Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  “Being pregnant has made you sassy,” said Mom.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “Probably another girl,” she said.

  A girl? Huh.

  “Where’s Henny?” Rain asked, nodding at the empty place at the table.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember if he came home last night or not,” Mom said. “I thought he said he’d be here, that he had a day off before he had to go back to the night shift.

  Our eyes locked, but I wasn’t about to tell grandmother or sister that Mom couldn’t remember because she’d been into the sauce.

  “I’m right here,” Henny said with a yawn. “I wasn’t about to miss Easter Dinner, although I may fall asleep in the middle of it.”

  I studied my brother once again. Tired, but he still looked clean.

  “Deviled eggs, yes!” he said.

  “Ham?” Granny asked.

  “Mother, you know we don’t have meat in this household,” Mom said. “It’s cruel to animals and not good for you, either.”

  “Cruel? No ham,” she muttered before stopping to stare off into space. Rain started to feed her mashed potatoes just as I’d fed her oatmeal the day before, and I made a note to get some ham and shred it very, very fine and sneak it into her grits.

  Henny was on his third deviled egg, and I was glad Mom was vegetarian rather than vegan because her mashed potatoes tasted of butter and love. I filled up on those and green beans and biscuits, making a note that my baby-to-be tolerated—even enjoyed—each of those things.

  I paused. “No one move.”

  I ran back to the bedroom and found my old digital camera, rushing back to the kitchen. Sure enough, if I put it on the counter and set the timer, then I’d be able to get a picture of all of us. I bent over to double check the angle. “Henny move just a little to the left so I can see Rain. Mom, turn around.”

  I didn’t bother with Granny. She would do as she wanted to do. I set the timer then rushed back to my seat, putting a smile on my face just before the flash.

  “There. I wanted to capture this moment for always. When was the last time we were all in a picture together?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s been too long,” Mom said.

  * * *

  Rain helped Granny back to the living room while I started the dishes. I’d hardly cleared the table when the doorbell rang. Mom went to get it but soon returned. “John wants to see you.”

  I snorted. “Tell him I’m busy.”

  “I’ll do the dishes. You go talk to the father of your child. He’s on the porch.”

  With a heavy sigh I dried my hands and walked out, making sure not to slam the front door this time since I couldn’t afford to replace the picture frames I’d already broken much less anything new.

  “Hey.”

  He wore scuffed cowboy boots, distressed denim, and a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves. He’d let his hair down. I tamped down a sigh of longing. I thought John O’Brien had given me the one gift I’d always wanted, but it seemed I wanted more. “Hey.”

  He patted a spot beside him on the porch swing, but I stood. Finally, he said, “I was worried about you.”

  “Worried about me?”

  “You took off like a bat out of Hades. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I had to get out of there. I’d had a great morning and then Miss Georgette started with the judging. After all, I’m the reason ‘that sweet boy fell off the wagon.’”

  He winced. “Please have a seat.”

  I sat, but our weight wasn’t quite distributed so the swing didn’t move evenly, my side always a little ahead or behind his.

  “Sometimes I wish we could start over,” he finally said.

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, maybe if we’d rediscovered each other at a time when you weren’t trying to divorce Chad and I wasn’t in recovery, maybe we could’ve made a go of this.”

  “And if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their butts when they jumped,” I murmured, echoing one of Granny’s favorite expressions.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Besides, we’re too broken for each other, remember?”

  The swing went still. He turned and kissed me. Desire shot through my body in an instant, but he soon broke off the kiss. “Is this love or lust?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  I stood up and paced on the far side of the porch. “I don’t know, John. There’s definitely lust. Or is it love? Would I know what love is if it were to hit me upside the head?”

  He exhaled deeply. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I told you. I was worried about you.”

  “That sounds more like love than lust,” I said, my hands on my hips.

  “There was some lust in there, too.”

  I thought of how I’d rationalized sleeping with him the day before. I wouldn’t get any more pregnant so what did we have to lose? We had a lot to lose. We had to maintain a civil relationship so our child would have two parents even if we didn’t end up living in the same house. “Look, John, your sponsor’s right. Your first priority is to stay sober.”

  “What about you? What is your first priority?”

  “To make sure our baby is born healthy,” I said. Even as I said the words, the “our” surprised me. Knowing how to properly be pregnant—no caffeine, no alcohol, no deli meats, take a walk every day, drink plenty of water, etc.—was almost second nature to me after all of the years of research I’d done. All of that time, though, I’d thought in terms of “my” baby. But with John everything was different. Or maybe it could’ve been if our situation were.

  He nodded, his hands balled in fists as he stood. “And you’ll tell me if you need me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I—” He hesitated but eventually found the words, “Can I be there when you get the ultrasounds and things like that?”

  “I hadn’t thought you’d want to go, but yes.”

  He frowned, hurt that I’d thought he wouldn’t want to be there, and some light seeped into the cracks of my own brokenness.

  “What about Lamaze?”

  Someone had been doing Internet research. “I don’t think so. Mom can go with me.”

  “Thank God.”

  I stared him down. He wasn’t about to be my Lamaze partner, but he didn’t have to be so excited about it.

  “I mean, I wasn’t ready for this—”

  “Stop while you’re ahead.”

  He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I can raise plants and tune pianos, but I don’t know how to be a father.”

  “I wish I knew how to instruct you, but I never had one.”

  “Mine’s gone.”

  “Then we’re in a pickle, aren’t we? Let’s start with ultrasounds and keeping you sober.” My tone of voice came out sharper than I’d intended. I shouldn’t resent John for focusing on his sobriety, but I did.

  “I’m thinking I should go,” he said.

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “But you’ll call me?”

  “Of course.”

  He walked down the flagstone path and under the lattice arch that led to the sidewalk. A part of me wanted to shout for him to come back, but I didn’t—probably remnants of that pride that had gotten me into so much trouble. Besides, I had to figure out how to do things on my own, a tricky proposition since I was on the cusp of being in charge of another human being.

  Odd that on a day of rebirth I felt as though so many things had died.

  chapter 29

  Tuesday morning before the sun rose, I sat at my borrowed desk putting together sub plans. Later that day, I had my appointment with the doctor that would confirm my pregnancy, something that simply had to be true based on my current desire for nothing more than Saltines and Sprite.

  “A word, Ms. Love?”

  Ms. Varner leaned against the door fram
e casually.

  “Of course, come in. I mean, it’s your school so, of course, you can come in, but you know what I mean.”

  Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked across the room and took a seat in the chair in front of the computer, rolling it around so she could face me. “Why haven’t you submitted an application for next year?”

  My heart sped up with hope. “I thought, well, surely you know that I’m pregnant. Miss Georgette said—”

  “Miss Georgette is retired,” Ms. Varner said crisply. “I value her opinion, but she comes from a time when the pool of possible candidates was far deeper than it is now.”

  “So I’m not automatically out of a job because I’m pregnant?”

  “Ms. Love, if Yessum County were to fire every teacher who got unexpectedly pregnant, we’d fire at least two teachers a year.”

  Hope swelled again.

  “I really do love this job, and I could use the insurance.”

  Ms. Varner stood. “Then I’d suggest you turn in an application.”

  “I will,” I said.

  She nodded and walked back out.

  My heart beat so loudly I felt it in my ears, but I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. All was not lost.

  * * *

  It took over an hour to prod me, poke me, question me about my life history, and confirm my pregnancy. Then the doctor weighed me down with a packet full of instructions, coupons, and classes. Even so, I beamed as I walked out the door. This was it. I was going to have a baby. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect circumstances, but, then again, maybe I needed less than perfect circumstances to offset years of reading up on pregnancy and thinking I would be able to control every aspect of motherhood. Goodness knew I didn’t suffer from that misconception now.

  Even better, I liked Dr. Kim and her nurse, Clarice. Liza had suggested her own OB since I obviously couldn’t go back to the doctor I’d been seeing. It might’ve been worth it to see the look on his face when I turned up pregnant after he told me I couldn’t conceive, but I doubted it. I still intended to write a very sharply worded letter to the state medical board.

  I did not, however, expect to see Liza herself in the parking lot. She strapped Nathaniel’s seat into position then closed the van door and slumped against it.

  “Liza?”

  She immediately stood up, but I couldn’t miss the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She sniffed. “I can’t tell you. It wouldn’t be nice to tell you.”

  “Tell me you don’t have cancer or some kind of disease. Liza Marie, I swear—”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  She collapsed into my arms, and I patted her back, stunned. “Already?”

  “Yes,” she said miserably. “I can’t have another baby. I’m not doing a good job with this one.”

  “Okay, you’re going to sit in this van and roll down the windows. I’m going to sit with you until you’re calm enough to drive.”

  We sat in the car, and she rolled down the windows. Her van was fancy enough that she could even roll down the side window a little. It wasn’t that hot of a day, but we still had a baby in the car.

  “I have to go. He’s going to wake up and I’m going to have to feed him and I only have one diaper left and no more clean outfits and—”

  “Liza, you have to breathe. You have to calm down first.”

  She took in jagged breaths and released them too quickly. Finally, those breaths began to even out. “You must think I’m horrible. You’ve wanted babies all this time and here I am complaining about another one. I am awful. I should be grateful.”

  “You get to feel however you want to feel. I can completely understand why you’re so upset. We just got the big man to sleep through the night and here you are looking to do it again?”

  “Doc said he may have stopped sleeping through the night because the pregnancy’s keeping me from producing as much milk and that I should look into weaning him to formula.”

  “So?”

  “So, you know babies are supposed to have breast milk! I can’t give him formula.”

  “Liza, your mother gave you formula,” I said.

  “Exactly. Just look how neurotic I turned out.” She banged her head on the steering wheel, which made the horn go off. The baby cried, but went back to sleep.

  “Honey, that’s the hormones talking. At least we’ll be pregnant together.”

  “That’s not good! That’s bad, very bad. We’ll burn the whole town down when the grocery store runs out of Rocky Road, and it will be because we’re both pregnant at the same time!”

  “I’ll drive to Jefferson for Rocky Road. We’ll eat it together while we watch Tangled.”

  “I do have a crush on Flynn Rider.”

  “Don’t we all, Liza. Don’t we all.”

  “I guess I could text you to see if you’re awake in the dark of night when I can’t sleep,” she grumbled.

  “Of course, you can. I’ll have to answer because I owe you for all the times I woke up this baby.”

  Just when I thought I had her calmed down, she exclaimed, “Oh, God. I hadn’t even thought about school. I’m going to have to find another supply teacher. Do you know how hard it is to find someone who can teach chemistry around here?”

  “It will be okay. Promise.”

  “I’m not going to make it.”

  “Of course you are. Have you told Owen?”

  “No,” she moaned. “But when I do, I’m going to tell him it’s all your fault.”

  “My fault?”

  “Yes, I got pregnant that night you watched the baby. We didn’t end up going out. I ordered Chinese, and he brought beer. But he forgot the condoms.”

  “So, you’re really saying it’s his fault.”

  She sighed. “Technically, but I have to live with him. It’s much easier to throw you under the bus.”

  There. That was more like the Liza I knew and loved.

  “Are you going to be okay to drive home now?”

  “Yeah, and I’m not going to tell him it’s your fault.”

  “So kind of you,” I said as I opened the passenger side door. “Cheer up, bestie. It’s going to be a tandem pregnancy.”

  “I’m not going to ride one of those damned bikes for two with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I grinned. I’d been after Liza to try one of those bicycles with me since fifth grade. I got out of her van and shut the door but then leaned against it.

  “Dammit, I can’t drink for another eight months,” Liza muttered. “And today of all days I could really use a drink.”

  “Getting drunk is so overrated,” I said.

  “Can’t go pole dancing now, either.”

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  “You are no fun.” Liza jabbed her key into the ignition. “You’re going to be one of those pregnant mothers who actually makes the oatmeal raisin cookies with freaking applesauce and then tries to convince herself that her cravings are satisfied.”

  “And you are one grumpy pregnant lady. You aren’t getting any of my healthy cookies.”

  “Oh, screw you,” Liza said as she started the car.

  “Glad to help you transition from tears to anger,” I said. “Let me know when you’re ready to commiserate and eat some Oreos.”

  Liza paused, then looked at me. “Posey Adams, there’s no one I’d rather be tandemly pregnant with.”

  “Back atcha, Liza Hagood.”

  She peeled out of the parking lot, and I waved even though I knew I’d see her soon. She might still be working through her stages of disbelief, but I was happy to be pregnant with Liza, too. Hagood and Adams, together again. I chuckled at how we’d defaulted to our maiden names. Maybe she and I would raise two more girls who’d be best friends and roam the halls of Yessum County High together as we once had. If I did have a girl, though, her lesson on those who gaslight would immediately precede our chat about the birds and the bees.
r />   chapter 30

  “Mabel?” Granny asked. That May afternoon we all sat in the garden of Meadowlark Village, an assisted-living and memory care facility in Jefferson. I preferred the garden to the interior of the building. No matter how hard the staff worked, no amount of air freshener could overcome the smell of disinfectant, sickness, and age. I didn’t want to leave my grandmother there, but she now spent almost all of her time in another world. No more requests for Tom Brokaw or Godiva chocolates, although she’d eaten some of the latter just the day before. She didn’t even clamor for pot roast or a “nice ham” anymore, but I’d finely shredded some ham in her grits just that morning anyway.

  “Mabel doesn’t work for us anymore,” Mom said.

  “Hmph.”

  As recently as a month ago, Granny would’ve gone on a diatribe about how that no-good Mabel had never worked for anyone. Miranda, the nurse, however, had worked very hard to help us keep Granny home. As her reward, Granny had bitten her the week before, further confirmation we could no longer put off the inevitable.

  “She says she’ll come visit you,” Mom said.

  Granny looked away, her attention drawn to the tidy garden with its bird feeder and butterfly weed.

  A nurse walked the short distance between the patio and the garden. “It’s time.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” my mom said, all choked up.

  “If you make a big production of leaving then she may become agitated. Besides, you’re not actually saying goodbye,” the nurse said as she stepped behind Granny’s wheelchair and put her hands on the handles. Leaning over to talk to Granny she said, “Let’s take a look at the grounds, shall we?”

  Mom watched as her mother was pushed away, and we started walking back to the facility. Rain looked over her shoulder twice. Henny had crammed his hands in his pockets. I put an arm around Mom’s shoulders, and we disappeared into Meadowlark Village, walking past a commons area where some folks watched baseball and others played dominoes. We said nothing until we got out into the parking lot.

  “That was awful,” Mom said before collapsing into tears.

  Rain hugged her first, “It’ll be okay, Mami.”

  “You’re doing the right thing,” Henny said as he took a turn. “You’ve been running yourself ragged trying to take care of her, and now it’s just too much. She’ll be fine. Promise.”