Say What You Will

by Cammie McGovern

  For a long time, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Brooks: Amy? Are you still there?

  Amy: Yes, I’m here. I have to ask you—am I like that monster?

  Brooks: No. My God. I can’t believe you’d say that.

  Amy: You tell a whole story about someone who has lived in isolation and enters the world only to discover the extent of their freakishness. You have to admit, there are parallels.

  Brooks: Oh. I guess so.

  Amy: I lived a very isolated life for a long time. All my friends were teachers and books. I don’t think I even realized it until last year, when I made real friends for the first time. I loved it so much I felt a like I would do anything for those people. I did do anything. It was wonderful.

  Brooks: And what happened?

  Amy: I don’t know. It didn’t last. I discovered the extent of my own freakishness, I guess.

  Brooks: You should really read this story.

  She hadn’t ever asked him this question, but she had to now:

  Amy: Why did you want to be friends with me?

  Brooks: I told you: I liked your comments on the discussion board. Plus, I’m from Orange County, so I read that newspaper article about you. I thought you’d be someone I should get to know.

  She shouldn’t have asked. It only made her feel worse—he was a boy obsessed with the idea of freakishness that she represented. Even if he couldn’t put it into words, she understood. Instead of typing any more, she pushed herself away from the computer and felt a wave of nausea roll up through her body. She was truly alone. Worse than alone, because she’d shared too much time with a boy who was casually, unthinkingly cruel.

  The nausea stayed with her for the rest of the night.

  For three solid days afterward she was sick. On the fourth morning, she woke up and, still wearing her nightgown, walked down the hall to the infirmary. “I FEEL LIKE I’M DYING,” she told the nurse. The room seemed distorted, the walls wavery. She wondered if the nurse would scream and run away from her.

  She spent all day in the infirmary, hooked up to an IV bag to replace her fluids. She heard the nurse say the word dehydrated so many times it lost meaning. She imagined the nurse was saying de-hydra-headed. She wanted to ask about this, but the nurse never stayed by her cot long enough for her to finish typing the strange word. At the end of the day, just as Amy was finally beginning to feel better, the nurse reappeared with a doctor beside her, an older man with white hair and glasses perched at the end of his nose. “Maybe you realize this already, Ms. Van Dorn,” he said. “But it seems there’s something more than a stomach flu going on.”

  Strange how Amy looked at his face and knew right away. Strange that it hadn’t occurred to her before.

  A stupider girl would have known a long time ago. Would have realized that she’d taken a risk a long time ago, on a night she was trying to prove something to herself.

  After Amy recovered enough to return to her room, she only spent one day agonizing over what she should do. The next morning, she called a cab and asked it to take her to the closest Planned Parenthood clinic in East Palo Alto. There she sat in a waiting room with a dozen other women, many seemingly younger than she was.

  When Amy’s name was called, she followed the nurse to the exam room and told her right off the bat, “I CAN TALK. I USE THIS. IT TAKES A LITTLE TIME.” She was tired of people walking away too quickly.

  “Fine,” the nurse said, snapping on rubber gloves. “You need help getting undressed?”

  She appreciated the tired woman’s straightforward question. “YES,” she typed. “I DO.”

  As the nurse quietly helped her out of her clothes, Amy got the reassuring sense that she’d seen a lot worse than a crippled girl who’d accidentally gotten herself pregnant.

  After the doctor confirmed the news, Amy nodded and typed, “IT’S TOO LATE FOR AN ABORTION. I DON’T WANT ONE ANYWAY. I WANT INFORMATION ON HAVING THIS BABY AND PUTTING IT UP FOR ADOPTION.”

  The doctor was a woman with messy blond hair piled on top of her head. “Fine.” She nodded. “In my experience, there’s no reason a young woman with CP can’t carry a baby full-term. You might have some balance issues and need to use this scooter all the time. You’d be considered a higher-risk pregnancy, which involves more prenatal testing and more regular checkups.” She went on for a bit about monitoring her blood and protein in her urine.

  Amy wanted to laugh right there in the office. This doctor wasn’t saying no! She wasn’t pointing out all the reasons Amy shouldn’t do this—her disability, her schooling, her future. She took Amy at her word. She found pamphlets on adoption and gave them to her.

  Over the next few weeks, as Amy wrestled with every minor medical problem a pregnant woman can go through—anemia, swollen joints, brain fog, hemorrhoids—she wondered why her first impulse wasn’t to have an abortion. She could have, the nurse told her. In the second trimester it was harder, a more invasive procedure, but it was possible.

  “NO,” she’d told the nurse. “I DON’T WANT THAT.”

  But now it had to be said: she also didn’t want a baby or to feel sick all the time.

  So what did she want?

  She lay in bed as tears leaked from her eyes down to her pillow, and thought about the notes she’d been writing to Matthew but not sending. If this “friendship” with Brooks had taught her anything, it was this: she wanted to see Matthew. She wanted to talk to him. Though he had no part in this, she wanted to share it with him because he would understand this first instinct of hers—to honor this unlikely baby’s existence. To think this whole semester might have been a waste, except for this.

  Two weeks later, Amy almost made it through an entire weekend visit from her mother without a fight. Almost. There was talk of her looking “tired” and “run-down”; there was even a mention of her thickening waist, but Amy ignored it all. She was determined to keep her pregnancy a secret, but she wanted her mother to see another truth: that Amy regularly talked to no one beyond her PCAs. That she spent ninety percent of her time alone. That she was isolated in a way that no one should be.

  Sunday night over dinner, Amy laid it out as plainly as she could: “I DON’T TALK TO ANYONE IN MY CLASSES. OTHER FRESHMEN EAT WITH DORM FRIENDS. THEY GO INTO TOWN TOGETHER. I DON’T DO ANY OF THAT. I DON’T EVEN TALK TO THE NURSES NEXT DOOR. I DON’T TALK TO ANYONE. IF YOU ASK AROUND, YOU WON’T FIND VERY MANY PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW I SPEAK, BECAUSE I ALMOST NEVER DO HERE.” It was hard to say all this, but important. She typed it in ahead of time so she wouldn’t lose her nerve or skip any parts.

  “NO ONE KNOWS ME HERE. AT ALL.”

  Nicole sighed and put her fork down. “Amy, this isn’t true.”

  “YES, IT IS. YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS IS LIKE. I’M NOT HAPPY. I HAVEN’T BEEN IN MONTHS.”

  “I know you have friends.”

  Why did her mother insist on believing this? “I DON’T.”

  “What about this boy, Brooks? Hasn’t he been writing to you?”

  Amy’s insides went cold. How did she know this? “YOU KNOW BROOKS?”

  “Dad knows his father. They sat on a board together. He’s nice, right? I know he’s very smart. He was valedictorian of his class. Dad wrote to his father and asked his son to get in touch with you.”

  Amy felt sure that if she didn’t keep swallowing, she would throw up her dinner all over the restaurant table. Even Brooks, her cruel frenemy, wasn’t really hers. This whole life was her mother’s arrangement. “This is what you always do, Aim. You overdramatize. I know you’re lonely, but you do have friends. It’s hard for everyone in the beginning.”

  Amy said very little for the rest of her mother’s visit. After Nicole left, she felt too sick to get out of bed. For five days, she didn’t go to classes or leave her room. Chloe came to visit, and she couldn’t say the one thing she wanted to say to her old friend: Take me with you. Don’t leave me here. I’m scared I might die.

  The night after Chloe left, aft
er she humiliated herself by sobbing uncontrollably for almost twenty minutes, she texted Matthew for the first time in almost two months. When she didn’t hear back from him right away, she panicked and wrote Sarah at Berkeley. “I need help,” she wrote. “From a friend. Please come.”

  A few hours later, Sarah was there. “This isn’t good,” Sarah said, looking around the room, littered with dirty laundry and empty Boost cans. “You want me to drive you home?” It was a six-hour drive, but it was also a Sunday. “I’m happy to do it,” Sarah said.

  “NOT HOME. SOMEWHERE ELSE.”

  As Sarah cleaned up, she made other suggestions. “How about another relative? Or my father’s house?”

  Amy jumped on that. “YOUR FATHER’S HOUSE? ARE YOU SERIOUS? COULD I GO THERE?”

  “I’ll call him and ask. I think he’ll say yes. But what should I say when he asks why you’re not going to your parents’ house?”

  Amy thought about the old fight between her mother and Mr. Heffernan over the seventh-grade science fair. About her mother’s determination and Mr. Heffernan’s quiet insistence: You do Amy’s real strengths a disservice by insisting she excel at everything.

  “TELL HIM I HAD A FIGHT WITH MY MOTHER.”

  Sarah smiled and shrugged. “Okay,” she said.

  Watching Sarah throw clothes in a duffel bag and books in a box, Amy felt better than she had in weeks. The air began to clear. It was like she could breathe again. She would be around an adult who had stood up to her mother. She would be closer to Matthew. She would call him up and see him again.

  In the car driving down, they talked about music and Sarah’s life, mostly. Anything to avoid the subject of Amy’s escape from school. She hadn’t explained it, because she couldn’t yet.

  When they pulled up to Sarah’s house—a small ranch at the end of a cul-de-sac—her father was standing at the end of the driveway, both arms raised like some invisible team had just scored a touchdown. “You made it!” he said. He looked much older but much happier than the last time Amy saw him, which was probably five years ago.

  “Thanks for this, Dad,” Sarah said when she got out of the car. “She only needs to stay a week or so. After that, she can go home.”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine, I’m happy to have her!” he said.

  Amy hadn’t told Sarah about the pregnancy. Who knew what Sarah was thinking (or her father, for that matter)? But for now Amy was grateful that so few questions had been asked.

  Inside the house, Mr. Heffernan had an odd mix of food laid out on the counter: a sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mints, a loaf of pumpkin bread, some petrified clementines. “What is this, Dad—dinner?” Sarah said, carrying in Amy’s things. They laughed in a surprisingly easy way. Before Sarah left, she apologized to Amy. “I wish I could stay longer, but I have a class in the morning.” She hugged Amy, then stood in the kitchen, whispering for a few minutes with her father.

  Amy said nothing about the baby because she hadn’t told anyone yet. She was afraid if she did, the arguments against it would begin to pile up. She was too young, her own health too fragile. It was too big a risk. She hadn’t told anyone because she hadn’t wanted anyone to talk her out of it.

  To her shock, no one this whole time—not even her mother—had guessed. Her stomach was growing, her breasts enlarged, and still it wasn’t a possibility anyone considered. But a few minutes after Sarah left, Mr. Heffernan pointed at Amy’s swollen ankles. “Judging by that edema, I’d guess you’re either pregnant or have a rare tropical disease.” His eyebrows lifted up. “Beriberi, perhaps?”

  Amy surprised herself by laughing. She’d been crying almost constantly for two months, and now she felt fine. “NO,” she typed. “NOT BERIBERI.”

  “Ah,” he nodded. “Pregnant, then, perhaps?”

  If she told the truth, he might make her go home to her parents. But what other choice did she have? She had to find a doctor here and get seen soon. “YES, I AM HAVING THE BABY BUT NOT KEEPING IT. UNCONVENTIONAL, I KNOW.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Quite unconventional.” For a long time he didn’t say anything. Then he nodded, his eyebrows raised again. “Some might say brave.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  TWO DAYS AFTER HE wrote his last long e-mail to Amy, he finally heard back from her:

  aimhigh: Got your note, Matthew. Thank you. I loved it.

  He laughed out loud in relief, and clapped his hands.

  mstheword: You’re alive! Hurray!

  aimhigh: Yes. I’m alive.

  mstheword: Are you okay? Chloe said she saw you about a week ago and she got a little worried. She said you seemed upset.

  aimhigh: You could say that. Did she say anything else?

  mstheword: Just that you looked different. Like maybe you were sick.

  aimhigh: Did she say I looked pregnant?

  mstheword: No.

  Pulsing cursor. No response.

  mstheword: Are you?

  aimhigh: Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t have just said it like that. That’s the big news. The other big news is I’m home. Or sort of home. Nearby anyway.

  mstheword: Where?

  aimhigh: I can’t tell you. My parents don’t know. Don’t tell them.

  mstheword: Why not?

  aimhigh: I want to do this my way. They won’t let me. Just trust me.

  mstheword: Okay. But what does that mean?

  aimhigh: I’m having the baby and putting it up for adoption. My mom will freak out. She’ll say there’s a seizure risk with pregnancy.

  He didn’t type anything for a little while. He was trying to figure out how long it would take him to Google seizure risks before he got back to her.

  mstheword: Is there a risk?

  aimhigh: Slight. But there’s a seizure risk with everything. Don’t Google it. Just trust me.

  He stopped typing seizure into the search box, which was taking a while because he couldn’t remember how to spell it. After that, they messaged for almost an hour. She told him the highlights of her semester. (“Almost none. One weird friend I didn’t like very much.”) He told her his. (“You were right, I think. Working is good for me. Gets me out of my head. But I still need to go to school, I know. I enjoy concessions but probably don’t want to make a life out of them.”) Because he didn’t want her to think he was too scared to, he asked her how the pregnancy was going.

  aimhigh: Good, mostly. I was really sick in the beginning, but then I got better and felt great. Now something weird is going on.

  mstheword: What’s happening now?

  aimhigh: I feel sicker, which isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You’re meant to feel more energetic in your second trimester.

  mstheword: Sick how?

  aimhigh: Weird headache. Blurry vision. My shoulders and arms really ache but they’re not doing anything.

  Hearing this kicked his heart into double time.

  mstheword: You’ve got a doctor here, right?

  aimhigh: Yes.

  mstheword: Cuz it sounds like maybe you should go to the doctor.

  aimhigh: Don’t worry. Here’s the thing I’ve learned about pregnancy. Everything feels like a crisis and everything turns out to be heartburn.

  mstheword: But you’ll go if you need to. Tell me you have someone to take you to the hospital.

  Funny, he thought. Here he was again, with Amy back in his life, and here he was again, needing reassurance. They talked until he had to leave for an appointment with Beth. Before he got off, he asked Amy to tell him where she was staying. She couldn’t tell him, she said. Not yet. He asked what happened at school, but she couldn’t tell him that yet, either. “It’s complicated,” she said. Everything was complicated.

  At his appointment, he told Beth, “It’s great. It’s wonderful. I’m so happy to be talking to her, but I also feel anxious again l
ike I haven’t been in months.”

  “That’s not necessarily bad,” Beth said. “Sometimes feeling nervous just means you’re having a lot of feelings all at once.” That was certainly true. “Feeling a lot is confusing, but it’s not a bad thing.”

  But feeling what? he wanted to say. What am I feeling? Instead he went home, got back online, and asked Amy more questions. Had she done a sonogram? Did she know the sex of the baby?

  aimhigh: Yes, and it’s a girl. She’s fine so far.

  mstheword: Does Sanjay know?

  aimhigh: Yes, now he does.

  mstheword: What did he say?

  aimhigh: That he supported a woman’s right to choose. Or not choose. He said he’d sign papers but he didn’t have the money to fly home for this. He’s sorry but he’s barely getting by as it is.

  mstheword: Jerk.

  aimhigh: I thought that for a while but then I thought—I really don’t want him to be part of it anyway.

  Matthew hesitated before he asked the next question:

  mstheword: Do you want me to be part of it?

  aimhigh: I didn’t know I was pregnant this summer. I just knew I felt great. Alive and happy because of you.

  He was grateful to be alone in his room so she couldn’t see that he was crying.

  mstheword: I felt the same way.

  aimhigh: When I think of this baby, I think of you. You’re not the father, I know. But in a way, you are.

  He couldn’t answer.

  aimhigh: It doesn’t have to be anything official. I just wanted to say that. Do you want to be part of this?

  Finally his body calmed down enough for him to type: