Here Lies Bridget

by Paige Harbison

  I instantly felt the weight of an enormous disappointment that Meredith was carrying.

  “I just can’t believe it happened, you know? I mean I can believe it but, I just…hoped that it wouldn’t…and, here I am…”

  “I know, sweetie, I know,” Kathy said, squeezing Meredith’s shoulder a little too hard.

  “I thought that it was real this time. I thought that after everything I’ve been through for the last ten years, that I’d…I just thought I deserved it.” A swell of tears welled up in Meredith’s eyes. I could feel her awareness of the other diners, and she tried to calm herself down.

  “Did they say why it might have happened?” Kathy asked.

  “Well, I mean we’ve known for a long time that it would be hard for me to carry a baby to term, but…” She sobbed again. “They checked my progesterone levels and they were fine this time, there was nothing in the amnio that would have suggested the baby wasn’t…” She broke down in tears again.

  “Viable. That was the word they used. They don’t know what happened except to say up to twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage and I can try again.” She gave a dry laugh.

  “Like this one didn’t matter.”

  “It’s that girl. It’s the stress that’s making this happen.”

  Kathy took her arm back from around Meredith and started 1 7 1

  using it to gesture broadly. “I mean, first you’ve gotta deal with the teacher stuff, then you’ve gotta deal with Richard being out of town all the time, then you’ve gotta deal with her constant berating of you.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I mean what is it gonna take, Mer? I don’t mean to make you feel worse, but you have got to get out of that house. You tried it out for years, and it’s just not working out. The child is un fix able. The husband is not there, ever. The house is all you’ve got, and if you brought in that Bridget to the divorce hearing as exhibit A, I bet they’d just give it to you for all your efforts.”

  “I can’t just leave them, Kathy, it’s exactly what her mother did.”

  My heart stopped for a moment. That was a low blow, to call my mother’s car accident “leaving” us.

  “Yeah, maybe she was smart. No mother should leave her kid, don’t get me wrong, but you gotta see why, lookin’ at that girl.”

  Smart? Was this woman suggesting that my mother committed suicide or something because of me? That wasn’t at all true.

  I felt Meredith’s temper climb. But there was something else. An irritation not with Kathy’s disrespect but with my mother. I couldn’t understand that. How could she be angry with my mother for dying tragically?

  “Kathy—”

  “You know it’s true, Meredith. The woman up and left her child and husband for a career as a waitress in Vegas for God’s sake!” She snorted derisively. “A normal mother doesn’t do that, but maybe the problem is that it’s not a normal child.”

  “Enough, Kathy.” Meredith’s voice was sharp. “That was not Bridget’s fault. Whatever else was, that wasn’t. I never should have told you that. I didn’t tell you so you’d have ammunition 1 7 2

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  for an argument. I didn’t tell you that so you could tell me that the decision I committed to is the wrong one.” She stood.

  “I don’t need you to tell me how difficult my life is. I know exactly how hard it is, and how challenging it’s been trying to help raise Bridget. But you have got to understand that what her mother did was wrong, and that I would never do that to her.”

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like I was being drowned by my own thoughts. I couldn’t even hear what was happening in Meredith’s head anymore.

  My

  mother

  left? I tried to wrap my mind around that concept. I’d always trusted my father implicitly, not thinking that I had any reason to do otherwise. Why did he tell me she was dead? Was that better than thinking she left?

  I considered that for a moment and realized that might have been the one time my father had acted with implicit knowledge of who and how I was. If I’d known she’d left when I was younger, I don’t think I could have taken it. I might never have been able to move beyond it.

  Could I now?

  I thought of the day with the fondue again. Where my mother and I had curled up on the sofa and watched my favorite movie and eaten my favorite food. She’d been okay with the movie, but I’d had to beg for the fondue—she didn’t like all the fat it contained—but in the end we’d gotten it and the day had been so fun. So cozy.

  Why?

  Why did she leave?

  I tried to think of a time when I was so bad that it would make her want to give up, but I couldn’t remember anything.

  The only memories I had of my mother were fond ones.

  Suddenly a wave of new revelations came over me. She’d never called or anything, she’d just let me believe she was 1 7 3

  dead. Did she know the story my father had come up with?

  Was she okay with it? Was that the deal they’d made, that she’d leave but agree never to contact me from beyond the made-up grave?

  Or had she just left without any regard to the fallout? Maybe my father woke up one morning and she was gone. Maybe there was a fight and she left, slamming the door behind her, not giving a second thought to the daughter asleep upstairs.

  The daughter who expected to wake up in the morning to the chocolate milk that her mother always made perfectly.

  Instead, she was gone.

  And he’d had to come up with a story.

  I felt betrayed, thinking of my parents. My father had lied to me for years now without ever hinting at the truth, even when I got older. And my mother had just left me. I was shocked to find that the only person it seemed I could trust was Meredith.

  And I’d spend years treating her like the evil stepmother from Cinderella.

  I was hardly paying attention to what was happening in Meredith’s head as she walked up to our house. But I realized what must be coming next. She opened the door, thinking regretfully of her argument with Kathy.

  Once the door was open, she saw me standing there with my arms crossed. Her stomach lurched, and she hoped I wouldn’t try to argue with her. She saw the expression on my face, and was sure that she wouldn’t be so lucky.

  She knew me better than my own mother did.

  She sighed and tried to think of how she could get me to understand that it wasn’t the right time. “Listen, Bridget—”

  “What did you guys talk about? Did you swap stories about how awful I am?”

  Meredith’s head throbbed at my words.

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  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  “Bridget, please.” She walked to the love seat and sat down feeling profoundly tired. “Listen, I just can’t talk about this right now.”

  “You can’t just go off with my teacher and then refuse to tell me what happened, Meredith.” My piercing voice echoed in the house.

  “I’m

  not

  refusing, I just have other things on my mind, and—”

  “If you’d just say it, this conversation would end so much sooner.”

  Meredith took a deep breath, feeling resigned.

  “He’s fed up with you being disrespectful,” she quoted him.

  “You and he, he and I, you and I, have all had that conversation. It is just time you stop. You don’t want to be removed from the class and have to take it again.”

  “Obviously,” I said shortly.

  Meredith cringed at the word. She wondered how I managed to sound so patronizing and so juvenile at the same time.

  “Did he say that he might kick me out of the class?” I sounded so insistent. I was basically asking for a favor by asking her for information about a favor she’d already done.

  And I had the gall to be this relentless.

  Meredith felt herself reaching the end of her rope.

  She couldn’t do this right now; she just couldn’t sp
end more energy on me. She spent most of the day doing that.

  “He just mentioned it as being an option. Honestly, we only spoke for a few minutes.”

  “But you were gone for like, three hours.”

  “Yes, Bridget, I was doing other things.” Meredith hoped I would stop there; hoped that she wouldn’t have to open up to me and tell me what hell she’d been through. She could take 1 7 5

  me being inconsiderate about a lot of things, but this was too private.

  “What were you doing?” I shouted at her.

  Meredith’s anger bubbled to the surface suddenly.

  “Enough!”

  Fine. If I wasn’t going to let this go, then I was going to get a fight.

  Meredith mentally prepared herself for what she was going to ask me.

  “Why are you like this, Bridget?”

  “Why am I like what?”

  “So rude, all the time! It doesn’t matter if I try to help you, or if I try to do something nice, it’s never enough! I’ve been in your life for the past seven years, and you still treat me like the evil stepmother. Last I remember, the biggest request I asked of you was to let me take you to go see a movie you wanted to see! And yet you sit here with your friends, and put me on the spot…”

  She thought desperately of that morning. She’d thought that at the very least she had a baby on the way. She’d thought that the rest of the things that happened were just obstacles of life.

  She remembered the conversation with me in the kitchen.

  How I’d pushed her then, too, just like I had so many times.

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about—”

  “I tried to leave the house today by simply saying I was off to meet someone. I didn’t want to mention that I was going to have a meeting with Mr. Ezhno, because I was trying not to embarrass you!”

  “Why

  should

  I be embarrassed? You two are the ones who keep meeting to—”

  “Because, Bridget! You’re too old for this. I can’t believe your teachers are still calling parent-teacher meetings, just 1 7 6

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  like they were when you were a kid! Usually, at this age, you would have earned independence and trust from your family by acting like an adult—or no, not even an adult. Just simply by acting your age, instead of trying to get attention by being the class clown and terrorizing your teachers and everyone else you go to school with.”

  Meredith looked at my gaping mouth. There was a weakening in my face that looked like maybe I would think about what she was saying.

  “Well, maybe I was never taught manners. I mean, the only mother I had died in a car accident, before you came to live here. She was the only one who ever really loved us, but she’s gone and you’ve just taken over.”

  Meredith felt like she’d been slapped. Came to live here.

  Like she was just a hanger-on who’d come to mooch off my family.

  She opened her mouth, longing to tell me the truth. That my mother wasn’t dead. That she was somewhere in Nevada, leading an easy, Bridget-less life. To say that she, Meredith, was the one who’d been there for me. The one who’d defended me to teachers, other parents, other people. She thought of Kathy. The only time she’d ever fought with her, since they were children, was about me.

  And I had no idea.

  Meredith longed to demand that I appreciate everything she’d done, what she’d sacrificed, what she’d—she felt foolish even remembering it—hoped for. She closed her mouth, unable to bring herself to say what she was thinking. It had always been her f law: She was never able to just tell off the people who needed it. Who deserved it.

  “So obviously, if you’re going to be all parental, I’m not the right one to do it with. And let’s face it, it’s not your thing.”

  A shooting pain struck Meredith’s stomach, wiping all other 1 7 7

  thoughts from her mind. As soon as the pain was gone, however, the combined feelings hurt even more.

  Meredith watched me go up the stairs, feeling sick as she stood waiting for the shuttle that would arrive any minute.

  Maybe Bridget was right, she thought, after all…Meredith had been there for me, and I didn’t even notice.

  And look how I had turned out.

  C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

  I knew I was back in the boardroom when I felt my knees give out, sending me falling helplessly onto the ground. I didn’t bother to stop myself. I wrapped my arms around my knees and threw my face onto my forearms. I wished I could hide in the red tunnel at the playground, where no one could see me. Except maybe Liam.

  I knew Anna was probably watching me, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t. All I could think of was my mother, and the fact that she left me. The words kept hitting me again and again, like pounding on a door. I was sobbing, noiselessly. My stomach ached from being f lexed with my crying.

  I probably only sat there for a couple minutes, but it felt like years. I sorted through all the reasons I felt betrayed by my mother. My mother… the words didn’t even sound right anymore.

  And she’d left before I’d ever even become my own person, before she’d even gotten to know me. Suddenly I was mad at her.

  Memories rushed back. Ones I’d blocked out and replaced with fond ones. I remembered asking her to look at my art project, and her rolling her eyes and saying something like, 1 7 9

  “Great.” Tugging on her pajamas in the morning, and telling her I felt sick, then her telling me to be quiet and let her sleep.

  To get ready for school.

  The days she’d sent me to school without lunch or lunch money.

  When I’d told her my shoes didn’t fit anymore, and she’d told me to deal with it.

  The day she’d gotten mad at me for having another glass of chocolate milk without asking, and she’d yelled at me that I’d been a mistake.

  My father hadn’t had any time for me. He’d been gone. He used to spend time with me when he was home, but then I’d pushed him away. I don’t know why. I’d stopped laughing at his jokes and rolled my eyes every time he said anything to me.

  I reveled in self-torture for a moment longer, and then eventually felt my weeping begin to subside. But then the other things that I’d just seen hit me like bullets.

  Because of me, Brett got in trouble for cheating on the test, and has a suspension on his record.

  Because of me, Mr. Ezhno was fired. Not fired from just any job, but from a job he’d been so passionate about.

  Because of me, or at very, very least partially because of me, Michelle gagged herself after every meal.

  Because of me, Liam had lost his best friend. Me. I’d spent so long thinking he was a jerk for dumping me out of the blue, after such a long history. But I could see now that I had changed.

  A new wave of stomach-f lexing tears came at me again. I could suddenly see myself as the nice girl I’d been. I’d been eager to please as a child, and I’d cared about things. I was quiet, and kind, and was perfectly content to play with a toy 1 8 0

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  by myself. I didn’t need anyone else, but I still liked when friends and family were around.

  It’s a shame, I thought, it’s a waste. The grown-up equiva-lents of the things I’d done in my childhood were not measuring out equally. I had been happy with the toys I had, the books and movies and pretend games. I’d watch Cinderella over and over all day long, and love it every time. But when it came time to being happy with my car, my friends, my very existence, I had to either show it off or complain about it not being good enough. Or turn it bulimic.

  Because of me, my father had stopped trying.

  Because of me, my mother had left.

  I thought of what Meredith had said, that it wasn’t my fault she left. And maybe it wasn’t entirely. Considering the way I thought of my mother now—as a stranger—there was every chance that she wasn’t the angel I’d thought. But what I hadn’t realized
was that Meredith had been there. Even if my mother had died, Meredith had done a huge thing, coming into my family the way she had and being so optimistic about everything.

  That was the worst thing I’d done. I’d wronged Meredith.

  It wasn’t that Anna showed me that my mother had left to simply make me feel bad about myself. It was to show me that Meredith was the real saint. And she deserved better.

  And for the first time that I could remember, I felt really remorseful. Not just guilty because I got caught doing something, or because it ultimately ended up screwing me over in the end. I felt the weight of everything I had done. I could suddenly see the grenade effect of my own actions.

  It was like Anna had said, I was important. My actions mattered. But I was realizing something…I wasn’t more important.

  It’s not that I ever consciously thought it mattered more 1 8 1

  if I was happy than if someone else was happy. I don’t think.

  Only that I didn’t think that something I said in passing might affect someone so much.

  My tears subsided again, and I was shocked to realize that I felt okay. Well maybe not okay… I felt repentant, like I finally realized that I had done a lot of wrong. I felt like I had been, well, a total bitch.

  And

  often.

  But I also felt like I was ready to spring into action. I knew what I’d done wrong, and I really wanted to fix it. I finally felt like the kind of grown-up version of little me—which is how it’s supposed to be. I felt like I was finally open to being okay with myself, and that meant that I was finally going to be able to just…fix it.

  But was that possible?

  I lifted my head from my lap, my face hot and wet. I coughed, feeling sheepish after my sobfest, and lifted myself off the ground to sit down in the chair behind me. I cleared my throat again.

  “So.” I looked up to Anna, and realized that all six of the people in front of me were now looking at me. It was disconcerting. Like statues turning to look at you.

  “They’re only here to help deliberate. They won’t hear you.”

  I kept my eyes on them, unsure what to think. They were here, but…they weren’t. It was like seeing someone in a casket—they’re still there, and that’s a weird feeling, but there’s something vital missing. Not vital like a heartbeat…but a kind of spirit.