

  Chapter 24

  I stand outside Elisa's room, unable to see anything but the outline of her feet under the hospital blankets. Her doctor is a portly man, and he's blocking her face from my view. It takes forever for him to move – a thousand forevers. Finally, he turns and walks right up to me since I'm blocking the doorway.

  "Can I go inside?" I ask.

  "Have you washed your hands?" He nudges his glasses back up on his nose and points to a sanitation sink on the wall. I rush to the sink and wash my hands with the pink foamy soap. All the way up to my elbows like it says on the sign next to the sink. When I finish, the doctor is no longer there. Elisa's mom isn't around either. This is a good thing, because there's no one to tell me no, and no one to see if Elisa decides to throw her IV bag at me, screaming for me to leave and go to hell.

  I'm numb as I walk to her room. My heart is probably beating so fast that it's about to fly out of my chest, but it's been doing that since I first set foot inside this hospital so I no longer feel it. My toes are tingly. My fingers are cold.

  The last few months of hating Elisa are just a distant memory in a make-believe dream. They never actually happened. I take a step, and then another, and I am in her room. Taking my eyes off the floor, I look at her and she's on her side facing away from me.

  So maybe that's why I made it inside the door. She couldn't see me to tell me to get the fuck away from her.

  I walk up to her bed, expecting her to turn to me any second. She never does. Her fingers are playing with something small in her hand. She turns it between her fingers and then spreads it out on the bed.

  It's the necklace I gave her.

  The past, present and future.

  "Mom?" she asks, her voice is strained, dry and weak. My mouth opens, and panic rises in my chest. I have no idea what to say. I should start apologizing, or begging her to listen to me and not kick me out. I could turn around and run.

  I gasp for a breath, and say, "No."

  Her head spins around and her body painfully follows as she turns to look at me. Her eyes are wide, riddled with confusion, pain, and a dozen other emotions I can't decipher. Her face is puffy and swollen. Her neck is stained in blood and my stomach tenses when I see an IV needle taped on her neck, below her ear. It looks so incredibly painful.

  Her wrists and elbows are bruised, pricked and dotted with sticky lines where bandages had been. She doesn't look like he
rself at all. My eyes meet hers, and this is where she is the same Elisa I know. Hazel eyes, rimmed with long eyelashes, and completely beautiful.

  And now they are filling with pools of water and this is all because of me.

  "Baby, I-" I choke on my words. I have so many things to say and no words to say them. "I'm sorry." It's lame, but it's all I have.

  I think she smiles. But then she winces in the effort it takes her to lift up her hand. She extends it out to me, and I grab it with both of my hands, pulling it close to my chest. Tears roll down her cheeks. "I'm," she says, taking another slow breath, "sorry, too."

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I lean over the bed and bury my head on her shoulder, still grasping her hand in mine. And I haven't cried since I was ten years old, but I cry now.

  The sound of her heart fills me, and overcomes the pounding of my own. The slow rise and fall of her chest is so precious to me now; it trumps every worry I had earlier tonight.

  "What happened to you?" I ask after a while.

  "I got this condition, where you get diabetes, but only when you're pregnant."

  "How the hell does that happen?"

  She chuckles in a weak, shallow breathing way. "I don't know."

  "Are you going to be okay?" I ask, pulling up to look at her.

  Her eyes close. She nods. Then they open again, threatening to break into tears any moment. "I'll be fine. They just want me to rest. I haven't slept at all."

  "You need to sleep then," I say, running my hand through her hair. "‘Is there anything I can do for you?"

  "Yes." She points to a chair in the corner of the room. "Stay."

  Chapter 25

  I sit in the chair for three hours. Elisa sleeps peacefully. Nurses filter in, taking notes on her vital signs and occasionally talking to her mom in the lobby but only one of them talks to me. She shows me how to turn my chair into a bed. But I don't want to sleep. I just want to sit here and watch Elisa, and know that she is okay.