by Randis, K. L
“Hey. Wait a minute.”
I pulled my shirt on. “Yea?”
He looked down at himself. Then at me. “Something’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I mean I guess everyone is different but-” He continued to look down and check things out.
“Something wrong?” I started to panic. Did he know?
“No. I mean, the guys just all told me how cool it was to pop a girl’s cherry. And since we’re both virgins, I thought it would be like what happened with them.”
“It’s not?”
“There’s no blood.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t have any blood on me. There’s no blood.” He pointed into his boxers.
I realized he was talking about me not being a virgin. What could I say?
“Yea, um, I mean I don’t think that happens to every girl. Just some of them.”
“Really?” Paul pulled his shirt on to hide the disappointment in his face.
“Yea, I’m a girl. I would know.” It wasn’t a total lie.
“Oh. Well, okay. You feeling all right?”
I sighed at his change of subject. I could have told him about everything that was going on; my dad, the house I grew up in. I didn’t want to remember my first time like that. My real first time. Instead I vowed to tell somebody soon.
There was something wrong about what was going on in my life, I wasn’t sure to what extent but the only way I would find out is to see what somebody else thought. I nodded my head and pulled him closer.
“Never better,” I said, kissing his lips.
Chapter Twelve
“Did it hurt? Were you scared? Were there weird noises? No one was home right?” Cristin and I were playing twenty one questions for over an hour at that point.
I made the mistake of telling her about Paul and I having sex. Summer started a week ago, technically I lost my virginity a month ago, but Cristin would never know the difference. I wanted to dodge the probability of people talking about my sex life, so I waited until school was over to tell my best friend. I munched on a tortilla chip and twirled around on the chair in her bedroom. We always made it a point to have a sleepover as soon as possible when the school year ended.
“Geeze, you would think this concept is new to you,” I teased. “You would think you never had sex before.”
Cristin rolled her eyes. “Well of course I have had sex before, I just never thought you would.”
“We waited ten months.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “Poor kid.”
We both laughed.
“Why’d you wait that long anyway?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to get what he wanted and bail. If he stuck around this long, I know it’s not for the sex.”
Cristin twirled a piece of her hair like she often did when she considered something. “True. Good point. I should try that sometime. So anyway, when is your mom due? I saw her at the grocery store last week and she looked like she was about to burst.”
“Any day now. Hopefully not before I get back from my aunt’s though, I want to be there.”
“You’re going for a week?”
“Yea. Just to get away. She paid for the airline ticket and then asked my parents if I could go to Florida. She said she needed help with my cousins. So they didn’t really have a choice but to say yes.” I tapped my foot thinking about the warm weather and ocean. “I’m excited.”
“To scope out the cute guys there?”
“To see my cousins.”
Cristin slid off the bed and cocked one hip to the side to study the library of movies she had on her shelves. “Wanna watch something? I’m not tired yet.”
“Sure. Pick whatever.”
I crumpled up the chip bag and set it on the floor next to her bedroom door so we’d remember to bring it down to the kitchen later. Cristin’s mom inquired about my mom’s pregnancy earlier. “So there’s almost fourteen years between the baby and Kat huh? It’s almost like he’ll be an only child, everyone else will be all grown up by the time he’s your age.”
She smiled as if this was pleasant news, but she brought up a point I hadn’t thought of. This baby was going to be on his own, living in the house by himself while I was off at college and starting my life. There would be no one there to protect him. We would all be too old. He would have to go at it alone. It gave me a sense of urgency that maybe I should start to see what people thought about what was going on in my house. The thought turned my stomach.
“You okay? Too many chips or something?” Cristin slipped a DVD in and grabbed the remote before joining me on the bed. She propped up some pillows and crossed her ankles.
“Yea, maybe. I’m okay.” I clenched my hand in a fist and rehearsed what I was about to say one more time. “Cristin, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Shoot.” The remote jammed on channel four and she pressed the input button with hatred to get the TV to switch over.
I couldn’t look at her when I said it. “Have you ever had a dream that your Dad comes into your room?”
She looked at me. “Hmm, my dad coming into my room?”
The time she took to consider the question was agonizing. What if she asks me why? What if she doesn’t believe me? Her dad is so nice, there’s no way she could understand.
“I had a dream my dad showed up to school with a My Little Pony lunchbox once. Horrifying. Does that count?”
Her response confirmed what I was dreading. For anyone who wasn’t experiencing what I was, it was hard for them to even consider the question I just posed to have any deeper meaning than it did. The last thing on her mind would be that something sexual or physical was happening. Instead, she took the question as innocently as I had given it to her.
If Cristin had asked me if I ever had a dream my father was in my room, my first question would have been ‘To do what?’ Our minds were in completely different places. For Cristin’s sake, I was glad they were.
A similar feeling to the one I had when Adam wouldn’t understand what I was saying presented itself. It was like every person I told, when they didn’t take the bait I was trying to throw out, gave me one more reason to try someone else. Say something different. Try again to find someone who knows exactly what I was asking, and exactly what I meant without even needing to say it out loud. There had to be someone.
I gave her a crooked smile. “Could have been worse. He could have shown up with a Barney lunch box.”
She figured out the remote and clicked the lamp off next to her. “Ah, very true.”
***
My plane touched down in Florida and I cruised through the airport toward the baggage claim signs like my Aunt Nikki told me to. I spotted her waiting and quickened my pace.
“Ohh beautiful, how was your flight?” She wrapped her arms around me and then held me back. “You’re stunning, and so tall! I haven’t seen you in almost two years.”
“I know!” I beamed at her. Aunt Nikki was Mom’s youngest sister. There wasn’t much of an age difference between us, so she knew all the latest music and style trends. I could guarantee a shopping spree was in my near future.
“Uncle Jake has the car waiting so let’s grab your things and hurry hurry.”
I shut the car door and Uncle Jake turned to look at me. “Wow look how big you are. Geeze, everyone grows up so fast. Sorry I couldn’t get out to give you a hug, they were giving me a hard time just sitting here with the car.”
Once on the highway we chatted about school and work until we pulled into their development.
“The boys still have one more week of daycare.” Aunt Nikki turned and winked at me. “I figured it would give us time during the day to catch up and do some girl things.”
I nodded and winked back at her. I knew when she told my Mom and Dad she needed me to visit to help her with the kids it was a ploy. She was always a more than capable mother.
After the boys went to bed that night Aunt Nikki and I caught up out on her deck
“You’re sixteen aren’t you?” Aunt Nikki took the recliner next to me and passed a glass of white wine to me.
“Fifteen. What’s this?”
“Expensive. Just drink it.”
I had been here before. She had on pressed khakis and a tailored blouse. She wore minimal makeup and you would never guess that she was Irish with her sun bronzed skin. Her tennis rackets leaned against the house on the other side of the porch. I imagined her with her trainer that morning gushing about her favorite niece that was coming to visit later that day. The house was immaculate, dinner was perfect and the wine was dangerously smooth.
We sipped and made comments about the gorgeous weather and my aunt’s ten pound weight gain. It trailed off into talk of boys and honors classes, and ended where it always did.
“So your mom is due any day now huh?”
“Probably next week. Hopefully. I don’t want to miss it.”
“I know you don’t.” She swirled her glass. “It was definitely a surprise to the family that she was pregnant again. We all told her we didn’t think it was a good idea.”
I only knew of several times Mom had asked my aunts and uncles for money. Since she broke her back we lived off of Dad’s income. Money was a main issue of the family not approving of the pregnancy, but so was her health.
“She smokes like a banshee and has a broken back. I’ll never understand her.” Aunt Nikki cracked her neck. “We all told her, you know, that we would pay for your mom to take care of it. When she first found out she was pregnant. Health wise, I don’t think she can manage another pregnancy and baby.”
Mom never told me that my aunts and uncles offered to pay for an abortion, but it didn’t surprise me. My Uncle Bruce was shocked when he found out, and called my Dad a number of names before telling my mom she was making a big mistake. No one seemed happy about the pregnancy except me.
“She’s stubborn.” I wet my lips with wine. “You know I’ll be there to help her though, everything will be okay.”
Aunt Nikki turned towards me and put down her empty wine glass. She held up both hands. “Ah, Brooke you’re so…” She smoothed her hair and her eyes glimmered with almost tears. “You’re so mature. And together. I envy you.” She sighed. “How are things with your dad?”
I sucked in a breath.
Great. Fine. Wonderful. It’s okay.
As I tried to figure out which lie to use, I realized I paused one second too long.
“Brooke?”
I twisted my hands around my wine glass. “They’re…okay.”
Whenever Dad got brought up in any conversation I would offer the answer that everyone wanted to hear, that things were great. I looked at my Aunt. This time, I didn’t want to try and mask it.
I forced her to recognize the change in my demeanor. My eyes pleaded with her to probe further, to ask me more questions. I wanted her to serve more wine so I could tell her the truth. I couldn’t say what I needed to out loud on my own. I needed her to ask. I needed someone to notice the changes in my face, and run with my hints. The questions never came though.
Aunt Nikki slid open the back door and grabbed the bottle of wine. She topped off my glass and sat down with the bottle between her legs. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow.” The bottle tipped into her mouth, and without looking at me again she slid down into her recliner. “When in doubt, go shopping.”
Aunt Nikki had to buy me a new suitcase to lug all the new clothes back to Pennsylvania with me. She pushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she made me promise to make sure I visit at least once a year, to call her because she would forget and that she loved me.
On the plane I had a chance to regroup with the past week. Dad never got brought up again, even though I tried one more time while we were making dinner the night before I left. I was beginning to think that I would never be strong enough to admit to anything, and that even if I put out an S.O.S with fireworks, whoever I was trying to tell just wouldn’t understand.
I constructed a Plan B. After high school I would find a college as far away from Pennsylvania as I could. I would tell Kat what was going on right before I left so she could move out, and I just wouldn’t let myself get attached to this new baby enough to care. I was starting to feel broken down and for the first time the thought of leaving everything behind and never coming back put a smile on my face.
They wanted to induce Mom’s labor a few days after I got home since they were concerned that if they let her go into natural labor it would be harder for her to manage with her back. Mom and Dad left around seven that night to go to the hospital and Grandma came up from Long Island to help mom with the baby after she got home.
Around eleven that night we still didn’t hear anything but a lot of family kept calling to ask. Grandma and I decided to put everyone in bed, and since I knew she could sleep through a tornado I offered to keep the phone by my pillow for when they called.
At three in the morning the phone screamed next to me and I jumped up. “Hello? Dad? Is the baby here?”
“Put Grandma on, Brooke.”
“Okay. Did Mom have the baby?”
“Brooke.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Wake up Grandma and put her on.”
I fled down the stairs and shook Grandma awake, handing her the phone. She covered her eyes against the living room light I had flicked on and before she could speak she fell quiet. She pressed the phone to her ear and tears started falling.
It wasn’t until Dad came home two hours later that I realized the seriousness of what had happened to Mom. Grandma wouldn’t tell me anything even though she hung up with my Dad and started calling all my aunts and uncles, telling them they needed to get to Pennsylvania as soon as possible.
When Dad walked through the door, his eyes were red and he lead Adam and I into the kitchen. “Mom had somewhat of a heart attack. She lost a lot of blood. A lot. She’s on a respirator cause she can’t breathe on her own.” Several family members had shown up and everyone crowded in the kitchen.
“Everything was going perfect until the last three minutes. Mom kept saying she felt like she was going to pass out, so the nurse put an oxygen mask on her. Mom kept trying to pull it off.” He wiped a tear from the scruff on his cheek.
“Then, the baby came out. He wasn’t breathing. The nurses tried to revive him, and then suddenly Molly just got limp in my arms.” He held up his arms to show where she had been laying.
“She turned blue. The doctor just stood there a minute, like he didn’t know what to do. They asked me to leave. A few minutes later a nurse came out and told me that if she had any family that I should tell them to come to the hospital. They’re convinced she isn’t going to make it.”
“Did the baby die?” I was the first to ask a question.
Dad nodded. “For ten minutes he did. They were able to get him back and he’s on a respirator too. They worked on Mom for over fifteen minutes before they got her back.”
Moms don’t die. Mine doesn’t. She broke her back and had Shingles. She popped pills to keep functioning and popped pills to keep numb. She had leg surgery, and foot surgery. She always made it seem like she could die because of whatever sickness or injury she had at the time, but she never did. The one time she’s sure she’ll be back, something goes horribly wrong?
As family members filed through the house Dad had to re-tell his story several times. It wasn’t until the third or fourth time I heard it everything started to sink in. Mom was leaving us. She was going to die. I leaned on my grandma, traumatized, unable to cry. Grandma looked down at me, for the first time looking old.
“Okay,” Dad said, “Let’s organize into groups to head up to the hospital.”
After three cars of people were claimed and a friend of the family offered to stay behind to cook and watch after the kids I pushed my way to the front of the crowd.
“Dad? Can I go to the hospit
al?”
He shifted the glasses on his face. “Well, I um, I’d really rather you didn’t.”
I locked eyes with Grandma and pleaded with her. She shook her head.
“David,” she started, “I think Adam and Brooke are old enough to make this decision, and I think, considering the circumstances, that if they feel they need to go… then they should.”
Grandma was afraid that if Mom died I would need to say goodbye. Dad was afraid that if mom was on her death bed, I would make it a point to tell her everything. Absolutely everything. They were both right.
He shifted his weight and looked down at his watch. My aunts and uncles nodded in agreement with Grandma and left him little choice. “Well, if you want to go.”
Dad insisted I ride with him, Adam and Grandma. “Dad, I don’t want to ask, but…”
“You should.”
“What are the chances mom’s going to die?”
“Right now, about eighty five percent is what the doctor said.”
Dad hustled us down long hallways to a door marked Waiting Room. He waited until everyone was inside and looked at the packed room of family. “Who wants to go first?”
I wanted to scream out that I did, but I was scared. Since only two people were allowed in at a time with my dad, Grandma and Grandpa claimed the first visit. I settled into a leather chair instead. One unimpressive light buzzed overhead and nobody bothered to put on more lights. The soda machine hummed in one corner and I turned my nose up at the smell of latex that floated through the room. I hated that everyone sat in silence, heads hung low. It reminded me of a funeral home and we weren’t even there yet.
The door opened and Grandma needed help getting to a chair to sit down because she was crying so hard. My stomach twisted to see her like that because I had never seen her cry before. Adam remained motionless in one corner of the room and my stomach flipped every time the door opened and someone else came in from seeing her. Adam and I were next to go in.
“Now, before I take you in,” Dad said, “I want you to know that mom doesn’t look like herself. She’s very swollen because of all the medication.”