by Kaela Coble
“Right. Only those weren’t the only two options, Murphy.”
They’re both quiet for a beat. Oh God, I think I know what’s coming, and I only wish I could see Murphy’s face. “What are you saying to me?” he asks.
“I didn’t get the abortion. I had the baby, and I gave it up for adoption.”
Just as I think I’m about to pass out at the thought of Murphy Leblanc being a father, the lobby door swings open and Charlene tells me to get my ass in gear because it’s the last dance. My feet are heavy as lead as I walk away from the stairwell, where a bomb the size of Canada has been dropped on Emmett’s best man. I let Charlene lead me to my husband, whose tie is now wrapped around his head, and join him to enjoy the last few minutes of our wedding.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RUBY
Back then
“That’s it, honey, you can do it. Push! Push!”
The nurse props me up, her small frame almost completely wedged between me and the inclined bed. A vague worry that I will crush this nice woman floats around somewhere in a distant part of my brain that can still think about things other than my own pain. She was assigned to me when I came in without the standard-issue clueless male to hold my hand and curse at for doing this to me in the first place. She wipes the hair off my forehead, slick with sweat from eight hard hours of labor. The epidural wore off around hour four.
I don’t know the nurse’s name. I’m sure she told me, but I blocked it out, along with the million other details of this day. Less to try to erase from my memory later. I allow her to wipe my brow, rub my shoulders, feed me ice chips. I allow her to take care of me like I haven’t been taken care of in a long time. Every time she touches me, I stifle a cry until the pain comes again, so that I have an excuse to let it out. It’s not just the baby ripping through my body, it’s my heart.
When at last the baby is born, the doctor, whose name I also pointedly ignore, asks me if I’m sure I don’t want to know the sex; if I’m sure I don’t want to hold the baby. I shake my head, tears rolling down my cheeks like the rain that streaks the windowpane that I have now rolled over to face. I squeeze my eyes shut so I won’t see anything. The baby cries, and a pain like I’ve never felt before rips through my body. I want nothing more than to know the sex of the life I’ve carried inside me for the better part of a year. I want nothing more than to hold that life in my arms. “Get it out of here,” I whisper instead. They move quickly and exit the room, but I continue to whimper, “Get it out of here.”
The nurse stays behind. I want her to leave so I can cry the way I need to. Loudly, ferociously. But I don’t want her to leave me, either. I can’t be alone so suddenly after having a little partner attached to me for nine months. She stays and “cleans me up,” as she says. No matter what she does, I still feel inhuman. I can’t believe millions of women go through this voluntarily, and more than once, in some cases.
“You must think I’m a monster,” I say to the ceiling, afraid to meet her kind eyes. “I just couldn’t—”
“Oh, honey, no.” She walks up next to the bed and lays a reassuring hand on my arm. “Some people want to hold them, for closure’s sake. Some people think it will just make it harder. Nobody’s judging you, because either way, what you’ve done says more about the kind of person you are than anything that comes after.”
I try to smile, to show her that what she says has helped me. But it hasn’t, and I can’t.
“Are you sure there isn’t anyone I can call for you?” she asks.
“The adoptive parents . . .”
“They’re already here,” she says. “Do you want to see them?”
I shake my head. I chose them from a binder full of desperate barren couples, all smiling at me, their blurbs all trying to convince me they would be the perfect family for my child. Lucy and Michelle run a bookstore in Delaware. They found each other later in life and opted to adopt rather than shoot themselves up with hormones and sperm. I liked the idea of my child hiding in book stacks and living in a small state. I made sure the adoption agency told them about the history of mental illness in my family. They were okay with it, so I was okay with them. But I was very specific when we set up the terms for the adoption. I allowed them to pay my medical expenses so I wouldn’t have to go through my parents’ insurance. I allowed them to come to some of the doctor’s appointments. But once I had the baby, I didn’t want any contact. They said they would still tell the kid, when it was time, that he or she was adopted (once the kid learns his birds and bees, he would naturally have some questions), but they would keep my identity a secret. When he turns eighteen, if he wants to find me, he’ll have to go through the agency, and the agency will have to contact me. I’m already dreading the day, eighteen years from today, when I will have to make that decision. Or worse, if I don’t have to make it, because he doesn’t want to know me. But at the same time, I can’t imagine waiting eighteen years.
“Anyone else I can call for you? Your family?”
I shake my head. There’s no one. No one even knows I’m here, except for Lucy and Michelle. Well, and my Resident Adviser. After I threw Danny out, I confided in my RA so she would appeal to the university to keep the other half of the room unoccupied, due to my “special circumstances.” I figured she was a safe bet, since she’s bound by confidentiality and could be an emergency contact, should anything bad happen. But tonight when I woke up in a puddle of embryotic fluid, rather than wake her up, I slipped a note under her door. I was perfectly capable of taking a cab myself, and I didn’t know her well enough to obligate her to share this experience with me. About every five minutes during labor, I thought about calling Ally. Even after all this time with no contact, she would drive here like a bat out of hell if I picked up the phone.
My parents were easier to keep in the dark than I thought. I saw them once, at parents’ weekend, when I was still not far enough along to show. After that I made stuff up—I was skiing with my roommate in Aspen for Christmas; partying in Cancun for Spring Break. All the things I should have been doing in my freshman year of college. After my second trimester (when I could no longer throw on an oversized sweater and claim the Freshman Fifteen), I begged out of every dinner request by my father, citing homework or a date. I lived in fear he would get frustrated at my excuses and show up at my dorm one day, but my worry was for nothing. He isn’t that kind of dad. I’m sure the people in my dorm and my classes have figured it out, but I’ve made it a point to keep them strangers. They don’t say anything about it; they just wait until I pass to whisper. In that way, college isn’t much different from Chatwick.
“The father?” the nurse asks. “You left that blank on the birth certificate.”
I tell her the same lie I told the adoption agency. “I don’t know who he is.” I had to say this; otherwise I would have had to have Murphy sign off on the adoption. I was too scared, either that he wouldn’t sign or that he would, without a fight. I seesaw about which would be worse.
“Are you sure you don’t want to see him?”
A current of panic shoots through me. Does she mean the baby or the father? Is my baby—Lucy and Michelle’s baby—a boy? I can’t know that. I can’t. So I don’t ask her to clarify. I just nod. Either way, I’m sure.
The nurse turns to leave, but I stop her.
“How long until the pain goes away?” I ask.
“Well, you’ll be sore for a few—”
“—that’s not what I mean.”
I knew, when I made this decision, it would be hard. Even before my fight with Danny, the one where he basically called me a murderer, I had already been waffling. The judgment of my drug-dealing, stepfather-killing friend was not what put me over the edge. I still went to my appointment, but after I had been prepped and was lying there with my shaking legs in the stirrups, I sat up and shouted at them to stop, that I couldn’t go through with it. I knew I couldn’t keep the baby, but I also knew that, without me and Murphy for parents, it might have a chance of a good
life. A chance to make two other people’s lives whole.
The nurse looks at me, pity filling her eyes. Normally I would find it condescending, but right now I can accept it.
She sits on my bed. “I’ve never given a baby up for adoption, but my first child was born early, much too early. Stillborn.” Her eyes moisten. “I would imagine that, even though your baby is alive and well, it feels something like that.”
I nod. Perhaps.
“I can’t say you’ll ever be completely free of it, honey. The first few weeks will be the hardest, because your body will be telling you it’s time to feed the baby and your hormones will be all out of whack. It will get easier after that. Every day will get a little easier, and then one day you’ll wake up and you’ll feel almost normal. And soon after that, you’ll be grateful.”
“Grateful?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but one day you will heal, and you’ll be grateful you got through it. And you will be grateful for the choice you made, because it means a better life for four people. You, the new parents, and the baby.”
Five people, I think. Murphy.
I worry that she is about to call Jesus into the conversation, belittling the women who did keep their feet in those stirrups and make the choice that was right for them. I don’t have the strength to defend them, but I don’t think they’re any less brave than I am. They’ll never be the same, either. But she doesn’t launch into a pro-life sermon.
“I know I’ve only known you for a day, Ruby, but it’s the hardest day you will probably ever have. And if it means anything to you, I think you’re the bravest young woman I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t feel brave,” I murmur. How can I? Right now I feel like marching down that hallway and yanking my baby out of Lucy and Michelle’s proud and loving arms. Right now I feel like everything I’ve done to protect this secret was completely insane. It was crazy to think I could pull this off and walk away unscathed. I thought it would be the best thing for everyone. For Nancy, whose mother once let it slip that her bipolar worsened after the stress and hormone changes that came with having children. For Murphy, who was in no way prepared to handle this. For the baby, who deserved a chance at a family who wanted it. And for me, who just wants to have the big life I always dreamed of. But right now, my life seems very small. Seven pounds, nine ounces small.
I cry into the nurse’s arms until she administers a sedative and I drift off to sleep.
The next morning I wake up, check out of the hospital, and try to pretend it was all a dream.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RUBY
Now
I tug on the brass handle of Charlene’s—her deli, not her house—pleased to find the door is no easier to open than it was ten years ago. Muscle memory kicks in, and I perform a combination of deftly aimed kicks and yanks before the door swings violently open. The patrons inside do not so much as glance up from their newspapers or tear their eyes from the chalkboard menu above the deli counter. They study it as if they don’t have it memorized, as if they won’t be ordering the same thing they did yesterday and the day before that. On the first day of this new year, already they are breaking their resolutions to eat more healthily, to try new things. I’m sticking with mine: to be honest. With others, but most of all with myself.
A man in line is wearing a blue jumpsuit with the word “Borbeau’s” in block letters on the chest pocket. I don’t recognize the man, but part of me feels like I should approach him, tell him I knew Danny, tell him I’m sorry he lost his coworker. But upon closer inspection, I see it’s not a man at all. It’s a boy. About the age Danny was when he started working at Borbeau’s. This boy is Danny’s replacement. Working on New Year’s Day even though the shop is closed, either because he needs the money or because he’s picked up where Danny’s side business left off and there are lots of people just itching to break their resolutions. He even has sandy hair like Danny’s, but his eyes aren’t nearly as blue. And his presence isn’t half as magnetic.
Murphy sits in one of the red-pleather upholstered booths that Charlene removed an aisle of liquor to make room for, back when she became the owner. (Chatwick near-rioted over the change.) He’s in the booth farthest from the door, as if we’re likely to have any privacy anywhere in this town. But he suggested we finish the conversation from last night here, rather than at his apartment, exactly because it’s public. Even considering how we’re both feeling right now, at his place it would be too easy to get off the topic.
They’re both really good at ignoring problems.
I’m a bundle of nerves as I slide into the seat opposite him. We make small talk about the weather for a few minutes: how unusual it is for the temperature to be above thirty-five degrees at the beginning of January, how a Nor’easter is due later in the week but should hold off long enough that my flight home won’t be affected. I’ve never felt more awkward making small talk in my life, because I’m sitting with Murphy Leblanc and we’re supposed to be past all this. An observer might think we’re on our first date, rather than our last.
A waitress comes over who can’t be more than sixteen. Plump white rolls of skin spill over the sides of her low-rise jeans, a lacy hot-pink bra strap peeking out from a black camisole. I want to ask her how she’s not freezing, and that makes me feel old. I ask if Charlene is here, but the girl tells us with a smirk that she is home, “recovering.” I’m not surprised; as I climbed into Murphy’s truck after the reception, I saw my parents piling her into their car to give her a ride home. Charlene’s car remained in the lot for the hours that he and I stayed there talking.
Once our order is in, we twirl straws and rearrange cutlery. Murphy is the one who called this morning to invite me to lunch. Let him speak first.
“Quite the drama last night, huh?” he starts.
He hopes I will take over from here, but I just smile and nod, take a sip of my drink. I’m too afraid to say anything. He has every right to be furious with me, and yet he seems . . . normal. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He continues, “Mom says it’s not a wedding without drama.” I wonder if he’s already told Cecile what we talked about last night, but I decide he couldn’t have. If Cecile suddenly became aware there was a grandchild who had been kept from her, I would have heard from her already. It’s part of the reason I did not tell Murphy I was pregnant. I was afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough to stand up to her, and the decision would be out of my hands.
“It was nice to see Cecile,” I say.
“She misses you. You know she still has our prom picture on her mantel, still in the little cardboard-thingy it came in?”
A breathy laugh escapes my nose. “Really?”
“Kept it up the entire time me and Taylor were together, too. Used to drive her crazy.”
The victorious little thrill that goes through me at this is embarrassing, but hearing Taylor’s name reminds me of last night’s conversation. I had demanded to know who Murphy had told about the pregnancy, and he had replied, “Only Taylor.” I should have been happy, I guess, that he protected the information. But the thought of Taylor being the person who helped him through such a heavy period, despite knowing the circumstances that created the child, made me feel ill. I picked a great girl to set Murphy up with, and then I tried to steal him away, and when that didn’t work I slept with him anyway. And in the end, Taylor was his best friend and I was the enemy.
“Listen, about—” Murphy starts.
I hold up a hand to stop him. “Do we have to go through it all again?” I ask. Last night, I told him everything: when I found out I was pregnant; all the thoughts that went through my head; what happened when Danny showed up and what happened after; how I kept it a secret from everyone. Murphy told me how he found out—Danny had called him after the first Planned Parenthood appointment; it was why Danny wanted me to wait a week, to give Murphy the chance to be there for me, to be part of the decision. He defended his choice to stay out of it—he was
hurt, he was scared, he didn’t feel he had a right to interfere. I justified why I didn’t tell Murphy myself—I was hurt, I was scared, and I didn’t want him to interfere. We didn’t accomplish much, beyond draining his gas tank from the blasting heat while we talked circles around each other.
He looks at me now, swallows. “I think you know there’s more to be said. I think you know that’s why we’re here.” I realize he’s nervous too, his eyes unable to focus on mine for too long, before darting around. “I just stared at my ceiling all night, thinking of questions I should have asked, things I should have said different.”
I don’t tell him that after we parted, I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ten years. But not before sitting at the kitchen table with Nancy, who was waiting up for me when I got home. We shared a kettle of hot cocoa and a plate of blueberry pancakes she had whipped up after the wedding and placed in the oven to keep warm. After having several days to digest the news that I had hid an entire pregnancy from her, she told me only how sorry she was that I had gone through that alone. She thinks I made “the most beautiful decision” she could think of, and that she’s never been prouder of me. I was still nurturing the anger from learning that Murphy abandoned me, knowing full well what I was going through. “You have to remember, baby girl,” Nancy said, “not everyone is as strong as you. In fact, not many people are.”
“Okay,” I concede. We both received new information last night, but when we weigh our secrets pound for pound, even I have to admit his new burden is more significant. “Where do you want to start?”
“I was so mad last night, but when I got home all I could think about is how you went through all that alone. I’m sorry.”
I stay silent. My instinct is to tell him it wasn’t his fault because he didn’t know, but now I know that’s not entirely true.
“What was it like? Did you have anyone there with you?”
I blink at him, realizing he could only be talking about one thing. “I don’t want to talk about the birth,” I say.